Lansmere was situated in the county adjoining, that which contained
the village of Hazeldean. Late at noon the Parson crossed the little
stream which divided the two shires, and came to an inn, which was
placed at an angle, where the great main road branched off into two
directions--the one leading towards Lansmere, the other going more
direct to London. At this inn the pad stopped, and put down both ears
with the air of a pad who has made up her mind to bait. And the Parson
himself, feeling very warm and somewhat sore, said to the pad benignly,
"It is just--thou shalt have corn and water!"
Dismounting therefore, and finding himself very stiff, as soon as he
had reached _terra firma_, the Parson consigned the pad to the ostler,
and walked into the sanded parlour of the inn, to repose himself on a
very hard Windsor chair.
He had been alone rather more than half-an-hour, reading a county
newspaper which smelt much of tobacco, and trying to keep off the
flies that gathered round him in swarms, as if they had never before
seen a Parson, and were anxious to ascertain how the flesh of him
tasted,--when a stage-coach stopped at the inn. A traveller got out
with his carpet-bag in his hand, and was shown into the sanded parlour.
The Parson rose politely, and made a bow.
The traveller touched his hat, without taking it off--looked at Mr
Dale from top to toe--then walked to the window, and whistled a lively
impatient tune, then strode towards the fire-place and rang the bell;
then stared again at the Parson; and that gentleman having courteously
laid down the newspaper, the traveller seized it, threw himself on a
chair, flung one of his legs over the table, tossed the other up on the
mantelpiece, and began reading the paper, while he tilted the chair on
its hind legs with so daring a disregard to the ordinary position of
chairs and their occupants, that the shuddering Parson expected every
moment to see him come down on the back of his skull.
Moved, therefore, to compassion, Mr Dale said mildly--
"Those chairs are very treacherous, sir. I'm afraid you'll be down."
"Eh," said the traveller, looking, up much astonished. "Eh, down?--oh,
you're satirical, sir."
"Satirical, sir? upon my word, no!" exclaimed the parson earnestly.
"I think every free-born man has a right to sit as he pleases in his
own house," resumed the traveller with warmth; "and an inn is his own
house, I guess, so long as he pays his score. Betty, my dear."
For the chambermaid had now replied to the bell.
"I han't Betty, sir; do you want she?"
"No, Sally--cold brandy and water--and a biscuit."
"I han't Sally either," muttered the chambermaid; but the traveller
turning round, showed so smart a neckcloth and so comely a face, that
she smiled, coloured, and went her way.
The traveller now rose, and flung down the paper. He took out a
penknife, and began paring his nails. Suddenly desisting from this
elegant occupation, his eye caught sight of the Parson's shovel-hat,
which lay on a chair in the corner.
"You're a clergyman, I reckon, sir," said the traveller, with a slight
sneer.
Again Mr Dale bowed--bowed in part deprecatingly--in part with dignity.
It was a bow that said, "No offence, sir, but I _am_ a clergyman, and
I'm not ashamed of it."
"Going far?" asked the traveller.
PARSON.--"Not very."
TRAVELLER.--"In a chaise or fly? If so, and we are going the same
way--halves."
PARSON.--"Halves?"
TRAVELLER.--"Yes, I'll pay half the damage--pikes inclusive."
PARSON.--"You are very good, sir. But," (_spoken with pride_) "I am, on
horseback."
TRAVELLER.--"On horseback! Well, I should not have guessed that! You
don't look like it. Where did you say you were going?"
"I did _not_ say where I was going, sir," said the Parson drily, for he
was much offended at that vague and ungrammatical remark applicable to
his horsemanship, that "he did not look like it."
"Close!" said the traveller laughing; "an old traveller, I reckon."
The Parson made no reply, but he took up his shovel-hat, and, with a
bow more majestic than the previous one, walked out to see if his pad
had finished her corn.
The animal had indeed finished all the corn afforded to her, which was
not much, and in a few minutes more Mr Dale resumed his journey. He had
performed about three miles, when the sound of wheels behind made him
turn his head, and he perceived a chaise driven very fast, while out
of the windows thereof dangled strangely a pair of human legs. The pad
began to curvet as the post horses rattled behind, and the Parson had
only an indistinct vision of a human face supplanting these human legs.
The traveller peered out at him as he whirled by--saw Mr Dale tossed up
and down on the saddle, and cried out, "How's the leather?"
"Leather!" soliloquised the Parson, as the pad recomposed herself.
"What does he mean by that? Leather! a very vulgar man. But I got rid
of him cleverly."
Mr Dale arrived without farther adventure at Lansmere. He put up at the
principal inn--refreshed himself by a general ablution-and sate down
with good appetite to his beef-steak and pint of port.
The Parson was a better judge of the physiognomy of man than that of
the horse; and after a satisfactory glance at the civil smirking
landlord, who removed the cover and set on the wine, he ventured on an
attempt at conversation. "Is my lord at the park?"
Landlord, still more civilly than before: "No, sir, his lordship and my
lady have gone to town to meet Lord L'Estrange."
"Lord L'Estrange! He is in England, then?"
"Why, so I heard," replied the landlord, "but we never see him here
now. I remember him a very pretty young man. Every one was fond of
him, and proud of him. But what pranks he did play when he was a lad!
We hoped he would come in for our boro' some of these days, but he has
taken to foren parts--more's the pity. I am a reg'lar Blue, sir, as
I ought to be. The Blue candidate always does me the honour to come
to the Lansmere Arms. 'Tis only the low party puts up with The Boar,"
added the landlord with a look of ineffable disgust. "I hope you like
the wine, sir?"
"Very good, and seems old."
"Bottled these eighteen years, sir. I had in the cask for the great
election of Dashmore and Egerton. I have little left of it, and I never
give it but to old friends like--for, I think, sir, though you be grown
stout, and look more grand, I may say that I've had the pleasure of
seeing you before.
"That's true, I daresay, though I fear was never a very good customer."
LANDLORD.--"Ah, it _is_ Mr Dale, then! I thought so when you came into
the hall. I hope your lady is quite well, and the Squire too; fine
pleasant-spoken gentleman; no fault of his if Mr Egerton went wrong.
Well, we have never seen him--I mean Mr Egerton--since that time. I
don't wonder he stays away; but my lord's son, who was brought up
here,--it an't nat'ral like that he should turn his back on us!"
Mr Dale made no reply, and the landlord was about to retire, when the
Parson, pouring out another glass of the port, said,--"There must be
great changes in the parish. Is Mr Morgan, the medical man, still here?"
"No, indeed; he took out his ploma after you left, and became a real
doctor; and a pretty practice he had too, when he took, all of a
sudden, to some new-fangled way of physicking--I think they calls it
homy-something--"
"Homeopathy!"
"That's it--something against all reason: and so he lost his practice
here and went up to Lunnun. I've not heard of him since."
"Do the Avenels keep their old house?"
"Oh yes!--and are pretty well off, I hear say. John is always poorly;
though he still goes now and then to the Odd Fellows, and takes his
glass; but his wife comes and fetches him away before he can do himself
any harm."
"Mrs Avenel is the same as ever?"
"She holds her head higher, I think," said the landlord, smiling. "She
was always--not exactly proud like, but what I calls gumptious."
"I never heard that word before," said the Parson, laying down his
knife and fork. "Bumptious, indeed, though I believe it is not in the
dictionary, has crept into familiar parlance, especially amongst young
folks at school and college."
"Bumptious is bumptious, and gumptious is gumptious," said the
landlord, delighted to puzzle a Parson. "Now the town beadle is
bumptious, and Mrs Avenel is gumptious."
"She is a very respectable woman," said Mr Dale, somewhat rebukingly.
"In course, sir, all gumptious folks are; they value themselves on
their respectability, and looks down on their neighbours."
PARSON, still philologically occupied.--"Gumptious--gumptious. I think
I remember the substantive at school--not that my master taught it to
me. 'Gumption,' it means cleverness."
LANDLORD, (doggedly.)--"There's gumption and gumptious! Gumption is
knowing; but when I say that sum un is gumptious, I mean--though that's
more vulgar like--sum un who does not think small beer of hisself. You
take me, sir?"
"I think I do," said the Parson, half-smiling. "I believe the Avenels
have only two of their children alive still--their daughter, who
married Mark Fairfield, and a son who went off to America?"
"Ah, but he made his fortune there, and has come back."
"Indeed! I'm very glad to hear it. He has settled at Lansmere?"
"No, sir. I hear as he's bought a property a long way off. But he comes
to see his parents pretty often--so John tells me--but I can't say
that I ever see him. I fancy Dick doesn't like to be seen by folks who
remember him playing in the kennel."
"Not unnatural," said the Parson indulgently; "but he visits his
parents: he is a good son, at all events, then?"
"I've nothing to say against him. Dick was a wild chap before he took
himself off. I never thought he would make his fortune; but the Avenels
are a clever set. Do you remember poor Nora--the Rose of Lansmere, as
they called her? Ah, no, I think she went up to Lunnun afore your time,
sir."
"Humph!" said the Parson drily. "Well, I think you may take away now.
It will be dark soon, and I'll just stroll out and look about me."
"There's a nice tart coming, sir."
"Thank you, I've dined."
The Parson put on his hat and sallied forth into the streets. He eyed
the houses on either hand with that melancholy and wistful interest
with which, in middle life, we revisit scenes familiar to us in
youth--surprised to find either so little change or so much, and
recalling, by fits and snatches, old associations and past emotions.
The long High Street which he threaded now began to change its bustling
character, and slide, as it were gradually, into the high road of a
suburb. On the left, the houses gave way to the moss-grown pales of
Lansmere Park: to the right, though houses still remained, they were
separated from each other by gardens, and took the pleasing appearance
of villas--such villas as retired tradesmen or their widows, old maids,
and half-pay officers, select for the evening of their days.
Mr Dale looked at these villas with the deliberate attention of a man
awakening his power of memory, and at last stopped before one, almost
the last on the road, and which faced the broad patch of sward that
lay before the lodge of Lansmere Park. An old pollard oak stood near
it, and from the oak there came a low discordant sound; it was the
hungry cry of young ravens, awaiting the belated return of the parent
bird. Mr Dale put his hand to his brow, paused a moment, and then,
with a hurried step, passed through the little garden and knocked at
the door. A light was burning in the parlour, and Mr Dale's eye caught
through the window a vague outline of three forms. There was an evident
bustle within at the sound of the knocks. One of the forms rose and
disappeared. A very prim, neat, middle-aged maid-servant now appeared
at the threshold, and austerely inquired the visitor's business.
"I want to see Mr or Mrs Avenel. Say that I have come many miles to see
them; and take in this card."
The maid-servant took the card, and half-closed the door. At least
three minutes elapsed before she reappeared.
"Missis says it's late, sir; but walk in."
The Parson accepted the not very gracious invitation, stepped across
the little hall, and entered the parlour.
Old John Avenel, a mild-looking man, who seemed slightly paralytic,
rose slowly from his arm-chair. Mrs Avenel, in an awfully stiff, clean,
and Calvinistical cap, and a gray dress, every fold of which bespoke
respectability and staid repute--stood erect on the floor, and, fixing
on the Parson a cold and cautious eye, said--
"You do the like of us great honour, Mr Dale--take a chair! You call
upon business?"
"Of which I have apprised you by letter, Mr Avenel."
"My husband is very poorly."
"A poor creature!" said John feebly, and as if in compassion of
himself. "I can't get about as I used to do. But it ben't near election
time, be it, sir?"
"No, John," said Mrs Avenel, placing her husband's arm within her own.
"You must lie down a bit, while I talk to the gentleman."
"I'm a real good blue," said poor John; "but I an't quite the man I
was;" and, leaning heavily on his wife, he left the room, turning round
at the threshold, and saying, with great urbanity--"Anything to oblige,
sir?"
Mr Dale was much touched. He had remembered John Avenel the comeliest,
the most active, and the most cheerful man in Lansmere; great at glee
club and cricket, (though then stricken in years) greater in vestries;
reputed greatest in elections.
"Last scene of all," murmured the Parson; "and oh well, turning from
the poet, may we cry with the disbelieving philosopher, 'Poor, poor
humanity!'"[21]
[21] Mr Dale probably here alludes to Lord Bolingbroke's ejaculation as
he stood by the dying Pope; but his memory does not serve him with the
exact words.
In a few minutes Mrs Avenel returned. She took a chair at some distance
from the Parson's, and, resting one hand on the elbow of the chair,
while with the other she stiffly smoothed the stiff gown, she said--
"Now, sir."
That "Now, sir," had in its sound something sinister and warlike. This
the shrewd Parson recognised with his usual tact. He edged his chair
nearer to Mrs Avenel, and placing his hand on hers--
"Yes, now then, and as friend to friend."
LEGENDS OF THE MONASTIC ORDERS, AS REPRESENTED IN THE FINE ARTS.[22]
Lovers of the Fine Arts--and they ought to be the whole civilised
world--owe an especial regard and reverence to the Monastic Orders,
without whom there would have been, and would be now, no Art at all.
Taking the Fine Arts at their lowest value, as a mere source of
pleasure, from the love of imitation or representation of agreeable
objects--the remembrancer of scenes of interest, the elegant
accomplishment by which homes are embellished and made more beautifully
homely--surely some little gratitude is due, where it has been the
fashion to be sparing of any praise, to those good and pious men who
in their convents prepared, improved, and invented colours as well as
implements of Art; were themselves the early painters, and by their
extensive patronage may be called the Fathers of the Arts. Had the
world derived from the monastic orders no other good, that one should
have insured them a perpetual respect.
[22] _Legends of the Monastic Orders, as Represented in the Fine Arts._
By Mrs JAMESON. 1 vol. Longman & Co., London. 1850
But the Arts do not stand alone--are themselves a sisterhood, if we
may so speak--many orders, but one religion; one bond binding them
together--the culture of humanity.
History has unfortunately too often been the work of infidel hands
and hearts. Whatever is of religion has been viewed with a prejudice;
the vices of mankind at large have been tenderly treated; while such
as could with truth or untruth be charged upon religious orders,
have met with little mercy, and have been exempted from the common
apology of the age. In this, little candour has been shown. It would
be fairer, speaking of any class of men, to inquire whether they were
worse or better than others--a benefit or a plague-spot on society;
and it would be fairer to see what efforts they made for their own and
for the general improvement, and rather to estimate their success,
where few but themselves struggled for amelioration, than to single
out every fault, every corruption, and of every age, and to bring the
accumulation to bear upon the head, as it were, of one generation. The
monastic orders have been the theme of general abuse by many a flippant
writer, as if they lived but at one particular period, and were but
examples of ignorance and vice--the encouragers of superstition for
their own selfish ends. The "dark ages" have been indeed dark to those
who have shut their eyes to the light which, small and glimmering
though it appeared from our broad and open way of life, might, if
followed with a gentle curiosity, have led into undreamt-of recesses,
found to contain great treasures; and as the bodily, so the mental
eye would have accommodated its vision to the degree of light given,
and would have seen distinctly both form and beauty, which would have
burst with a kind of glory upon them through the gloom, and met them as
goodness would meet willing seekers.
"Virtue makes herself light, through darkness for to wade."
"I know nothing," says one writer, "of those ages that knew nothing."
As it has been justly retorted--how did he, knowing nothing of them,
know that they knew nothing? It might be more easy to show that, if
he knew anything about anything, he was mainly indebted to those
very ages which kept within them the light of knowledge, preserved
and cherished from utterly going out with the sanctity of a vestal
fire. Turn where we will, we see the monuments of the labour of
the monastic orders--wonderful monuments. And surely if any age
may be said with truth to be dark, dark were those of the two last
centuries which, with the wondrous edifices before their eyes, saw
not their beauty mutilated, and with most unwarrantable conceit
thought they had improved upon them. Whose was the ignorance? Look
at our architecture. Great advancement has been made, and is making
daily; and what is the consequence of this revived taste? A proper
appreciation of the architecture of the "dark ages." Our best hope
is, to imitate successfully. Who were they who designed these miracles
of art? Devout men--the monastic orders! Who furnished every species
of decoration--the sculpture, the painted glass, the pictures, that
were a language? Men who themselves lived humbly and sparingly, that
they might devote themselves, their talents, and their possessions
to make an exalted and visible religion upon earth, as the one thing
needful for future generations of men. Such, undoubtedly, was the one
mind of the great religious orders--we speak of their purpose and of
their doings. It was their mission over every land: we say not that
corruption did not find them out, that there was no canker in their
fruit. The enemy knew where to sow his tares; but perverse people tore,
uprooted and cast from them the wheat, and loved to lay waste; and, as
is ever the case, hating whom they injure, they vilified _per fas et
nefas_; and, upon the plea of others' corruption, became themselves
robbers, plunderers, and, too often, assassins.
It has been charged against these orders, that from the extreme of
poverty they became rich. _Hinc illæ lachrymæ._ But how did they so
increase? Because toil and labour were their law: they brought wealth
out of lands chosen for their sterility, that their rule of toil
might be the more continually exercised. Industry had its natural
fruits, and spread its influence: they taught as well as practised;
and their object, how they disposed of that which they gained, is
now well known. The monuments, long unheeded, are before us. That we
may not be unjustly thought, in what we have said, to favour Romish
institutions, we would make a distinction, too little observed,--we
would not confound the retired, the benevolent, the religious lives of
those benefactors in the monastic orders, with the political tyrannical
Papacy in Rome itself. _There_ was ambition and avarice--a worldliness,
at the instigation of the "Prince of this world," working out a system
whose necessities begot the vilest superstitions and idolatries for
unholy gain, and disseminated corruption instead of life. The history
of the Popes is not the history of the devout and laborious of the
monastic orders at all times. They were indeed within the pale of the
Church of Rome, for there was then no other; but they who cultivated
wastes, taught the people, and preserved and invented arts and
literature, were far other men. The evil of Papacy had not reached them
at once in their wildernesses. When the corrupt system did reach them,
it bore its fruit. But even then, and among such, be it remembered,
arose those who were still pure, and above the corruptions--and from
them originated the Reformation. In reasoning upon past institutions,
consideration must be had of the peculiar phase of the world when
they arose. The whole altered condition of society would make that a
positive evil which was once a positive good. Monastic institutions
have done their work;--they cannot be restored, in a healthy state,
in a Protestant country, whose constitution, and the laws that both
make and support it, and the habits, manners, and feelings of the
people, are entirely repugnant to them. Romanism is antagonistic with
everything that is not of it. It demands at all times and everywhere
to be the dominant power. To give it more than toleration, is to put
into its hands that fulcrum which will be incessantly employed to
subvert every institution that cannot be resolved into itself. Neither
governments nor homes can escape its snares and its tyranny.
"Inspectum domos venturaque desuper urbi."
And here we would offer a quotation from Mrs Jameson's introduction to
this her third volume of the Series on Religious Art; and we cannot but
think that the scrutiny her subject has led her to make, into the real
character of the religions orders of the middle ages, has given a more
serious, we would say solemn, respect for them than was perceptible in
the two former volumes. Not that we would charge any levity upon her
in them: the reverse; but we do think that the reverence and respect
for the subjects generally have fallen advantageously upon the "orders"
themselves.
"In the first place, then, monachism in art, taken in a large
sense, is historically interesting, as the expression of a
most important era of human culture. We are outliving the gross
prejudices which once represented the life of the cloister as
being from first to last a life of laziness and imposture.
We know that, but for the monks, the light of liberty and
literature and science had been for ever extinguished, and that
for six centuries there existed for the thoughtful, the gentle,
the inquiring, the devout spirit no peace, no security, no
home but the cloister. There learning trimmed her lamp, there
contemplation 'pruned her wings;' there the traditions of art,
preserved from age to age by lonely studious men, kept alive in
form and colour the idea of a beauty beyond that of earth--of
a might beyond that of the spear and the shield--of a Divine
sympathy with suffering humanity. To this we may add another
and a stronger claim on our respect and moral sympathies.
The protection and the better education given to women in
these early communities--the venerable and distinguished rank
assigned to them when, as governesses of their order, they
became in a manner dignitaries of the church--the introduction
of their beautiful and saintly effigies, clothed with all the
insignia of sanctity and authority, into the decoration of
places of worship and books of devotion--did more, perhaps,
for the general cause of womanhood than all the boasted
institutions of chivalry."
Now, be it remembered that all this was effected in the midst of a
hostile and turbulent world, whom they thus subdued by their sanctity
to an awe and respect, without which there would have been no peace
to them, no shelter to the pure and the weak from injury and wrong.
Do we not see here the strongest proof of their earnestness, their
piety, their charity, and that they were, under Heaven, the ministers
of blessings to mankind? There was a period, however, when the entire
seclusion of the cloister ceased to be beneficial--the contemplative
life must be succeeded by the active. From that period must we date the
promise of all that is great and good in art, science, and every effort
of human genius, which burst winged out of darkness into day, with the
rise of the Mendicant orders.
"If the three great divisions of the regular ecclesiastics
seem to have had each a distinct vocation, there was at least
one vocation common to all. The Benedictine monks instituted
schools of learning; the Augustines built noble cathedrals;
the Mendicant orders founded hospitals: _all_ became patrons
of the fine arts, on such a scale of munificence that the
protection of the most renowned princes has been mean and
insignificant in comparison. Yet, in their relation to art,
this splendid patronage was the least of their merits. The
earliest artists of the middle ages were the monks of the
Benedictine orders. In their convents were preserved, from
age to age, the traditional treatment of sacred subjects, and
that pure unworldly sentiment which in later times was ill
exchanged for the learning of schools and the competition of
academies; and as they were the only depositories of chemical
and medical knowledge, and the only compounders of drugs, we
owe to them also the discovery and preparation of some of the
finest colours, and the invention or the improvement of the
implements used in painting: for the monks not only prepared
their own colours, but when they employed secular painters in
decorating their convents, the materials furnished from their
own laboratories were consequently of the best and most durable
kind. As architects, as glass-painters, as mosaic workers, as
carvers in wood and metal, they were the precursors of all that
has since been achieved in Christian art; and if so few of
these admirable and gifted men are known to us individually and
by name, it is because they worked for the honour of God and
their community--not for profit, nor for reputation."
Mutability is written upon the face of all earthly things, whether they
be good or evil in themselves. We progress and we retrograde according
as influences act upon us. If we would judge in candour, we cannot take
any class of facts of things or persons by themselves--all are parts of
one whole; but how made one, is a speculation of a deep philosophy. It
is hard to place upon the map of understanding the hidden causes, and
their relation to each other, which make up the general social aspect
at any one period. However we may advance, in knowledge, however that
knowledge may operate as a check, mankind are in heart intrinsically
the same they ever were--they have within them the same passions, the
same instincts; and though we are daily pronouncing, as we look back
upon past ages, that such and such things never can be again, that we
cannot have the same superstitions, nor exercise the same cruelties,
whatever we may hope, we do in fact say but this, that the identical
facts and identical personages will not come again upon the stage of
life. Of this we may be sure, that under certain influences, always
within the sphere of our liabilities, the passions of men will lead
them to the same excesses, the same fanaticism, the same crimes. The
plot of the drama may be somewhat varied, or even new, but tragedy and
comedy will still designate the play of human actions. We may have
crusades without a Holy Land to recover--as we have had a Bartholomew
massacre; we have had, and may have again, in civilised Europe, the
political massacres which, in reading history in our closets in our own
peaceful homes, we had fondly deemed passed away for ever. Fanaticism
in religion and politics is still a human instinct--the sleeping
volcano in every man's breast, though he knows it not, believes it not.
"Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" Who can answer for
himself? It is wiser, far better to bow the head in humility--"Lead
us not into temptation." As the times are, as people are, in peace
or in suffering, will be their religious hopes or their religious
fears--a gloom or a comfort, a wholesome practical virtue or a feverish
excitement, a personal selfishness, a frenzy of despair--intolerance
and persecution the result. The civil troubles of England made our
religion, or that which passes for religion among the masses, gloomy
and morose on the one hand, and, on the other, an awful conceit of
self-righteousness. There was the asceticism of the early ages, but
in a new form: there were no deserts, no dens into which fanatics
could fly from worldly pleasure: compelled to live in its sight, they
persecuted it to the death, and took their own insane pleasure in
denying pleasure to others. General distress will naturally engender
unwholesome excitement, and it will infect invariably the religious
mind. These remarks are not superfluous--they arise out of the subject.
Mrs Jameson herself sees analogies of times, which it may be worth our
while to pause and consider.
"It seems to me that in the movement of the thirteenth century
there was something analogous to the times through which
we of this present generation have lived. There had been
nearly a hundred years of desolating wars. The Crusades had
upheaved society from its depths, as a storm upheaves the
ocean, and changed the condition of men and nations.... A
generation sprang up physically predisposed to a sort of morbid
exaltation, and powerfully acted on by the revelation of a
hitherto unseen, unfelt world of woe. In the words of Scripture
'men could not stop their ears from hearing of blood, nor shut
their eyes from seeing of evil.' There was a deep, almost
universal, feeling of the pressure and burden of sorrow--an
awakening of the conscience to wrong, a blind anxious groping
for the right, a sense that what had hitherto sufficed to
humanity, would suffice no longer. But in the uneasy ferment of
men's minds, religious fear took the place of religious hope,
and the religious sympathies and aspirations assumed, in their
excess, a disordered and exaggerated form.... But what was
dark misery and bewilderment in the weak and ignorant, assumed
in the more highly endowed a higher form; and to St Francis
and his order we owe what has been happily called the mystic
school in poetry and painting--that school which so strangely
combined the spiritual with the sensual, the beautiful with the
terrible, and the tender with the inexorable--which first found
utterance in the works of Dante and of the ancient painters
of Tuscany and Umbria. It has been disputed often whether the
suggestions of Dante influenced Giotto, or the creations of
Giotto inspired Dante; but the true influence and inspiration
were around both, and dominant over both, when the two greatest
men of their age united to celebrate a religion of retribution
and suffering--to solemnise the espousals of sanctity with the
self-abnegation which despises all things, rather than with the
love that pardons and the hope that rejoices--and which, in
closing the gates of pleasure, 'would have shut the gates of
mercy on mankind.'"
Dante himself, the great man of his age, the deep in soul and
intellect, but individualises the character of an age; and, as far
as individual character can portray a general, tends to confirm the
observations into which the nature of our subject led us. Dante lived
a whole life of injury and wrong, of sorrow, of persecution, which
doubtless darkened and embrowned every faculty of his consummate
genius. The persecutions of the early Christians drove men into
solitudes, where the tumult and fear of the world was exchanged
for tumult and fear within; for they were where nature, ordaining
every man to work for a common good, never intended them to be, and
therefore would not give them peace. No wonder, if, in their bewildered
fancies, they were haunted by demons, and took their fevered visions
for realities. No wonder if they enacted the extravagant vagaries
of insanity, and their faith (still faith) became mixed with a
fabulous superstition. The anchorite was sought as a holy man; people
believed in his miraculous powers as people have believed since--and
people believe now, though no longer in anchorites. There are even
Protestant miracle-workers, and thousands who have a kind of belief
in their hearts which they will not acknowledge in words; and, while
they ridicule the Romish calendar, have their own Protestant saints,
and worship them, too, with an idolatry perhaps not less in reality
than that which they so vehemently condemn in others. It is well to
discountenance seriously and gravely the lying legends of Rome, and to
sift from the fables the evil purpose with which they are fabricated
or propagated, to expose the hidden design--a dominant power over
minds and persons. But, to be candid, there was a time when legends
of miracles were household words, and yet had nothing to do with
priestcraft and Popery. Such things were before Popery; and that
corrupt Church but took advantage of a human propensity, which they
could not hope to eradicate. It would indeed be wonderful if there was
not at all times a ready belief in them, as long as people believed
anything, and that there might be powers above the human. And be it
remembered, that many legends of miracles are of that early date which
may be said to have begun ere miracles had ceased--ere the belief, not
in the possibility, but in the present existence, could be well worn
out. The necessity of keeping up the show of them has indeed been the
crime, and is the crying disgrace, of the Romish Church. All we mean to
assert is, that, considering the contiguity of the true and the false,
in point of time, there is at least a great diminution of disparagement
of intellect in those who, in the earliest times, took visions and
dreams for facts, and events, that happened to be simultaneous, for
miracles. Then, again, we know that many of these legends were but
repetitions, and in their origin not intended to pass for truth.
The lives of saints were the school-themes in convents--the only,
schools. The names and a few leading lines of life of saints given,
scholars were to fill up, as their imaginations could supply detail;
consequently we see many of them to be of a puerile and even infantine
fancy, and taken from nursery tales enlarged--a kind of 'raw-head and
bloody-bones'--children boiled in a pot, the Thyestean supper, and
the children leaping whole out of the dish. And here we would ask the
Romish clergy, who certainly in their accredited books propagate fables
scarcely less ridiculous, if the being ridiculous is not a test of
their falsity? We cannot, while we are reasonable, suppose otherwise
than that the Author of miracles would at least guard them from
contempt of this kind; that, as they are intended for the conversion
of mankind, they should not present themselves in a ridiculous
posture, or under ridiculous coincidences. Such was not the pattern of
the Scripture miracles. We would, however, make a great distinction
between the fraudulent (that is, having a fraudulent purpose) legends,
and those which are merely exaggerations or repetitions, readily and
naturally applied under congenial circumstances, and for the most part
allegorical of the Christian charities, and inculcating Christian
virtues. Shall we shock the reader if we add, too, that there may be
a very innocent superstition? Since bloody persecution has ceased,
superstition in the eyes of this wise-growing age is like the dog that
the member of a Peace Society rebuked thus, "Friend, I won't beat thee,
but I'll cry mad dog." Should a child, now-a-days, on lying down in
bed, say, as children did say in our younger days--
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed that I lie on,"
there may be grounds for fear that, should ever the Government
inspectors of schools hear of it, the poor innocents would be put to an
inconvenient questioning; and it is possible that these inspectors,
or multitudes of men equally learned, discreet, and wise, may, after
lecturing the school teachers and scholars on superstition, go
directly, with as great credulity, to a lecture of another kind, and
to witness mesmeric experiments, which assume powers far beyond those
of any miracles whatever. Those who would smile at the tale of a holy
man healing the sick by a word, will credit a somnambulist who, upon
a physician's fee, professes to look blindfolded into the inside of
his credulous patient, and, without knowing anything whatever about
medicine, say what drug will effect a cure; who advertises to be at
home for consultation upon people's most private affairs--to tell
them of unknown, unsuspected, important papers and documents--to tell
the past, the present, and, more wonderful, _the future_. And, with
a wonderful inconsistency, there are men who, having entire faith in
these assumptions, and on the infallibility of their science, have no
belief whatever in a soul, scoff at spirituality, and boldly pronounce
the phenomena of seeing without eyes, travelling without feet, bidding
doors, whether of mansion or of cabinets, open to them, and, being
obeyed, of knowing all secrets which were never told; of knowing
what is passing thousands of miles off with persons never before
seen, by holding any person's hand; of entering into that person; of
prophesying; of knowing thoughts and their consequences, as to be shown
in events;--audaciously, we say, pronouncing these phenomena to arise
from materialism.
While such things are, and things as strange, who can hope to expel
superstition from the stronghold of man's belief? and who would wish to
do it altogether, if the vacant citadel is to be taken possession of
by such philosophy as this--the fanaticism of science? And whilst we
condemn, as it must be confessed we ought, but duly and discreetly, the
greater part of the Romish saintology, their legends and the works of
art relating to them, as all belonging to "ages dark" and obsolete, it
may not be altogether amiss to turn over some of the old and new pages
of the evangelical magazines, where modern saints figure in portraiture
and biography--that is, in our enlightened art and literature; and
it is more than probable we shall be humbled and disgusted, and
be charitably disposed to make some apologies even for the _aurea
legenda_. And should any, in their folly or in their wickedness,
desire to set up a new idol, to rival or obliterate the memory of St
Johanna Southcote the immaculate, or St Huntingdon, for whom the fishes
leaped voluntarily from the ponds into his sanctified hands, and for
whose sake sudden death came upon the man who would not receive him
as a tenant, let such person or persons not despair of collecting
a household of "Latter-day Saints" after the authorised manner of
Joe Smith the Mormonist. It may be read in modern biographies, that
children almost infants have been miraculously converted whilst in
idle play, and have gone back to their homes and converted their
great-grandfathers. Poor good John Wesley believed many of these absurd
things. He assented to the assertion of the profligate who courted
his sister, that it was by "the Lord's directions;" and again, that
suddenly "the Lord" had told him to transfer his affections to John's
other sister. The published _Sancta sanctorum_ of religious sects are
nigh forgotten now-a-days; but they still exist, as did other legends,
to be collected in form, should a seeming necessity or a cunning
purpose require it: for there are multitudes who credit them now, and
many more who might, without much difficulty, be made strenuous to
establish them for "their Church."
We must not, however, forget, that the subject of Mrs Jameson's book
before us is the legends of the monastic orders in their connection
with art. And here modern superstition or fanaticism is at a desperate
disadvantage. Modern art itself is far too worldly, too material a
thing for spirituality, real or assumed. In those evangelical portraits
to which we have already alluded, gross, and, as it would almost seem,
studiedly ugly similitudes, lest the flesh should boast, shining with
an unction too human, and with the conceit of self-applause escaping
from every pore, and redolent of congregational adoration, vulgar
personifications of peculiar and hostile sectarianism, the material
man has been alone the aim of the artist. There is no tale told--no
act of devotion represented--no religious procession, no temple
spirituality,--but the man alone; not as he might be seen--humble,
devout towards God, but, as it were, with his back to sacred things,
and his face towards _his_ people, as if he were the sole or chief
recipient of worship. How different in character were the works of
Angelico, Il Beato, of Giotto, and those great and pious men, who with
their wondrous genius adorned the cloisters of the monastic orders--not
with the portraiture of the monks of the day, but with devout and holy
processions, acts of their founders, and incidents of sacred history!
They taught by the eye; and it possessed, in some respects, a charm
above that of the being taught by books. Picture, at once, is able
to imbue the spectator with a kind of spirituality ere it touches
the understanding; whereas, in reading, it is the uninformed and
grosser imagination supplies the portraiture from scenes of a narrow
experience, and personages of a homely familiarity.
Yet even in very many of the monastic pictures Mrs Jameson finds a
defect, in the too human purpose of the painters and their patrons: she
ascribes somewhat of a vain-glorious and exclusive, where the chief
object was to exalt a St Benedict, a St Francis, or St Dominick, not as
men, but as saints of their respective orders, and for those orders.
Still, we think this objection is carried too far. The purpose was, at
least, no present portraiture; and surely the subjects did often convey
precept, and were calculated to touch the heart, and kindle devotion,
and encourage human charities. Undoubtedly, far higher in the poetical
scale were those themes of an actual Divinity, of which she treated so
enthusiastically in the first part of her former volumes--ascending
from angels and archangels, from the heavenly host, to the precincts
around the throne of the Divine glory. Yet be it duly weighed, in
favour of the patronage of the monastic orders, that this exaltation of
art in its theme was not altogether ever abandoned; and upon the whole,
we doubt if advantages were not in some degree gained by the admixture
of things more comprehensible, and more directly appealing to natural
sensibilities. Besides, there was a class of paintings which arose out
of our human affections, and which, therefore, led to a pious trust,
through our common sympathies: we allude to votive pictures, which were
of the earliest and latest date--pervading, indeed, the whole religion;
for it was, in truth, a practice continued from the heathen worship.
"The pictures, too," says our authoress, "which are suspended
in churches as votive memorials of benefits received, are often
very touching. I recollect such a picture in the gallery of
Vienna. A youth about fifteen, in the character of Tobias,
is led by the hand of his guardian angel Raphael; and on the
other side is St Leonard, the patron of captives, holding his
broken fetters; Christ the Redeemer appears above; and below
in a corner kneels an elderly man, his eyes fixed on the
youth. The arrangement of this group leaves us no doubt of
its purpose. It was the votive offering of a father whose son
had escaped, or had been redeemed from captivity. The picture
is very beautiful, and either by Andrea del Sarto, or one of
his school. If we could discover where it had been originally
placed, we might discover the facts and personages to which
it alludes; but, even on the walls of a gallery, we recognise
its pathetic significance: we read it as a poem--as a hymn of
thanksgiving."
Mrs Jameson makes a very good remark upon a deficiency in catalogues
of galleries and collections--the omission of the name of the church
or chapel, or the confraternity, whence the pictures were purchased,
and such history as might be known respecting them. Our collectors,
indeed, are not without their picture-pedigrees; but they are of a
curious kind--rather too expressive of a fear of dupery of dealers,
and implying but little good foundation of taste in purchasers.
Picture-pedigrees refer not to an inherent virtue, visible as the pure
blood of the Arabian courser, but to the supposed taste or better
known wealth of the last possessor. Few pictures stand on their own
merits--they acquire a virtue from the hands or houses they have
passed through, more than from the hands that worked them. Indeed,
the known collector is generally the only authenticity of the painter,
and stamps the value. But to say somewhat of pictures of sacred
subjects--and they are by far the finest in known collections--from
this deficiency in the catalogues much of their interest is lost; not
only so, but we see them in the midst of strange incongruities, as
well as injured in their effect by locality, and by light unsuited to
them. We cannot judge fairly of their real excellence, nor understand
the actual religious power they once possessed. Many of them were
painted for private chapels or oratories, and purposely, perhaps, for
dim religious light; for an intimate communion of the devout with the
one sentiment and with it alone. We have often earnestly wished that,
in building national galleries, the large and ostentatious display, at
one view, were not the object, and that the particular character of
our greatest works were well considered, and fit positions given, and
proper lights adjusted. It would be a great thing, for instance, to
see the "Raising of Lazarus" of Sebastian del Piombo, in our National
Gallery, in a room by itself, and under a studied and arranged light.
It is now where it is not all, and at all times, visible; and it is far
too important in itself, of too impressive a character, for the look of
one passing moment, and the distraction of many things. In the Vatican
the Apollo has a room to himself. Picture galleries should not emulate
the show-rooms of trade. If the pictures are irrecoverably removed
from their own birthplace, from their own home, separated from their
local history and interest, much may still be done, in some degree, to
preserve for them their general character, and to allow them to make
the intended general impression. And it is in fact for this purpose
that we highly estimate this work of Mrs Jameson, that, in referring
to these legends, we may read the productions to which they have given
rise.
"What a lively, living, really religious interest is given
to one of these sacred groups when we know the locality, or
the community for which it was executed; and how it becomes
enriched as a production of mind when it speaks to the mind
through a thousand associations, will be felt, I think, after
reading the legends which follow."
The Benedictine order stands first in point of time and in interest,
not as regards art only, but as the great civilising order of the
world. The Benedictines were the early missionaries of the north of
Europe; they, banished the impure and inhuman rites of heathenism,
by conveying, regardless of peril, the light of the gospel into the
wilds of Britain, Gaul, Saxony, and Belgium. They gave security to the
oppressed, rescued from the spoiler, and were a refuge to the poor in
times of tyranny and barbarism. They were the sole depositaries of
learning and of the arts; collected and transcribed books--particularly
the Scriptures--which were charitably bestowed or deposited as precious
gifts. We owe to them not only the diffusion of the Scriptures, but the
preservation of classical literature. To them we owe the recovery of
the works of Pliny, Sallust, and Cicero.
"They were the fathers of Gothic architecture; they were
the earliest illuminators and limners; and, to crown their
deservings under this head, the inventor of the gamut, and the
first who instituted a school of music, was a Benedictine monk,
Guido d'Arezzo."
They were the great civilisers, by bringing science to bear upon
agriculture; the authors of experimental farming and gardening; the
cultivators of new fruits and herbs. They cleared and cultivated;
science and the plough went with them wherever they planted the cross.
We cannot forbear quoting the words of Sir James Stephen:--
"The greatness of the Benedictines did not, however, consist
either in their agricultural skill, their prodigies of
architecture, or their priceless libraries, but in their
parentage of countless men and women illustrious for active
piety, for wisdom in the government of mankind, for profound
learning, and for that contemplative spirit which discovers,
within the soul itself, things beyond the limits of the
perceptible creation."
The Benedictines were introduced into England about fifty years after
the death of their founder, in A.D. 543. Augustine the monk, however,
was not the first Christian missionary to this country, as it has
commonly been represented. The Benedictine order was established here
by him. The whole Christian world was then divided upon the question,
whether the Eastern or Western Patriarch should be acknowledged head
of the universal church. Under him England was subjected to Rome.
St Benedict was of a noble family, and born at Norcia, in the duchy
of Spoleto, about A.D. 480. Sent to Rome to study literature, and
disgusted by the profligacy of his companions, at a period when
opinions as to the efficacy of solitude and penance were prevalent,
he separated himself from vicious contagion in a hermitage, at
fifteen years of age. He would probably have died under suffering
and privation had not his nurse, doubting, perhaps, between the idea
of his inspiration or his insanity, followed him, begged for him,
and administered to his wants. Benedict thought to deny himself this
comfort--escaped, and hid himself among the rocks of Subiaco, about
forty miles from Rome. He here met with a hermit, and lived three years
in a cavern, unknown to his family, and shared with the hermit the
scanty fare of bread and water. In this solitude he was not without
temptations; visions too earthly, and such as well might assault his
age, were rendered vain by increased penance. He is said to have rushed
from his cave, and to have thrown himself into a thicket of briars
and nettles, until the blood flowed. They still show at Subiaco the
rose-bushes propagated from those which wounded the saint.
The scenery about Subiaco has even now a monastic charm; it has its
lonely recesses, its silent dells. We have ourselves threaded its deep
valley, and laying aside the pencil, been the hermit of an hour by the
side of its clear mountain river--and then ascended the rocky heights
to visit the convents of St Benedict and Santa Scholastica. We well
remember to have taken shelter from a land-storm, such as Poussin has
painted, and probably from this spot, in a cave which had heretofore
doubtless been the home of more than one follower of St Benedict.
He became so holy, in the estimation of the villagers and shepherds,
that they brought their sick to his cavern to be healed by him. A
neighbouring society of hermits prayed him to put himself at their
head. He knew the morals of the monastery, and, with the intention
of reforming them, he yielded to their solicitation. The strictness
of life required by him alarmed and excited the envy of these men,
and poison was given him in a cup of wine. It is told that upon his
blessing the cup, it fell from the traitor's hands. Upon this he left
them, and again retired to his cave at Subiaco. But the fame of his
sanctity brought many to Subiaco, which became crowded with huts and
cells. Among those who came to him were two Roman senators, Anicius and
Tertullus, who brought their sons, Maurus and Placidus, to be educated
by him in the way of salvation. He had now induced his followers to
build twelve monasteries, in each of which he placed twelve disciples
and a superior. One Florentius, through envy at seeing so many of his
own followers drawn away from him, maligned Benedict, and endeavoured
to destroy him by means of a poisoned loaf. Not succeeding in this,
the same Florentius introduced into one of the monasteries seven young
women, in order to corrupt the monks. Benedict now, as was his wont,
fled from evil, and left Subiaco; but soon Florentius was crushed by
the fall of a gallery of his house. His disciple, Maurus, who sent
to acquaint Benedict of the fate of his adversary, was enjoined a
severe penance for his too triumphant expression, that a judgment had
overtaken his enemy. Here was Christian forgiveness and Christian
charity, worthy of imitation in these enlightened days.
Paganism was not yet extinct. Benedict hearing that, while the bishops
were extending Christianity in distant regions, idolatry was practised
near to the capital of Christendom--the worship of Apollo on Monte
Cassino--repaired thither, and by his preaching prevailed upon the
people to break their statue and the altar, and burn the consecrated
grove; and here he built two chapels in honour of St John the Baptist
and St Martin of Tours.
On the same mountain he built the celebrated monastery, the parent
institution of his order.
"Hence," (we quote from Mrs Jameson,) "was promulgated the
famous rule, which became, from that time forth, the general
law of the monks of western Europe, and which gave to monachism
its definite form. The rule given to the Cenobites of the East,
and which, according to an old tradition, had been revealed
to St Pachomius by an angel, comprised the three vows--of
poverty, of chastity, and obedience. To these Benedict added
two other obligations: the first was manual labour with
their hands seven hours in the day: secondly, the vows were
perpetual; but he ordained that these perpetual vows should
be preceded by a noviciate of a year, during which the entire
code was read repeatedly from the beginning to the end, and,
at the conclusion, the reader said, in an emphatic voice,
'This is the law under which thou art to live, and strive for
salvation; if thou canst observe it, enter; if thou canst not,
go in peace--thou art free.' But the vows once taken were
irrevocable, and the punishment for breaking them most severe.
On the whole, however, and setting apart that which belonged to
the superstition of the time, the rule given by St Benedict to
his order was humane, moderate, wise, and eminently Christian
in spirit."
Towards the close of his long life, Benedict was joined at Subiaco by
his sister Scholastica, who had also devoted herself to a religious
life. She retired to a cell near his convent, and is generally
considered the first Benedictine nun. It is said that Totila, king of
the Goths, visited him in the year 540, and, casting himself at his
feet, entreated his blessing, but was reproved by Benedict for his
cruelties; and it is said that he became from that time more humane.
Shortly after, Benedict died of a fever, caught by visiting the poor.
In his last illness he ordered his grave to be dug. Supported by his
disciples, he stood upon the brink to contemplate his last earthly
home--was carried by his desire to the foot of the altar in the church,
where he received the last sacrament, and expired on the 20th March
543. It is natural to expect that legends of so remarkable a man
should abound; and it is to the credit of the ecclesiastics of his
order that they reproach the legendary writers for their improbable
stories. Benedict saw his order spread during his life; but so widely
did this rule supersede all others, that when Charlemagne made inquiry
throughout his empire, if other monks existed, none were found but of
the Benedictine order. St Maurus his early disciple, introduced the
order into France; the other, St Placidus, was sent into Sicily, where
he was joined by his sister Flavia. They were, it is said, massacred at
Messina, in front of their convent, with thirty others, by an irruption
of pirates. We the more notice the latter statement, because it is the
subject of a celebrated picture by Correggio in the gallery at Parma,
and of which copies are frequently met with. We dwell at some length
on the order of St Benedict, because of its chief importance. All
the monasteries already in existence, from the time of St Augustine,
accepted the rule; and, during the next six hundred years, the grand
ecclesiastical edifices which rose in England were "chiefly founded
by or for the members of this magnificent order." The information
concerning the works of the Benedictines in our country will be found
extremely interesting in this new volume by Mrs Jameson. Space will not
allow us to do more than refer the reader to its pages. Mrs Jameson
eloquently deplores the mutilation and destruction of so many great
memorials of the Benedictines, under the rapacity of Henry VIII. and
his minion plunderers; and of the ferocious and degradingly-fanatic
Puritans she thus speaks:--
"When I recall the history of the ecclesiastical potentates of
Italy in the sixteenth century, I could almost turn Puritan
myself; but when I think of the wondrous and beautiful
productions of human skill, all the memorials of the great
and gifted men of old, the humanisers and civilisers of
our country, which once existed, and of which our great
cathedrals--noble and glorious as they are even now--are but
the remains, it is with a very cordial hatred of the profane
savage ignorance which destroyed and desecrated them."
We are not sure that what yet remains is safe. We are surrounded with
political fanatics, who hate everything ecclesiastical; and the people
are not taught sufficiently to be lovers of art to wish to preserve
what belongs to it. We cannot but remember that at the Bristol riots,
for the furtherance of the Reform mania, attempts were made to burn
down the cathedral, and that the bishop's palace was actually burnt to
the ground, and the good bishop was in great hazard of his life. The
Bible and all his library were ostentatiously destroyed.
Heterogeneous parliaments grant no money for the building and
decorating churches; it were well if they did so, as a public act, that
the people might feel that these places of worship are their own, and
with that feeling understand and venerate every art which, in the chain
of decoration, might receive a sanctity thereby.
To return. One or two noted characters of the English saintology
we cannot omit to mention. St Neot and St Swithin had the glory of
educating our Alfred. St Neot gave his name to two towns in England.
"He was a monk of Glastonbury; and it is recorded of him, that
he visited Rome seven times, was very learned, mild, religious,
fond of singing, humble to all, affable in conversation,
wise in transacting business, venerable in aspect, severe in
countenance, moderate even in his walk, sincere, upright,
calm, temperate, and charitable. This good man is said to have
reproved Alfred for his faults, and to have consoled him in his
misfortunes."
St Swithin still lives in popular superstition; and is perhaps the
object of prayer or deprecation among the ignorant, according as they
may lack rain for their fields, or dread the pains of rheumatism. He
was Bishop of Winchester. He accompanied Alfred to Rome. His character
resembled that given of St Neot; he was a devout champion of the
church. Perhaps the reader is not acquainted with the origin of the
popular superstition with regard to this saint. We give it in Mrs
Jameson's words:--
"He had ordered that his body should be buried among the
poor, outside the church, 'under the feet of the passengers,
and exposed to the droppings of the eaves from above.' When
his clergy attempted to remove the body to a more honourable
tomb inside the church, there came on such a storm or rain
as effectually stopped the procession; and this continued
for forty days without intermission, till the project was
abandoned, and his remains were suffered to rest in the humble
grave he had chosen for himself."
Such is the story of this Jupiter Pluvius of our Saxon ancestors, and
of our Protestant calendar.
We cannot be allowed altogether to pass by St Dunstan. Mr Turner,
in his Anglo-Saxon history, represents him as having introduced the
Benedictine order into England: the fact being that there had been no
other order from the time of St Augustine of Canterbury. St Dunstan
is chiefly known in popular belief for his treatment of Elgiva. The
story of Edwin and Elgiva, is of too romantic a cast to be willingly
abandoned. He is quoted also as an object of ridicule, whenever
ridicule of ecclesiastical matters or personages is thought desirable.
He was, however, as Mrs Jameson justly considers him, "one of the most
striking and interesting characters of the times." He was himself an
artist, as well as the subject of art. He was born in 925. He gained
instruction at the great seminary, Glastonbury, of which he afterwards
became a professed monk. A painter, a musician, and a skilful artificer
in metal, he followed strictly the industrial rule of his order.
Learned in books, he was also an accomplished scribe. He constructed an
organ "with brass pipes, filled with air from the bellows, and which
uttered," says Bede, "a grand and most sweet melody." He was made
successively Bishop of Worcester, of London, and at length Archbishop
of Canterbury. If he did not introduce, he at least reformed the
Benedictine order in England: he founded monasteries and schools,
promoted learning, and a taste for science and the arts. Like other
saints, he has his fabulous history of miracles.
"He relates himself a vision in which he beheld the espousals
of his mother--for whom he entertained the profoundest love and
veneration--with the Saviour of the world, accompanied with all
the circumstances of heavenly pomp amid a choir of angels. One
of the angels asked Dunstan why he did not join in the song of
rejoicing, when he excused himself on account of his ignorance.
The angel then taught him the song. The next morning St Dustan
assembled his monks around him, and, relating his vision,
taught them the very hymn which he had learned in his dream,
and commanded them to sing it. Mr Turner calls this an impious
story; whereas, it is merely one form of those old allegorical
legends which are figurative of the mystic espousals of the
soul, or the church (as in the Marriage of St Catherine) and
which appear to have been suggested by the language of the
Canticles."
In our view, Mrs Jameson might have made quite a more simple solution;
for it is altogether offensive if his earthly mother is meant, (as
the words "for whom he entertained," &c. would imply); but if he
thereby expressed, that he had by his vow but one mother, the Church,
and the Canticle was an Evangelical one--and therefore that he was
angel-taught--we see nothing in the story but a quaintness belonging to
the age, and by no means derogatory to the character for piety of St
Dunstan.
Concerning St Thomas-à-Becket, we cannot but quote the eloquent words
of our authoress:--
"Lord Campbell, in his recent and admirably written life of
Becket, as chancellor and minister of Henry II., tells us that
his vituperators are to be found among bigoted Protestants, and
his unqualified eulogists among intolerant Catholics. After
stating, with the perspicuity of a judge in Equity, their
respective arguments and opinions, he sums up in favour of
the eulogists, and decides that, setting aside exaggeration,
miracle, and religious prejudice, the most merciful view of
the character of Becket is also the most just. And is it not
pleasant, where the imagination has been so excited by strange
vicissitudes and picturesque scenes of his various life--the
judgment so dazzled by his brilliant and generous qualities,
the sympathies so touched by the tragic circumstances of his
death--to have our scruples set at rest, and to be allowed to
admire and to venerate with a good conscience; and this, too,
on the authority of one accustomed to balance evidence, and not
swerved by any bias to extreme religious opinions? But it is
not as statesman, chancellor, or prelate that Becket takes his
place in sacred art. It is in his character of canonised saint
and martyr that I have to speak of him here. He was murdered
or martyred because he pertinaciously defended the spiritual
against the royal authority; and we must remember, in the
eleventh century, the cause of the Church was, in fact, the
cause of the weak against the strong, the cause of civilisation
and of the people against barbarism and tyranny; and that by
his contemporaries he was regarded as the champion of the
oppressed Saxon race against the Norman nobility."
Why is the eulogy of the Church confined in this passage to the
eleventh century? It was, and is, and ever will be, the cause of the
people. We mean the Church as the Church should ever be, cleansed from
every superstition, every impurity, the Reformed Church of England,
or even that ancient Church which existed in this our land before
Popery was--emphatically the Church of England in this _our_, not a
Pope's England, free from superstitious, in principle unpersecuting.
With regard to Becket, he was a sincere man, nor did he disparage the
Benedictines in his own character. The strong man--the man of vigorous
intellect and of direct purpose--will ever find in all minds but the
mean a ready reception and excuse for actions which, in their nature
distasteful, would not be tolerated in the weak, the vacillating,
though even the more virtuous. Becket's history is well adapted
to historical art. His mother, daughter to the Emir of Palestine,
delivering his father from captivity, seeking him in England, knowing
no English words but London and Gilbert, is of the richest tissue of
old romance.
From the seventh to the twelfth century almost all the men
distinguished as statesmen, or as scholars, or as churchmen, were of
the Benedictine order. And when their influence declined, owing to the
disorders and neglect of the primitive rule which crept into religions
houses, there were not wanting men who conscientiously opposed the
corruption. Many retired again to the hermit's cell, the wild and the
forest, till numerous communities at length arose to re-establish the
strictness of the rule, and constituted the reformed Benedictines.
The origin of the Augustine order lies in much obscurity. We are told
that Augustine assembled together persons disposed to a religious and
charitable life; but it does not appear that he himself instituted a
religious order. About the middle of the ninth century, Pope Leo III.
and the Emperor Lothaire incorporated all the various denominations of
Christian clergy who had not entered the ranks of monachism, and gave
them the rule of discipline promulgated by St Augustine. Under Innocent
IV., after much difficulty, and not without the assumption of no less
a miracle than the re-appearance of St Augustine himself, all those
recluses, and hermits, and fraternities, bound to no discipline, were
brought under that rule, and enjoined to wear the habit in which the
saint had appeared--the sign of poverty and humility. Such were the
"Austin Friars" in England. St Patrick and St Bridget of Ireland were
of this order; who, though every vestige of them has been destroyed or
mutilated, still live in story and legend in the faith of the people of
Ireland.
"To the Augustines belong the two great military orders,
the Knights Templars (1118) and the knights of St John of
Jerusalem, afterwards styled of Malta (1092.) The first wear
the red cross on the white mantle, the second the white cross
on the black mantle or cassock. They may thus be recognised in
portraits; but in connection with sacred art I have nothing to
record of them here."
With us their architecture is still the monument of their greatness and
their piety.
Of the Mendicant orders--the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and the
Carmelites--it will be in place to speak only of the two first: the
Carmelites, though claiming Elijah himself as their founder, never
having been an influential order. The strong religious movement of the
thirteenth century exhibited no results more important than the rise of
the two great mendicant communities of St Francis and St Dominick.
"In the year 1216, Dominick the Spaniard and Francis of Assise
met at Rome. They met and embraced, each recognising in the
other the companion predestined to aid the Church in her
conflict with the awakening mental energies so long repressed,
and in her attempt to guide or crush the aspiring, inquiring,
ardent, fervid spirits of the time. Some attempts were made
to induce them to unite into one great body their separate
institutions. Dominick would have complied: it may be that he
thought to find in Francis an instrument as well as an ally.
Francis, perhaps from an intuitive perception of the unyielding
dogmatic character of his friend, stood aloof. They received
from Innocent III. the confirmation of their respective
communities, 'and parted,' as it has been well expressed, 'to
divide the world between them;' for before the end of the
century, nay, in the time of one generation, their followers
had spread themselves in thousands and tens of thousands
over the whole of Christian Europe, and sent forth their
missionaries through every region of the then known world."
The rule of St Augustine was the adoption of both. The stricter
Benedictine rule, though as we have seen how departed from, enjoined
a seclusion from the world. They had, as Mrs Jameson expresses
it, "whereever their influence had worked for good, achieved that
good by gathering the people to them, not by lowering themselves
to the people." The Franciscans and Dominicans, on the contrary,
were to mingle with the people, even in all their domestic concerns
and affections: they were, in this more intimate connection with
the people, to comfort, to exhort, to rebuke. The ministering the
offices of religion was not at first conceded to them. They took the
more humble title of brothers and sisters of mankind--_frati_ and
_suori_--instead of that of fathers, _padri_. The Dominicans called
themselves "preaching friars;" the Franciscans, with greater humility,
called themselves _Frati Minori_, "lesser brothers." In England they
were known as the black and grey friars; but they never reached the
popularity or power of the Benedictines in this country. The remarkable
feature in the institution of these communities was their admittance
of a third class of members, called "the Tertiary Order, or the Third
Order of Penitence." These were of both sexes, and of all ranks: they
were not bound by vows, nor required to relinquish their secular
employments. They were, however, to be strictly moral, and, as far as
they might be, charitable. They were never to take up weapon except
against the enemies of Christ. "Could such a brotherhood," says
Mrs Jameson, "have been rendered universal, and have agreed on the
question, 'Who, among men, Christ himself would have considered as His
enemies?' we should have had a heaven upon earth." The Franciscans and
Dominicans may be considered as one body, the difference being not in
essentials, but in points of discipline and dress.
The characters of these two founders of their communities have the
distinguishing stamp of Dante's genius,--
"Hath two ordained, who should on either hand
In chief escort her; one seraphic all
In fervency; for wisdom upon earth
The other, splendour of cherubic light!
I but of one will tell: he tells of both
Who one commandeth, which of them soe'er
Be taken; for their deeds were to one end."
Of Dante's description of St Dominick, that he was--
"Benigno ai suoi ed ai nemici erudo,"
we think Mrs Jameson's paraphrastic translation a little
unwarrantable--"unscrupulous, inaccessible to pity, and wise as a
serpent in carrying out his religious views and purposes."
Shakspeare was more true,--
"Lofty and sour to those that loved him not,
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer."
Greater learning and energy characterised the Dominicans; sanctity and
humility and self-denial the Franciscans. The good of both communities
is eloquently set forth by Sir James Stephen, and quoted in this
volume:--
"So reiterated and so just have been the assaults on the
Mendicant friars, that we usually forget that, till the days of
Martin Luther, the Church had never seen so great and effectual
reform as theirs.... Nothing in the histories of Wesley or of
Whitfield can be compared with the enthusiasm which everywhere
welcomed them, or with the immediate and visible result of
their labours. In an age of oligarchal tyranny, they were the
protectors of the weak; in an age of ignorance, the instructors
of mankind; and in an age of profligacy, the stern vindicators
of the holiness of the sacerdotal character and the virtues of
domestic life."
Two remarkable things are spoken of both. One, that after fasting,
and being rapt in a vision, St Francis was seen with the "Stigmata,"
(the miracle of the present day,) the wounds of the Saviour in his
hands, his feet, and his side. St Dominick invented the Rosary;
which, like most inventions of the Romish Church, and from the nature
of its claim, is perpetuated to this day. Of the artistic treatment
of the mysteries of the rosary, Mrs Jameson professes to have much
to say, when she comes to the legends of the Madonna. The cruelties
towards the Albigenses--ascribed apparently with too much reason to St
Dominick--shows that when religion descends to fanaticism, persecution
becomes a tenet; and in this, politics and religion, when both lose
their reliance on Providence to guide all things to an end, are of one
character, and make the interference of man's oppressive and bloody
hand the only instrument.
One of the order of St Dominick has been immortalised by Titian, in
perhaps the finest work of his hands--St Peter Martyr. Fra Bartolomeo,
in painting this martyr, took the portrait of that extraordinary
fanatic, his friend, Jerome Savonarola, who, too successful in the
destruction of works of art that did not come up to his religious mark,
met with a terrible fate--being strangled, and then burned in the great
square at Florence, in 1498. The face is striking, and indicative of
the impetuosity of a fanatic and religious demagogue. We should be
glad to treat of many of the characters, members of these communities;
but space, and the difficulty of selection, where there is so much of
interest, will not allow us. We therefore pass on to the Jesuits.
This most remarkable order have had little influence on art. They
neglected it as a means of teaching. Their great wealth was lavished
in gorgeous ornament: but few pictures, and they not of the best,
are to be found in their churches. Nor, though they can justly boast
of men of science, classical learning, mathematicians, astronomers,
antiquarians, have they produced one painter. The Jesuits' perspective
is still a standing work; but Father Pozzi can scarcely merit the name
of artist,--"who used his skill less as an artist than a conjuror, to
produce such illusions as make the vulgar stare." The fact is, art
had long declined before the canonisation of their saint. Mrs Jameson
thinks them unfortunate in this; yet it may be doubted if the genius
of their order is not in a degree adverse to art, and would not at all
times have disregarded it. The secret working of their system--the
depositing their influence in every house, in every bosom--their
ubiquity, their universal aim, required neither the particular
circumstances and incidents, nor the localities of art. It was the
insidious "teaching through the ear, and by their books, upon which
they relied for success." Nor can it be said of them that they have
been doomed to a long night of forgetfulness: in this their lack of
sacred art they have not perished--_Carent quia vate sacro_--for they
are indestructible, intangible. They have been nominally suppressed,
but spring up in full vigour at the first call, and everywhere; for
they exist everywhere, known and unknown. And one clause in their
regulations greatly favours them in this, that they are permitted
to assume the dress of the country in which they may be, whenever
they shall deem it expedient. And it has been asserted that they are
at liberty to assume much more than the dress, and that Jesuits are
to be found among the functionaries in Protestant countries, and at
Protestant courts. We have only to see the nature of their vows; and if
we give them credit for zeal and honesty in fulfilling them, certainly
we must be alive to the danger of such a society, whose movements
are secret, and whose conscience is in implicit obedience organised
throughout the body.
"They were to take, besides, a vow of special obedience to the
head of the Church for the time being, devoting themselves,
without condition or remuneration, to do his pleasure, and
to go to any part of the world to which he should see fit to
send them.... The essential duties of the new order were to be
three: preaching in the first place; secondly, the guidance of
souls through confession; and thirdly, the education of the
young."
Surely this is a wise scheme, to prepare the kingdoms of the earth and
subdue them, not to their Divine master, but to their temporal, and,
through their temporal, to themselves. Their founder, Ignatius Loyola,
was one of the most remarkable men of the world. His life is too well
known to admit of our dwelling upon any of its incidents. He died first
General of his order, 1556, and was canonised by Gregory XV. in 1622.
Although the Jesuits were not conspicuous as patrons of art--nor has
sacred art done much for them--yet the gorgeous pencil of Rubens, of a
more material than spiritual splendour, has to a considerable degree
brought them within pictorial notice and celebrity. Mrs Jameson thinks
that no portrait was taken of their founder during his life. We are
surprised she does not notice that wondrously fine portrait at Hampton
Court, by Titian.
In the histories of religious orders, it is a striking fact that the
founders never failed to unite themselves with one or more congenial
spirit, ready to co-operate with them, and doubtless, as they thought,
by a Divine appointment. As St Francis and St Dominick, different as
they were in individual character, had the one great sympathy under
which they met, embraced, and then parted--as for one end to divide
the world between them--so did Ignatius Loyola find in Francis Xavier
a friend and associate, and subsequently in Francis Borgia, a no less
willing disciple. One is perfectly astonished at reading accounts of
the entire devotion of the whole man to the law of obedience, and the
more than satisfaction, the joy, at being selected to suffering and
death. It had been the dream of Francis Xavier to die a martyr in the
Indies for the conversion of mankind; and when chosen to that end by
Ignatius,--
"When the clearer sense and approaching accomplishment of
those dark intimations were disclosed to him, passionate sobs
attested the rapture which his tongue was unable to speak.
He fell on his knees before Ignatius, kissed the feet of the
holy father, repaired his tattered cassock, and, with no other
provision than his breviary, left Rome on the 15th March 1540,
for Lisbon, his destined port of embarkation for the East."
Nor is the story of St Francis Borgia less strange, showing the sudden
impulse, yet continued purpose, executed after many years--never for a
moment lost sight of. A grandee of Spain, high in honour and office, in
his twenty-ninth year, as her master of horse he attends the funeral of
the Empress Isabella, first wife of Charles V. The ceremonial required
that he should raise the lid of the coffin, remove the covering, and
see the face, to swear to the identity of the royal remains committed
to his charge. He beheld in the solemn paleness of death the face of
his beautiful and benign empress, and from that hour made a vow to
dedicate himself to the service of God. Nevertheless, he repaired
to his active duties--conscientiously performed them--and after the
death of his wife, and six years spent in settling his affairs and
providing for his children, and "bidding a farewell to every worldly
care and domestic affection, departed for Rome, to place himself, and
every faculty of his being, at the feet of St Ignatius." It was in the
character of the humble Father Francis he visited his cousin Charles
V., soon after his abdication.
How unlike are times and personages at various periods! Yet, doubtless,
what man does at any time is in the man to do at all times. The
influences set in in various directions: now we sail in another current
and _under trade-winds_--and must go that course; but while we look
back upon the history of our own and other countries, and read the
doings of men, we marvel, and for a moment ask if they were of our
flesh and blood.
A personal security has given us the experience of ease. It is not the
temple but the home is in every man's thought. Let security be removed,
our god Mammon be dethroned, and poverty be upon us--not as a vow, but
an enforcement of the times--distress bring violence and persecution,
and persecution the fever of excitement--the now sleeping capabilities
of our nature would be roused to an energy which would make another
generation as unlike the present as ours is to that which has been
under contemplation.
The whole subject of this volume belongs to ecclesiastical history, and
it is a strange one--how difficult to read to our actual knowledge, and
to receive with candour. How much is there to condemn, to abhor--how
much to admire, to love, to venerate. Sincerity, zeal, piety, and
charity ought always to claim our sympathies, when our understandings
reject a creed. If rising from contemplative communion with the saints
and martyrs of the Romish calendar, with such mixed feelings, yet in
which, we confess, a loving admiration preponderates, let us not come
under a suspicion, so common in these days, of "tendencies to Rome."
We have not the shadow of a thought that way--we utterly abominate and
abhor Popery as a system, its frauds, its idolatry, or idolatries--for
they are many--and the bondage which it would impose upon the necks of
all people. But forbid it, charity--Christian charity above all--that
we should join in a bestial persecution, and sit, as we were gods,
and as some do, in severe judgment on, and denounce as children of
perdition, and as doomed, all simple and innocent, virtuous and pious,
members of that Church. To do this would, we conceive, be the part of a
bad Protestant, for it is not the part of a Christian. But to return.
It is remarkable of the Jesuits that they have no female saint. Yet,
if there be truth in history, they have dealt cunningly and widely in
female agencies.
We have too hastily passed by the Carmelites, and without noticing
that extraordinary woman St Theresa--at a very early age a candidate
for martyrdom--who with her brother, when they were children of eight
and nine years of age, went begging into the country of the Moors, in
hopes of being martyred for their faith at the hands of the infidels.
At her death she had founded fifteen convents for men, and seventeen
for women. We refer to the volume of Mrs Jameson for a larger notice
of this saintly and sainted woman. We merely mention her slightly
ourselves, that we may pass to her eulogy from the pens of two eloquent
writers of her own sex--Mrs Jameson and Miss Martineau.
"It is impossible," says the former, "to consider, in a just
and philosophic spirit, either her character or her history,
without feeling that what was strong, and beautiful, and true,
and earnest, and holy, was in herself, and what was morbid,
miserable, and mistaken, was the result of the influences
around her."
Oh, how does this eloquent apology cover with the mantle of charity,
and embrace with the arms of love, many more personages than poor St
Theresa, whose effigies may be seen in this volume.
We must not forget, before we lay down the pen, that not only the
religious orders, but art also is a main object of this work.
We have said much to the credit of many pious, zealous, charitable,
and good personages of the several orders, and will conclude with an
anecdote creditable to Art; and the more willingly, as it brings us
gently down to our own times--for we believe anecdotes of similar
generosity may be told of many living men of the profession.
Annibal Caracci, suffering from illness and disappointment, and tempted
by the promise of two thousand crowns, accepted an order from a certain
Don Diego Herrera, to paint a picture in honour of a saint, in a
church. He was, however, so ill that he could not perform the task. His
pupil Albano nursed him, comforted him, cheered him; and between his
attendances on his sick master, ran backward and forward to the church,
and painted the frescoes with the greatest care--as they were to pass
for the work of the master. Annibal every now and then rose from his
bed and retouched and in part finished the painting. Don Diego refused
the payment, as the work was not all by Annibal's hand. But the work
being greatly admired, he consented to pay the two thousand crowns. And
here a generous contest arose between the master and pupil; and this we
give in the words of Mrs Jameson:--
"Annibal insisted on giving twelve hundred crowns to Albano,
and keeping only four hundred for himself, which he said
overpaid him for the little he had executed, and a few sorry
drawings, (_miseri disegni_) not worth the money. Albano,
not to be outdone in generosity, absolutely refused to take
anything; saying, that he was only his master's creature
and disciple, working under his orders, and profiting
by his instructions. At length they agreed to submit to
the arbitration of Herrera, who decided that the sixteen
hundred crowns (four hundred had been paid,) should be
divided between them. Even then it was with the greatest
difficulty that Annibal could be persuaded to receive his
share; and when he did, it was with a certain air of timidity
and bashfulness--_mostrando in certo modo temersene e
vergognarsene_."
In taking leave of Mrs Jameson's volume, the third of her series, we do
so with the hope that she will speedily fulfil her promise and bring
out the fourth part, relating to the Madonna, as connected with art.
The whole series we strongly recommend to the connoisseur at home as
to the traveller abroad; for as the best pictures in the world are of
subjects treated of by her, it is most desirable to have such a key to
them as she has given, and promises further to give. The woodcuts and
etchings are excellent, and maintain her reputation for judgment shown
in the selection, and her skill as an artist.
LAVENGRO.[23]
We are glad to observe, from sundry symptoms which have of late been
manifested, that the taste for the supernatural is again reviving
amongst us. It is not safe now to deny miracles, to sneer at stories of
winking images, or to speak lightly of the liquefaction of the blood of
St Januarius. Cardinal Wiseman, in his future attempts to familiarise
us with the doctrines of saintly interference, will find a good deal
of work already cut and dry for his hand. Pious young noblemen, whose
perversion is only of a few weeks' standing, have already laid in such
a stock of exuberant faith, that all Europe rings with the fame of
their pilgrimages; and the chain in the church of St Peter ad Vincula
has already been suspended around more than one English neck, in token
of the entire submission of the proselytes to the spiritual yoke of
Rome.
[23] _Lavengro; the Scholar--the Gipsy--the Priest._ By GEORGE BORROW,
Author of the _Bible in Spain_, &c. 3 vols. London: 1851.
Nor is the hankering after the supernatural confined only to the sphere
of religious belief. Were it so, we should not have ventured even to
allude to the subject; for it matters nothing to us what amount of
pilgrims may choose to press forward to Loretto, with or without the
salutary but inconvenient impediment of pease. But we are going a great
deal faster and farther. We have renewed some of the popular beliefs
of bygone centuries; and in a short time we may hope to discover a
few of the lost secrets of the Chaldeans and the Magi. Astrology,
never wholly extinguished as a science, is again beginning to look
up. Raphael and Zadkiel--we ask pardon of the latter gentleman if we
have mistaken his name, for we quote merely from memory, and have none
of his invaluable treatises lying on our table--will calculate your
nativity for a trifle, and give you in January a shrewd hint as to the
aspect of public matters at the ensuing Christmas. Reichenbach will
tell you all about ghosts, luminous children, and suchlike apparitions
as seem perpetually to have disturbed the repose of the gifted Lady
Fanshawe. By a little fasting and maceration, and possibly a course of
purgatives, you may even succeed in reducing yourself to a state of
clairvoyance, in which case your curiosity will be amply gratified by
a visit to the nearest churchyard. You will then thoroughly understand
the occult theory of corpse-candles, and various other things undreamed
of in your philosophy, so long as you adhere to your present gross
diet of beef-steaks and porter, and pride yourself on your Particular
Madeira. Almost any lubberly boy can now discover you a spring by
means of the divining-rod. Travelling is no longer a luxury confined
to the rich. If you wish to be transported to any known part of the
earth with a rapidity greater than that of Malagigi's flying demon,
who conveyed Charlemagne on his back from Pampeluna to Paris in the
course of a summer's night, you have only to go to a biologist, and
your desires are at once accomplished. He will request you to sit down
and favour him for a few minutes with the inspection of a button which
he places in your fist--a strange sensation of drowsiness steals over
your brain--and you are instantly in the power of the sorcerer. He
will set you down wherever you please. You may either gather grapes
in the vineyards of sunny Tuscany, or take an airing, on the top of
the Pyramids, or wander in a buffalo prairie, or study the habits of
the walrus and white bear on the frozen shores of Nova Zembla. We have
ourselves seen an enthusiastic sportsman, whilst under the influence of
this magical delusion, stalk an imaginary red-deer with considerable
effect through the midst of a crowded lecture-room; and, had he been
armed with a proper _couteau-de-chasse_, we entertain little doubt that
he would have gralloched a gaping urchin who happened to be standing
in real flesh and blood close to the spot where the spectral stag
rolled over at the discharge of his walking-stick. After this, who
shall deny magic? James VI. was right after all, and we ought to be
put in possession of a cheap reprint of his treatise on Demonology.
Everybody recollects Lord Prudhoe's account of the wonder-working
magician of Cairo, who required nothing more than a few drops of ink,
and the aid of a child, to conjure up the phantoms of living persons
from any quarter of the globe. The necessity of resorting to Cairo
for a repetition of that phenomenon is now superseded. One of the
magic crystals, known to Albertus Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa, has
lately been recovered, and is now preserved in London. It has its
legendary history, known to Horace Walpole, who kept it among his other
curiosities at Strawberry Hill; but its miraculous powers seem to have
been dormant, or, at all events, to have been unobserved, until a very
recent date. In short, we are gradually working our way to a region
which lies beyond the ken of science--a circumstance which cannot fail
to give intense gratification to poets and novelists, who have been
grievously trammelled for a long time in their legitimate functions, by
the priggish scrupulousness and materialism of the votaries of exact
science and analysis. Laud we the gods therefor! We may hope once more
to see poetry disentangled from the thraldom of the Philosophical
Institutions.
We have made this preface less in application to the work which we
are about to notice, than from a certain feeling of disappointment
which came over us during its perusal. It is not at all the kind of
book which we expected from Mr Borrow. His previous writings had
prepared us for a work of extraordinary interest, and the preliminary
advertisement stimulated our curiosity to the highest pitch. Lavengro;
the Scholar--the Gipsy--the Priest! Not for years have our eyes lighted
on a more fascinating or mysterious title. Who, in the name of Mumbo
Jumbo, we thought, can this Lavengro be? Cagliostro we know, and
Katterfelto we have heard of, but Lavengro is altogether a new name
for a conjuror. From what country does he come--in what favoured land
is laid the scene of his exploits? Is he a Moldavian, a Wallachian,
a Hungarian, a Bohemian, a Copt, an Armenian, or a Spaniard? The
mystery grew deeper as we pondered: we could hardly sleep of nights
for thinking of this Lavengro. Then what a field for cogitation was
presented by the remainder of the suggestive title! The Scholar--the
Gipsy--the Priest! Dr Faustus--Johnnie Faa--and Friar Bacon! Why, the
whole title was as redolent of magic as a meadow in summer-time of
myrrh! Then we thought over the hints which Mr Borrow had thrown out
in his earliest volume. We recollected his mysterious intercourse with
the gipsies, and his reception by that fraternity in Spain. We were
aware that he had not yet explicitly accounted for his trafficking with
the outcasts of Egypt, and we looked for some new revelations on the
subjects of fortune-telling, hocus-pocus, and glamour. Lavengro, with
his three attributes like those of Vishnu, might possibly be the Grand
Cazique, the supreme prince of the nation of tinkers!
We have read the book, and we are disappointed. The performance
bears no adequate relation to the promise. The story--if that can be
designated as a story which the author describes as "a dream, partly
of study, partly of adventure," is in the form of an autobiography,
in which we recognise Mr Borrow in the characters of Lavengro and the
Scholar. The Gipsy is a horse-couper, with a tolerable taste for the
ring; and the Priest a Romish Jesuit, with a decided taste for gin and
water. The scene is laid in the British islands; and the adventures,
though interesting in their way, neither bear the impress of the stamp
of truth, nor are they so arranged as to make the work valuable, if we
consider it in the light of fiction.
Of Mr Borrow personally we know nothing. In common with many others, we
admired the lively style and freshness of his earlier book, _The Bible
in Spain_; and, without altogether swallowing as genuine the whole of
its details, we were willing to believe, that the author was a person
of uncommon attainments, energy, and perseverance; a good philologer,
and an intimate acquaintance of the gipsies. This much we were ready
to concede. But ever and anon there occurred oblique hints and obscure
inuendoes, which seemed to point at some secret or mystery pertinent
to the author, just as, in a melodrama, it is common for an individual
in a slouched hat and russet mantle to insinuate that he is somebody
in disguise, without condescending to favour us with a glimpse of his
visage. These we set down at their proper value--that is, we considered
them, sheer humbug. It was Mr Borrow's own fault if we did him wrong.
He may be, for aught we know, as notable a personage as Paracelsus; but
if so, he ought to claim his honours boldly, not copy a trick which is
now somewhat stale through repetition.
In _Lavengro_ the same thing occurs, and even more conspicuously. We
cannot, by possibility, separate the ingredients of fact from those
of fiction. Mr Borrow will not permit us to know whether it is an
autobiography or a pure romance. In all probability it partakes of the
nature of both. Enough of reality is retained to identify it with the
actual author; enough of fiction introduced to make that author appear
a most singularly gifted being. If Apollonius of Tyana had undertaken
the task of compiling his own memoirs, instead of trusting to the pen
of Damis, he could not have hit upon a better plan. Benvenuto Cellini
and Vidocq, by adopting this method, have each of them earned a very
fair portion of celebrity; and we do not in the least degree doubt
that Mr Borrow will be equally successful. His situations are often
striking; the characters which he introduces must have the charm of
novelty to the great majority of readers; his descriptive powers are
above the common mark; and his ideas are frequently original. If, in
the more ambitious passages, his style is occasionally turgid, we
are inclined to overlook that blemish in consideration of his other
accomplishments; if the humour of his characters is sometimes forced
and tiresome, we are ever and anon repaid by sketches which would do
credit to the skill of a more refined artist. Yet, with all this, the
original fault remains. We cannot yield to Mr Borrow that implicit
credence which is the right of a veracious autobiographer; we cannot
accord him that conventional credence which we give to the avowed
romancer. The fact destroys the fiction; and the fiction neutralises
the fact.
Is it fact or fiction that Mr Borrow is a snake-tamer, a horse-charmer,
and something more? These qualities certainly are claimed by the hero
of this autobiography, who, before he was three years of age, could
handle a viper without injury, and even, as the following extract will
show, caused a Jew to stand aghast at the superhuman extent of his
acquirements.
"One day a Jew--I have quite forgotten the circumstance, but
I was long subsequently informed of it--one day a travelling
Jew knocked at the door of a farm-house in which we had taken
apartments; I was near at hand sitting in the bright sunshine,
_drawing strange lines on the dust with my fingers, an ape and
dog were my companions_; the Jew looked at me and asked me
some questions, to which, though I was quite able to speak, I
returned no answer. On the door being opened, the Jew, after
a few words, probably relating to pedlery, demanded who the
child was, sitting in the sun; the maid replied that I was
her mistress's younger son, a child weak _here_, pointing to
her forehead. The Jew looked at me again, and then said: 'Pon
my conscience, my dear, I believe that you must be troubled
there yourself to tell me any such thing. It is not my habit to
speak to children, inasmuch as I hate them, because they often
follow me and fling stones after me; but I no sooner looked at
that child than I was forced to speak to it--his not answering
shows his sense, for it has never been the custom of the wise
to fling away their words in indifferent talk and conversation;
the child is a sweet child, and has all the look of one of our
people's children. Fool, indeed! did I not see his eyes sparkle
just now when the monkey seized the dog by the ear?--they shone
like my own diamonds--does your good lady want any--real and
fine? Were it not for what you tell me, _I should say it was a
prophet's child_. Fool, indeed! he can write already, or I'll
forfeit the box which I carry on my back, and for which I would
be loth to take two hundred pounds!" He then leaned forward
to inspect the lines which I had traced. All of a sudden he
started back and grew white as a sheet; then, taking off his
hat, he made some strange gestures to me, cringing, chattering,
and showing his teeth, and shortly departed, muttering
something about 'holy letters,' and talking to himself in a
strange tongue. The words of the Jew were in due course of
time reported to my mother, who treasured them in her heart,
and from that moment began to entertain brighter hopes of her
youngest born than she had ever before ventured to foster."
This beats Benvenuto hollow! Nay, we are not quite certain that it
does not distance the celebrated experiment of Psammetichus, king of
Egypt, who, in order to ascertain which was the original language of
the world, separated two infants from their mothers, intrusting them to
the care of a dumb person, who daily fed them with milk. The first word
which they uttered, and perseveringly reiterated, was "Beccos," which
in the Phoenician language signified bread; and as nothing could be
more natural than that children should clamour for their porridge, the
speech of the Phoenicians was acknowledged as the native dialect of
mankind. Wee Georgy Borrow, however, in company with Jocko and Snap,
seems to have outstripped in precocity the Psammetichian foundlings.
What "holy letters" from the Talmud the "prophet's child" inscribed,
which had such a marvellous effect upon the mind and conscience of Ikey
Solomons we know not, and perhaps ought not even to guess. Perhaps it
was some sentence from Rabbi Jehuda Hakkadosh, bearing upon the real
value of the diamonds which the impostor was proffering for sale.
A few years afterwards he becomes acquainted with an old man, whose
principal occupation consisted in catching snakes, and who, upon one
occasion, had enjoyed the inestimable privilege of an interview with
"the king of the vipers." Practised as he was at pouching the vermin,
old Adderley could teach nothing to his pupil, who, from the hour of
his birth, was privileged to take a cockatrice by the tail, and seize
on a cobra with impunity. He gifts him, however, with a pet viper, a
fellow of infinite fancy, who nestles in Georgy's bosom, and whose
timely apparition from beneath the folds of the vest not only saves
him from a threatened drubbing at the hands of a Herculean gipsy, but
introduces him to the acquaintance of a young gentleman of that nomad
persuasion, one Jasper Petulengro, who is also the representative of
the Pharaohs! More unmingled rubbish than is contained in this part of
the book, it never was our fortune to turn over; and Mr Borrow must
have a low estimate indeed of the public taste, when he ventures to put
forward such twaddle. Fancy the intrepid snake-charming urchin of some
nine or ten years' standing, thus defying Gipsy Cooper.
"_Myself._ I tell you what, my chap, you had better put down
that thing of yours; my father lies concealed within my tepid
breast, and if to me you offer any harm or wrong, I'll call him
forth to, help me with his forked tongue!"
Ancient Pistol could not have spoken more magnanimously; indeed,
both in rythm and rhyme, this challenge is conceived in the style of
Pistol's strophe. But we shall skip this absurd passage, with all its
accompaniments of candied nutmegs, and the dispersion of the Egyptian
encampment.
Mr Borrow was the younger son of an officer in a marching regiment; and
in the course of the peregrinations of the corps, found himself located
in Edinburgh Castle. His father, though somewhat appalled at the notion
of his children acquiring the fatal taint of a Scottish dialect,
determined, very wisely, to send both his boys to the High School;
which circumstance calls forth the following magnificent apostrophe:--
"Let me call thee up before my mind's eye, High School, to
which every morning the two English brothers took their way
from the proud old Castle, through the lofty streets of the
Old Town. High School!--called so, I scarcely know why;
neither lofty in thyself nor by position, being situated in
a flat bottom; oblong structure of tawny-stone, with many
windows fenced with iron-netting--with thy long hall below,
and thy five chambers above, for the reception of the five
classes, into which the eight hundred urchins, who styled
thee instructress, were divided. Thy learned rector and his
four subordinate dominies; thy strange old porter of the tall
form and grizzled hair, hight Boee, and doubtless of Norse
ancestry, as his name declares; perhaps of the blood of Bui
hin Digri, the hero of northern song--the Jomsborg Viking, who
clove Thorsteinn Midlangr asunder in the dread sea-battle of
Horunga Vog, and who, when the fight was lost, and his own two
hands smitten off, seized two chests of gold with his bloody
stumps, and, springing with them into the sea, cried to the
scanty relics of his crew, 'Overboard, now, all Bui's lads!'
Yes, I remember all about thee, and how at eight of every morn
we were all gathered together with one accord in the long hall,
from which, after the litanies had been read, (for so I will
call them, being an Episcopalian,) the five classes from the
five sets of benches trotted off in long files, one boy after
the other, up the five spiral staircases of stone, each class
to its destination; and well do I remember how we of the third
sat hushed and still, watched by the eye of the dux, until the
door opened, and in walked that model of a good Scotchman, the
shrewd, intelligent, but warm-hearted and kind dominie, the
respectable Carson."
Generally we abominate apostrophes; but this is not so bad. We are
glad to observe a tribute, even lightly paid, from an old pupil to
the merits of that excellent and thoroughly learned man, Dr Carson,
whose memory is still green amongst us, and on that subject we shall
say nothing farther. But old Bowie! ye gods! how he would have stared
at the magnificent pedigree chalked out for him by the enthusiastic
Borrow! Little did the worthy janitor think, when exchanging squares of
"lick" or "gib,"--condiments for the manufacture of which the excellent
man was renowned--for the coppers of the urchins in high-lows, that in
future years, after he was borne to his honoured rest in the Canongate
churchyard, the "gyte," or rather "cowley," whose jaws he had seen so
often aggluminated together by the adhesive force of his saccharine
preparations, should proclaim his descent from one of the starkest
of the Norse Berserkars! Great is the power of gib--irresistible the
reminiscence of lick! We remember no instance of gratitude like to
this, except, indeed, Sir Epicure Mammon's gratuitous offer to his
cook, of knighthood in return for the preparation of a dish of sow's
teats,
"Dressed with a delicate and poignant sauce!"
But enough of old Bowie, the representative of the Jomsborg Vikings!
During his residence in Edinburgh, Master Borrow became acquainted
with a young man, who afterwards attained considerable though unenvied
notoriety. He appears to have been tolerably hand-in-glove with David
Haggart, and to have fought side by side with him in sundry "bickers,"
which at that time were prevalent on the salubrious margin of the Nor'
Loch. We never enjoyed the advantage of an interview with David, and
consequently cannot speak to the accuracy of Mr Borrow's portrait of
him; but we are not in the least surprised at the almost affectionate
terms which our author uses in regard to the grand evader of the
Tolbooths; having been assured by several of our legal friends, who
knew him well, that he was a person of considerable accomplishment
and rather fascinating manners, a little eccentric perhaps in his
habits, but decidedly a favourite with the bar. Some of our readers
may possibly think that Mr Borrow's comparative estimate of the merits
of Tamerlane and Haggart is slightly overwrought; and that his early
prepossessions in favour of David may have led him to exalt that
personage unduly. The bias, however is pardonable; and, sooth to
say, were it not for the Dumfries murder, which was a bad business,
we also should be inclined to rank Haggart rather high in the scale
of criminals. He is still regarded as the Achilles of the Caledonian
cracksmen, and legends of his daring, prowess, and ingenuity, are even
yet current in the northern jails. During the literary epidemic which
raged in this country some ten years back, occasioning such a demand
for tales of robbery and assault, we remember to have received a MS.
drama, in which Haggart was honourably mentioned. In that play, a
prejudiced and narrow-minded burglar expressed his conviction that
"There never yet was cracksman worth a curse,
But he was English bred from top to toe!"
To which injurious assertion Ephraim the resetter, a more diligent
student of history than his customer, thus replied--
"All honour to the brave, whate'er their birth!
I question not the greatness of the soil
That bred Dick Turpin, and the wondrous boy
Sheppard, whom iron bars could ne'er contain;
Yet other lands can boast their heroes too:
Keen David Haggart was of Scottish blood,
Left-handed Morgan was a Welshman born,
And kindred France claims honour for her own,
That young Iulus of the road, Duval!"
We hardly know which most to applaud--the total freedom from prejudice,
or the poetry of this exquisite passage.
We have not space to insert a dialogue touching the merits of Sir
William Wallace held between the two promising youths, Borrow and
Haggart, in the airy vicinity of the "kittle nine-steps." Suffice it
to say, that the former uttered such heterodox opinions regarding the
great deliverer of Scotland, that Haggart threatened to pitch him
over; and if he should ever chance to revisit Edinburgh, and drop
into the studio of our friend Patric Park, who has just completed his
magnificent and classic model of Wallace--a work which would confer
honour upon any age or country--we would earnestly caution him,
for his own sake, to avoid a repetition of the offence. The scene
is then transferred to Ireland, and we have some rough-riding and
horse-taming, with a glimpse of a rapparee; all which is exceedingly
commonplace. Back again to England goes young Borrow, and at a
horse-fair he encounters his old acquaintance Jasper Petulengro, now
fairly installed and acknowledged as the reigning Pharaoh, his father
and mother having been "bitchadey pawdel." This, in the Rommany or
gipsy tongue, corresponds to, the emphatic term of "herring-ponded," by
which facetious malefactors are wont to indicate the compulsory voyages
of their friends. Mr Borrow is always great upon the subject of the
gipsies, who, in fact, constitute nine-tenths of his stock in trade;
and, if we are to believe him, such lapses as popular song attributes
to a former Countess of Cassilis are by no means unusual at the present
day. Here is a sketch of a fascinating horse-stealer.
"'And that tall handsome man on the hill, whom you whispered? I
suppose he's one of ye. What is his name?'
'Tawno Chikno,' said Jasper, 'which means the Small One; we
call him such because he is the biggest man of all our nation.
You say he is handsome; that is not the word, brother; he's the
beauty of the world. Women run wild at the sight of Tawno. An
earl's daughter, near London--a fine young lady with diamonds
round her neck--fell in love with Tawno. I have seen that lass
on a heath, as this may be, kneel down to Tawno, clasp his
feet, begging to be his wife--or anything else--if she might go
with him. But Tawno would have nothing to do with her.'"
A shrewd, sensible, and well-behaved fellow, this Tawno, in so far at
least as the ladies are concerned. When a horse was to be picked up on
the sly, he does not seem to have been so particular. The gipsies being
encamped near the town where the author was then residing, an intimacy
is struck up between them; Mr Borrow takes lessons in Rommany from the
respectable Jasper, very much to the disgust of his mother-in-law, a
certain Mrs Herne, who "comes of the hairy ones," and who ultimately
secedes from the kraal, rather than receive the stranger into the
tribe. The others entertain no such scruples.