Ignatius acquired the confidence of Peter Ortiz, a distinguished
Spaniard, employed by Charles V. to sustain at the Holy See the validity
of the marriage of Catharine of Arragon with Henry VIII. Ortiz presented
him to Paul III., who approved his doctrine and encouraged his project.
Howbeit, his departure for the Holy Land was prevented by the Turkish
war, which at that moment broke out; and at the end of 1537 he assembled
his companions, now increased to nine, at Vicenza, and persuaded them,
that, as the approach to Palestine was closed, it only remained for them
to fulfil the other part of their vow, and offer their devoted services
to the Pope. Accordingly, Ignatius, with two others, returned to Rome
for that purpose. The rest dispersed themselves among the principal
academies of Italy, to gain proselytes. All bound themselves to the
observance of certain distinctive rules and practices; and to any
interrogatories which might be put to them respecting the Order to which
they belonged, Ignatius instructed them to reply, that they were members
of the Company of Jesus.
The encouragement which he received at Rome induced him to take further
measures for the establishment and enlargement of his new Order. He
presently recalled his missionaries, and collected them about him at
Rome. During their residence at Venice they had taken the two vows of
poverty and chastity; they now added that of obedience, and decided to
elect a General with absolute power. They next determined to undertake a
fourth and peculiar obligation—one, to which they had indeed already
engaged themselves in the chapel of Montmartre, but which they had not
yet proclaimed to the world—that of doing, without aid or recompense,
any errand on which the Pope, as Vicar of Christ, might think fit to
send them. Loyola then applied to Paul III. for the confirmation of his
Order. Some obstacles arose, which were gradually removed. A charge of
heresy, founded chiefly on his early persecutions at Alcala and
Salamanca, was advanced with great clamour against him and his
companions; but a judicial inquiry, by confirming their innocence,
increased their reputation. An influential Cardinal earnestly opposed
the establishment of the new Order. But his objections were finally
overcome, and, September 27, 1540, the Pope issued his bull to sanction
the institution of Ignatius. The number of his disciples was still
confined to nine. Three of these were then absent from Italy,—Xavier and
Rodriguez on a mission to India, Le Fevre at the Diet of Worms; so that
on the day appointed for the election of a general, six only assembled,
together with Loyola. He was chosen unanimously: but he affected great
sorrow at this decision, and only accepted the honour, after it had been
pressed upon him by a second assembly, and urged by the authoritative
command of his confessor. The ceremonies of profession were performed in
the Church of St. Paul, April 22, 1541; and while Ignatius made his vow
of especial obedience directly to the Pope, the vows of the others
professed were tendered exclusively to their General.
The Pope immediately availed himself of the services thus offered him,
and sent the six disciples on various missions into different parts of
Europe. Ignatius alone remained at Rome, and employed himself in offices
of piety. He lectured publicly on religious subjects; he discharged many
duties of humanity and charity; he took measures for the conversion of
the Jews at Rome; he established a penitentiary for women reclaimed from
sin; he founded an asylum for orphans; and the leisure which he could
spare from these holy works, he devoted to composing the Constitutions
of his Order.
These were founded on the principle of uniting spiritual meditation with
active habits of practical piety; so that, while, on the one hand, he
enjoined mental prayer, frequent self-examination, and religious
retirement; on the other, he engaged his disciples to use every exertion
for the instruction and sanctification of the rest of mankind. He
commanded them to be perpetually exercised in preaching and missions, in
the conversion of infidels and heretics, in the inspection of prisons
and hospitals, in the direction of consciences, and the instruction of
youth. To this end, he discouraged every severity of mortification, and
all superfluity both in their public and private devotions. He
prohibited the possession of property by any of his establishments,
except colleges, which he permitted to be endowed for the advantage of
necessitous students; and he closed, as far as he was able, all the
various sources of ecclesiastical emolument. Similar professions of
disinterested devotion and perfect self-denial had laid the foundations
of the enormous wealth, power, and luxury of more ancient Orders; and if
Ignatius had been actuated by ambition, he could have devised no better
means of raising his society to affluence and importance, than by laying
the same snare for the credulity of mankind.
In this mere sketch of the life of Loyola, it would be absurd to attempt
any account of the internal constitution of his Order, of the particular
laws by which it was regulated, of the gradual development of its
principles, and the general evils which flowed from them. It is enough
to give some faint notion of its earliest progress. Six years after the
confirmation of the Order of Jesuits, a college was opened to them in
Spain (it was the first of these establishments), by Francis Borgia,
Duke of Gandia, and endowed with the same privileges as those of Alcala
and Salamanca. Its statutes were composed by Loyola. In the same year,
to give some pledge for the sincerity of his vow of self-denial, and to
secure his followers against one of the commonest temptations of
ambition, he prevailed upon the Pope to exclude them and their
successors, by a perpetual edict, from the possession of bishoprics,
abbeys, and every description of benefice. This restriction not only
stamped them with a peculiar character, and recommended them to popular
favour as singular instances of self-devotion, but also left them, for
the furtherance of the especial objects of the society, the leisure,
talents, and industry which might otherwise have been employed in the
pursuit of ecclesiastical dignities, or the performance of pastoral
duties. But it was not faithfully observed, even during the lifetime of
Ignatius.
The Spiritual Exercises, the great work of the founder of the Jesuits,
is asserted to have been composed by him, aided by the inspiration of
the Holy Virgin, very soon after his return from Jerusalem. His capacity
for such a composition, at that period of his life, has been disputed by
many, and various doubts have been thrown on its genuineness. Howbeit,
the book passed for his during the infancy of the society, and in 1548
the Archbishop of Toledo took great pains to suppress it. Loyola turned
this attempt into an advantage to himself. He caused the merits of the
work to be strongly represented to Paul III., and obtained a bull in
praise and confirmation of all contained in it. Thus recommended by the
apostolical authority to the meditations of the faithful, it attracted
more general attention on its author, and on the institution which he
had founded.
After the first step had been taken, the progress of the Company of
Jesus surpassed in rapidity all that is recorded of the infancy of the
older establishments. It was scarcely planted in Spain before it spread
to Ferrara, and other parts of Italy. In 1548 it got footing at Messina
and Palermo. In 1550 it was introduced into Bavaria; and in the same
year it was still further confirmed by a bull of Julius III., and
enriched, as it had previously been, by abundant benefactions from the
apostolic treasury. Two years afterwards, it founded a Germanic college
at Rome, and by this time it could boast of similar institutions in many
of the most civilized cities of Europe. And not in Europe only: its
missionaries had already penetrated into India, Africa, and America. In
the year 1553 they presented themselves in Cyprus, at Constantinople,
and Jerusalem, and were carried by the same impulse into Abyssinia and
China. France alone avowed her suspicion of their principles, and
refused them admission: nor were the utmost endeavours of Loyola himself
able to achieve this object. Howbeit, the perseverance of his followers,
supported by their general success, succeeded even there, and in
February, 1564, they opened their celebrated college in the Rue St.
Jacques at Paris.
Cheered by this sudden and most rapid prosperity, Loyola, whom his
disciples represent as the only spring of all the movements of the
Company, and the sole spirit of the mighty body which was already spread
over all the quarters of the world—whom his enemies describe as a vain,
illiterate enthusiast, without talents, without knowledge, a mere
machine in the hands of a crafty and worldly hierarchy—peaceably expired
at Rome, July 31, 1566, surrounded by his disciples, and animated (as
they relate) with the deepest feelings of piety, and gratitude to
Providence for the blessing which had been vouchsafed upon his mission.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. T. Wedgwood._
BRINDLEY.
_From a Print by R. Dunkarton 1773, after a Picture by F. Parsons._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
BRINDLEY.
Our memoir of the man who originated that system of canal navigation,
which contributed in no secondary degree to the wonderful increase of
our national wealth in the last century, is taken entirely, and in many
parts verbatim, from Dr. Kippis’s Biographia Britannica. The article
BRINDLEY in that work, communicated by Brindley’s brother-in-law, Mr.
Henshall, and his friend Mr. Bentley, appears to be the only original
account of him extant, and the source from which all later accounts have
been taken.
James Brindley was born in the parish of Wormhill in Derbyshire, in
1716. He was the son of a small freeholder, who squandered his property
in rustic dissipation, and could scarcely afford to give him even the
rudiments of education. His boyhood, therefore, was spent in rural
labour: but at the age of seventeen he left his home, to be apprenticed
to a millwright at Macclesfield. He soon exhibited an uncommon share of
mechanical ingenuity, which enabled him to excel his master in planning
and executing orders for machinery more complicated than usual, and
caused his services to be eagerly sought and highly prized by those who
had once occasion to employ him.
At a later period he went into business on his own account, and, by many
useful inventions and contrivances, established his reputation
throughout the neighbourhood as a skilful mechanic. He gradually
obtained a wider range for the exercise of his powers. In 1752 he
erected a remarkable engine to drain some coal mines at Clifton, in
Lancashire, of which the moving power was a wheel fixed thirty feet
below the surface of the earth, and driven by water drawn from the river
Irwell, by a tunnel cut for near 600 yards through the rock. In 1755 he
was employed to construct portions of the works for a silk mill at
Congleton, under the superintendence of an engineer, who proved
incompetent to the task which he had in hand. Brindley does not appear
ever to have executed machinery of the sort required, and he had not
even been permitted to see the general model of the mill: but on the
incompetency of his superior being discovered, he came forward and told
the proprietors, that if they would let him know what was the effect
they wished to have produced, and would permit him to perform the
business in his own way, he would finish the mill to their satisfaction.
The knowledge which they had of his ability and integrity induced them
to repose confidence in this assurance; he accomplished that very
curious and complex piece of machinery, in a manner far superior to the
expectations of his employers, and with the addition of several new and
useful contrivances. He also invented machines for making tooth and
pinion wheels, which hitherto had been cut by hand, and with great
labour.
Many other improvements Brindley introduced into the mechanical arts.
But about this time his thoughts were drawn towards a larger sphere of
action by the resolution of Francis Duke of Bridgewater to cut a canal
from his coal mines at Worsley to the town of Manchester, distant about
seven miles. This scheme is said to have been before conceived by one of
that nobleman’s predecessors: but that circumstance does not detract
from the honour due to the great perseverance and resolution displayed
in the execution of his plan. Divesting himself of the splendour which
usually belongs to his rank, he devoted his large revenue almost
entirely to his favourite undertaking: resisting the temptation to
borrow money, lest he should involve himself and his successors in
irremediable difficulties, in case of the failure of an undertaking
which, from its novelty, no man living could assert to be certain of
success. At the same time having selected Brindley as his engineer, on
good experience of his skill and talent, he placed a noble confidence in
him; and, without fear or distrust, devoted his energy and fortune to
work out the magnificent design which the genius of his coadjutor had
planned. As the difficulties to be overcome were very great, so there
was little experience to guide the projectors. Navigable rivers indeed
had been improved, and those which were not navigable by nature had been
made so by pounding up their waters with locks and dams: but of canals,
properly so called, this was the first constructed in England. That it
might be perfect in its kind, it was resolved to preserve a level, and
avoid locks altogether: but to effect this obstacles were to be
overcome, such as never had been surmounted in England,—obstacles which
had always been considered insurmountable. Navigable tunnels were to be
cut, long and large mounds to be carried across valleys, and in the line
which finally was adopted, an aqueduct bridge of three arches, nearly
fifty feet in height, and including the embankments on each side, five
hundred yards in length, was to be carried over the river Irwell. This
part of the scheme being generally considered wild and extravagant,
Brindley, to justify himself to his employer, desired that the opinion
of another engineer might be taken. This was accordingly done: but the
second, on being conducted to the spot where it was intended that the
aqueduct should be made, exclaimed, “I have often heard of castles in
the air, but never before was shown the place where any of them were to
be erected.” But the Duke of Bridgewater’s confidence in Brindley was
not to be shaken, and the bridge was undertaken and finished within less
than a year.
It is needless now to give the details of works which, though they
excited the wonder of contemporaries, have been far surpassed in
magnitude by more recent undertakings. One feature in the Duke of
Bridgewater’s canal, however, is too remarkable to be passed over: it is
continued on the same level more than three quarters of a mile into the
heart of the hill in which the collieries are situated, so that after a
short transit in low waggons along the galleries of the mine, the coal
is deposited at once in the barges which convey it to Manchester. For a
fuller account, we may refer to Phillips’s History of Inland Navigation.
In 1762, the Duke of Bridgewater obtained an Act of Parliament, enabling
him to continue his canal from Worsley in an opposite direction to
Runcorn, in the tideway of the Mersey, so as to establish a perfect
water-way between Liverpool and Manchester, unembarrassed by the
constant current, and inequalities of flood and drought, which impeded
the navigation of the Irwell. In this part of the line several deep
valleys, especially those of the rivers Mersey and Bollin, were to be
crossed, and this was done without the assistance of a single lock.
Brindley’s method of constructing the long embankments, which occurred
in some places, was remarkable: he built caissons along the line of its
intended course, into which boats laden with excavated soil were
conducted by the canal itself, and discharged their contents upon the
very spot where the ground was to be raised. Thus the canal, as it were,
pushed itself forward; and the labour and expense of transporting these
immense masses of earth was greatly diminished. To guard against the
total loss of water, and ruin to the surrounding country, which might
occur from a breach of these embankments, Brindley contrived stops,
which were gates so hung as to lie horizontally near the bottom when the
water was at rest, but to rise and close when any current should be
produced by the banks giving way, and thus prevent the escape of any
water, except that portion near the breach which should be comprised
between them. It is hardly necessary to add that the result of this, the
greatest undertaking perhaps ever performed by any private person out of
his own fortune, has been the realization of an enormous income to the
peer who undertook it, and to his heirs.
This success encouraged others to proceed in the same course; and in
1765 a subscription was raised, and an Act of Parliament procured, for
uniting the rivers Mersey and Trent, and consequently the ports of
Liverpool and Hull, by what is commonly called the Grand Trunk Canal.
Brindley bestowed this name upon it, in the expectation that, traversing
a large and important portion of our manufacturing district, it would be
the main trunk, from which a number of minor branches would spring. The
scheme had been projected so early as 1755, and the ground surveyed,
which for the most part offered little difficulty. But there was one
line of high ground, called Harecastle Hill, which could neither be
turned nor surmounted by any expedient that former engineers could
devise. Brindley overcame the obstacle by driving a tunnel through it,
upwards of a mile and five furlongs in length, and in some parts seventy
yards below the surface of the ground. This canal, which is ninety-three
miles long, was begun in 1766, and finished in May, 1777, less than
eleven years after its commencement. In connexion with it, Brindley
planned and executed a branch which joined the Severn, and thus gave
Bristol an inland navigation to Hull, Liverpool, and Manchester.
Some notion may be formed of the impulse which Brindley’s energy and
skill gave to the system of internal navigation, when it is stated that
during the few years which elapsed between the completion of the
Bridgewater Canal, and his death in 1772, he was engaged in at least
eighteen different projects for cutting canals, or for improving rivers,
without including those we have already mentioned. The mere names of
these would be matter of little interest; they may be seen in the
Biographia Britannica. Nor shall we now be expected to dwell on the
unprecedented increase of trade and manufactures during the last
century, and to point out how closely this is connected with our great
facilities of internal communication. One thing, however, is too
remarkable to be passed over: it was as nearly as possible at the same
time that Watt, Arkwright, and Brindley, were effecting, each in his own
department, those wonderful improvements in mechanical science, which
conjointly have given such vast extent and importance to all branches of
our manufactures, and which singly would have been, as it were, each of
them crippled and imperfect. Of Brindley’s private history, scarcely any
particulars are preserved. The following account of his character is
stated by Dr. Kippis to proceed from the pen of Mr. Bentley, a partner
in the celebrated house of Wedgwood, who knew him well:—
“When any extraordinary difficulty occurred to Mr. Brindley in the
execution of his works, having little or no assistance from books, or
the labours of other men, his resources lay within himself. In order
therefore to be quiet and uninterrupted, whilst he was in search of the
necessary expedients, he generally retired to his bed; and he has been
known to lie there one, two, or three days, till he had attained the
object in view. He then would get up, and execute his design without any
drawing or model. Indeed, it never was his custom to make either, unless
he was obliged to do it to satisfy his employers. His memory was so
remarkable, that he has often declared that he could remember and
execute all the parts of the most complex machine, provided he had time,
in his survey of it, to settle in his mind the several departments, and
their relation to each other. His method of calculating the powers of
any machine invented by him was peculiar to himself. He worked the
question for some time in his head, and then put down the results in
figures; after this, taking it up again in that stage, he worked it
further in his mind for a certain time, and set down the results as
before. In the same way, he still proceeded, making use of figures only
at stated periods of the question. Yet the ultimate result was generally
true, though the road he travelled in search of it was unknown to all
but himself; and, perhaps, it would not have been in his power to have
shown it to another.
“The attention which was paid by Mr. Brindley to objects of peculiar
magnitude did not permit him to indulge himself in the common diversions
of life. Indeed, he had not the least relish for the amusements to which
mankind in general are so much devoted. He never seemed in his element,
if he was not either planning or executing some great work, or
conversing with his friends upon subjects of importance. He was once
prevailed upon, when in London, to see a play. Having never been at an
entertainment of this kind before, it had a powerful effect upon him,
and he complained for several days afterwards, that it had disturbed his
ideas, and rendered him unfit for business. He declared, therefore, that
he would not go to another play upon any account. It might, however,
have contributed to the longer duration of Mr. Brindley’s life, and
consequently to the further benefit of the public, if he could have
occasionally relaxed the tone of his mind. His not being able to do so,
might not solely arise from the vigour of his genius, always bent upon
capital designs; but be, in part, the result of that total want of
education, which, while it might add strength to his powers in the
particular way in which they were exerted, precluded him, at the same
time, from those agreeable reliefs that are administered by
miscellaneous reading, and a taste in the polite and elegant arts. The
only fault he was observed to fall into, was his suffering himself to be
prevailed upon to engage in more concerns than could be completely
attended to by any single man, how eminent soever might be his abilities
and diligence. It is apprehended that, by this means, Mr. Brindley
shortened his days, and in a certain degree abridged his usefulness.
There is, at least, the utmost reason to believe, that his intense
application in general to the important undertakings he had in hand
brought on a hectic fever, which continued upon him, with little or no
intermission, for some years, and at length terminated his life. He died
at Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, on the 27th of September, 1772, in the
fifty-sixth year of his age, and was buried at New Chapel in the same
county. The vast works Mr. Brindley was engaged in at the time of his
death, he left to be carried on and completed by his brother-in-law Mr.
Henshall, for whom he had a peculiar regard, and of whose integrity and
abilities in conducting these works he had the highest opinion.