twenty of various sizes are preserved in the Vatican. The Cartoons, it
may be inferred, were equally numerous, but seven only, now fit Hampton
Court, remain entire. A portion of another was bequeathed by the late
Prince Hoare to the Foundling Hospital, where it is now to be seen.
These works owed their existence to the Pope’s love of magnificence
rather than to a true taste for art; but although destined for a merely
ornamental purpose, some of the designs are among the very finest of
Raphael’s inventions, and a few may have been, at least in part,
executed by his hand. The Ananias, the Charge to Peter, the Paul and
Barnabas at Lystra, and the Paul preaching at Athens, are generally
considered to have the greatest pretensions to this additional interest.
The fine portrait of Leo with the Cardinals de’ Medici and de’ Rossi
completes the list of larger works undertaken for the Pope, but the many
designs by Raphael from classical or mythological subjects may be
supposed to have been also made at the suggestion of the pontiff. In
obedience to his wishes, Raphael undertook the inspection of the ancient
Roman monuments, and superintended the improvements of St. Peter’s.
Among the numerous and extensive works done for other employers may be
mentioned the Sybils in the Chiesa della Pace, the frescoes from
Apuleius’s story of Cupid and Psyche in the palace of Agostino Chigi,
called the Farnesina, where the so-called Galatea was the beginning of
another Cyclus from the same fable, the Madonna del Pesce, the Madonna
di S. Sisto, and the Spasimo di Sicilia. Many a palace in the
neighbourhood of Rome still exhibits remains of frescoes for which
Raphael at least furnished the designs; and his own Casino, near the
more modern Villa Borghese, may retain traces of his hand, but it is now
fast falling to decay. A long list of portraits might be added to the
above works, together with many interesting designs in architecture, and
even some productions in sculpture. In reviewing the amazing number of
works attributed to Raphael, it must not however be forgotten that many
are his only in the invention, and some pictures that bear his name may
have been even designed as well as finished by his imitators. The
Flemish copies of Raphael are frequent, and are to be detected, among
other indications, by their extreme smoothness; the contemporary
imitations, especially those of the earlier style of the master, by
Domenico Alfani and Vincenzo di S. Geminiano, are much less easily
distinguished. The question respecting the Urbino earthenware may be
considered to have been set at rest by Passeri (Storia delle pitture in
Maiolica di Pesaro e di altri luoghi della Provincia Metaurense). From
this inquiry, it appears, first, that the art of painting this ware had
not arrived at perfection till twenty years after Raphael’s death: and
secondly, that about that time Guid’ Ubaldo II. (della Rovere) collected
engravings after Raphael, and even original designs by him, and had them
copied in the Urbino manufactory. Battista Franco at one time
superintended the execution, and one of the artists was called Raffaello
del Colle; his name may perhaps occasionally be inscribed on the Urbino
ware, but the initials O. F. (Orazio Fontana) are the most frequent.
The Transfiguration was the last oil picture of importance on which
Raphael was employed; it was unfinished at his death, and was afterwards
completed, together with various other works, by his scholars. The last
and worst misstatement of Vasari cannot be passed over, for
unfortunately, none of the biographer’s mistakes have been oftener
repeated than that which ascribes the death of this great man to the
indulgence of his passion for the Fornarina. Cardinal Antonelli was in
possession of an original document, first published by Cancellieri,
which assigns a different, and a much more probable, cause for Raphael’s
death; it thus concludes,—“Life in him (Raphael) seemed to inform a most
fragile bodily structure, for he was all mind; and moreover, his
physical forces were much impaired by the extraordinary exertions he had
gone through, and which it is wonderful to think he could have made in
so short a life. Being then in a very delicate state of health, he
received orders one day while at the Farnesina to repair to the court;
not to lose time, he ran all the way to the Vatican, and arrived there
heated and breathless; there the sudden chill of the vast rooms, where
he was obliged to stand long consulting on the alterations of St.
Peter’s, checked the perspiration, and he was presently seized with an
indisposition. On his return home, he was attacked with a fever, which
ended in his death.” Raphael was born and died on Good Friday. Some of
his biographers have hence, through an oversight, asserted that he lived
exactly thirty-seven years. He was born March 28, 1483, and died April
6, 1520. He was buried in the Pantheon, now the church of Sta. Maria ad
Martyres, in a niche or chapel which he had himself endowed. His remains
have been lately found there.
Quatremère de Quincy’s ‘Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Rafael,
etc. Paris, 1824,’ has been improved and superseded by the notes to the
Italian translation of Longhena, Milan, 1829. Pungileoni, the author of
the ‘Elogio Storico di Giovanni Santi, Urbino, 1822,’ has been long
employed in preparing a life of Raphael. The observations of Rumohr, in
the third volume of his ‘Italienische Forschungen, Berlin, 1831,’ are
original and valuable. A few interesting facts will be found in Fea’s
‘Notizie intorno Raffaele Sanzio, Rome 1822.’ The author, however, fails
to prove the regularity of Leo’s payments to Raphael, since the latest
document concerning the frescoes in the _Stanze_ has the date 1514.
The engraving is from a miniature after the portrait by Raphael himself,
in his first manner, cut from the stucco of a wall at Urbino, which
forms the chief attraction of the Camera di’ ritratti at Florence. The
head engraved by Morghen, and so generally known, represents the
features of Bindo Altoviti, which do not even resemble in a single point
those of Raphael. The notion arose solely from a passage in Vasari’s
Lives:—‘_E a Bindo Altoviti fece il ritratto suo_;’ for Bindo Altoviti
he did his portrait (not _his own_): these words were distorted by the
Editor Bottari in a marginal note; but the error has been decisively
exposed by Missirini and others, whose account is every where received
in Italy. Nor does it appear that the Tuscans in general fell into the
mistake, for the portrait now given, and not, as Bottari asserts, the
Altoviti portrait, is engraved in the _Museum Florentinum_.
[Illustration: [Death of Ananias.]]
[Illustration]
KNOX.
John Knox was born in East Lothian, in 1505, probably at the village of
Gifford, but, according to some accounts, at the small town of
Haddington, in the grammar-school of which he received the rudiments of
his education. His parents were of humble rank, but sufficiently removed
from want to support their son at the University of St. Andrew’s, which
Knox entered about the year 1524. He passed with credit through his
academical course, and took orders at the age of twenty-five, if not
sooner. In his theological reading, he was led by curiosity to examine
the works of ancient authors quoted by the scholastic divines. These
gave him new views of religion, and led him on to the perusal of the
scriptures themselves. The change in his opinions appears to have
commenced about 1535. It led him to recommend to others, as well as to
practise, a more rational course of study than that prescribed by the
ancient usage of the University. This innovation brought him under
suspicion of being attached to the principles of the Reformation, which
was making secret progress in Scotland: and, having ventured to censure
the corruptions which prevailed in the Church, he found it expedient to
quit St. Andrew’s in 1542, and return to the south of Scotland, where he
openly avowed his adherence to the Reformed doctrines.
[Illustration:
_Engraved by B. Holl._
JOHN KNOX.
_From a Picture in the possession of Lord Somerville._
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]
Having cut himself off from the emoluments of the Established Church,
Knox engaged as tutor in the family of Douglas of Langniddrie, a
gentleman of East Lothian. As a man of known ability, and as a priest,
he was especially obnoxious to the hierarchy; and it is said that
Archbishop Beatoun sought his life by private assassination, as well as
openly under colour of the law. At Easter, 1547, Knox, with many other
Protestants, took refuge in the castle of St. Andrew’s, which was seized
and held, after the archbishop’s murder, by the band of conspirators who
had done the deed. He here continued his usual course of instruction to
his pupils, combined with public reading and explanation of the
scriptures to those who sought his assistance. His talents pointed him
out as a fitting person for the ministry; but he was very reluctant to
devote himself to that important charge, and was only induced to do so,
after a severe internal struggle, by a solemn call from the minister and
the assembled congregation. He distinguished himself during his short
abode at St. Andrew’s by zeal, boldness, and success in preaching. But
in the following July the castle surrendered; and, by a scandalous
violation of the articles of capitulation, the garrison were made
prisoners of war, and subjected to great and unusual ill-treatment.
Knox, with many others, was placed in a French galley, and compelled to
labour like a slave at the oar. His health was greatly injured by the
hardships which he underwent in that worst of prisons; but his spirit
rose triumphant over suffering. During this period he committed to
writing an abstract of the doctrines which he had preached, which he
found means to convey to his friends in Scotland, with an earnest
exhortation to persevere in the faith through persecution and trial. He
obtained liberty in February, 1549, but by what means is not precisely
known.
At that time, under the direction of Cranmer, and with the zealous
concurrence of the young King Edward VI., the Reformation in England was
advancing with rapid pace. Knox repaired thither, as to the safest
harbour; and in the dearth of able and earnest preachers which then
existed, he found at once a welcome and active employment. The north was
appointed to be the scene of his usefulness, and he continued to preach
there, living chiefly at Berwick and Newcastle, till the end of 1552. He
was then summoned to London, to appear before the Privy Council on a
frivolous charge, of which he was honourably acquitted. The King was
anxious to secure his services to the English Church, and caused the
living of All Hallows, in London, and even a bishopric, to be offered
him. But Knox had conscientious scruples to some points of the English
establishment. He continued, however, to preach, itinerating through the
country, until, after the accession of Mary, the exercise of the
Protestant religion was forbidden by act of parliament, December 20,
1553. Shortly afterwards he yielded to the importunity of his friends,
and consulted his own safety by retiring to France. Previous to his
departure, he solemnised his marriage with Miss Bowes, a Yorkshire lady
of good family, to whom he had been some time engaged.
Knox took up his abode in the first instance at Dieppe, but he soon went
to Geneva, and there made acquaintance with Calvin, whom he loved and
venerated, and followed more closely than any others of the fathers of
the Reformation in his views both of doctrine and ecclesiastical
discipline. Towards the close of 1554 he was invited by a congregation
of English exiles resident at Frankfort to become one of their pastors.
Internal discords, chiefly concerning the ritual and matters of
ceremonial observance, in which, notwithstanding the severe and
uncomplying temper usually ascribed to him, no blame seems justly due to
Knox, soon forced him to quit this charge, and he returned to Geneva;
where he spent more than a year in a learned leisure, peculiarly
grateful to him after the troubled life which he had led so long. But in
August, 1555, moved by the favourable aspect of the time, and by the
entreaties of his family, from whom he had now been separated near two
years, he returned to Scotland, and was surprised and rejoiced at the
extraordinary avidity with which his preaching was attended. He visited
various districts, both north and south, and won over two noblemen, who
became eminent supporters of the Reformation, the heir-apparent of the
earldom of Argyle, and Lord James Stuart, afterwards Earl of Murray. But
in the middle of these successful labours he received a call from an
English congregation at Geneva to become their pastor; and he appears to
have felt it a duty to comply with their request. It would seem more
consonant to his character to have remained in Scotland, to watch over
the seed which he had sown, and that his own country had the most
pressing claim upon his services. But the whole tenor of his life
warrants the belief that he was actuated by no unworthy or selfish
motives; and in the absence of definite information, some insight into
the nature of his feelings may probably be gained from a letter
addressed to some friends in Edinburgh, in March, 1557. “Assure of that,
that whenever a greater number among you shall call upon me than now
hath bound me to serve them, by His grace it shall not be the fear of
punishment, neither yet of the death temporal, that shall impede my
coming to you.” He quitted Scotland in July, 1556.
During this absence Knox maintained a frequent correspondence with his
brethren in Scotland, and both by exhortation and by his advice upon
difficult questions submitted to his judgment, was still of material
service in keeping alive their spirit. Two of his works composed during
this period require mention; his share in the English translation of the
Scriptures, commonly called the ‘Geneva Bible,’ and the ‘Blast of the
Trumpet against the monstrous Regimen of Women,’ a treatise expressly
directed against the government of Mary of England, but containing a
bold and unqualified enunciation of the principle, that to admit a woman
to sovereignty is contrary to nature, justice, and the revealed will of
God. In January, 1559, at the invitation of the leading persons of the
Protestant congregation, he again returned to Scotland. Matters at this
time were drawing to a crisis. The Queen Regent, after temporising while
the support of a large and powerful party was essential to her, had
thrown off disguise, and openly avowed her determination to use force
for the suppression of heresy: while the leading Protestants avowed as
plainly their resolution of protecting their preachers; and becoming
more and more sensible of their own increasing strength, resolved to
abolish the Roman, and set up the Reformed method of worship in those
places to which their influence or feudal power extended. St. Andrew’s
was fixed on for the commencement of the experiment; and under the
protection of the Earl of Argyle and Lord James Stuart, Prior of St.
Andrew’s, Knox, who on his landing had been proclaimed a rebel and
outlaw, undertook to preach publicly in the cathedral of that city. The
archbishop sent word that he should be fired upon if he ventured to
appear in the pulpit, and as that prelate was supported by a stronger
force than the retinue of the Protestant noblemen, they thought it best
that he should abstain at this time from thus exposing his life. Knox
remained firm to his purpose. After reminding them that he had first
preached the Gospel in that church, of the sufferings of his captivity,
and of the confident hope which he had expressed to many that he should
again perform his high mission in that same church, he besought them not
to stand in the way when Providence had brought him to the spot. The
archbishop’s proved to be an empty threat. Knox preached for four
successive days without interruption, and with such effect, that the
magistrates and the inhabitants agreed to set up the reformed worship in
their town; the monasteries were destroyed, and the churches stripped of
images and pictures. Both parties now rose in arms. During the contest
which ensued, Knox was a chief agent in conducting the correspondence
between Elizabeth and the Lords of the Congregation. The task suited
neither his profession nor his character, and he rejoiced when he was
relieved from it. In July, 1560, a treaty was concluded with the King
and Queen of France, by which the administration of the Queen Regent was
terminated; and in August a parliament was convoked, which abolished the
papal jurisdiction, prohibited the celebration of mass, and rescinded
the laws enacted against Protestant worship.
From the persecuted and endangered teacher of a proscribed religion,
Knox had now become, not indeed the head, but a leader and venerated
father of an Established Church. He was at once appointed the Protestant
minister of Edinburgh, and his influence ceased not to be felt from this
time forward in all things connected with the Church, and in many
particulars of civil policy. Still his anxieties were far from an end.
Many things threatened and impeded the infant Church. Far from
acquiescing in the recent acts of the parliament, the young King and
Queen of France were bent on putting down the rebellion, as they termed
it, in Scotland by force of arms. The death of Francis put an end to
that danger; but another, no less serious, was opened by the arrival of
Mary in August, 1561, to assume her paternal sovereignty, with a fixed
determination of reviving the supremacy of the religion in which she had
been brought up, and to which she was devotedly attached. There were
also two subjects upon which Knox felt peculiarly anxious, and in which
he was thwarted by the lukewarmness, as he considered it, of the
legislature,—the establishment of a strict and efficacious system of
church discipline, and the entire devotion of the wealth of the Catholic
priesthood to the promotion of education, and the maintenance of the
true religion. In both these points he was thwarted by the indifference
or interestedness of the nobility, who had possessed themselves, to a
large amount, of the lands and tithes formerly enjoyed by monasteries.
It soon became evident that the Queen disliked and feared Knox. She
regarded his ‘Blast against the Regimen of Women’ as an attack upon her
own right to the throne; and this is not surprising, though Knox always
declared that book to be levelled solely against the late Queen of
England, and professed his perfect readiness to submit to Mary’s
authority in all things lawful, and to wave all discussion or allusion
to the obnoxious tenet. His freedom of speech in the pulpit was another
constant source of offence; and it is not to be denied that, although
the feelings of that age warranted a greater latitude than would now be
tolerated in a teacher of religion, his energetic and severe temper led
him to use violent and indiscreet language in speaking of public men and
public things. For Mary herself he prayed in terms which, however
fitting for a minister to employ towards one of his flock whom he
regarded to be in deadly and pernicious error, a queen could hardly be
expected to endure from a subject without anger. Accordingly, he was
several times summoned to her presence, to apologise or answer for his
conduct. The narrations of these interviews are very interesting: they
show the ascendancy which he had gained over the haughty spirit of the
Queen, and at the same time exonerate him from the charge urged by her
apologists of having treated her with personal disrespect, and even
brutality. He expressed uncourtly opinions in plain and severe language;
farther than this he neither violated the courtesy due from man to
woman, nor the respect due from a subject to a superior. In addition to
the causes of offence already specified, he had remonstrated, from her
first landing, against the toleration of the mass in her own chapel. And
at a later time, he spoke so freely concerning the probable consequence
to the Reformed Church from her marrying a Papist, that in reprimanding
and remonstrating with him she burst into a passion of tears. He
remained unmoved, protesting that he saw her Majesty’s tears with
reluctance, but was constrained, since he had given her no just ground
of offence, rather to sustain her tears than to hurt his conscience, and
betray the commonwealth through his silence. This interview is one of
the things upon which Mr. Hume has sought to raise a prejudice against
the reformer in his partial account of this period.
Many of the nobility who had aided in the establishment of the
Reformation, gained over either by the fascination of Mary’s beauty and
manners, or by the still more cogent appeal of personal interest, were
far from seconding Knox’s efforts, or partaking in his apprehensions.
The Earl of Murray was so far won over to adopt a temporising and
conciliatory policy, that a quarrel ensued in 1563 between him and Knox,
which lasted for two years, until quenched, as Knox expresses it, by the
water of affliction. Maitland of Lethington, once an active Reformer, a
man of powerful and versatile talents, who was now made Secretary of
State, openly espoused the Queen’s wishes. In the summer of 1563, Knox
was involved in a charge of high treason, for having addressed a
circular to the chief Protestant gentlemen, requesting them to attend
the trial of two persons accused of having created a riot at the Queen’s
chapel. It appears that he held an especial commission from the General
Assembly to summon such meetings, when occasion seemed to him to require
them. Upon this charge of treasonably convoking the lieges, he was
brought before the privy council. Murray and Maitland were earnest to
persuade him into submission and acknowledgment of error. Knox, however,
with his usual firmness and uprightness, refused positively to confess a
fault when he was conscious of none, and defended himself with so much
power, that by the voice of a majority of the council he was declared
free of all blame.
In March, 1564, more than three years after the death of his first wife,
Knox was again married to a daughter of Lord Ochiltree, a zealous
Protestant. Throughout that year and the following, he continued to
preach as usual. Meanwhile, the Protestant establishment, though
confirmed by the parliament, remained still unrecognised by the Queen,
whose hasty marriage to Lord Henry Darnley in July, 1565, increased the
alarm with which her conduct had already inspired the Reformers. But
early in the following year, when Mary, in conjunction with her uncles
of the House of Lorrain, had planned the formal re-establishment of
Catholicism, her dissensions with her husband led to the assassination
of Rizzio, and in rapid succession to the murder of Darnley, her
marriage with Bothwell, and the train of events which ended in her
formal deposition and the coronation of her infant son James VI. It is
denied that Knox was privy to the assassination of Rizzio, and the tenor
of his actions warrants us in disbelieving that he would have been an
accomplice in any deed of blood; but after that event, he spoke of it in
terms of satisfaction, indiscreet, liable to perversion, and unbecoming
a Christian preacher. The Queen’s resentment for this and other reasons
became so warm against him, that it was judged proper for him to retire
from Edinburgh. He preached at the coronation of James VI. After Mary
was made prisoner and confined at Lochleven, he, in common with most of
the ministers and the great body of the people, insisted strongly on the
duty of bringing her to trial for the crimes of murder and adultery, and
of inflicting capital punishment if her guilt were proved.
During the short regency of Murray, Knox had the satisfaction, not only
of being freed from the personal disquietudes which had been his portion
almost through life, but of seeing the interests of the Church, if not
maintained to the full extent which he could wish, at least treated with
respect, and advocated as far as the crooked course of state-policy
would permit. The murder of that distinguished nobleman, January 23,
1570, affected Knox doubly, as the premature decease of a loved and
esteemed friend, and as a public calamity to church and state.