Experience gives the particular facts, and, by the aid of the

principle of causality, we determine by way of induction their laws;

that is, by means of particular facts we determine the general notions

hitherto confused and vaguely perceived [that is, refer them to their

respective genera or species.---TRANSLATOR.] The positivists, then,

who recognize no principle [of causality, and deny all general notions

or notions of the general prior to the particular facts.--TRANSLATOR.]

can make no induction, and have no scientific basis, no logical nexus

for their theories, and are left to the caprices of their own

imagination. Imagination, and imagination alone, is the new method

they employ.

The human mind, according to the positivists, is radically incapable

of knowing causes, and if it attempts to know them it exhausts itself

with fruitless efforts. This is wherefore they treat as illusions all

the causes which philosophers assign to phenomena. They deny the

metaphysical being, God as cause; yet they substitute the metaphysical

being humanity, and not content with affirming it, they even define

it, both as principle and cause, to be a great collective beings--

living a life of its own, and advancing continually through the ages

from progress to progress, and from whom all individual existences

proceed as their beginning, and to whom they all return as their end.

Nor is this all. After having defined this metaphysical being, they

explain it, and pretend to know what it has been, what it is, and what

it will be--they, who declare that Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine,

St. Thomas, Des Cartes, and Leibnitz have done nothing, because in

attempting to penetrate the mystery of human life these master minds

broke against an insolvable problem--they, we say, do not hesitate to

raise the veil, and to give us the complete solution of the far more

formidable mystery of human destiny. They know its origin. Humanity

has begun in fetichism; M. Littré, however, has discovered, since the

death of his master, that prior to fetichism there was a state in

which man like the brute sought only to satisfy his physical wants;

but he maintains that at any rate, if fetichism was not the first it

was at least the second state of humanity. If we ask him what proofs

he has of this, he confesses that if direct facts are demanded he has

none; but he has arguments, and here is the way in which he argues:

In America and the unexplored regions of Africa savage tribes are

found who were and still are fetich worshippers, _therefore_ so was it

with all men in the beginning! Such is the positivist induction.

[Footnote 117]

[Footnote 117: How know the positivists that these savage tribes do

not represent the degenerate man, rather than the primitive man--man

cut off from communion with the central life of humanity, not man in

his first developments?--TRANSLATOR.]

Positivism continues: From fetichism humanity passed to polytheism,

and then from polytheism to monotheism. But it forgets that it is not

permitted to take the part for the whole, and if Europe became

Christian after having been pagan, it has not been the same with all

the world, for on one side we find the people Jewish, who have always

believed in the unity of God, and, on the other side, we find many

nations still remaining immersed in the darkness of idolatry. But we

must not be too exacting with the positivists. They have here really

some partial facts which they can use, though not legitimately as the

basis of an argument. [Footnote 118]

[Footnote 118: Truth is older than error, and man began not in

error, but in the truth, the sole principle of life and growth.

Monotheism preceded, historically, both fetichism and polytheism,

and the earliest and most authentic historical documents that we

have prove that all the world began by believing in and worshipping

one God. Polytheism bears evident traces of a prior religion which

asserted the unity of God, of being not a development of fetichism,

but a corruption of monotheism, as positivism bears unmistakable

traces of its being a corruption of Christianity; a conclusive

evidence that it never could have originated in a society that had

never known and believed the Christian religion.--TRANSLATOR.]

As to the future, who can doubt that humanity will be positivist? Can

any one prove the contrary? Is not the future a domain open to all,

and where each may imagine for himself the part that pleases him? And

yet, even in regard to the future, it is necessary to be circumspect.

Young as positivism is, it has had the pain of seeing more than one of

its predictions falsified by the event. In 1850 M. Littré assured us

that the race had arrived at that degree of civilization that rendered

war henceforth impossible, and that the republic was definitively

established in France. What does he think of either prediction now? He

would have obliged us if he had given us his explanations of these

predictions in his last publication. The first would, perhaps, have

embarrassed him; the second would give him less trouble, because the

destruction of the republic of 1848 by the empire accords only too

well with the positivist hostility to a really representative

government.

It is useless to press the matter further. There is in the positivist

induction no trace of a rational process, and positivism in the last

analysis is simply the product of pure imagination. Moreover, M.

Littré is so well aware of it that he has taken in advance his

precautions against all unfavorable criticism. It may say what it

pleases, he will not hear or heed it; he professes to be a positivist,

and positivist he will live and die. His decision is made. Beside, no

one who has not taken his degree of doctor in the mathematical,

astronomical, physical, and chemical sciences, understands or can

understand anything of positivism, and is incompetent to its

discussion. But if instead of opposing one is disposed to accept it,

he is very accommodating, and by no means exacts so laborious and

painful an initiation. He requires only one thing--namely, the denial

of the supernatural order. To be received into the positivist school

it is not necessary to affirm or to believe anything--simple denial

suffices.

We must in concluding make a single reference to M. Taine. As the

positivists, M. Taine denies metaphysics, all metaphysical (spiritual)

beings, God, and the human soul, and like them he substitutes for

these others of his own fashioning. From Messrs. Comte and Littré he

separates only on a single point. To the cause _humanity_ he prefers

the cause _nature_. There is no disputing about tastes. We add merely

a word on one of the fundamental maxims of M. Taine's method. The

philosopher, he says, must be in the study of science perfectly

disinterested, and even to the degree of forgetting that he is a

father, a son, a husband, a citizen. He must take account only of the

facts furnished by observation, and in no respect trouble himself

about their practical consequences. Were the facts observed to prove

that paternal love, filial respect, conjugal tenderness, and devotion

to one's country are empty words or dangerous illusions, he must not

hesitate to immolate these sentiments on the altar of reality--or

science. We do not discuss such a doctrine. The irreflection of the

author (we can suppose nothing else) is so great that we need only

indicate it. Does not M. Taine comprehend that the disinterestedness

or indifference of the philosopher must consist not in abjuring the

eternal principles of the just, the true, the good, the beautiful, and

the noblest sentiments of the human heart, but simply in silencing

within {739} him the voice of prejudice and passion, so as to leave

his understanding free and unbiased? Knows he not that to know a fact

he must study it first in himself and in its essence, and then in its

manifold applications? The chemist asserts a substance only after,

having resolved it into its elements, he has experimented on it in all

its effects; in like manner, it is not enough for the philosopher to

have studied a doctrine in its principle, he must go further, and

establish that in its applications it conforms to the laws of the

just, the true, and the beautiful. It is, in fact, this accordance

that is, all things considered, the surest test of its truth. The

moral is the counter-proof of the intellectual. M. Taine and his

school recognize, it is true, no principles anterior to facts, and

therefore want, as M. Comte avows, a type-law, a term of comparison,

which may serve as the criterion of the judgment of facts themselves;

but is there a more manifest mark of the falsity of a theory than that

it leaves the human mind without any means of determining the

significance of phenomena, without a touchstone to determine whether

the metal be gold or copper?

But it is time to close. It is assuredly a grave fact, and one that

merits more attention than it receives, that a doctrine so thoroughly

materialistic and atheistic can be produced in our age, that it can

obtain adherents, and be recognized by important and widely

influential public journals, which, without openly displaying its

flag, insinuate its principles, and strive to infuse it into the minds

of their readers. Yet this fact is nothing new. There are always

atheists in the world; even in the time of the Prophet King the

impious said: There is no God. _Non est Deus_. But we discover in the

positivist system a sign or symptom, if not graver at least more

alarming, in the manifest enfeeblement in our time of reason, and the

rational faculties of the soul, which it supposes. We know that

society is not responsible for all that is said or done in its bosom,

but we know also that people are in general treated as they deserve to

be treated, and that writers, journalists, and system-mongers, when

they believe they are addressing a community accustomed to think, to

reason, to reflect, and to render an account to themselves of what is

addressed to them, are on their guard and weigh carefully what they

say. They may assign bad reasons, but they will at least assign

reasons of some sort, and take great pains to do it, as the thing most

essential to their success. There have always been sophists, but the

sophist of former times reasoned; the sophist of to-day reasons not,

he simply imagines. Do not attempt to refute him; he will not listen

to you, for he understands not the language you speak; he denies or

affirms with assurance, with audacity, even at the command of his

passions or his caprices; he seeks not to convince, but to startle, to

astonish, and neither proves nor cares to prove anything. Things have

come to such a pass that Voltaire himself, if he could return, would

blush with shame for his children. He might still smile approvingly on

their blasphemies; his good sense would be shocked with the

incoherence and extravagance of their theories; and he would say to

them. Continue, my children, to deny, to crush _l'infame_, all that is

well, but do have the grace not to attempt to put anything in place of

what you deny. You are not equal to that, and can only render

yourselves ridiculous.

The evil is very real and very great, but it has already been

denounced by an authority so high, and with so much eloquence, that I

need not any further insist on it. I would simply add that it calls

for a prompt remedy, since the peril is great and imminent. When faith

grows weak in souls, and reason remains, there is hope; for reason

well directed leads back to faith, since human reason is the child of

the divine reason, and {740} cannot persist in denying her mother; but

when reason in her turn goes, and leaves only imagination in her

place, there is no ground of hope; and everything is to be feared, for

no means of salvation remain. Imagination is, indeed, one of the

powers and one of the grandeurs of the human mind, which it elevates

and adorns; but if it comes to predominate alone, without supporting

itself on reason, it loses its virtue and its beauty, and is proper

only to dazzle, to pervert, to bewilder and mislead. It sheds

darkness, not light, or if it emits still some gleams, it is only to

gild with a last and false splendor a dying civilization. When the

barbarians thundered at her gates, Rome still imagined, but she had

long since ceased to reason.

COUNT VICTOR DE CHALAMBERT

------

From Chambers's Journal.

PLAIN-WORK.

"Thank goodness, Lizzie! you were taught to work."

My husband is constantly repeating this sentiment to me, and I

decidedly agree with him that it is a great cause for thankfulness. I

may say, in passing, that I don't believe I should ever have married

my husband at all if I had not been able to work, for one of his very

first questions to me upon our becoming acquainted, was as to what

occupation I took most pleasure in, and upon my answering

"Plain-work," a pleased smile came over his face. From that moment, he

has since confessed to me, he made up his mind that I should be his

wife. I am now the mother of a large family, with constant demands

upon my needle, and what I should do, if I had not early acquired the

use of it, I cannot think. I made a point of teaching my own girls as

soon as ever they became old enough to handle their needles, and if

they don't all turn out good plain-workers, it certainly won't be my

fault.

I look upon occupation as the true secret of happiness, and surely

there is no occupation so well suited to a woman, whether she is the

wife of a gentleman or a laborer, as needle-work. I would encourage

the taste for it as early as possible in a girl, as I think it has

such an influence for good on her character in making her womanly and

sensible. It has also the effect of producing tidy habits, for no girl

who can thoroughly use her needle will be content to go about the

house with her frock torn or a rip in her petticoat; but, upon the

first appearance of a hole, she will sit down and carefully mend it.

When still quite young, she works for her doll; a little older, for

some poor child in the village, or her own younger brothers and

sisters. In either case, she is learning to be loving and kind, and

the habit of working for others and being useful is good for her.

You wish probably to fit your daughter for her future career in life,

and you naturally look forward to her marriage as the aim and object

of your most ardent desires. I know _I_ do with regard to my own

girls, for, being a happy and married woman myself, I cannot bear the

idea of their becoming old maids. Well, if you want her to marry, and

you desire to train her to be a good wife, teach her to work; you are

laying the foundation of much future happiness, and her husband will

bless you for it. Say she marries a man not too well off, who is

constantly engaged in his profession, and she is in consequence forced

to spend {741} many hours of her day alone. This is very trying to her

at first, fresh from a happy home and the bosom of a large family. She

turns to her needle as her companion and solace during her husband's

absence, and finds her greatest interest and pleasure in working for

him. She keeps his clothes in good repair, and he never finds his

socks in holes or his shirts minus their buttons. Very likely--and

happy I consider it for her if it is so--his wedding outfit may have

been small. In that case, she can employ herself in making him a new

set of shirts; whilst her odd moments may be profitably spent in

knitting him a set of warm socks against the coming winter. Depend

upon it, he will never find any shirts that fit him so well, or any

socks so comfortable, as those made for him by his wife during the

early days of their married life. This gives her so much occupation

during her day that she has no time to be dull or discontented. She

gladly puts away her work when she expects her husband's return, and

she meets him with a cheerful smile, being happy in her own mind and

feeling that she has been praiseworthily engaged. She is also ready to

enter into his interests and pursuits, in which she finds an agreeable

relaxation.

Then there's the coming baby to work for. What mother does not

remember the delights of working for her first baby! The care and

thought bestowed first upon purchasing the materials, then upon

cutting them out to the best advantage, followed by many months of

happy employment in making them up. The little articles, when

finished, are carefully put away in a drawer set aside for the

purpose, and bunches of lavender are placed amongst them.

The first baby is born, and others follow, and the cares of a family

come rapidly upon your child. She now feels the real use of her

needle, and she learns to thank you accordingly for the pains you took

with her. Not only can she sew well, but she knows how to cut out; and

she has such a first-rate eye, from long practice, that she can take

her patterns from the shop-windows. She makes the best use of her

powers of observation. That which makes men good soldiers, doctors,

engineers, literary men, artists, and naturalists, makes her a good

plain-worker. In her own line, she is not to be beaten. Perhaps she is

a little proud of her talent; but she uses it to good advantage, and

her husband has the comfort of seeing his children well clothed, and

of finding his bills comparatively small. Constant practice has also

given her a capital knowledge of the value of materials, and she

understands thoroughly the textures of different cotton, linen, and

woollen fabrics, so that it would be very difficult to impose upon

her.

I have taken it for granted that your daughter marries a poor man, as

poor men unfortunately predominate in this world, and it is always as

well to be prepared for the worst. But her husband may be rich or, at

all events, well enough off to render it unnecessary that his wife

should be a slave to her needle. You will still find that you have

done your girl no injury by imposing upon her the early habit of using

that instrument. You have, at all events, given her the power of

superintending her servants, and seeing that their work is properly

done; and she will not so easily be taken in by her dressmaker, or

trampled upon by her nurse, who will soon find out that "missis" knows

how to work for her own children, and will respect her accordingly.

But supposing that your daughter does not marry at all, still her

knowledge of plain-work will not be thrown away upon her. If left

poorly off, she has her own clothes to make and mend, and if not,

surely there are plenty of claims upon her. There is her more

fortunate sister, who married young, and is now a widow, with six

children on her hands--think of the comfort and use her needle may be

to them! Then her brothers are {742} most of them married with

families, and Aunt Susan's work is invaluable, If she has no brothers

or sisters, but is left entirely alone in the world, and so well off

that she does not require to work for herself, let her turn to the

poor, and give them the use of her needle; she will certainly find a

never-ending field amongst them. By the time she has worked for all

the babies in the parish, and helped the mothers about the clothes for

the elder children, she will find she has occupation enough for her

fingers to keep her mind happy and interested, and to prevent her from

dwelling upon her own loneliness. She can also spend some time

profitably in instructing the girls in the village-school how to cut

out and sew. The ignorance upon these points in some schools is

perfectly lamentable. I took a nursery-maid for my eighth baby

straight from a national school. She was a fine healthy girl of

sixteen. It will hardly be credited that she could not hold her needle

properly! She doubled it up in her hand, and pushed it into her work

in the most extraordinary manner. I tried in vain to teach her by

every means in my power, but if the knack of holding the needle is not

learned in early life, it is rarely acquired afterward. Although so

very awkward about her work, that girl had been taught to crochet

ridiculous watch-pockets, and to knit impossible babies' shoes, with

such wonderful pointed toes that no infant I ever saw could get his

feet into them. At length I was obliged to part with her on this

account, though a tidy, active girl, and satisfactory in many ways.

She is not the only case I have had in my house of ignorance on the

subject of plain-work. Some of my servants have been able to sew well

enough, but have not had the remotest idea of cutting-out and placing

their work. I have often thought, if I had only time to spare, how

much I should like to teach the rising generation the little I myself

know of the art of plain-work.

In these days of sewing-machines people think much less of needle-work

than they did formerly. I don't approve of sewing-machines myself. My

husband accuses me of being jealous of them, but in this he is unjust

to me. I don't approve of them simply because I think that the work

produced from them--though I grant that the stitches may be regular

enough--cannot be compared to good hand-work, particularly when

employed upon fine materials. I have seen machine-work in every stage,

and from the very best sewing-machines, and I never could consider it

equal to good hand-work. I feel convinced in my own mind that

sewing-machines will have their day, and that when that day is over,

plain-work done by hand will be at as high a premium again as ever.

Even pillow-lace is now gradually recovering the place it once

occupied in public estimation, and from which it was temporarily

ousted by lace produced from that unutterable abomination, the

_machine_, and which used to be called "Nottingham lace."

I acknowledge machine-work may be all very well for cloth clothes, and

useful in families where there are many boys; but my ten children are

mostly girls, and I don't at all covet a machine. My husband offers me

one periodically, and I as often refuse it. I could not bear to have

one in the house, it would be going so entirely against my own

principles.

It is most important, when a girl is learning to work, that great care

should be taken with her to prevent her from acquiring bad habits;

such habits, I mean, as clicking her needle with her thimble, pinning

her work to her knee, biting the end of her thread, and sticking her

needle into the front of her dress. These habits once gained will

probably stick to her all her life, and she will find the greatest

difficulty in overcoming them. It is therefore advisable that she

should be taught to work by her mother, rather than be left to the

instruction of servants. A {743} ladylike manner of working is

essential, and should be carefully cultivated, for work may be

executed both neatly and rapidly without the acquirement of any of

these vulgar peculiarities. A great point to be learned connected with

plain-work, and one that I consider quite indispensable, is the art of

cutting out accurately and without waste of material. Far too little

importance is attached to that branch of work, and many women go to

their graves without acquiring it, having been dependent all their

lives upon their servants or some kind friend for having their work

cut out and placed for them. When this is the case ladies are apt to

be too much under the thumb of their ladies' maids or nurses, who are

not slow to profit by their own superior knowledge, and domineer over

their mistresses accordingly.

Where there are a number of the same articles of clothing to be made,

it is advisable to cut out one garment first, being careful to take

the pattern in paper, and to complete it before cutting out the rest

of the material. By this means an opinion can be formed as to whether

it fits properly and any necessary alterations may be made. The other

articles may then be cut out all together, care being taken to pin the

separate parts together, to avoid their being mislaid or any mistakes

made. It is no doubt essential that sewing should be neatly done, but

I think this need not be achieved at the entire expense of all

rapidity of execution. It really is perfectly ludicrous to see some

women at their work. They look at each stitch when completed, and give

it a little approving pat with the top of the thimble; and at this

rate, though the neatness of the work may be undeniable, still so

little is accomplished, that it is hardly worth the trouble of doing

it at all. Method in plain-work is also highly necessary, and much

time and labor may be spared by keeping all the materials in the

proper places. If every article when done with is put away carefully,

it is sure to be forthcoming when again required. Thus, there is no

time wasted in searching for a missing reel of cotton, or hunting up a

pair of scissors. The cleanliness of the work is also thereby kept

unimpaired.

The greatest care should be taken with the pieces of broken needles,

which are too apt to be left carelessly about the floor, and which are

most dangerous, especially when there are any young children in the

house. I must confess, and I do it with shame, that there was a time

when I was not as careful as I am now. I never shall forget my

husband's indignation upon coming into my room one day, where our

second baby was crawling about on the ground, at finding a piece of a

broken needle in her hand, quite ready to put it in her mouth. I think

he was more angry with me then than he had ever been before during our

married life. It was certainly a good lesson to me, for I have been

most careful ever since, and I'll trouble him or anybody else to find

a broken needle about my carpet _now_. Waste should be carefully

avoided, both with regard to ends of cotton and pieces of material.

The scraps of the latter which are too small to be of any use, instead

of being left littered about the room, should be thrown into a

waste-basket, to be cleared by the housemaid, and the larger pieces

should be tidily put away. The time will probably come when they will

be required for some purpose or other; and if pinned up in a tight

bundle they will not occupy much space in a drawer or basket kept for

the purpose.

I trust I have not ridden my hobby to death, nor worn out the patience

of my readers, but it is a subject the importance of which I strongly

feel. It must not, however, be supposed that I advocate the

cultivation of work to the exclusion of more intellectual pursuits, or

that I wish to take the bread from the mouth of my poorer sister. I

consider a thorough {744} knowledge of the science of plain-work to be

essential to every woman, be she rich or poor, and that in it she will

always find a sphere of usefulness. It will, if cultivated, turn out

for her own benefit, and the comfort and happiness of those around

her, and surely it shall be said of her that "her children arise up,

and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."

------

THE BIRTHPLACE OF SAINT PATRICK.

BY J. CASHEL HOEY.

The question of the birthplace of St. Patrick--a question which has

been debated with considerable learning and acrimony for several

centuries--has always seemed to me to have an interest far beyond the

rival claims of clans and the jealous litigation of the antiquary. It

is interesting not merely because it is in reality a curious

archaeological problem, but also because it may in some measure afford

a clue to the character of one of the greatest saints and greatest men

of his own age or of any other--a saint who was the apostle of a

nation which he found all heathen and left all Christian; who

succeeded in planting the Catholic faith without a single act of

martyrdom, but planted it so firmly that it has never failed for now

1,400 years, though tried in what various processes of martyrdom God

and man too well know; a saint whose apostolate was the mainspring of

an endless succession of missionary enterprises, prosecuted with the

same untiring zeal in the nineteenth century as in the fifth, wherever

the vanguard of Christendom may happen to be found, whether in

Austria, in Gaul, in Switzerland, or in Iceland, as now at the

furthest confines of America and of Australasia. Add to these ordinary

evidences of the supernatural efficacy of St. Patrick's mission the

testimony which is derived from the peculiar spiritual character of

the people that he converted. The Irish nation retains the impress

which it received from the hands of St. Patrick in a way that I

believe no other Christian nation has preserved the mould of its

apostle. If that nation has never even dreamed of heresy or schism, it

is because, in terms as positive as an ultramontane of our own days

could devise, [Footnote 119] St. Patrick established the supreme

authority of the Roman Pontiff as a chief canon of the Irish Church.

Patience in poverty, an innate love of purity, prodigal alms-giving,

and mutual charities, the practice of heavy penances and of long

fasts, a peculiarly vivid sense of purgatory, and a strong devotion to

the doctrine of the Trinity, which the saint taught in the figure of

the shamrock--these have always been the distinguishing

characteristics of Irish piety. They were the peculiar characteristics

of the Christian of the fourth century, who had not yet learned to

live at peace with the world--who felt that as yet Christians were in

the strictest sense one family community--who practised mortification,

as if the untamed pagan {745} blood were still burning in his veins,

and the great temptation to whose faith was the heresy of Arius, and

the question of the relations of the three divine persons. But St.

Patrick was not only a great saint--was not merely and simply the

apostle of the Irish; he was their teacher and their lawgiver, their

Cadmus and Lycurgus as well. The school of letters which he founded in

Ireland so well preserved the learning which had become all but

extinguished throughout western Europe, that your own Alfred,

following a host of your nobles and clerics, went thither to be

taught, and the universities of Paris and Pavia owe their earliest

lights to Irish scholars. The Brehon laws, which are at last to be

published, by order of Parliament, a complete code of the most minute

and comprehensive character, were, according to the evidence of our

annalists, carefully revised and remodelled by St. Patrick, with the

consent of the different estates of the kingdom of Ireland; and there

is good reason to believe that this revision, of which there is

abundant intrinsic evidence, had reference not merely to the Christian

doctrine and the canons of the Church, but to the body of the Roman

civil law.

[Footnote 119: "Quaecunqne causa valde difficilis exorta fuerit

atque ignota cun?tis Scotorum gentis jadicils, ad cathedram

archiepiscopi Hibernensium, atque hujus antistitis examinationem

recte referenda. Si vero in illa, cum suis sapientibus, facile

sanari non poterit talis causa praedictae negotiationis, ad Sedem

Apostolicam decrevimus esse mittendam; id est, ad Petri Apostoli

cathedram, auctoritatem Romae urbis habentem." This canon of St.

Patrick is contained in the "Book of Armagh," the antiquity of which

is instanced in the text of the present paper. The canon is of a

date early in the fifth century; and it would be difficult to show

so early, so emphatic and so complete a recognition of the Papal

authority in the ecclesiastical legislation of any other national

church.]

It would throw a certain light upon the character of a saint whose

works were so various and so full of vitality, if we could arrive at

any solid conclusion as to the place of his nativity, the quality of

his parentage, and the sources of his education. The theory most

generally accepted, and which certainly has the greatest weight of

authority in its favor, is that which assumes that St. Patrick was

born in Scotland, at Dumbarton, on the Clyde--the son, as we may

suppose, of a French or British official employed in the Roman service

at that extreme outpost of their settlements in this island, where he

would have spent his youth surrounded by a perpetual clangor of

barbarous battle, amid clans of Picts and Celts swarming across the

barriers of the Lowland. The opinion that St. Patrick was a Scotchman

has the unanimous assent of all the antiquaries of Scotland; but I am

not aware that any of them has succeeded in identifying any single

locality named in the original documents with any place of sufficient

antiquity in or near Dumbarton; nor could I, in the course of a

careful examination of the district and the recognized authorities

concerning its topography, arrive at any acceptable evidence on the

subject. I have to add to the Scotch authorities and pleadings,

however, all the best of the Irish. That St. Patrick was born in

Scotland is the opinion of Colgan, [Footnote 120] a writer whose

services to the history of the Irish Church cannot be excelled and

have not been equalled. The opinion of Colgan has overborne almost

every other authority which intervened between his time and the

present. The Bollandists [Footnote 121] accepted it without

hesitation; and I hasten to add to their great sanction that of the

two most learned antiquaries of the latter days of Ireland, Dr. John

O'Donovan and Professor Eugene O'Curry. They, I am aware, were also of

Colgan's opinion; and so, I believe, are Dr. Reeves and Dr. Todd,

whose views on most points of ecclesiastical antiquities connected

with Ireland are entitled to be named with every respect.

[Footnote 120: Colganus, R. P. F. Joannes, "_Triadis Thaumaturgae,

sen Divorum Patricii, Columbae, et Brigidiaetrium Hiberniae

Patronorum, Acta_." Lovanii, 1647.]

[Footnote 121: "_Acta Sanctorum Martii_" a Joanne Bollando, tom. il.

Antverpiae, 1668.]

Still it is to be said, on the other hand, that the opinion that St.

Patrick was born in France has always had a traditional establishment

in Ireland. It is asserted in one of the oldest of his lives, that of

St. Eleran, and indicated in another, that of Probus. Don Philip

O'Sullivan Bearre [Footnote 122] is not the first nor the last of the

more modern biographers of the saint who has held that he was of

French birth, though of British blood. But before the time of Dr.

Lanigan, the most acute, the {746} most conscientious, and perhaps the

most generally learned of Irish historians, there appears to have been

no really candid and scientific examination of the original documents

and evidences. Irish scholars were too angrily engaged in the

controversy of Scotia Major and Scotia Minor to be seriously regarded

when they proposed to remove St. Patrick's birthplace from the

neighborhood of Glasgow to the neighborhood of Nantes. Until Dr.

Lanigan published his Ecclesiastical History, [Footnote 123] no one

seems to have even attempted to identify he localities named in the

various original documents which concern the saint. Dr. Lanigan came

to the conclusion that he was born not at Dumbarton but in France, at

or in the neighborhood of Boulogne-sur-Mer. I am able, I hope, to

perfect the proof which Dr. Lanigan commenced, and which, if he had

been enabled to follow it up by local research and by the light lately

cast on the geography of Roman Gaul, would, I am sure, have come far

more complete from his hands.

[Footnote 122: D. Philippi O'Sullevani Bearri Iberni, "_Patritiana

Decas_." Madrid, 1629.]

[Footnote 123: Lanigan, John, D.D. "An Ecclesiastical History of

Ireland." Dublin, 1820.]

I hold, then, with Doctor Lanigan, and with a tradition which has long

existed in Ireland, and also in France, that St. Patrick was born on

the coast of Armoric Gaul; and that Roman in one sense by descent--by

his education in a province where Roman civilization had long

prevailed, where the Latin language was spoken, and the privileges of

the empire fully possessed--Roman too by the possession of nobility,

which he himself declares, and of which his name was a curious

commemoration [Footnote 124]--Roman, in fine, in the connection of

his family which he testifies with the Roman government and with the

Church, St. Patrick was a Celt of Gaul by blood. The fact that the

district between Boulogne and Amiens was at that time inhabited by a

clan called Britanni has misled both those who supposed he must have

been born in the island of Britain and those who held that, if born in

France, he must have been born in that part of it which was

subsequently called Brittany.

[Footnote 124: Gibbon says ("Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,"

v. vi.) "At this period the meanest subjects of the Roman empire

assumed the illustrious name of Patricius, which by the conversion

of Ireland has been communicated to a whole nation." It is supposed

that the name was conferred on St. Patrick in consideration of his

parting with his nobility for a motive of charity, as he mentions in

his Epistle to Coroticus. But he was certainly not the first of the

name. Patricius was also the name of St. Augustine's father, born

fully a century before.]

The original documents which bear on the point are only two in number

--the "Confession" of St. Patrick himself, and the hymn in his honor

composed by his disciple St. Fiech. Of the antiquity of these

documents we have evidence the most complete that can be conceived.

Not merely does written history certify the record of their age--they

have borne much more delicate tests. The hymn of St. Fiech is written

in a dialect of Irish that is to the Irish of the Four Masters as the

English of Chaucer is to the English of Lord Macaulay. The quotations

of Scripture which are given in the "Confession" of St. Patrick are

taken from the version according to the interpretation of the

Septuagint, and not according to the recent version of St. Jerome,

which had indeed been just executed in St. Patrick's time, but had not

yet been publicly received. At the same time, the "Liber Armachanus,"

which contains the original copy of the "Confession," contains also

St. Jerome's translation of the New Testament--thus curiously marking

the fact that the date of the one document by a little preceded the

date of the other. The manuscript itself has been subjected to a most

curious and rigorous examination. The authentic signature of Brian,

Imperator Hibernorum, commonly called Brian Boroimhe, on the occasion

of his visit to Armagh, carries us back at a bound eight hundred years

in its history; but the scholar who is expert in the hue of vellum and

the style of the scribe, will tell us that the "Book of Armagh" was

{747} evidently a book of venerable age even then. The Rev. Charles

Graves, [Footnote 125] a fellow of the University of Dublin, and a

scholar specially skilled in the study of the Irish manuscripts and

hieroglyphs, published a paper some years ago in the "Proceedings of

the Royal Irish Academy" on the question of the age of the "Book of

Amagh." That the version at present preserved in the library of

Trinity College is a copy from a far older version he says there can

be no doubt. The marginal notes of the scribe show that he found it

difficult in many places to read the manuscript from which he was

transcribing. But the same notes, the character of his writing, and a

reference to the Irish primate of the time under whose authority the

work was undertaken, leave no doubt that the transcript was executed

by a scribe named Ferdomnach, during the primacy of Archbishop

Torbach, at a date not later than the year of Our Lord 807.

[Footnote 125: Graves, Rev. C, "On the Age of the Book of Armagh:

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," vol. iii., p. 816.]

Of the "Confession," beside the original copy in the "Book of Armagh,"

there are several manuscript versions of great age in England: two at

Salisbury; two in the Cotton library; one, I believe, at Cambridge;

another very interesting and valuable copy, that which was used by the

Bollandists in printing their edition of the "Confession," existed

until the time of the revolution in the famous French monastery of St.

Vedastus. Fragments of the precious manuscripts of that learned

congregation are scattered among the libraries of Arras, of Saint

Omer, of Boulogne, and of Douai; but among them I could not find any

trace of the missing manuscript of St. Patrick's "Confession;" nor

could the present learned representatives of Bollandus, who were good

enough to interest themselves in my inquiry, give me any room to hope

that it still exists. It would have been of much importance to have

been able to compare the style and the text of the only existing

French copy with the original in Ireland--especially as that French

copy belonged to the very district from which St. Patrick originally

came.

There are four localities designated in these documents; three of them

in the "Confession of St. Patrick," and one in the hymn of St. Fiech.

In the "Confession," St. Patrick says of himself, "Patrem habui

Calphurnium Diaconum (or Diacurionem) qui fuit e vico

Bonaven-Taberniae; villam Enon prope habuit, ubi ego in capturam

decidi." The hymn of St. Fiech adds that the saint was born at a place

called Nem-tur.

The ancient "Lives of St. Patrick" cite these localities with little

variation.

The first Life, given in Colgan's collection, and ascribed to St.

Patrick junior, says, "Natus est igitur in illo oppido, Nempthur

nomine. Patricius natus est in campo Taburnae."

The second Life, which is ascribed to St. Benignus, is word for word

the same with the first on this point.

The third, supposed to be by St. Eleran, suggests that he was of Irish

descent through a colony allowed by the Romans to settle in Armorica;

but that his parents were of Strato Cludi (Strath Clyde); that he was

born, however, "in oppido Nempthur, quod oppidum in campo Taburniae

est." This life is of very ancient date, and shows clearly enough how

old is the Irish tradition concerning the saint's birth in France.

The fourth Life, by Probus, says: "Brito fuit natione . . . de vico

Bannave Tiburniae regionis, haud procul a mare occidentali--quem vicum

indubitanter comperimus esse Neustriae provinciae, in qua olim

gigantes." Here, again, we observe the same confused tradition of the

saint's French origin; for Neustria was the name in the Merovingian

period of the whole district comprised between the Meuse and the

Loire.

{748}

The fifth and best known life, by Jocelyn, has it: "Brito fuit natione

in pago Taburniae--co quod Romanus exercitus tabernacula fixerant

ibidem, secus oppidum Nempthor degens, mare Hibernico collimitans

habitatione."

The sixth Life, by St. Evin, declares that he was "de Brittanis

Alcluidensibus, natus in Nempthur."

The Breviaries repeat the same names with as little attempt to fix the

actual localities.

The Breviary of Paris says: "In Britiania natus, oppido Empthoria."

The Breviary of Armagh: "In illo Brittaniae oppido nomine Emptor." The

old Roman Breviary says simply: "Grenere Brito." The Breviary of

Rheims: "In maritimo Brittaniae territorio." The Breviary of Rouen:

"In Brittania Gallicana." The Breviary of the canons of St. John of

Lateran: "Ex Brittania magna insula."

It will be observed that in the principal of these authorities there

is a concurrence in accepting the locality called so variously Nemthur

and Empthoria, as well as the second of the localities, the Taberniae,

named by St. Patrick himself; and also that there is no appearance of

certainty in the minds of the writers as to the exact sites of the

places of which they speak. None of them ventures to name the exact

district or diocese where Empthoria or the Taberniae are to be found.

But certain scholia upon the "Hymn of St. Fiech," which were for the

first time published by Colgan in the "Triadis Thaumaturgae," boldly

lay down the proposition that "Nemthur est civitas in Brittania

Septentrionali, nempe Alcluida;" and the name is also translated as

meaning "Holy Tower." The same writer, however, adds in another note

that St. Patrick was not carried into his Irish captivity from

Dumbarton, but from Boulogne, where he and his family were visiting

some of their friends at the time when the Irish pirates swept down

upon the coast of Gaul. The Irish annals say that about the period of

St. Patrick's captivity, Nial of the Nine Hostages lost his life on

the Sea of Iccius between France and England. These long piratical

forays were not uncommon at the time. [Footnote 126] A little later,

the last of our pagan kings, Dathy, was killed by lightning near the

Rhaetian Alps.

[Footnote 126: Totum cum Scotus Iernem Movit, et infesto spumsvit

remige Tethys CLAUDIAN.]

Colgan with a curious credulity accepted this improbable solution of

the scholiast, of which it may in the first place be said that it is

incompatible with the statement of St. Patrick himself, who declares

distinctly that he was captured at a country house belonging to his

father, near the town to which his family belonged.

Usher, however, who had equal opportunities of studying the original

documents, also adopted this explanation. Several Irish writers, and

especially Don Philip O'Sullivan, vaguely conscious of the tradition

of St. Patrick's French origin, attempted to reconcile the fact of his

being a Briton with the fact of his birth in France by the supposition

that he was a Breton of Brittany. This theory, however, falls

summarily to the ground when it is opposed to the fact that the

province now known by the name of Brittany was not inhabited by any

tribe which bore the name in the time of St. Patrick, "The year 458,"

says the Benedictine Lobineau [Footnote 127] in his learned history

of Brittany, "is about the epoch of the establishment of the Bretons

in that part of ancient Armorica which at present bears the name of

Bretagne." There was, however, a clan called Brittani, further toward

the north of France, a clan whose territory Pliny and the Greek

Dionysius Periegetes had long before designated with accuracy: Pliny

in these words, "Deinde Menapii, Morini, Oromansaci juncti pago, qui

Gessoriacus vocatur; {749} Brittani, Ambiani, Bellovaci." [Footnote

128] The Brittani of the time of St. Patrick are to be found in the

country that lies between Boulogne and Amiens. It is there that

Lanigan came upon the first authentic traces of the origin

of our apostle.

[Footnote 127: Lobineau. D. Gui Alexis, "_Histoire de Bretagne_."

Paris, 1707.]

[Footnote 128: Plinii Secundi, "_Historia Naturalis_; de Gallia," 1.

iv. The editors of the Dauphin's edition have a note on the word

Brittaui, which is worth quotation. "Ita libri omnes. Hi inter

Gessoriacenses Ambianosqne medii, in ora similiter positi, ea loca

teuuere certè, ubi nunc oppida Stapulae, Monetrolium, Hesdinium, et

adjacentem agrum, Ponticum ad Somonam amnem. Cluverius hic Briannos

legi mavult." See also the learned essay on the Britons of Armorica

in the "_Acta Sanctorum, Vitâ S. Ursulae_;" Octobris, vol. ix., p.

108. A glance at the map will show the close relation of the

district marked by the present towns of Etaples, Montreuil, Hesdin,

and Ponthieu to the localities named a little farther on. That the

Britons of Great Britain originally came from this district is

declared in the Welsh Triads, thus: "The three beneficent tribes of

the Isle of Britain. The first was the nation of the Cymmry, who

came with Hu the mighty to the Isle of Britain, who would not

possess nor country nor lands through writing and persecution, but

of equity and in peace; the second was the stock of the Lioegrians,

who came from the land of Gwasgwyn (Gascolgne), and were descended

from the primitive stock of the Cymmry: the third were the Brython,

and from the land of Llydaw they came, having their descent from the

primary stock of the Cymmry." And again, Cynan is spoken of as lord

of Meirlon (probably a Celtic form of the word _Morini_) in Llydaw.

Taliessin also mentions the _Morini Btython_ in his _Prif Gyfarch_,

Lydaw, Latinized Letavia, is one of the early Celtic names of the

country of the Morini, as Neustria, in the Life by Probus, was that

given in the Merovingian period to the whole province between the

Meuse and Loire, including Boulogne of course. Pliny mentions

Boulogne itself as the _Portus Morinorum Brittanicus_. ]

He was guided to his conclusion, mainly, I think, by the "History of

the Morini," published in the year 1639, by the Jesuit Malbrancq,

[Footnote 129] and which seems strangely to have escaped the notice of

every earlier Irish writer. In this work, there are two chapters

devoted to the tradition of the connection of St. Patrick with the see

of Boulogne. Malbrancq relates this tradition, which states that

previous to his departure for the Irish mission, St. Patrick remained

for some time at Boulogne, occupied in preaching against the Pelagian

heresy, to contend with which Saint Germanus and Lupus had crossed

over to Britain. Malbrancq refers, in proof of this fact, to the

"Chronicon Morinense," to the Catalogue of the Bishops of Boulogne,

and to the "Life of St. Arnulphus of Soissons." This tradition is to a

certain extent a clue in tracing the early and intimate connection of

St. Patrick with this country--but as yet it is nothing more.

[Footnote 129: Malbrancq, Jacobus, "_De Morinis et Morinrum rebus_."

Tornaci Nerviorum,1639--1654.]

The critical question is, whether the four names given by St. Patrick

himself, and by St. Fiech, can be identified with any localities now

known either in the district of Boulogne or any other district in

which toward the close of the fourth century it is possible to find

the conditions of Roman government and British blood combined? Before

Lanigan there was, it seems to me, no serious attempt made to solve

this question. The scholiast whose authority was so unhesitatingly

adopted by Colgan and Usher simply says, "Nempthur est civitas in

Brittania Septentrionali, nempe Alcluid." There is not a word more. He

does not attempt to show how Nempthur and Alcluid are to be considered

as convertible terms. Nor does he attempt to interpret the names of

the three localities stated by St. Patrick himself. The same may be

said, in the most sweeping way, of the biographies and the breviaries.

I will now read the reasons which Lanigan gives for identifying

Bonaven with Boulogne, and Taberniae with a city very famous in the

wars of the middle ages, long before Arras had been fortified by

Vauban or defended by General Owen Roe O'Neill. It will be observed

that Lanigan does not attempt to identify the two other localities

Enon and Nempthur. The former he regarded as too insignificant, the

latter he did not believe had any existence. I will not say that his

proof with regard to the identity of Boulogne with Bonaven is

conclusive; but if the whole of his proof rested on as strong

presumptive grounds, little would remain to be said on the subject.

The second part of it is, however, in my humble opinion, wholly

erroneous. He says:

{750}

"Colgan acknowledges that there is an ancient tradition among the

inhabitants of Armoric Britain that St. Patrick was born in their

country, and that some Irishmen were of the same opinion. He quotes

some passages from Probus and others whence they argued in proof of

their position, but omits, through want of attention to that most

valuable document, the following passage of 'St. Patrick's

Confession:' My father was Calpurnius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a

priest of the town Bonavem Taberniae. He had near the town a small

villa, Enon, where I became a captive.' Here we have neither a town

Nemthor nor Alcluit. Nor will any British antiquary be able to find

out a place in Great Britain to which the names Bonavem Taberniae can

be applied. Usher, although he had quoted these words, has not

attempted to give any explanation of them, or to reconcile them with

Nemthur.

"The word Taberniae has puzzled not only Colgan, but some of the

authors of the Lives which he chose to follow; for while they left out

_Bonavem_ as not agreeing with _Nemthur_, they retained Taberniae, or,

as they were pleased to write it, _Taburniae_, which they endeavored

to account for by making it a district that got its name from having

been the site of a Roman camp in which there were tents or

tabernacles. Colgan, who swallowed all this stuff, quotes Jocelin as

his authority for Taburnia being situated near the Clyde, at the South

Bank. Great authority, indeed! It is, however, odd that such a place

should be unnoticed by all those who have undertaken to elucidate the

ancient topography of Great Britain. The places of Roman camps in that

country were usually designated by the adjunct _castra_, whence

_chester_, or _cester_, in which the names of so many cities and towns

in England terminate.

"Bonavem, or Bonaven, was in Armoric Gaul, being the same town as

Boulogne-sur-Mer in Picardy. That town was well known to the Romans

under the name of Gressoriacum; but about the reign of Constantine the

Great the Celtic name Bonaven or Bonaun, alias Bonon, which was

Latinized into Bononia, became more general. According to Bullet, who

informs us that Am, Aven, On, signify river in the Celtic language,

the town was so called from its being at the mouth of a river; _Bon_,

mouth, _on_ or _avon_, river. Baxter also observes that Bononia is no

other than _Bonavon_ or _Bonaun_, for _aven, avem, avon, aun_, are

pronounced in the same manner. The addition of _Taberniae_ marks its

having been in the district of Tarvanna or Tarvenna, alias Tarabanna,

a celebrated city not far from Boulogne, the ruins of which still

remain under the modern name of Terouanne. The name of this city was

extended to a considerable district around it, thence called _pagus

Tarbannensis_, or _Tarvanensis regio_. Gregory of Tours calls the

inhabitants Tarabannenses. It is often mentioned under the name of

_Civitas Morinorum_, having been the principal city of the Morini, in

which Boulogne was also situated. Boulogne was so connected with

Tarvanna that both places anciently formed but one episcopal see. Thus

Jonas, in his 'Life of the Abbot Eustatius,' written near twelve

hundred years ago, calls Audomarus Bishop of Boulogne and Tarvanna. It

is probable that St. Patrick's reason for designating Bonaven by the

adjunct _Taberniae_ was lest it might be confounded with the Bononia

of Italy, now Bologna, or with a Bononia in Aquitain, in the same

manner that, to avoid a similar confusion, the French call it at

present Boulogne-sur-Mer. Perhaps it will be objected that _Tabernia_

is a different name from _Tarvenna_. In the first place, it may be

observed that, owing to the usual commutation of _b_ for _v_, and

_vice versâ_, we might read _Tavernia_. Thus we have seen that

Tarvenna was called by some _Tarabanna_. To account for the further

difference of the names, nothing more is required than to admit the

{751} transposition of a syllable or a letter, which has frequently

occurred in old words, and particularly names of places. Nogesia, the

name of a town, becomes Genosia. Dunbritton has been modified into

Dunbertane, Dunbarton, Dumbarton. Probus agrees with the 'Confession,'

except that, according to Colgan's edition, for Bonavem Taberniae he

has 'Bannave Tyburniae regionis,' and adds that it was not far from

the Western sea or Atlantic ocean. Although we may easily suppose that

some errors of transcription have crept into the text of Probus, yet

as to Bannave there is no material difference between it and Bonavem.

_Ban_ might be used for _Bon_; and the final _m_, which was a sort of

nasal termination, as it is still with the Portuguese, could be

omitted so as to write for Bonavem, or Bonaum (_v_ and _u_ being the

same letter), Bonaue. Probus' addition of _regionis_ is worth

noticing, as it corresponds with what has been said concerning the

_Tarvanensis regio_."

I think the proof in this passage with regard to the word Bonaven is

very strong. The passage which Lanigan cites from Bexter distinctly

says, "Gallorum Bononia eodem pene est etymo; quasi dicas Bon-avon

sive Bonaun." The derivation of the word is clear enough. Avon even in

England retains its Celtic signification of a river. But the passage

identifying the _Tabernia_ of Boulogne with Therouanne is in my

opinion altogether incorrect. Where he accounts for the change in the

structure of the word by the usual transmutation of _b_ and _v_, he

overlooks the letter _r_--a letter which does not melt into the music

of patois by any means so easily. Again, he hardly lays sufficient

stress on the fact that the word _Taberniae_ is invariably understood

in all the scholia, and in all the lives, to mean the _Campus

tabernaculorum_--the barracks and district occupied by a Roman army.

In fine, he confuses Therouanne, which is at a distance of thirty

miles from Boulogne, and certainly did not stand in the relation he

supposes to it, with another city some twenty miles still further

away. But Malbrancq, who was his chief authority, does not omit to

mention that Tervanna and Taruanna are two absolutely distinct places:

Tervanna was the old Roman name of the town now known as Saint Pol

[Footnote 130]--Taruanna that of Therouenne.

[Footnote 130: "_Comitum Tervanensium Annales Historici_,"

Collectore Th. Turpin Paulinati. Ord. Predicat. 1731.]

It is very possible--I may add to the proof concerning the word

Bonaven--that it may have been written originally Bononen, for

Bononenses Taberniae. Any one familiar with the form of the letters of

the early Irish alphabet, indeed of almost all early manuscript, will

readily comprehend how easily an _o_ might be written for an _a_, an

_n_ for a _v_, and _vice versâ_, by a scribe ignorant of the exact

locality, and copying from a half-defaced document. Any one who looks

at the form of the letters in the alphabet of the "Book of Kells,"

given in Dr. O'Donovan's Grammar, will conceive at a glance how this

might have happened.

Assuming, however, that Lanigan is correct in his conjecture as to

Boulogne, I have endeavored to discover whether the other localities

named in the "Confession" and "Hymn" can be identified with localities

now existing within the proper circumscription of the Roman military

occupation around that city, and of a certain and unquestionable

antiquity. I need not inform the academy of the great military

importance of Boulogne at the time of which we treat. It was the point

from which England had been invaded. It was the principal military

settlement of the Romans in Northern Gaul. Julian the Apostate had

held his headquarters there shortly before St. Patrick's birth. The

country all around is marked by roads and mounds, which exhibit the

rigid lines and stern solidity of Roman construction. I learn from a

recent essay by {752} M. Quenson, an accomplished scholar of Saint

Omer, that eighty-eight different works have been written to settle

the site of the Portus Itius, whence Caesar embarked to invade

Britain, and nineteen different localities assigned. Since M. Quenson

wrote, M. de Saulcy has again opened, and this time I think finally

determined, that controversy. Perhaps I am so far fortunate that the

absorbing zeal with which this difficult problem has been pursued, in

a country of such zealous scholars, still leaves to a stranger

somewhat to glean, in places far inland from the famous port which

they have so long labored to identify.

The localities to which St. Patrick refers have, I find, all been

preserved with the least alteration of their etymology that it is

possible to conceive in the space of so many centuries; and this, I

may add, is peculiarly wonderful in a country where so many Roman

names have, by the friction of the much mixed dialects of northern

France, been almost frayed out of recognition. Who would suppose, for

example, taking some of the familiar names of the department, that

Fampoux was the _Fanum Pollucis_, Dainville _Dianae villa_, Lens

_Elena_, Etaples _Stapulae_, Hermaville _Hermetis villa_, Hesdin

_Helenum_, Souchez _Sabucetum_, Surques _Surcae_, Ervillers

_Herivilla_, Tingry _Tingriacum_? [Footnote 131] And yet regarding

these names there is no doubt that the modern French is a corruption

of the old Latin form. Of the localities, which I proceed to

designate, I submit that each has kept its original name with far less

violation of the ancient word. The _Enon_, the _Nemthur_, the

_Taberniae_ of St. Patrick are, to my mind, manifest in comparison

with the majority of a hundred other localities in the Boulonnais

which undoubtedly derive their titles from a Roman source.

[Footnote 131: The name of the neighboring village of Ardres has run

through the following traceable variations since the Roman period:

Horda, Ardra, Ards, Ardrea, Ardes, Ardres.]

In the first place, let us take the word Enon. The river Liane, which

runs into the sea at Boulogne, was known to the Romans as the Fluvius

Enna. It is so marked on the most ancient maps of northern Gaul. It is

so written in Latin by Malbrancq. Near Desvres--once called

Desurennes, or Desvres-sur-Ennes--there is marked a little village of

the same name, called also Enna. I will not be said to strain

language, which has survived so many centuries, very severely when I

venture to identify St. Patrick's Enon with this undoubtedly Roman

Enon.

Lanigan totally disbelieved in the existence of the town called

Nempthor. I could not do so; nor underrate the importance of

identifying it, if possible, in such an inquiry as this. But the

difficulty of discovering this place was hitherto greatly increased by

a mistranslation of its meaning, for which I believe Colgan is

responsible. The word was always supposed to mean "Holy

Tower"--_Neim_, holy, and _Tur_, tower--until Professor Eugene

O'Curry, when compiling, some years ago, his valuable catalogue of the

Irish MSS. of the British Museum, after a minute examination of the

manuscript, which is the oldest copy of the "Hymn" in existence, came

to the conclusion that the word should really be written "Emtur," as

it is indeed, though by accident I take it, in some of the breviaries.

"The place of St. Patrick's birth," he says, "is generally written

Nemtur; but there is clear evidence that the N is but a prefix

introduced to fill the hiatus in the text, and that Emtur is the

proper form of the word." The word, then, means not holy tower, but

the tower of some place or person indicated by the word Em. Some eight

miles distant from Desvres, toward the north, still within the

military circumscription of which it is the centre, there is such a

place. The river Em, or Hem, flows past a village of so great an

antiquity, that even in the ordinary geographical dictionaries the

record is preserved that Julius Caesar slept {753} there on his way to

embark for the invasion of Britain. [Footnote 132] The town contains

a Roman arch and the ruins of a Roman tower, from which the village

derives its name. The name is Tournehem, or, as it was written in

Malbrancq's time, Tur-n-hem. The tower and the river show the

derivation of the word at a glance. The exigencies of Irish verse

simply caused their transposition. I have only to add to Mr. O'Curry's

ingenious note on the subject the remark that the _n_ was not, as he

supposes, merely inserted to fill up a hiatus in the line, but was

obviously a part of it. It is a copulative as common in Celtic words

as _de_ in modern French, and has precisely the same meaning.

Ballynamuck, for example, means the town of, or on, the river Muck.

Tulloch na Daly (whose swelling dimensions the French afterward curbed

into the famous name of Tollendall) is a more apposite instance.

[Footnote 132: "Ce lieu existait lorsque les l'egions romaines

penétrèrent dans la Morinie, l'an de Rome 697, ou 57 ans avant l'ère

valgaire, et consistait alors en un château fort garni de tours,

d'où eat venu, selon Malbrancq, la dénomination de _Tournehem_ du

Latin _à Turribus_. César s'empara de ce château et y fit quelque

séjour pour l'avantage de ea cavalerie. Environ deux siècles et demi

après, c'est à dire en 218, Septime-Sévère, autre empereur romain,

fit camper dans le voisinage de Tournehem (sur la montagne de Saint

Louis) une partie de son armée destinée pour une expédition contre

le Grand Bretagne, qu'll effectua glorieusement la même année."--P.

Collet, "_Notice Historique de Saint Omer suivi de celles de

Therouanne el de Tournehem_." Saint Omer, 1830. Both M. Collet and

Père Malbrancq, however, overlook the obvious derivation of the

word--though both note the name of the river which flows through the

town, and which M. Collet calls "la rivière de _Hem_ ou de _Saint

Louis_." Again, M. H. Piers, in the "_Mémoires de la Société des

Antiquaries de la Morinie_" (Saint Omer. 1834) says, '"César après

s'être emparé des forteresses de la contrée s'y rendit de Ther

ouanne, Sithieu et Tournehem, l'an 55 on 56 avant l'ère vulgaire,

pour subjuguer la Grande Bretagne." In the same volume there is an

interesting paper by M. Pigauit de Beaupré on the castle of

Tournehem, which, he says, was partially rebuilt by Baldwin II.,

Count of Guines, in 1174, and continued to be a principal residence

of the Dukes of Burgundy at so late a date as 1485. But the vastness

and solidity of the works which he describes, some of them

subterranean roads evidently used for communication with other

fortified works, clearly indicate their Roman character. Baldwin,

indeed, a prince far in advance of his age, seems to have attempted

to revive Roman ideas, and rebuild Roman works wherever he found

them within his dominions. The castle of Hâmes, near Calais, which

he likewise rebuilt, and which he ceded to the English as part of

the ransom of King John of France, was also, as M. Pigault de

Beaupré shows, of Roman construction.]

I have yet to identify the _Taberniae_. To the eye, and on the old

maps, they almost identify themselves. Desvres has all the characters

of a great Roman military position--a vast place of arms, the tracings

of fortified walls, the fosse, lines of circumvallation, and hard by

on the forest edge the _Sept Voies_ or _Septemvium_, the meeting of

the seven great military roads leading from and to the other principal

strongholds of the imperial power in northern and western Europe. Any

one who examines in particular the "Carte des Voies Romaines du

Département du Pas de Calais," published by the Commission of

Departmental Antiquities, [Footnote 133] cannot fail to perceive that

this now obscure village, which certainly never was raised to the rank

of a Roman city, was nevertheless once a great nucleus of Roman power.

The fragment of an ancient bridge is still known as the _Pont de

Caesar_. The _Septemvium_, with its remarkable concentration of roads,

is alone sufficient to indicate the importance of the place. There is

one road leading straight to Amiens; one that reaches the sea by the

mouth of the Canche; another that runs to the harbor of Boulogne;

another that joins the roads from Saint Omer and from Tournehem, and

carries them on to Wissante and Sangate, the supposed Portus Itius and

Portus Inferior; the fifth road was to Tervanna and Arras; the sixth

to Taruanna; the seventh to Saint Omer. Would so many roads,

communicating with places of such military importance, have been

concentrated by a race of such a centralizing talent as the Romans

anywhere except at the cite of a great city or a great camp? On the

ancient maps, indeed, the country which lies between Desvres and

Boulogne, along the Liane, is simply marked _Castrum_.

[Footnote 133: "_Statistique Monurnentale du Département du Pas de

Calais. Publiée par la Commission des Antiquités Departementales_."

Arras: chez Topino, Libraire, 1840.]

{754}

I now approach, not unconscious of its difficulties, the etymology of

the word. In the lax Latin of the middle ages, we find Desvres spoken

of as _Divernia Bononiensis_. There is the epitaph of a churchman,

born in the place, which says on his behalf:

"Me Molinet peperit Divernia Bononiensis."

The local historian, Baron d'Ordre, speaks of the place as "Désurène,

Divernia, aujourd'hui Desvres." [Footnote 134] The name Desvres

itself evidently has undergone strange, yet traceable, variations and

modifications. [Footnote 135] Its first appearance as a French word

is "Desurennes," and this is derived from Desvres sur Enna, or Desvres

upon the Enna or Liane, which, as I have said, flows past the place,

giving its name to a little village near the forest. By this

derivation, however, only the first two letters of the original word

Desvres are left. How do they disappear, why do they reappear in the

modern form of the word, and what is its original derivation?

[Footnote 134: "Notice historique sur la ville de Désurène Divernia,

aujourd'hui Desvres." Par M. d'Ordre. Boulogne, 1811.]

[Footnote 135: "II n'y pas 50 ans que le nom de Desvres a prevalu

sur celul de Desurenne que cette ville avait tonjours porté

auparavant."--M. L. Cousin "_Mémoires de la Société des Antiquarires

de la Morinie_," vol. iv., p. 239. M. Cousin's papers on Monthulin

and Tingry, in the Transactions of this society, are in general

accord with what I have said of the ancient military importance of

the whole district of Desvres.]

It is a very curious fact, that in England the Roman camps seem to

have been always known as "Castra," while in Gaul the Tabernae is the

name which generally adhered to them. Lanigan says, and correctly, so

far as I have been able to discover, that there is no trace of a Roman

station called _Tabernae_ in England, while the affix _chester_ is the

most common in its topography. In England, it may be said the Romans

encamped; in France, the _Tabernae_ meant a more settled and familiar

residence, as familiar as the Caserne of the empire. It would be

interesting to inquire whether as many cities in France do not derive

their origin from these military stations as England has of Chesters.

But the student who attempts this task will be sure to find the Latin

word almost defaced beyond power of recognition by the etymological

maltreatment which it has sustained in that conflict of consonants

which has resulted in the present high polish of Academic French. I

may mention one or two instances to show how little violence I do to

French philology in identifying the _Divernia Bononiensis_ of the

middle ages with the Tabenae of Boulogne. Saveme in Lorraine is well

known to be the _Tabenae Triborocrum_. It was known in a semi-Germanic

form as _Elsas Tabern_. Gradually the sibilant _ss_ of the first word

invaded the second; and it has long settled down into one word in the

form of Saveme. The _Tabernae Rhenanae_, on the other hand, retained

the hard _b_ instead of converting it into _v_, as inevitably happened

in the south, and instead changed the T into Z Rhein-Zabren. In ages

which had no hesitation in changing the pure dental T into the

sibilant dentals S or Z, it will not be considered surprising that it

was sometimes changed into D--the only other pure dental sound.

Indeed, of all the transmutations of letters, those of _d_ and _t_ and

those of _v_ and _b_, are notoriously the most common. "The Irish

_d_," says O'Donovan, "never has such a hard sound as the English

_d_." Again, "In ancient writings, _t_ is frequently substituted for

_d_." Again, "It should be remarked that in ancient Irish MSS.

consonants of the same organ are very frequently substituted for each

other, and that where the ancients usually wrote _p, c, t,_ the

moderns write _b, q, d._" [Footnote 136] Decline the Irish word

_Tâd_, father. It becomes _Ei dâd_, his father; _Ei thâd_, her father;

_by nhâd_ my father. We carry the tendency into English. The mistake

is one from which certain parts of Ireland as well as certain parts of

France are not exempt even to the present day; and in Munster one may

still {755} hear, as in the times when the ballad of "Lillibullero"

was written, the letter _d_ occasionally used where the tongue

intended _t_ or _th_. Nor is this vagary of speech confined to the

Irish. Why do the Welsh say Tafyd for David? It is the most frequently

recurring of that systematic permutation of consonants which is one of

the chief difficulties of the Cymbric tongue. The Welsh _d_ and _t_

turn about and wheel about in their mysterious alphabet without the

slightest scruple. In Germany the convertibility of the same letters

is also very marked. The German says _das_ for that, _Dank_ for

thanks, _Durst_ for thirst; and again _Teufel_ for devil, _Tanz_ for

dance, _Theil_ for dial. As to the same abuse in France, the

dictionary of the Academy and that of Bescherelle [Footnote 137] lay

down the principle very plainly: "Le _t_ est une lettre à la fois

linguale et dentale, comme le _d_ son correlatif, plus faible, plus

doux, avec lequel il est fréquemment confondu, nonseulement dans les

langues germaniques, mais dans la plupart des langues. En latin, cette

lettre so permute fréquemment avec le _d: attulit_ pour _adtulit_. On

écrivit primitivement set, aput, quot, haut, au lieu de sed, apud,

quod, hand."

[Footnote 136: O'Donovan, John, LL.D., "A Grammar of the Irish

Language." Dublin, 1845.]

[Footnote 137: "_Dictionnaire de l'Académie_ Française,"

Bescherelle, "_Dictionnaire National_." Paris, 1857.]

So far as to the permutation of T and D. I will not waste the time of

the reader in order to show that the conversion of _v_ into _b_ is

even more common. We find a familiar illustration of it in the old

Latin name of Ireland, which, as every one knows, is variously written

Ibernia, Ivernia, Hibernia, Juvernia, and Iernia. But the English word

tavern, which is exactly derived from the Latin Taberniae, is a still

more apposite illustration in the present case. In this word, finally,

the intermediate vowel swayed in sound with the consonants which

inclosed it. As the primary Latin T changed into the softer and

feebler D, and the _b_ into _v_, the intermediate _a_ lost its full

force. The mediaeval Latin melts into _i_ in Divernia. The modern

French form, Desvres, brings it half-way back toward its place at the

head of the alphabet. It does not run the whole gamut of the vowels,

as from Ibernia to Juvernia.

This _Divernia Bononiensis_, then, I claim to identify with the

_Taberniae Bononienses_, Tournehem with Nemtur or Emtor, Enna with

Enon. If it were necessary even to push the proof a step further,

there is the district called _Le Wicquet_, which M. Jean Scoti, who

was _lieutenant particulier de la Sennechaussée de Boulogne_, tells us

is undoubtedly derived from the Latin Vicus, and which might naturally

be the _vico Bonaven Taberniae_ of which the "Confession" speaks; but

the historian of Desvres, Baron d'Ordre, whom I have already cited,

disputes this derivation, and says the word is Celtic, and comes from

_Wic_, Celtic for wood, like our word wicket. Both may be right, for

Vicus may be a Latin form of the same word. [Footnote 138] But the

point is not material.

[Footnote 138: Among the names of villages in this district of

whose history I could find no trace, is one called Erin, the place

where Blessed Benedict Joseph Labre was born.]

Let me now add to the etymological evidence a few historical

illustrations.

St. Patrick is stated in almost all his biographies to have been a

nephew of St. Martin of Tours. St. Martin, though said to be a Celt of

Pannonia, was during his military and early ecclesiastical career

stationed in this identical district. The well known legend of his

division of his cloak with the beggar, who proved to be our Lord

himself, is alleged to have taken place at Amiens. It is recorded that

he was baptized at Therouanne. The first church raised to his honor

was built there. The principal missionaries of the district are said

to have been his disciples, and evidently entertained a deep devotion

to him, of {756} which there are still abundant evidences. [Footnote

139]

[Footnote 139: Of the 420 churches comprised in the ancient diocese

of Boulogne, 82 had St. Martin for patron. I also find several

dedicated to the Irish St. Maclou and St. Kilian: but, strange to

say, not one to St. Victricius.--V. "_Histoire des Evêques de

Boulogne_," par M. l'Abbé E. Van Drival. Boulogne, 1852. ]

St. Patrick, while in captivity at Slemish in Ireland, lived within

sight of Scotland. A few miles only separate the coasts at Antrim. But

when he escaped, he did not attempt to pass into Scotland. He made his

way south, and passed through England to France. He says he was

received among the Britons as if (_quasi_) among his own clan and kin.

Doubtless there was close relationship of race and language between

the Britons of the island and of the continent. There were Britons and

there were Atrebates on both sides of the sea. [Footnote 140] But

Britain was not the saint's native place nor his resting-place. He

went on, and abode with those whom he calls his brethren of Gaul,

"seeing again the familiar faces of the saints of the Lord," until he

was summoned to undertake his mission to Ireland.

[Footnote 140: M. Piers, in the paper already cited, quotes H.

Amédée Thierry as saying; "Les _Brittani_ furent les premiers qui

a'y fixèrent; il habitalent une partie de la Morinie; peut-être par

un pieux souvenir ont-ils appelé leur nouvelle patrie la Grande

Bretagne. Les _Atrebates_ anglais, originaires de Belgium,

résidaient à _Caleva_ ou _Galena Atrebatum_, à 22 milles de _Venta

Belgarum_ dans le canton où est aujourd'hui Windsor." H. Piers adds

that there is a tradition that a colony of the Morini had given

their name to a distant country of islands which they discovered;

but that he has found it impossible to discover the name in any

ancient atlas. Perhaps the district of Mourne, on the north-east

coast of Ireland, is that indicated. The Irish derivation of the

name is at all events identical with the French ]

In his own account of the vision which induced him to undertake the

apostolate of Ireland, he says he was called to do so by a man, whose

name is variously written Victor, Victoricius, and Victricius. The

real name is in all probability Victricius; but if it were Victor or

Victoricius, it would be equally easy (were it not for the fear of

failing by essaying to prove too much) to identify the source of the

saint's inspiration with the same district. Saint Victricius was the

great missionary of the Morini at the end of the fourth century; but

he had been preceded in that capacity by St. Victoricius, who suffered

martyrdom with Sts. Fuscien and Firmin, at Amiens, in A.D. 286. Again,

the name Victor is that of a favorite disciple of St. Martin, whom

Sulpicius Severns sent to St. Paulinus of Nola, [Footnote 141] and of

whom they both write in terms of extraordinary encomium. But the

person referred to in the "Confession" is far more probably St.

Victricius, [Footnote 142] who was an exact contemporary of St.

Patrick, who was engaged on the mission of Boulogne at the time of his

escape, and who is said to have been a French Briton himself.

Malbrancq's "Annals of the See of Boulogne" aver that in the year 390

the "Morini a Domino Victricio exculti sunt," and that in the year 400

he dedicated their principal church to St Martin. [Footnote 143]

[Footnote 141: S. Paulini Nolani "_Opera_." _Epistola_ xxiii. in

the "_Patrologiae Cursus Compietus_" of J. P. Migne, vol. lxi.

Paris, 1847. See also the two epistles to St. Victricius, who with

St. Martin persuaded Paulinus to withdraw from the world. I hare a

suspicion that the disciple of St. Victricius, named in these

epistles now as Paschasius, now as Tytichus or Tytius (the name

being evidently misprinted, but there being no doubt, as the

Bollandists say, that the two names refer to one and the same

person), may have been in reality St. Patrick. In his 17th Epistle,

St. Paulinus refers to the accounts he had heard from this young

priest of the anxiety of St. Victricius for the evangelization of

the most remote parts of the globe, and speaks of him as a disciple

in every way worthy of his master; "In cujus gratia el humauitate,

quasi quasdam virtutam gratiarumque tuarum lineas velut speculo

reddente collegimus."]

[Footnote 142: Franciscus Pommeraeus, O. S. B.. In his "History of

the Bishops of Rouen." says St. Victricius was also sometimes called

Victoricus and Victoricius.]

[Footnote 143: See also "_Acta Sanctorum Augustii_;" tom. ii., p.

193. Antverpiae, 1735.]

When St. Patrick was on his way to Ireland, with full powers from Pope

Celestine, it is recorded that he was detained at Boulogne by the

request of Sts. Germanus and Lupus, who were proceeding into Britain

in order to preach against the Pelagian heresy; and that during their

absence he temporarily exercised episcopal functions at Boulogne, and

so came to be included in the list of its bishops. If St. Patrick were

a native of the island, is it not probable that Germanus and Lupus

would rather have {757} invited him to join their mission? But their

object in asking him to interrupt his own special enterprise for a

time in order to remain among the Boulonnais was, it is said, to guard

against the spread of this heresy on the continent. And it is very

natural that they should have asked him to stay for such an object,

and that he should have consented, if this were indeed his native

district, in which his intimacies were calculated to give him a

special degree of influence; but not otherwise, hastening as he was

under the sense of a divine call to the conversion of a whole nation

plunged in paganism.

And, as I began by saying, all this proof is important mainly because

it tends in some degree to elucidate the spirit and the work of the

saint. We begin to see how with the Celtic character of a French

Briton, which made him easily akin to the Irish, he combined the Roman

culture and civilization, which added to his missions peculiar

literary and political energy, that long remained. We see in him the

friend and comrade of the great saints of a great but anxious age. We

see how he connects the young Church of Ireland, not with Rome alone,

but with the great militant Christian communities of Gaul--a

connection which his disciples were destined so to develope and extend

in the three following centuries; and we cease to wonder that both

Ireland and France have clung so fondly to a tradition which linked

together in their earliest days two churches whose mutual services and

sympathies have ever since been of the closest kind.

------

From The Lamp.

THE BETTER PART.

"Sweet sister Lucille, I watch thee working,

From morning till nightfall, on cloth of gold,

On silks of purple, and finest linen,

And gems lie before you of worth untold.

Makest thou vestments for holy preacher,

And cloths to adorn the altar rare?"

"Ha, ha!" quoth Lucille, "thou simple creature!

The garments I make I intend to wear.

Dost thou not see I am nobly fashioned,

Regal indeed is my bearing and mien;

Are not my features as finely chiselled

As e'en were the features of Egypt's queen?

I'll work, and work, and I'll never weary,

Until rich garments be duly wrought,

Suited to clothe my unrivalled form.

For which tissues fitting cannot be bought.

{758}

But, my gentle Mary, I watch thee praying.

And wasting many a precious day,

Sauntering out amid lanes and alleys,

And taking to beggars upon the highway.

You bring them on to sit at your table,

You feed them on savory meat and wine;

Are they above you, that you should clothe them,

And so humbly serve while they feast and dine?"

Then answered Mary: "God's poor, my sister,

Are more than our equals, I should say;

One day they'll feast in the kingdom of heaven,

For Christ will call them from hedge and highway.

I too am working a costly garment

With tears and penance, fasting and prayer;

'Tis to clothe my soul, and with God's needy

The raiment I weave I hope to wear."

Each walked her way through this vain world;

Lucille lived with courtiers who gave her praise,

Solicitous still to adorn her person,

She frittered time to the end of her days;

She work'd, and work'd, and never felt weary.

Changing her costume as changed her will;

When death came, unfinished still were her garments,

But withered and sinful he found Lucille.

Each walked her way through this vain world;

Mary sought neither courtiers nor praise,

But in the lazar-house, firm and steadfast.

Good she worked to the end of her days.

She smooth'd the couch of the sick and dying,

She taught the sinner the ways of the Lord,

She gave to the "little ones" drink refreshing;

Verily she shall not lose her reward.

------

{759}

From The Month.

CONSTANCE SHERWOOD:

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.

(CONCLUDED.)

CHAPTER XXVI.

On the night before the 10th of December neither Muriel nor I retired

to rest. We sat together by the rush-light, at one time saying

prayers, at another speaking together in a low voice. Ever and anon

she went to listen at her father's door, for to make sure he slept,

and then returned to me. The hours seemed to pass slowly; and yet we

should have wished to stay their course, so much we dreaded the first

rays of light presaging the tragedy of the coming day. Before the

first token of it did show, at about five in the morning, the

door-bell rung in a gentle manner.

"Who can be ringing?" I said to Muriel.

"I will go and see," she answered.

But I restrained her, and went, to call one of the servants, who were

beginning to bestir themselves. The man went down, and returned,

bringing me a paper, on which these words were written:

"MY DEAR CONSTANCE--My lord and myself have secretly come to join our

prayers with yours, and, if it should be possible, to receive the

blessing of the holy priest who is about to die, as he passeth by your

house, toward which, I doubt not, his eyes will of a surety turn. I

pray you, therefore, admit us."

I hurried down the stairs, and found Lord and Lady Arundel standing in

the hall; she in a cloak and hood, and he with a slouching hat hiding

his face. Leading them both into the parlor, which looketh on the

street, I had a fire hastily kindled; and for a space her ladyship and

myself could only sit holding each other's hands, our hearts being too

full to speak. After a while I asked her when she had come to London.

She said she had done so very secretly, not to increase the queen's

displeasure against her husband; her majesty's misliking of herself

continuing as great as ever.

"When she visited my lord last year, before his arrest," quoth she,

"on a pane of glass in the dining-room her grace perceived a distich,

writ by me in bygone days with a diamond, and which expressed hopes of

better fortunes."

"I mind it well," I replied. "Did it not run thus?

'Not seldom doth the sun sink down In brightest light

Which rose at early dawn disfigured quite outright;

So shall my fortunes, wrapt so long in darkest night,

Revive, and show ere long an aspect clear and bright.'"

"Yea," she answered. "And now listen to what her majesty, calling for

a like instrument, wrote beneath:

'Not seldom do vain hopes deceive a silly heart

Let all each witless dreams now vanish and depart;

For fortune shall ne'er shine, I promise thee, on one

Whose folly hath for aye all hopes thereof undone.'

{760}

"We do live," she added, "with a sword hanging over our heads; and it

is meet we should come here this day to learn a lesson how to die when

a like fate shall overtake us. But thou hast been like to die by

another means, my good Constance," her ladyship said, looking with

kindness but no astonishment on my swollen and disfigured face, which

I had not remembered to conceal; grave thoughts, then uppermost,

having caused me to forget it.

"My life," I answered, "God hath mercifully spared; but I have lost

the semblance of my former self."

"Tut, tut!" she replied, "only for a time."

And then we both drew near unto the fire, for we were shivering with

cold. Lord Arundel leant against the chimney, and watched the

timepiece.

"Mistress Wells," he said, "is like, I hear, to be reprieved at the

last moment."

"Alas!" I cried, "nature therein finds relief; yet I know not how much

to rejoice or yet to grieve thereat. For surely she will desire to die

with her husband. And of what good will life be to her if, like some

others, she doth linger for years in prison?"

"Of much good, if God wills her there to spend those years," Muriel

gently said; which words, I ween, were called to mind long afterward

by one who then heard them.

As the hour appointed for the execution approached, we became silent

again, and kneeling down betook ourselves to prayer. At eight o'clock

a crowd began to assemble in the street; and the sound of their feet

as they passed under the window, hurrying toward the scaffold, which

was hung with black cloth, became audible. About an hour afterward

notice was given to us by one of the servants that the sledge which

carried the prisoners was in sight. We rose from our knees and went to

the window. Mr. Wells's stout form and Mr. Genings's slight figure

were then discernible, as they sat bound, with their hands tied behind

their backs. I observed that Mr. Wells smiled and nodded to some one

who was standing amidst the crowd. This person, who was a friend of

his, hath since told me that as he passed he saluted him with these

words: "Farewell, dear companion! farewell, all hunting and hawking

and old pastimes! I am now going a better way." Mistress Wells not

being with them, we perceived that to be true which Lord Arundel had

heard. At that moment I turned round, and missed Muriel, who had been

standing close behind me. I supposed she could not endure this sight;

but, lo and behold, looking again into the street, I saw her threading

her way amongst the crowd as swiftly, lame though she was, as if an

angel had guided her. When she reached the foot of the scaffold, and

took her stand there, her aspect was so composed, serene, and

resolved, that she seemed like an inhabitant of another world suddenly

descended amidst the coarse and brutal mob. She was resolved, I

afterward found, to take note of every act, gesture, and word there

spoken; and by her means I can here set down what mine own ears heard

not, but much of which mine own eyes beheld. As the sledge passed our

door, Mr. Genings, as Lady Arundel had foreseen, turned his head

toward us; and seeing me at the window, gave us, I doubt not, his

blessing; for, albeit he could not raise his chained hand, we saw his

fingers and his lips move. On reaching the gibbet Muriel heard him cry

out with holy Andrew, "O good gibbet, long desired and now prepared

for me, much hath my heart desired thee; and now, joyful and secure, I

come to thee. Receive me, I beseech thee, as the disciple of him that

suffered on the cross!" Being put upon the ladder, many questions were

asked him by some standersby, to which he made clear and distinct

answers. Then Mr. Topcliffe cried out with a loud voice,

"Genings, Genings, confess thy fault, thy papist treason; and the

queen, no doubt, will grant thee pardon!"

{761}

To which he mildly answered, "I know not, Mr. Topcliffe, in what I

have offended my dear anointed princess; if I have offended her or any

other person in anything, I would willingly ask her and all the world

forgiveness. If she be offended with me without a cause, for

professing my faith and religion, or because I am a priest, or because

I will not turn minister against my conscience, I shall be, I trust,

excused and innocent before God. 'We must obey God,' saith St. Peter,

'rather than men;' and I must not in this case acknowledge a fault

where there is none. If to return to England a priest, or to say mass,

is popish treason, I here do confess I am a traitor. But I think not

so; and therefore I acknowledge myself guilty of these things not with

repentance and sorrow of heart, but with an open protestation of

inward joy that I have done so good deeds, which, if they were to do

again, I would, by the permission and assistance of God, accomplish

the same, though with the hazard of a thousand lives."

Mr. Topcliffe was very angry at this speech, and hardly gave him time

to say an "Our Father" before he ordered the hangman to turn the

ladder. From that moment I could not so much as once again look toward

the scaffold. Lady Arundel and I drew back into the room, and clasping

each other's hands, kept repeating, "Lord, help him! Lord, assist him!

Have mercy on him, O Lord!" and the like prayers.

We heard Lord Arundel exclaim, "Good God! the wretch doth order the

rope to be cut!" Then avoiding the sight, he also drew back and

silently prayed. What followeth I learnt from Muriel, who never lost

her senses, though she endured, methinks, at that scaffold's foot as

much as any sufferer upon it. Scarcely or not at all stunned, Mr.

Genings stood on his feet with his eyes raised to heaven, till the

hangman threw him down on the block where he was to be quartered.

After he was dismembered, she heard him utter with a loud voice, "Oh,

it smarts!" and Mr. Wells exclaim, "Alas! sweet soul, thy pain is

great indeed, but almost past. Pray for me now that mine may come."

Then when his heart was being plucked out, a faint dying whisper

reached her ear, "Sancte Gregori, ora pro me!" and then the voice of

the hangman crying, "See, his heart is in mine hand, and yet Gregory

in his mouth! O egregious papist!"

I marvel how she lived through it; but she assured us she was never

even near unto fainting, but stood immovable, hearing every sound,

listening to each word and groan, printing them on the tablet of her

heart, wherein they have ever remained as sacred memories.

Mr. Wells, so far from being terrified by the sight of his friend's

death, expressed a desire to have his own hastened; and, like unto Sir

Thomas More, was merry to the last; for he cried, "Despatch, despatch,

Mr. Topcliffe! Be you not ashamed to suffer an old man to stand here

so long in his shirt in the cold? I pray God make you of a Saul a

Paul, of a persecutor a Catholic." A murmur, hoarse and loud, from the

crowd apprised us when all was over.

"Where is Muriel?" I cried, going to the window. Thence I beheld a

sight which my pen refuseth to describe--the sledge which was

carrying away the mangled remains of those dear friends which so short

a time before we had looked upon alive! Like in a dream I saw this

spectacle; for the moment afterward I fainted. Many persons were

running after the cart, and Muriel keeping pace with what to others

would have been a sight full of horror, but to her were only relics of

the saintly dead. She followed, heedless of the mob, unmindful of

their jeers, intent on one aim--to procure some portion of those

sacred remains, which she at last achieved in an incredible manner;

one finger of Edmund Genings's hand, which she laid hold of, remaining

in hers. This secured, she hastened home, bearing away this her

treasure.

{762}

When I recovered from a long swoon, she was standing on one side of me

and Lady Arundel on the other. Their faces were very pale, but

peaceful; and when remembrance returned, I also felt a great and quiet

joy diffused in mine heart, such as none, I ween, could believe in who

have not known the like. For a while all earthly cares left me; I

seemed to soar above this world. Even Basil I could think of with a

singular detachment. It seemed as if angels were haunting the house,

whispering heavenly secrets. I could not so much as think on those

blessed departed souls without an increase of this joy sensibly

inflaming my heart.

After Lady Arundel had left us, which she did with many loving words

and tender caresses, Muriel and I conversed long touching the future.

She told me that when her duty to her father should end with his life,

she intended to fulfil the vow she long ago had made to consecrate

herself wholly to God in holy religion, and go beyond the seas, to

become a nun of the order of St. Augustine.

"May I not leave this world?" I cried; "may I not also, forgetting all

things else, live for God alone?"

A sweet sober smile illumined Muriel's face as she answered, "Yea, by

all means serve God, but not as a nun, good Constance. Thine I take to

be the mere shadow of a vocation, if even so much as that. A cloud

hath for a while obscured the sunshine of thy hopes and called up this

shadow; but let this thin vapor dissolve, and no trace shall remain of

it. Nay, nay, sweet one, 'tis not chafed, nor yet, except in rare

instances, riven hearts which God doth call to this special

consecration--rather whole ones, nothing or scantily touched by the

griefs and joys which this world can afford. But I warrant thee--nay,

I may not warrant," she added, checking herself, "for who can of a

surety forecast what God's designs should be? But I think thou wilt

be, before many years have past, a careful matron, with many children

about thy apron-strings to try thy patience."

"O Muriel," I answered, "how should this be? I have made my bed, and I

must lie on it. Like a foolish creature, unwittingly, or rather

rashly, I have deceived Basil into thinking I do not love him; and if

my face should yet recover its old fairness, he shall still think mine

heart estranged."

Muriel shook her head, and said more entangled skeins than this one

had been unravelled. The next day she resumed her wonted labors in the

prisons and amongst the poor. Having procured means of access to

Mistress Wells, she carried to her the only comfort she could now

taste--the knowledge of her husband's holy, courageous end, and the

reports of the last words he did utter. Then having received a charge

thereunto from Mr. Genings, she discovered John Genings's place of

residence, and went to tell him that the cause of his brother^s coming

to London was specially his love for him; that his only regret in

dying had been that he was executed before he could see him again, or

commend him to any friend of his own, so hastened was his death.

But this much-loved brother received her with a notable coldness; and

far from bewailing the untimely and bloody end of his nearest kinsman,

he betrayed some kind of contentment at the thought that he was now

rid of all the persuasions which he suspected he should otherwise have

received from him touching religion.

About a fortnight afterward Mr. Congleton expired. Alas! so

troublesome were the times, that to see one, howsoever loved, sink

peacefully into the grave, had not the same sadness which usually

belongs to the like haps.

Muriel had procured a priest for to give him extreme unction--one Mr.

Adams, a friend of Mr. Wells, who had sometimes said mass in his

house. He also secretly came for to perform the funeral rites before

his burial in the cemetery of St. Martin's church.

{763}

When we returned home that day after the funeral, this reverend

gentleman asked us if we had heard any report touching the brother of

Mr. Genings; and on our denial, he said, "Talk is ministered amongst

Catholics of his sudden conversion."

"Sudden, indeed, it should be," quoth Muriel; "for a more indifferent

listener to an afflicting message could not be met with than he proved

himself when I carried to him Mr. Genings's dying words."

"Not more sudden," quoth Mr. Adams, "than St. Paul's was, and

therefore not incredible."

Whilst we were yet speaking, a servant came in, and said a young

gentleman was at the door, and very urgent for to see Muriel.

"Tell him," she said, raising her eyes, swollen with tears, "that I

have one hour ago buried my father, and am in no condition to see

strangers."

The man returned with a paper, on which these words were written:

"A penitent and a wanderer craveth to speak with you. If you shed

tears, his do incessantly flow. If you weep for a father, he grieveth

for one better to him than ten fathers. If your plight is sad, his

should be desperate, but for God's great mercy and a brother's prayers

yet pleading for him in heaven as once upon earth.

"JOHN GENINGS."

"Heavens!" Muriel cried, "it is this changed man, this Saul become a

Paul, which stands at the door and knocks. Bring him in swiftly; the

best comfort I can know this day is to see one who awhile was lost and

is now found."

When John Genings beheld her and me, he awhile hid his face in his

hands, and seemed unable to speak. To break this silence Mr. Adams

said, "Courage, Mr. Genings; your holy brother rejoiceth in heaven

over your changed mind, and further blessings still, I doubt not, he

shall yet obtain for you."

Then this same John raised his head, and with as great and touching

sorrow as can be expressed, after thanking this unknown speaker for

his comfortable words, he begged of Muriel to relate to him each

action and speech in the dying scene she had witnessed; and when she

had ended this recital, with the like urgency he moved me to tell him

all I could remember of his brother's young years, all my father had

written of his life and virtues at college, all which we had heard of

his labors since he had come into the country, and lastly, in a manner

most simple and affecting, we all entreating him thereunto, he made

this narrative, addressing himself chiefly to Muriel:

"You, madam, are acquainted with what was the hardness of mine heart

and cruel indifference to my brother^s fate; with what disdain I

listened to you, with what pride I received his last advice. But about

ten days after his execution, toward night, having spent all that day

in sports and jollity, being weary with play, I resorted home to

repose myself. I went into a secret chamber, and was no sooner there

sat down, but forthwith my heart began to be heavy, and I weighed how

idly I had spent that day. Amidst these thoughts there was presently

represented to me an imagination and apprehension of the death of my

brother, and, amongst other things, how he had not long before

forsaken all worldly pleasure, and for the sake of his religion alone

endured dreadful torments. Then within myself I made long discourses

concerning his manner of living and mine own; and finding the one to

embrace pain and mortification, and the other to seek pleasure--the

one to live strictly, and the other licentiously--I was struck with

exceeding terror and remorse. I wept bitterly, desiring God to

illuminate mine understanding, that I might see and perceive the

truth. Oh, what great joy and consolation did I feel at {764} that

instant! What reverence on the sudden did I begin to bear to the

Blessed Virgin and to the Saints of God, which before I had never

scarcely so much as heard of! What strange emotions, as it were

inspirations, with exceeding readiness of will to change my religion,

took possession of my soul! and what heavenly conception had I then of

my brother's felicity! I imagined I saw him--I thought I heard him. In

this ecstasy of mind I made a vow upon the spot, as I lay prostrate on

the ground, to forsake kindred and country, to find out the true

knowledge of Edmund's faith. Oh, sir," he ended by saying, turning to

Mr. Adams, which he guessed to be a priest, "think you not my brother

obtained for me in heaven what on earth he had not obtained? for here

I am become a Catholic in faith without persuasion or conference with

any one man in the world?"

"Ay, my good friend," Mr. Adams replied; "the blood of martyrs will

ever prove the seed of the Church. Let us then, in our private

prayers, implore the suffrages of those who in this country do lose

their lives for the faith, and take unto ourselves the words of

Jeremiah: 'O Lord, remember what has happened unto us. Behold and see

our great reproach; our inheritance is gone to strangers, our houses

to aliens. We are become as children without a father, our mothers are

made as it were widows.'"

These last words of Holy Writ brought to mine own mind private

sorrows, and caused me to shed tears. Soon after John Genings departed

from England without giving notice to us or any of his friends, and

went beyond seas to execute his promise. I have heard that he has

entered the holy order of St. Francis, and is seeking to procure a

convent of that religion at Douay, in hopes of restoring the English

Franciscan province, of which it is supposed he will be first

provincial. Report doth state him to be an exceeding strict and holy

religious, and like to prove an instrument in furnishing the English

mission with many zealous and apostolical laborers.

Muriel and I were solitary in that great city where so many

misfortunes had beset us; she with her anchor cast where her hopes

could not be deceived; I by mine own folly like unto a ship at sea

without a chart. Womanly reserve, mixed, I ween, with somewhat of

pride, restraining me from writing to Basil, though, as my face

improved each day, I deplored my hasty folly, and desired nothing so

much as to see him again, when, if his love should prove unchanged

(shame on that word _if!_ which my heart disavowed), we should be as

heretofore, and the suffering I had caused him and endured myself

would end. But how this might happen I foresaw not; and life was sad

and weary while so much suspense lasted.

Muriel would not forsake me while in this plight; but although none

could have judged it from her cheerful and amiable behavior, I well

knew that she sighed for the haven of a religions home, and grieved to

keep her from it. After some weeks spent in this fashion, with very

little comfort, I was sitting one morning dismally forecasting the

future, writing letter after letter to Basil, which still I tore up

rather than send them--for I warrant you it was no easy matter for to

express in writing what I longed to say. To tell him the cause of my

breaking our contract was so much as to compel him to the performance

of it; and albeit I was no longer so ill-favored as at the first, yet

the good looks I had before my sickness had by no means wholly

returned. Sometimes I wrote: "Your thinking, dear Basil, that I do

affection any but yourself is so false and injurious an imagination,

that I cannot suffer you to entertain it. Be sure I never can and

never shall love any but you; yet, for all that, I cannot marry you."

Then effacing this last sentence, which verily belied my true desire,

I would write another: "Methinks if you should see me now, yourself

would not wish otherwise than to dissolve a contract {765} wherein

your contentment should be less than it hath been." And then thinking

this should be too obscure, changed it to--"In sooth, dear Basil, my

appearance is so altered that you would yourself, I ween, not desire

for to wed one so different from the Constance you have seen and

loved." But pride whispered to restrain this open mention of my

suspicious fears of his liking me less for my changed face; yet

withal, conscience reproved this misdoubt of one whose affection had

ever shown itself to be of the nobler sort, which looketh rather to

the qualities of the heart and mind than to the exterior charms of a

fair visage.

Alas! what a torment doth perplexity occasion. I had let go my pen,

and my tears were falling on the paper, when Muriel opened the door of

the parlor.

"What is it?" I cried, hiding my face with mine hand that she should

not see me weeping.

"A letter from Lady Arundel," she answered.

I eagerly took it from her; and on the reading of it found it

contained an urgent request from her ladyship, couched in most

affectionate terms, and masking the kindness of its intent under a

show of entreating, as a favor to herself that I would come and reside

with her at Arundel Castle, where she greatly needed the solace of a

friend's company, during her lord's necessary absences. "Mine own

dear, good Constance," she wrote, "come to me quickly. In a letter I

cannot well express all the good you will thus do to me. For mine own

part, I would fain say come to me until death shall part us. But so

selfish I would not be; yet prithee come until such time as the clouds

which have obscured the fair sky of thy future prospects have passed

away, and thy Basil's fortunes are mended; for I will not cease to

call him thine, for all that thou hast thyself thrust a spoke in a

wheel which otherwise should have run smoothly, for the which thou art

now doing penance: but be of good cheer; time will bring thee shrift.

Some kind of comfort I can promise thee in this house, greater than I

dare for to commit to paper. Lose no time then. From thy last letter

methinks the gentle turtle-dove at whose side thou dost now nestle

hath found herself a nest whereunto she longeth to fly. Let her spread

her wings thither, and do thou hasten to the shelter of these old

walls and the loving faithful heart of thy poor friend,

"ANNE ARUNDEL AND SURREY."

Before a fortnight was overpast Muriel and I had parted; she for her

religious home beyond seas, I for the castle of my Lord Arundel,

whither I travelled in two days, resting on my way at the pleasant

village of Horsham. During the latter part of the journey the road lay

through a very wild expanse of down; but as soon as I caught sight of

the sea my heart bounded with joy; for to gaze on its blue expanse

seemed to carry me beyond the limits of this isle to the land where

Basil dwelt. When I reached the castle, the sight of the noble gateway

and keep filled me with admiration; and riding into the court thereof,

I looked with wonder on the military defences bristling on every side.

But what a sweet picture smiled from one of the narrow windows over

above the entrance-door!--mine own loved friend, yet fairer in her

matronly and motherly beauty than even in her girlhood's loveliness,

holding in her arms the pretty bud which had blossomed on a noble tree

in the time of adversity. Her countenance beamed on me like the

morning sun's; and my heart expanded with joy when, half-way up the

stairs which led to her chamber, I found myself inclosed in her arms.

She led me to a settle near a cheerful fire, and herself removed my

riding-cloak, my hat and veil, stroked my cheek with two of her

delicate white fingers, and said with a smile,

"In sooth, my dear Constance, thou art an arrant cheat."

"How so, most dear lady?" I said, likewise smiling.

{766}

"Why, thou art as comely as ever I thee; which, after all the torments

inflicted on poor Master Rookwood by thy prophetical vision of an

everlasting deformity, carefully concealed from him under the garb of

a sudden fit of inconstancy, is a very nefarious injustice. Go to, go

to; if he should see thee now, he never would believe but that that

management of thine was a cunning device for to break faith with him."

"Nay, nay," I cried; "if I should be ever so happy, which I deserve

not, for to see him again, there could never be for one moment a

mistrust on his part of a love which is too strong and too fond for

concealment. If the feebleness of sickness had not bred unreasonable

fears, methinks I should not have been guilty of so great a folly as

to think he would prize less what he was always wont most to treasure

far above their merits--the heart and mind of his poor Constance

--because the casket which held them had waxed unseemly. But when the

day shall come in which Basil and I may meet, God only knoweth. Human

foresight cannot attain to this prevision."

Lady Arundel's eyes had a smiling expression then which surprised me.

For mine own heart was full when I thus spoke, and I was wont to meet

in her with a more quick return of the like feelings I expressed than

at that time appeared. Slight inward resentments, painfully, albeit

not angrily, entertained, I was by nature prone to; and in this case

the effect of this impression suddenly checked the joy which at my

first arrival I had experienced. O, how much secret discipline should

be needed for to rule that little unruly kingdom within us, which many

look not into till serious rebellions do arise, which need fire and

sword to quell them for lack of timely repression! Her ladyship set

before me some food, and constrained me to eat, which I did merely for

to content her. She appeared to me somewhat restless: beginning a

sentence, and then breaking off suddenly in the midst thereof; going

in and out of the chamber; laughing at one time, and then seeming as

if about to weep. "When I had finished eating, and a servant had

removed the dishes, she sat down by my side and took my hand in hers.

Then the tears truly began to roll down her cheeks.

"O, for God's sake, what aileth you, dearest lady?" I said, uneasily

gazing on her agitated countenance.

"Nothing ails me," she answered; "only I fear to frighten thee, albeit

in a joyful manner."

"Frightened with joy!" I sadly answered. "O, that should be a rare

fright, and an unwonted one to me of late."

"Therefore," she said, smiling through her tears, "peradventure the

more to be feared."

"What joy do you speak of? I pray you, sweet lady, keep me not in

suspense."

"If, for instance," she said in a low voice, pressing my hands very

hard,--"if I was to tell thee Constance, that thy Basil was here,

shouldst thou not be affrighted?"

Methinks I must have turned very white; leastways, I began to tremble.

"Is he here?" I said, almost beside myself with the fearful hope her

words awoke.

"Yea," she said. "Since three days he is here."

For a moment I neither spoke nor moved.

"How comes it about? how doth it happen?" I began to say; but a

passion of tears choked my utterance. I fell into her arms, sobbing on

her breast; for verily I had no power to restrain myself. I heard her

say, "Master Rookwood, come in." Then, after those sad long weary

years, I again heard his cheerful voice; then I saw his kind eyes

speaking what words could never have uttered, or one-half so well

expressed. Then I felt the happiness which is most like, {767} I ween,

of any on earth to that of heaven: after long parting, to meet again

one intensely loved--each heart overflowing with an unspoken joy and

with an unbounded thankfulness to God. Amazement did so fill me at

this unlooked-for good, that I seemed content for a while to think of

it as of a dream, and only feared to be awoke. But oh, with how many

sweet tears of gratitude--with what bursts of wonder and admiration--I

soon learnt how Lady Arundel had formed this kind plot, to which

Muriel had been privy, for to bring together parted lovers, and

procure to others the happiness she so often lacked herself--the

company of the most loved person in the world. She had herself written

to Basil, and related the cause of my apparent change; a cause, she

said, at no time sufficient for to warrant a desperate action, and

even then passing away. But that had it forever endured, she was of

opinion his was a love would survive any such accident as touched only

the exterior, when all else was unimpaired. She added, that when Mr.

Congleton, who was then at the point of death, should have expired,

and Muriel gone beyond seas to fulfil her religious intent, she would

use all the persuasion in her power to bring me to reside with her,

which was the thing she most desired in the world; and that if he

should think it possible under another name for to cross the seas and

land at some port in Sussex, he should be the welcomest guest

imaginable at Arundel Castle, if even, like St. Alexis, he should hide

his nobility under the garb of rags, and come thither begging on foot;

but yet she hoped, for his sake, it should not so happen, albeit

nothing could be more honorable if the cause was a good one. It needed

no more inducement than what this letter contained for to move Basil

to attempt this secret return. He took the name of Martingale, and

procured a passage in a small trading craft, which landed him at the

port of a small town named Littlehampton, about three or four miles

from Arundel. Thence he walked to the castle, where the countess

feigned him to be a leech sent by my lord to prescribe remedies for a

pain in her head, which she was oftentimes afflicted with, and as such

entertained him in the eyes of strangers as long as he continued

there, which did often move us to great merriment; for some of the

neighbors which she was forced to see, would sometimes ask for to

consult the countess's physician; and to avoid misdoubts, Basil once

or twice made up some innocent compounds, which an old gentleman and a

maiden lady in the town vowed had cured them, the one of a fit of the

gout, and the other of a very sharp disorder in her stomach. But to

return to the blissful first day of our meeting, one of the happiest I

had yet known; for a paramount affection doth so engross the heart,

that other sorrows vanish in its presence like dewdrops in the

sunshine. I can never forget the smallest particle of its many joys.

The long talk between Basil and me, first in Lady Arundel's chamber,

and then in the gallery of the castle, walking up and down, and when I

was tired, I sitting and he standing by the window which looked on the

fair valley and silvery river Arun, running toward the sea, through

pleasant pastures, with woody slopes on both sides, a fair and a

peaceful scene; fair and peaceful as the prospect Basil unfolded to me

that day, if we could but once in safety cross the seas; for his

debtors had remitted to him in France the moneys which they owed him,

and he had purchased a cottage in a very commodious village near the

town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, with an apple-orchard and a garden stored

with gay flowers and beehives, and a meadow with two large

walnut-trees in it. "And then bethink thee," he added, "mine own dear

love, that right in front of this fine mansion doth stand the parish

church, where God is worshipped in a Catholic manner in {768} peace

and freedom; and nothing greater or more weighty need, methinks, to be

said in its praise."

I said I thought so too, and that the picture he drew of it liked me

well.

"But," quoth Basil suddenly, "I must tell thee, sweetheart, I liked

not well thy behavior touching thine altered face, and the misleading

letter thou didst send me at that time. No!" he exclaimed with great

vehemency, "it mislikes me sorely that thou shouldst have doubted my

love and faith, and dealt with me so injuriously. If I was now by some

accident disfigured, I must by that same token expect thine affection

for me should decay."

"O Basil!" I cried, "that would be an impossible thing!"

"Wherefore impossible?" he replied; "you thought such a change

possible in me?"

"Because," I said, smiling, "women are the most constant creatures in

the world, and not fickle like unto men, or so careful of a good

complexion in others, or a fine set of features."

"Tut, tut!" he cried, "I do admire that thou shouldst dare to utter so

great a . . . ." then he stopped, and, laughing, added, "the last half

of Raleigh's name, as the queen's bad riddle doth make it." [Footnote 144]