On certain sultry and thunderous days in the middle of July, 1866, was

celebrated, with fêtes and fireworks, illuminations by night, and brilliant

shows by day, the first centenary of the union of the province of Lorraine

to France. The scene was the city of Nancy, and splendor was added to the

festival by the presence of the Empress Eugénie and the imperial prince,

who lodged in the former palace of King Stanislaus of Poland, the last duke

of Lorraine, and witnessed from its balcony the defiling of a long

allegorical procession, representing in order the historical personages of

the province, conspicuous among whom was the Maid of Orleans, personated by

a youth of the town bearing in his hand a facsimile of her consecrated

banner. The romance of the mediaeval spectacle was a little marred by

certain laughable incongruities which the critical eye might detect; for

instance, the arquebusiers of the sixteenth century were armed with

percussion muskets; and the portly nymphs representing France and Lorraine

seemed in consequence of the heat to be in somewhat too melting a mood for

perfect dignity. The spectacle as a whole was, however, very imposing, and

went off with a success peculiarly French, the clean and handsome city

being crowded with well-behaved strangers from all the neighborhood, in

such vast numbers that, in spite of their good behavior and good temper,

they were fain to fight for their places in the trains, and one party had

to wait till two A.M. at the station, after being in time to get away by

ten at night. In bearing patiently such inconveniences in the pursuit of

pleasure, our neighbors of the other side of the channel most undeniably

surpass us. It was pleasant as a contrast to pass without let or hinderance

the same station a few days later, following the line which runs parallel

to the course of the Moselle past Épinal to Remiremont, on a visit to the

lakes which lie in the country between that town and the terminus of St.

Dié, which ends another branch of the Paris and Strasburg railway. Between

Nancy and Épinal the stream of the Moselle is met winding through fertile

meadows in a broad valley with low elevations on each side; near Épinal the

scenery becomes more picturesque; there are more trees near the river, and

the long level reaches are broken by occasional rapids with rocks about

them. When Épinal is passed, the valley becomes narrower and prettier, shut

in between two spurs of the Vosges, until the basin is reached, where

Remiremont itself lies, and the waters of the Mosellote join those of the

Moselle, each branch of the river from this point to the source having the

character of a considerable mountain brook. The town of Remiremont itself

resembles Freiburg in the Breisgau, minus its magnificent cathedral, in its

size and general character, and especially in the abundance of fountains

and runnels permeating the streets, which in their main portions are

fronted with arcades like those of Bern or Bologna, a pleasant protection

against sun and shower, and duly appreciated in the tempestuous summer of

1866.

The busy little town derives its euphonious name from one Saint Romary. In

the circle of mountains enclosing the town one of conical shape is

remarked, called Mont Habend, from _Castrum Habendi_, a camp erected

on its site by the Romans.

{523}

In the seventh century this holy mountain was the chosen retreat of two

anchorites, Amé and Romary, who founded there two monasteries, one for

women, another for men, and were canonized after their deaths. The

monasteries were destroyed by the Huns in the tenth century, but the site

of one was repeopled again by monks a century later, while the nuns,

abandoning the mountain, fixed themselves in the valley. The convent of

Remiremont was governed during its long existence by sixty-four abbesses,

the last of whom, Louise Adélaide de Bourbon Condé, died in 1824. It was a

foundation even more exclusive and aristocratic in its character than All

Souls', Oxford. The abbesses were generally princesses, and royal honors

were accorded them. When each abbess entered the town for the first time, a

great holiday was kept, and the mayor, instead of presenting the keys of

the city, offered her the wine of the spot in a cup of gold, which she just

touched with her lips before she passed within the walls to be enthroned

with great state in the palatial apartments prepared for her. One of the

number of these religious princesses, Catherine de Lorraine, distinguished

herself in 1637 beating off from the walls of Remiremont the great Turenne,

who was endeavoring to take the town from the Duke of Lorraine.

The town is now famous chiefly for the production of some excellent cakes

with the quaint name of "_quiches_" probably only a corruption of the

German Küchlein.

To the guests at the baths of Plombières, the lake region which lies

between Remiremont and St. Dié is better known than to the general world,

as it lies out of the way of tourists' thoroughfares; but though it cannot

quite compete in beauty with the English or Scotch lakes, or Killarney, it

is well worth a visit to those who are not obliged to go a great distance

to see it. Instead of going due east to the source of the Moselle and the

pass over the main chain of the Vosges which leads to Wesserling, and

thence by rail to Basel, the road to Gérardmer turns to the left along a

valley parallel to the line of the mountains, and flanked by lower hills,

well wooded, on its other side. The foregrounds have the usual broken and

diversified character of a granitic country, and the height of the hills is

sufficient to make the distant views in many parts highly pleasing. There

is enough picturesque incident to beguile very pleasantly the eighteen

miles or so which the diligence traverses to Gérardmer. The name, derived

from Gérard, a duke of Lorraine, has been given to a fine oblong sheet of

clear water, about two miles long, and half a mile broad, bounded for the

greatest part of its circumstance by long slopes covered with meadows and

white cottages at intervals, but on the east by a pine forest and rocks,

which give a more savage aspect to its further banks. From the Swiss villas

built on its banks, the numerous pleasure-boats, and the general lively

aspect, it brings to mind the lake of Zurich in miniature. At its further

end is an immensely long village, also called Gérardmer, the most

distinguishing mark of which is an enormous wych elm of unknown antiquity,

standing in the market place.

In the summer, Gérardmer is full of visitors, who are well entertained at

the Hôtel de la Poste and the Hôtel des Vosges at a moderate rate. The

latter of these is conducted by an indefatigable little landlady, who is

full of civilities, assisted by a good-natured, gigantic husband, who seems

to superintend the kitchen department, and generally was seen during our

visit lounging somewhere about the entrance, conspicuous in white trousers

and a shirt of violet flannel, trimmed with scarlet. The wide road beyond

Gérardmer branches to the right and left. The left branch leads into a

valley choked with a primaeval pine forest, in the depths of which roars

the torrent of the Vologne. The trees are of immense size, and completely

clad with pendants of moss and lichen, telling of a considerable elevation

of site, and of such weird and grand forms as to make one wish that the art

of forest culture which fells the trees at a premature age had never been

introduced.

{524}

In one spot, not far from the so-called "Basse des Ours," or Bear Bottom,

where the huge granite-blocks that have fallen from the crest of a mountain

have been huddled together, a natural ice-house has been formed in the

interstices, called "La glacière," and the fact of our finding no ice in it

was accounted for by the summer not having been sufficiently hot to produce

the necessary amount of evaporation. The road to the right passes over the

torrent, by a bridge, and then divides again, its right branch leading over

the mountains into the valley of Münster in Alsace, and its left to St.

Dié. On the road to St. Dié two pines are seen which have grown together

like Siamese twins.

Near the bridge is a cascade of singular beauty, which, from a peculiarity

it possesses in changing its entire aspect as the spectator changes his

ground, is called the _Cascade des Fées_. Not far from this cascade is

a large slab of granite, and a fountain where Charlemagne is said to have

dined when he passed out of Alsace over the Vosges into Lorraine, at a time

when all the country was wild forest. A rough bridle road to the right

leaves the main road to the Schlucht pass and the valley of Münster, and,

making for a gap in the hill, soon discloses the beautiful piece of water

called Longemer, or "The Long Lake," the Ullswater, as Gérardmer is the

Windermere of Lorraine. It runs in a long trough between beautifully wooded

steeps for about two miles, with a slightly serpentine direction, prettily

broken by spits of grassy land with a few low trees upon them. At the upper

end is seen, above woody heights, the bald summit of the Honeck, (Hoheneck,

"The High Corner",) an eminence about four thousand feet high. At the lower

end, shaded by lofty trees, is a little chapel on a tongue of land,

dedicated to St. Bartholomew by an anchorite named Bilon, and near it a

solitary villa belonging to a medical gentleman of the neighborhood, who

spends his summer holidays in this Arcadian seclusion, boating and fishing

in the lake and the clear stream that runs out of it. By a path to the

right, following the sinuosities of the lake, a rocky barrier is reached,

down whose face tumbles, among rocks and trees, a lovely waterfall; and

when this is passed, another lake is disclosed, a round, low-lying basin,

among dense woods and frowning escarpments, one of them called the Rock of

the Devil, which bears the name of Retournemer, or "The Lake of Return." A

solitary dwelling, backed by fine beeches and other trees, stands on the

brink, the cottage of the forester, where the wanderer to this end of the

world finds hospitable entertainment. But notwithstanding the impassable

look of the scenery round, a zig-zag path through the trees climbs the

height behind the house, and joins the road which leads to the Col de la

Schlucht, where a beautiful view opens into Alsace, its most prominent

objects being that long spur of the Vosges which terminates by Colmar, and

on the other side a broken granite wall, crowned by a peculiarly imposing

cap of rock, under which the road descends to the green slopes about

Münster, which are variegated with acres of bleaching linen, the product of

the weaving industry which pervades the whole country. On the Col itself is

a spacious chalet or hotel, with excellent accommodation and abundant fare,

to which appetites whetted by the bracing mountain air are inclined to do

full justice. From this point, by walking up a long slope in a southerly

direction, the top of the Honeck is reached, grazed over by herds of cattle

tinkling with Alpine bells, and commanding a spacious view over the valley

of the Rhine to the distant Black Forest, with tremendous precipices in the

foreground on the side of Alsace. Instead of returning from this point

direct to Gérardmer, I walked through a forest of apparently blasted

horn-beam, as grisly as the trees in Gustave Doré's drawings, into a long

valley, which led in course of time to a busy place called La Bresse, and

thence, turning to the right, over a moderately high pass back to

Gérardmer.

{525}

Besides the three lakes already mentioned, there is Blanchemer, or the

"White Lake," in the valley of the Mosellote; the Lac de Corbeaux,

so-called from an overhanging cliff frequented by ravens; the Lac de

Lispach, rich in fish, divided by a ridge from Longemer, and the Lac de

Marchet, on the flank of a mountain not far from Bresse. The so-called

White, Black, and Green lakes belonging to Alsace are situated further to

the north on that side of the Vosges chain which looks toward the Rhine. On

one of the mounds of the Honeck mountain there is an abundant and perennial

spring, called La Fontaine de la Duchesse, which perhaps possesses a higher

claim to be the source of the Moselle than the more trifling stream which

descends by Bussang, though the latter pours its contribution in a more

direct line. The sources of rivers, whether small or great, are generally

controvertible. Some consider the Inn, which rises in the Grisons, as

having more claim to be the real Danube than the river which rises at

Donaueschingen, and, between the rival claims of the Victoria Nyanza of

Speke and the Albert Nyanza of Baker, the real head of mighty Nilus himself

still remains an open question for geographers.

------

Original.

Columbus

Three Scenes.

'Tis midnight; through the lozenge panes

Flashes a southern storm;

And the lightning flings its livid stains

O'er a bowed and wearied form.

He stands, like a ship once staunch and stout

By billows too long opprest;

And a fiercer storm than whirls without

Tears through his heaving breast.

His hand is pressed on his aching brow,

And veils his eyes' dark light,

And a twinkling cresset's dim red glow,

When the lightning pales, doth sadly flow

O'er locks where many a thread of snow

Tells of time's troubled flight.

He stands--a fading, a clouded star,

Half-hid in the rack of heaven's war;

Or, like a vanquished warrior, one

Whose heart is crushed, whose hopes are gone

After many a gallant fight.

{526}

He turns and he paces the damp stone floor,

And his glance seeks the damper wall,

Where the charts, o'er which he had loved to pore,

Like arras rise and fall.

There is his heart's most cherished store,

There lie the fruits of his deepest lore,

And his lips, as he views them o'er and o'er,

His withered life recall:

"And was it all a dream?

Is this the bitter waking?

And is hope's heavenly beam

For aye my soul forsaking?

I thought to see the cross unfurled

Upon the hills of a far-off world!

To bear the faith of the Crucified

Far o'er the wild Atlantic's tide!

To see adored the Christian's God

Where Christian foot hath never trod!

Sure brighter dreams from heaven ne'er fell

And I wake in this cold, dim cell!

"And were they, too, but dreams----

Those lands far in the West,

Where robed in sunset beams

The Seven Cities rest?

Far, far beyond the blue Azores,

I thought to press the ocean's shores;

The heaving, restless main to span,

And give--and give--a world to man!

A new-born world of vernal skies

Fresh with the breath of paradise--

A world that yet would place my name

The foremost on the scroll of fame.

And now I wake, poor, friendless, lone,

'Mid these dripping walls of stone.

"And was it but a dream

I left fair Italy?

To chase the churchyard gleam

Of false expectancy--

That light which, like the swamp's pale glare,

Lures but to darkness and despair?

To crush the visions youth built up?

Drink to its poisoned dregs the cup

Of hope deferred and trust misplaced?

To feel heart shrink and body waste?

And still like drowning wretch to cry,

'One more effort and I die!'"

{527}

II.

The drear, chill gray of dawning day

Dies in a golden glow,

And merrily on the dancing sea

The rippling sunbeams flow;

And they glance and glint, in many a tint,

Over minaret and tower,

Where the lofty cross shows the Paynim's loss

And the wane of Moslem power.

And waving high in the brightening sky,

Floating o'er town and sea,

And gleaming bright in the morning light,

Spain's flag flaunts haughtily.

Who passes through the antique street

Worshipped by all around?

Whom do the thousand voices greet

That to the heavens resound?

Proud is the flash of his dark eye,

Yet tempered with humility;

The softened radiance, high yet meek,

That doth the Christian soul bespeak;

Proud is his heaving bosom's swell,

And proud his seat in velvet selle;

His very courser paws the earth

As conscious of its master's worth.

And now his armed heel loud rings

Through a high, carved hall,

Where blazoned shields of queens and kings

Hang fluttering on the wall.

Around, the noblest of the land

In deepest awe uncovered stand:

Princes, whose proud sires had well

Upheld the cross with Charles Martel;

And knights, whose scutcheons flashed amid

The fiercest fights where blazed the Cid;

Soldiers, who by their sovereign's side

Hurled back in blood the seething tide

Of Moslem war; and churchmen sage,

The men who smoothed that iron age.

And all alone, 'mid that bright throng,

_His_ voice arises clear and strong.

He stands before a throne; even now

His dark plume waves above his brow,

As he, of all the courtier train,

Rivalled the majesty of Spain.

Fortune like this, what fate can mar?

He stands--a cloudless, risen star.

{528}

III.

Once more 'tis the mid hour of night;

Once more the storm beats high;

But now it whirls its fearful might

Along the cloud-fraught sky

Which spans the drear Atlantic's waste,

All whitened with wild foam,

That cleaves the air, as sea-birds haste

At even to their home.

But even there, where nature's power

Laughs puny man to scorn,

Man lords it for his little hour

O'er fellow-man forlorn.

Within a Vessel's creaking sides

A chained prisoner sits;

Drooped, weary, careless what betides

His tired soul, ere it flits

Far from a world where gratitude

Yields ever to the selfish brood

That gold and thirst for honor bring

To breast of peasant and of king.

What now avails the world he gave

To thankless Spain? It cannot save

From slavish chains its whilom lord,

Nor shield him from the hatred poured

O'er his bowed head by those who late

But formed the puppets of his state.

Gone is his kindly mistress--laid

To sleep among Spain's royal dead.

Dead is her smile, her beaming gaze

So full of hope when darkening days

Hung o'er the crown she wore so well;

Yea, dead is queenly Isabel!

And where are now the crowds that hung

Upon his steps when every tongue

Shouted his praise? The station high

Above all Spain's plumed chivalry?

The high commands? Away! each thought

With saddening memory so deep fraught!

Call not pale flashes from afar

To mock with light a fallen star!

The past is dead, the future read,

Ay! see a broken, moss-grown stone,

And on it view a kingly meed

Of thanks to genius shown--

Ay! trace o'er that forgotten grave--

"ANOTHER WORLD COLUMBUS GAVE

TO CASTILE AND LÉON."

Front-de-boeuf.

------

{529}

Original.

The Two Lovers of Flavia Domitilla.

by Clonfert.

Chapter II.

The Slaves' Feast.

The great Festival called _Saturnalia_ was being celebrated in Rome

when these events took place. The occurrence of this feast enabled the

Christians from many parts of the world to assemble in the city, and to

celebrate under cover of it the feast of Christmas. History does not light

us with certainty to the precise time at which this latter feast was

instituted, but shows it in matured existence at a very early period.

Tradition has surmised that it had its birth in the first century, and that

it was celebrated in secret and security under shadow of the pagan

festivities of the _Saturnalia_.

The _Saturnalia_, in honor of _Saturnus_, to whom the Latins

traced the introduction into Italy of agriculture and the civilizing arts,

fell toward the end of December. The agricultural labors of the year being

then over, it became a kind of harvest-home with the rural population.

After the Julian addition of two days to the month of December, it

commenced on the 16th of the Kalends of January, that is, on the 17th

December, and continued for three days. But the people generally

anticipated the time and prolonged it to the end of the month, especially

to the 24th, when it became merged in another feast called

_Sigillaria_, on account of the earthenware figures then hawked about

as toys for children.

During the feast the slaves were allowed great liberty of act and of

speech. Throwing off their sombre garments of brown and black, which,

together with their slippers, made up the servile dress, (_vestis

servilis_,) they donned their masters' clothes, assumed like freedmen

the _pileus_, or felten cap, considered the badge of freedom. Their

allowance of bread and salt and oil was increased and made palatable by the

addition of wine. Their masters often waited on them at table, where

thoughts were freely uttered in joke and song as well as in sober earnest

without restraint or blame. The whole people made merry; the toga was laid

aside, and the loose-fitting garment _synthesis_ put on with a

high-peaked skull-cap without brim, (_pileus_.) Wax-tapers were given

as presents, particularly by slaves to their owners and by the clients to

their patrons; with these lighted in their hands, they went along the

streets shouting "_Io Saturnalia!_" Stores and courts were closed;

schools kept holiday; war could not be proclaimed; evil-doers could not be

punished; gambling, prevented by law at other times, was permitted. In

private circles mock-kings were chosen, who ruled the sports with right

royal dignity. All these and greater privileges, were granted the slaves.

Aurelian was in no mood for enjoyment since his interview with Flavia.

Knowing that many strangers would be calling at his Roman palace, he

avoided them by betaking himself to his suburban villa. There, too, he

could with less fear of discovery keep his engagements with Zoilus and

Sisinnius for the 8th of the Kalends of January. He was nervously anxious

to prove the truth of what the former had told him.

He retired, therefore, to the country. Thither he invited Sisinnius to meet

him on the day agreed on with Zoilus, under plea of seeing his slaves

celebrate the feast in rural style.

{530}

Sisinnius found him in the _Tablinum_, a room opposite the hall door,

where family records and archives were kept. Seeing Aurelian, thin, pale,

and dull, writing on a parchment roll, he asked:

"Is it making your will you are? You remind me of the shade of Dido! This

comes of neglecting the gods and their feasts, and shutting yourself up

among those woods and stone-walls like a vestal. If you staid in the city,

and lighted your wax-taper, and sang your song to Saturn like a good jolly

fellow, you would be far more cheerful and comely!"

"Perhaps so. But the three destinies are not all and always kind. I have

had my happy times; it is fair my sad ones should come."

"Pshaw, Aurelian! Pour out a libation to Bacchus and then empty off the

goblet yourself, and you shall find the jolly god will stiffen up your

drooping spirits! I know the cause of all this--your interview with that

wilful girl! Cheer up! women are like the summer clouds, one time damp and

dark, the next beaming with the sunshine of love and beauty."

"Very poetical, Sisinnius, but Flavia is not after the ordinary mould.

Tonight, however, will decide my doubts and hopes for ever. You remember

our engagement with Zoilus?"

"Yes, I am half sorry I made it. I cannot read that slave. He seems to know

every one and everything; and one can scarcely distinguish between his

jocose and his serious moods. Do you know where I met him as I came to the

crossway of the Appian and Latin roads? Talking to that Jewish beggar who

sits morning, noon, and night asking pennies from the passers-by near the

Egerian fountain."

"I allowed him into the city to arrange for our admission to the

meeting-place of the Christians. He certainly does know a great deal, and

must be a clever deceiver. Otherwise he could not have crept into the

secrets of those mysterious, plotting Jewish sects without being

distrusted. However, in the present instance he is serious and to be

trusted; for I have promised him and a female slave--a Jewess also, who has

fascinated him--their liberty, in case he convinces me that Flavia has

become a Christian. But, hush! here he comes. Well, Zoilus, you have

returned sooner than I expected. What news from the city?"

"Hail, noble Sisinnius!" said the Greek, bowing. "Well, master, the divine

Domitian is in a fury; the exhibition of games in the new amphitheatre has

been a failure. He had ordered, it is said, nearly ten thousand beasts and

a proportionate number of gladiators, a number exceeding that with which

his brother Titus had dedicated it. The play of Hercules and Omphale was to

be enacted before the people. A gladiator was under training for many weeks

to sustain the character of Hercules, and was to have been burned alive at

the end in a skirt set on fire with vitriol and tar. The gladiator went

through the preparatory training well, and seemed to enjoy the good things

ordered him by the emperor with the view of making him fleshier and fatter

for the burning. But, while being brought to the amphitheatre this morning,

he slipped his head between the spokes of the cart-wheel, and, without

gratitude for the good things, or feeling for the disappointment of the

imperial god, suffered his neck to broken. This was really too bad of mere

slave! [Footnote 166]

[Footnote 166: An historical fact. _Friedlander_.]

"So another had to substituted; what comfort or cause of laughter would

there be in witnessing the burning of the corpse? A live substitute was

found, who most ungraciously refused to move either hand or foot in the

love-making of Hercules and Omphale. However, this could be borne in

anticipation of the fiery ending; but, wonderful to relate, when the skirt

was put on and the flames were lighted, he stood unscorched in their midst,

calling on the Christian God. Was not the emperor in a rage!

{531}

The water was let into the arena and the crocodiles and other amphibious

monsters were swimming about, devouring each other; and the man was thrown

in, but they would not touch him! Floating on the surface of the water,

with upturned face and clasped hands, he prayed the Christian God to have

pity on Domitian. This so angered the latter that, standing up from his

seat above the arena, he cursed the Christian and the Christian's God, in

the name of his own and of Jupiter's divinity. When, lo! as if Jupiter was

provoked, a thunderbolt like a burning globe came flashing as if from

highest heaven, and went hissing through the water in the arena, killing

every living thing within it except the floating Christian! The veil of the

amphitheatre, with the machinery by which it was sustained, was set on fire

and torn away. The people rushed from their seats; it is not known how many

lives were lost. The emperor himself was terrified, and, running from his

throne to his chariot, drove furiously to his palace, to find it also

struck by the lightning." [Footnote 167]

[Footnote 167: These facts are substantially true. Tillemont's Lives of

the Emperors, and the History of the Flavian Amphitheatre, or

Colosseum, relate things as wonderful of Domitian's reign.]

"This will hasten the edict of persecution against the Christians; and it

is time," observed Aurelian.

The villa stood on a farm of many hundred acres. A wooded hill, from which

it was separated by a stream emptying into the Tiber, sheltered it from the

wintry winds. The stream drained the land, which otherwise would have been

a marsh, and thus prevented the unhealthy effluvia which unfitted many

parts near the city for human resilience. Its distance of some miles from

the great southern road saved it from many visitors, and thereby rendered

it a secure retreat for a mind seeking solitude. Attached to the villa, but

at some hundred yards from it, were the dwelling-places of the outdoor

slaves, in and around which they were now feasting. It consisted of two

open courts, [Footnote 168] an outer and an inner one.

[Footnote 168: Cohortes, chortes, cortes--courts.]

In the buildings around the former was the kitchen, an apartment large

enough to contain the whole _family_ employed on the farm.

_Family_ (_familia_) was the word used to designate the total

number of slaves employed on an estate or in a household. Near the kitchen

were the baths, the oil and wine-presses, the cellars, and in the upper

stories the granaries, carefully protected from damp, heat, and insects. At

the entrance-gate of this court were the apartments for the

_Villicus_, or chief steward, and for the _Procurator_ of the

_family_. In the inner court were the stables, stalls, and sheds,

(_equilia, bubilia,_ and _ovilia_.) In the centre of each court

was a large reservoir, into which the water from the stream was carried

through terra-cotta pipes, or Roman-arched drains. The reservoir in the

outer court was generally used for cleansing and soaking vegetables; that

in the inner was carefully supplied with fresh water for poultry and

cattle. Around both courts were the chambers (_cellae_) of the slaves,

which fronted southward so as to catch the sun's light and heat. Near these

chambers, but partly underground, was the prison for refractory or fugitive

slaves; it was partially lighted by long and narrow windows.

Aurelian and Sisinnius strolled leisurely from the villa, accompanied by

Zoilus, and discussing the wonderful events he had related. When they

reached the courts, they found the slaves engaged in different amusements.

It was a bright, bracing day; the sun shone in a cloudless sky, which had

been swept by the wind. There was nothing to remind them of December, save

only the long, dry branches of the trees rustling and swaying on the

hillside, and the gusts sweeping at times in eddies round the courts as if

they had lost their way. Some of the slaves were playing at quoits; others

at draughts (_latrunculi_) in sheltered nooks. Some indulged in the

usually forbidden game of dice, while younger ones took a boyish pleasure

in rattling the cylindrical dice-boxes of bone or ivory,

(_fritillus_.)

{532}

A group in the central area of the outer court played at odd and even,

(_par impar ludere_;) while another was gathered around a slave with

long-flowing philosophic beard, who proposed puzzles on the abacus, or

calculating tray. Many sat quietly apart; others walked moodily about,

wrapped in thoughts that seemed tinged with disappointment and gloom. But

the great body of the family was in the kitchen, which resounded with

singing, music, and dancing. As soon as Aurelian and his companions had

entered the last-named apartment, a little slave with hunchback, wiry frame

bounded from a couch and seized the skirt of his master's toga, which was

slung in walking style over the left shoulder.

"The gods will be angry with the senator for wearing his toga during the

feast, and for not waiting on Caipor as he did last year," exclaimed the

dwarf.

"No, no, Caipor! Saturnus has given me leave to retain the toga; because I

am not well, and he fears I would catch cold if I laid it aside for a

lighter dress."

The face of Caipor darkened and tears brightened through his eyelashes.

"Poor master is not well and shall die! Then what will Caipor do? Villicus

will whip him and put him in the _furca_ for ringing his bells; or

they will sell him and he will never more see or love good master or

beautiful Flavia."

Aurelian assured him that there was no danger of his own death, and that he

might ring his bells and should not be whipped. The little fellow shook his

Phrygian cap, and rang a tiny peal from the tiny bells attached around it.

The jingle caused him to laugh out with idiotic delight.

"Villicus cannot whip Caipor for shaking his bells, ha, ha! Villicus

whipped Lucius to-day until the big drops of blood came from between the

shoulders, and put him on the mill in the prison."

"Impossible!" said Sisinnius. "It is not lawful to punish or imprison

during the feast."

"Lucius said so. But Villicus would not listen. Lucius is a big, strong man

--why did he not kill Villicus? He did not cry or stir, but he kept calling

on Jesus to help him; but Jesus did not come. Master, who is Jesus?" asked

the fool.

Aurelian's curiosity was aroused. On questioning the steward, he was told

that Lucius, with many other slaves, refused to join in honoring Saturn or

any of the gods, or to award divinity to the emperor; that it was necessary

to punish some one for example's sake, and that Lucius, other wise quiet

and inoffensive, was chosen as being principal among the recusants.

"What is to come next?" said Aurelian bitterly to Sisinnius. "Our wives and

daughters, and now our lowest slaves, are lured by this Christian seducer!

Like the pestilence from the marshes, his influence is creeping into every

corner and poisoning the whole atmosphere of our social system. Something

must be done to check its deadly progress. A stronger dose than that

administered by Nero is requisite to kill it."

Caipor was clinging affectionately to his master's side. At length, drawing

the toga by a sudden jerk, he looked up into Aurelian's face and said:

"Caipor waits upon the senator the year round. Will not the senate wait

upon Caipor during the festival?"

"Certainly, I will be your slave and wait on you, my Caipor! Where is your

couch?"

Couches with, small tables for the guests had been arranged in form of a

triclinium at one end of the large apartment. Leading Aurelian to one of

these seats, the hunchback fool reclined upon his elbow in [a] most

approved dining attitude; and, as Aurelian rolled the table to his side and

helped him to wine and fruit, looked around the room with mingled pride and

pleasure at being the only one so honored.

Meantime Zoilus told Sisinnius the history and character of several slaves.

There were about four hundred present.

{533}

Our readers may give us credit for exaggeration if we draw attention to the

vast numbers, the varied origin, and occupations of slaves owned by noble

Romans in the age of Domitian. Slavery arose from three causes, namely,

from birth, from civil punishment, and captivity in war. The captives by

war alone would swell the number enormously. In the reign of Augustus a

freedman died leaving by will over four thousand slaves, after having lost

other thousands in the civil wars. Historians say that many Romans had from

ten to twenty thousand. Juvenal puts the test of a person's fortune in the

question, "_Quot pascit servos?_" "How many slaves does he support?"

During the empire they filled every position, from the most menial to the

most literary. They were tillers and caretakers of the territories of the

patricians in Italy, Sicily, and in the provinces beyond the mountains and

the seas. They were employed as bakers, barbers, cooks, stewards, and

artisans; as tutors, clerks, amanuenses, readers, teachers, physicians,

astronomers, rhetoricians, poets, and philosophers. The literature and

science of the Roman world, the "Orbis terrarum" found many a worthy

representative in their ranks. Hence it has been well said that the martial

prowess of Rome conquered that of foreign nations, but that the

civilization and learning of foreigners conquered or rather produced hers.

We need not wonder, therefore to find hundreds of slaves in the household

of Aurelian. His family was among the oldest and noblest of the city.

Counting those on his Italian and foreign estates, they numbered many

thousands. In the assemblage which Sisinnius was scanning, many

nationalities had representatives--Phrygians, Cappadocians, Thracians,

Britons, Greeks, and Jews.

"Whence was Caipor purchased?" asked Sisinnius.

"The mother of Aurelian," answered Zoilus, "was driving in her four-wheeled

chariot (_rheda_) through the streets of Rome. Her attention was drawn

to a dwarfish figure, who, emerging from the forum of Augustus, followed

the chariot-wheels, clapping his hands and crying out, 'Well done! little

wheel. Run fast! Big wheel can't catch you; well done, little wheel!' He

was in ecstasies on seeing the smaller wheels of the carriage, as it rolled

quickly on, keep their position at the same distance from the larger. The

slave-dealer from whom he had wandered came up and scourged him severely.

He cried piteously and called on the lady for protection. Moved with pity,

she made her husband buy him at a cost of ten thousand sestertia,

($50,000.) [Footnote 169] Since that time he has been the pet fool of the

household (_morio_,) and was, according to custom, named Caipor

(_Caii puer_) after my noble master's father."

[Footnote 169: A _morio_, or fool, in the reign of Nero cost

$15,000! _Dio_.]

"What is the name of that female yonder? How beautiful is the symmetry of

her face and figure! But there is determined purpose in her lip and eye."

"That is Judith the Jewess," said Zoilus, slightly confused. "She was

bought like myself from among the slaves left by the late Consul Domitilla.

She was a little girl during the siege of Jerusalem; and, having

miraculously escaped was, like other girls of her age and beauty, brought

to grace the triumphal return of the conqueror Titus. During the procession

she was perched like a winged Iris on the same chariot with Venus and

Apollo."

"And that other near her?"

"Is the daughter of a Roman plebeian, and by birth a free woman. But,

having secretly married a slave, she was on discovery reduced to his level.

She bears her lot patiently, however, because she cannot be separated by

sale from her husband."

"I see two strongly built slaves sitting near each other. One of them wears

his beard; and the fair locks of the other are down to his shoulders. They

seem to look contemptuously on the amusements."

{534}

"One of these is a Getulian, the other a Briton. They were both chiefs and

warriors in their respective countries. You perceive the mark

(_stigma_) burned into the former's forehead? When first exposed in

the slave-market, having on his neck the tablet (_titulus_) describing

his various qualities, a physician was brought, before whom he was to be

stripped and examined. Before they had time to so treat him he snatched up

a staff, and, having prostrated slave dealer and physician, with a sweep

bounded over the railing of the area and escaped among the buildings of the

old forum. It cost the lives of three slave-hunters before he was captured.

He was branded as a dangerous character and condemned to die as a

gladiator. But Aurelian succeeded in procuring him. Since he came on this

estate he has made no attempt at escape. Being allowed a percentage

(_peculium_) on his work like many others employed by our master, he

has become industrious, and hopes after some years to be able to purchase

his liberty by his savings. The Briton is similarly situated. If they

succeed in procuring freedom, depend upon it, they will return to their

native hills and relight the torch of war."

"Who is that old man with bald head and long white beard, to whom Aurelian

is now speaking?"

"That is Bathus, the tutor and caretaker of Aurelian's youthhood. He wears

the long beard and cloak of a philosopher by license of the festival. He

hates the emperor on account of his late edict of expulsion against the

philosophic tribe. He also professes grammar and rhetoric. Next [to] him is

Tritonios, a disciple of Hippocrates. He is famous for his skill in

bleeding and in amulets. His bored ears show his Eastern origin, probably

in Arabia. You may find him any morning before sunrise gathering herbs for

charms. There is scarcely a slave, or a tree on the estate that has not a

triangular Abracadabra, or some other amulet suspended on him or it, as a

protection against disease and the evil genii."

While Zoilus and Sisinnius were thus conversing, those in the other parts

of the apartment were not without their own topics and amusements. It was

observable that they instinctively took their places according to their

position and rank in the family. Those born in the household, the

_vernae_, were more forward and talkative than the others; they well

deserved the character given of them by the poet as the "_vernae

procaces_."

A Roman slave-family contained all the sources of social enjoyment and

happiness, such as was possible for persons in their condition, provided

the owner and the superintendents were not inclined to tyranny. Their

marriage was not indeed sanctioned by law; but the _contubernium_,

which permitted them to live as man and wife under the same roof, was

respected in its relations as much perhaps among the pagan, as among

Christian nations, among whom slavery flourished. [Footnote 170]

[Footnote 170: Cod. iii. 23.]

An enactment was passed by the senate that in sales and divisions of

property husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, should not

be sundered. Roman jurists, no doubt, defined slavery to be a

"_constitutio juris gentium, quâ quis contra naturam alterius dominis

subjicitur_," thus strictly giving the master power to do much as he

liked with the slave; to sell, punish, and put to death. In consequence

great cruelties were often inflicted. But generally social intercourse and

positive morality softened down their severity. Positive legislation also

came to the aid of the slave. Under the Antonines, a man putting his slave

to death without a justifying cause was subject to a heavy penalty. If a

slave were treated too harshly, he might bring the case before the public

tribunal and claim to be sold to another master. If a sickly or aged slave

were exposed by the owner, he became free; and, if put to death, the crime

was punished as murder. Christianity, though it did not proclaim slavery to

be an essential evil, made way for emancipation.

{535}

The great principles of charity were urged by the first Christian writers

and fathers of the church. Clement of Alexandria devoted much of his

eloquence to this subject. Gradually this Christian spirit impregnated

society, especially after the triumph of the cross under Constantine.

Slaves who became priests, monks, nuns, or were promoted to any clerical

order, were made free by law. Owing to these circumstances, the number of

slaves became very much lessened. Many Christian masters emancipated all

they possessed; others kept them, until they were instructed and converted,

and then gave them freedom. Justinian particularly did much for the

overthrow of slavery: his legislation, inspired by the Catholic Church,

would have wholly extinguished it, but for the invasion of the northern

barbarians. These brought with them their slaves, who were mostly

Sclavonians, (_sclavi_, or _slaves_,) and reduced many of the

conquered to the same level. The church was true to her policy of not

suddenly tearing up any of the foundations of society when not essentially

wrong; but she never ceased to preach, "in season and out of season," the

great principle of "doing unto others as we would have them do unto us."

This is the mirror she has always held up before master and slave. Seeing

their duties here reflected, the evils of slavery, and finally the system

itself, began to fade like snow under the softening influence of the sun.

The voice of the Catholic Church was the herald of freedom from the

beginning. Wondrous changes were brought about without those calamities

accompanying sudden transitions. The echoes of her teaching have been taken

up by religious and political parties. But they have had the injustice of

appropriating it as their own, and the ingratitude to forget that the

Catholic Church was the mother at whose knees mankind learned the lessons

of Christian charity and liberty! But we must return.

During the conversation between Zoilus and Sisinnius, the jests and

laughter of the "vernae" were heard above all other sounds.

"Observe Zoilus," said one, "he looks as sober and serious as Rhadamanthus

on the judgment-seat. What is the matter with him?"

"He is expecting to be a freedman one of these days, and thinks it time to

become a gentleman and quit his old habits and associates."

"Why, as to that matter, he is as free as the wind on the hill-side. He is

in and out of the city as often as he likes. What induces master to give

him so much freedom? There is something in it."

"See Murena, too! He expects in a few months to buy himself out with the

profits of his peculium."

"That accounts for his being so great a miser. The barber told me that,

after having his hair cut and nails pared the other day, Murena gathered

the cuttings in order to make a denarius on them!"

This observation of the physician Tritonios caused laughter and was not

unheard by Murena, who replied:

"O doctor! that is a stale joke stolen from Plautus. Next time I will

preserve the parings for your amulets, they may be as good for the

toothache or the colic as the hairs on the goat's chin which you hung upon

the arm of Marcus!"

"Take care, Murena!" said a third, "you don't know how soon you may require

Tritonios to assist you."

"Yes, and share the fate of Procax, who only saw the doctor in a dream, and

awoke no more, though he carried an amulet."

The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of two slaves, a male and

female, dressed in short and close garments for the dance. They wore

leathern skull-caps for protection of the head in case of falling, because

as they danced they flung themselves on their heads and alighted again upon

their feet. Another slave played appropriate airs on the flute.

{536}

After engaging in this dance, in which, after Spartan style, the hands and

head and eyes were in motion as well as the feet, a rope was extended

across the room. The female dancer ascended, carrying a thyrsus bound with

white fillet and ending in a bunch of vine and ivy leaves mixed with

berries. Balancing herself with this, she danced in many graceful

attitudes, representing satyrs, fauns, bacchanals, and other mythological

beings. Then exchanging the thyrsus for a crater of wine and a small

drinking-cup, she danced and meantime poured the wine from one vessel into

the other, balancing herself by the action, and then descended amid great

applause. After the dance the amanuensis of Aurelian declaimed with great

spirit the beautiful passage of Homer in which the death of Hector at the

hands of Achilles is described. Here some one remarked that Zoilus had not

sung or improvised during the evening, and a unanimous call was made on

turn, with which, after some hesitation, he complied by singing the

following:

The Song of Saturnus.

A hymn to Saturnus, a grateful hymn,

With goblets festooned to the bead-crowned brim,

On his festival we sing:

Who once in the year

Doth freedom and cheer

To slave and to master bring,

Bring,

To slave and to master bring.

He taught unto men how to till the hard soil,

To plant the green grape and to draw the fat oil

Which flows in the olive's heart,

To prune the vine

And to tap the mine,

And every useful art.

He breathed on the earth; and his breath is the spring

Which flowers and fruits on its bosom doth fling,

And sweetens the summer breeze

As it freshly blows

Where the water flows

Through the roots of the leaf-clad trees.

He breathed on the sea; and the ripples came

Like smiles o'er its face, and its amorous frame

Kissed with its cooling lip

The shore in the hours

When the sky sends its showers

For the thirsty earth to sip.

He breathed on the air; and its brow grew white

With rays scarce concealed by the veil of night;

And the sun from its blue looked down

With a smile so bland

As to free the land

From the chill of his winter frown.

He breathed on the springs; and the streams rushed out

From their mother's lap with a mirthful shout:

"Oh! come to the fields," they sang,

"For the parched meads

Need our limpid beads,"

And they laughed as they onward sprang.

Then a hymn to Saturnus, a grateful hymn,

With goblets festooned to the wine-crowned brim,

On his festival we sing:

Who once in the year

Doth freedom and cheer

To slave and to master bring!

"Why, Zoilus, you rival Martial the Spaniard in wooing the virgin Nine,"

said Bathus. "If the emperor only knew your powers, he would patronize you

as well as Juvenal, Quinctilian, and the Jew Josephus."

"The renegade from his race and creed!" said Ephrem, a Jewish slave, in an

underbreath to Judith, who sat beside him.

"The golden age of poesy, like that of philosophy, has departed," remarked

Zoilus in answer to Bathus. "The emperor has lost his early love of

verse-making, and betaken himself to the burning of vestals [Footnote 171]

and of Christians.

[Footnote 171: Vestals were burned in the reign of Domitian for

violation of their vows.]

"By the way, Bathus, have you heard that Epictetus and the whole host of

philosophers have been exiled? They say that Dio Chrysostom is consoling

himself in the Getulian desert with a tract of Plato and a speech of

Demosthenes. I would advise you strongly to shave your beard and lay aside

the philosopher's cloak, or the beard may be cut off with the head attached

to it. Genius is at a low ebb nowadays; that is my reason for having ceased

to be one."

"Beware, lest you might share a like fate; your tongue wags very freely,"

observed Aurelian, who overheard the conversation.

"Noble master, this is the feast of free speech. To-morrow I will padlock

my lips, and nothing but a golden key will open them." said the slave,

glancing knowingly at his master. Then turning to Ephrem the Jew, "Sing us

that ode to your native land I heard you repeat the other day, Ephrem."

"It is in Hebrew, and would not be understood."

{537}

"No matter; the metre and air are sweet and melancholy. I will have it

translated into Latin hexameter by your countryman Josephus, one of these

days, if you like."

"Name him not, the arch-sycophant, who lives by flattering tyrants,"

whispered Judith with a fierce tone and glance, before which Zoilus

blanched and trembled.

"Fair Judith, be not angry; I meant it only in joke."

"Jokes at the expense of others' feelings deserve not the award of wit,"

said Ephrem, who, standing up, declaimed the following with a vehement

earnestness:

Ode of the Exiled Jew to Jerusalem.

I.

Thy heart, Jerusalem! is desert and drear,

Thy children no more in thy bosom appear;

In the land of the Gentiles they sigh and they moan,

While thou, dear mother! dost pine all alone.

II.

Thy turrets, and temple, and beautiful gate--

The gems that shone bright in the crown of thy state--

Like the ark of the prophets, no longer remain,

And the Philistine foxes thy beauty profane!

III.

The gold harp of David awakens no more

Thy echoes where pontiff and people adore;

Thy silver-voiced trumpets are silent and dead,

No smoke from thy temple ascends overhead.

IV.

Like the weeds on the beach by the ocean-tide hurled,

Thy daughters are cast on the shores of the world;

Thy eye's filled with weeping, thy heart's filled with woe,

And thy brow once so fair in the dust is laid low!

V.

The dust of thy kings in thy bosom remains

Where the hoofs of the Gentiles insult thy sad plains,

And their lamps sacrilegious invade the deep glooms

That wrap them to rest in thy Valley of Tombs!

VI.

Jerusalem, mother! we pray unto Him

Who has filled up thy chalice of woe to the brim:

"A curse on the tyrants whose impious hands

Have seized thee, denied thee, and bound thee in bands!

VII.

"O send down, Jehovah! by night and by day,

Thy blight on apostate impostors, we pray;

The Christian deceivers, whose God we nailed fast [Footnote 172]

To the tree of the cross as a sail to the mast!

[Footnote 172: The Jews cursed the Christians three times a day in

their synagogues, says Epiphanius in this direful form, "Send down thy

curse, God! on the Christians."]

VIII.

"Since the hour he was crucified outside thy gate,

His blood like a poison has mixed in thy fate!

May the God of thy fathers, the God of our race,

From thy forehead, Jerusalem, wipe the disgrace!

During the delivery of the first verses tears flowed down the cheeks of

Judith. During the last part fire seemed to flash from her eyes.

After Ephrem others were induced to sing or deliver pieces in the languages

of their respective countries. In the reign of Domitian, the Sarmatians,

Dacians, Parthians, and the German tribes beyond the Rhine had been

completely subdued. Agricola had broken on the Grampians the fierce

hardihood of the tribes beyond the Tay and Tweed. The success of the Jewish

war in the two preceding reigns had scattered that unfortunate race over

the earth. We can thence understand how on a large estate like that of

Aurelian so many nationalities met. Leaving them to amuse themselves, we

will follow Zoilus.

He left the hall quietly, crossed the outer court and a paddock between it

and the villa, and entered through a low-arched door into the garden behind

it. Between this garden and the villa was the peristyle, a rectangular area

so named from having stone pillars around it. In its centre was a xystus

with box and other shrubs, shaped like tigers, lions, and galleys. The

deepening shades of evening brought out their figures with weird-like

indistinctness. Judith the Jewess stood between two pillars, and as she

stood, tall, straight, and motionless, might have passed for the guardian

goddess of the place.

"I have been expecting you, Zoilus."

"You do not forget your promise, then?"

"No! my part shall be fulfilled as soon as you have complied with the

conditions."

"Judith! these conditions are hard. I have my misgivings and fears about

the part I have to play."

"Fears and misgivings?" she repeated. "These account for your changed

manner this evening?"

{538}

"Yes, I have never known any one to end well who interfered with the

Christians."

"Ha, ha!" she laughed ironically. "You fear the uncircumcised dogs!"

"Not them; but I fear their God."

"_Their_ God! Is it the Galilean impostor?"

"Moreover," he went on, not noticing her question, "I do not like to betray

the niece of our former owner Domitilla the consul. She was always good and

kind to me."

"Look here," said the Jewess, baring her right arm, "see that scar, which

after many years leaves a red seam behind. It was that girl, so good and

kind, that drove her ivory hair-pin into the very bone, because I did not

plat her hair to her liking. Was she not good and kind to me, Zoilus?"

"She was then young and thoughtless, but she is now different," he said.

"You see that tiger," she pointed to a shrub shaped like that animal, "does

not the young cub betray the instincts of the full grown beast? But she is

different, you will perhaps say, since she became a Christian. As well

might you expect the drugs of Locusta [Footnote 173] to cure the leprosy.

Have you heard what takes place in the private meetings of those fully

initiated? Ah! _there_ she can indulge her liking for human blood!"

[Footnote 173: A famous poisoner in the time of Nero.]

Zoilus was silent. Some struggle of feeling with principle was going on.

Judith, observing him, exclaimed:

"A lustrum of five long years has gone by since you asked me to become your

wife. I told you I would never be a wife, or have a husband, in slavery. It

is in your power now to procure freedom for both. Do so, and Judith will be

yours to-morrow. Hesitate now, and she takes back for ever the promise and

the pledge she made you!" She left the peristyle before he had time to

answer.

To Be Continued.

------

From The Popular Science Review.

On the Struggle for Existence Amongst Plants.

The quaint dictum, "Plants do not grow where they like best, but where

other plants will let them," which is credited to the late eminent

horticulturalist, Dean Herbert of Manchester, expresses a truth not yet

half appreciated by botanists. It is a protest against the prevalent belief

that circumstances of climate and soil are the omnipotent regulators of the

distribution of vegetables, and that all other considerations are

comparatively powerless. The dean's crude axiom has lately found a

philosophical exposition and expression in Mr. Darwin's more celebrated

doctrine of the "struggle for life, and preservation thereby of the favored

races," and if to it we add that great naturalist's more fruitful discovery

of the necessity for insect and other foreign agencies in ensuring

fertility, and hence perpetuating the species, we shall find that the

powers of climate and soil are reduced to comparatively very narrow limits.

Before proceeding to show what are the causes that do materially limit the

distribution of species, it may be well to inquire how far the hard pressed

soil and climate theory really helps us to a practical understanding of one

or two great questions that fall under our daily observation; of these, the

following are the most prominent.

{539}

That very similar soils and climates, in different geographical areas, are

not inhabited naturally either by like species or like genera; that very

different soils and climates will produce almost equally abundant crops of

the same cultivated plants; and that, in the same soil and climate, many

hundreds, nay, thousands of species, from other very different soils and

climates, may be grown and propagated for an indefinite number of

successive generations.

Of the first of these statements, the examples embrace some of the best

known facts in geographical botany; as, for example, that the flora of

Europe differs wholly from that of temperate North America, South Africa,

Australia, and temperate South America, and all these from one another. And

that neither soil nor climate is the cause of this difference is

illustrated by the fact that thousands of acres in each of these countries

are covered, year after year, by crops of the same plant, introduced from

one to the other; and by annually increasing numbers of trees, shrubs, and

herbs, that have either run wild or are successfully cultivated in each and

all of them. The third proposition follows from the two others, and of this

the best example is afforded by a good garden, wherein, on the same soil

and under identical conditions, we grow, side by side, plants from very

various soils and climates, and ripen their seeds too, provided only that

their fertilization is insured. The Cape geraniums, London pride, and

Lysimachia nummularia in our London areas, the pendent American cacti in

the cottage windows of Southwalk and Lambeth, are even more striking

examples of the comparative indifference of many plants to good or bad

climate or soil; and what can be more unlike their natural conditions than

those to which ferns are exposed in those invaluable contrivances, Ward's

cases, in the heart of the city? True, the conditions suit them well, and,

with respect to humidity and equability of temperature, are natural to

them; but neither is the absolute temperature, nor the constitution, nor

freshness of the air, the same as of the places the ferns are brought from;

nor is any systematic attempt made to suit the soil to the species

cultivated; for, as Mr. Ward himself well shows, the arctic saxifrage, the

English rose, the tropical palm, and desert cactus live side by side in the

same box, and under precisely similar circumstances, and, as it were, in

defiance of their natal conditions.

Let it not be supposed that we at all underrate such power as soil and

climate really possess. In some cases, as those of chalk, sand, bog, and

saline and water plants, soil is very potent; but the number of plants

actually dependent on these or other peculiarities of the soil is much more

limited than is supposed. Of _bonâ-fide_ water-plants there are few

amongst phaenogams. Sand plants, as a rule, grow equally well on stiffer

soils, but are there turned out by more sturdy competitors; and with regard

to the calcareous soils, it is their warmth and dryness that fits them, to

so great an extent, for many plants that are almost confined to them, or

are absolutely peculiar to them. So, too, with regard to temperature, there

are limits, as regards heat, cold, and humidity, that species will not

overstep and live; but, on the other hand, so much has been done by

selection in procuring hardy races of tender plants, and so much may be

done by regulating the distribution of earth-temperature, etc., that we

already grow tropical plants in the open air during a portion of the year,

and eventually may do so for longer periods.

Amongst the most striking examples of apparent indifference to natural

conditions of soil and climate, I would especially adduce two. One is the

_Salicornia Arabica_, a plant never found in its natural state, except

in most saline situations, but which has flourished for years in the

Succulent House at Kew, in a pot full of common soil, to which no salt has

ever been added; the other is the tea-plant, which luxuriates in the hot,

humid valleys of Assam, where the thermometer ranges between 70° and 85°,

and the atmosphere is so perennially humid that watches are said to be

destroyed after a few months of wear; and it is no less at home in

north-western India, where the summers are as hot and cloudless as any in

the world, and the winters very cold.

{540}

I may add that the tea-plant has survived the intense cold of this last

January, at Kew, on the same wall where many hardy and half-hardy plants

have been killed.

It is, further, a great mistake to suppose that the native vegetation of a

country suffers little and very exceptionally by abnormal seasons. The most

conspicuous instance of the contrary that ever fell under my observation

was the destruction of the gigantic gum-tree (_Eucalyptus_) forests in

the central districts of Tasmania, which occurred, if I remember right,

about the year 1837. In 1840, I rode over many square miles of country,

through stupendous forests, in which every tree was, to all appearance,

absolutely lifeless. The district was totally uninhabited, consisting of

low mountain ranges, 2,000 feet above the sea, separating marshy tracts

interspersed with broad fresh-water lakes. The trees, much like the great

gaunt elms in Kensington Gardens during winter, but much larger, were in

countless multitudes, 80 to 180 feet high, close set, and ten to twenty

feet in girth; their weird and ghostly aspect being heightened by the fact

of most being charred for a considerable distance up the trunk, the effects

of the native practice of firing the grass in summer during the kangaroo

hunting season; and by the bark above hanging from their trunks in

streaming shreds, that waved dismally in the wind; for the species was the

stringy-bark gum, that sheds its bark after this fashion. And not only had

the gum-trees suffered, but the hardier _Leptospermum_ (tea tree bush)

and many others were killed, some to the ground and some altogether; so

that, though my journey was in spring and the weather was delightful, the

aspect of the vegetation was desolate in the extreme.

In such climates as our own, similar devastations are unknown, and, though

we know that our island was once covered with other timber than now clothes

it, we have every reason to suppose that the change was slow, and the

effect either of a gradually altered climate, or of the immigration of

trees equally well or better suited to the conditions of the soil and

climate, but which had not previously had the opportunity of contesting the

ground with the ruling monarchs of the forest.

Making every allowance, then, for the influence of soil and climate in

checking the multiplication of individuals, we have still two classes of

facts to account for: the one, that plants which succeed so well, when

cultivated, that we are assured both soil and climate are favorable to

their propagation, nevertheless become immediately or soon extinct when the

cultivator's care is withdrawn; the other, that plants of one country, when

introduced into another, even with a very different soil and climate, will

overrun it, destroy the native vegetation, and prove themselves better

suited to local circumstances than the aboriginal plants of the country. In

the first case, the reasons are very various, all of them relating to the

conditions of the plant's existence. Of these the two most potent are, the

absence of fertilizing agents, and the destruction of seeds and seeding

plants. In the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to say which

of these is most fatal in its effect. In the case of our annual plants or

our cereals, which never run wild, it is the latter certainly; for they

seed freely enough; in the case of many perennials, shrubs, and trees, it

may be the former, as with the common elm and lime, which rarely or never

seed in England, though the latter is so notably frequented by insects

during its flowering season; whilst a third cause is to be found in their

seedling plants being smothered by others, of which we have numerous

examples in our common pasture grasses, which are, perhaps, the most

prejudicial in this respect.

{541}

A most conspicuous example of this is afforded by the common maple, of

which the seedlings come up early in spring by thousands in the

neighborhood of the parent tree, in lawns and plantations, but scarcely

ever survive the smothering effects of the common summer grasses as soon as

these begin to shoot.

When I visited the cedar grove on Mount Lebanon, in the autumn of 1860, I

found thousands of seedling plants, but every one of them dead; and so

effectual is the annual slaughter of the yearlings in that grove, that,

though the seeds are shed in millions, and innumerable seedlings annually

spring up, there is not a plant in the grove less than about sixty years

old. It may hence have been sixty years since a cedar there survived the

first year of its existence; that is to say, has struggled through its

infancy, and reached the age even of childhood!

On the other hand, when once the natural conditions of a country have been

disturbed, the spread and multiplication of immigrants is so rapid that it

shortly becomes impossible to discover the limits of the old, indigenous

flora. Take the English flora, for example. If we contrast the cultivated

counties with the uncultivated, the difference of their vegetation is so

great that I have often been compelled to doubt whether many of the most

familiar so called wild flowers of the cultivated counties are indigenous

at all; nay, more, I have been tempted to suspect that some of the more

variable of them, as some species of _chenopodium_ and fumitory, may

have originated since cultivation began. In the uncultivated counties the

proportion of annual plants is exceedingly small, whereas in the cultivated

counties annuals are very numerous; and the further we go from cultivation,

roads, and made ground, the rarer they become, till at last, in the

uninhabited islets of the west coast of Scotland, and in its mountainous

glens, annuals are extremely rare, and confined to the immediate vicinity

of cottages. Let any one who doubts this contrast between the floras of

cultivated and uncultivated regions compare the annuals in such florae as

those of Suffolk or Essex, the North Riding or Cumberland, with those of

the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Arran. And it is not only that annuals

abound in the cultivated districts, but that so many are nearly confined to

ground that is annually or frequently disturbed. The three commonest of all

British plants, for example, are, perhaps, groundsel, shepherd's purse, and

_Poa annua_. I do not remember ever having seen any of these plants

established where the soil was undisturbed, or where, if undisturbed, they

had not been obviously brought by man or the lower animals; and yet I have

gathered one of these, the shepherd's purse, in various parts of Europe, in

Syria, in the Himalayas, in Australia, New Zealand, and the Falkland

Islands. Were England to be depopulated, I believe that in a very few years

these plants, and a large proportion of our common annual "wild flowers,"

would become exceedingly rare or extinct, such as the poppies, fumitories,

trefoils, fedias, various species of speed-well, polygonum, mallow,

euphorbia, thlaspi, senebiera, medicago, anthemis, centaurea, linaria,

lamium, etc., etc.

It is usually said of some of the above-named plants that they prefer

cultivated ground, nitrogenous soil, and so forth; and this is no doubt

true, but that they will flourish where no such advantages attend them, a

very little observation shows; and that they do not continue to flourish

elsewhere is due mainly to the fact that, being annuals, their room is

taken as soon as they die, and the next year's seedling has no chance of

success in the struggle with perennials.

{542}

For good instances of this rapid replacement of annuals by perennials, the

new railroad embankments should be examined. Whence the plants come from

which spring up like magic in the cuttings many feet below the surface of

the soil, is a complete mystery, and reminds us of the so-called

spontaneous generation of protozoa in newly made infusions or in distilled

water. In the south of Scotland in 1840-50, and many parts of the north of

England, the first plant that made its appearance was _Equisetum

arvense_, which covered the new-formed banks, for miles and miles, with

the most lovely green forest of miniature pines. In the following year

comparatively few of these were to be seen, and coltsfoot, dandelions, and

other biennials, especially umbelliferae, with a great number of annuals,

presented themselves. For many successive years I had no opportunity of

watching the struggle for life on these banks, but when I last saw them

they were clothed with perennial grasses, docks, plantains, and other

perennial rooted plants.

The destruction of native vegetations by introduced is a subject that has

only lately attracted much attention, but it has already assumed an aspect

that has startled the most careless observer. Some thirty years ago the

fecundity of the horse and European cardoon in the Argentine provinces of

South America, so graphically described by Sir Edmund Head, drew the

attention of naturalists to the fact that animals and plants did not

necessarily thrive best where found in an indigenous condition; and the

spread of the common Dutch clover, _Trifolium repens_, in North

America, where it follows the footsteps of man through the pathless

forests, has long afforded an equally remarkable instance of vegetable

colonization. Still more recently in South Africa, Australia, and Tasmania,

the Scotch thistle, brier rose, xanthium, plantain, docks, etc., have all

become noxious weeds; and this leads me to the last and most curious point

to which I shall allude in this article, namely, that the same annuals and

other weeds that are held so well in check by the indigenous perennial

plants of our country, when transplanted to others, show themselves

superior to the perennial vegetation of the latter. Of this New Zealand

furnishes the most conspicuous example; it was first visited scarcely more

than 100 years ago, and it is not yet fifty since the missionaries first

settled in it, and scarce thirty since it received its earliest colonists.

The islands contain about 1,000 species of flowering plants, amongst which

no fewer than 180 European weeds have been recorded as intruding themselves

and having become thoroughly naturalized; and probably double that number

will yet be found, as they have never been systematically collected; but

the most curious part of the history is this, that whereas of indigenous

New Zealand plants scarcely any are annual, no less than half the

naturalized European ones are annual.

Of the effect of these introduced European plants in destroying the native

vegetation, I have given examples in an article that appeared in the

Natural History Review, (January, 1864,) from which I quote the following:

In Australia and New Zealand, the noisy train of English emigration is

not more surely doing its work than the stealthy tide of English weeds,

which are creeping over the surface of the waste, cultivated, and virgin

soil, in annually increasing numbers of genera, species, and individuals.

Apropos of this subject, a correspondent, (W. T. Locke Travers, Esq.,

F.L.S.,) a most active New Zealand botanist, writing from Canterbury,

says: "You would be surprised at the rapid spread of European and other

foreign plants in this country. All along the sides of the main lines of

road through the plains, a _Polygonum_, (_aviculare_,) called

'cow-grass,' grows most luxuriantly, the roots sometimes two feet in

depth, and the plants spreading over an area from four to five feet in

diameter. The dock (_Rumex obtusifolius_ or _R. crispus_) is to

be found in every river-bed, extending into the valleys of the mountain

rivers until these became mere torrents.

{543}

The sow-thistle is spread all over the country, growing luxuriantly

nearly up to 6,000 feet. The watercress increases in our still rivers to

such an extent as to threaten to choke them altogether; in fact, in the

Avon, a still, deep stream running through Christ Church, the annual cost

of keeping the river free for boat navigation and for purposes of

drainage exceeds £300. I have measured stems twelve feet long and three

quarters of an inch in diameter. In some of the mountain districts, where

the soil is loose, the white clover is completely displacing the native

grasses, forming a close sward. Foreign trees are also very luxuriant in

growth. The gum-trees of Australia, the poplars, and willows particularly

grow most rapidly. In fact, the young native vegetation appears to shrink

from competition with these more vigorous intruders."

Dr. Haast, F.L.S., the eminent explorer and geologist, also writes to me as

follows:

"The native (Maori) saying is, 'As the white man's rat has driven away

the native rat, as the European fly drives away our own, and the clover

kills our fern, so will the Maoris disappear before the white man

himself." It is wonderful to behold the botanical and zoological changes

which have taken place since first Captain Cook set foot in New Zealand.

Some pigs, which he and other navigators left with the natives, have

increased and run wild in such a way that it is impossible to destroy

them. There are large tracts of country where they reign supreme. The

soil looks as if ploughed by their burrowing. Some station-holders of one

hundred thousand acres have had to make contracts for killing them at

sixpence per tail, and as many as twenty-two thousand on a single run

have been killed by adventurous parties without any diminution being

discernible. Not only are they obnoxious by occupying the ground which

the sheep farmer needs for his flocks, but they assiduously follow the

ewes when lambing, and devour the poor lambs as soon as they make their

appearance. They do not exist on the western side of the Alps, and only

on the lower grounds on the eastern side where snow seldom falls, so that

the explorer has not the advantage of profiting by their existence, where

food is scarcest. The boars are sometimes very large, covered with long

black bristles, and have enormous tusks, resembling closely the wild boar

of the Ardennes, and they are equally savage and courageous,

"Another interesting fact is the appearance of the Norwegian rat. It has

thoroughly extirpated the native rat, and is to be found everywhere, even

in the very heart of the Alps, growing to a very large size. The European

mouse follows it closely, and, what is more surprising, where it makes

its appearance, it drives, in a great degree, the Norway rat away.

Amongst other quadrupeds, cattle, dogs, and cats are found in a wild

state, but not abundantly.

"The European house-fly is another importation. When it arrives, it

repels the blue-bottle of New Zealand, which seems to shun its company.

But the spread of the European insect goes on very slowly, so that

settlers, knowing its utility, have carried it in boxes and bottles to

their new inland stations."

But the most remarkable fact of all has been communicated to me since the

above was printed, namely, that the little white clover and other herbs are

actually strangling and killing outright the New Zealand flax, (_Phormium

tenax_,) a plant of the coarsest, hardest, and toughest description,

that forms huge matted patches of woody rhizomes, which send up tufts of

sword-like leaves six to ten feet high, and inconceivably strong in texture

and fibre. I know of no English plant to which the New Zealand flax can be

likened so as to give any idea of its robust constitution and habit to

those who do not know it; in some respects the great matted _tussocks_

of _Carex paniculata_ approach it.

{544}

It is difficult enough to imagine the possibility of white clover invading

our bogs, and smothering the tussocks of this carex, but this would be

child's play in comparison with the resistance the phormium would seem to

offer.

The causes of this prepotency of the European weeds are probably many and

complicated; one very powerful one is the nature of the New Zealand

climate, which favors the duration of life in individuals, and hence gives

both perennials and annuals a lengthened growing season, and, in the case

of some, more than one seed crop in the year. This is seen in the tendency

of mignonette and annual stocks to become biennial and even perennial, in

the indigenous form of _Cardamine hirsuta_ being perennial, and in the

fact that many weeds that seed but once with us seed during a greater part

of the year in New Zealand. Another cause must be sought in the fact that

more of their seeds escape the ravages of birds and insects in New Zealand

than in England; the granivorous birds and insects that follow cultivation

not having been transported to the antipodes with the weeds, or, at least,

not in proportionate numbers.

Still the fact remains as yet unaccounted for, that annual weeds, which,

except for the interference of man, would with us have no chance in the

struggle with perennials, in New Zealand have spread in inconceivable

quantities into the wildest glens long before either white men or even

their cattle and flocks penetrate to their recesses. Such is the testimony

of Drs. Haast and Hector, and Mr. Travers, the original explorers of large

areas of different parts of the almost uninhabited middle island, and who

have sent to me, as native plants, from hitherto unvisited tracts, British

weeds that were not found in the island by the careful botanists (Banks,

Solander, Forster, and Sparrmann) who accompanied Captain Cook in his

voyages; and which were not found by the earlier missionaries, but which of

late years have abounded on the lowlands near every settlement.

This subject of the comparative great vis-vitae of European plants, as

compared with those of other countries, involves problems of the highest

interest in botanical science, and the subject is as novel as it is

interesting; it is quite a virgin one, and requires the calmest and most

unprejudiced judgment to treat it well. It cannot be doubted that the

progress of civilization in Europe and Asia has, whilst it has led to the

incessant harassing of the soil, led also to the abundant development of a

class of plants, annual, biennial, and perennial, which increase more

rapidly and obtain a greater development when transplanted to the Southern

hemisphere than they have hitherto done in the Northern, and that, in this

respect, they contrast strikingly with the behavior of plants of the

Southern hemisphere when transplanted to the Northern; and hitherto no

considerations of climate, soil, or circumstance have sufficed to explain

this phenomenon.

------

{545}

Original.

The Leaf of Last Year

I know I am dry and decayed;

My skin is all yellow and sere;

I know I ought not to have staid

To become an old leaf of last year.

You are youthful, and merry, and green.

I feel like a stranger up here;

And can see you're ashamed to be seen

By the side of a leaf of last year.

My wrinkled and shrivelled up face

Excites you to laugh and to sneer;

And the branch thinks that this is no place

For an old-fashioned leaf of last year.

I can tell, as you toss your proud heads,

What you whisper in each other's ear:

"Old leaves should be gone to their beds,

'Tis no time for a leaf of last year."

You may flirt with the amorous winds;

With your joys I will not interfere:

But I'm sad; for my heart it reminds

How they jilted a leaf of last year.

Ay! flatter and laugh with the breeze,

You may think that its love is sincere,

But I know what it said to the trees

When I was a young leaf last year.

"Each one of these silly green leaves

Is so flattered if I but come near,

That she dances, and smiles, and believes

I most surely will wed her this year.

"With soft kisses the hours I beguile;

And their prattling is pleasant to hear.

When I tire, I depart with a smile

And a promise to meet them next year."

Then it came to my side with a bow,

Embraced me, and called me its 'dear.'

I was foolish to trust it, and now

It forgets its old love of last year.

{546}

Away the false summer breeze hied;

And my fibres all quivered with fear.

One by one my mates withered and died,

And left me alone till this year.

Soon autumn will come with its blast.

And your beauty will, too, disappear.

When you think on the joys that are past,

You'll remember the leaf of last year.

This morn, when the sun rose, I wept;

On my cheek lingers yet a bright tear:

'Twas a dew-drop fell there whilst I slept

And was dreaming about the last year.

Not long will I cumber the tree,

For my hour of departure is near;

And your beautiful branch will be free

Of its faded old leaf of last year.

------

Original.

The Influence of the Catholic Church Upon Modern Art.

As in many a sacred painting the divine persons are seen descending upon

earth, attended by angels who, with trumpets, unheard by men, announce the

visitation; so religion, revealed to prepare men for the next world, sits

enthroned in this with all the arts, its ministers and servants. It is a

glory of the Catholic Church that it has recognized to the utmost the

spirituality of art. It has denied the dogma, of all dogmas the most

absurd, that with the use of the highest powers of the imagination, and

with delight in the beauty with which God has clothed the world, his

worship is incompatible. It has not made piety a thing ugly, repulsive,

barren; a mere assent of the will to an abstraction. The child of the

church, standing in a world where the rainbow bends above him, and sunset

opens the burning gates of heaven, is not taught to believe the seven

colors the seven sins, or, at least, but secular beauty, to be banished

from the house of worship; with the voices of birds' and winds, and waters,

and the gothic grandeur of forests around him, he is not taught that music

and architecture interfere with piety, or, if used at all in worship, must

be limited to their lowest and simplest forms. Of creeds I do not need to

speak; but this much it is necessary to say in the strict limits of my

subject, that the world owes to Catholicism so much of its music, and

painting, and architecture, that, had the world been without the church,

these arts, though of human origin, and though highly developed before the

Christian era, would in their modern forms probably be still in their

infancy. In sculpture, undoubtedly, the Greeks surpassed even Michael

Angelo; the statues of Phidias, though in ruins, are the wonder and despair

of artists. The Roman empire built temples, roads, aqueducts, the

Colosseum, and, when it fell, the arts, even in these less imaginative

forms, seem to have fallen with it.

{547}

For a long time there was no art worthy of the name in Europe. Apollo,

blind and dumb, wandered without a home or a temple; for, though in those

centuries there must have been men born to be composers, or painters, or

sculptors, they were born too soon or too late. Athens had fallen;

Christian Rome had not arisen to her destined greatness. So the world

slumbered in darkness till the Catholic Church wrought the miracle by which

the arts were raised from their tombs and made her interpreters and

ministers. This cannot be denied, that she gave the impulse to the revival

of art, encouraged its development, inspired it with energy, and purpose,

and faith, and so sent it forth to bless and transfigure the world. In

every city in Europe she built a cathedral. In Rome, St. Peter's; in Paris,

Notre Dame; in Vienna, the Dom Kirche; in Milan, La Duomo. No town was

without its church, few of them, without beauty, many monuments of the

genius of their builders. Because the Saviour was born in a stable, it was

not held an article of faith that he should be worshipped in barn. The

church believed that the temple should show that it was built not for the

service of man, but of God. To adorn these majestic buildings she summoned

the sister arts. Through the stained windows,

"The panes

Of ancient churches, passionate

With martyred saints, whom angels wait,

With Virgin and with Crucified,"

the light shone holier for that transfiguration. There the painter told in

language all could read the solemn story of the religion they believed. How

in a manger the Christ was born, and worshipped by the wise men whom the

mysterious star had led from the Chaldean plains; how the holy mother

journeyed with Joseph into Egypt, bearing in her arms the babe who came

into the world himself to bear the burden of its grief; how he taught the

poor and healed the sick, raised Lazarus from the grave, and bade the

Magdalene sin no more; how he spake with God upon the mount, and was

tempted by the fiend, betrayed by Judas, tried by Pilate, and crucified

upon Calvary; how at the foot of the cross the Marys wept all night; and

how, when he was buried, angels rolled away the stone from the sepulchre,

and apostles beheld him ascend into the depths of heaven. Upon the sacred

walls, which were to these pious, worshippers as windows opening into the

Holy Land, they saw miracles, transfigurations, ascensions, the agonies of

martyrs, the adorations of saints, and--vision of all visions fairest--the

tender face of the Virgin bending in prophetic sadness above the infant

Christ. But with other than silent teachers the church appealed to the

soul. Music, whose miraculous voice utters all passions, pains, delights,

and truths, breathed her beautiful religion on the air. She sang of what

Raphael and Titian painted; of the birth, and the death, and the

resurrection; of the prayers of penitence, the anguish of strife, the

rapture of heaven, the torments of hell; and in her voice were heard sobs,

and cries, and supplications, thunders of divine wrath, trumpets of doom

and of redemption, and choruses upon choruses of angels proclaiming the

glory of God. In all the arts the church embodied Christianity; as she

converted souls, so she converted music and painting. By the twelfth

century, nay, before that, all the art of Europe was Catholic. In Italy,

Spain, Germany, wherever a school of art existed, however humble, its

highest aspirations were through the Catholic Church. The ideality of art,

as we may see in its remaining works, was then almost exclusively

religious; to be imaginative was to be pious. Centuries before the dawn of

modern painting, in the silence and seclusion of cloisters, laborious

monks, slowly perfecting their wonderful illuminated missals, were unawares

preparing the advent of Cimabue and Giotto. The tradition that St. Luke was

a painter was carefully cherished by his disciples, who may have found

inspiration in the legend that he painted the portrait of the Saviour.

{548}

Thus it is probable, and other reasons might be cited, that modern art was

not adopted by the church, but, born within its monasteries, was cherished

till it grew too great for them alone, and then, as the child of the

church, turned in natural faith and gratitude to the service of its parent.

The church was the chief patron of the early painters; it furnished not

only their inspiration, but their occupation. There is little trace of the

earliest Christian art; but Eusebius, whose history was written in the

reign of Constantine, mentions that images of Christ were then common. In

the third century pictures had been generally introduced in the churches of

Palestine. But it was scarcely before the twelfth century that Catholic art

gave promise of that splendor which in later days exalted it above all

rivalry. We find Cimabue famous about the year 1250, and after him Giotto,

almost the father of Italian art, whose portrait of Dante, recently

discovered, is acknowledged as the best likeness we possess of the author

of the greatest Christian poem. He painted the Last Supper of Christ, at

Florence, and an idea of his influence may be formed from the fact that he

had one hundred pupils, some of whom were afterward renowned. To catalogue

the painters of this period would be unnecessary, but their close sympathy

with the church, and the encouragement they received from it, are

unquestionable. In 1308, Duccio, an artist of Sienna, was called upon to

paint an altar-piece, and in his contract pledged himself thus: "I will

execute it according to my best ability, and as the Lord shall grant me

skill." The picture when completed was carried in solemn procession to the

church. When, in 1438, it was proposed to build the Sienna Cathedral, it

was ordained that "no one even suspected of immorality shall be eligible"

to the position of its architect. A more earnest expression of the faith of

the early artists in the dignity of their work, and their religious duty,

is found in the rules adopted by the painters of Sienna in 1335. They held

that, "since we are teachers to ignorant men, and since in God every

perfection is united, we will in our work earnestly ask the aid of the

divine grace." This spirit of devotion gave a higher direction to genius

that might without it have wasted itself in empty and unmeaning tasks; and,

whatever the artist was born to do, he found in the church his opportunity.

To paint, in those days, for the best of those men, was to serve God; to

build, was to build his temples. The purpose ennobled the work. Not merely

with intellect Lorenzo Gbiberti labored when he wrought the doors of the

baptistery in the rear of the cathedral at Florence--doors of which

Michael Angelo exclaimed in his enthusiasm, "Worthy to be the gates of

paradise!" Casts of these wonderful carvings of scriptural subjects, are

exhibited in the Academy of the Fine Arts at Philadelphia. These artists

were the worthy forerunners of greater men--of Domenichino, of Guido, of

Titian, of Murillo, of Correggio, and of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and

Michael Angelo. The greatest works of the three latter were upon Christian

themes. The Las Supper, painted by Da Vinci, in 1497, for the Dominican

convent at Milan, is accepted as the crowning proof of genius. The statue

of Moses in St. Peter's, the Last Judgment, and the Dome of St. Peter's are

the master works of the mighty Angelo. Raphael, who began his beautiful

career by painting altar-pieces, in the Transfiguration reached its highest

point, and questionings of the model who sat for his divine madonnas is

idle, for not the loveliness of the face, but the holiness of the spirit

gives them immortality. But I need cite no other instances. The highest

subjects of the Italian painters were found in their religion, and the

church was their most generous patron.

{549}

And not only was this dedication of art to spirituality of direct value to

its intellectual progress, but indirectly it ennobled art that aimed merely

to paint the things of earth and not the dreams of heaven. The less gained

dignity from the sacred office of the greater, and art became more strongly

rooted in that which was of the world, because of its aspiration to that

which was celestial.

The vast influence of religion upon art is signally exhibited in the

history of English art. Neither painting nor architecture, it is true, had

made much progress in England up to the seventeenth century, as compared

with their success on the continent; for, when Italy was civilized, Great

Britain was still rude, and in certain respects barbarian. Yet the

cathedrals which still exist in ruins, monuments of Gothic grandeur, were

the expressions of a national art in close relation with religion. In

England as in all other countries the Catholic Church gathered around her

the arts. But with a religion which professed to see in images nothing but

idols, in paintings of Christ and the apostles and the prophets nothing but

profanity and blasphemy, came desolation and destruction. The Roundhead was

not satisfied with the downfall of a throne, with the death of one Stuart

and the banishment of that royal line, nor with the proscription of the

Catholic religion. The men who followed Cromwell were iconoclasts, who

destroyed Christian images to set up in their stead an idol of barbarian

bigotry. They fired the churches, they shattered the statues, they made war

upon the pictures of madonnas and martyrs without remorse or fear. They had

driven out the Cavaliers, they were resolved to drive out the saints; and,

as they had banished the church, they were bent upon sending art to keep it

company. They succeeded but too well. Puritan enmity to the employment of

painting in church decoration--the sweeping principle that art and

religion could not be united and had different aims struck a blow at

English art which almost ended it for three reigns. It did not, indeed,

fully recover from the effect until near the close of the eighteenth

century, when, as little more than portraiture, it was re-established by

Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. To this day it is only in portraiture

and in landscape that a great English school exists. There are many fine

Vandykes, and Lelys, and Reynolds in the galleries of England, and many

landscapes and marines by Gainsborough, Wilson, and Turner; but where is

the historical painter who can be compared with Turner? Haydon, who

bitterly complained that historical painting was not appreciated in

England, and that those who by their wealth and position should have

encouraged it cared only for their own faces on canvas, might have found

the cause of its decline in the absence of any religious inspiration in

English art. He admitted this truth, unconsciously perhaps, when he chose

for his own subjects of "high art" Christ in the Temple and Lazarus coming

from the Tomb. In the landscapes and marines of Turner there is imagination

grander than Claude, or Poussin, or Salvator Rosa possessed; in Wilkie

unsurpassed character is given to humble themes. But the English historical

school is infinitely below English landscape and portraiture. The Boydell

gallery, in which the best artists of the time were employed to illustrate

Shakespeare, is an utter failure. Fuseli was fanciful and coarse; and,

though I know little of Blake's pictures, it is safe to presume they were

not equal to his strange and beautiful poetry. Did he ever realize with the

brush such verses as

"Tiger, Tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night"?

Reynolds failed when he sought to be imaginative, as the Death of Dido and

the Deathbed of Cardinal Beaufort are proof.

{550}

The defeat of the repeated efforts to establish an historical school of art

in England must not be ascribed solely to a deficiency of genius in the men

or in the character of the nation. Art and religion were divorced. Men

worshipped God in one way, and painted in another. It is a significant fact

that the pre-Raphaelite school, however objectionable in some respects,

owes its highest success to the religious element which inspires it.

Millais and Hunt proclaim that the rudest art must be spiritual, and thus

seek to atone for centuries of infidelity to that truth.

Upon music the influence of the church has probably been even greater than

upon painting, certainly as great. With no exaggeration, it may be said

that to write the history of the composers who have written for the church

is to write the history of modern music. What this fact implies will be

understood by those who know that in none other of the arts has the term

modern such significance; for, while ancient painting, sculpture, and

architecture were based upon the same general laws which are now recognized

as absolute, the principles of music, like her own sweet sounds, have

changed and passed away from age to age. There is a known difference

between what may be called the musical ear of this century and that of the

sixteenth. What was then felt to be harmony, and embodied in the works of

the great masters, is now discord. There was a time when consecutive fifths

were common, a fact almost incredible to the musician of to-day. If such

changes have occurred within four or five hundred years, the gulf which

divides ancient and modern music must be deep and wide; and the latter,

having little visible connection or known sympathy with the former, and

originating in Christian Europe, must inevitably owe much of its character

to Catholic civilization.

The oldest form of music known to us belongs to the church; it is the

Ecclesiastical Chant of St. Ambrose and St. Gregory. The former, near the

close of the fourth century, endeavored to give a fixed form to church

music, and we may judge of his success from his Te Deum. The words and the

the music of this noble canticle are still sung. Of the Ambrosian chant,

St. Augustine wrote: "As the voices flowed into mine ears, truth was

instilled into my heart, and the affections of piety overflowed in tears of

joy." It is said that St. Ambrose composed the Te Deum upon the conversion

of St. Augustine. Two centuries later Pope Gregory vastly improved the

system of sacred music; from him we have the celebrated Gregorian chant,

solemn, severe, and pure, and still heard in Lent and in the Holy Week.

Such value did St. Gregory place upon music that he established a school

for singers at Rome, which flourished till the tenth century. After the

Gregorian chant little reformation in music was accomplished for centuries;

but the next step was also taken within the church when Guido, a

Benedictine monk, early in the eleventh century, discovered the musical

scale now used. Modern rhythm was invented by a French priest about the

same time, and for many years music owed all its progress to religious

enthusiasm. Thus, Odington, an English Benedictine monk, in 1240, wrote De

Speculatione Musicae, and John Muris in the fourteenth century did much to

establish fixed rules of harmony. Counterpoint was slowly developed; the

canon and the fugue were introduced; and the laws of music were gradually

established as the basis of the grander and more ideal genius of the

strictly modern system. We need not follow the history of the art from that

great master Palestrina through the long succession of famous names

destined to be remembered when those of kings are half forgotten.

From the first it has been seen the church recognized the sacred offices of

music, and did not merely permit, but authorized and developed its use. It

is true that at one time use led to abuse. In the sixteenth century

composers for the church frequently forgot religion in science.

{551}

"In this kind of composition," says Alexander Cheron, "the meaning of the

words was entirely overlooked, and its tendencies were only to the display

of the genius of the composers or the powers of the singers." The evil

became so great that the Council of Trent even deliberated upon the

suppression of music in religious service. Pope Marcellus II. had, indeed,

resolved to banish all music but the Gregorian chant, when Palestrina

composed a mass which made that step unnecessary. It was a revolution.

Solemnity, grandeur, and purity were the elements of the new style, from

which mere bravuras and all levities were excluded. Thus the power which

authorized the employment of music had the influence to redeem it from

degradation, till now the sacred music we possess embodies the genius of

three centuries, and will, perhaps, endure longer than the finest lyric

dramas. That the religious purposes of great masters have had vast

influence upon the merely lyric composition is not to be doubted. We cannot

raise one form of art without raising all. The author of Don Giovanni might

not have achieved the full grandeur of that work had he not also composed

his marvellous masses. Of the influence of Catholic music upon such minds,

an incident in Mozart's life is proof. In his youth he heard the famous

Miserere sung in the Sistine chapel at Rome--that strange and solemn

harmony, composed two hundred years ago by Gregorio Allegri, for the

sublime ceremonial of the Passion week. Pontiff and cardinals, when the

Miserere begins, kneel around the altar, the church is darkened, the voices

swell in tenor, and die into silence. Mozart twice heard this wonderful

work, and then reproduced it note for note, and sang it with the exact

method and feeling of the Sistine choir. And it is said that the effect of

this Miserere upon him may be traced in all his other works. Haydn's piety

is found in all of his music, chiefly in those masses which are known to

all lovers of music. "In nomine Domini," "Soli Deo Gloria," he invariably

wrote at the beginning of his scores, and "Laus Deo" at their end. When

composing, if his imagination failed, he repeated his rosary, and, before

beginning his greater works, he prayed to God for inspiration to praise him

worthily. Of the composers inspired by religion, the list is long; longer,

perhaps, that of those who unconsciously were influenced by it. When Haydn

was asked which of his works he considered the greatest, he replied, The

Seven Words. It was written for the service called the "Funeral of the

Redeemer" at Madrid, in which the seven words uttered by the Saviour on the

cross were uttered by the bishop, who explained each, and between each

exposition Haydn's music in sympathy with the word was given. Upon his

masses he lavished his pains, and generally required twice the time for a

mass that he needed for a symphony.

Palestrina, Porpora, Clementi, Haydn, Mozart, Rossini, Beethoven, are but a

few of the illustrious masters whose sacred music was dedicated to the

Catholic Church. Handel's religious music was chiefly written for the

English, and is embodied, as well as that of Mendelssohn, in oratorio. But,

for my part, I do not think the form of the oratorio as well fitted for

sacred music as that of the mass. An oratorio is generally sung in a

concert-room; the words are frequently poor adaptations of the language of

the Scriptures; its auditors expect to be entertained. Therefore, though

the music may be perfect in itself, as in the "Total Eclipse" or "I know

that my Redeemer liveth" of Handel, it does not seem that the form is

suited to express the deepest emotions of worship. It is in the Catholic

Church alone that music and religion are wedded. Who can translate into

words the profound devotion inspired by the solemn mass in the cathedral

service? Over the kneeling worshippers, the illuminated altar, the pictures

of the crucifixion and the ascension, the intonation of the priest, "the

dim religious light" shining through the stained windows, Music breathes

her voice.

{552}

As the great organ swells, and the deep-toned choir utters the despair of

the Miserere, the heavenly beauty of the Agnus Dei, the exultation of the

Gloria, the devotion of the Credo, etc., what soul is not bowed in sympathy

with grief, raised with gratitude, or bathed in heavenly peace? I know no

music that has a more profound effect. It is a part of worship. It

expresses something to which words the most eloquent are inadequate. It is

the glory of the Catholic Church, I repeat, that she has so freely

recognized the spirituality of this act, and these who reject her creed are

compelled to admit the propriety and supremacy of her service. How cold are

the musical exercises of other churches, how little they express of this

intense and passionate devotion. I do not think God is served by the

exclusion of his greatest gifts from the ceremonial of worship, and that

point is conceded by all sects which sing his praise. But, if any music is

used, why not the best? If a hymn, why not a mass? If an organ, why not an

orchestra? The objection that the Catholic Church would have its choirs

composed of the best voices, its music written by the greatest composers,

is too absurd to be answered; for, if the highest art is unfit for the

purposes of worship, then by inevitable logic it must be shown that all art

is unfit; those who hold such objections should consistently agree with the

Quakers, and banish the simplest hymn. [Footnote 174]

[Footnote 174: The writer of this article is not a Catholic.--ED. C.W.]

More than this, if music may be worthily used, why not painting? The value

of architecture is universally admitted, ever since it was shown by the

Catholic Church, and music is more or less accepted as a mode of adoration

by nearly all sects. Pictures, however, are admitted into Catholic churches

alone. Is, then, the genius of Titian and Raphael less holy than that of

Beethoven or Mozart? Is it right to sing the praise of God in his temple,

wrong to paint the story of the Son of God upon the consecrated walls? We

need not answer such questions, which are only introduced to show how it is

by the Catholic Church alone that the religious influences of the arts have

been first and fully understood, and by it alone that they have been made

agencies of worship.

Further examination of this important subject cannot now be made, for in

these limits it can be little more than suggested. If we generalize, we

discover that all the great artists, in architecture, painting, and music

have found their highest employment in the church, and that its history

includes their biographies. Of its present influence it is unnecessary to

speak, but it is felt most in architecture, at least in this country; the

noblest church edifice in Philadelphia, perhaps in any American city, is

incomparably the new cathedral. From what has been said, the depth, and

extent, and value of the influence of the church upon art may be inferred;

but no one can imagine the condition of our art had it been without the

inspiration of religion. Majestic and venerable stands the Church of Rome;

upon her walls the arts have registered their victories; for her the muses

have forsaken the summits of Parnassus; to her the poet, painter, and

musician have dedicated their genius; and, giving all they brought to her

humblest and poorest worshipper, she has repaid the masters with perpetual

recognition and universal fame. Far as her realm extends are known the

glories of Raphael, and Angelo, and Mozart.

------

{553}

Original.

Adelaide Anne Procter.

Next to imagination, genius is, perhaps, the faculty of the human mind

about which we have had the most instructiveness and the least instruction.

Yet every one who knows anything of it at all knows the two great types of

genius that appear in history--extremes between which lie all minds of

mark. One is the familiar form that the word itself at once suggests--the

regular fashion, as it were, of being exceptional. This is the erratic,

fitful, uncontrolled, keen, brilliant, sensitive, sympathetic, eccentric

character, who wears regardless collars, fights his publisher on less than

no provocation, eats opium if he chooses, and sometimes chooses--or, if not

opium, some other stimulant--has whims and moods and irritabilities, and

the biggest heart, and the best tongue, and the most heedless head, with

the most brilliant oddities in it, wherever he goes--a totally lopsided

organism, where the soul cannot be kept from wearing its way through the

body, and where a few faculties, preternaturally developed, domineer over a

warped and stunted system, to the ultimate ruin of the whole man.

The other kind, calm, clear, broad, poised, equable, powerful, seems

exactly the opposite of the first type. The strength of the one is in

balance, the force of the other in overbalance. Yet the difference is only

that the man of balance is symmetrically developed; it is the difference

between the autumn maturity of the full-grown fruit and the hectic

ripeness, with the worm at the core, of the August windfall.

Of these two types, the first is vastly the more frequent, the other the

higher in history. The reason is simply this, that a moderate degree of

uniform development gives neither more nor less than mediocrity, while

disproportionate preponderance of the intellect, even where all the

faculties are below the average, will reproduce in miniature all the

phenomena of the overbalanced kind of genius. Between Byron Don-Juanning it

over his gin-and-water, and the brilliant Bohemian who dashes off the

cleverest leader of the next day, fresh from the convivial influences of a

roystering champagne supper, and the gentle youth who floods the rural

poet's corner with heaven-scaling hankerings inspired by green tea, the

difference is not in kind, but in degree.

Men of this order are the ones who achieve fame and famine. Their blossoms

of promise are bright, their early graves are green on all the paths of

human progress. History kindles at their high hopes and deeds, and blushes

for the petty failings that suffice to drag them down. Literature, above

all, is a very Golgotha, all the ghastlier for its glory, of their

self-conscious sensitiveness, their refined self-torture, their blasted

lives and miserable deaths. Yet there is hardly one but has his little day,

longer or shorter, but with always some little sunshine and flowers of

popular favor. Stimulated to their utmost by susceptibility to praise, they

are the most brilliant and _bizarre_ in effects, and the most blindly

admired. Besides, their eccentricities are an advertisement in themselves,

and very often first attract the attention which afterward discovers the

powers underneath. The world, on the contrary, finds nothing about the

other sort of genius to display any peculiar capabilities--a sort of

pleasant self-completeness, it may be, but no salient points and queer

angles--and passes on, to gape at the man with half the brains and nothing

to balance them.

{554}

Byron woke up one morning and found himself famous: some one in Elizabeth's

reign made a list (is it not D'Israeli who preserves it?) of the best

writers of his day, whereon the _thirteenth_ name is that of the

successful London manager and decidedly good fellow, William Shakspeare.

In fact, this latter type of genius is not only rare as all well-poised

organisms are rare, but seems to evade public appreciation by some hidden

inherent law of its nature. It has often happened with men of this order

that not only their families--of course, it is the exception, if a man's

family ever discover his powers till the rest of the world thunders his

fame into their ears--but their daily acquaintance, their most intimate

friends, nay, themselves, never suspect their greatness.

But, if such a man of genius is an event of his generation, and, with all a

man's opportunities for appreciation, activity, acquaintance, and, above

all, women and their ennobling influence, to bring out his best energies,

often dies undiscovered, what chance is there for a woman of kindred

abilities to struggle into the light of recognition? In literature, men are

the severest judges of women possible, except, of course, their own sex. To

the best of them the expression "woman of genius" is the mythical relic of

some lost tradition as old as Sappho's day, and "women's thought" a

contradiction in terms. All their experience teaches them to disbelieve in

it utterly. The truth is, most women think very ill in print. The cause

lies less in their nature than in their second nature of education. Their

thought is beautiful enough--beauty is their mental as their bodily

characteristic--but seldom strong, and then its strength is that of the

tempered Toledo rather than the shearing Andrea Ferrara. It comes in April

gleams from behind cloud after cloud. They lack concentration, terseness,

sequence; in a word, training. This breeds, with mainly correct thought,

constant loose digressions, diffuseness of expression, and dilution of

ideas. (Hence that saddest thing on the earth, wherein women writers so

abound, the _unexceptionable_ poem.) It seems as though women wrote as

if conversing, forgetting how much of the charm is in themselves and

evaporates on the pen. Every reader has noticed how the writings, and,

above all, the poems, of really extraordinary women--women that men of mind

looked up to--are to us such monuments of apparent mediocrity that we

wonder what they found to worship. The most impartial critic's nose

inclines involuntarily heavenward the moment a woman comes forward to claim

any intellectual place of honor. And genius, the highest quality, man's

special prerogative--horror of horrors! All reason says it cannot be; and

underneath a subtle male _esprit de corps_ too often adds that it

shall not be. Of course, the intruder cannot climb the heights, but to

avoid accidents and disappointment she is seldom suffered to try. Such are

the difficulties which beset the path of even the most favored female

aspirant.

It ought not to surprise us, then, that Adelaide Anne Procter, even had she

been the most pushing and irrepressible of blue-stockings, with every

vantage-ground of circumstance, was not appreciated as she deserved. But,

in addition to the original sin of being a woman, several reasons peculiar

to herself concurred to render her, what we think she has been, one of the

most underrated writers of her day.

First, she was an Englishwoman. Had she not been, she might never have been

anything; but once being something, we do not think it was an utterly

inestimable advantage. For, as being English, every one took for granted

that she must be a Protestant, and every one was disappointed and provoked

to find her a Catholic. Now one of the circumstances which mitigate the

glory of being English is that there is very little _achromatic_

criticism in England. As a wise and keen analyst [Footnote 175] complains,

each of the reviews has some set of theses nailed to its doors, whose

upholding is the first thing, to which all their criticism proper must

stand subordinate.

[Footnote 175: Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism.]