Darwinism. In doing so, we have introduced no new factors. We
have used only those with which Darwin has furnished us. There
are, however, three factors recognized by Darwin which we have
eliminated. These are an innate tendency in organisms to vary,
evolution, and the law of compensation of growth. Of these, the
first is confessedly unscientific; the second, irrespective of the
well-founded doubt as to whether it obtains or not, must share in
the same discredit which is accorded to the first; and the third is
viewed with distrust even by Darwin himself. The factors, however,
which we have retained must be conceded to be immeasurably more
amenable to the canons of scientific research, upon the theory of
reversion, than when they are adduced to subserve the hypothesis of
evolution. In our treatment of them they have fulfilled the highest
requirements of logic. Take, for example, the four principal laws
involved in the controversy--variation, correlation, crossing, and
close interbreeding. These we found ultimate or empirical laws, and
left them derivative laws. The law of variation we resolved into the
law of reversion; and the laws of correlation, crossing, and close
interbreeding we resolved into the law of proportionate development.
Now, it is not possible for a theory to be capable of all this,
and yet to be false. If the laws upon which we based our theory
were merely empirical, a doubt of its validity might reasonably be
entertained. But, as the case stands, it cannot.
But--may exclaim a tyro who affects a love for science, and whose
conception of biology is limited to protoplasm and cells--assuming
that the hypothesis of reversion is vastly more conformable to
the phenomena of variation than the hypothesis of evolution, yet
your theory fails to supply the greatest requirement of biologic
science. It fails to satisfy our yearnings after a knowledge of the
development of the species. Darwin starts with cells, the lowest
congregations of organic matter. Because he does this his theory is,
at least philosophically, the more scientific.
But, even in this respect, our theory is more philosophical than
that of Darwin. Darwin assumes three or four cells, and intrusts
spontaneity or chance with the development of the species. We assume,
not "a myriad supernatural impulses" going to the formation of each
species, not the creation of each species in its maturity, but one
cell alone for each species, (or, perhaps, one cell for each sex of
each species.) For evidence of the fact that the assumption of a
multiplicity of cells is more philosophical than the assumption of
only three or four, we appeal to an article in the _North American
Review_ for October, 1868, entitled "Philosophical Biology," of which
the writer is a professed Darwinian, and to G. H. Lewes's articles
in the _Fortnightly Review_. Given, then, these cells, we intrust
the development of the species, not to spontaneity or chance, but
to the operation of laws similar to those obtaining in the crystal.
The forces implied in the creation, formation, or existence of each
cell determine, as in the case of the crystal, the whole form
and structure of the species. The process of development is that
predetermined, from which no departure is normally possible. Time,
however, is an unimportant element. This kind of evolution of the
species we concede. That which we deny is the evolution of the
species one from another.
In conclusion, we cannot refrain from stating that our views are
quite consistent with a high admiration of the great ingenuity
and vast research displayed by Mr. Darwin. His desire to be frank
and candid none can gainsay. For the ability of Mr. Spencer, who
is somewhat less candid, but immeasurably more so than the petty
retailers of his conceptions, we have the deepest respect. His
exquisitely constructed mind we ever delight to study. Both Mr.
Darwin and Mr. Spencer have rendered great services to the cause of
science. And we must in candor admit that the British "infidels"
generally present their theories in a form which admits of their
eventual confirmation, or their eventual refutation. As we are
confident that their refutation will follow whenever they are really
at variance with religion, we anticipate with pleasure many a warm
but amicable controversy within the next half-century.
FOOTNOTE:
[151] In the definition of a species, propounded in the last article,
there occurred two mistakes. "Character" should have been characters;
and the semicolon immediately following should have been absent.
BRITISH PREMIERS IN RELATION TO BRITISH CATHOLICS.
The English parliament having lately occupied itself in discussing
a measure of the utmost importance to the Catholics of the United
Kingdom, and to Irish Catholics in particular--the abolition of the
Established Church supremacy, the time seems very opportune for
reviewing the conduct of British premiers for the last century and a
half in reference to Catholics. The subject, we think, cannot fail
to interest our readers, whether they be natives of this soil of
freedom, or whether they have emigrated from an isle where freedom
was, during long ages, unknown, and have sought on this side of the
Atlantic that liberty, prosperity, and peace from which in Ireland
they were cruelly debarred.
Though the revolution of 1688 filled the breasts of Catholics with
dismay, and the ruin of their cause seemed complete, when the arms of
William of Orange prevailed at the Boyne and at Limerick, yet their
situation was not so forlorn nor were their prospects so hopeless as
might have been expected. Many circumstances alleviated their misery;
and, stormy as was the landscape spread before their eyes, glimpses
were ever and anon afforded them of that tranquil and sunny horizon
into which, after so many toils and conflicts, wounds and tears,
they now seem to be entering. Every premier since the revolution
down to the present time has done something, directly or indirectly,
conducive to their interests, and calculated to raise them to equal
privileges with the rest of their fellow-countrymen, if not to
restore them to their long lost ascendency.
William III. was decidedly averse to persecution, and whether from
coldness or kindness of disposition, he could never be induced by
any of his counsellors to trample on the liberty of one portion of
his subjects in order merely to please another portion. There was,
indeed, one act of his reign,[152] of which we shall speak more
particularly when we arrive at Lord North's ministry, that pressed
very heavily on English and Irish Catholics; but of this act, which
was never carried fully into execution, the nation became weary in
eighty years, and William's consent to it was given very unwillingly.
The known moderation of his own views was probably one reason why
the pope (Alexander VIII.) did not disdain to give him his moral
support in the league against France, and to be secretly, though not
openly, one of the alliance formed against ambition and encroachments
which the states of Europe in general felt to be intolerable. When
his approval of the Declaration of Indulgence was sought by James
II., in 1687, he had answered that he and the princess must protest
against it, as exceeding the king's lawful prerogative, and as being
dangerous to the Protestant ascendency, because it admitted Catholics
to offices of trust; but he added that "they were not persecutors.
They should with pleasure see Roman Catholics as well as Protestant
dissenters relieved, in a proper manner, from all penal statutes.
They should with pleasure see Protestant dissenters admitted in a
proper manner to civil office. But at that point their highnesses
must stop."[153] Such being William's sentiments, it is much to be
regretted that he did not firmly resist the persecutive act which
disgraces his reign, and which, far from mitigating the penal
statutes in force against Catholics, made them more severe, and stood
in direct contrast to his well-known and often expressed convictions.
[154]But not only was King William himself favorable to Catholic
liberties, nearly one half of the Lords, the Commons, and the people
in general, were Jacobites, or inclined to Jacobitism. Many of the
great measures which decided the course of the English government in
a Protestant and anti-Stuart direction were passed by extremely small
majorities, and not a few of those who held offices of the highest
trust in William's government, who commanded his armies and fleets,
and sat by him at the council-board, were privately negotiating
with King James and receiving the nightly visits of messengers
from St. Germain. Such were Russell, Godolphin, and Marlborough;
and when men so high in the state were thus striving to serve two
masters, those Catholics who became aware of their intrigues could
not but cherish bright hopes that the day of their own redemption
was drawing nigh. During the reign of Queen Anne these hopes rose
yet higher. She had a brother who claimed the throne of England, and
she desired that he might be her successor. There were few at the
time who knew the inmost thoughts of her heart; but it was evident
to all that she leaned to the Jacobites; and when statesmen like
Oxford and Bolingbroke, and a bishop like Atterbury, stood high
in her favor, it was manifest to Catholics that her royal mind
turned wistfully toward the Catholic dynasty. The rigorous measures
which had been passed against Catholics in her predecessor's reign
remained, for the most part, a dead letter during hers. Anne herself
was no bigot; and if the country had not been kept in constant alarm
by a threatened Stuart rising, the Catholic population would have
enjoyed great tranquillity and considerable freedom. In 1714, we
find Lord Bolingbroke writing that the Catholics enjoy as much quiet
as any others of the queen's subjects.[155] But this assertion, it
must be admitted, loses part of its credit when we remember that the
oppressive measures enacted at various times under William and Mary
were followed by several fresh refinements of cruelty in the reign of
Anne.[156]
When the peaceful accession of the Elector of Hanover to the throne
of England darkened the prospects of the Jacobites, and suggested to
them the adoption of desperate steps as the only remedy for their
disappointment, the government was sorely tempted to subject all
Catholics to rigorous laws, and to render existing statutes still
more severe. To this temptation, however, happily, it did not yield
except in one or two instances. The mind of Sir Robert Walpole was
neither persecutive nor narrow. He had, shortly before Queen Anne's
demise, opposed the odious Schism Act, by which every tutor and
schoolmaster in Great Britain was compelled to receive the sacrament
in the Established Church, obtain a license from the Protestant
bishop, and pledge himself in writing to conform to the state
religion.[157] In speaking, as he did, against this measure, Walpole
was battling for the religious liberty of Catholics as well as of
other dissenters from the Anglican communion, and was doing all that
lay in his power to promote education among them.
His associate in and out of office, General, afterward Earl,
Stanhope, who also became premier in his turn, was a man of most
honorable feelings and enlarged views. During his tenure of power
he not merely endeavored to repeal the Schism Bill, the Test Act,
and the Bill against Occasional Conformity, but he had designs
of a higher order. Though Catholics had favored the Scottish
insurrection in 1715, though Protestant antipathy to them was at
its height, though the popes and the Catholic courts of Europe in
general supported the designs of the Stuarts, though "Papists" were
proscribed by common consent, and even the genius and _very_ moderate
Catholicism of Pope could scarce save him from opprobrium on account
of his religion, Lord Stanhope, to his immortal honor, undertook the
cause of the persecuted remnant, and formed the design of repealing,
or at least greatly mitigating, the penal laws in force against them.
A paper which he wrote on the subject was placed in the hands of
leading English Catholics. The Duke of Norfolk and Lord Waldegrave
were disposed to accept the conditions, provided they obtained the
sanction of the pope.[158] But a variety of causes prevented the
scheme from being carried into effect; and premature death carried
off the only man who would, at that period, have had the least chance
of success in a matter so difficult, unpopular, and benevolent. Lord
Stanhope's offer of indulgence to Catholics, on condition only of
their swearing allegiance to the reigning family, was an admirable
precedent, and his descendant, the historian of England from the
Peace of Utrecht to 1783, calls it, very properly, the earliest germ
of Roman Catholic emancipation.
The Earl of Sunderland also, who was premier in 1718, concurred
with Stanhope in his schemes for religious liberty, though he was
not equally sanguine in his hopes. He believed that any attempt to
get rid of the Test Act--in other words, to admit dissenters and
Catholics to places under government--would be ruinous to all their
liberal designs. He therefore prevailed on Stanhope to abate some of
his demands, and a bill for the relief of non-conformists was carried
by the ministry through both houses, after several important clauses
had been struck out. Sir Robert Walpole unfortunately opposed the
bill which, on a former occasion, he had supported in principle.
Though a great man, a sound statesman, a true patriot, he had his
littlenesses. He did not rise above his age. He was one thing in
office, and another out of office. He had a passion for governing,
and was not over-scrupulous in the means he took for attaining power.
Expediency was often his law, and principle was set aside. Hence,
when Sunderland and Stanhope were dead, and he once more took the
helm of the ship of state, he laid a heavy tax on the estates of
Catholics, on the ground of their having cost the nation so much by
fomenting the rebellion of 1715.[159] The disaffection they then
manifested was the cause also why, in 1716, they were forbidden,
under pain of punishment, to enlist in the king's service.
But these enactments were of a temporary nature, called forth by a
special circumstance, and not of sufficient moment to disprove the
assertion that, under the prime ministers of George I., the political
and social condition of English Catholics was rendered more hopeful.
Yet in saying this we do not forget that the statute-book remained
unpurged,[160] and exhibited even some additional defilement. But it
is not always by law-books that we can judge of a nation's condition.
Its acts are often better than its laws, and it mends its ways long
before it improves its statutes. It was so for a long period with
Great Britain as regards her dealings with Catholics, and if it
had been otherwise, scarcely a remnant of the chosen people would
have remained to bear witness to the ancient faith. Sir Robert
Walpole inclined in his heart to lenient measures, and would have
done more to promote religious liberty if he had not fallen among a
stiff-necked generation, to whom retaliation and oppression came as
things of course. His efforts to relieve the Quakers from prosecution
and imprisonment for refusing to pay tithes and church rates, and to
substitute for these a levy by distress on their goods, sufficiently
proves his aversion to the oppressive policy which Gibson, the Bishop
of London, and many of his lawn-sleeved brethren, wished to pursue.
Little alteration took place in the condition of Catholics during
the premierships of Carteret, Pelham, and Newcastle. They were few
in number, except in the southern and western provinces of Ireland,
where they comprised the great body of the laboring classes.
In England, on the contrary, they had scarcely any hold on the
lower orders, but numbered among their people many peers, country
gentlemen, and other educated persons. The alarm they occasioned was
incredible, considering the poverty of their chapels, and the scanty
numbers by whom these were frequented. The most wicked and absurd
doctrines were ascribed to them, nor was any falsehood respecting
them too glaring to obtain credit with the prejudiced multitude. The
rising of 1745 brought them more than ever into disrepute, and their
enemies saw with fierce joy their bones whitening on Temple Bar and
Tower Hill. The butchery of the Duke of Cumberland was accounted
lenient when exercised against Catholics; and if the government had
drenched the scaffolds with more blood of Highland chiefs, it would
probably have been applauded by a crowd of Protestant zealots. But
Pelham and his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, were neither cruel
nor fanatical; and the effort made by the former to ameliorate the
condition of the Jews, though frustrated by the intolerance of the
times, proved that his leanings, at least, were in favor of religious
and political equality. Deserted as he was in this matter by his
timid and shuffling brother, hooted at and cried down as an enemy
of Christianity because he was averse to persecuting the forlorn
and helpless Jews, we may judge how hopeless would have been any
attempt to plead the rights of Catholics, and how prudence itself
demanded that the redress of their wrongs should be postponed to a
more convenient season. The Whigs of George II.'s reign did what they
could in their favor, and it was little indeed, by paving the way for
future concessions.
While Chatham, with his fiery genius, was holding the reins of
government, in concert successively with the dukes of Devonshire,
of Newcastle, and of Grafton; while Bute enjoyed the favor of
his sovereign, and incurred in an equal degree the odium of the
people; while Grenville goaded the American colonists into revolt,
and Rockingham vainly endeavored to heal the wounds which his
predecessor had inflicted on them; little was thought, and still less
was said, in parliament about the emancipation of Catholics. Yet many
of the events which occurred, many of the political gladiators who
acquired for themselves such renown in the arena of public life, were
preparing the way for this happy consummation in the fulness of time.
Every blow that was struck for freedom was a gain to the Catholic
cause; every check that was put on the arbitrary power of the king or
the parliament was in effect a loosening of their bonds. When Chatham
declaimed against the use of general warrants, and Wilkes waged war
single-handed with the crown, the cabinet, and the commons; when
Burke and Rockingham, no less than Chatham, denounced the injustice
of the Stamp Act, and the fratricidal cruelty of the war by which it
was in principle to be enforced, the arguments by which they clove
down menaces, boasts, and blatant sophistry availed more or less
against every thing that could be pleaded in support of the bondage
and degradation to which Catholics were subjected. Edmund Burke was
the burning and shining light of the Rockingham administration. It
was scarcely possible for the premier to overrate his importance as
an ally. He had the most philosophical mind of any statesman of his
age; and the fact of his being chattered against as a wild Irishman
and a concealed papist by the Duke of Newcastle, proved that the
despised and the detested Catholics of Ireland were likely to find
a friend in him. He was more than a great man; he represented a
principle. He never shifted his ground, though he sometimes changed
his front. He always pleaded for order, and "a manly, moral,
regulated liberty." In the outset of his political career, the
tide of human thought was setting in new directions. America was
declaring her independence; the _Wealth of Nations_ was laying the
foundation of political economy; Wesley and Whitefield were stirring
up a dormant spirit of sincere though misguided religion in mines,
factories, fields, and wolds; Hargreaves's spinning-jenny was well
at work; Arkwright's patent had been issued some years; Crompton's
mule was seen coming into play; Brindley's canal from the Trent to
the Mersey was being cut; and Watt was preparing his third model of
the steam-engine. Powerful solvents of old systems were applied, and
active germs of new ones sprang up on every side. It was a time,
therefore, when thoughtful men were accessible to new ideas, when
they would listen to arguments so new, so strange, so extravagant,
(for such they had once thought them,) as those which Burke advanced
in favor of religious toleration, and of the persecuted Irish. Year
after year his convictions gathered strength, till at last "the
god within him" burst forth, and he denounced the penal code of
Protestant England as "A system full of coherence and consistency;
well digested and well composed in all its parts, a machine of wise
and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression,
impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in
them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted
ingenuity of man."[161] As the secretary, the friend, the adviser
and colleague of Lord Rockingham, Edmund Burke had some influence in
abating the rigor of enactments against "papists;" and though the
Rev. James Talbot, brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was tried for
his life at the Old Bailey for saying mass, so late as the year
1769, yet the spirit of persecution sensibly declined after the fifth
year of George III.'s reign. It was rarely, and at long intervals,
that it ventured to display itself in the English parliament; and
in 1774, the first decided step toward toleration was taken by that
prejudiced body. The Catholics of Canada were allowed by law to enjoy
free exercise of their religion, subject to the king's supremacy.[162]
Only four years passed before this concession was followed by another
of far greater importance and extent.
It was under the ministry of Lord North, and with his concurrence,
that Sir George Savile, in 1788, introduced a bill to repeal the
atrocious enactments extorted from William of Orange by a relentless
parliament. The bigots of his day had often repeated the false
reports of Jacobites, who affirmed that William was in secret a
favorer of their religion; but now that eighty years had rolled by,
the representatives of the nation in parliament, though not the
people themselves, were sensible of the injustice their forefathers
had wrought, and were willing to make reparation for it. It was
already a marvellous change that had come over the minds of the
thinking part of the nation; and it is pleasing to reflect that Sir
George Savile's healing measure encountered little opposition. The
penal statutes which his bill repealed had not, generally speaking,
been put into execution, but in some instances they had; and Sir
George declared himself cognizant of cases in which Catholics were
not merely living in terror, but were obliged to bribe informers not
to betray them, in consequence of the powers which the law conferred.
Thurlow, the attorney-general, supported the bill, and so did
Dundas, the lord-advocate of Scotland. The only whisper of opposition
came from a Whig bishop of Peterborough, named Hinchcliffe. By this
repeal the priests were secured from persecution, schoolmasters were
permitted to teach, Catholics were enabled to purchase and to inherit
estates, and many other happy exemptions from pain and penalty were
granted to them.[163] Horace Walpole, in one of his letters,[164]
called the repeal "the restoration of popery," and "expected soon to
see Capuchins trampling about, and Jesuits in high places."
It is needless to recount the excesses which followed this measure.
The Lord George Gordon riots are too well known even here to require
more than an allusion to be made to them. Gibbon, the historian,
was an eye-witness of the scene, and he says, in memorable words,
that "the month of June, 1780, will ever be marked by a dark and
diabolical fanaticism, which I supposed to be extinct, but which
actually subsists in Great Britain _perhaps beyond any other country
in Europe_." Impelled by these frantic disturbances, the parliament
condescended to explain Sir George Savile's bill to the people, and
to show that, though intended to relieve "papists," it was not meant
to encourage "popery."
The coalition ministry, under the Duke of Portland, did not last long
enough for Fox, its most distinguished and philanthropic member, to
propose measures for the relief of Catholics. But his great rival,
Pitt, during his long tenure of office, had means of befriending
them which he did not altogether neglect. The Toleration Act[165]
received the royal assent in 1791, and many of its provisions did
credit to William Pitt's wisdom and humanity. It removed penalties
still attached by law to the celebration of Catholic worship, and
relieved tutors, schoolmasters, barristers, and peers from some
degrading restrictions. Pitt would willingly have gone further, much
further. He would gladly have fulfilled the promises made to some
of the leaders of the Irish people, and would have cemented the
union of England and Ireland by admitting Catholics to a share of
political power and by providing a state endowment of the Catholic
priesthood. He even resigned his post as premier in 1801 because he
found it impossible to obtain the consent of the purblind, bigoted
old king to the measures he had planned for the peace of Ireland. It
would have been better for his fame if he had persevered in his good
intentions. That he did not do so, is a stain on his memory which
posterity, however lenient, cannot wash out. His honor was involved
in completing the union with Ireland by Catholic emancipation. This
he not only failed to do, but, out of regard to his sovereign, he
promised in writing that he would never again moot the question, and
that he would oppose its being agitated to the day of his death.
This was carrying loyalty too far. It prevailed against justice.
It cancelled personal honor. An engagement is sacred; and if Pitt
had observed his, he would have stood higher in the esteem of
thinking men, without driving George III. into lunacy or to Hanover.
Considering all the circumstances, we cannot feel surprised at his
setting it aside; but we regret that he did not hold to it firmly.
Faith in political leaders would then have been more easy, and
public virtue less a sham. When the strength of Pitt superseded
the weakness of Addington, and the great statesman found himself
again prime minister, his tongue was tied in reference to Catholic
claims. Nay, even his rival, Fox, when he came once more into
office, refrained from advocating emancipation out of deference to
the king's weakness and tendency to madness. Indeed, the Grenville
ministry, called usually "All the Talents," broke up at last on the
question of removing Catholic disabilities, as that of Pitt had done
in the year 1801. A puny and pitiable concession had been made to
Irish Catholic soldiers in 1793. They had been allowed by law to
rise in the army to the rank of colonel, in case of their serving
_in Ireland_. Lord Sidmouth and Chancellor Erskine were opposed to
Catholic emancipation, yet even they were willing in their boundless
generosity to extend this privilege to officers serving in England.
The king was alarmed at the proposal, and wrote to Lord Spenser,
declaring that it should never gain his consent. It would remove a
restriction on Roman Catholics, and it was only part of a system to
which he was unchangeably averse. But when two days had passed, his
majesty thought better of it. He would not thwart his ministers for
such a trifle. He yielded the point, and then discovered than he had
been deceived by the liberal members of the cabinet, and that they
actually intended to put Catholics and dissenters on exactly the same
footing as members of the Anglican church in the army, and to exact
from them merely an oath of allegiance. The bill for the purpose
had, in fact, been submitted to him, but, being blind, he had let it
pass without proper scrutiny. His ministers always affirmed that,
if he had been misled, it was not through their fault or intention.
The afflicted old man was greatly disturbed by what he heard on the
subject from Lord Sidmouth, and he became still more indignant when
the bill was fathered on him, introduced into parliament by Lord
Howick, (afterward Lord Grey,) opposed stoutly by Mr. Perceval, and
read for the first time. He resolved in secret to rid himself of
ministers whom he regarded as dangerous and false. He informed them
that the bill in question would never be signed by him, that it must
be withdrawn, and that he should be satisfied with nothing less than
an explicit assurance and promise that no such measures in future
should be proposed. This "All the Talents" refused to give, and the
king, on hearing that their answer was final, said, "Then I must look
about me."[166]
Though the Duke of Portland became prime minister in 1807 with the
express intention of defending the sovereign against importunity
in favor of Catholics, it is worthy of remark that the College of
Maynooth was endowed during his premiership; and this is only one
illustration of the remarkable fact which we are endeavoring to
exhibit--that the Catholic cause in England has progressed in England
under every government since the revolution of 1688, in spite of
penal statutes, obstacles, and resistance of king, lords, commons or
people.
Mr. Perceval, who succeeded the Duke of Portland in 1809, is
described by Madden as "a stupid lawyer, without character or
practice, noted only for his bigotry."
There was little done for Catholics in his time; but about two months
after he had been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons, Lord
Wellesley moved that the Catholic claims should be considered.
The cabinet of Lord Liverpool was formed on the basis of neutrality
as regards the Catholic question; in other words, its members were
allowed to advocate or oppose emancipation, just as they thought
fit. Canning and Castlereagh were its friends; Lord Eldon was its
bitterest opponent. The premier himself invariably spoke against
it, but he was not virulent. His hostility to it arose from the
conviction that Protestant ascendency was the real and proper basis
of the British constitution, as revised under William III. To
alter that basis was, in his eyes, to effect a revolution; and he
predicted, in 1812 and in 1825, that if emancipation were granted,
either the Protestant church in Ireland would be disestablished or
the Roman Catholic Church there would be established by law. Events
have proved, happily, that he was not altogether wrong.
The period of the Liverpool administration was, of course, a dreary
one for Catholics. The efforts of Grattan, Wellesley, Sir Henry
Parnell, Plunkett, and Canning to obtain for them some redress, ended
for the most part in cruel disappointment. Yet in 1817 the government
introduced a bill, which passed both houses, opening to them the
army and navy, and thus generously bestowed on them the privilege of
shedding their blood in the service of their oppressors. By annual
acts of indemnity, also, Catholic officers were relieved from the
penalty of not taking the oaths of supremacy.
In 1824, Lord Liverpool had so far relaxed his opposition to Catholic
claims that he spoke in favor of Lord Lansdowne's two bills for
giving the elective franchise to English as it had been given to
Irish Catholics, and for throwing open to them magistracies and other
inferior offices, besides allowing the Duke of Norfolk to execute his
hereditary office of earl marshal. The bills were rejected, but the
duke's claim was allowed. In 1826, just two years before his death,
Lord Liverpool submitted to the king an important paper, in which he
reminded his majesty that the cabinet he had framed in 1812 regarded
emancipation from the first as an open question, and declared that
he could not now be a party to any other arrangement. He humbly
suggested that the king should advert to the actual state of the
opinions of public men in the two houses of parliament, particularly
of those in the House of Commons, upon the Roman Catholic question,
and that he should seriously consider whether it would not be at
least as impracticable as in 1812 to form an administration upon the
exclusively Protestant principle. Thus Lord Liverpool himself, and
his neutral or divided cabinet, prepared the way for emancipation in
the year after his death.
Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool in 1827. He had long advocated
the redress of Catholic wrongs. It was not his fault that Ireland
was duped by the union. It had been his desire and intention that
emancipation should seal and complete that measure. He could scarcely
venture to speak of it, however, except in vague terms; for the
smallest allusion to it on his part would have been sure to call down
upon him the vengeance of the treasury benches. Yet he did allude
to it in January and April, 1799, and thirteen years after, when,
speaking of the Catholic claims, he declared that "expectations had
been held out, the disappointment of which involved the moral guilt
of an absolute breach of faith."
"Does history," asks Goldwin Smith, in discussing the wrongs of
Ireland--"does history afford a parallel to that agony of seven
centuries which has not yet reached its close? But England is the
favorite of Heaven; and when _she_ commits oppression, it will not
recoil on the oppressor!"
If Canning's life had been spared, there is no doubt that he would
have signalized his tenure of office by the completion, in some
measure at least, of the designs of the Catholic Association. This
body, formed by O'Connell in 1823, had infused new life and hope into
Irish patriotism. Disappointed and betrayed as the people of Ireland
had been by one statesman after another, they could not but expect
something from Canning's hands, especially when they saw him rise
in April, 1822, and move for leave to bring in a bill which should
relieve Roman Catholic peers from the disabilities imposed on them by
the Act 30 of Charles II., with regard to the right of sitting and
voting in the House of Peers. His brilliant and beautiful speech was
crowned with a certain success. His motion was carried by a majority
of five; but Peel opposed the measure, and the Lords rejected it by
a majority of forty-two. Their policy in such matters has always
been one of obstruction. They declined to let noblemen so noble and
so pacific, and of families so ancient, as the Dukes of Norfolk, the
Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Petre, and Lord Stourton, sit beside them in
their chambers as peers of the realm.
After this failure, Canning's zeal in the Catholic cause is said to
have declined; but he doubtless felt his impotence, and waited only
till a more favorable opportunity of serving the Catholic interests
should arrive.
TO BE CONTINUED.
FOOTNOTES:
[152] 11 and 12 William III., c. 4. Madden's _Penal Statutes against
Roman Catholics_, pages 229, 232, 233.
[153] Macaulay, Hist. of England, chap. vii., ann. 1687.
[154] Ibid. chap. xvii.
[155] To Mr. Prior, Jan. 30th, 1714.
[156] 10 Anne c. 2. 12 St. 2, c. 14.
[157] Earl Stanhope, Hist. of England, vol. 1. p. 81.
[158] Craggs to Stanhope, June 30th, 1719.
[159] 9 George I., c. 18.
[160] Madden's _Penal Statutes_, p. 238.
[161] Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, 1792.
[162] 14 George III. c. 35, § 5.
[163] 18 George III., c. 60.
[164] To Rev. Mr. Cole, May 21, 1778.
[165] 31 George III., c. 32.
[166] English Premiers. No. xii. _Month_, 1867.
CHESS.
I.
It is rather difficult for the spectator at a game of chess (who
is not himself a player) to comprehend the pleasure of it, and to
believe that those two grave, silent individuals are not only seeking
but actually finding amusement and recreation.
Yet no game is more beautiful in its appointments; beautiful in
the mathematical precision of its moves; beautiful in its colored,
carved, and varied pieces; intellectually beautiful in its very
quietude--in the power with which it represses every manifestation of
hope or disappointment, in its wordless intensity of thought.
Other games come in some degree within the scope of the most humble
capacity; but chess, royal chess, loftier in its requirements,
demands the most noble. It has attractions all-absorbing and
fascinating as well as profitable unto wisdom; but they stand fully
revealed to him only who can widely plan and steadily execute; whose
circumspection is never beguiled and whose caution never sleepeth;
who is elated not overmuch by success nor despondent under disasters;
who keepeth his own counsel and can baffle an opponent's penetration;
whose well-schooled eye gives no clue, by a glance, to his intended
victim, and whose well-trained finger never hovers in irresolution.
Behold the requirements of chess!
It has been justly called in olden English _The Royalle Game_; for
not only is a king its hero, but it has afforded amusement to kings
and warriors through many a past age, and in countries widely distant
from each other.
The origin of the game of chess is still an unsettled question.
Like some of the oriental monarchs, it might write itself "brother
to the sun and moon"--so ancient is its pedigree. Some writers have
proved, to their own satisfaction at least, that it was chess which
enlivened the tedium of the Greeks encamped about the walls of Troy,
and that its inventor was Palamedes, son of Nauplius, King of Euboea.
Who can doubt the inventive genius of Palamedes after all the tales
told of him?--tales we learn once and then forget. I repeat one.
When the Greek heroes were gathering for the mighty Trojan conflict,
Palamedes, himself a warrior, was sent to Ithaca, to summon Achilles
and Odysseus to join them. The latter, desirous of evading the call,
feigned himself insane, and Palamedes, to test his truthfulness,
seized his infant child and laid it before him in a furrow which he
was ploughing. Odysseus paused, raised the child, and removed it,
thus giving evidence of his sanity. Who after this can doubt the
inventive powers of Palamedes or his historian, and who can say that
either might not have invented chess?
In a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Harleian collection,
in the British Museum, is a drawing in which two warriors are
represented, evidently Greeks, with a chess-board between them,
engaged in play. The author of the MS. traces the game back to
Odysseus, and concludes that one of these chiefs is intended for him.
In the great Egyptian collection of the British Museum, specimens
are preserved of a kind of chess-men taken from a tomb of one of the
Pharaohs, which prove that they had a game similar if not identical
with our chess; and some hieroglyphics on the ruins of Luxor, Thebes,
and Palmyra have been interpreted as indicating such a game.
Caxton, who printed a _Boke of Chesse_ in 1474, quoting from some
other writers, gives a wonderful story, showing that it was devised
in the reign of Evil-Merodach, King of Babylon, by a philosopher
"whyche was named in Caldee Exerses, and in Greke Philemetor." The
Greek cognomen of the philosopher leads somewhat to the belief of
such a possibility.
Chaucer, without any proof, gives us in rhyme another candidate for
the glory--Athalus. He describes, in a sort of dream, a visionary
opponent, Fortune--
"At chesse with me she gan to pleye
With hir fals draughtes dyverse,
She staale on me and toke my ferz, (now queen.)
And when I saugh my ferz awaye,
Alas, I kouthe no longer pleye.
With a powne errante, allas I
Ful craftier to pleye she was
Than Athalus, who made the game
First of the chesse, so was hys name."[167]
A repetition of half the assertions and conjectures on this subject
would fill volumes; indeed, volumes have been written on it; for no
other thing of pure amusement has ever enlisted in its cause so many
learned commentators of all tongues and nations, who unite, however,
upon two points--its remote antiquity and its mighty renown.
The most reliable account of the origin of the game is, without
doubt, that given by Sir William Jones. His high official rank for
many years under the English government in India, and his familiarity
with oriental languages, gave him opportunities for oriental research
beyond almost any other writer. He asserts, as the result of his
inquiries, that it was invented by the Hindoos, and from them
(according to a universal Persian tradition) it was brought, in the
sixth century, to Persia. Its next step was to Arabia, and from
thence it was carried by the Saracenic conquest of Spain to western
Europe. He found no mention of it in the classic writings of the
Brahmins, although (he continues) they say confidently that Sanscrit
books on chess exist.
Who the gifted individual was from whose brain emanated such an
ingenious complication of mathematics and strategy, disguised under
the mask of amusement, we shall perhaps never know. He might well
have exclaimed with Horace,
"Exegi monumentum ære perennius."
But alas! the name of the builder is lost; or perhaps a future
Layard, in exhuming the splendors of some ancient city, may find a
record on some crumbling stone of the inventor of chess.
To an indefinite number of persons the honor is at present ascribed,
evidently in mere conjecture, as in the following extract translated
from a Chinese annal on chess; but it has an interest, in showing the
antiquity of the game and the high esteem in which it was held:
"Three hundred and seventy-nine years after the time of Confucius,
or 1965 years ago," says the annal, "Hung Cochu, King of Kiangnan,
sent an expedition into the Shense country, under command of a
mandarin named Hansing, to conquer it. After one campaign, the
soldiers went into winter quarters, and they grew homesick and
wanted to return. Then Hansing invented the game of chess. They
were well pleased. In the spring they took the field again, and
soon added the rich country of Shense to the kingdom of Kiangnan."
It is more likely that Hansing only taught the soldiers what he had
himself learned elsewhere; but Shense is still the name of a northern
province of China, and Chinese soldiers still play chess.
For the name of the game also, as well as its origin, we rely most on
Sir W. Jones, who traced it to _Chaturlinga_, signifying in eastern
dialect certain parts of an army; and in his time the Malays still
called it _Chatur_.
The whole vocabulary of chess--the only sound which breaks the
monotonous silence of the game, is the little word _check_; and it is
a singular fact, remarked by Mr. F. W. Cronhelm, that, however varied
the names of the pieces in different languages, yet the Italians,
French, English, Danes, Icelanders, Germans, Poles, and Russians all
give the king warning in the same word--_check!_ Somebody traces
it to _sheik_, the title of a high ruler in the Arabian dynasty,
and supposes that they so named the principal piece, which we call
_king_; hence when the adversary placed him in danger, he called
out to him "sheik!" or, as we say, "check!" This is certainly
plausible; for _mat_ in Arabic, as also in some dialects of Persia
and India, signifies _to kill_, _to slay_; hence comes "_sheik-mat_,"
king-slain, or the modern "_check-mate_."
FOOTNOTE:
[167] Bell's _Chaucer_, vol. vi.
II.
It may be supposed, then, following the dates of Sir W. Jones,
that the game of chess made its entrance into Arabia in her most
glorious era; and it is easy to believe that a recreation so purely
intellectual, so entirely reliant on skill and removed from chance,
and which called into action all the higher powers of mind, would
speedily find favor with the refined and cultivated Arabians in the
golden days of her history. It is easy to picture Haroun-al-Raschid,
who "never built a mosque without attaching to it a school," and who
taught his subjects that "the most noble homage of a creature is
to cultivate the faculties bestowed on him by his Creator"--it is
easy to imagine him seeking relaxation from the cares of government
in a game of chess; and not he alone--but that, from the universal
diffusion of learning and refinement among the people, under him and
his immediate successors, it would meet universal acceptance, and be
engrafted, as it were, on their nationality. And thus we find it was;
and so entirely adopted that it was the most cherished pleasure which
they carried with them to (what was to them) the _far-off_ land of
Spain.
To the Arabians then, the west of Europe, at least, if not the whole
of it, is indebted for chess; and it is pleasant to believe that its
present perfections may have been wrought out by some modifications
of it, in those famous old universities and schools of learning which
history tells us were scattered over every land where the Arabians
held sway, but more especially over Arabia proper.
Chess, looked upon in this connection, wears a mantle of romance;
there is a spell upon it of that departed glory! It is redolent of
orange-groves, and jasmines, and thickets of roses; of sculptured
halls, and gorgeous tapestry, and marble pavements; of learned
men and beautiful women. All around it in that land breathed an
impassioned poetry and an enchaining eloquence; the language of
passion, and inspired thoughts, and bold imagery, of whose power to
sway mankind our rule-bound brains can form no conception.
It speaks to us of the days when Bagdad was the gathering-place,
under Al-Mamoun, (Mahomet-aben-Amer,) of the wise men of all nations;
when her universities and schools of science were the boast of
her rulers; when long trains of camels were daily seen entering
her gates laden with precious manuscripts for her libraries; when
medicine, law, mathematics, astronomy, counted among her citizens
their most renowned professors, and when all these sciences were
made accessible to the people by colleges and academies in every
town. Nor were Bassora, Kaffa, Samarcand, and numerous other cities
much less famous; Alexandria possessed more than twenty schools for
philosophy alone; and Fez and Larace held in their immense libraries
works of rare value nowhere else to be found. In every department
of science and art they seem to have labored with success. They had
dictionaries, geographical, critical, and biographical; the universal
history of the world by Aboul-Feda, and the great historical
dictionary of Prince Abdel Malek. Al-Assacher wrote commentaries
on the first inventors of the arts; and Al-Gazel, a learned work
on Arabian antiquities. Nor were their researches confined to
the schools; after forty years of travel in studying mineralogy,
Abou-ryan-al-Byrony produced his treatise on precious stones--rich
in facts and observations. With equal zeal, at a later period,
Aben-al-Beither traversed the mountains and plains of Europe, the
sands of Africa, and the most remote countries of Asia, to gather
every thing rare and worthy of record in the vegetable and animal
world. Chemistry they applied to the arts of life; and Al-Farabi, who
spoke seventy languages, spent his life in making a compend of all
known sciences in one immense encyclopædia.
They had invented gunpowder although the honor is often falsely given
to a German chemist--and they were familiar with the compass, long
before either was named in Europe; and our sciences of calculation
are indebted to them for numerals. The mass of their poetry and
fiction exceeds that of all other nations put together. One, at
least, we all know; for who cannot recall many--yes, how _many_
happy hours of boyhood, beguiled with the gorgeous impossibilities of
_Arabian Nights_?
Amidst all these royal students, these accomplished scholars, the
chess-board had its place; it was the pleasure, the recreation--the
field whereon wit encountered wit in sharp and pleasant tilt. And
while from all that land the light of science has departed; while
the glories of the past are, with the mass of its people, not even
a tradition, travellers tell us that, after the day's journeying is
done, the dusky Arab "spreads out on the ground a checkered cloth,
and plays on it a game similar to our chess."
III.
Although Spain, and the adjacent nations through her, received
chess from Arabia, the game not only existed but was wide-spread
in the north of Europe at a period so early (and under a slight
modification) that we are led to believe they derived it from some
other source. Indeed, nothing would seem more likely than that some
of the many tribes who were constantly migrating thither from Asia
would carry it with them. Major C. F. de Jaenish, a Russian writer,
is of opinion that Russia received it direct from the east through
her ancient conquerors, the Moguls; and in proof of this, he notes
two pieces changed in the chess of southern Europe, but retained
in their original form in Russia. These are, first, the commander
of the army, or _biser_, called in Persia _ferz_; and second, the
_elephant_, called in Russia, _Slone_. But it doubtless existed in
Russia long before the Moguls held sway, which was not until the
thirteenth century; and long before that time there are records of
it as an amusement among the Northmen of the neighboring kingdoms.
Besides this, in the ninth century the descendants of Ruric the
Norman, who then ruled Russia, had extended their conquests to the
Black Sea, and, in the language of the old historian, "greatly
infested its waters;" one of them had even married the sister of the
Greek emperor. It is, therefore, more than probable that through some
of these channels chess was introduced into the northern part of
Europe at a very early date.
It may have been carried thither by those maritime marauders, called
the sea-kings, even before it was heard of in Spain. The first
movement of the Arabians against Spain is generally fixed in the
year seven hundred and ten; when Taric-ben-Zeyed, with some galleys
disguised as merchantmen, cruised along the coasts of Andalusia and
Lusitania, to see what temptation the Christian land offered to
the followers of the prophet. That his survey was satisfactory, we
know by what followed. But long before this, the Northmen in their
ships had made themselves famous and feared. An Icelandic chronicle
tells us "they were on every sea, and more numerous on water than
on land." In the eighth and ninth centuries, they were to be found
not only repeatedly ravaging England, Scotland, and Ireland, but
sailing up the Somme, the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, and the
Rhone; they had pillaged and burnt Paris, Amiens, Orleans, Bordeaux,
Toulouse, Nantes, and Tours; and laid waste Provence and Dauphiny.
More than once they landed in Spain; and they had coasted the
Mediterranean, to the terror of Greece and Italy. These expeditions
were always predatory; and they may not only have acquired in their
Mediterranean voyages some hints of the game of chess, but chess-men
and chess-boards may have made a trifle in the booty with which they
always returned laden to their northern homes.
Mons. Mallet, the antiquarian, in seeking to account for the great
quantity of foreign coin found about that time in the northern
kingdoms, thinks it less probable that it was the honest gains of
commerce than "relics of the plunder collected by these ravagers."
In like manner, perhaps, they appropriated chess. In whatever way
obtained, it must have been to them particularly attractive; for what
was it but that for which they lived--battle and victory? Nothing
could have been better adapted, in the long nights of their northern
winters, both to divert them from that restlessness which seems to
have possessed the whole of their existence not spent in the tumults
of war and the chase, or in preparations for them--and also as a
pastime at their frequent and magnificent feasts; occasions upon
which they infused into it their own fierce and vindictive spirit,
for we know that their chess games ended very frequently not in the
check-mate of the king, but in breaking each other's heads with the
chess-board. Some such instances on record are tragic and revolting.
Similar manners extended along the middle ages. An old writer thus
explains the feud which existed between Charlemagne and Ogier the
Dane:
"At one of the festivals at the court of Charlemagne, the
emperor's son Charles, and Bauduin, son of Ogier, went to play
together. They took a chess-board and sat down to play for
pastime. They arranged their chess-men on the board. The emperor's
son first moved his pawn, and young Bauduin moved his _aufin_,
(bishop.) Then Charles thought to press him very hard, and he
moves his knight upon the other _aufin_. The one moves forward and
the other backward so long that Bauduin said _mate_ to him in the
corner. Then the young prince was furious at his defeat, and not
only assailed the son of Ogier with the most insulting language,
but seized the chess-board and dealt him such a violent blow on
his forehead that he split his head and scattered his brains on
the floor!"
King John of England, in his youth, at the court of his father Henry
II., played sometimes with Fulk Fitz Warine, a lad like himself, and
as often it ended in a quarrel. A curious old history of the Fitz
Warines gives the following story:
"Young Fulk was bred at the court of King Henry, and was much
beloved by all his sons except John; for he used often to quarrel
with John. It happened that John and Fulk were sitting all alone
in a chamber playing at chess. John took the chess-board and hit
Fulk a great blow. Fulk felt hurt, raised his foot and struck
John so that his head went against the wall, and he grew weak and
faint. Fulk was in consternation, but he was glad they were alone.
Then he rubbed John's ears, and he recovered and went to the king
his father to complain."
His majesty bestowed upon him little sympathy, for he punished him
for being quarrelsome. Considering that John began the affray, this
might pass for justice; but he did not forget the matter when he came
to the throne. Fulk was the famous outlaw.
In many old manuscripts incidental mention is made of chess as a
favorite amusement for heroes. When Regner Lodbrog, the warrior-poet,
was killed, the messenger who carried the news to his sons found two
of them--Sigued (snake-eye) and Hurtish (the bold)--playing chess;
the third one, Biorn, was mending his lance. Regner Lodbrog died
about the close of the eighth century.
Snorro Sturleson relates that, in 1028, Canute, King of Denmark,
rode to Roskild to visit Earl Ulft, the husband of his sister. The
king was very dull and scarcely spoke, and to enliven him, Earl Ulft
proposed a game of chess. So they sat down to it, and played until
Ulft took a knight; this the king would not allow.
"Are you a coward?" he exclaimed.
"You did not call me coward when I shielded you in battle," replied
the earl; but for this reminder he lost his head.
An early metrical romance tells us that when Witikind, king of the
pagan Saxons, received information that Charlemagne was marching on
his dominions, the messenger found him in his palace at Tremoigne,
playing chess with Escorsaus de Lutise; and his queen, Sebile, who
also understood the game, was looking on. Witikind was so indignant
at the news that he "seized the chess-board and smashed it to pieces,
and his face grew as red as a cherry."
There is a droll story told of a kindred spirit of more modern date.
A choleric Scottish nobleman, a former Earl of Stair, frequently
played with a friend of his, Colonel Stewart. Not contented with
bestowing very expressive invectives on the colonel's occasional
superior play, he sometimes, when goaded by a _check-mate_, flung at
his head any object possible within reach; so at last the colonel,
for prudence' sake, when about to make his last move, always rose
hastily and retreating behind some door, called out, "_Check-mate_,
my lord!"
While the general manners of an age are gathered from its grave
historians, we can learn them more in detail from its romances. In
all the early romances left to us, wherever chess is mentioned--and
it is constantly introduced as a pastime of knights, princes, and
courtly dames--it is almost always an occasion or implement of some
fierce dispute.
In the romance of _Quatre fils d'Aymon_, the agents of Regnault go
to arrest Richard, Duke of Normandy, and find him playing chess. The
result is thus quaintly told in an old English version, printed by
Copeland.
"When Duke Richarde saw these sergeauntes hed him by the arm, he
helde in his hande a lady of ivery, wherewith he would have given
_mate_ to Younet. Then he withdrew his arm, and gave to one of the
sergeauntes such a stroke with it into the forehead that he made
him tumble over and over at his feete; and then he tooke a rooke
and smote another withal upon his head, so that he all to-brost it
to the brayne."
In the romance of _Parise la Duchesse_, her young son, brought up
at the court of Hungary, becomes an object of jealousy to some of
the nobles, and four of them conspire to murder him. In order to
accomplish their object with safety to themselves, they invite him
to play chess with them in a retired cellar. "Hughes," said they,
"will you come with us to play at chess? For you can teach us chess
and dice; for certainly you know the games better than we do." Hughes
seemed suspicious of their advances, and it was not until they
promised him to avoid all disputes that he accepted their invitation.
He began to play with the son of Duke Granier; but while he in
kindness was about showing them in what manner to move, they drew
their knives upon him, and outrageously insulted him. He killed the
foremost of them with a blow of his fist, and seizing the chess-board
for a weapon, for he was unarmed, he "_brained_ the other three with
it."
In Spain and Italy, about the same time, the game is mentioned under
more gentle guise. An interesting letter is preserved, written by
Damianus, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, to Pope Alexander II., who was
elected pope in 1061. Damianus tells the pope how he was travelling
with a bishop of Florence, when,
"having arrived at a hotel, I withdrew into the cell of a priest,
while he remained with a crowd of travellers in the spacious
house. In the morning I was informed by my servant that the bishop
had been playing chess; which information like an arrow pierced my
heart. At a convenient hour I sent for him, and said, in a tone
of reproof, 'The hand is stretched out, the rod is ready for
the offender.' 'Let the fault be proved,' said he, 'and penance
shall not be refused.' 'Was it well,' I rejoined, 'was it worthy
of the character you bear, to spend the evening in the vanity
of chess-play, and defile the hands and tongue which ought to
be the mediator between man and the Deity? Are you aware that,
by the canonical law, bishops who are dice-players are ordered
to be deposed?' He, however, making himself a shield of defence
from the difference of names, said that dice was one thing, and
chess another; consequently, that the canon only forbade dice, but
tacitly allowed chess. To which I replied, 'Chess is not named in
the text, but the general term of dice comprehends both games;
wherefore, since dice is forbidden and chess is not named, it
follows without doubt that both are equally condemned.'"
It is safe to conclude from this that the cardinal himself was not
familiar with the game.
Females are represented on many illuminated manuscripts, as well as
in early romances, as playing chess together or with knights. In
one called _Blonde of Oxford_, Jean, a young French nobleman, comes
to England and enters the household service of the Earl of Oxford.
It was a part of Jean's duty to attend on the Lady Blonde, daughter
of the earl, and serve her at table; after dinner, he goes hawking
and hunting with them, and also teaches the ladies French. "Then he
entertains the Ladye Blonde, and teaches her chess, and he often says
_check_ and _mate_ to her."
Similar scenes are in _Ipomydon_, as in the following quoted by
Strutt:
"When theye had dyned, as you saye,
Lords and ladys yede to playe,
Some to tables, some to chesse,
And other gamys more or less."
"The writers immediately after the conquest," says a distinguished
antiquarian, "speak of the Saxons as playing at chess; and pretend
that they learned the game of the Danes. Gaimar, who gives an
interesting story of the deceit practised on King Edgar (A.D. 973)
by Ethelwold, when sent to visit the beautiful Elfthrida, daughter
of Orgar of Devonshire, describes the young lady and her noble
father passing the day at chess." (_Wright._)
Such examples might be multiplied to tediousness; but one more notice
of it among the Northmen is worth giving, because it is found in one
of the grandest of modern epics, by the Swedish poet, Tegner, founded
on events in the life of one of their most renowned heroes--_The
Legend of Frithiof_.
The fortunes of the valiant Frithiof, who was the son of a thane,
seem to have been ruled by his love for the fair Ingeborn, daughter
of a king, and the scorn with which her two brothers spurned his
proposal for her hand. A day of retaliation, however, soon came.
Helgé and Halfdan, the brothers, were threatened by a neighboring
foe, and sent to Frithiof--certainly with a sublime forgetfulness
of what had passed--to ask his aid. When the messenger arrived, he
was playing chess with his friend, Bjorn, the Bear. Frithiof refuses
very decidedly. His heart still pines for Ingeborn; and, like a true
Viking, he betakes himself for consolation to the sea, which he vows
shall be "his home in life and his grave in death." The chess-board
beside which Frithiof doubtless forgot his griefs for a brief space
is described as magnificent--
"Beside a chess-board's checkered frame
Frithiof and Bjorn pursued their game;
Silver was each alternate plane,
And each alternate plane of gold."[168]
Perhaps some reader will be glad to learn that, after a few years,
"he is weary of sea-fights and of hewing men in twain," and returns
home to marry Ingeborn.
Such was one of the early chess-players.
FOOTNOTE:
[168] Strong's Translation.
IV.
It is remarkable in the history of chess how very trifling the
variations which have ever been made in it. The lapse of time, which
has swept away cities and their inhabitants, which has so blotted
from human speech the words of those who once held converse around
it that their inscriptions on stone are unintelligible, has left it
almost unaltered.
Coming close to that domestic life of nations of which chess made
one pleasure, what has not changed? Modes of dress, construction of
dwellings, fashions of entertainment--all have had their mutations.
Yet the game, as far back as the earliest accounts of it, has been
almost literally such as we see it. One feature has always marked
it, _chess_; there has always been a sovereign to be attacked
and defended, and inferior pieces to accomplish these ends in
combination, yet by different means. The board of sixty-four squares
has also almost invariably been maintained.
Two pieces were modified when it passed from Arabia to Spain, or
rather, from the Saracen to the Christian. In Arabia and Persia,
there was no female on the board; what we call "queen" was, with
them, "vizier or counsellor," and called _pherz_, _ferz_, or _fers_.
This was retained in Europe until about the eleventh century, when it
was supplanted by our queen. But wherefore a queen? We shall see.
Several events combined to make this period the age of poetry and
of a peculiar deference to womankind. It will be remembered that in
the eleventh century, 1095, was preached the first Crusade, a thing
of romance and poetry itself. However different the motives which
actuated that crowd of nobles and warriors who joined in creating the
mighty army whose advance-guard was led by the monk Peter, to all
appearance each one was a hero. Country and kingdom, home and love,
happiness of wife or maiden, was the sacrifice professedly offered at
the shrine of a holy enthusiasm enkindled by faith. Every earthly
interest, every tie of affection, all consideration of self, was to
be accounted nothing, compared with the sacred obligations involved
in the expedition.
The means of expressing all these delicate sentiments and deep
emotions, and furthermore of expressing them in poetry, was happily
opened to them at this era in the language of the troubadours--the
_Langue d'Oc_. The polish which poetry had received from the Arabians
in Spain had elevated it to an art, and made it so attractive to the
more refined classes that the highest born, even kings and princes,
did not think it beneath them to cultivate it; and he added greatly
to his renown who had qualified himself to express in it the two
ruling passions of his soul--his martial ardor and his devotion to
his _ladye-love_. Every knight, almost, was a troubadour, and the
homage rendered to woman seems almost fabulous. A French writer says
of this period:
"Love had assumed a new character.... It was not more tender and
passionate than among the Romans; but it was more respectful,
and something of a mystery was mingled with its sentiment. Women
were considered rather as angelic beings than as dependents and
inferiors. The task of serving and protecting them was considered
honorable, as though they were the representatives of the divinity
upon earth; and to this worship was added an ardor of feeling,
passion, and desire, peculiar to the people of the south, and the
expression of which was borrowed from the Arabians."[169]
Woman was not slow in extending her influence to more prosaic matters
than _Les Cours d'Amour_ and the inspirations of poetry; and history
furnishes an abundance of examples where female interference was
permitted and female decision respected in the gravest affairs of
life. After Alphonso VI. of Castile had driven the Moors from
Toledo, he granted to such of them as chose to return the use of a
cathedral to serve as a mosque; but, says history, "he soon broke his
promise, and deprived them of it, at the instigation of and in order
to please his wife."
Who, then, but a woman could have routed the grand-vizier from the
chess-board and taken his place?
The other piece altered is the bishop, which of course was not so
called by the orientals. This piece with the Arabians and Persians
was represented by an elephant, and named _pil_ or _phil_. In
southern Europe, the name was modified into _alfil_ and _aufin_,
and is found so in old writers; but at a very early period the
bishop seems to have been generally adopted. In northern Europe,
it was not so; the Russians and Swedes still retain the elephant.
What we now call castle, and sometimes _rook_, was also called by
the Saracens _roc_, and by the Persians _rokh_, signifying champion
or foot-soldier, and shaped accordingly. This form is seen in
some ancient chess-men in the British Museum, supposed to be of
Icelandic manufacture; the Icelanders called this piece _hrokr_.
These chess-men, many in number and carved in ivory--that is, the
tusk of the walrus--were found in the year 1831, on the coast of the
Isle of Lewes, and are referred by antiquaries back to the twelfth
century. They are the remnants of seven or eight distinct sets,
and are therefore supposed to have belonged to some dealer who was
shipwrecked there. The carving on them, and the costumes, bear traces
of being Scandinavian. The _king_ is in a sitting posture, crowned,
and has a sword in his hand, which he rests crossing his lap; the
_queen_ also is crowned, and holds a drinking-horn, such as the
northern women used in serving mead and ale to their guests; one of
them represents a _bishop_ with mitre and crozier; the _knights_ are
on horseback, and are covered with armor; and here is the _roc_ of
the Saracens in its original form, a kind of foot-soldier, in place
of the castle--which, however, is yet called _rook_. The remainder
are pawns. Thus they are nearly identical with any set of modern
chess-men, although fabricated more than seven hundred years ago.
The largest king in this collection, in his sitting posture, is
more than four inches in height and near seven in circumference.
The other pieces are smaller, but correspond. The chess-board which
accommodated such pieces must have been a formidable weapon in a
strong hand, and quite likely to "break heads and scatter brains."
Many old books are to be found in public and private libraries which
contain descriptions of chess-men, rules for playing, etc. In the
twelfth century, such a manual was composed by some devotee of the
game in Latin verse. A little later, a volume was written in Latin by
Jacques de Cessolas; it was translated into French by Jean de Vigny,
and entitled _Moralization of Chess_. It may be seen in English in
Caxton's _Boke of Chesse_, published in London, 1474.
Damiano, a Portuguese, in the fifteenth century compiled a book of
directions for playing, with examples of eighty-eight games.
A little volume, very amusing in its quaint old English, was
published in London in the reign of Elizabeth; it is dedicated to
Lord Robert Dudley, afterward the celebrated Earl of Leicester. It is
entitled, _The Pleasaunt and Wittie Playe of the Cheasts, reviewed
with Instructions both to Learn it Easily and to Play it Well_.
_Lately translated out of Italian into French, and now set forthe in
Englishe by James Rowbotham._
In it, among many other things, the author describes the chess-men:
"As for the fashion of the pieces, that is according to the
fantasie of the workeman, which maketh them after this manner.
Some make them lyke men, whereof the _kynge_ is the highest, and
the _queene_ (which some name amasone or ladye) is the next, bothe
two crowned. The _bishoppes_ some name alphins, some fooles,
and some princes, lyke as also they are next unto the kynge and
queene, other some cal them archers, and they are fashioned
accordinge to the wyll of the workeman. The _knights_ some cal
horsemen, and they are men on horsebacke. The _rookes_ some call
elephantes, cariynge towres upon their backes, and men within the
towres. The _paunes_ some cal fote-men, as they are souldiours on
fote, cariynge some of them pykes, and other some javelyns and
targets. Other makers of cheast-men make them other fashions, but
use thereof wyll cause perfect knowledge."
Such has chess been through times past; it numbers still among its
votaries the noble and the learned; and it is advocated by some of
them with an enthusiasm surely never surpassed in the days long, long
gone by in its oriental home.
It has floated down to us from those days like a leaf on some broad
stream beneath whose waves mightier things have sunk.
FOOTNOTE:
[169] Sismondi, _Lit. of Troubadours_.
THE FIRST OECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.
The nineteenth century is still adding to the catalogue of important
events, for which it will be memorable in future histories. Men
still live who looked on Fulton's first steamboat on the Hudson, who
ventured on the first railway train, and who smiled incredulously at
the folly of Morse stretching iron wires on poles along the country
between cities a day's journey apart, and pretending thus to transmit
messages between them with the velocity of electricity. The humble
river steamboat has developed into the gigantic ocean steamer, that
heeds not the winds and bids defiance to the waves. Lines of railway
intersect continents, and cross from ocean to ocean. Telegraph wires
spread their network over every civilized land, and, boldly plunging
into ocean depths, aim to girdle the earth. The cotton-gin has
revolutionized the habits of nations and the commerce of the world,
and the sewing-machine is bringing the change into every household.
This wondrous increase of travel and commerce among nations has given
birth to international exhibitions of art and industry as gorgeous
as the visions of the Arabian story-teller. In the Suez Canal, this
century has succeeded where antiquity failed; and in the Mont Cenis
tunnel, soon to be finished, it is accomplishing what past ages never
dreamed of attempting.
Science, too, contributes her wonders. The sun and the stars and
the nebulæ are yielding their secrets; chemistry boasts of her
unexpected conquests; and the earth is giving forth its pages of
geological lore, fragmentary as yet, and somewhat confused, ofttimes
undecipherable, often wrongly read by men, but still presenting to us
a kingdom of knowledge unknown a century ago.
In the political and social sphere this century has been equally
marked. Vast wars and bloody revolutions ushered it in. Wars and
revolutions have marked every decade of its progress. Empires
and kingdoms have been thrown down. Others have been established
instead, and have perished in their turn. The strong have grown
weak, and the weak have become powerful. And to-day, the nations
of the civilized world feel that they stand on the thin crust of a
volcano, that trembles under our feet, and that may at any time burst
forth, in other revolutions and wars, in which arms of precision,
titanic artillery, and iron-clad vessels shall play a part never yet
witnessed by men.
In the moral and religious world, too, there is equal excitement and
confusion. Novel principles are proposed, advocated, and pushed to
their extreme and most violent consequences. Nothing in government,
in morals, or in religion is left unassailed. There is an incessant
war against God, against truth and virtue, and against every
principle that would withstand the passions, or the interests, or the
caprices of men. And the press, which in its wondrous development
has kept full pace with every other art, is ever busy bringing to
every household, to old and young alike, sometimes words of truth and
goodness, but a thousand times oftener and more actively lessons of
immorality, discontent, disorder, and irreligion.
In looking at the world, as it is now, so rapidly moving on, with
its vast energies and untiring activity, its ever-increasing
commerce, its intense worship of luxury, its oblivion of principle,
its grasping after wealth, its restlessness and craving for change
for change's sake, one feels like the traveller who crosses the
Alps by that late feat of modern engineering, the Mont Cenis Fell
Railway. The wondrous scenery of mountain and valley charms you.
You are amazed at the boldness which conceived, and the skill which
executed the work. You rejoice, as you are borne rapidly on, in the
luxuriously-cushioned seat and well-warmed railway compartment, over
the steep road you remember well to have travelled, years ago, so
slowly and painfully. But amid all this pleasure, you cannot shut out
the thought that perhaps the very rumbling and jarring of the train
may set in motion the vast field of freshly-fallen snow that lies
so lightly on the steep side of the peak rising above you, on the
right or the left, and bring it down as an irresistible avalanche,
overwhelming road and train, and casting the shattered cars and
mangled passengers down to the masses of rock and ice that lie in the
gorge a thousand yards below.
We glory in our rapid advance in arts, science, and civilization.
We feel ourselves borne rapidly and joyously forward in a career of
progress. But we cannot shut out entirely a sense of danger. In many
countries, society is mined by revolutionary combinations, active
and vigilant, watching for any favorable opportunity, and ever ready
to take advantage of it. In the universal questioning of every thing
and of every principle, the minds of the masses have become excited,
have lost in great part, or are fast losing, those fixed and hallowed
principles of justice and truth which are absolutely necessary for
correct judgment and prudent action. They are ripe for any plan to
be proposed, even if its only attraction be its novelty. And they
may easily become a mighty engine of brute, unthinking power, in
the hands of any one bold enough to seize the control, and skilful
enough to guide them for a time. Might now makes right. The world is
ruled on the theory of accomplished facts. Peace itself must stand
armed _cap-à-pie_. No one knows into what horrors the death of one
individual might, any month, throw hundreds of millions of men.
Has all sense of right and justice faded from the minds of men? Must
our progress be marred by this ever-increasing danger. Is there no
voice to be raised, no authority to come forth to meet this emergency
of the world?
God gave revelation to mankind, teaching the world truth and justice,
charity and every virtue, and imparting to man, in his weakness,
strength to struggle against and overcome his own passions and the
temptations from without. To his church, the pillar and ground
of truth, Christ committed the duty of teaching all nations all
things whatsoever he had taught, and promised to be with her, in the
discharge of this duty, all days even to the consummation of the
world. In its fulfilment she must meet opposition, trials, scandals,
and difficulties of every sort. But the gates of hell shall never
prevail against her.
Many a struggle has she gone through, in the eighteen centuries of
her existence; and incalculable are the benefits the world owes to
her, even by the confession of her enemies.
While she ever and always teaches the unchangeable truths and
precepts given by her Divine Founder, she is ready to accept and
bless what she finds of good among men, and labors to eliminate what
is evil. From Greece she took what was pure in poetry and the fine
arts, and true in philosophy. From Rome she gathered what was just
and good in her admirable jurisprudence. Yet, even in the face of
bitter persecution, she failed not to denounce immorality, however
decked in classic verse; atheism and impiety, however clothed in
words of seeming intellectual wisdom; and cruel tyranny, however
upheld by power and authority, or made sacred by antiquity and
the prejudices or manners of a people. In after times, under the
debauched and luxurious rule of the Byzantine emperors, and still
later, When the northern barbarians had overrun western Europe and
destroyed all government, her powerful influence was felt. Hers was
the only voice which could reach and in some measure control the
fierce men who sat on thrones they had built with the sword, or
could bring peace and the consolations of religion to the hovel of
the poor and oppressed. She checked immorality and injustice and
taught obedience to law. No one will now contest the truth, that it
is to her the modern world owes what knowledge we have of the olden
classic civilization. But for her, it would be as dead to us as that
of Assyria is to the wild Arabs who pitch their tents on the mounds
of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad. To her it owes those grand principles
of law and justice, of stable government and individual rights,
of holy marriage, and of arts and science, which go to constitute
civilization. The church of Christ cannot be wanting in any emergency
of men. It is her office to establish order where else chaos would
reign.
Hence it is that in this present crisis, this time of so much good
and so much evil, so many hopes and such great danger, she renews and
increases her efforts, as of old, that what is good may be increased
and confirmed, what is evil may be diminished or eliminated. She
devotes to the work her most solemn and effective mode of action--an
oecumenical council.
Assuredly no more remarkable event has occurred in this nineteenth
century than the meeting of this Oecumenical Council of the Vatican,
formally opened in Rome on December 8th last, the feast of the
Immaculate Conception. The civilized world seems conscious of its
importance. Catholics and Protestants, believers and infidels, all
treat of it, some with full faith and earnest hope, some with a dim
sense of reverence, some with curiosity, and some with hatred. But
none can ignore or despise it. The books that have been published,
the stream of pamphlets in every language that is flooding Europe,
the countless articles of every character in countless newspapers of
every hue--all bear witness to the universal interest in an assembly
so extraordinary in its character, and destined to wield so great a
moral influence.
Men are struck with wonder at this singular and hitherto
unprecedented representation of the whole world. The number of
members is in itself large. There were present at the opening
session, 5 cardinal bishops, 36 cardinal priests, 8 cardinal deacons,
9 patriarchs, 4 primates, 124 archbishops, 481 bishops, 6 abbots with
_quasi_-episcopal jurisdiction, 22 mitred abbots, and 29 superiors of
religious orders; in all, 719 of the 1050, or thereabouts, who would
have the right to enter. Many dioceses in the world are vacant, the
venerable bishops of others are too aged to travel so far, some are
detained by illness and will come later, and some, to their regret,
are detained by the special circumstances of their own dioceses.
None of those under the Czar of Russia have come. His Tartar policy
threw them into dungeons, where some died. Those that lived he sent
to Siberia, some for their religion, some for being Poles. But among
the bishops here every other nation of Europe has a full and strong
representation. Besides all these, there are also forty-nine from
the United States, eighteen or twenty from Canada and the British
possessions of North America, and over forty from Mexico and the
various states of South America. The eastern and the western shores
of Africa have sent several; two have come from British Africa,
at the south, and quite a number--among them a Coptic bishop from
Egypt--represent the dioceses along the Mediterranean shores of
Africa. All the ancient oriental rites of the church have patriarchs,
archbishops, and bishops in the council; India, Thibet, China, Japan
itself, Australia, New Zealand, and the isles of the Pacific are
fully represented. Never before in the history of the world was there
seen such a gathering of prelates from the uttermost parts of the
earth. And the members who compose the council deserve individually
special attention. They are chosen men, holding in their several
homes posts of dignity, responsibility, and authority. The Catholic
Church is in one aspect eminently democratic. She will take into the
roll of her clergy men of every rank and station. She asks not what
was their condition or their lineage. If a clergyman possess piety,
learning, zeal, and administrative ability, the door is open for his
preferment, even to her highest offices. If Pius IX. is noble born,
his predecessor, Gregory XVI., was the son of a poor village baker,
and owed his earliest education, and his entrance into the sanctuary,
to the gratuitous kindness of a good monk, who was attracted by the
bright eyes and intelligent look of the modest little boy, as he used
to carry around to customers the loaves his father had baked. So
too of these bishops. Some may be of lordly, or noble, or princely
lineage. Others were born in humble, thatched cottages. Here they
are equal. Some have doffed the ermine, some have quitted the bar,
others left the army, where their names are still mentioned with
praise and soldierly pride by their old companions in arms. Some
have given up to younger brothers wealth and titles, that they might
freely devote themselves to God's holy work. Some, filled with
apostolic zeal, have given up friends and home and country to go to
distant lands to preach Christ and him crucified; and some have been
honored with chains and imprisonment and stripes for Christ's sake.
They all pursued a long career of preparatory studies, they were
afterward tried by long years of practice in the ministry, and have
finally been chosen as qualified for their important and responsible
positions. Differing, as they do, in language and nationalities and
human feelings and prejudices, they have all the same faith, the
same zeal, and have all come together at the summons of their common
father. They all gather around the chair of Peter.
Well may the world look with wonder at such an assembly as this,
containing so much of learning, such strength of character, such
personal worth, wielding so much power over the minds and consciences
of men, possessing such an intimate, practical knowledge of the whole
world, of the good and the bad in it, and of the needs of men--an
assembly every member of which has learned, by years of ministerial
duty, to read, as no others can, the heart of man, and where all
have come together with the same earnest purpose, and in the same
singleness of heart, to confer candidly and frankly with each other,
in order, with the aid and light of heavenly grace, to determine on
such measures as shall best promote the glory of God, the interests
of religion, and the spread of truth and virtue among men. Even to
the man of the world, not to say to the Christian, can any thing be
nobler or more worthy of respect than such a meeting? Must not every
honest heart rejoice in the effort they will make, and wish them
success?
But to the Catholic this oecumenical council has a higher character.
We know that the church was founded not by man, but by Christ
himself; that she stands, not by human learning or human wisdom and
prudence, but by the power of God; that Christ is ever with her, that
he has sent his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to abide with her
for ever, to teach her all truth, to recall to her mind all things
whatsoever he taught, and that so she is to us the pillar and ground
of truth. We look back and see that in all the great emergencies of
Christian truth, or rather emergencies of the world, it has been her
custom to call together her bishops in councils like this. Thus,
when Arianism arose, and the minds of simple men were thrown into
confusion and perplexity concerning the divinity of the Saviour by
the wily quotations of Scripture and the plausible teachings of
error, the Council of Nice declared clearly and emphatically the
original doctrine of the divinity of the Son; and guarded it by
establishing the consecrated terms in which thenceforth Christian
lips should express it. So, too, when Nestorius and Eutyches, and
other later heresiarchs arose, other councils were held, solemnly
setting forth the original doctrines received and held by the church,
and pointing out and condemning the opposite errors. So, too, in the
sixteenth century the Council of Trent met and gave to the world a
full and clear statement of the Catholic doctrine of justification,
so violently assailed by Luther and his followers and companions--a
doctrine, by the way, which no small portion of those non-Catholics
who still retain a belief in an actual divine revelation, now
receive substantially and admit to be the only doctrine on that head
reconcilable with reason and common sense.
So, too, in this nineteenth century, amid the confusing uncertainties
of men, and the discordant clashing of opinions in the world, we
turn with reverent hope, with fullest confidence in the words of
the Saviour, and with grateful hearts and willing minds, to this
first Oecumenical Council of the Vatican. We recognize in it the
same authority which spoke at Nice, at Ephesus, and at Chalcedon, at
Constantinople, at Lyons, and at the Lateran, and in Trent. We await
the words of its teaching and its precepts of discipline. For it
will speak with authority. "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and
to us."
Our readers are no doubt familiar with the chief antecedents of the
council. It was in his address to the bishops assembled in Rome in
June, 1867, to celebrate the centenary of St. Peter's martyrdom,
that the Holy Father made the first public and official announcement
of what had been for a short time before mooted and considered in
private. It was his desire, at as early a day as circumstances
would allow, to convene the bishops of the Catholic world in an
oecumenical council. The prelates present, about five hundred in
number, expressed their gratification and cordial assent. The attacks
of the Garibaldians in November, 1867, if successful, would probably
have frustrated the design. But under divine Providence it signally
failed. Some thought that the bull of convocation would appear in
December, 1867. But it was not published until the midsummer of
1868, and the council was summoned for December 8th, 1869. It was
a solemn work. All felt that a most important day was approaching
in the history of the church. Throughout the world, ever since, in
every church and religious house, as often as the priest ascended the
altar to celebrate the divine mysteries, or those vowed to the Lord
assembled to sing his praises, petitions were offered unceasingly
that God would bless the council, and give to the prelates such
light and grace as would lead them to speak and act for his greater
glory and the welfare of souls. As months rolled on and the time
approached, clergy and faithful throughout the world united with
redoubled fervor in triduums, novenas, and suitable religious
exercises to obtain this special favor from Heaven.
In order that when the prelates should come, they might not be
detained too long from their dioceses attending the council--as was
the case at Trent--it was deemed advisable to establish preparatory
committees of chosen theologians to study maturely such questions
as it was thought would probably come up or be proposed in the
council. In Rome, the centre of theological learning, there were
eminent theologians in abundance from whom to choose. But it was
felt that something more was needed. To erudition must be added an
intimate knowledge of the modes of thought and the practical needs
of the various nations; something which books alone cannot give.
Hence, eminent theologians from France, Germany, England, Ireland,
and other countries were invited, and sent to Rome as representative
men of their respective countries. From the United States, the Very
Rev. Dr. Corcoran, of Charleston, South Carolina, whom our bishops
had learned to appreciate as secretary to our Second Plenary Council
of Baltimore, was chosen for this purpose, and came to Rome fifteen
months ago. The choice was a most happy one. He has won the esteem
and respect of all by his simple and quiet dignity of manner, the
vastness of his learning, and, more than all, by his sound judgment
and practical good sense. I believe he stands in the council as one
of the theologians to the pope. Five committees, thus formed of Roman
and foreign theologians, each under the presidency of a cardinal,
have for nearly a year and a half been engaged in an exhaustive
study of the subjects most likely to come up. Their dissertations
and essays on such points have been printed for the private use of
the bishops, and being up to the day, must be of great use, and will
naturally aid much in expediting business.
Other material preparations were necessary. The sessions of the
council were to be held in the north arm of the Transept of St.
Peter's--that which stretches toward the Vatican Palace. The place
assigned had to be fitted up with appropriate decorations and
suitable furniture. Other places were to be prepared for the general
congregations--committees of the whole, as they would be termed in
the United States--and for particular congregations, or special
committees. Beyond this, many of the bishops who would desire to
attend would be too poor to pay the exorbitant rates which landlords
here and elsewhere know how to ask when a city is crowded--as
Rome would be--perhaps might be too poor to pay any thing. Such
should be the guests of the Holy Father. He would provide for them.
This was obviously the case with many of the Italian bishops. The
kingdom of Italy has seized and turned over to the national treasury
all ecclesiastical property, promising, as a partial compensation
instead, to pay the clergy a stated stipend from the government. As
might be expected from persons capable of committing such wholesale
and barefaced robbery, the promise, in too many instances, has never
been kept. I apprehend that the vast majority of the clergy of Italy
are now managing to feed, clothe, and lodge themselves on an average
of twenty cents a day. The number of such bishops from Italy, with
others from the East, and from distant and very poor missions, may
amount to one hundred and fifty or two hundred.
All this would cost money, and the pope himself, stripped of four
fifths of the territory of the States of the Church, but not
stripped, as yet, of the old public debt, the interest of which he
is struggling to meet punctually, is poor. The earnest Catholics of
every country knew his condition and poured in contributions for this
purpose. Last autumn the papers announced that all due preparations
were being actively pushed forward.
In October, bishops began to arrive. The first comers were from the
East, who had set out early. In their countries men travel slowly,
and time is not so precious. Perhaps, too, some thought they might
be as long on the journey as their records and traditions said
their predecessors had been four hundred years ago, when they came
to the Council of Florence. The European and western bishops were
better acquainted with the speed of railways and steamers, and
began to pour in only in the latter portion of November. By the
1st of December, fully five hundred had arrived, and the week that
followed saw two hundred more come in. Every courtesy was shown
them. As a train crossed the frontier into the Pontifical States,
an officer ascertained the names of all the bishops, telegraphed
the information to Rome, and, on their arrival, they found other
officials ready to welcome them, and to escort them in carriages
to their several destinations. Their baggage, too, was exempt from
custom-house inspection. This, however, was a favor scarcely confined
to the Pontifical States. In more than one instance, bishops have
passed from the United States, through England, France, and (strange
contrast to 1867) even through Northern Italy, without having their
trunks once opened. It were to be wished that the annoying and now
useless system of passports were done away with. It has scarcely any
advantage save that of giving fees to consuls and employees.
On December 2d, the Holy Father delivered to the bishops then in
Rome, assembled in the Sixtine chapel, an allocution in preparation
for the council; and they received printed copies of an apostolical
letter, dated November 27th, settling some matters for the good
order of the council, and the dispatch of business. Chapter i.
reiterates the laws of the church, and enjoins on all the duty of
living piously, and of carefully maintaining an exemplary demeanor.
Chapter ii. declares the full liberty of each bishop to propose any
matter which he thinks of importance. But that all things may be done
in order, and without unnecessary confusion, and consequent delay
of other matters, such propositions must be submitted in writing,
must be supported by some show of reason, must be of a character to
concern more than one or two dioceses only, and must not run counter
to the constant sense and inviolable traditions of the church. A
special committee shall be appointed by the pope to receive such
propositions, and to consider whether they fulfil the required
conditions, to report to the pope. The committee has since been
appointed. The Archbishop of Baltimore is a member of it. Chapter
iii. charges all to keep silence on the matters under discussion. The
council will hardly be as leaky as Congress, and our readers will do
well to pay little or no attention to the thousand and one reports
that will be circulated in the newspapers.[170]
Chapter iv. declares that the seats shall be occupied according
to grades of the hierarchy, and seniority of promotion. Other
chapters set forth the officials, secretaries, notaries, masters
of ceremonies, etc.--a matter of obvious necessity under the
circumstances; establish six general committees, the members of which
are to be elected by ballot; and make known some points of order to
be observed in the religious exercises of the public sessions and the
general congregations; and finally enjoin on the bishops attending
the council to remain until the close of it, forbidding any one to
depart before such close, save with regular leave of absence, duly
applied for and obtained.
With a copy of this letter the bishops also received pamphlets
containing the forms of prayers to be used, and a detailed account
of the ceremonial to be followed, all based on or extracted from the
ceremonial of the ancient councils.
For the people little preparation had been made, or indeed could be
made in the church. St. Peter's has no pews; you will not find even
benches or chairs. On grand occasions, when the pope is celebrant,
seats are placed in the arms of the transept, capable of holding six
or eight thousand persons, who are admitted by ticket, and must come
in the proper costume. They are chiefly occupied by ladies. But on
this occasion one half of this space was required for the council.
On the other hand, Rome would be full, and it was felt that not one
twentieth of those who would desire, and indeed who would ordinarily
be entitled to receive tickets for such reserved seats, could be
accommodated. The gordian knot was cut by dispensing with reserved
seats altogether, and leaving full play to the democratic principle
of _first come, first served_.
On Tuesday, Rome was in commotion, and given over to the mercies
of free-trade in lodgings. Householders were waylaying strangers,
striving to let their apartments at the highest possible rates.
Strangers were wandering about seeking apartments which they might
obtain on the lowest possible terms. Purchases were briskly made in
preparation for the morrow. Everywhere, all day long, in carriages
and on foot, and in all the different costumes of their several
nations, might be seen bishops and priests passing to and fro,
visiting the churches and the shrines of martyrs, or seeking out
some friend of their youth, whom they had not seen, perhaps, for
twenty-five or forty years, but who, they were told, had just arrived
in Rome.
At noon precisely, the booming of the great bell of St. Peter's came
over the Campus Martius and the seven hills of Rome. Instantly the
thousand bells of the three hundred churches of the Eternal City
answered in one united clamorous peal; and the cannon of St. Angelo,
and the heavier metal of the new Aventine Fort, chimed in with the
deep bass of a grand national salute. And thus, for an hour, was
heralded the near approach of the great day. Again at nightfall the
salute was repeated.
The morning of December 8th dawned--the Festival of the Immaculate
Conception, and the day fixed for opening the council. A third
repetition of the uproarious yet thrilling salutation awaked the
sluggards, if there were any. We say if there were any; for although
the clouds were hanging low and heavy, and the air was filled with
mist, and at times the rain poured down, all Rome was astir. By
five A.M., the murmur of voices and the tramping of pedestrians
filled every street, and soon the rolling of carriages over the
hard pavements sounded like distant thunder. By six A.M., tens
of thousands were wending their way, despite the weather, to St.
Peter's; and by seven, every eligible portion of the floor of the
vast basilica was crowded. At half-past seven, the cardinals,
archbishops, and bishops began to gather in the Vatican Palace, where
they robed, putting on white copes and mitres, and then passed to the
great hall at the front, and immediately over the vestibule of St.
Peter's. Here the masters of ceremony assigned to each one his proper
place, and they awaited the coming of the sovereign pontiff.
Punctual to the moment, he appeared. All knelt in prayer. In a clear
and sonorous voice he intoned the _Veni Creator Spiritus_. The choir
took up the strain, the bishops arose, and commenced to move in
procession back to the Vatican Palace, through the ducal hall, down
the unequalled Scala Regia, and into the vestibule of St. Peter's.
Along the line the voice of chanting was heard. Without, the air was
filled again with the sound of bells and the booming of cannon.
It was not like the grand processions on which Rome delights to look
every year. The young orphan boys, with their snow-white dresses and
angel faces, the various religious orders, Capuchins, Franciscans,
Minor Observantists, Conventuals, Carmelites, Augustinians,
Cistercians, Benedictines, Dominicans, and Canons Regular, in their
varied and picturesque dresses, did not walk in it. There were no
confraternities with their huge crosses, no groups of clergy from
the many parish churches, no chapters of the ancient basilicas with
their tent-like canopies and tolling bells. These appeared not in
the ranks; but delegates from all of them formed lines on either
side, between which, as guards, the prelates marched two and two,
each one attended by his chaplain. It was a procession such as the
world has seen but once before, and that six hundred years ago, at
the Second Council of Lyons. First came the cross, surrounded with
burning lights and clouds of incense from the censers, and a group
of ecclesiastics attached to the Vatican and to St. Peter's. On came
the long white line of mitred abbots, bishops, archbishops, primates,
patriarchs, and cardinals, slowly moving, joining in the chanted
hymn, or else with subdued voices reciting psalms and prayers. The
hall, the grand stairway, and the vestibule were packed by thousands
who despaired of being able to enter the church, and hoped at least
to look on the procession. All eyes seemed to scrutinize the line of
prelates with reverent curiosity. Some in the line had not yet lost
the smoothness of their cheeks. They had not yet closed their eighth
lustre. The great majority had passed the half-century of life.
Labors, cares, and study had brought furrows to many a brow and many
a cheek; gray hairs had come, often prematurely; but the firm step
told of still unexhausted strength. Their faces, full of intellect
and decision, told of long and sturdy labor in the vineyard; you felt
they could still bear the heat of the day and the brunt of labor.
Many of them, too, far more than the younger ones, were aged and
venerable prelates, who, like the rest, had come at the summons of
the chief pastor. But when they should have borne their testimony to
the faith in this council, they would soon say, _Nunc dimittis_.
It was a glorious line. The spectators, of every nation, looked to
recognize the bishops each of his own land. They pointed out and
whispered to each other the names of those who had won for themselves
a world-wide reputation in the church, and looked with special
attention on the oriental prelates, scattered here and there through
the line, robed, not like those of the Latin rite, in unadorned white
copes and white linen mitres, but in richly ornamented chasubles or
copes of oriental fashion, glittering with gold and precious stones
and bright colors, and wearing on their heads tiaras radiant with
gems. On they passed, Italians, Greeks, Germans, Persians, Syrians,
Hungarians, Spanish and Copt, Irish and French, Scotch and Brazilian,
Mexican and English, American and Chinese, Canadian and South
American and Australian; abbots, bishops, archbishops, primates, and
patriarchs.
Next came the cardinals--the senate of the church. If before you saw
the strength of the church, here you looked on the embodiment of
intelligence and wisdom, in the most venerable body in the world.
Spotless purity of life, brilliant talents, long study, a longer
experience of men and affairs in a series of responsible offices
worthily filled--a thorough devotion of all their powers to the
interests of religion, have led them to this dignity--Antonelli,
Bilio, Bonnechose, Cullen, Schwartzenberg, Hohenlohe, Barnabo, Pitra,
Patrizi--every one seemed worthy of, and to receive, special homage
as they slowly moved on.
But even they were forgotten as the Holy Father approached.
Surrounded by his chaplains and attendants, by Swiss guards in their
picturesque costume, designed, it is said, with an eye to effect, by
Michael Angelo himself, and by the Roman noble guard in their richest
uniforms, he came borne, according to the old Roman custom which
has come down from the times of the republic, in a curule chair,
such as ediles and senators were borne in; such as that which the
convert Senator Pudens appropriated to the Apostle St. Peter, which
he and many of his successors used, and which is still preserved with
care and veneration in St. Peter's. Pius IX. is, we believe, really
eighty-one years of age. He is still robust, wonderfully so for that
age. His countenance beams still with that paternal benevolence which
has such power to charm. None ever looked on him without feeling it.
No one, Catholic or Protestant, Israelite, Turk, or infidel, ever
left his presence without carrying away a sense of reverence, and
sweet memories of a blessing received. All knelt as he was borne by,
blessing them on either side. In his train followed other attendants
and the superiors of religious orders, who enter the council, but are
not privileged to wear mitres. Conspicuous among them was the thin,
ascetic, fleshless form of the superior-general of the Jesuits, in
black--the little black pope, as they call him in Rome.
Meanwhile the head of the procession has long since reached the
grand portals of the Basilica. From the door to the central line
of the transept is about four hundred feet, and the nave of the
church is about ninety-five feet wide. All this space is crowded
with people standing so jammed together that there is not room to
kneel, if one wished. Back on either side, under the broad arches,
and into the side aisles, the vast mass of humanity extends. The
bases of the columns and piers are seen to rise to the level of
their heads, and, guided by this measure, the eye, for once, catches
at a glance the immense proportions of this gigantic building. The
partition which cuts off a portion of the transept for the special
use of the council is not seen from the nave, and the church stands
before you in all the grandeur of its architecture, unchanged for
better or for worse by those vast masses of drapery and those lines
of galloon, and the hundreds of immense chandeliers which sometimes
are placed here to adorn it. To the Roman eye, familiar with every
detail of the building, such an adornment may be pleasing as a
change. But strangers love to see St. Peter's as they see it now,
in its own native beauty and majesty. The eye loves to pass from
the noble columns and the statues of pure Carrara to the unfading
mosaics, the variegated marbles of the walls and piers, the ornaments
in sculptured relief, the richly-wrought capitals, the vast line
of cornice of classic accuracy, and the lofty arched ceiling, one
hundred and fifty feet and more overhead, profusely decorated with
panelling, roses, and richest gilding. It travels on to the main
altar with its hundred ever-burning lamps around the tomb of the
great apostle of Rome, and the spiral columns and canopy of bronze
which rise full ninety feet above it. And hundreds of feet further
away, in the western apsis, you catch a view of the bronze statues of
the four great doctors of the church, who support the identical chair
of St. Peter, and of the circular window of stained glass through
which the Holy Dove seems to pour in a stream of golden light,
giving life and heavenly beauty to that other flood which pours down
into the church from the lofty dome.
Guards had kept free for the procession a passage-way through the
crowd, from the door to the main altar. Up this lane the bishops
walked with uncovered heads, for the blessed sacrament was exposed on
the altar. Kneeling a moment in adoration, they arose, and, turning
to the right, passed into the space set aside and prepared for the
council hall. To each one, as he entered, his proper place was
assigned by the masters of ceremony. The greater part were so placed,
when a fuller burst of the choir told us that the Holy Father had
reached the portals of the church, had been received by the chapter
of canons, and was entering. He left the curule chair and doffed his
mitre; for a greater than he is here enthroned, and even the pope
must walk with uncovered head. He, and the cardinals with him, knelt
at the main altar as the bishops had done, and waited until the last
strophe of the hymn, _Veni Sancte Spiritus_, was finished by the
choir. He arose, chanted the versicle and prayer to the Holy Ghost,
and then, preceded by the cardinals, also entered the council hall.
They passed each to his proper place, the pontiff to a _prie Dieu_
prepared for him in the middle, to await the commencement of the high
mass.
We have said that this council hall occupies nearly all of the
northern arm of the great transept. That arm alone is over two
hundred feet long, and ninety-five feet broad. Its northern extremity
is a semi-circular apsis, and midway of its length it is crossed by
the northern aisle of the church, which opens into it by a lofty and
wide arch on either side. These arches are now closed at the top by
temporary partition walls. In front--that is, on the south, toward
the main altar and nave--another partition wall, perhaps fifty feet
high, shuts the hall off from the main body of the building. All
these walls are exquisitely colored, so as to correspond even in
minute details with the decorations and color of the marbles of the
church. In the last-named wall is a large doorway, fully twenty feet
wide, through which the prelates and cardinals and the pontiff have
passed in. It is open now, (though when necessary it can be closed,)
and you may look in and see the interior arrangement. In the further
extremity, the semi-circular apsis, a number of steps rise to a
platform, in the middle of which other steps lead to the throne of
the pontiff, surmounted by a canopy with hanging drapery. On either
hand, elevated one step less, are placed the cardinals, before each
one a kneeling-stand, which may be changed into a writing-desk.
Before the cardinals, and a little lower, sit the patriarchs. Down
either side of the hall, for the full length, run seven rows of
benches with high backs. The front row is on the floor, the others
rising as they recede, so that the last one next the wall is about
the same level with the platform. In the middle, about one fifth of
the way from the door, with its face toward the pope and the bishops,
and its back toward the door stands a temporary altar prepared
for the mass, with which every public session and every general
congregation will commence. Here and there, on the floor, are seats
and tables for the use of the secretaries, notaries, stenographers,
and other officials. Of the altar we need not speak. It is simple
though rich in materials, and without accessory ornamentation, which
would take up space and impede the view. The platform is covered, as
is the floor, with Brussels carpeting. The seats of the cardinals are
covered with red damask; those of the patriarchs with purple. The
seats of the bishops are covered with Brussels tapestry of a greenish
hue. They are roomy. Each bishop uses the back of the seat before him
as a _prie Dieu_ when he kneels. Should he at other times wish to
write, there is a table hinged to it in front of him, which he may
raise up and render firm by a movable support. When he is done, he
simply moves back the support and lets down the table to its former
position. All is simple, yet very satisfactory. There is, near at
hand, a refreshment room, and, indeed, every convenience that is
needed. The artistic decorations of the hall also deserve attention.
They are not many, but are excellent and appropriate, and were
prepared, of course, for this occasion. Over the doorway, as you are
about to enter from the church, there is a majestic painting of the
Saviour enthroned in the clouds, holding the Gospel open in his left
hand, while the right is stretched forth in command to the apostles.
Underneath is the inscription, "GO, TEACH ALL NATIONS. I AM WITH YOU
ALL DAYS, EVEN TO THE CONSUMMATION OF THE WORLD." In the interior of
the hall, over the seat of the pope, is a painting of the Descent of
the Holy Ghost. On either side are the Council of the Apostles at
Jerusalem, and the Councils of Nice, of Ephesus, and of Trent. Higher
up are large medallion paintings of the twenty-two popes who called
or presided personally or by legates over the various oecumenical
councils of the church; while higher still are colossal figures of
the four great doctors of the church, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St.
Jerome, and St. John Chrysostom. All the seats we have mentioned are
for the prelates and officials. There are several galleries opening
through the wall rather than projecting forward. On the left of the
pope, as he is seated, is one for the singers of the Sistine chapel.
On his right is another, to be occupied by sovereigns and members of
royal families. The Empress of Austria, the Queen of Würtemberg, and
the King of Naples were present at the opening. Another much larger
one, on the side of the singers, is for the diplomatic corps. It was
filled with ambassadors in their state uniforms, with full display
of jewelled decorations. Two other similar galleries are for the
theologians.
The council hall, as we have described it, is about two hundred
feet long and nearly one hundred feet broad. The ceiling above is
that of the transept; like that of the nave, arched, panelled, and
decorated with gilding, and is one hundred and fifty feet above you.
The seemingly low partition wall in front shuts out the view of the
lower portions of the church, but you have a full view of the upper
half of the columns and piers, with their statues and decorations,
and of the cornice and lofty-arched ceiling, and above all, of the
magnificent dome, with its mosaics of the evangelists and the angelic
host. You see and feel all the time that you are in St. Peter's. But
there are drawbacks. The size of the hall, the height of the ceiling,
and, perhaps more than either, this want of disconnection from the
church, render it impossible for any but the strongest voices with
eminently clear enunciation to fill it and be understood. Weak, and
even moderate voices, are simply inaudible to the majority. As things
are now arranged, discussion would seem impossible, and already
there is talk of changes which may have to be indicated in our next
article. But let us return to the pope and the bishops, whom we left
awaiting the commencement of the pontifical high mass. This should
have been celebrated by Cardinal Mattei, the dean of the body. But
his age and infirmities are too great to permit so great an exertion.
Accordingly, the next in rank, Cardinal Patrizi, took his place,
and was the celebrant. The pontiff approached the altar with him,
recited the _Judica_ and the _Confiteor_, and then retired to his
own seat, and the cardinal ascended to the altar and continued the
mass. The music was that of Palestrina, executed by the papal choir
as they alone can sing, and without any instrumental accompaniment.
Such voices as theirs need none. Just before the last gospel, a
portable pulpit was brought out near the altar; Mgr. Passavalli,
Archbishop of Iconium, ascended it, wearing cope and mitre, and
preached the introductory sermon. It was in Latin--the language of
the council--and occupied just forty minutes. It has since been
published, and the reader will not fail to recognize and admire
the eloquence and fervor of his thoughts and the elegance of his
Latinity. But no pages can give an idea of the clear, ringing voice,
the musical Italian intonations, and the dignified and impressive,
almost impassioned gesture of the truly eloquent Capuchin. The sermon
over, the pope gave the solemn blessing, the Gospel of St. John was
recited, and the mass was over.
The altar being now clear, the attendants brought in a rich,
throne-like stand, and placed it on the altar in the centre.
Monsignor Fessler, secretary of the council, attended by his
assistant, brought in procession a large book of the Gospels,
elegantly bound, and reverently placed it on the throne. It was the
place due to the inspired record of the life and teachings of our
divine Lord--a ceremony touching and most appropriate at the opening
of a council of his followers, assembled in his name, to declare and
vindicate his teaching, and promote and carry out the commission he
gave them.
The Holy Father then assumed his full pontifical robes. The cardinals
and all the prelates, in their proper order, then approached, one by
one, to pay him homage, kissing his hand or the stole he wore. Their
numbers made it a long ceremony. It told of the union of all with the
head of the church.
This over, all knelt while the pontiff chanted the sublime prayer,
_Adsumus, Domine_. Solemn and subdued were the chanted _amens_ of the
entire assembly.
Four chanters next intoned the litany of the saints in the well-known
varying minor strains of Gregorian chant. Most impressive were the
responses made by the united voices of the fathers. But when, at the
proper time, the pope rose to his feet, and, holding the cross of his
authority in his left hand, replaced the chanters, and raising his
streaming eyes to heaven, and in his own majestic and sonorous tones,
trembling just enough to tell how deeply his great heart was moved,
thrice prayed our divine Lord to bless, to preserve, to consecrate
this council, tears flowed from many an eye. All were intensely
moved, and not bishops alone, but the crowds of clergy outside, and
thousands of the laity, joined, again and again, in the response, _Te
rogamus, audi nos_. Then, if never before, St. Peter's was filled
with the mighty volume of sound. Back it came to us from arch and
chapel, from aisle and lofty nave and transept, _Te rogamus, audi
nos_. We seemed to hear it murmured even from the aerial dome, as if
the angels repeated the words as they bore the petition to heaven,
_Te rogamus, audi nos_.
The chanters resumed, the litany was terminated, and the pope recited
the prayers that follow it. Cardinal Borromeo then, acting as deacon,
chanted the Gospel taken from Luke x., narrating the mission of
the disciples. He used the volume that had been enthroned on the
altar. When he concluded, the volume was carried back as before, and
reverently replaced on the throne. The assembly were seated, and
the Holy Father, himself seated and wearing his mitre, delivered a
discourse or allocution full, as all his discourses are, of unction,
and replete with the thoughts and words of divine inspiration.