The "Three Glorious Days" of July 1830, have now produced another

change; and peace has given leisure to think of something else than

conquest and the conscription. The power of the national pen has turned

again to fiction, and the natural wit, habitual dexterity, and dashing

verbiage of France have all been thrown into the novel. Even the French

drama, once the pride of the nation, has perished under this sudden

pressure. A French modern tragedy is now only a rhymed melodrama. Even

French history attracts popular applause only as it approaches to a

three volume romance. Every man of name in French modern authorship has

attained it only by the rapid production of novels. But no language can

be too contemptuous, or too condemnatory, for the spirit of those works

in general. Every tie of society is violated in the progress of their

pages; and violated with the full approval of every body. Seduction is

the habitual office of the hero. Adultery is the regular office of the

heroine. In each the vice is simply a matter of course. Manly honour is

a burlesque every where, but where the criminal shoots the injured

husband in a duel. Female virtue is only a proof of dulness or decay, a

vulgar formality of mind, or an unaccountable inaptitude to adopt the

customs of polished society.

The hero is pictured with every quality which can charm the eye or ear;

he is the handsomest, the most accomplished, and the most high-spirited

of mankind, all sentiment, and all scoundrelism. The heroine, always a

wife or a widow,--in the former instance, is the "lovely victim of a

marriage in which her heart had no share," and in which she is entitled

to have all the privileges of her heart supplied. And in the latter is a

creature full of charms, about twenty-one, resolved to live for love,

but never to be "chained in the iron links of a dull and obsolete

ceremonial" again. She quickly fixes her eyes on some Adolphe, Auguste,

or Hyppolite, "_Officier de la Garde_," who has performed prodigies of

valour in Algiers, taken lions by the beard every where, and is the best

waltzer in all Paris. They meet, flame together, swear an _amitie

eternelle_, and defy the world, through three volumes.

In reprobating this detestable school, we certainly have no hope that

our remarks will reform the French novelism of the day; but we call on

the critical press of England to take up the rational and righteous task

of reforming our own.

Within these few years, the English novels are rapidly falling into the

imitation of the French. And we say it with no less regret than

surprise, that the chief imitators are females. The novels written by

men have generally some manliness, some recollection of the higher

impulses which occasionally act on the minds of men; some reluctancy in

revealing the more infirm movements of the mind; and some doubts as to

the absorption of all human nature in one perpetual whirl of

love-making.

But with the female pen in general, the whole affair is resolved into

one impulse--all is "passion." The winds of heaven have nothing to do,

but to "waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole." The art of printing is

seriously presumed to have been invented only for "some banished lover,

or some captive maid." Flirtation is the grand business of life. The

maiden flirts from the nursery, the married woman flirts from the altar.

The widow adds to the miscellaneous cares of her "bereaved" life,

flirtation from the hearse which carries her husband to his final

mansion. She flirts in her weeds more glowingly than ever. But she knows

too well the "value of her liberty" to submit to be a slave once more;

and so flirts on for life, in the most innocent manner imaginable,

taking all risks, and throwing herself into situations of which the

result would be obvious any where but in the pages of an _English_

novel.

The French have no scruples on such subjects, and their candour leaves

nothing to the imagination. Our female novelists have not yet arrived at

that pitch of explicitness, and it is to be hoped will pause before they

leap the gulf.

We attribute a good deal of this dangerous adoption to the prevalent

habit of yearly running to the Continent. The English ear becomes

familiarised to language on the other side of the Channel, which would

have shocked it here. The chief topic of foreign life is intrigue, the

chief employment of foreign life is that half idle, half infamous

intercourse, which extinguishes all delicacy even in the spectators. The

young English woman sees the foreign woman leading a life which, though

in England it would stamp her with universal shame, in France or

Germany, and above all, in Italy, never brings more than a sneer, and

seldom even the sneer. She sees this wedded or widowed profligate

received in the highest ranks; flourishing without a reproach, if she

has the means of keeping an opera-box, or giving suppers; every soul

round her acquainted with every point of her history, yet none shrinking

from her association. If she has one Cicisbeo, or ten, the whole affair

is _selon les regles_.

The young English woman who blushes at this scandalous career, or

exhibits any reluctance on the subject of the companionship or the

crime, is laughed at as a "novice," is charged with a want of the

"_savoir vivre_," is quietly reproved for "the coldness of her English

blood," and is recommended to abandon, as speedily as possible, ideas so

unsuitable to "the glow of the warm South."

She soon finds a dangler, or a dozen danglers, who, having nothing on

earth to do, and in their penury rejoiced to find any spot where they

can kill an hour, and get a cup of coffee, are daily at her command. All

those fellows, too, are counts; the title being about as common, and as

cheap, as chimney-sweepers among us, though not belonging to so valuable

fraternity.

After a month's training of this kind, the poor fool is fit for nothing

else, to the last hour of her being. She is a flirt and a _figurante_,

as long as she lives. Duty and decorum are things too icy for the

"ardour of her soul." The life of England is utterly barbarian to the

refinement of the land of macaroni.

And it is unquestionably much better that the whole tribe should remain

where they are, and roam among the lazzaroni, than return to corrupt the

decencies of English life. If this sentimentalist has money, she is sure

to be picked up by some "superb chevalier," some rambling

fortune-hunter, or known swindler, hunted from the gambling table;

probably beginning his career as a frizeur or a footman, and making

rapid progress towards the galleys. If she has none, she returns to

England, to grumble, for the next fifty years, at the climate, the

country, and the people; to drawl out her maudlin regrets for olive

groves, and pout for the Bay of Naples; to talk of her loves; exhibit a

cameo or a crucifix, (the parting pledge of some inamorato, probably

since hanged), prate papistry, and profess _liberalism_; pronounce the

Roman holidays "charming things," and long to see the carnival, and the

worship of the Virgin together, imported to relieve the _ennui_ of

London.

The subject is startling: and we recommend any thing, and every thing,

in the shape of employment, in preference to the vitiating follies of a

life of Touring.

Another tribe of female authorship ought to be extinguished without a

moment's delay. Those are the yearly travellers. A woman of this kind

scampers over the Continent, like a queen's messenger, every season; she

rushes along with the rapidity and the regularity of the "Royal Mail."

The month of May no sooner appears in the calendar, than she packs up

her trunk, and crosses to Boulogne, "to make a book." One year she takes

the north, another the south; to her, all points of the compass are

equal. But whether the _roulage_ carries her to the Baltic or the

Mediterranean, her affair is done, if she adds a page a day to her

journal. She gossips along, and scribbles, with the indefatigable finger

of a maker of bobbin lace, or a German knitter of stockings. The most

slipshod descriptions of every thing that has been described before;

sketches of peasant character taken from the beggars at the roadside;

national traits taken from the commonplaces of the _table-d'hote_, and

court _secrets_ copied from the newspapers--all are disgorged into the

Journal. We have, unfailingly, whole pages of setting suns, moonlight

nights, effulgent stars, and southern breezes. She gloats over pictures

of enraptured monks, and sees heaven in the eyes of saints, copied from

the painter's mistresses. If she goes to Italy, she tells us of the

banditti, the gondola, and St Peter's; gazes with solemn speculation on

the naked beauties of the Belvidere Apollo; and descants in an

ultra-ecstasy on the proportions of sages and heroes destitute of

drapery; winding up by an adventure, in which she falls by night into

the hands of a marching regiment, or band of smugglers setting out on a

robbery, and leaving the world to guess at the results of the adventure

to herself.

In all this farrago, she never gives the reader an atom of information

worth the paper which she blots. We have no additional lights on

character, public life, national feeling, or national advancement. All

is as vapid as the "Academy of Compliments," and as well known as

"Lindley Murray's Grammar." But why object to all this? Why not let the

scribbler take her way--and the world know that vineyards are green, and

the sky blue, if it desires the knowledge? Our reason is this,--such

practices actually destroy all taste for the legitimate narratives of

travel. Those trading tourists talk nonsense, until intelligence itself

becomes wearisome. They strip away the interest which novelty gives to

new countries, and by running their silly speculation into scenes of

beauty, sublimity, or high recollection, would make Tempe a counterpart

to the Thames Tunnel; Mount Atlas a fellow to Primrose Hill; and

Marathon a fac-simile of the Zoological Garden or Bartholomew Fair. The

subject is pawed, and dandled, and fondled, until the very name excites

nausea; and a writer of real ability would no more touch upon it, than a

great artist would paint St George and the Dragon.

This has been the history of the decline of works of imagination in

England. No sooner had Mrs Radcliffe touched the old monasteries with

her glorious pencil, than a generation of monk-describers and

ruined-castle-builders sprang up, until the very name of convent or

castle became an abhorrence. Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last

Minstrel," rich and romantic as it was, was nearly buried under an

overflow of heavy imitations, which drove his genius to other pursuits,

and which filled the public ear with such enormities of octo-syllabic

_ennui_, that it hates poetry ever since. The Helicon of which he drank

the gushing and pure stream, was stirred into mire by the slippers of

school-girls, city-apprentices, and chambermaid-poetesses of every shade

of character.

A new Malthus for the express purpose of extinguishing, by strangulation

or otherwise, the whole race of Annual Travellers in Normandy, Picardy,

up the Seine and down the Seine, up the Loire and down the Loire, on the

shores of the Mediterranean, and in the Brenner Alps, would be a

benefactor to society.

Whether England would be the wiser and the happier if, instead of being

separated from the Continent by a channel, she were separated by an

ocean, is a question which we leave to the philosopher; but there can be

no doubt of the nature of its answer by the historian. It will be found,

that the national character had degenerated in every period when that

intercourse increased, and that it resumed its vigour only in the

periods when that intercourse was restricted.

It would not be difficult to exemplify this principle, from the earliest

times of English independence. But our glance shall be limited to the

era of the Reformation, when England began first to assume an imperial

character.

Elizabeth was always contemptuous of the foreigner, and boasted of the

defiance; the national mind never rose to a higher rank than in her

illustrious reign. James renewed the connexions of the throne with

France, and Charles I. renewed the connexion of the royal line. It may

have been for the purpose of checking the national contagion of the

intercourse, that rebellion was suffered to grow up in his kingdom. But

whatever might be the origin, the effect was, to break off the

intercourse with France and her corruptions, and to exhibit a new energy

and purity in the people. Cromwell raised a sudden barrier against

France by his political system, and the nation recovered its daring and

its character in its contempt for the foreigner.

In the reign of Charles II. the intercourse was resumed, and corruption

rapidly spread from France to the court, and from the court to the

people. England, proud and powerful under the Protectorate, became

almost a rival to France in infidelity and profligacy in the course of

the Reign. Again the war of William with France closed the Continent

upon the national intercourse, and the manliness of the national

character partially revived. But with the death of Anne the intercourse

was renewed, and the result was a renewal of the corruption. The war of

the French Revolution again and utterly broke off the intercourse for

the time; and it is undeniable, that the national character suddenly

exhibited a most singular and striking return to the original virtues of

the country--to its fortitude, to its patriotism, and to the purity of

its religious feelings.

The period from the Treaty of Utrecht to the war of the French

Revolution, has always appeared to us a blot on the annals of England.

It is true that it contained many names of distinction, that it

exhibited a graceful and animated literature, that it was characterised

by striking advances in national power, and that towards its close it

gave the world a Chatham, as if to reconcile us to its existence and

throw a brief splendour over its close.

But no period of British history developed more unhappily those vices

which naturally ripen in the hot bed of political intrigue. The names of

Harley, Bolingbroke, Walpole, and Newcastle, might head a general

indictment against the manliness, the integrity, and the honour of

England. The low faithlessness of Harley, who seems to have been

carrying on a Jacobite correspondence at the foot of the throne--the

infamous treachery of his brother-minister, St John--the undenied and

undeniable corruption of Walpole, and the half-imbecility which made the

chicane of Newcastle ridiculous, while his perpetual artifice alone

saved his imbecility from overthrow,--altogether form a congeries,

which, like the animal wrecks of the primitive world, almost give in

their deformity a reason for its extinction.

There can be no question of the perpetual villany which then assumed the

insulted name of politics; none, of the utter sacrifice of public

interests to the office-hunting avarice of all the successive parties;

none, of the atrocious corruptibility of them all; none, of that general

decay of religion, morals, and national honour, which was the result of

a time when principle was laughed at, and when the loudest laugher

passed for the wisest man of his generation.

The cause was obvious. Charles II. had brought with him from France all

the vices of a court, where the grossest licentiousness found its

grossest example in the person of the sovereign. Profligate as private

life naturally is in all the dominions of a religion where every crime

is rated by a tariff, and where the confessional relieves every man of

his conscience, the conduct of Louis XIV. had made profligacy the actual

pride of the throne.

The feeble and frivolous Charles was more a Frenchman than an

Englishman; more a courtier than a king; and fitter to be a page in the

seraglio than either.

The royal robe on the shoulders of such a monarch, instead of concealing

his vices, only made them glitter in the national eyes; and the morals

of England might have been irretrievably stained, but for that salutary

judgment which interposed between the people and the dynasty, and by

driving James into an ignominious exile, placed a man of principle on

the throne. Unfortunately, the reign of William was too busy and too

brief to produce any striking change in the habits of the people. His

whole policy was turned to the great terror of the time, the daring

ambition of France. He fought on the outposts of Europe. All his ideas

were Continental. The singular constitution of his nature gave him the

spirit of a warrior, combined with the seclusion of a monk. Solitary

even in camps, what must he be in the trivial bustle of a court?--and,

engrossed with the largest interests of nations, what interest could he

attach to the squabbles of rival professors of licentiousness, to

giving force to a feeble drama, or regulating the decorum of factions

equally corrupt and querulous, and long since equally despised and

forgotten?

The reign of Anne made some progress in the national restoration. But it

was less by the influence of the Queen than by the work of time. The

"gallants" of the reign of Charles were now a past generation. Their

frolics were a gossip's tale; their showy vices were now as tarnished as

their wardrobe, and both were hung out of sight. The man who, in the

days of Anne, would have ventured on the freaks of Rochester, would have

finished his nights in the watch-house, and his years in the

plantations. The wit of the past age was also rude, vulgar, and

pointless to the polished sarcasm of Pope, or even to the reckless sting

of Swift. Yet manners were still coarse, and the Queen complained of

Harley's coming to her after dinner,--"troublesome, impudent, and

_drunk_." Her court exhibited form without dignity, and her parliaments

the most violent partisanship in politics and religion, without

sincerity or substance in either. But the long peace threw open the

floodgates of frivolity and fashion once more, and France again became

the universal model.

On glancing over the history of public men through this diversified

period, the astonishment of an honest mind is perpetually excited at the

unblushing effrontery with which the most scandalous treacheries seem to

have been all but acknowledged. France was still the great corrupter,

and French money was lavished, not more in undermining the fidelity of

public men, than in degrading the character of the nation. But when

Charles was an actual pensioner of the French King, and James a palpable

dependent on the French throne, the force of example may be easily

conceived, among the spendthrift and needy officials, one half of whose

life was spent at the gaming table.

On those vilenesses history looks back with an eye of disgust. But they

were the natural results of an age when religion was at the lowest ebb

in Europe; when our travelled gentry only brought back with them that

disregard of Christianity which they had learned in Paris and Rome, and

when Voltaire's works were found on the toilet of every woman in high

life.

The accession of George III. was, in this view, of incalculable value to

England. Contempt for the marriage tie is universally the source of all

popular corruption. The king instantly discountenanced the fashionable

levity of noble life. No man openly stigmatised for profligacy, dared to

appear before him. No woman scandalised by her looseness of conduct was

suffered to approach the drawing-room. The public feeling was suddenly

righted. The shameless forehead was sent into deserved obscurity. The

debased heart felt that there was a punishment, which no rank, wealth,

or effrontery could resist. The decorum of public manners was

effectively restored, and the nation had to thank the monarch for the

example and for the restoration.

Lady Sundon was of an obscure family, of the name of Dyves. Her portrait

represents her as handsome, and her history vouches for her cleverness.

It was probably owing to both that she was married to Mr Clayton, then

holding an appointment in the treasury, and also the agent for the great

Duke of Marlborough's estate, both of them appointments which implied a

certain degree of intelligence and character. He also at one period was

deputy-auditor of the exchequer. Mrs Clayton soon obtained the

confidence of that most impracticable of all personages, Sarah, Duchess

of Marlborough.

On the death of Queen Anne, the duke and duchess had returned to

England, but, repulsed shortly after by the ungracious manner of the

ungrateful George I., they soon abandoned public life. Still it was

difficult for so stirring a personage as the duchess altogether to

abandon court intrigue, and probably for the purpose of obtaining some

shadow of that influence which she might afterwards turn into substance,

she contrived to obtain for her correspondent and dependant, Mrs

Clayton, the place of bedchamber-woman to Caroline, wife of the

heir-apparent.

It is obvious that such a position might give all the advantages of the

most confidential intercourse, to a clever woman, who had her own game

to play. The Princess herself was in a position which required great

dexterity. She was the wife of a brutish personage whom it was

impossible to respect, and yet with whom it was hazardous to quarrel.

She was the daughter-in-law of a Prince utterly incapable of popularity,

yet singularly jealous of power. She was surrounded by a court, half

Jacobite, and wholly unprincipled; and exposed to the constant

observation of a people still dubious of the German title to the throne,

contemptuous by nature of all foreign alliances, disgusted with the

manners of the court, and still disturbed by the struggles of the fallen

dynasty.

It was obviously of high importance to such a personage, to have in her

employ so clear-headed, and at the same time so stirring an agent as Mrs

Clayton. There seems even to have been a strong similitude in their

characters--both keen, both intelligent, both fond of power, and both

exhibiting no delicacy whatever with regard to the means for its

possession. Mrs Clayton never shrank from intercourse with those

profligate persons who then abounded at court, when she had a point to

carry; and Caroline, as Queen, endured for thirty years the notorious

irregularities of her lord and master, without a remonstrance. She even

went farther. She pretended, in the midst of those gross offences, to be

even tenderly attached to him, talked of "not valuing her children as a

grain of sand in comparison with him," and not merely acquiesced in

conduct which must have galled every feeling of virtue in a pure heart,

but involved herself in the natural suspicion of playing a part for the

sake of power, and forgetting the injuries of the wife in order to

retain the influence of the Queen.

There can be no doubt that this policy had its reward. The King gave her

power, or at least never attempted to disturb the power belonging to her

rank, while it left him the full indulgence of his vices. She thus

obtained two objects--to the world she appeared a suffering angel, to

the King a submissive wife. In the mean time she managed both court and

King, possessed vast patronage, perhaps more general court popularity

than any Queen of the age; led a pleasant life, enjoying the sweets

without the responsibilities of royalty; and by judicious liberality of

purse, and equally dexterous flexibility of opinion, contrived to carry

some degree of public respect with her, while she lived, and be followed

by some degree of public regret to her grave.

But this example was productive of palpable evil. The example of the

higher ranks always operates powerfully on the lower. The toleration

exhibited by the highest female in the kingdom for the most notorious

vices, gave additional effect to that fashion of flexibility, which is

the besetting sin of polished times. If the Queen had firmly set her

face against the offences of her husband, or if she had shown the

delicacy of a woman of virtue in keeping aloof from all intercourse with

women whom the public voice had long marked as criminal, she might have,

partially at least, reformed the corruptions of her profligate period.

But this indifference to all the nobler feelings was the style of the

day. Religion was scarcely more than a form: its preachers were

partisans; its controversies were court feuds, its principles were

politics, and its objects were stoles and mitres. In an age when

Sacheverel, with his rampant nonsense, had been a popular apostle, and

Swift, with his pungent abominations, had been a church adviser of the

cabinet, and when Hoadley was regarded alternately as a pillar and as a

subverter of the faith, we may easily conjecture the national estimate

of Christianity.

Unfortunately, a considerable proportion of the correspondence in these

volumes is from clerical candidates for personal services; and if

singular eagerness in pursuit of preferment, and singular homage to the

influence of the queen's bed-chamber-woman, could stamp them with shame,

the brand would be at once broad and indelible. But it must be

remembered, that there are contemptible minds in every profession, that

these men acted in direct violation of the principles of their religion,

and that the church is no more accountable for the delinquencies of its

members, than the courts of law for the morals of the jail.

Another repulsive feature of the period was the conduct of conspicuous

females. The habits of Germany in its higher ranks were offensive to all

purity. The Brunswick Princes had brought those habits to St James's.

Born and educated in Germany, they were regardless even of the feeble

decorums of English life, and a king's mistress was an understood

portion of the royal establishment. It is to the honour of later times,

that such offences could not now be committed with impunity. But the

example of Louis XIV. had sanctioned all royal excesses, and the conduct

of his successor was an actual study of the most reckless profligacy.

The constant intercourse of the English nobility with Paris, to which

allusion has already been made, had accustomed them to such scenes, and

persons of the highest condition, of the most important offices of the

state, and even of the most respectable private character, such as

respectability was in those days, associated with those mistresses,

corresponded with them, and even submitted to be assisted by their

influence with the king.

We shall give but one example; that of Henrietta Hobart, afterwards Lady

Suffolk. A baronet's daughter, and poor, she had married in early life

the son of the Earl of Suffolk, nearly as poor as herself. In their

narrowness of means, their only resource was some court office, and to

obtain this, and probably to live cheap, they went to Hanover, to lay

the foundation of favour with the future monarch of England. To some

extent they succeeded. For, on the accession of George the First, Mrs

Howard was appointed bedchamber-woman to Caroline the Princess of Wales.

Courts, in all countries, seem to be dull places; ceremonial fails as a

substitute for animation, and dinners of fifty covers become a mere tax

on time, taste, and common-sense. Etiquette is only _ennui_ under

another name, and the eternal anticipation of enjoyment is the death of

all pleasure. Miss Burney's narrative has let in light on the sullen

mysteries of the Maid of Honour's life, and her pencil has evidently

given us only the picture of what had been in the times of our

forefathers, and what will be in the times of our posterity.

Mrs Howard was well-looking, without the invidious attribute of great

beauty, and lively, without the not less invidious faculty of wit. All

the court officials crowded her apartments in the palace. Chesterfield,

young Churchill, Lord Hervey, Lord Scarborough, all hurried to the

tea-table of the well-bred bedchamber-woman, to escape the dreary duties

and monotonous moping of attendance on the throne. Lady Walpole, Mrs

Selwyn, Mary Lepell, and Mary Bellenden, formed a part of this

coterie--all women of presumed character, yet all associating familiarly

with women of none. Of Mrs Howard, Swift observed in his acid

style--"That her private virtues, for want of room to operate, might be

folded and laid up clean, like clothes in a chest, never to be put on;

till satiety, or some reverse of fortune should dispose her to

retirement."

Then, probably in reference to the prudery with which she occasionally

covered her conduct,--"In the meantime," said he, "it will be her

prudence, to take care that they be not tarnished and moth-eaten, for

want of opening and airing, and turning, at least _once a-year_."

Those matters seem to have sought no concealment whatever. "Es regolar,"

says the Spaniard, when his country is charged with some especial

abomination. Howard, the husband, though a _roue_, at last went into the

quadrangle at St James's and publicly demanded his wife. He then wrote

to the Archbishop. His letter was given to the Queen, and by her to Mrs

Howard. Yet all this scandal never interrupted the lady's intercourse

with the highest personages of the court. Mrs Howard continued to be the

Queen's bedchamber woman; the Queen suffered her personal attendance,

her carriage was escorted by John Duke of Argyle; her husband obtained a

pension to hold his tongue; and even when the King grew tired of the

_liaison_, and wished to get rid of her, actually complaining to the

Queen, "That he did not know why she would not let him part with a deaf

old woman, of whom he was weary," the politic Caroline would not allow

him to give her up, "lest a younger favourite should gain a greater

ascendency over him." After this, we must hear no more of the delicacy

of Queen Caroline. Virtue and religion scarcely belonged to her day.

In a court of this intolerable worldliness, the worldly must thrive; and

Mrs Clayton advanced year by year in the imitation of her mistress, and

in power. She, as well as Lady Suffolk, adopted Caroline's patronage of

letters, and corresponded a good deal with the clever men of the time.

We quote one of Lady Suffolk's letters addressed to Swift, apparently in

answer to some of his perpetual complaints of a world, which used him

only too well after all.

"_September_, 1727.

"I write to you to please myself. I hear you are melancholy,

because you have a bad head and deaf ears. These are two

misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet never

was peevish with either myself or the world. Have I more philosophy

and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I do not feel the

evil?

"Answer those queries in writing, if _poison_ or other methods do

not enable you soon to appear in person. Though I make use of your

own word, poison, yet let me tell you--it is nonsense, and I desire

you will take more care for the time to come. Now, you endeavour to

impose on my understanding by taking no care of your own."

The value of a keen and active confidante in a court of perpetual

intrigue was obvious, and Mrs Clayton was the double of the Queen. But a

deeper and more painful reason is assigned for her confidence. The Queen

had a malady, which is not described in her Memoirs, but which we

suppose to have been a cancer, which she was most anxious to hide from

all the world. Walpole discovered it, and the discovery exhibits his

skill in human nature.

On the death of Lady Walpole, the Queen, who was about the same age,

asked Sir Robert in many questions as to her illness; but he remarked,

that she frequently reverted to one particular malady, which had _not_

been Lady Walpole's disease. "When he came home," (his son writes) "he

said to me,--now, Horace, I know by the possession of what secret Lady

Sundon has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen."

Mrs Clayton possessed at least one merit (if merit it be) in a

remarkable degree, that of providing for her relatives. She was of a

poor family, and she contrived to get something for them all. Her three

nieces had court places, one of them that of a maid of honour; one

brother obtained a cornetcy in the Horse Guards; another a chief

clerkship in the annuity office; and her nephew was sent out with Lord

Albemarle to Spain. A more remarkable relative was Clayton, Bishop of

Clogher, who evidently knew the value of her patronage, for a more

importunate suitor, and a more persevering sycophant, never kissed

hands. Finally, she obtained a peerage for her husband, a distinction in

which, of course, she herself shared, but which probably she desired

merely to throw some _eclat_ round a singularly submissive husband.

Yet there was no slight infusion of pleasantry in the minds of some of

the royal household. When they got rid of the stately pedantry of

Caroline, and the smooth hypocrisy of her confidante,--when the gross

and formal monarch was shut out, and the younger portion of the court

were left to their own inventions, they seem to have enjoyed themselves

like children at play. There was a vast deal of flirtation, of course,

for this folly was as much the fashion of the time as rouge. But there

was also a great deal of verse writing, correspondence of all degrees of

wit, and now and then caricature with pencil and pen. Mary Lepell, in

one of those _jeux d' esprit_, described the "Six Maids of Honour" as

six volumes bound in _calf_.--The first, Miss Meadows, as mingled

satire, and reflection; the second as a _plain_ treatise on morality;

the third as a rhapsody; the fourth (supposed to be the future Lady

Pembroke) as a volume, neatly bound, of "The Whole Art of Dressing;" the

next a miscellaneous work, with essays on "Gallantry;" the sixth, a

folio collection of all the "Court Ballads." But there were some women

of a superior stamp in the court circle. One of those was Lady Sophia

Fermor, the daughter of Lady Pomfret, who seems to have been followed by

all the men of fashion, and loved by some of them. But, like other

professed beauties, she remained unmarried, until at last she accepted

Lord Carteret, a man twice her age. Yet the match was a brilliant one in

all other points, for Carteret was Secretary of State, and perhaps the

most accomplished public man of his time.

"Do but imagine," observes that prince of gossips, Horace Walpole, "how

many passions will be gratified in that family; her own ambition,

vanity, and resentment--love, she never had any; the politics,

management, and pedantry of her mother, who will think to govern her

son-in-law out of Froissart. Figure the instructions which she will give

her daughter. Lincoln, (one of her admirers) is quite indifferent, and

laughs."

While the marriage was on the _tapis_, the beautiful Sophia was taken

ill of the scarlet fever, and Lord Carteret of the gout. Nothing could

be less amatory than such a crisis. But his lordship was all gallantry;

he corresponded with her, read her letters to the Privy Council, and

tired all the world with his passion. At length both recovered, and the

lady had all the enjoyments which she could find in ambition. Carteret

obtained an earldom, lost his place, but became only more popular,

personally distinguished, and politically active. The Countess then

became the female head of the Opposition, and gave brilliant parties, to

the infinite annoyance of the Pelhams. For a while, she was the

"observed of all observers." But her career came to a sudden and

melancholy close. She had given promise of an heir, which would have

been doubly a source of gratification to her husband; as his son by a

former wife was a lunatic. But she was suddenly seized with a fever. One

evening, as her mother and sister were sitting beside her, she sighed

and said, "I feel death coming very fast upon me." This was their first

intimation of her danger. She died on the same night!

Walpole is the especial chronicler of this time. Such a man must have

been an intolerable nuisance in his day, but his piquant impertinence is

amusing in ours. He was evidently a wasp, pretending to perform the part

of a butterfly, and fluttering over all the court flowers, only to plant

his sting. As he was a perpetual flirt, he dangled round the Pomfret

family; and probably received some severe rebuke from their mother, for

he describes her with all the venom of an expelled _dilettante_.

He speaks of her as all that was prim in pedantry, and all that was

ridiculous in affectation; as, on being told of some man who talked of

nothing but Madeira, gravely asking, "What language that was;" and as

attending the public act at Oxford (on the occasion of her presenting

some statues to the University) in a box built for her near the

Vice-Chancellor, "where she sat for three days together, to receive

adoration, and hear herself for four hours at a time called Minerva." In

this assembly, adds the wit, in his peculiar style, "she appeared in all

the tawdry poverty and frippery imaginable, and in a scoured damask

robe," and wonders that "she did not wash out a few words of Latin," as

she used to _fricassee_ French and Italian; or, that "she did not

torture some learned simile," as when she said, that "it was as

difficult to get into an Italian coach, as it was for Caesar to take

Attica, by which she meant Utica."

But Lady Pomfret is said also to have employed her talents upon more

substantial things than pedantry. She had an early intercourse with the

immaculate Mrs Clayton, with whom she was supposed to have negotiated

the appointment of Lord Pomfret as master of the horse, for a pair of

diamond rings, worth L1,400. The rumour appears to have obtained

considerable currency; for one day when she appeared at the Duchess of

Marlborough's with the jewels in her ears, the Duchess (old Sarah) said

to Lady Wortley Montague, "How can the woman have the impudence to go

about _in that bribe_!" Lady Wortley keenly and promptly

answered,--"Madam, how can people know where wine is to be sold, unless

where they see the sign?"

Another of the curiosities of this court menagerie, was Katherine,

Duchess of Buckingham. She was a daughter of James the Second by

Katherine Sedley, daughter of the wit, Sir Charles. James, who with all

his zeal for popery was a scandalous profligate, and as shameless in his

contempt of decent opinion as he was criminal in his contempt for his

coronation oath; gave this illegitimate offspring the rank of a Duke's

daughter, and the permission to bear the royal arms! She found a husband

in the Earl of Anglesea, from whom she was soon separated; the earl

died, and she took another husband, John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham,

certainly not too youthful a bridegroom. The duke, always a wit, had

been in early life one of the most dissipated men of his day, and

through all the varieties and _vexations_ of a life devoted to pleasure,

had reached his 59th year. Yet, this handsome wreck, almost the last

relic of the court of Charles the Second, lived a dozen years longer,

and left the duchess guardian of his son.

His lordly dowager afforded the world of high life perpetual amusement.

Her whole life was an unintentional caricature of royalty. Beggarly

beyond conception in her private affairs, she was as pompous in public

as if she had the blood of all the thrones of Europe in her veins. She

evidently regarded the Brunswicks as usurpers, and hated them; while she

affected a sort of superstitious homage for the exiled dynasty, and gave

them--every thing but her money. She once made a sort of pilgrimage to

visit the body of James, and pretended to shed tears over it. The monk

who showed it, adroitly observed to her, that the velvet pall which

covered the coffin was in rags, but her sympathies did not reach quite

so far, and she would not take the hint, and saved her purse.

At the opera, she appeared in a sort of royal robe of scarlet and

ermine, and everywhere made herself so supremely ridiculous, that the

laughers called her Princess Buckingham. Even the deepest domestic

calamity could not tame down this outrageous pride. When her only son

died of consumption, she sent messengers to all her circle, telling

them, that if they wished to see him lie in state, "she would admit them

by the back stairs." On this melancholy occasion, her only feeling

seemed to be, her vanity. She sent to the Duchess of Marlborough to

borrow the triumphal car which had conveyed the remains of the great

duke to the grave. This preposterous request was naturally refused by

the duchess, who replied, "that the car which had borne the Duke of

Marlborough's dead body should never be profaned by another."

On her own deathbed, she declared her wish to be buried beside her

father James the Second. "George Selwyn shrewdly said, that to be buried

by her father, she need not be carried out of England," (she was

supposed to be actually the daughter of Colonel Graham.) When she found

herself dying, she carried on the melancholy farce to the last. She sent

for Anstis, the herald, and arranged the whole funeral ceremony with

him. She was particularly anxious to see the preparations before she

died. "Why," she asked, "won't they send the canopy for me to see? Let

them send it, even though the tassels are not finished." And finally,

she exacted from her ladies a promise, that if she became insensible,

they should not sit down in the presence of her body, till she was

completely dead!

Such things told in a romance, would be criticised for their

extravagance, but nothing is too extravagant for human nature. Reared in

folly, pampered with self-indulgence, and bloated with vanity, the

wholesome discipline of adversity would have been of infinite value to

this woman and her tribe. Six months in Bridewell, varied by beating

hemp, would have been the most fortunate lesson which she could have

received from society.

Another of those persons, yet more remarkable for her position in life,

was the second daughter of George II., the Princess Amelia. She was

supposed to have been attached to the Duke of Grafton; but remaining

single, and having nothing on the earth to do, she became a torment to

the King, the Court, and every body. Idleness is the vice of high life,

and discontent its punishment. The Princess became proverbial for

peevishness, sarcasm, and scandal. Of course, fashion took its revenge;

and where every one was shooting an arrow, some struck, and struck

deep. The Princess grew masculine in her manners, and coarse in her

mind. Her appointment as ranger in Richmond Park, one of those sinecure

offices which are scattered among the dependants of the throne, made her

enemies. Little acts of authority, such as stopping up pathways, brought

the tongues of the neighbouring population and gentry upon her, until

her royal highness had the vexation of seeing an action brought against

her. After some of the usual delays of justice, she had the

mortification of being beaten, and ultimately resigned the rangership.

From this period she almost disappeared from the public eye, yet she

survived till 1786, dying at the age of 71.

Mrs Clayton still held her quiet ascendancy, and her position was so

perfectly understood, that her interest seems to have been an object of

solicitation with nearly every person involved in public difficulties.

Of this kind was her intercourse with the three sons of Bishop Burnet,

all individuals of intelligence and accomplishment, but all in early

life struggling with fortune. The character of the bishop himself is

best known from his works: gossiping, giddiness, and imprudence in

taking every thing for granted that he had heard, but honesty in telling

it, belonged to the bishop as much as to his books. The chances of the

Revolution placed him in the way of preferment; chances, however, which,

if they had turned the other way, might have cost him his head. But he

was on the right side in politics, and not on the wrong side in

religion; and he won and wore the mitre in better style than any man of

his age. His oldest son, William, was educated as a barrister; he lost

his fortune in the South Sea bubble, and was sent to America as governor

of New York. Subsequently he was removed to Boston, with which he was

discontented, and after long altercations with the General Assembly of

the province, he died of a fever, probably inflamed by vexation.

Gilbert, the second son, was appointed chaplain to George I., was a man

of clear understanding, and exhibited his knowledge of courts by siding

with Hoadley. With all the distinctions of his profession opening before

him, he died young. Thomas, the third son, differed from both his

brothers, in the superiority of his talents, and the wildness of his

temper. The manners of the time were a mixture of vulgar riot and gross

indulgence. The streets were infested with ruffianism, and a society

among the young men of rank and education, which took to itself the name

of "The Mohocks," and whose barbarous habits were worthy of the name,

insulted alike public justice and endangered personal safety. Thomas

Burnet was said to have been engaged in some of their violences, though

he, perhaps, was not one of the "affiliated." It may be naturally

supposed, that those excesses grieved so distinguished a man as his

father; and it is equally to be supposed that they led to frequent

remonstrance. If so, they operated effectively at last.

One day the bishop, observing the peculiar gravity of his son's

countenance, asked, "On what he was thinking."

"On a greater work than your 'History of the Reformation.'--_My own_,"

was the answer.

"I shall be heartily glad to see it," said the father, "though I almost

despair of it."

It was undertaken, however, and vigorously pursued. The young _roue_

became a leading lawyer, and finally attained the rank of Chief-justice

of the Common Pleas. He died in 1753.

There is, perhaps, in public history, no more curious instance of the

power which circumstances may place in the hands of a private

individual, than the deference paid to Mrs Clayton. Her whole merit

seems to have been caution, a perpetual sense of the delicacy of her

position, and an undeviating deference to the habits, opinions, and

purposes of the Queen. Those were useful qualities, but not remarkable

for dignity, and rather opposed to personal amiability of mind. Yet this

cautious, considerate, and frigid personage, was all but worshipped by

the world of fashion, of talents, and of celebrity.

Among those worshippers was the man who did the most evil, and gained

the most renown, of any man of his generation. The wit, who eclipsed all

the witty pungency of France in his sportive sarcasm; all the libellers

of royalty in his scorn of thrones; and all the grave infidelity of

England, in his restless and envenomed antipathy to all religion--the

memorable Voltaire.

He was then only beginning his mischievous career, but he had already

made its character sufficiently marked to earn an imprisonment in the

Bastille, and, on his liberation, an order to quit Paris.

In England he occupied himself chiefly with literature; published his

"Henriade," for which he obtained a large subscription; wrote his

tragedy of "Brutus," his "Philosophical Letters," and other works.

At length he was permitted to return to that spot out of which a French

wit may be scarcely said to live; and kept up his intercourse with Mrs

Clayton by the following letter:

"_Paris, April_ 18, 1729.

"Madame,--Though I am out of London, the favours which your

ladyship has honoured me with, are not, nor ever will be, out of my

memory. I will remember, as long as I live, that the most

respectable lady, who waits, and is a friend to the most truly

great queen in the world, has vouchsafed to protect me, and receive

me with kindness while I was at London.

"I am just now arrived at Paris, and pay my respects to your Court,

before I see our own. I wish, for the honour of Versailles, and for

the improvement of virtue and letters, we could have here some

ladies like you. You see, my wishes are unbounded. So is the

respect and gratitude I am with, Madame, your most humble, obedient

servant,

"Voltaire."

We pass over a thousand triflings in the subsequent pages--the alarms of

court ladies for the loss of a royal smile, the sickness of a favourite

monkey, or the formidable "impossibility" of matching a set of old

china. Such are the calamities of having nothing to do. We see in those

pages instances of high-born men contented to linger round the court for

life, performing some petty office which, however, required constant

attendance on the court circle, and submitting, with many a groan, it

must be confessed, to the miserable routine of trivial duties and meagre

ceremonial, much fitter for their own footmen; while they left their own

magnificent mansions to solitude, their noble estates unvisited, their

tenantry uncheered, unprotected, and unencouraged by their residence in

their proper sphere, and finally degenerated into feeble gossips,

splenetic intriguers, and ridiculous encumbrances of the court itself.

Difficulty seems essential to the vigour of man. Difficulty seems

essential even to the vigour of nations. The old theory, that luxury is

the ruin of a state, was obviously untrue; for in no condition of the

earth could luxury ever go down to the multitude. But the true evil of

states is, the decay of the national activity, the chill of the national

ardour, the adoption of a trifling, indolent, vegetative style of being.

Into this life France had sunk, from the time of Louis XIV. Into this

life Germany had sunk, from the peace of Westphalia. Into this life

England was rapidly sinking, from the reign of Anne.

But the visitation came at last, at once to punish and to stimulate.

France, Germany, and England were plunged into war together; and fearful

as the plunge was, out of that raging torrent the three nations have

struggled to shore, refreshed and invigorated by the struggle. England

seems now to be entering on another career, more perilous than the

exigencies of war--a moral and intellectual conflict, in which popular

passions and rational principles will be ranged on opposite sides; and

the question may involve the final shape which government shall assume

in the British empire, or, perhaps, in the European world.

The characteristics of our time are wholly unshared with the past. In

calling up the recollections of the great ages of English change, we can

discover but slight evidence of their connexion with our own. To the

stately, but religious, aspect of the Republic of 1641, we find no

resemblance in the general features of our religious tolerance. To the

ardent zeal for liberty which marked the Revolution of 1688, we can find

no counterpart in the constitutional quietude of the present day. The

fiery ferocity of Continental Revolution has certainly furnished no

model to the professors of national regeneration, since the reform of

1830. And yet, a determination, a power and a progress of public change,

is now the acknowledged principle of the most active, indefatigable, and

unscrupulous portion of the mind of England.

And among the most remarkable and most menacing adjuncts of the crisis,

is the singular sense of inadequacy to resist its career, which seems to

paralyse the habitual defenders of the right cause. The consecrated

guardians of the church seem only to wait the final blow. The great

landholders in the peerage are contented with making protests. The

agricultural interest, the boast of England, and the vital interest of

the empire, has abandoned a resistance, too feeble to deserve the praise

of fortitude, and too irregular to deserve the fruits of victory. The

moneyed interest sees its gigantic opulence threatened by a

hundred-handed grasp; but makes no defence, or makes that most dangerous

of all defences, which calls in the invader as the auxiliary, bribes him

with a portion of the spoils, and only provokes his appetite for the

possession of the whole.

This condition of things cannot last. A few years, perhaps a few months,

will ripen the bitter fruit, which the meekness of undecided governments

has suffered to grow before their eyes. The Ballot, which offers a

subterfuge for every fraud; Extended Suffrage, which offers a force for

every aggression; the overthrow of all religious endowments, which

offers a bribe to every desire of avarice--above all that turning of

religion into a political tool, that indifference to the true, and that

welcoming of the false, in whatever shape it may approach, however

fierce and foul; however coldly contemptuous, or furiously fanatical,

however grim or grotesque, whose first act must be to trample all

principle under foot, and place on its altar the worship of the

passions;--those are the demands which are already made, and those will

be the trophies which the hands of political zealotry and personal

rapine, in the first hour of their triumph, will raise on the grave

where lies buried the Constitution.

Yet nothing is done by the natural defenders of the rights of

Englishmen. No leader comes forward; no new followers are to be found;

no banner is raised as the rallying point for the fugitives, already

broken. We see the approach of the evil, as the men of the old world

might have seen the approach of the Deluge; awaiting with folded hands,

and feet rooted to the ground, the surges which nothing could resist;

looking with an indolent despair at the mighty inundation, before which

the plain and the mountain alike began to disappear; and sullenly

submitting to an extinction, of which they had been long offered the

means of escape, and perishing, with the pledge of security floating

before their eyes.

We are by no means desirous of being prophets of public misfortune; but,

with the tenets publicly avowed, in the elections which have just

closed, with the strong popularity attached to the most daring opinions,

with thirty pledged _Repealers_ from Ireland, with the wildest doctrines

of trade advocated by the popular representatives in England, with sixty

subjects of the Pope sitting in a Protestant legislature, and with the

evident determination to bring into that legislature individuals (and

who shall limit their numbers, when its doors are once thrown open to

their wealth?) who pronounce Christianity itself to be an imposture,--we

can conjecture no consequences, however hazardous, which ought not to

present themselves to the soberest friend of his country. That the worst

consequences may not be inevitable, is only to hope in a higher

protection; that even out of the evil good may come, is not

unconformable to the ways of Providence; but that times are at hand in

which the noblest energy of English statesmanship will be required to

meet the conflict, we have no more doubt, than that the pilot who, in a

storm, uses neither compass nor sail, must run his ship on shore; or

that the man who walks about in clothes dipped in pestilence, will leave

his corpse as a testimony to the fact of the contagion.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] _Memoirs of Viscountess Sundon._ By Mrs THOMPSON. 2 Vols. Colburn.

ART IN THE EARLY CHRISTIAN AGES.[19]

From time immemorial the German universities have been regarded as the

seats of patient, persevering, indefatigable, but also unprofitable,

erudition. They have been the homes of men whose lives were one long day

of toil--a continual course of labour, the sole reward of which was a

secret consciousness of worth, and a fame, circumscribed it is true, yet

still spreading wide amongst the elect of science in all civilised

countries. Lost, not in the day-dreams of romance, but in the depths and

amongst the mazes of science, it was but seldom that these men of the

study and the library found leisure and nerve to escape from seclusion,

and to take their share of the duties of active life in which their less

reflective brethren were feverishly engaged. And when they attempted the

competition, their failure was signal. They presented an extraordinary

exhibition of awkward genius and blundering sagacity, and exposed

themselves at once to the painful ridicule of those whose calling and

pursuits taught them to prize mere worldly wisdom above all human lore.

Their country owes them a heavy debt of gratitude. Though little known,

they ought never to be forgotten. They were unpopular, but they worked

for the popularity of science. The results of their labours are not to

be looked for in their own creations, but must rather be traced in the

productions of their children's children. Generations to come will

acknowledge them for their lawful progenitors, nor will future ages lose

by confessing the obligations which they owe to so noble an ancestry. If

our task to-day is comparatively easy, it is because the men of whom we

speak never shrank from the difficulties attending theirs. We may smile

at the childish simplicity of Neander, but we deeply venerate the

profound erudition and the subtle discernment of that extraordinary

critic's mind. We may feel shocked at the clownish sallies of a

Blumenbach, the stinginess of Gesenius, and the rude manners of Ernesti.

But with the first, we connect vast realms in natural philosophy

unconquered before him; to the second, the student of Hebrew refers with

reverential affection and gratitude; whilst we know, that the burly

demeanour of the last could never hide the treasures of a Latin style,

which, for purity and power, competes with that of Tully, and like that

may well be compared to a precious sword, pure in metal, and as lasting

as it is flexible and cutting.

The greater number of those to whom we refer have long since passed from

the silence of their study to that of the grave. They have died as they

lived--poor and honoured. Of them all, there is scarcely one whose

departure was generally lamented; not one whose death was generally

known. For the bulk of mankind, they never existed. Their works,

unpalatable to the many, had always been the delight and instruction of

the few. Yet, let not their unpopularity be quoted against them. They

knew the extent of their mission. It was to collect and hoard bullion

for future coinage and circulation. They prepared the path along which a

whole nation was hereafter to travel. They were modest but meritorious

labourers, who built a massive and powerful foundation, that another age

might be left at ease to erect the brilliant superstructure.

That other age is here. The proud fane for which they cleared the way,

and saw as the prophet of old beheld the Land of Promise, is rising now

before us. In the author of the "History of the Fine Arts in the Early

Ages of Christianity," we greet a worthy follower of those great masters

whose works have somewhat rashly been pronounced more curious than

useful. Professor Gottfried Kinkel is a true disciple and no imitator.

He understands the period which has produced him. He knows its wants.

General diffusion of knowledge is its distinguishing feature. Science

leaves the closet to communicate her benefits to the forum. Neither the

centralisation of wealth, nor that of knowledge, can now secure a nation

against poverty and ignorance. People may starve, though the royal

coffers are bursting with their weight of gold; they may be ignorant,

though their chiefs luxuriate in the possession of unbounded knowledge.

Rapid circulation of the currency has been found to constitute national

wealth. A general diffusion of knowledge is the necessary condition of

civilisation. Poesy is no longer content to dwell at court. Chemistry

has chosen the path which Bacon pointed out to her; and whilst she has

found a new field of action, has been enriched by treasures of knowledge

hitherto concealed from her view. The sneering exclamation of Persius--

"Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter."

is the great truth and motto of this our century.

Even the universities of Germany have begun to popularise the results of

their laborious researches; although it cannot be said that they have

taken the lead of the age, we may at least affirm that they have gone

along with it. They have not lingered in the rear. They have adapted

their instruction and language to homely understandings, and have

increased rather than lessened their dignity by the condescension. They

have become more honoured and respected as the benefits of their labours

have grown more palpable to common sight; they have been more renowned

since the many have been permitted to appreciate the merits of the few.

Instruction itself has been more courted and made more welcome since it

took courage to cast aside its cumbrous wig and gown, and ventured to

appear before the world with the natural graces of pure humanity.

Professor Kinkel, to whom we owe the work whose title is placed at the

foot of the present article, is in every respect a specimen, and perhaps

a prototype, of the German professor of the nineteenth century. To the

deep and solid learning of a former generation, he adds the good taste

and social accomplishments indispensable in these more advanced times.

Thirteen years ago he was a student of theology in the university of

Bonn, and even at that period the extraordinary application and the

commanding faculties of the "studiosus Kinkel" had earned for him a

scholastic reputation, and won the respect of his fellow-students and of

the professors of the university. Indefatigable, then, in his

theological pursuits, he was the subject of general admiration on

account of the vast extent of his acquirements, and of the enthusiastic

interest with which he engaged in the sacred study of the fine arts. No

less general was the complaint that a mind so happily formed to range

through the boundless realms of philosophy, a genius so brilliant, a

soul so deeply imbued with a love of the beautiful and the great, should

be suffered to pine beneath the monotonous duties of a theological

professorship, and dissipate unparalleled energies in splitting the

straws of a controversy, or deciding the dusty quibbles of an antiquated

lore. At the close of his academical career, GOTTFRIED KINKEL was

admitted into the university as a licentiate in theology; but shortly

after his promotion, he quitted his native country, and was for some

years a wanderer amongst the splendid ruins of Italy. The treasures of

art which mock the nakedness of this ill-starred country were to him

what they are ever to the mind of the artist,--they revealed a new

world. Unlike many others, however, Kinkel was not bewildered by the

beauty which so suddenly burst upon his view. He was not surfeited. His

enthusiasm, tempered by the metallic reasoning of the Hegel school, was

closely allied with the subtlest criticism. His admiration was never an

obstacle to comparison. Whilst he admired he remembered: individual

faults or excellencies, he found to be reducible to common causes. His

conclusions he drew from the objects: he did not force the one upon the

other.

In like manner, and intent upon the same purpose, the theological

licentiate travelled through France, Belgium, and Holland; and when he

returned to Bonn, his spirit as well as his habits of life were more

than ever wedded to the critical contemplation of the results of the

creative faculty in the mind of man. The annual exhibitions of paintings

in Cologne, Duesseldorf, and Frankfort, found in him an indulgent and

impartial critic. His researches on the monuments of ancient sacred

architecture were at intervals published in _The Domban Blatt_, and

immediately secured the attention and regard of all antiquarians.

The cherished pursuits, however, were ill calculated to reconcile Kinkel

to his adopted profession. In 1845, the licentiate in theology doffed

his gown, and was forthwith appointed a professor of philosophy in the

university of Bonn. It is to his lectures in this capacity that we owe

the treatise on Art in the Early Christian Ages. This remarkable book

was written with the purpose of instructing the public mind, and of

enabling the many to participate in the intellectual enjoyment as yet

confined to a favoured few. Its objects were to vindicate the merits of

Christianity as a fosterer of the arts, and to encourage, all lovers of

art by opening new fields for exploration.

The productions of real art are the most universally instructive of all

creations. Nothing acts so powerfully on individual and national

character; nothing so beneficially. Wherever art has been without these

consequences, we may be sure that art was false. Its prophets were false

prophets. The assumption of charlatans, however, is no condemnation of

the art itself. The abuses of idolaters is no argument against religion.

M. Kinkel's introduction to the plan of his work has but one fault. It

is a national one. His mode of reasoning is conclusive; but the English

reader, less accustomed to metaphysical phraseology than his German

neighbours, will find some difficulty in grasping it. According to our

author, two conditions are necessary to true art, which he defines to be

"the incorporation of the spirit in a beautiful form." _Beauty_, then,

and _spirit_ are, the two conditions of true art. If one be wanting,

true art is likewise wanting. The spirit, separate from beauty of form,

may be religion and ethics--it can never be art. Beauty of form without

the spirit, is likewise not a work of art. It remains on a level with

matter; but the production of the artist soars higher. Hence true art is

capable of yielding more universal satisfaction both to the artist and

to the spectator than all other intellectual creations. The reason is

obvious. We express and meet with the two grand constituents of our

being; and, whilst other branches of knowledge are apter to separate

than to unite--whilst science is exclusive, and even religion herself is

sometimes productive of discord, true art asserts her right to be

regarded as the great Pantheon of mankind. No idea is _universal_

property unless expressed by art. Even the vast abyss which separates

the lower orders of men from the ranks above them is overcome by art,

for all are sensible of the joys which art produces. To know, therefore,

what and how the mind and hand of man have hitherto worked, is a

necessary, if it be not an indispensable, investigation and pursuit. "We

are not ambitious," says M. Kinkel, "to conquer fame by profound

hypotheses concerning things which, both by time and place, are indeed

far from us. It is not our object to look for art in its infancy amongst

nations which have long ceased to exist, nor shall we at once turn to

Greece and Rome. Our desire is to contemplate those creations, which

from their time and spirit are kindred to our feelings, and to speak of

that branch of art with which Christianity has been busy within the last

eighteen hundred years."

The author proceeds to point out the two grand directions in which all

original art branches off. It serves either religion or history. The

first productions of art were idols and monuments. Palaces, theatres,

paintings, are the work of progressive civilisation. Christian art has

one principal feature in common with pagan art,--its origin. They are

alike the offspring of religion. They are also similar in their

progress; they acquired an inclination towards history, and both have at

last taken a decided _realistic_ direction. But the vast difference

between Christian and antique art is no less palpable. The art of

antiquity was far more deeply imbued with the principle of nationality

than the former. Nations were isolated; each had its proper gods and its

peculiar history. The diversity of religion and of political

institutions engendered a difference of feeling. This civilised world of

ours, on the other hand, has a community of feeling, in as much as it

has one religion common to all. The Celtic, Sclavonian, and German

nations exhibit far greater diversities of origin and climate than the

inhabitants of Persia and India in ancient times; yet the artistic

productions of the former are more alike. Their religion furnishes one

point at which all meet, and in respect of which they are inseparable.

The prevalence of the ecclesiastical element in modern art, is, however,

liable to one great objection. For many years it served to exclude

historical art, which even in our own time has not attained so high a

perfection. It is true that Christianity makes amends in some degree for

the want of this historical development. A total absence of historical

facts is the great characteristic of the religions of antiquity. The Son

of David, on the contrary, is in himself the greatest of historical

facts. The Apostles are no mythical personages. The great men of Judaic

history, the family of our Saviour, and the people with whom he

conversed, all form one large group of historical personages, and

religion and history, formerly separated, are _here_ united. Christ on

the cross is an object of touching adoration, but he is also the

monument of the greatest event in the history of the world. But that

this is no national history is undeniable. Offspring of a foreign soil,

it had no connexion with the state.

The exclusively ecclesiastical character of early Christian art, is

another grand feature which at once destroys all analogy between this

art and the creations of pagan antiquity. In Hellenic paganism, we

behold the triumph of humanity. The human form in its most ideal beauty

is the type of all things divine. Christianity starts at once with the

peremptory condition of a renunciation of individual beauty and

strength. Christianity counted sensual beauty as nothing: she regarded

the mind alone. She permits the human form only as the incorporation of

some hidden thought divine. In the one instance, the _form_ was all in

all; in the other, it is the _expression_. The heathen delighted in

naked bodies, for every single part might convey the sensation of

beauty. The face sufficed for Christian art, as solely expressive of

divine beauty. And since the adopted Jewish custom excludes nudity in

life, it must needs die in art. In the new order of things, sculpture is

lost, and painting is better adapted to the narrow limits of early

Christian art.

Upon the question whether this fear of the world, as exhibited in the

rejection of the world's material forms, be truly the character of real

Christianity, Professor Kinkel answers with a decided negative. He

rather favours the opinion of those who hold the fear and hate of the

world which distinguished the early Christian ages, to have been founded

on an erroneous comprehension of the doctrine and example of the great

Founder, who, as far as we are able to learn, facilitated the creation

of real art. The misconception, so fatal to the civilising influence of

art, M. Kinkel, explains by reminding us of the fears of idolatry, so

justly entertained by Christianity in its first existence, of the

oppression and persecution which the early church experienced, and of

the natural desire entertained by the oppressed, to be as little like

the oppressors as possible.

The extreme opinions, however, could not last. They began with the fury

of persecution, and they died with it. An earnest admiration of the

beautiful is implanted deeply in the soul of man for noble purposes,

which Providence will not suffer to be thwarted. Mistaken notions of

duty, religious zeal maddened by oppression, for a time clouded the

faculty amongst the early Christians, but it soon burst forth again.

Faint at first in its appearance, it gained strength with every passing

lustre; and however sweeping the condemnation pronounced by early

believers against vain signs and images expressive of the objects of

this fleeting world, the voices of the cursers gradually hushed, and the

mind of man, asserting its prerogative, was active again with new and

regenerated power. The history of civilisation must needs count by

centuries, and it took ages to effect the transition. From our present

lofty and unprejudiced height, from that height at which modern art

strives to emulate that of antiquity, it may not be wholly uninstructive

to look back towards the first trembling attempts of the early Christian

people.

It would appear that the first attempts of the early Christians were of

a symbolical and allegorical kind. The same figures, with little or no

variation, were constantly repeated to express ideas which, whilst they

led the thoughts of the believer into the channel which to him appeared

most satisfactory, were mere forms, and void of meaning to pagan eyes.

Chief amongst these was the Cross, but without the body of Christ

affixed to it. The crucifix is an invention of the seventh century. In

the beginning, the Cross did not expose the Christians to suspicion, for

it was known to many religions of antiquity. The nations of Egypt adored

the cross as a sign of their salvation, since they placed it in the

hands of one of their idols as a key to the annual flux of the Nile. The

Persian worshippers of Mithras considered the cross a sacred symbol.

When pagan persecution finally discovered the exclusive and peculiar

signification of the sign amongst the Christians, the latter ingeniously

contrived forms of the cross translatable by the eyes of the elect

alone. To these, the image of a flying bird was a cross; the human

figure in a swimming attitude was the same thing, and so also the

cross-trees of a sailing ship; the letters Alpha and Omega are seen

frequently engraved at the extremities of these disguised emblems in

remembrance of Revelation, i. 8. Doves, ships, lyres, anchors, fishes

and fishermen, are recommended by Clemens Alexandrinus, as the most

fitting objects for Christians to contemplate, and for representation on

seals. Amongst other symbols we find the seven-branched chandelier,

though originally a Jewish sign, employed as a type of our Saviour, who

calls himself (John, viii. 12.) the "light of the world." A wreath of

flowers was expressive of the crown of life. A pair of scales, in

remembrance of the last judgment, and a house, have been occasionally

discovered on ancient grave-stones; and once, a simple _curriculum_ has

been traced with the pole thrown backwards and a whip leaning against

it,--an unmistakable allusion to a departure for that place where "the

weary are at rest." Amongst plants, the olive, the vine, and the palm

were favourite symbols, the latter being generally reserved for the

grave-stones of martyrs. Birds, too, are frequently met with on the

walls of houses: the phoenix and the peacock being emblems of

immortality. The fable of the phoenix is minutely told by Clemens

Romanus; but the common superstition which ascribes imputrescibility to

the flesh of the latter, easily rendered this bird a symbol of the

resurrection of the body. Saint Augustine is said to have subjected this

peculiar quality of the peacock's flesh to a practical test. He ordered

one to be roasted, and at the close of a twelvemonth requested it to be

served up. Tradition does not inform us whether he ate it, and with what

appetite.

The dove occurs more frequently than any other bird. Two doves bearing

olive branches, are seen on Christian grave-stones in the Cologne

museum, and on the _porta nigra_ at Treves. The meaning of the sign of a

fish will not readily occur: but the frequency of its appearance

establishes its character as a secret mark of recognition. It was used

to signify both Christ and his church. Of quadrupeds we find the

stag,[20] the ox,[21] the lion,[22] and the lamb,[23] constantly in

connexion with the cross. The lion and the lamb are typical of Christ.

The transition to his representation in human form is rendered by two

figures, which, whilst human, are still symbolical. In the catacombs of

Saint Calintus, in the Via Appia at Rome, Christ is discovered in the

character of Orpheus, whilst at other places he is represented as a

shepherd.

Two paintings were found in Herculaneum, and may at present be seen in

the Museo Borbonico at Naples, which are of undoubted Christian origin,

and present a curious specimen of Christian art in the first century.

Each of these two paintings is divided into an upper field, and into a

lower smaller one. The smaller field of one of them is destined to

expose the folly and corruption of paganism, and Egyptian mythology is

selected for the purpose. We behold temples. In front of one of them

stands a statue of Isis; another is devoted to Anubis the dog-god: two

figures of crocodiles lie stretched across the entrance. On the left, we

see a live crocodile waiting for its prey amongst the bulrushes: an ass

is in the act of walking into the open mouth of the monster, in spite of

the efforts of the driver, who vainly endeavours to pull the animal back

by its tail. This might be intended to satirize some Roman pagan, were

it not for the counterpart. To the right, and immediately opposite the

idolatries on the field already spoken of, we see a well into which a

rope is being lowered, whilst a naked man, standing by, is seeking to

cover himself. An allusion is here made to fishing and baptism. On the

left, the crocodile of the former picture is again met with, but a

warrior with lance and shield advances with the view of slaying it. In

the middle of the painting a net is spread between two trees, and behind

it, and in direct opposition to the Isis on the pagan picture, we behold

a tall and erect cross. The upper fields harmonise with the lower. The

Christian painting displays a vigorous and stately tree between two

younger palm-trees; the pagan picture has the same symbols; but the

middle tree is in the sere and yellow leaf, whilst a Dryad issuing from

the roots flourishes an axe to cut it down. The allusion is not to be

mistaken. The sun of paganism has set: the axe is already at the root.

The greater number of the symbols named, however rich they may be in

thought, are sadly deficient in form, and we can discover but little

progress in this respect from the origin of Christianity to the time of

Constantine. Architecture, and especially ecclesiastical architecture,

may be said to be the only branch of the fine arts which was

successfully cultivated, and architecture itself was insignificant for

three centuries subsequently to the birth of Christ. Painting and

sculpture could elude cruelty and take refuge beneath the cloak of

symbols: but churches could not be masked. It was difficult to hide

them. In the earliest periods of Christianity, too, their absence was

not seriously felt; people prayed where they thought proper. Scripture

tells us that the apostles taught in the temple of Jerusalem.

Christianity, a sect of Judaism in its origin, dwelt for a long time in

the synagogues. Wherever St Paul came, he preached first in the Jewish

schools. In times of persecution, the believers sought refuge in the

catacombs. They assembled in the solitude of forests to pray and to

exhort one another. When the Jews opposed themselves to the new creed,

congregations met in the houses of the more wealthy. The apartment

usually employed for divine purposes is supposed to have been the

triclinium, or large dining-room of the richer classes amongst the

Greeks and Romans. The want of churches was first experienced when

frequent conversions swelled congregations beyond the limits of a large

family; and this, as we have hinted, occurred in the course of the third

century. The existence of a church expressly devoted to Christian

worship in the reign of the Emperor Severus Alexander, has been proved

beyond a doubt. It was a reign remarkable for its spirit of toleration.

The Christians were suffered to hold offices in the state, in the army,

and even at court. Churches rose rapidly under the mild light of

toleration. Even in the western provinces of the empire, in Gaul, Spain,

and Britain, we meet with churches erected at the commencement of the

fourth century. In Nicomedia also, under the very eyes of Diocletian, a

church was built that surpassed in splendour the very palace of the

Emperor. The army of Diocletian destroyed the holy building in the last

grand persecution. It was the last convulsive effort of paganism in its

agony.

No particulars of these churches have come down to us. Of that in

Nicomedia we know nothing, save that it was splendid. None had, we are

inclined to suppose, any fixed style. The style of the original

triclinium in which believers first congregated, was, in all likelihood,

imitated. Even in private houses, these triclinia were magnificently

adorned. The walls were ornamented with rows of lofty columns, and where

the Egyptian style prevailed, two rows of columns were constructed, one

above the other; an effect of this last arrangement was the formation of

a two-storied passage between the walls and the columns. In the

beginning of the tenth century, Pope Leo III. constructed a dining-room

after this fashion. We may fairly conclude that nothing grand or

extraordinary in architecture was attempted in a period of great trouble

and poverty. The real glory of Christian architecture dates from the

reign of Constantine. Christianity, legalised by him, might venture to

display her rites and her art. Under the government of Constantine the

church was enriched. He endowed it with the spoils of defeated and

expiring paganism. In the third century, the church of Rome, when

summoned to yield its treasures, produced its poor as the only treasures

it possessed. In the fifth century, that same church appointed a

clerical commission to watch over and inspect its possessions in foreign

countries.

The change of circumstances was not without a great and lasting

influence. Paganism threatened no more. It was conquered. No further

danger was to be apprehended from the departed religion of a gloomier

age. The clerical profession, warmed and nourished by the rays of

imperial favour, was soon effectually distinguished from the crowd of

laymen which surrounded it. The desire to render this separation

systematic and all-pervading was too natural to slumber for any length

of time, and the absence of an order of architecture peculiar to the

ministers of the new religion came to be severely felt. Rank and wealth

have ever delighted in drawing towards them the eyes of the world. The

worldliness and splendour of the church have been long the subject of

violent animadversion. But how could it be otherwise? From the moment

that Christianity became a favoured creed, conversions were rapid and

frequent; but not all the neophytes converted in form, had undergone a

similar change of spirit. Millions flocked through the open gates of the

church. To teach all, before they entered, was an impossibility. If

there was time to _awe_, that was something. If general conviction was

out of the question, universal respect was easily attainable. The

charms, the sensual enjoyments of the pagan altars, were once more

offered to the heathen. The smoke of incense filled the church; the

spoils of antiquity adorned its roofs and columns; the robes of the

clergy were covered with gold; the rites of the church delighted in

colours. But decoration and ornament alone were borrowed from paganism.

The temples of the heathen could not be copied in form: they could not

serve the purposes of Christian worship.

The destination of the temple was different from that of the church. The

temple was the house of an idol: limited in extent, it received

sufficient light through the open door. The rites of paganism were

performed in the colonnade surrounding the temple, not in the temple

itself, and the crowd of spectators stood beyond the limits of the

sacred building. The sanctuary of Pandrosus at Athens, admits only of a

few persons; and even the temple of Athenae is not to be compared for

size with our modern churches. The Christian religion is essentially

didactic. It requires space for its hearers and disciples. But its

sacraments were mysteries, and none but the elect were admitted to them.

Thus, it was necessary to separate true believers from the bulk of the

congregation. No buildings were so happily adapted to this double

purpose as the houses of public justice and traffic, which, originally

of Grecian origin, had arrived at a high state of perfection in the

Roman empire. The most ancient of such houses--called Basilika--stood in

Athens at the foot of the Pnyx. It was in such a building that Socrates

appeared before his judges, and Christ was judged by Pilate. In the

history of art, we trace the workings of omnipresent Nemesis. The sign

of curse and infamy--the cross--has for centuries graced the banners of

humanity. The Basilikon in which Christ was condemned, has lent its form

to the churches in which his name is adored.

Whilst the groundwork of the Basilikon remained unchanged, Christian art

added steeples and cupolas to increase the solemnity of the impression.

The most perfect building of the kind is, without doubt, the church of

Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. For chastity and purity of style, it can

never be surpassed. The numerous churches erected by ostentation and

devotion in basilikon form are all inferior to that incomparable temple.

Many, it is true, have been disfigured, robbed, and half-burned; but

their faults are not accidental. The greater number were built at a time

when Pagan art, their prototype, had sunk very low indeed. Moreover,

since the days of Constantine, Pagan temples had fallen into disuse.

They stood deserted, and were suffered to crumble away beneath the

influences of neglect and time. Christian builders took all they wanted

from the ruins; a fragment from this temple, a block from that. Ionian

and Corinthian columns were placed in the same line. If a pillar was too

long for its companion, it was shortened without reference to its

diameters or form. Columns of different stones were jumbled together in

a row. Thus, amongst a number of columns of purple granite in the church

of Ara Celi at Rome we discover two Ionian columns of white marble. In

Saint Peter's, granite and Parian and African marbles are grouped

together without the smallest attempt at harmony or adaptation. San

Giovanni in Porta Laterana boasts ten columns of five different kinds of

stone.

A more interesting employment cannot be found than that of watching the

slow and cautious progress of ancient painting and sculpture in

connexion with Christianity. The slowness is indeed remarkable, when we

reflect upon the high perfection which these arts had generally attained

even during the reigns of the first emperors. Christianity dealt far

differently with painting and sculpture, than with architecture. In the

latter, the Pagan form was adopted and improved; but with respect to the

former, she made a _tabula rasa_, and descended to the rudest efforts of

daubing and carving. The shapes, both of men and animals, were awkward,

cumbrous, and unnatural; every part was out of proportion, and the most

solemn scenes acquired a ludicrous grotesqueness. But the strangest

phenomenon is, that Pagan art itself, of its own accord, descended to as

low a level. The productions of Paganism in the time of Constantine were

altogether as barbarous as the clumsy attempts of the untutored hands of

Christianity. The new religion had created a new world. The forms of the

old might indeed survive for a time, but its spirit was gone. Paganism

was a corpse. Altars might be crowned with garlands, sacrifice might be

offered to the gods: but all in vain. A voice came forth from an island

in the AEgean Sea; a voice of sorrow and complaint, but of truth also. It

wailed the death of the great Pan. The mighty were indeed fallen, and so

vast was the gulf between Paganism in the days of Titus, and Paganism in

those of Constantine, that the creations of the former period could be

no lesson to the idolaters of the latter. These clung to the worship of

a departed age, but in spite of themselves. The new and mighty river of

thought swept them onward, and carried them on to the very same parting

point from which Christian art was struggling for perfection.

Christian art started with one grand error. It was warring for ever

against itself. In portraying the world, it hated it. Of all its

creations, there is not one which can be said to be really beautiful;

the effusions of symbolical enthusiasm are without all plastic truth.

Ideas were incorporated, but they did not prove men with flesh and

blood. The paintings and carvings were hieroglyphics. The same figure

expressed the same idea, and the idea once expressed, there was no

desire to extend the circle of figures or to alter their wretched

appearance. The same uncouth forms return with a killing monotony.

Centuries do not change them. The uniformity of monastic life by no

means tended to relax the inflexibility of invention. Religion, not art,

was the sculptor's or the painter's object; his production was a

creation of faith, not of beauty. Such is the character of almost all

the carvings in wood and stone which have been found in the catacombs of

Rome and Naples.

Christianity has the great merit of having discovered the poesy of the

grave. From the outset it abhorred the Pagan custom of burning the dead,

and faithful to its Jewish origin, and mindful perhaps of Christ's

burial, it renewed the old Roman custom of interring the departed. This

was the origin of the catacombs. The early Christians loved to be

deposited with, or near the Martyrs, and grounds for burial capable of

receiving a large number of the dead were wholly wanting. The population

of Rome, Naples, Alexandria, and Syracuse was so great, that there was

scarcely room enough for the living. To find new receptacles for the

dead became an urgent necessity. It is true, that digging into the

bowels of the earth for the purpose of entombing the bodies of the dead

was no new operation. Egypt and Etruria had in their time set the

example. The one idea of immortality, led to similar results in

different creeds. The early Christians found their cities of the dead

already prepared for them. Paris, in our own time, stands upon a soil

which is hollowed throughout. The limestone upon which Paris stands was

taken from beneath to supply the wants of the builders. Rome, in like

manner, has a second and subterraneous town of vast extent, with its

streets and squares in endless number. Nor is it without its

inhabitants. In this town did Christians seek refuge from Pagan

persecution, and here did they likewise inter their dead. The caves and

passages were not dug by Christian hands, but were discovered already

made. They date from the last century of the republic, when the clay

upon which Rome stands, was required by the mania then raging for

extensive and magnificent structures. The Christians took possession of

the hollows and enlarged them; the work was by no means difficult, for

the clay was soft and plastic.

It was after the time of Constantine that the catacombs came into more

general use. Martyrs were more revered subsequently to the reign of this

Emperor than before it, for martyrdom became less easy of achievement.

The chief martyrs had found a resting-place in the catacombs. Churches

rose above their remains, from which secret and sacred doors led into

the City of the Dead, the cemetery of the saints. It was at the period

to which we refer that the regularly formed spacious catacombs were

first fashioned--a fact established by the date of the coffins, all of

which belong to a time later than that of the Emperor Constantine. The

wealthier members of the community constructed small chapels in the

catacombs for the reception of the bodies of their relations and

friends. These chapels are for the most part situated at the crossing of

passages or at the end of them, in which latter case the chapel forms

the termination of one particular passage. They are most important as

indices to the development of art. Besides the curious character and

beauty of the architecture, they afford specimens of the most ancient

grave paintings that we know of. Their walls and ceilings are covered

with a thin crust of gypsum, upon which the colours were laid. Not

unfrequently we find ornaments of stucco and marble. Altars and stone

seats, too, are found in these chapels. An astonishing number of

skeletons have been discovered in the passages by which the chapels are

connected: it was not the custom, as now, to bury the dead beneath the

floor and to cover the grave with a stone slab. The bodies were placed

in niches of from three to six feet in length. Sometimes four and six

together, one above the other. The corpse of a departed brother was

thrust into one of these niches; a lamp and some tool, explanatory of

the trade he had followed in life, were placed beside him, and then the

aperture was walled up, and lastly covered with a thin marble slab,

bearing an inscription and the particulars of the life and death of the

departed.

Church service was frequently performed in the catacombs, yet not in the

days of persecution. It was after Constantine that these tombs were used

for such a purpose. On Sabbath days they were open to the public and

were much visited. Devotion, love for departed relatives, and mere

curiosity, carried vast numbers to these silent halls. Saint Jerome,

tells us of his having often explored them with his comrades whilst he

was still a student in Rome; and he lived some three hundred and fifty

years after the death of Christ. The catacombs were but badly lighted at

first, light being admitted by a few apertures only in the roofs of the

chapels. At a later period, great care was taken to prevent visitors

losing their way amidst the labyrinth of passages. The guardianship of

the catacombs was confided to a certain body of the clergy, who went

under the name of _fossores_, or grave-diggers. It was their office to

inspect the chapels and passages, to point out the places where new

passages might be formed, and to portion out and sell the spots in which

burials might take place. The water in the wells of the catacombs was

subsequently found to possess the virtue of healing to a marvellous

degree. Nay, even the use of the drinking-cups found in the catacombs

was sufficient to cure several diseases.

In later days, many of the catacombs were opened, and a vast number of

curious and interesting objects brought to light. Not the least valuable

amongst these objects were the paintings and carvings to which we have

above adverted, and which throw some light upon the history of the

portraiture of the great Founder of our religion. Still in the great

bulk of the subjects represented the symbolical prevails; and since the

earliest masters were for a long time forbidden, by a pious awe, from

producing the figure of Christ, we find in the more ancient carvings a

decided preference given to the Old Testament over the New. Noah's ark,

Abraham sacrificing his son, Moses taking off his shoes upon receiving

the tablets of the law, the destruction of Pharaoh, and the miracle of

the water starting from the rock--in short, all the subjects of our

modern illustrated Bibles are of frequent occurrence in these ancient

houses of the dead, and one and all are intended to represent the

mission and person of Christ. The suffering of Christ, in the

delineation of which the masters of later times have so much delighted,

formed no subject for the artist in the earliest selections from the

history of the New Testament. The controversy in the temple, the entry

into Jerusalem, and the most celebrated of the miracles, were subjects

that better suited the ancient master's pencil. The infancy of Christ

was an inexhaustible subject to a later age. The Nestorian controversy

brought the religious pretensions of the Holy Virgin to an issue; and

after the church in the fifth century had bestowed upon Mary the title

of Mother of God, artists took pleasure in representing her either as

lying-in, or as holding the babe in her arms. The Eastern Kings are not

unfrequently found in the Virgin's company. M. Kinkel presumes that the

number of these wise men was first determined by the early masters, who

in all probability conferred the royal dignity upon them. Holy Writ does

not inform us that these personages were kings, and in the more ancient

carvings, they wear ordinary Phrygian caps. At a later period, and no

doubt inadvertently, these caps were changed into crowns. The four

evangelists are constantly represented either as four rolls of papyrus,

or as four fountains issuing from a hill beneath the feet of Christ.

When seen in the guise of the four apocalyptical animals, they belong to

a later period. The apostles also are found on ancient coffins,

surrounding Christ, at whose left side Peter is placed, whilst Paul

stands on his right. They all wear sandals tied with ribbon to their

feet. Some paintings represent scenes of early Christian life, the

sacred rites of the Church, and the love-feasts of the first Christians.

Wherever our Saviour is found he is represented by two types. In the

earliest paintings of the catacombs he appears as a beardless youth:

this type of the Saviour was produced under the influence of antique

art. The second and later type bears those oriental features which have

been transmitted by sacred painting even to our own time. The features

of the second face so closely resemble those of the first that the early

theologians do not hesitate to proclaim them exact copies of the

original. "Christ was well proportioned," says John of Damascus in the

eighth century; "his fingers were slender, his nose mighty, and the

eyebrows joined above the same; his hair was very curly, his beard

black, and the colour of his face like his mother's,--viz. yellowish,

like unto wheat." Later western writers change the colour of the beard

and hair from black to blond. Both hair and beard are parted in the

middle. There are two pictures of Christ thus represented, one in the

cemetery of S. Calintus, and another in that of S. Ponziano. The former

is partly, the latter wholly dressed. In both, the features are strongly

marked, and the eyes are very large; the right hand is placed on the

breast, whilst the left holds a book.

Apocryphal pictures ascribed to Saint Luke have asserted a considerable

influence upon the traditions concerning the portrait of Christ. The

same has happened in the instance of the Virgin Mary, although her type

is far from attaining the degree of stability which we find in the

representations of her divine son. The fathers, however, are unanimous

in their opinion that the face of Mary bore a strong resemblance to that

of our Saviour. She is seldom found in the Catacombs, but frequently in

the Mosaic work of churches dedicated to her worship, and on Byzantine

coins from the tenth century forwards. The face is oval, similar to that

of a youthful matron of ancient Rome, and carrying always the expression

of a calm benignity. The head is covered with a veil and surrounded by a

nimbus. Next to Mary and her Son, Peter and Paul, the chief apostles of

the Pagan and Judaic world, are most frequently represented. They were

both objects of devotion, even to those who still lingered without the

pale of Christianity. The Mosaics display them more frequently than the

Catacombs. Their type is not fixed; although Peter may at times be known

by his curly hair and beard, whilst the bald forehead and the pointed

fashion of the beard render Paul at once recognisable. The other

apostles, as well as the personages of the Old Testament, have not grown

into individuality, and lack the distinguishing features by which sacred

and historical characters of antiquity become objects of real life, and

are rendered familiar to the most distant ages.

The most ancient Mosaic works of the Christian era are to be found in

the mausoleum of Constantine. The subject is strictly symbolic. It is

the vine, with birds perched on the branches and angels collecting the

grapes. One of the tendrils encompasses the head of Constantine. The

forms of the angels show a near affinity to Pagan art. Another great

Mosaic work, more ecclesiastical in thought and execution, was promoted

by Pope Sixtus III. in 443. It consists of historical representations

from the Old and New Testaments, and ornaments the space below the

windows of the Maria Maggiore. The costumes, the helmets, and cuirasses

resemble those of ancient Rome; but where priests and Levites appear,

the oriental character is followed. The composition is poor, and the

human figures are rude and awkward. That little regard is paid to

perspective is not a matter of surprise. Antique art is guilty of the

fault. It would be difficult for any Mosaic work to overcome the

difficulties which present themselves in the active scenes of real life

and history. The Mosaics in the triumphal arch of the Church of St Paul

create a favourable impression, simply because they confine themselves

to that narrow and more suitable sphere, in which alone the Mosaic art

can look to be successful.

The study of the period of Christian art, treated of and exemplified in

Professor Kinkel's book, though apparently unprofitable to the artist,

is full of interest to the curious observer, and to one who has pleasure

in beholding the development of the human mind under the most varied

circumstances. We have read the volume of the learned and accomplished

professor with infinite satisfaction, and we can safely recommend it to

the perusal of the student and the man of letters. The history of art,

in the early stages of Christianity, is the history of intellectual

cultivation in the most extraordinary period of the world's history. The

state of the world during the first centuries after the departure of

Christ, was essentially exceptional. It had never been; it never will be

again. Art and civilisation were weighed and were found wanting--a new

idea visited the earth and conquered it--old arts drooped and died:

civilisation degenerated at once into barbarism; whilst a new art and a

new civilisation, with the light of Heaven upon them, were already

preparing to claim the dominion over future centuries.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] _Geschichte der bildenden Kuenste bei den Christlichen Voelkern_. Von

GOTTFRIED KINKEL.

[20] Psalm xlii. 1.

[21] 1 Cor. ix. 9.

[22] Rev. v. 5.

[23] John, i. 29, and Rev. v. 6.

THE PORTRAIT.

A TALE: ABRIDGED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF GOGOL. BY THOMAS B. SHAW.