Why the last verse of “Conversion” is condemned, even by so tender a

conscience as that of our editor, it is impossible to conceive.

“Jesus, Mary, love, and peace”

sang Father Faber in “The Work of Grace”;

“Jesus, _mercy_, love, and peace”

sings his self-appointed editor.

In “Forgiveness of Injuries,” the very title of which might have

caused him to pause, a happy specimen of his peculiar art and animus

is given. Father Faber’s first verse read

“Oh! do you hear that voice from heaven—

Forgive and you shall be forgiven?

No angel hath a voice like this;

Not even Mary’s song of bliss

From off her throne can waft to earth

A promise of such priceless worth.”

In the Protestant version only the first two lines appear; the other

four are taken from the second verse; the remainder of which, with the

rejected four of the first verse, are thrown away altogether.

Here an examination which might be prolonged indefinitely may as well

end. The reader may judge for himself whether the word “mutilation”—a

grave word to use—is misapplied in this instance. Selections, of

course, may be taken from a man’s works in these days, though we

should say not without permission from the author or from those

empowered to grant it. But that such permission should be extended to

hacking a man right and left, distorting his words, spoiling his

verses, studiously making him say just what he does not say,

persistently making him dishonor those whom he most honors—strange

indeed must be the conscience which can interpret the widest

permission thus! We need not refer to the glowing love of Father Faber

for the Blessed Virgin. It was no vague aspiration after some ideal

being, existing or not existing in a remote state. It was a vital

reality to him. The Blessed Virgin was near him always. To her he

turned with the love and confidence of a child, as to no imaginary

mother, at all times. Her name was ever on his lips, as her love was

in his heart. It was natural, then, that all his writings, but above

all his hymns, should bubble over with the love that was ever welling

upwards from the very depths of his being. Yet this man, pursued

apparently by hatred of the Mother of Jesus, and thinking to honor the

Son by dishonoring the Mother, follows her up and hunts her from the

pages of one so devoted to her, wherever it was possible to do so.

Further comment on a man who can commit so dishonest an act, in the

name too of religion, is unnecessary. As for the publishers who can

lend themselves to such unworthy work, we leave them to their own

reflections.

We have no desire to take this as characteristic of our Protestant

friends generally, particularly of the Protestant Episcopal section of

them. But there is too much of such dishonest practice. _The Following

of Christ_; the _Devout Life_, by St. Francis de Sales; the _Memorial

of a Christian Life_, by Father Lewis of Granada; the _Spiritual

Combat_, and all Father Avrillon’s works, have been tampered with in

the same manner and by the same set of zealous Christians. Is it too

much to detect in this the old spirit that gave us what is known as

the King James version of the Bible, and that is content to let

centuries of great Christian faith go by, for the purpose of claiming

a fancied union with that of the earlier centuries, basing the claim

on distorted extracts from the works of a few great writers?

GERTRUDE MANNERING: A Tale of Sacrifice. By Frances Noble.

London: Burns & Oates. 1875. (For sale by The Catholic

Publication Society.)

One begins to grow shy of “tales of sacrifice” written by Catholic

authors. They are so very like one another that the maxim _Ex uno

disce omnes_ is nowhere more applicable than to them. Given the

characters and their relations one to another, and a very limited

amount of experience will enable the reader to sketch out the story

faithfully enough for himself without going to the trouble of reading

the book. _Gertrude Mannering_, though bearing a strong family

likeness to her sisters, and beginning in the orthodox fashion—in the

convent, of course—improves upon acquaintance, and leaves the reader

with the impression that the hand which fashioned her is capable of

much better work. It is useless to sketch the story, which is a short

one and of simple enough construction. Its defects are of the usual

order, though in a less degree than ordinarily. There is too much

pious “talk,” in season and out of season. When will our Catholic

story-writers learn this first lesson of fiction: that a little of

such talk goes a very long way? Even inquiring Protestants are not

likely to be moved profoundly by the tremendous arguments of a girl of

sixteen or seventeen just out of a convent, while Catholics yawn as

soon as they appear, and either skip the pages that contain them or

close the book. Then, again, Gerty blushes a little too often, even

for a convent girl. The color rises in her cheeks more or less deeply

at almost every other page. One grows rather tired, too, of the

frequent mention of “the pale, proud face” of the “haughty Stanley”

and his “splendid intellect.” These, to be sure, are the ordinary

attributes of lady novelists’ heroes, but, at least, the last quality

might be judiciously omitted, unless excellent grounds are given for

it. A “splendid intellect” is no doubt a very good thing to have, as

is also a “pale, proud face” in its way; but when the “splendid

intellect” only shows itself in rather commonplace observations, such

as persons with no pretension at all to so rare a gift would use, the

effect is not quite satisfactory.

One more objection we must make, and a serious one. The sacrifice

around which the story turns is by no means to be commended and would

have been better omitted. Young ladies, even young ladies whose love

has been crossed, can easily find something far better to do with

their lives than to offer them to God for the soul of some young

gentleman whom they are particularly anxious to convert. Martyrdom for

the faith is one thing; but the picture of a young lady, who cannot

conscientiously marry a young infidel, offering her life to God for

his conversion, is quite another thing. One is tempted to ask how much

the “pale, proud face” and the “splendid intellect” of the “haughty

Stanley” had to do with so tremendous a sacrifice in the present

instance. Gerty might have done him, and herself, and her reader much

more good by living than by dying for him, as did that practical

patriot when the cause of his country seemed lost.

We have noticed this story at some length because the writer, whose

name meets us for the first time, seems, as already hinted, to give

promise of much better work. Lady Hunter is a well-drawn character.

So, apart from the excessive tendency to blush and “talk pious,” is

Gerty. The “haughty Stanley” is rather a conventional hero, which,

perhaps, is only natural in days when so many young men lay claim to

“splendid intellects.” The scene between Gerty and Stanley, where love

and duty on the one side, and love and pride on the other, contend for

mastery, is drawn with genuine power, while the end is indeed touching.

THE SCHOOL QUESTION: CATHOLICS AND EDUCATION. 1 vol. 8vo,

pp. 200. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

The republication of the various essays on education which have from

time to time appeared in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, treating this

all-important subject from widely different points of view, presenting

a great variety of style and method as well as of authorship, will, we

are confident, be welcomed by the reading Catholic public as

especially opportune at the present moment, when the questions here

discussed enter so largely into all our social, theological, and

political controversies.

Though the subject of education is much talked of and written about,

it is rarely carefully examined or seriously studied. We have

ourselves been made to blush more than once by the ignorance on this

point of even intelligent Catholics. Self-respect, one would think,

should suffice to make us acquaint ourselves with the arguments upon

which our dissent from the theories of education commonly received in

this country is based. At the expense of very little time and labor

any ordinarily intelligent Catholic might be in a position to defend

himself against the attacks of the advocates of a purely secular

school system. To those who feel the need of informing themselves more

thoroughly on this subject we heartily commend these essays. The

questions with which they deal have been discussed, not without

ability and sound reason, in pamphlets and lectures; but before the

publication of this volume we should have been unable to refer to any

one book as giving a fair and satisfactory statement of Catholic

principles on the subject of education. This collection supplies a

want which many besides ourselves must have felt.

THE ACOLYTE; OR, A CHRISTIAN SCHOLAR. A story for Catholic

youth. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham & Son. 1876.

Stories for Catholic youth, which are at once interesting and safe,

are greatly to be desired. Every honest attempt to satisfy this want

is consequently to be, in a certain sense, commended. Our boys,

however, fare rather badly at the hands of writers. The books written

for them are, as a class, either slow and uninteresting or so

goody-goody that a boy yawns before he has finished half a dozen

pages. The author of _The Acolyte_, though animated with the best

intentions, has fallen into the common mistake. His book is too

“good.” His hero, whom he evidently looks upon as the beau-ideal of a

Catholic student, is, it must be confessed, rather a tiresome young

person, having a dreadful propensity to indulge in disquisitions of

classroom philosophy with his young sister and others. In fact, the

atmosphere of the classroom pervades the book, and the result is not

agreeable. When boys read a story, they want to be out of school.

There are excellent things in this book, but such as would appear to

better advantage in one of a purely spiritual character, where they

would probably find more readers, even among boys, than they are

likely to do in their present form. The volume is dedicated to the

“Acolythical Society” of a church in Cincinnati. If such a society

exist, we recommend it to change its name. “Acolythical” is a

barbarism which should not be tolerated.

LITERATURE FOR LITTLE FOLKS. SELECTIONS FROM STANDARD

AUTHORS, AND EASY LESSONS IN COMPOSITION. By Elizabeth

Lloyd. Philadelphia: Sower, Potts & Co. 1876.

The object of this little book is to make even the “Little Folks” so

familiar with good English as habitually to speak and write it

correctly. They will, it is claimed by the author, thus acquire a

knowledge of correct English without going through the regular but

slow process of first committing the rules of syntax to memory. The

object is praiseworthy, and the plan of the work seems well adapted to

make it easy of accomplishment.

HOW TO WRITE LETTERS. A Manual of Correspondence, etc. By J.

Willis Westlake, A.M. 1 vol. 16mo, pp. 264. Philadelphia:

Sower, Potts & Co. 1876.

This is no mere compilation in the usual style of manuals, but an

elaborate and interesting little work, showing the proper structure,

composition, punctuation, formalities, and uses of the various kinds

of letters, notes, and cards. It also contains a considerable amount

of miscellaneous information about _epistolography_ in general, and an

article on “Roman Catholic Titles and Forms,” with particular

reference to this country. The appearance of such a complete work of

this nature is a proof of that more careful attention now paid by

Americans to the written forms and etiquette of social intercourse,

which, whatever may be ranted about republicanism and democratic

habits, are as necessary, or at least as desirable, in the United

States as in Europe. We would say of them, as of the devices of

heraldry, if used at all, they should be used correctly; and this book

will show people how to use them.

EXPLANATIO PSALMORUM. Studio F. X. Schouppe, S.J.

Prolegomena in S Scripturam. Auctore F. X. Schouppe, S.J.

Bruxellis. 1875. Benziger Brothers, New York.

These two treatises from the pen of Father Schouppe, the learned

Belgian Jesuit, who has labored so indefatigably to enrich Catholic

literature, form part of the author’s “Course of Sacred Scripture,”

but have been published separately in order to give them a wider

circulation. In the “Explanatio Psalmorum” Father Schouppe has chosen

for elucidation the psalms which are appointed to be recited in the

common offices of the Roman Breviary and his commentaries are made

with special reference to this official devotion of the priesthood.

Each psalm is accompanied by a paraphrase; a short but satisfactory

commentary follows; and, finally, the _sensus liturgus_ is given,

showing its special appropriateness to the various offices of the

Breviary in which it is found.

The “Prolegomena” is a brief introduction to the study of Holy

Scripture, in which the various subjects comprised under the head of

hermeneutics are discussed.

Both these treatises are characterized by the solid learning and lucid

style which distinguish all the works of Father Schouppe.

LES PRINCIPES DE LA SAGESSE. Par François de Salazar, S.J.

Traduits de l’Espagnol. Gand. Benziger Brothers, New York.

This work of Father Salazar, a Spanish Jesuit, was discovered in 1628

by Dom Geronimo Perez, a doctor of the University of Alcala, who, in

his _Summa_ _Theologiæ_, speaks of it in the following terms: “I have

read with attention all that the most weighty authors have written on

subjects proper to effect the conversion of the soul; but I have met

with no one who has treated these matters with a force equal to that

which is found in a manuscript of Francis de Salazar, a religious of

the Society of Jesus.”

The success of the book has more than justified this estimate of Dr.

Perez. It has passed through innumerable editions in the original

Spanish, and has been translated into nearly all the languages of

Europe. The French translation now before us has reached a fifteenth

edition.

BREVIARIUM ROMANUM, CUM OFFICIIS SANCTORUM NOVISSIME PER

SUMMOS PONTIFICES USQUE AD HANC DIEM CONCESSIS. Turonibus,

1875. Benziger Brothers, New York and Cincinnati.

This is a new and elegant edition of the Roman Breviary, to which have

been added the offices of St. Boniface and St. Paul of the Cross, the

recitation of which has recently been made obligatory upon all priests

by a decree of the Holy Father. It is printed in large and clear type

on delicately-tinted paper of a shade peculiarly grateful to the eye,

strongly bound in morocco, and of convenient size. We have rarely seen

a finer edition of the Breviary.

PIUS IX. AND HIS TIMES. By Thomas O’Dwyer, M.D., M.R.C.S.

(late English Physician at Rome). London: Burns, Oates & Co.

1876.

This volume is made up of a series of entertaining sketches of travel

and letters from Rome, where the author resided many years, during

which he was correspondent to the London _Weekly Register_. His

letters to that journal make up the bulk of the book. At a time when

so much that is false issues from the capital of Christendom and finds

a welcome place in the columns of non-Catholic journals, the letters

from the same city of an observant and intelligent Catholic would

possess a special value quite apart from their intrinsic literary

merit.

AUTHORITY AND ANARCHY; OR, THE BIBLE ON THE CHURCH. London:

Burns & Oates. 1876.

The author of this pamphlet presents the argument for the church from

the Scriptures with very considerable skill and ability.

CHARACTERISTICS FROM THE WRITINGS OF JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

Being Selections, Personal, Historical, Philosophical, and

Religious, from his Various Works. Arranged by William

Samuel Lilly, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law. With

the author’s approval. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1876.

This is an American reprint of the London edition. The latter has

already been noticed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD. The praise given to the

original edition cannot be accorded to the present volume. The type is

too small for general use, and the book lacks what we characterized at

the time as “one of the best portraits of Dr. Newman which we have

seen.”

THE LITTLE BOOK OF THE HOLY CHILD JESUS: A Prayer-Book for

His Children. By Canon Warmoll. London: Burns & Oates.

This useful little book is intended for very young children. It

contains short prayers, acts, meditations, and instructions for Mass,

confession, communion, and daily conduct. The meditations are

admirable, being just adapted to catch the attention of children. The

instructions also are excellent. Only here and there are to be found

passages that strike us as a little too ponderous for very young

children.

* * * * *

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Lives of the Saints. Rev. F. X. Weninger, D.D. Part VI. P. O’Shea.

“Messenger Series.” No. 6. The Acts of the Early Martyrs. By J. A. M.

Fastré, S.J. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham & Son. 1876.

A Study of Freemasonry. Translated from the French of Monseigneur

Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

Pax Animæ: A Short Treatise declaring how necessary the tranquillity

and peace of the soul is, and how it may be obtained. By St. Peter of

Alcantara. From an old English translation of 1665. Edited by Canon

Vaughan. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

Major John Andre: An Historical Drama in Five Acts. By P. Leo Haid,

OSB. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. New York: The Cathol. Publication

Society. 1876.

The Martyrdom of St. Cecily: A Drama in Three Acts. By the Rev. Albany

Christie, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1876.

Christianity the Law of the Land. A discourse delivered in the Church

of the Saviour, Brooklyn, N. Y. By the Pastor. A. P. Putnam. With an

Appendix; or, Voices of American History. Brooklyn, N. Y.

Report of the Xavier Union of the City of New York. 1875.

Report of the City Superintendent of Schools to the Board of Education

of the City of New York, for the Year ending December 31, 1875.

Addresses at the Inauguration of Daniel C. Gilman, as President of the

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, February 22, 1876.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXIII., No. 135.—JUNE, 1876.

Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1876.

GERMAN JOURNALISM.[97]

The universal hymn of journalistic praise, sung throughout the

civilized world with hardly a discordant note, is of itself no mean

evidence of the power of the press. “Great is journalism,” says

Carlyle. “Is not every able editor a ruler of the world, being a

persuader of it?” From France M. Thiers declares that the liberty of

the press is theoretically and practically the most necessary of all;

and was it not our own Jefferson who solemnly affirmed that he would

rather live in a country with newspapers and without a government than

in a country with a government but without newspapers? Did not the

great Napoleon himself stand in greater awe of a newspaper than of a

hundred thousand bayonets? “Give me but the liberty of the press,”

cried Sheridan, “and I will give to the minister a venal House of

Peers; I will give him a corrupt and servile House of Commons; I will

give him the full sway of the patronage of office; I will give him the

whole host of ministerial influence; I will give him all the power

that place can confer upon him to purchase up submission and overcome

resistance; and yet, armed with the liberty of the press, I will go

forth to meet him undismayed; I will attack the mighty fabric he has

reared with that mightier engine; I will shake down from its height

corruption and bury it amidst the ruins of the abuses it was meant to

shelter.”

But we do not propose to treat our readers to a dissertation written

in the style of him who declared that, were the starry heavens

deficient of one constellation, the vacuum could not be better

supplied than by the introduction of a printing-press. We fully

recognize, however, the very great power of the press which controls

public opinion, and indeed often makes it. Nothing is unimportant

which throws light upon the constitution and workings of this “Fourth

Estate,” into whose hands the destinies of modern nations and

civilization seem to have been delivered; and it is for this reason

that we take pleasure in bringing to the notice of the readers of THE

CATHOLIC WORLD the work of Professor Wuttke on _German Journalism and

the Origin of Public Opinion_.

It would be difficult to find a more curious or instructive book. For

years connected with the press himself, a leader of the “great German

party,” and the author of several valuable historical and

philosophical works, Herr Wuttke has brought to his present task the

thoroughgoing and painstaking conscientiousness of a German professor.

He is wholly in earnest; neither smiles nor laughs; does not even stop

to give smoothness and polish to his phrase, but without remorse or

fear invades the editorial sanctum, and pours upon its most hidden

mysteries the profane light; holds them up before vulgar eyes, and

leaves not the suspicion of a doubt but that he is resolved to tell

all he knows. His courage no one can deny. The enterprise to which he

has devoted himself was full of perils, none of which were hidden from

him.

German newspapers before the revolution of 1848 were chiefly of a

literary character. Their columns were filled with criticisms of

books, philosophical and theological discussions, æsthetic treatises,

accounts of travel, entertaining stories, and theatrical notices.

Scarcely any attention was paid to events of the day, and least of all

to those of a political character. The explanation of this anomaly is

simple. The governments of Germany exercised a rigorous censorship

over the press, and allowed nothing to be published which might set

people to thinking about what their rulers were doing. But the storm

of 1848 blew the pen from the hand of the official censor, and opened

the columns of the newspaper to all kinds of political theories and

discussions. The governments were at sea, borne helpless by the

popular wave which had broken them loose from their ancient moorings

and was carrying them they knew not whither. Their official organs,

with unlimited financial support from the state, were powerless,

because people refused to read them whilst independent journals were

within their reach. The revolutionary outburst was soon followed by a

reaction, partly brought on by its own excesses; and with the aid of

the military the former governments were restored. Restrictions were

again placed upon the liberty of the press; but so universal had the

political agitation been that to think of carrying through a policy of

rigorous repression was manifestly out of the question. It became

necessary, therefore, to devise some expedient by which the press

might be controlled without being muzzled.

With this view Von Manteuffel, the Prussian minister, established in

Berlin a “Central Bureau of the Press,” which stood in intimate

relations with the government and received from the “Secret Fund” a

yearly support of from forty to fifty thousand thalers. With this

money the pens of a crowd of needy scribes were bought, who for twenty

or thirty thalers a month agreed to write articles in support of the

views which the director of the Bureau should inspire. The next step

was to make an opening for these articles in the columns of journals

in different parts of the kingdom. This was not difficult, as the

contributions were well written, by persons evidently thoroughly

informed, and were offered at a nominal price, or even without pay. On

the 9th of March, 1851, the director of the Bureau sent a circular to

“those editors and publishers of the conservative party with whom he

has not at present the honor of holding personal relations,” in which

he promised, with special reference to his connection with the

Ministry of State, to send them from time to time communications

concerning the real condition of political affairs, in order to

furnish them indispensable materials for the successful prosecution of

their labors. This assistance was to be given free of cost, and many

editors were eager to avail themselves of it without inquiring with

much care into its special significance. In this way the “Central

Press-Bureau” wove a network of lines of communication over the whole

kingdom, which, however, was carefully hidden from public view. It

also kept up constant intercourse with the representatives of Prussia

at the various European courts, which enabled it to give tone to

public opinion on foreign affairs as well as on matters at home.

Through the influence of the government, and by spending money, the

Bureau gradually succeeded in introducing its agents into the offices

of many newspapers, and occasionally in getting entire control of this

or that journal. By this cunning policy the Prussian government was

able to lead the unsuspecting public by the nose.

Whilst confiding readers throughout the land were receiving the views

of their favorite journals as the honest expression of public opinion,

these newspapers were in fact only the whispering-galleries of the

Berlin ministry. The editors themselves were often ignorant of the

fact that the pens of their co-laborers had been bought and sold. Even

foreign journals, in England and France, did not escape the meshes of

the “Press-Bureau,” but were entrapped and made to do service for

Prussia.

Another contrivance for working up public opinion was the

“Lithographic Correspondence-Bureau,” which is a French invention.

This is an agency for the manufacture of correspondence from all parts

of the world, at home and abroad, which is lithographed and sent to

journals that are willing to pay for it; and nearly all of them find

this the cheapest and easiest method of keeping abreast of the times.

As the men who found these Bureaus are chiefly intent upon making

money, and live, moreover, in salutary awe of the government, they

generally find it advisable to place themselves at its disposition.

The correspondence-agency of Havas-Büllier in Paris was Orleanistic

under Louis Philippe, and Napoleonic under the Empire. In return it

obtained the monopoly of “lithographic correspondence”; so that,

during the reign of Louis Napoleon, France received its knowledge of

the foreign world through the single channel of this Bureau, which was

carefully supervised by the government. This was too excellent a

device not to find ready acceptance in Berlin, and in the most natural

way in the world the “Lithographic Correspondence-Bureau” was placed

alongside the “Press-Bureau”; the journals which had already fallen

under the influence of the latter yielded without resistance to the

seductions of the new ally, and thus became to a still greater extent

the tools of the government. In this way the “eunuchs of the court and

press” were in position deliberately and with malice to falsify and

pervert public opinion, which soon came to mean the utterances of the

herd of venal scribes in Berlin who had sold themselves, body and

soul, to the “Press-Bureau.” One of the five sins which, according to

Confucius, is unpardonable, is from under the mantle of truth to

scatter broadcast lies which are hurtful to the people; and this is

the charge which Professor Wuttke brings against the crowd of German

newspaper-writers.

Telegraphy, which was first introduced into Germany in 1849, led to

further improvements in the art of manipulating the press. The

“Correspondence-Bureau” of Havas-Büllier became a telegraphic agency

and furnished despatches free of charge to the Parisian journals, in

order to prevent the starting of a rival business; and when,

notwithstanding, the _Agence Continentale_ was organized, it was

suppressed by Persigny, the Minister of State, who by this means was

enabled to control the publication of telegrams in all the leading

journals of France. In Italy the Stefani Agency, at Turin, rendered

similar services to the government of Victor Emanuel; sending out the

most shameless falsehoods to the four corners of the earth, and

carefully suppressing whatever the authorities wished to conceal from

the public. These despatches were printed in the leading journals of

Europe and America as coming from unsuspected sources, when they were

in fact the “cooked” telegrams of the secret agents of Cavour and the

Revolution.

In 1850 Reuter established his telegraphic Agency in Aix-la-Chapelle,

but removed it in the following year to Berlin; and a few months

later, when the cable between Calais and Dover was laid, he made

London the central point of his operations. In Berlin a similar

business was opened by Dr. Wolf, a Jew. In 1855 he sold out

to a number of capitalists, who organized the _Continentale

Telegrafenkompagnie_, and then entered into a combination with Reuter

and Havas, through which they controlled the telegraphic despatches

furnished to the press of all Europe. To have the latest news was a

journalistic necessity; and yet to maintain special agents in the

great centres, and to pay the high rates for sending special

telegrams, would have been too heavy a burden. Nothing remained,

therefore, but to take the despatches of the Agencies which were now

in league with one another.

In Prussia nearly all the telegraphic lines, most of which were put up

during the reaction after the revolution of 1848, were in the hands of

the government; and this, of itself, was sufficient to place the

Agencies at its disposal. And in point of fact, it is no secret that

in Prussia there exists a censorship of the telegraph, and that the

government decides as to the despatches which the newspapers shall

receive. Whoever will take the trouble to weigh this matter will see

what a terrible instrument for the perversion of public opinion is

thus placed in the hands of the state. A despatch has always in its

favor the force of first impressions. When, after days or weeks,

explanations follow, they are passed over, new events having already

preoccupied public attention. All the world reads the telegram;

comparatively few pay any attention to the later-coming corrections of

inaccurate or false statements.

Prussia, then, through her “Central Press-Bureau,” her

“Correspondence-Bureau,” and her “Telegram-Bureau,” succeeded in

getting control of the leading German journals, which, while keeping

up the appearance of independence and honesty, were either in her pay

or under the influence of her agents. Public opinion in Germany was at

her mercy; so that, after she had made the most thorough preparations

for the war of 1866, she found no difficulty in having it proclaimed

throughout the fatherland that Austria had been arming and was ready

to fall upon her in order to rob her of Silesia. The newspapers even

lent themselves, when the war had begun, to the publication of a

spurious address to the army by Benedek, the Austrian leader, in which

there was not one word of truth, but in which he was made to speak in

a way that could not fail to arouse the indignation of the Prussian

soldiers. This forged document was circulated by the press and read by

the captains to their men as soon as they had entered Bohemia.

The creation of the new empire has not improved German journalism. The

“Press-Bureau” has enlarged the circle of its activity, while the

government has invented other means not less effective for controlling

the newspapers. “We care not for public opinion,” said a high official

in Berlin some months ago; “for the entire press belongs to us.”

Prussia has German public opinion, in so far as it is allowed to find

expression, in her keeping. After the war with Austria the annual

secret fund of the “Press-Bureau” was increased to 70,000 thalers; but

this is in reality a very inconsiderable portion of the money at its

disposition. The incorporation of Hanover and Hesse with Prussia threw

into the hands of the government very large resources. From George of

Hanover King William exacted 19,000,000 thalers, and from the Prince

Elector of Hesse property with an annual rental of 400,000 thalers.

Both these sums were placed at the disposal of Bismarck by the

Landtag, that he might use them to defeat the “intrigues” of the

enemies of Prussia. It was on the occasion of this grant that Bismarck

used the words which have given to the “Press-Bureau” fund a name

which it can never lose. “I follow,” he said, “malignant reptiles into

their very holes, in order to watch their doings.” The money which he

received to carry on this dark underground business was appropriately

designated by the Berlin wits the “Reptile-fund” (_Reptilienfond_). A

vocabulary of slang has been invented to designate the hired scribes

of the Bureau and their operations. Bismarck calls them “my

swine-herds” (_meine Sauhirten_). To write for the “Press-Bureau” is

to take mud-baths (_Schlammbäder nehmen_); and the writers themselves,

who are classified as “officious,” “high-officious,” “half-officious,”

and “over-officious,” are called “mud-bathers” (_Schlammbäder_), and

they devour the “Reptile-fund.” The instructions issued by the

directors for the preparation of articles for the different journals

are styled “wash-tickets” (_Waschzettel_). The directors who are not

immediately connected with the Bureau are known by the name of “Piper”

(_Pfeifer_), which, in the jargon of Berlin, has a peculiar and by no

means flattering signification.

As the buzzards fly to the carcass, so gathered the hungry German

scribes around the “Reptile-fund”; but their pens were cheap and the

“Press-Bureau” was able to feed a whole army of them, and yet have

abundant means to devote to other methods for influencing public

opinion. Its machinations are, of course, conducted with the greatest

secrecy. All manner of blinds are used. Its agents assume in their

articles a style of great independence, deal largely in loud and

captious epithets, occasionally even criticise this or that measure of

the government, and ape the ways of honest and patriotic men. The

“Central Press-Bureau” itself is pushed as far out of sight as

possible; stalking horses and scarecrows are put forward; and the

institution is made to appear as only a myth. But the Cave of Æolus is

in Berlin, and the winds which are let loose there blow to and fro,

hither and yon, through all Germany, starting currents in other parts

of the world. In this cave the old snake-worship of so many ages and

peoples still exists, and the god is the “Reptile-fund.” Out of this

cavern are blown the double-leaded leaders which fall thick all over

the land, and always, as if by magic, just in the right place. False

reports eddy through the air; stubborn facts are pulled and bent and

beaten until they get into the proper shape. The light which is

permitted to fall upon them is managed as skilfully as in an

art-gallery or a lady’s drawing-room. With the aid of the

“Reptile-fund” the “Press-Bureau” found little difficulty in extending

its business of buying up journals, paying sometimes as high as a

hundred thousand thalers for a single newspaper; and where this could

not be done money was freely spent to start an opposition sheet.

Whenever a journal was found to be growing weak, aid was proffered on

condition that it should open its columns to the “Press-Bureau”;

sometimes with the understanding that one of its agents should be

placed in the editorial chair. So thoroughly has this system of

bribery taken possession of Prussian journalism that the court decided

(October, 1873), in a suit against the _Germania_ newspaper, that to

accuse an editor of being in the pay of the “Press-Bureau” is not a

criminal offence, since it does not in the public estimation tend to

lower his character.

Occasionally, in spite of the greatest care, the secrets of the Bureau

are betrayed. Thus in February, 1874, a circular was sent to various

journals, and amongst others to the _Neue Wormser-Zeitung_, with the

offer to furnish from the capital, first, a tri-weekly original

article on the political situation; second, original political and

diplomatic advice from all the departments of the government, also

three times a week; third, a short but exhaustive parliamentary

report; fourth, special correspondence from other capitals (written in

Berlin); fifth, original accounts of foreign affairs, drawn from the

special sources of the Bureau; and, sixth, a short daily, as well as a

more lengthy weekly, exhibit of the Berlin Bourse. For these services

nothing was demanded; but, that the thing might not appear too bald,

it was stated that the editor should fix his own price. Now, it so

happened that when this circular was received by the _Neue

Wormser-Zeitung_ that paper was in the hands of Herr Westerburg, a

Social Democrat, who straightway took the public into his confidence.

The newly-acquired provinces of Prussia were a favorite field for the

operations of the Berlin Bureau. General Manteuffel, in 1866,

suppressed the _Schleswig-Holsteinische Zeitung_, and handed the

country over to the reptile-press. In Alsace and Lorraine also

journals were suppressed, and others established, by the government.

In these provinces the independent press has wholly disappeared, with

the exception of two tame and unimportant sheets. In fact, if we

except the Catholic and a few Social Democratic newspapers, there is

hardly a journal of any weight in the German Empire in which the

press-reptile is not found. “I know,” wrote to Professor Wuttke an

author well acquainted with the circumstances—“I know few German

newspapers in which there is not a mud-bather.” For even passing

services the Bureau is ready to pay cash. Chaplain Miarka, the editor

of the _Katholik_, has declared publicly that he was offered 7,500

thalers on condition of consenting to write in a milder manner during

the elections.

The working up of public opinion through the press extends far beyond

the boundaries of the German Empire. The proceedings of the court in

the trial of Von Arnim in 1874 developed the fact that he, whilst

representing Prussia at the Tuileries, had entered into relations with

various journals of Paris, Vienna, and Brussels; and it is generally

understood that 50,000 thalers were placed at the disposition of Herr

Rudolf Lindau for the purpose of manipulating the Parisian press.

Through these and similar means an opening for the articles of the

“Press-Bureau” was made in English, French, and Belgian newspapers;

and these articles, which had been first written in German, were

translated back into German and published by the reptile-press as the

expression of public opinion in foreign countries on Prussian affairs.

“I could give the names,” says Professor Wuttke, “of the

press-reptiles who write for the _Indépendance Belge_, of those who

take care of the _Hour_, and of others whose duty it is to furnish

articles to the Italian and Scandinavian newspapers.”[98] To hold the

English in leading strings, Berlin had, in 1869, a _North Germany

Correspondence_, and then, under the supervision of Aegidi, the

director of the “Press-Bureau,” a _Norddeutsche Correspondenz_, which

is still the chief source from which both English and American

journals draw their information on German affairs. The attempt made

from Berlin to buy Katkoff’s _Journal of Moscow_ was defeated by the

incorruptibility of the proprietor.

The reptile-press, of course, ignores and strives to hush whatever may

throw light upon the dark workings and intrigues of the “Press

Bureau”; and no better instance of its power in this respect can be

given than the history of Professor Wuttke’s book on German

journalism. Its existence was not recognized by the press-reptiles;

its startling revelations were ignored or received in profound

silence; and so successful was this policy that a year after the

publication of the work only three hundred copies had been sold; and

it is chiefly through the efforts of a Catholic newspaper—the

_Germania_—and of Windthorst, a leader of the party of the _Centrum_,

that it has finally been brought to public notice and has now reached

a third edition. In the German Parliament, on the 18th of December,

1874, Windthorst took Professor Wuttke’s book with him to the

speaker’s stand, and, in a powerful address against any further grant

of the “Secret Fund” (_Reptilien-fond_), made special reference to

this work, which he characterized as “conscientious” and full of

startling revelations which leave room to suspect even worse things. A

year before (December 3, 1873) the same speaker declared in the

Prussian Landtag that in Germany the government had nearly succeeded

in getting entire control of the press; that the influence of the

“Reptile-fund” was already noticeable in foreign countries,

particularly in the newspapers of Vienna; and that the attempt had

been made to establish a “Reptile-Bureau” in connection with the

London embassy; and when this was found not to work well, a

“Press-Bureau” for England, France, and Italy was organized in Berlin.

These charges, made in public parliamentary debate, were allowed to

pass without contradiction, although Aegidi, the director of the

Central Bureau, was a member of the Assembly and present during the

discussion.

Eugen Richter, the member for Hagen, brought forward other accusations

of like import on the 20th of January, 1874. We have already given an

example of the uses to which the Prussian government puts the

reptile-press, in the instance of the forged army address attributed

to Benedek, and published throughout Germany at the outbreak of the

war with Austria in 1866.[99] Similar services were rendered by the

“mud-bathers” at the time of the crisis with France in 1870. A false

telegram, purporting to come from Ems, dated July 13, 1870, in which

the French minister, Count Benedetti, was said to have grossly

insulted King William, was eagerly taken up by the venal press and

commented upon in a way which excited the greatest indignation in the

minds of the Germans against Napoleon, who, they firmly believed, was

bent upon humiliating Prussia. In this way public feeling in both

countries was fanned into a heat which could be cooled only by blood.

The account of the interview at Ems was a fabrication, as Benedetti

has since clearly shown; but Bismarck’s “swineherds” had faithfully

done their unholy work.[100]

When, just at the beginning of the war, the French army made an attack

on Saarbrücken, the reptile-press spread the report that they had

reduced the city to ashes; and this infamous falsehood made a deep

impression throughout Germany. A similar lie had been propagated at

the commencement of the Austrian war. On the 27th of June, 1866, the

Prussians were driven from Trautenau by General Gablenz, and forthwith

the reptile-press raised the cry that the citizens of Trautenau had

poured from their houses hot water and boiling oil on the retreating

soldiers; and the government lent itself to the spreading of this

detestable calumny by dragging off the mayor of Trautenau, Dr. Roth,

to prison, where he was detained in close confinement nearly three

months.[101]

There is no subject on which the organs of the “Press-Bureau” are more

united or more eloquent than the necessity of keeping up the full

strength of the standing army; nay, they have gone so far as to demand

that the Reichstag shall consent to take from the representatives of

the people the right to legislate on military affairs during the next

seven years. But before taking this step, hitherto unheard of in the

history of constitutional government, it was necessary to manipulate

public opinion, so that the members of parliament might seem to be

compelled to this decision by the will of the people themselves. With

this view packed meetings were gotten up in various parts of the

empire which the telegraph lyingly announced to the world as very

numerously attended and unanimous in demanding the seven-year

enactment; but the popular gatherings which were held to protest

against this violation of constitutional rights were passed over in

dead silence, and their action, consequently, did not become known

outside of their own immediate neighborhood. The reptile-press acted

in full harmony with the “Telegraph-Bureau.” The _Spener’sche

Zeitung_, in Berlin, went so far as to declare that no protests had

been heard, whereupon the _Provinzial-korrespondenz_ exclaimed that

the movement, which had proceeded from the depths of the nation’s

heart with unexpected power, should force the Reichstag to yield to

the demand of the government.

As a part of the same programme, the “Press-Bureau” just a year ago

raised the cry that France was buying horses, and that in less than

three months she would declare war on Germany. On the same day and at

the same hour this startling announcement was made in Frankfort, in

Leipzig, in Stuttgart, and other cities. The following day hundreds of

newspapers throughout the fatherland took up the chorus and began to

shout that the empire was threatened. Now, all the world knows that

France at that time was as little thinking of making war on Germany as

of tunnelling the Atlantic Ocean; but this piece of journalistic

legerdemain roused the Teutonic mind to the necessity of strengthening

the army and increasing the military resources of a country which was

already a camp of soldiers.

No figure of rhetoric is more forcible than repetition, and we may

calculate with mathematical precision just how many leading articles,

all saying the same thing in fifty different localities, are required

in order to fabricate a public opinion on a given subject.

Another trick of the reptile-press is employed to prevent the people

from getting a knowledge of the speeches of the opposition in

parliament. The arguments of these orators are either excluded from

its columns or caricatured so as to appear childish or ridiculous.

When, for instance, Sonnemann, the member for Frankfort, made an

appeal in behalf of the Alsacians, who had themselves been reduced to

dead silence, and showed from authentic documents the pitiable

condition to which that province had been brought, the organs of the

“Press-Bureau” declared that “to answer such utterances would be

beneath the dignity of a chancellor of the empire; such want of

political honor had no claim to pass as the honest views of an

individual”; and when Mallinckrodt placed his hand on Lamarmora’s book

to prove his charges against Bismarck, the _Spener’sche Zeitung_

announced that “the national parties were filled with deepest disgust

at the conduct of the _Centrum’s_ faction, and were not able to

conceal their regret that Prince Bismarck should deign to answer these

Ultramontane brawlers, since, by consenting to notice the tricks of

Windthorst, Mallinckrodt, and Schorlemer, he was giving prominence to

what ought to be completely ignored”; and then closed with the phrase

of Frederick the Great, “Shall we play at fisticuffs with the rabble?”

The _Norddeutsche Allgemeine_ and _National Zeitung_ indulged in

similar strains, and these articles were then republished by nearly

the entire German press. When an opponent is especially troublesome

the press-reptiles raise the cry that he has been bought up by foreign

gold; and in this they are probably sincere, since it must be

difficult for them to understand how any man could refuse to sell

himself for a proper consideration.

For five years now Bismarck’s venal press has poured the full tide of

its wrath upon the bishops and priests of Germany. Here was a subject

upon which the reptiles could distil their venom to their hearts’

content. What magnificent opportunities were here offered to the

“mud-bathers” to hunt through the sewers of the centuries and to

wallow in the mire of the ages; to revive Luther’s vocabulary and

refurbish the rusty weapons that for hundreds of years had lain idle

and hurtless! What an open field was here in which to ventilate

historical calumnies, to produce startling effects by the dramatic

grouping of striking figures; to bring out the light of the golden

present by causing it to fall upon the dark and bloody background of

the past! And what divine occasions for indignation, wrath, horror,

word-painting to cause the hair to stand on end and the eyes to start!

Here was place for withering scorn, patriotic thunder, lurid lightning

to sear the Jesuitic head bent upon the ruin of the new empire. And

with what demoniac delight the hired crew ring the changes on each

popular catch-word—progress, liberty, culture, free thought; and how

they foam and rage when a bishop or a priest has the “boundless

impudence” to speak in defence of the church! “It has come to this,”

says the _Dresdener Volksbote_ (April 17, 1873): “Minorities must keep

silence.”

“Gone,” exclaims a former German Minister of State,—“gone is the reign

of noble ideas; the power of the love of country and of freedom; the

worth and honor of the national character! Money alone is loved, and

all means by which it is acquired seem natural and praiseworthy.” The

very foundations of the moral order are attacked by this vile press.

The events of 1866 and 1870 are now spoken of as “an historical

phenomenon, which cannot be judged by the current notions of morality,

but in accordance with which these moral principles themselves must be

widened and corrected.” This is the low and degrading philosophy to

which the idolatry of success fatally leads.

But, for the honor of journalism, a portion of the German press has

remained closed against the insidious power of the “Reptile-fund.” No

Catholic newspaper has lent itself even covertly to this conspiracy

against truth and liberty; and it must be admitted, too, that the

socialistic journals have refused the government bribes; their

circulation, however, which is not large, is confined almost

exclusively to the laboring classes, and their influence is but little

felt. The power of the Catholic press in Germany is of recent growth.

In the early part of the present century the only periodical of any

weight devoted to the defence of the interests of the church in

Germany was the _Theologische Quartalschrift_, founded in 1819 as the

organ of the Tübingen professors. Twenty years later Joseph Görres

established in Munich the _Historisch-politischen Blätter_, which soon

caused the influence of his powerful mind to be felt throughout the

fatherland, and which, under the editorial management of the historian

Jörg, is still to-day one of the ablest reviews in Germany. The

censorship of the press which, prior to the revolution of 1848, was

maintained in all the German governments, was exercised in a way that

rendered Catholic journalism impossible. No sooner, however, had the

Parliament of Frankfort proclaimed the liberty of the press than the

Catholics hastened to take advantage of it by creating newspapers to

advocate their religious interests. The bishops and priests, in

obedience to the earnest exhortations of Pius IX., threw themselves

into the work with a will; the people followed their example;

press-unions were formed and a large number of Catholic newspapers

sprang into life. Bismarck’s persecution of the church gave yet

greater force to this movement and increased both the number and the

circulation of Catholic journals. In the new German Empire there are

to-day two hundred and thirty newspapers devoted to the interests of

the church. The _Augsburger Wochenblatt_ has a subscription list of

thirty-two thousand; the _Mainzer Volksblatt_, one of thirty thousand.

Twelve thousand copies of the _Germania_ (in Berlin) are sold daily,

and many other Catholic journals have a circulation of from five to

ten thousand copies. As this powerful Catholic press could not be

bought, nothing remained to be done but to silence it.

At the close of the year 1872 all Prussian journals were warned, under

pain of confiscation, not to publish the Christmas Allocution of Pope

Pius IX. Mallinckrodt, the vigilant Catholic leader, raised his voice

in protest against this attempt upon the liberty of the press; but the

Reichstag was silent, and the newspapers which had not heeded the

warning were seized. The _Mainzer Journal_ was brought into court for

having presumed to print an open letter to the emperor, in which was

found the following sentence: “The emperor is bound by the laws of the

moral order just like the least of his subjects.” The government

procurator (Schön, in Mainz, on the 19th of December, 1873) declared

that the emperor is a “sanctified” person, whose majesty is “above the

laws of the state,” and the bare address “to the emperor” is a

punishable offence. For republishing this open letter the editors of

the _Kölner Volkszeitung_ and the _Mühlheimer Anzeiger_ were condemned

to prison for two months. Siegbert, the managing editor of the

_Deutscher Reichszeitung_ (Catholic), was called upon to give the name

of the writer of a certain article which he had published; and upon

his declaration that this would be a breach of honor he was thrown

into prison.

On the 1st of July, 1874, a new law came into force, by which still

further restrictions were placed upon the liberty of the press; and on

the 15th of the same month the Minister of Justice enjoined upon the

government officials to keep sharp watch upon the newspapers. Within

six months from this date the _Germania_ newspaper in Berlin had been

condemned thirty-nine times; and there were besides twenty-four

untried charges against it in court. In January, February, March, and

April, 1875—four months—one hundred and thirty-six editors were

condemned either to prison or to pay a fine. The most of these were

Catholics, though some of them belonged to the democratic and

socialistic press. It is not necessary to say that the “press-reptiles”

were not represented among them. These editors were thrust into the

cells of common criminals, were refused books and writing material,

and were forced to live upon “prison fare,” which many found so

unpalatable that they could eat nothing but rye-bread.

The reptile-press alone is tolerated. If a man wishes to be honest,

and has, notwithstanding, no desire to go to jail, the most unwise

thing which he could do would be to become a journalist in the new

German Empire. To refuse to eat of the “Reptile-fund” is to condemn

one’s self to Bismarck’s “prison fare” of beans and cold water.

To poison the wells is not held to be lawful, even in war; but to

taint the fountain-sources of knowledge, and to corrupt the channels

through which alone the public receives its general information, is

not thought to be unworthy of a great hero, if we may judge from the

Prussian chancellor’s popularity with Englishmen and Americans, which

is not diminished even by his determined efforts to crush all who

refuse to sell their souls or renounce their manhood.

“The only man,” said Carlyle of Bismarck—“the only man appointed by

God to be his vicegerent here on earth in these days, and knowing he

was so appointed, and bent with his whole soul on doing and able to do

God’s work.” And our great centennial celebration of the reign of

popular government is to be desecrated by a colossal statue of the man

who is its deadliest enemy.

We have not, in this country, wholly escaped the evil effects of the

vast European conspiracy against truth and honor which is carried on

through the agency of “Press-Bureaus,” “Telegram-Bureaus,”

“Correspondence-Bureaus,” and “Reptile-funds.” One may, for instance,

readily detect the “trail of the serpent” in many of the cable

despatches to the Associated Press, and not less evidently in the

European correspondence of some of our leading journals. Is it not

worthy of remark that so few of our great newspapers should have taken

up the defence of the persecuted and imprisoned German editors? The

American press, which can, upon such slight compulsion, be blatant and

loud-mouthed, has been most reserved in its treatment of Bismarck;

has, indeed, hardly attempted to veil its sympathy with his despotic

and arbitrary measures. If this approval of tyranny went merely the

length of applauding his persecution of the Catholic Church, it might

be explained by the desire to pander to popular Protestant prejudice.

But how shall we account for it when there is question of the

degradation and enslavement of the press itself; of the violation of

every principle of liberty; and of the systematic consolidation of the

most complete military despotism which the world has ever seen? Might

it not be possible, even, to trace to the _Reptilien-fond_ the recent

attempts to rekindle in the United States the flame of religious hate

and fanaticism? However this may be, it is unfortunately true that

money is the controlling power in American as in German journalism.

Its influence is as discernible in the columns of our own

“independent” press as in a genuine Berlin “mud-bather’s”

double-leaded leader.

“How can we help it?” said a well-known editor of Vienna. “A newspaper

office is a shop where publicity is bought and sold.” “I will be

frank,” said another journalist. “I am like a woman of the town (_Ich

bin die Hure von Berlin_): if you wish to have this and that written,

pay your money.” Praise and blame, approval and condemnation, are the

articles of merchandise of the press, and they are offered to the

highest bidder.

“When the proprietor of a journal,” says Sacher-Mosach, a widely-known

and conscientious writer, who was for some time connected with the

Vienna newspaper, the _Presse_, and afterwards with the _Neue Freie

Presse_—“when the proprietor of a journal has entered into lucrative

relations with a bank, he is not content with placing his sheet at its

disposition in whatever relates to financial matters; but if the

director of the bank, as sometimes happens, is a man of fancy who

patronizes an actress who has beauty but not talent, he will order his

theatrical critic to praise this lady without stint; and the critic

will reserve all his squibs for some old _comédienne_ who is not

protected by a bank director or by any one else. If a great publisher

has all the works which appear in his house advertised in the journal,

the proprietor will direct his book critic to find them all admirably

written, profound, and full of the freshest and most delightful

thoughts; and the author is just as certain to be praised in this

sheet as he is to be torn to pieces by the newspapers in which his

book has not been advertised. The first principle of journalistic

industry and of the criticism at its command is to recognize merit

only when and so far as it is financially profitable to do so.”[102]

It is far from our thought to wish to deny the vast power for good

exercised by the press; but this is its own constant theme, and we

have deemed it a more worthy, even though a less pleasant, task to

point out at least some of the ways in which its power may be turned

against the highest interests of truth and the dearest liberties of

the people. A thoughtful and fearless work on the influence of

journalism on our American civilization would be a fitting

contribution to the centennial literature, and at the same time a most

instructive chapter in the history of the country. The only attempt of

this kind which so far has been made does not rise above the dignity

of a compilation, and is without value as a philosophical discussion

of the subject.

[97] _Die deutsche Zeitschriften und die Entstehung

der öffentlichen Meinung. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte

des Zeitungswesens._ Von Heinrich Wuttke.—The German

newspapers and the origin of public opinion: a

contribution to the history of journalism. Leipzig:

1875.

[98] _Die deutsche Zeitschriften_, p. 309.

[99] This spurious document has got into many

books; _e.g._, into Hahn’s _Geschichte des preussischen

Vaterlandes_.

[100] See _Ma Mission en Prusse_, by Benedetti, Paris,

1871, p. 372 et seq.

[101] Roth, _Achtzig Tage in preussischen Gefangenschaft_,

p. 13.

[102] Sacher-Mosach, _Ueber den Werth der Kritik_,

Leipzig, 1873, p. 55.

SOME FORGOTTEN CATHOLIC POETS.

“… Illacrimabiles

Urgentur, ignotique longa

Nocte carent quia vate sacro.”

When we speak of Catholic poets, three of the foremost names in

English literature come up at once—Dryden, Pope, and Moore. The two

latter are more eminent, perhaps, as poets than as Catholics, but of

Dryden’s sincerity and steadfastness in the change of faith which

“moralized his song” and gave a masterpiece to English poetry there

is, happily, no doubt. Many later names are familiar to the general

reader as those of Catholics whose genius has lent lustre to our own

epoch. Some, like Newman, Faber, De Vere, and Adelaide Procter, claim

fellowship with the most famous and are known wherever English poetry

is read. Others, like Caswall, Coventry Patmore, and D. F. MacCarthy,

are favorites of a narrower circle. All are known as Catholic poets to

many by no means intimate with their works. Even poor Clarence Mangan

has not been denied his place and his crust of praise on the doorsteps

of the “Victorian Era”—he was never a very importunate suppliant: no

act of Parliament could have made that minstrel a “sturdye begger”—and

is scarcely yet forgotten, although he added to the (æsthetic) crime

of being a Catholic and the weakness of being an Irishman the

unpardonable sin of living and dying in utter poverty and

wretchedness.

Our present business, however, is not with these or with any who,

being dead, have friends and followers to sound their praises, or,

living, whose books may still be read and admired, if only by

themselves. We shall take leave to introduce the reader into an

obscurer company, where he will yet, we are assured, find those who

are not unworthy of his friendship and esteem. They themselves and

their memories even are ghosts; but they will gladly take form and

substance to receive our sympathetic greeting and unbosom themselves

of their sorrows. Fate has pressed hardly on them; they have felt the

“iniquity of oblivion”; forgetfulness has been for most of them their

only mourner; upon their trembling little rushlight of glory that each

fondly hoped was to be a beacon for eternity that sardonic jester,

Time, has clapped his grim extinguisher and they are incontinently

snuffed out. Posterity, their court of last appeal, is bribed to cast

them, and their scanty heritage of immortality is parcelled out among

a younger and greedier generation. Instead of the trophies and

mausoleums they looked to so confidently, the monuments more lasting

than brass, they are fain to put up with a broken urn in an

antiquarian’s cabinet, a half-obliterated headstone in Sexton

Allibone’s deserted graveyard.

We own to a weakness for neglected poets. The reigning favorite of

that whimsical tyrant, Fame, ruffling in all the bravery of new

editions and costly bindings, worldly-minded critics may cringe to and

flatter; we shall seek him out when he is humbled and in disgrace,

very likely out at elbows and banished to the Tomos of the bookstall

or the Siberia of the auction-room. We are shy indeed of those great

personages who throng the council-chambers of King Apollo, and are ill

at ease in their society. A bowing acquaintance with them we crave at

most, to brag of among our friends, and, for the rest, are much more

at home with the little poets who cool their heels in the gracious

sovereign’s anteroom. These we can take to our bosoms and our

firesides; but imagine having Dante every day to dinner, leaving hope

at the door as he comes scowling in, or Milton for ever discoursing

“man’s first disobedience” over the tea and muffins! Don Juan’s

Commander were a more cheerful guest.

It is pleasant, we take it, to turn aside now and then from the

crowded highway where these great folks air their splendors, and lose

ourselves in the dewy woods where the lesser muses hide, tracing some

slender by-path where few have strayed.—_secretum iter et fallentes

semita vitæ_. The flowers that grow by the roadside may be more

radiant or of rarer scent; but what delight to explore for ourselves

the shy violet hidden from other eyes, to stumble by untrodden ways

upon the freshness of secret springs, and perhaps of a sudden to

emerge in the graveyard aforesaid, where the air is full of elegies

more touching than Gray’s, and our good sexton is at hand to wipe the

dust from this or the other sunken tombstone of some world-famous bard

and help us to decipher his meagre record. The tombstone is the folio

containing his immortal works; it is heavier than most tombstones, and

his world-famous memory moulders quietly beneath it. Surely there is

something pathetic in such a destiny; something which touches a human

chord. We may pity the fate of many a forgotten poet whose poems we

should not greatly care to read. With their keen self-consciousness,

which is not vanity, and their sensitiveness to outward impressions,

poets more than most men cling to that hollow semblance of earthly

life beyond the grave, that mirage of true immortality, we call

posthumous fame. More than most they dread and shrink from the callous

indifference, the cynical disrespect, of the mighty _sans-culotte_,

Death. To die is little; but to die and be forgotten, to vanish from

the scene of one’s daily walks and talks and countless cheerful

activities, as utterly and as silently as a snow-flake melts in the

sea; to be blotted out of the book of life as carelessly as a

schoolboy would sponge a cipher from his slate—this jars upon us, this

makes us wince. From that fate, at least, the poet feels himself

secure; he leaves behind him the Beloved Book. With that faithful

henchman to guard it, the pale phantom of his fame cannot be jostled

aside from the places that knew him by the hurrying, selfish crowds.

It will remain, the better part of himself, “the heir of his

invention,” but kinder than most heirs, to jog the world’s elbow from

time to time and buy him a brief furlough from oblivion. Through that

loyal interpreter he may still hold converse with his fellows, who

might ill understand the speech of that remote, mysterious realm

wherein he has been naturalized a citizen; he will keep up a certain

shadowy correspondence with the cosey firesides, the merry gatherings,

he has left that may serve to warm and cheer him in the chilly company

of ghosts; perhaps—who knows?—may even lend him dignity and

consequence among that thin fraternity. He will not wholly have

resigned his voice in mundane matters; his memory, as it were a

spiritual shadow, will continue to fall across the familiar ways; he

will have his portion still, a place reserved for him, in the

bustling, merry world. Very likely at this stage of his reflections he

will whisper to himself, _Non omnis moriar_; in his enthusiasm he may

go further, and with gay, vain, prattling Herrick share immortality,

as though it were a school-boy’s plum-cake, among his friends. Hugging

this smiling illusion, he resigns himself to the grave, and the

daisies have not had time to bloom thereon before the Beloved Book,

the loyal interpreter, the faithful henchman, the wonder-worker of his

dream, is as dead and utterly forgotten as—well, let us say as the

promises our friend the new Congressman made us when he expressed such

friendly anxiety about our health just previous to the late election.

So utter, even ludicrous, a _bouleversement_ of hopes so

passionate—and there is nothing a poet longs for so passionately as

remembrance after death, unless it be recognition in life—may touch

the sourest cynic. It may be as Milton says in his proudly conscious

way: _Si quid meremur, sana posteritas sciet_. But what comfort is it

to our undeserving to know that a sane posterity is justified in

forgetting it? Good poetry, like virtue, is its own reward. But the

bad poet, outcast of gods and men, and of every bookseller who owns

not and publishes a popular magazine; the Pariah of Parnassus, the

Ishmael of letters, with every critic’s hand against him, haunted

through life by the dim, appalling spectre of his own badness,

helplessly prescient in lucid intervals of the quaintly cruel doom

which is to consign him after death to the paper-mill, there to be

made over—_heu! fides mutatosque deos!_—for the base uses of other bad

poets, his rivals—if to this martyr we cannot give consolation, we

surely need not grudge compassion.

The discerning reader may have gathered from these remarks that the

bards we are about to usher back from endless night into his

worshipful presence are not all of the first order, or indeed of any

uniform order, of excellence. They are not all Miltons or Shaksperes:

_si quid meremur_ would be for some of them an idle boast, and their

posterity can hardly be convicted of insanity for having sedulously

let them be. But neither must we argue rashly from this neglect of

them that they deserved to be neglected. Neglect was for a time the

portion of the greatest names in English letters. Up to the middle of

the last century it was practically the common lot of all the writers

who came before the Restoration. Literary gentlemen, the wits of the

coffee-house, the Aristarchuses of Dick’s or Button’s, knew about them

in a vague way as a set of queer old fellows who wrote uncouth verses

in an outlandish dialect about the time of Shakspere and Milton. The

more enterprising poets stole from them; but English literature as a

living body knew them not. They were no longer members of the guild or

made free of its mysteries; they were foreigners among their own

people, speaking a strange tongue, shrewdly suspected of unwholesome

dealings in such forbidden practices as fancy and imagination, and on

the whole best excluded from the commonwealth of letters. Even

Shakspere and Milton were little more than names. To the patched and

periwigged taste of Queen Anne’s and the Georgian era they made no

appeal; the critics of the quadrille-table and the tea-gardens, the

“pretty fellows” of the Wells, voted them low and insipid. Milton was

a wild fanatic with heterodox notions of regicide, who wrote a dull

epic which the ingenious Mr. Addison saw fit to praise in his

_Spectator_ for a novelty, of course, though his papers upon it were

certainly far less amusing than those devoted to Sir Roger and his

widow or the diversions of the Amorous Club; while Shakspere was a

curious old playwright whom the great Mr. Pope stooped to admire with

qualifications, and even to edit—with notes, and some of whose rude

productions, notably _King Lear_, when polished and made presentable

by the elegant Mr. Tate, were really not so bad, though of course not

for a moment to be compared to such superlative flights of genius as

_The Distressed Mother_ or _The Mourning Bride_. Does anybody nowadays

read the elegant Mr. Tate, King William’s laureate of pious and

immortal memory? Besides his labors in civilizing _King Lear_ and his

celebrated _Poems upon Tea_, perhaps also upon toast, a grateful

country owed to him, in conjunction with Dr. Brady, its rescue from

Sternhold and Hopkins, “arch-botchers of a psalm or prayer,” of whom

we read, with a subdued but mighty joy, that they

“… had great qualms

When they translated David’s Psalms,”

as well they might. Yet, despite this notable achievement, Nahum

(Nahum, O Phœbus! was his name) has long since ceased to fill the

speaking trump. But for his impertinences to the “poor despised” Lear

he would be quite forgotten. He is a fly like many another preserved

in Shakspere’s amber.

One reads with a sort of dumb rage of these essays of smirking

mediocrity to “improve on” that colossal genius. It was Gulliver

tricked out by the Liliputians. Tate was not the only ‘prentice hand

that tried its skill at “painting the lily.” Cibber and Shadwell were

industrious at it, and to this day many of us know Shakspere’s

“refined gold” only as it comes to us electroplated from the Cibberian

crucible. Lord Lansdowne prepared a _Jew of Venice_, which was acted

with a prologue by Mr. Bevill Higgins—another Phœbean title which the

great trumpeter has unaccountably dropped. Mr. Higgins brings forward

Shakspere telling Dryden:

“These scenes in their rough native dress weremine,

But now, improved, with nobler lustre shine;

The first rude sketches Shakspere’s pencil drew,

But all the shining master-strokes are new.

This play, ye critics, shall your fury stand,

Adorn’d and rescuéd by a faultless hand.”

Here are two of the shining master-strokes:

“As who should say, I am, sir, _an_ oracle”;

“Still quiring to the _blue-eyed_ cherubim”!

And this was Pope’s “Granville the polite,” the “Muses’ glory and

delight” of Young, who informs us, moreover—he had certainly a very

pretty taste and boundless generosity in praising a person of

quality—that, though long may we hope brave Talbot’s blood will run In

great descendants, Shakspere has but one, And him my Lord (he begs

will) permit him not to name, But in kind silence spare his rival’s

shame. The generous reserve is vain, however. Each reader will defeat

his useless aim, And to himself great Agamemnon name. Great Agamemnon

is Granville:

“Europe sheathed the sword

When this great man was first saluted lord,”

apparently that he might give his whole time to filling Shakspere with

shining new master-strokes like those above.

All this sounds ridiculous enough. But even genius was bitten by the

same tarantula. We all know how Johnson treated _Lycidas_. Dryden

found the rhyme in Milton’s juvenile poems “strained and forced” (this

of _L’Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, for example!), and confessed that

Shakspere’s diction was almost as difficult to him as Chaucer. How

difficult Chaucer was much nearer his own time may be inferred from

the leonine Latin version of the _Troilus and Cresscide_ which Francis

Kinaston, an Oxford scholar, published in 1635, with the avowed object

of rescuing Chaucer “from the neglect to which his obsolete language

had condemned him by rendering him generally intelligible.” And

Cartwright, “the florid and seraphicall preacher,” approves his pious

labor, telling him:

“‘Tis to your happy cares we owe that we

Read Chaucer now without a dictionary.”

What a commentary on the educational system of the time that in

England such English as this—

“This Troilus, as he was wont to guide

His yonge knights, he lad hem up and doune

In thilke large temple, on every side

Beholding aie the ladies of the toune,”

should be less generally intelligible than such Latin as this:

“Hic Troilus pro more (ut solebat)

Juveniles equites pone se sequentes

Per fani spatia ampla perducebat

Assidue urbis dominas intuentes.”

But so it was, and so it was to be long after. In 1718 Bysshe, in his

_Art of Poetry_, “passed by Spenser and the poets of his age, because

their language has become so obsolete that most readers of our age

have no ear for them, and therefore Shakspere is quoted so rarely in

this collection.” And Thomas Warton says of Pope’s obligations to

Milton, “It is strange that Pope, by no means of a congenial spirit,

should be the first who copied _Comus_ or _Il Penseroso_. But Pope was

a gleaner of the old English poets; and he was here pilfering from

obsolete English poetry without the least fear or danger of being

detected.” Pope certainly was a proficient in his own “art of stealing

wisely.” “Who now reads Cowley?” he asks, and answers his own question

in the lines he borrowed from him.

What an anomalous period in our literature was this!—polished, witty,

brilliant to the highest degree, displaying in its own productions

incomparable taste and art, yet so incapable, seemingly, of “tasting”

the great writers who had gone before it! Fancy a time when people

went about—people of cultivation, too—asking who was that fellow

Shakspere! To us he seems as real and as large a figure in his dim

perspective as the largest and most alive that swaggers in the

foreground of to-day. Do we not feel something weird and uncanny,

something ghostly, on opening the _Retrospective Review_ so late as

1825, and finding Robert Herrick gravely paraded as a new discovery?

Fifty years ago that was by the dates; as we read it seems five

hundred. The critic antedates by centuries his subject—like his own

god Lyæus, “ever fresh and ever young”—and is infinitely older,

quainter, more remote from us. Is it our turn next to be forgotten?

Shall we not all be asking at our next Centennial if Tennyson ever

lived, debating whether Master Farquhar was really the author of the

poems attributed to Browning, finding Longfellow difficult and

obscure, and wondering in our antiquarian societies if Thackeray was a

religious symbol or something to eat? Shall we—but if we keep on in

this wise, one thing plainly we shall not do, and that is get back to

our neglected Catholic poets—now twice neglected. Let us leave our

future to bury its own dead, and betake ourselves once more to the

poetic past.

We have seen that our Catholic poets, if forgotten, were at least

forgotten in good company; in the ample recognition which came at last

to the latter they did not so fully share. In that Renaissance of our

early literature which marked the close of the last century, and

which, pioneered by Percy, Ritson, Wright, Nichols, Warton, Brydges,

and others, restored to the Elizabethan poets, with Chaucer and

Milton, their “comates in exile,” a pre-eminence from which they will

scarcely be dislodged, many of our particular friends came to the

surface. But most of them did not long remain there, dropping quickly

out of sight, either from intrinsic weight or the indifference of the

literary fishers who had netted them. How far any such indifference

may have been due to their faith we will not venture to say. We should

be sorry to believe that the hateful spirit of religious bigotry had

invaded the muse’s peaceful realm, scaring nymph and faun from the

sides of Helicon with strange and hideous clamor. For our own part, we

like a poet none the worse for being a Protestant, though we may like

him a trifle the better for being a Catholic. We have a vague notion

that all good poets ought to be Catholics, and a secret persuasion

that some day they will be; that the Tennysons, the Holmeses, the

Longfellows and Lowells and Brownings of the future will be gathered

into the fold, and only the ——s or the ——s (the reader will kindly

fill up these blank spaces with his pet poetical aversions) be left to

raise the hymns of heterodoxy on the outside in melancholy and

discordant chorus,

“Their lean and flashy songs

Grating on scrannel pipes of wretched straw.”

Awaiting that blissful time, however, we are content to enjoy the

“music of Apollo’s lute” as it comes to us, without inspecting too

curiously the fingers that touch it, so long as they be clean. And we

are willing to believe that if our Catholic poets have had less than

their fair share of attention, it has been their misfortune or their

fault, and not because of any sectarian cabal to crowd them from the

thrones which may belong to them of right among “the inheritors of

unfulfilled renown.”

To tell the truth, indeed, such of them as we find prior to the time

of Elizabeth have few claims on our regret. We count, of course, from

the Reformation; when all poets were Catholics, there was nothing

peculiarly distinctive in being a _Catholic_ poet. _The Shyp of Folys

of the Worlde, translated out of Latin, Frenche and Doche into

Englyshe tonge by Alexander Barclay, preste_, is too well known to

come fairly into our category. But the _Shyp of Folys_ belongs, after

all, at least as much to Sylvester Brandt as to Barclay, and the more

original works of the good monk of Ely—his _Eglogues_ (though these,

too, were based on Mantuanus and Æneas Sylvius, afterwards pope), his

_Figure of our Mother_ _Holy Church oppressed by the French King_—even

those trenchant satires, in which he demolished Master Skelton, the

heretical champion, are sufficiently forgotten to be his passport.

Another of his translations, _The Castle of Labour_, from the French,

may have suggested to Thomson his _Castle of Indolence_—to the latter

bard a more congenial mansion.

The “mad, mery wit” which won for Heywood, the epigrammatist, the

favor of Henry VIII. and his daughter Mary seems vapid enough to us.

Perhaps it was like champagne, which must be drunk at once, and, being

kept for a century or two, grows flat and insipid. _The Play called

the four P’s, being a new and merry Enterlude of a Palmer, Pardoner,

Poticary, and Pedlar_, would scarcely run for a hundred nights on the

metropolitan stage. His _Epigrams, six hundred in Number_, which were

thought uproariously funny by his own generation, ours finds rather

dismal reading. We somehow miss the snap of even that wonderful

design, his _Dialogue containing in effect the number of al the

Proverbes in the English tongue_, which all England was shaking its

sides over long after Shakspere had flung his rarest pearls at its

feet. Heywood’s great work is an allegory entitled, _The Spider and

the Flie_, “wherein,” says a polite contemporary, “he dealeth so

profoundly and beyond all measure of skill that neither he himself

that made it, neither any one that readeth it, can reach to the

meaning thereof.” It is a sort of religious parable, the flies

representing the Catholics, and the spiders the Protestants, to whom

enter presently, _dea ex machinâ_, Queen Mary with a broom. Heywood

“was inflexibly attached to the Catholic cause,” and when, the

broom-wielder having gone to another sphere, the spiders got the

ascendant, he betook himself to Mechlin, where he died in exile for

conscience’ sake. Therein Chaucer could have done no better.

Can we enroll Sir Thomas More among our tuneful company? Brave old Sir

Thomas was a Catholic certainly—a Catholic of the Catholics—and he

wrote poetry, too, or what passed for such. It is one of the many

heinous charges brought against him by worthy Master Skelton in his

_Pithie, Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes_—his going about

“With his poetry

And his sophistry

To mock and make a lie.”

But if poetry were a crime, and no other had been laid to his charge,

the good chancellor might have stood his trial freely on such evidence

as is found in his works. His _Mery Jest, how a Sergeant would learn

to play the Freere_, is thought by Ellis to have furnished the hint

for Cowper’s _John Gilpin_. _A Rufull Lamentation on the death of

Queen Elizabeth_, Henry VIII.’s mother, has touches of pathos. The

dying queen soliloquizes:

“Where are our castels now, where are our towers?

Godely Rychemonde, sone art thou gone from me!

At Westminster that costly worke of yours,[103]

Myne owne dere Lorde, now shall I never see!

Almighty God vouchsafe to grant that ye

For you and your children well may edify;

My palace byldyd is, and lo! now here I ly.”

These, however, were the pastimes of his early youth, and even so were

greatly, and doubtless justly, esteemed in his own time for their

purity and elegance of style. For this reason also they are freely

quoted by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary. More’s fame

does not rest on these achievements, but on the greatness of mind

which baffled the tyrant, and “the erudition which overthrew the

fabric of false learning and civilized his country.” If not a poet, he

was better than a poet, a great and good man, and his memory not

Catholics only, but all good men, must ever hold in affectionate

reverence.

Surrey, the gallant and the ill-fated, exactly reverses our doubt

about Sir Thomas. A poet beyond question, is he to be reckoned a

Catholic? His father was, and his son would have been had he had the

courage of his opinions. The former, imprisoned at the same time with

Surrey, “though a strong Papist,” says Lord Herbert, “pretended to ask

for Sabellicus as the most vehement detecter of the usurpations of the

Bishop of Rome.” And Surrey’s sister, the Duchess of Richmond, who

swore away his life, “inclined to the Protestants,” says Walpole, “and

hated her brother.” We need not dwell upon the doubt, however, since

Surrey is otherwise ruled out of our small society. A poet included in

all the regular collections, called by his admirers the first of

English classics, and by Pope accorded the final glory of being “the

Granville (!) of a former age,” can scarcely be held one of the

neglected to whom alone our suffrages are due. There, too, is Nicholas

Grimoald, also of dubious orthodoxy, though undoubted genius. Nicholas

was Ridley’s chaplain and suspected of being tainted with his patron’s

heresy, but cleared himself by a formal recantation. Let us trust it

was sincere. Grimoald’s verses are often of remarkable elegance, and

to the “strange metre” or blank verse, which he adopted from Lord

Surrey, he lent renewed grace and vigor.

“Right over stood in snow-white armour brave

The Memphite Zoroas, a cunning clerk,

To whom the heavens lay open as his book,

And in celestial bodies he could tell

The moving, meeting, light, aspect, eclipse,

And influence and constellations all.”

The eighteenth century might own these lines, the product of the first

half of the sixteenth.

Edward Parker, Lord Morley, was a “rigid Catholic” and a prodigious

author. He lived to be near a hundred, and left at least as many

volumes as he had years. Besides translations of countless Latin and

Greek authors from Plutarch and Seneca to St. Thomas Aquinas and

Erasmus, he wrote “several tragedies and comedies the very titles of

which are lost,” and “certain rhimes,” says Bale with a sniff of

disdain. All alike are “dark oblivion’s prey,” but history has

preserved the important fact that “this lord having a quarrel for

precedence with the Lord Dacre of Gillesland, he had his pretensions

confirmed by Parliament.” What a sermon on human ambition! Genius

toils incessantly for a century or so, turning off tragedies and

comedies, rhymes and commentaries, without number, to be its monument

through all time, and presently along comes that uncivil master of

ceremonies, that insufferable flunky, Fame, kicks these immortal works

without ceremony into the dust-heap, and introduces Genius to

posterity as the person who “had the quarrel for precedence with my

Lord Dacre of Gillesland.” No distinction here, you see; not even a

decent observance of those pretensions which Parliament confirmed.

Lord Dacre, who never wrote, perhaps never knew how to write, a line,

has his name bawled as loudly to the company as the author of all

these tragedies and comedies and rhymes. Poor Lord Morley! may he rest

as soundly as his books! His pretensions to oblivion, at least, no one

is likely to dispute.

Another poet and scholar not less scurvily treated, and to whom we

have somehow taken a wonderful fancy, was George Etheridge, a fellow

of Oxford and Regius Professor of Greek there under Mary. Persecuted

for Popery by Queen Elizabeth, he lost his university preferments, but

“established a private seminary at Oxford for the instruction of

Catholic youth in the classics, music, and logic.” He also “practised

physic with much reputation,” greatly, no doubt, to the joy of his

pupils. A friend of Leland, the antiquarian, his accomplishments were

varied and his learning profound. “He was an able mathematician,” says

a contemporary, “and one of the most excellent vocal and instrumental

musicians in England, but he chiefly delighted in the lute and lyre; a

most elegant poet, and a most exact composer of English, Latin, Greek,

and Hebrew verses, which he used to set to the harp with the greatest

skill.” Of all these elegant productions one only survives—a Greek

encomium, we are sorry to say, on that royal reprobate, Henry VIII.;

and the memory of this pious scholar of the sixteenth century has

suffered the slight of being confounded with the graceless dramatist

of the seventeenth.

A cockle-shell weathers the storm that wrecks a frigate, and a nursery

rhyme has outlived Etheridge’s poetry and Morley’s erudition. If

widespread renown be a test of merit, _The Merry Tales of the Madman

of Gotham_ must be a work of genius. “Scholars and gentlemen” _temp._

Henry VIII. “accounted it a book full of wit and mirth,” and the

scholars and babies of three centuries later approve that judgment.

The author of this famous poem was Dr. Andrew Borde, or Andreas

Perforatus, as he preferred to call himself, “esteemed in his time a

noted poet, a witty and ingenious person, and an excellent physician,”

serving in the latter capacity, it is said, to Henry VIII. He was the

original of the stage Merry-andrew, “going to fairs and the like,

where he would gather a crowd, to whom he prescribed by humorous

speeches couched in such language as caused mirth and wonderfully

propagated his fame.” He wrote, besides the _Merry Tales_, _The Mylner

of Abington_, a satire called the _Introduction of Knowledge_, and

various medical works giving curious details of the domestic life of

the time.

Many others we might catalogue who were better churchmen

than poets—William Forrest, Queen Mary’s chaplain, whose

gorgeously-illuminated MSS. show that he, at least, had a due

appreciation of his _Saincted Griseilde_ and his _Blessed Joseph_; or

Richard Stonyhurst, who, like Heywood, died in exile for his faith,

and who merits immortality for having written probably the worst

translation of Virgil ever achieved by mortal man. It was in the

amazing hexameter of the time, that “foul, lumbering, boisterous,

wallowing measure,” as Nashe calls it, which represented to Sir Philip

Sidney and his coterie the grace and melody of Virgil’s line. The wits

laughed it to death, and we read its epitaph in Hall’s parody:

“_Manhood and Garboiles shall he chaunt_ with changed feet.”

On names like these, however, we have not space to dwell. Not even

neglect can sanctify them. We are at the dawning of that glorious

outburst of creative genius which made the Elizabethan era a splendor

to all times and lands, and worthier subjects await us.

At the outset we must prepare for something like a disappointment in

the scanty list of Catholic poets which even this prolific period

could furnish. Looking back on it, all England seems to have been

furiously bent on making poetry enough to last it for all years to

come. Englishmen, we know, in those days did other things—circumnavigated

the globe once or twice, and conquered a continent or so—in the

intervals of rhyming; but the wonder is how they found leisure for

such trifles from the absorbing business of the hour. Poetry, in that

electric century of song, appears to have been the Englishman’s

birthright; Apollo possessed the nation. The judge scribbled odes upon

the bench; the soldier turned a sonnet and a battery together; the

sailor made a song as he brought his ship into action; the bishop

preached indifferently in sermons and satires—it was hard at times to

tell which; the office-seeker preferred his claims in rhyme, and his

complaints were “married to immortal verse”—it is lucky our own age is

more given to office-seeking than to poetry; the bricklayer dropped

his trowel and was a mighty dramatist; the condemned, like André

Chénier at a later day—“the ruling passion strong in death”—strung

couplets on the very steps of the scaffold. Even princes were smitten

with the general madness, and, catching something of the general

inspiration, made verses which were no worse than a prince’s verses

ought to be, and were often better than their laws. Were we

poet-haters like Carlyle, we should have ample food for disgust in

exploring that fiddling age. At every step in the most unlikely

corners we stumble upon the inevitable rhymer.

In the Mermaid, where we drop in for a quiet cup of canary, and

perhaps a glimpse of that rising dramatist, William Shakspere, we find

him bawling madrigals over his sack; we overhear him muttering of

“hearts” and “darts” as we take our constitutional in Powle’s Walk;

the very boatman who wherries us across the Thames is a Water-Poet, as

though poets were classified like rats, and will importune us before

we land to buy one of his four-score volumes; like black care, Rhyme

sits behind the horseman and climbs the brazen galley. We fly from him

to the camp; and there is that terrible fellow, Walter Devereux, Earl

of Essex, whom we heard of anon slaughtering “vulgar Irishry,” men,

women, and children, like so many rabbits—there is that martial hero,

fresh from his last battue of unarmed peasants, simpering over the

composition of “godly and virtuous hymns.” We ship with Drake for a

trip to the Azores “to do God’s work,” and incidentally to fill our

pockets, perhaps, as somehow or other “God’s work” usually did for

that pious and lucky mariner. _Scandit æratas vitiosa naves_—the rogue

Apollo is there before us. We have scarce got over our sea-sickness

before our ingenuous skipper will be asking our opinion of the

commendatory verses which “he hath writ,” he explains—a fine blush

mantling under his bronze—“for his very good friend, Sir Gervase

Peckham’s _Report of the Late Discoveries_.” We peep over my Lord of

Pembroke’s shoulder as he sits writing in his cabinet—it is a liberty

that by virtue of his privilege a well-bred chronicler may take. By

his knit brows and preoccupied air it is some weighty state paper he

is drafting—a minute, perhaps, of her majesty’s revenues from fines of

popish recusants, and how the same may be increased.

“Dry those fair, those crystal eyes,”

the state paper begins, and it is a minute of the perfections of the

Lady Christiana Bruce.

Even the queen’s majesty, between hangings of priests and virginal

coquettings with princely wooers, finds time for the making of royal

“ditties passing sweet and harmonicall.” When next we seek her

beauteous presence, worthy Master Puttenham will buttonhole us in the

ante-chamber and launch out into loyal praises of her “learned,

delicate, and noble muse.” “Of any in our time that I know of,” he

asseverates, “she is the most excellent poet, easily surmounting all

the rest that have written, before or since, for sense, sweetness, or

subtilltie, be it in Ode, Elegie, Epigram, or any other kinde of

Poeme, Heroick or Lyrick.” Master Puttenham is known to be writing a

book on the _Arte of Poesie_. We think as we listen to him of another

Royal Poet singing yonder at Fotheringay behind prison-bars, whose

strains sound sweeter to us, though we shall do well to hide our

preference here—sweeter, but infinitely sad:

“O Domine Deus, speravi in te!

O care mi Jesu, nunc libera me!

In dura catena, in misera pœna, desidero te!

Languendo, gemendo, et genuflectendo,

Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me!”

Liberty is the burden of this captive’s song, and her royal sister

lends a gracious ear to her prayer. The headsman is already sharpening

his axe to break her fetters. And still another princely genius up

there in Edinburgh is so busy with his Divine Sonnets, and his _Rules

and Cautelis_ for the fashioning of the same, he has no time to

observe that his mother is being led to death. But what is a mother’s

life to those imperishable works?

“How, best of poets, dost thou laurel wear!”

roars lusty Ben Jonson, brimful of sack and loyalty.

“Thou best of poets more than man dost prove,”

echoes the faithful Stirling. Yet, strange as it may seem, we can

never read these superhuman productions with any comfort. The Divine

Sonnets fade, and instead we see the gloomy stage at Fotheringay, the

hapless but heroic victim, the frowning earls, the gleaming axe, the

fair head dabbled with gore. Let us turn to merely human geniuses.

In this time of inspiration, with all England, from prince to peasant,

bursting into song and three-fourths Catholic, we find from Spenser to

Cowley a scant dozen, or, counting Shakspere, at most a baker’s dozen,

of Catholic poets worth naming. And Shakspere, in spite of Charles

Butler’s ingenious theory and its spirited revival by Mr. George

Wilkes, we can scarcely claim. That great poet’s religious creed, like

other important features of his life, must no doubt remain always

matter of conjecture. If he was a Catholic, his creed was probably no

more than a tradition, strong enough to keep his pages free from the

pictures of dissolute monks and nuns in which most of his contemporary

playwrights delighted, but far from the fervor which sent Southwell to

the scaffold, or the sincerity which, in a milder age, made Sherburne

welcome poverty and disgrace. Omitting Shakspere, then, our

muster-roll is but short. For this there were many reasons. In those

days there was other work for Catholics than verse-making; the church

needed martyrs, not minstrels, and the blood-stained record of the

English mission tells how intrepidly the need was met. Southwell and

Campian are only two of a brilliant band almost equally gifted,

equally heroic. The life they led promised little for polite letters.

Hunted like wild beasts, in hourly danger of the most cruel and

ignominious death; sleeping, when they slept, in hayricks or the open

fields; studying, when they caught a breathing-spell for study, in

caves and thickets—many of these noble youths have left behind them

proofs of a genius which, under happier auspices, would have borne

abundant fruit. Southwell’s poems, composed in the intervals of

thirteen rackings, reveal a spirit of uncommon force and beauty.

Campian is known to have written at least one tragedy, _Nectar and

Ambrosia_, performed at Vienna before the Emperor Rodolph. It must be

remembered, too, that both of these dauntless missionaries were cut

off in the very flower of their age, Southwell being thirty-two and

Campian forty when executed. Francis Beaumont, cousin and namesake of

the dramatist, was a Jesuit and a poet. So was Jasper Heywood, son of

the epigrammatist. He translated several tragedies of Seneca, and is

said by some to have been one of the one hundred and twenty-eight

priests executed by the clement Elizabeth. He is one of Cibber’s

Poets. Ellis Heywood, his brother, also a Jesuit, though he left

behind him a prose work in Italian, is not known to have written in

verse. Of Crashaw, whose fortune it was to live at a time when the

storm of persecution had spent its fiercest fury, when Catholics were

subject no longer to be murdered, but only to be robbed—of Crashaw,

whose “power and opulence of invention” Coleridge has remarked,

another critic has said that, with more taste and judgment,” he would

have outstripped most of his contemporaries, even Cowley.”

These were all priests. But outside of the priesthood Catholics found

work in other directions which left little leisure for literary

pursuits. Chidiock Titchbourne, whose talents and unhappy fate the

elder Disraeli has feelingly commemorated, was one of “an association

in London of young Catholic gentlemen of family who met at the house

of Mr. Gilbert, in Fetter Lane, and took care of Jesuits.” Thomas

Habington, an associate of Titchbourne in this enterprise, and who, if

not a poet himself, was at least the father of a poet, narrowly

escaped hanging for concealing in his house the Jesuits Garnett and

Oldcome, accused of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot. Dymoke, the

champion of England, apparently the same who translated _Il Pastor

Fido_, won the title to a more glorious championship by dying (1610)

in the Tower, where he had been imprisoned for his resolute refusal to

conform. Dr. Lodge, a most charming poet as well as an eminent

physician, we find in “the list of popish recusants indicted at the

sessions holden for London and Middlesex, February 15, 1604.” It is of

interest to note _en passant_ that with Dr. Lodge was indicted for the

same cause “Ambrose Rookwood, of the army.” Twenty months later

Ambrose Rookwood, of the army, expressed his opinion of this treatment

by engaging in the Gunpowder Treason. At a later period we have Sir

Edward Sherburne, a scholar and poet of no mean pretensions, resigning

offices of large emolument rather than betray his faith. Certainly,

under the last of the Tudors and the first of the Stuarts a Catholic

poet may be said to have cultivated his art under difficulties.

The obstacles in the way of Catholics, then and long after, not only

for obtaining culture but the rudiments of learning, were indeed

enormous. Classed by legislative enactment with “forgers, perjurers,

and outlaws,” they were denied education for themselves or their

children, except at the cost of conscience or of ruinous penalties.

Their liberty they held at twenty days’ notice; their lives at a

moment’s purchase. At any hour of the day or night their houses were

open to the invasion of ruffianly pursuivants, searching ostensibly

for “Mass-books” and other “popish mummeries,” but prone to confound

recusant jewels or broad gold pieces with the relics of superstition;

and for such robberies they had absolutely no redress. In the courts

of justice they found not only no protection, but renewed oppression.

To use a phrase often misused, they had really no rights which a

conforming subject was bound to respect, and their freedom, their

fortunes, nay, their lives, were at the mercy of the rapacity or the

malice of their Protestant neighbors. Much of their time they spent in

going to and from prison; they crowded the common jails in such

multitudes that many new ones had to be opened for the sole

accommodation of these hardened malefactors; and their estates were

impoverished to pay for the privilege, not of going to their own

church—that was denied them in any event—but of staying away from one

they could not conscientiously enter. Men so occupied doubtless found

ample employment for their leisure without making acrostics to

Elizabeth Regina or panegyrics on the “best of poets.”

Yet even this untoward time and chilling air yielded blossoms of

Catholic poetry which we need not disdain to gather. Some of the

daintiest of them have been culled by careful gleaners like Headley

and Ellis and Southey, and a stray flower here and there salutes us in

the more tasteful modern collections, such as Mr. De Vere’s

_Selections_, Mr. Palgrave’s _Golden Treasury_, or Mr. Stoddard’s

_Melodies and Madrigals_, the latter a gem among its kind. But the

bulk of the Catholic poetry of this period is practically unknown.

Massinger, luckier than any of his great rivals (for Shakspere was

above rivalry), still keeps the stage with a single comedy, _A New Way

to pay Old Debts_. But Shirley, little his inferior in dramatic

ability, is, in spite of Dyce’s elegant edition, utterly neglected. He

may be said to owe his rescue from oblivion to that one noble song in

_The Contention of Achilles and Agamemnon_, “The Glories of our Blood

and State”—a song which alone is worth a library of modern ballads,

and which might be called truly Horatian but for a moral elevation

which Horace never reached. And even this song, almost his sole

slender hold on immortality, Shirley came near losing; for in a

spurious compilation of Butler’s posthumous works it is given to the

author of _Hudibras_, and there entitled _A Thought upon Death upon

hearing of the Murder of Charles I._, though anything further from

Butler’s style can scarcely be imagined. Ben Jonson—if, in virtue of

his twelve years spent in the church and the period of his best work,

he may be considered as a Catholic poet at all—“rare old Ben,” in

spite of his weighty thought, his pungent humor, his fertile fancy,

remains among the authors who are widely talked of and little read.

Lodge again, who may dispute with Bishop Hall the honor of being the

earliest English satirist, and who, “though subject to a critic’s

marginal,” gives evidence of a glow and richness of imagination not

common even in that opulent time—Lodge has no literary existence

except as one of the wistful shades that flit through the Hades of the

cyclopædias. Sir William Davenant has from Southey the distinguished

compliment that, avoiding equally the opposite faults of too

artificial and too careless a style, he wrote in numbers which, for

precision and clearness and felicity and strength, have never been

surpassed. Yet who now reads _Gondibert_, or its notable preface,

which inspired Dryden with the germ of dramatic criticism? Sir Edward

Sherburne, whom Mr. Dyce calls “an accomplished versifier,” whose

translations may even now be read with pleasure, and whose learning

was above the average of his learned time, is equally forgotten.

Crashaw is remembered less for himself than as the friend of Cowley,

whose monody on his death, in Johnson’s opinion, has “beauties which

common authors may justly think not only above their attainments, but

above their ambition.” Southwell we think of as the martyr rather than

as the poet. The verses of Sir Aston Cokayn and his friend Sir Kenelm

Digby are not, perhaps, of the sort which the world does not willingly

let die; yet the plays of the former are not without merit, especially

_Frappolin creduto principe_, an adaptation of the same Italian

original whence Shakspere took the hint for his prologue to the

_Taming of the Shrew_. His minor poems, too, if they have no other

merit, throw some curious side lights on the literary history of the

time. The life of Sir Kenelm Digby, “of whose acquaintance,” says

Dryden, “all his contemporaries seem to have been proud,” was itself a

poem, and certainly one more worthy of being told than that of many of

the gentlemen whom Johnson’s vigorous pen has thrust into uneasy and

unnatural immortality.

“Sweet Constable, who takes the wond’ring ear

And lays it up in willing prisonment,”

who was rated as the first sonneteer of his time, is as little known

as the pure and pensive Habington, the only love-poet of the reign of

Charles I. whose pages are without stain. The two last-named writers,

however, we may expect to see more noticed, both having been lately

reprinted—Constable’s _Diana_ by Pickering, and Habington’s _Castara_

being included in the admirable and wonderfully cheap series of

English reprints edited by Mr. Edward Arber.

We had thought to give a few specimens of at least the more obscure of

the writers last mentioned. But we have already overstepped our limits

and must bring this ramble to an end. The reader who may be tempted

for himself to loiter in these unfamiliar ways will meet with much to

reward him. “Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good” he will find in

abundance:

“… rich in fit epithets,

Blest in the lovely marriage of pure words.”

[103] Henry VII.’s chapel.

ARE YOU MY WIFE?

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS

VI.,” ETC.