When, therefore, all was over, and the “Men of ’48,” admittedly the

flower of Ireland’s intellect and patriotism, were fugitives or

“felons”—some seeking and receiving asylum and hospitality in America,

others eating their hearts in the hulks of Bermuda or the dungeons of

Tasmania—a dismal reaction set in in Ireland. The results above

referred to as incidental to defeats as a rule were plainly apparent.

Of the millions who, from 1841 to 1848, whether as Repealers,

O’Connellites, Confederates, Mitchelites, Old Irelanders, or Young

Irelanders, partook in an effort to make Ireland a self-governed or

else totally independent nation, probably one-half in 1849 resigned,

as they thought, for ever, all further hope or effort in that

direction. Of the remainder, a numerically small party—chiefly, though

not all, men who had belonged to John Mitchel’s section of the Young

Irelanders—became only the more exasperated by a defeat in which they

felt that their policy had not had even a chance of trying what was in

it; a defeat, too, that left the vanquished not one incident to solace

their pride and shield them from humiliation and ignoble ridicule.

Chafing with rage and indignation, they beheld the rest of what

remained at all visible of the national party effecting that

retrograde movement alluded to in a foregoing page. Of all the

brilliant leaders of Young Ireland, Gavan Duffy alone now remained to

face on Irish soil the terrible problem, “What next?” Openly

proclaiming that the revolutionary position could not be held, he

ordered a retreat all along the line. Halting for a while on an

attempt to revive the original Irish Confederation policy—an attempt

which he had to abandon for want of support—he at length succeeded in

rallying what could be called a political party on a struggle for

“Tenant Right.” It raised in no way the “national” question. It

gathered Presbyterians of the north and Catholics of the south,

repealers and anti-repealers, in an organization to force Parliament

to pass a bill preventing the eviction of tenant-farmers unless for

non-payment of rent; preventing also arbitrary increasing of rent that

might squeeze out the farmer in another way. “Come, now, this is

something practical and sensible,” said matter-of-fact non-repealers

and half-hearted nationalists. “Why, it is craven surrender and sheer

dishonor!” cried the irreconcilable section of the ’48 men. A band of

thirty or forty members of Parliament were returned at the instance of

the Tenant League to work out its programme. They were mostly corrupt

and dishonest men, who merely shouted the new shibboleth for their own

purposes. Were the people thoroughly in earnest, and did they possess

any really free voting power (there was no vote by ballot then), all

this could be cured; but as things stood, the parliamentary band broke

up in the first three months of their existence. The English minister

bought up its noisiest leaders, of whom Keogh (now a judge) and

Sadleir are perhaps most widely remembered. In some cases the

constituencies, priests and people, condoned their treason, duped into

believing it was not treason at all, but “a great thing to have

Catholics on the bench.” In other places the efforts of priests and

people to oppose the re-election of the traitors were vain; free

election amongst “tenants at will” being almost unknown without the

ballot. The tenants’ cause was lost. Thus ruin, in its own way as

complete and disastrous as that which overtook the insurrectionary

attempt of 1848, now overthrew the experiment of a great popular

campaign based on constitutional and parliamentary principles. Not

only was there now no movement for nationality in Ireland; there was

not an Irish movement of any kind or for any Irish purpose at all,

great or little. It was _Pacata Hibernia_ as in the days of Carew and

St. Leger.

Now came the turn for the unchanged and exasperated section of the ’48

war party. Few in numbers, and scattered wide apart, they had hissed

forth scorn and execration on Duffy’s parliamentary experiment as a

departure from the revolutionary faith. If he in 1849 answered to

their invectives by pointing to the fiasco of the year before, they

now taunted him with the collapse of 1853. Not more than two or three

of the ’48 men of any prominence, however, took up this actually

hostile attitude. Most of them—O’Brien, Dillon, Meagher, O’Gorman, and

even Martin—more or less expressly approved the recent endeavor as the

best thing practicable under the circumstances in Ireland. Now,

however, the men who believed in war and nothing but war, in total

separation and nothing short of separation, would take _their_ turn.

The Fenian movement thus arose.

If neither of the sections or subsections of the Irish nationalists in

1848 could be said to have succeeded in rallying or representing the

full force, or even a considerable proportion, of Irish patriotism,

this new venture was certainly not more fortunate in that respect.

Outside its ranks, obstinately refusing to believe in its policy,

remained the bulk of the millions who had followed O’Connell or Smith

O’Brien. Yet the Fenians worked with an energy worthy of

admiration—except where the movement degenerated into an intolerance

that forbade any other national opinions save those of its leaders to

be advanced. In truth, their influence on Irish politics was very

mixed in its merits. In some places it was a rude and vaunting

rowdyism that called itself Fenianism; in others an honest, manly,

self-sacrificing spirit of patriotism marked the men who were its

confessors and martyrs. If in their fall they drew down upon Ireland

severities worse than anything known since 1798, it is only fair, on

the other hand, to credit in a large degree to the sensations aroused

by their trials the great awakening of public opinion on the Irish

question which set in all over England at the time.

And now once more the board was clear. England had won the game; not a

pawn remained untaken on the Irish side. Not an Irish association, or

society, or “agitation,” or demand of any kind challenged Britannia’s

peace of mind. Once more it was a spectacle of the lash and the

triangle; state-trials, informers, and prosecutors; the convict-ship

and the hulk; the chain-gangs at Portland and Chatham.

“Who will show us any light?” exclaims one of the Young Ireland bards

in a well-known and beautiful poem. Such might well have been the

exclamation of Ireland in 1867. Was this to be the weary cycle of

Irish effort, for ever and for ever? Was armed effort hopeless, and

peaceful effort vain? Was there no alternative for Irishmen but to

become “West-Britons,” or else dash their brains out against a dungeon

wall? Could no one devise a way whereby to give scope and vent to the

Irish passion for national existence, to give a field to Irish

devotion and patriotism, which would be consonant with the spirit of

manhood, without calling for these hecatombs of victims?

Suddenly a new element of consideration presented itself; new, indeed,

and rather startling.

It was Irish Protestantism offering the hand of reconciliation to

Ireland.

The Tory party had come into power in the course of the Fenian

prosecutions, and had carried on the work in a spirit which Cromwell

himself would approve. They really held office, not because they had

an effective majority in the House of Commons, but because the

liberals were broken up and divided, unable to agree on a policy. To

turn to his own account the “Fenian scare” was Mr. Gladstone’s

brilliant idea. To make a dash on the Irish Church establishment would

rally all the mutinous fractions of liberalism, on the principle of

“hit him, he has no friends.” It would gratify all England as a sort

of conscience-salve for the recent dragonnades and coercion laws. Yes;

this was the card with which to beat Disraeli. True, Mr. Gladstone had

only a few years before put down his foot and declared that never,

“no, _never_,” could, would, or should that Irish Church be

disestablished or interfered with in any way. What was he to say now

to cover this flank movement, made for purely party purposes? In all

Britain there is no brain more subtle, none more fertile of strategic

resource, than that of W. E. Gladstone. He put it all on Fenianism. He

had changed his mind, _not_ because he was out of office with a weak

and broken party, and wanted to get back with a strong and united one,

but because he had opened his eyes to Fenianism! He never hit on a

more successful idea. On the cry of “Down with the Irish Church!” he

was swept into office at the head of the most powerful majority

commanded by any minister since Peel in 1841. It must not be thought

that Mr. Gladstone was insincere, or meant anything but service to

Ireland (while also serving his party) by this move. He has the

faculty of intensely persuading himself into a fervid conscientiousness

on any subject he likes, whether it be Free Trade, Church

Establishment, Church Disestablishment, or Vaticanism.

The Irish Protestants had an unanswerable case against England—that

is, as between them and her—on this matter of disestablishment. It

was, on her part towards them, an open, palpable, and flagitious

breach of faith—breach of formal treaty in fact. The articles of the

Union in 1800 expressly covenanted that the maintenance of the Irish

Church establishment was to be one of the cardinal, fundamental,

essential, and everlasting conditions of the deed. Mr. Gladstone

snapped his fingers at such considerations. “Mind, you thereby repeal

and annul the Union,” cried Irish conservatives. “We will kick another

crown into the Boyne,” said Parson Flanagan at an Orange meeting. “We

have held by this bargain with you with uneasy consciences,” said and

wrote numbers of sincere Irish Protestants; “break it, and we break

with you, and become Irishmen first and before everything.”

It was rightly judged by thoughtful observers that, though noisy

braggarts of the Parson Flanagan class would not only let the crown

alone, but would cringe all the more closely by England’s side even

when the church was swept away, there was much of sober earnestness

and honest resolve in what hundreds of Protestant laymen (and even

clergymen) spoke upon this issue. Yes, though the bulk of Irish

Protestants would prove unequal to so rapid a political conversion,

even under provocation so strong, there would still be a considerable

movement of their numbers towards, if not into, the Irish camp. Time,

moreover, and prudent and conciliatory action on the part of their

Catholic countrymen, would be always increasing that _rapprochement_.

And so in the very chaos and disruption and upheaval of political

elements and parties in Ireland from 1868 to 1870 there was, as by a

mysterious design of Providence, a way made for events and

transformations and combinations which otherwise would have been nigh

impossible.

The church was disestablished; Irish Protestants were struck with

amazement and indignation. England had broken with them; they would

unite with Ireland. But, alas! no; this was, it seemed, impossible.

They could never be “Fenians.” No doubt they, after all, treasured in

their Protestant hearts the memory, the words, and, in a way, the

principles of their great coreligionists, Grattan and Flood, Curran

and Charlemont. In _this_ direction they could go; but towards

_separation_—towards an “Irish republic,” towards disloyalty to the

crown—they would not, could not, turn their faces. These men belonged

in large part to a class, or to classes, never since 1782 seen joining

a national movement in any great numbers. They were men of high

position; large landed proprietors, bankers, merchants,

“deputy-lieutenants” of counties, baronets, a few of them peers, many

of them dignitaries of the Protestant church, some of them fellows of

Trinity College. Such men had vast property at stake in the country.

They saw a thousand reasons why Irishmen alone should regulate Irish

affairs, but they would hold by a copartnership with Scotland and

England in the empire at large. This, however, they concluded, was not

what the bulk of their countrymen was looking for; and so it almost

seemed as if they would turn back and relapse into mere West-britonism

as a lesser evil for them than a course of “rebellion” and “sedition.”

At this juncture there appeared upon the scene a man whose name seems

destined to be writ large on the records of a memorable era in Irish

history—Isaac Butt.

When, on Friday evening, the 15th of September, 1865, the British

government seized the leading members of the Fenian Society and flung

them into Richmond jail, it became a consideration of some difficulty

with the prisoners and their friends how and by whom they should be

defended. In one sense they had plenty of counsel to choose from. Such

occasions are great opportunities for briefless advocates to strike

in, like ambitious authors of unacted plays who nobly offer them to be

performed on Thanksgiving day or for some popular public charity. No

doubt the prisoners could have had attorneys and lawyers of this stamp

easily enough; but it was not every man whom they would trust equally

for his ability and his honesty. Besides, there was the money

difficulty. The crown was about to fight them in a costly law duel. To

retain men of the front rank at the bar would cost thousands of

pounds; to retain men of inferior position would be worse than

useless. Could there be found amongst the leaders of the Irish bar

even one man bold enough and generous enough to undertake the

desperate task and protracted labor of defending these men, leaving

the question of fee or remuneration to the _chance_ of funds being

forthcoming? What of the great advocates of the state trials of 1843

and 1848? Holmes—_clarum et venerabile nomen_—dead! Shiel—gone too;

Whiteside—on the bench; O’Hagan—also a judge; Sir Colman O’Loghlen—a

crown prosecutor; Butt—yes, Butt, even then in the front rank, the

most skilful, the boldest, the most eloquent, and most generous of

them all—_he_ is just the man! Where is Butt?

Where, indeed? He had to be searched and sought for, so utterly and

sadly had a great figure silently disappeared from the forum. Thirty

years before Isaac Butt was the young hope of Protestant conservatism,

the idol of its _salons_. He had barely passed his majority when he

was elected to the professorship of Political Economy in Trinity

College; and, at an age when such honors were unprecedented, was

elevated to a “silk-gown,” as Queen’s Counsellor at the bar. Yet there

was always about young Butt an intense Irishism; he was a

high-spirited Protestant, a chivalrous conservative; but even in that

early time the eagle eye of O’Connell detected in him an Irish heart

and a love of the principles of liberty that would yet, so he

prophesied, lead Butt into the ranks of the Irish people. The English

Tory leaders enticed him over to London, and sent him into Parliament

for one of their boroughs—Harwich. They made much of him—and were his

ruin. In the whirl of parliamentary life, in the fascination of London

society, he abandoned his professional business and fell into debt

difficulty, and dissipation. Had he been less independent and less

self-willed, he would no doubt have been richly placed by his

ministerial friends. Somehow or another he and they drew apart as he

went sullenly and recklessly downward. In 1864 he had almost dropped

out of sight, having just previously ceased to sit in Parliament.

To the solicitation to undertake the defence of the Fenian prisoners

he responded by giving them, it may be said, three whole years of his

professional life. He flung himself into that fight for the men in the

dock with the devotion, the enthusiasm, the desperate energy of a man

striving for life itself. His genius and ability, conspicuous before,

shone out more than ever. He was admittedly the first lawyer of his

day; and now not only the crown counsel but the judges on the bench

felt they were dealing with their master. Of money he took no thought.

Indeed, in the best and worst days of his fortunes he gave it little

heed. He has been known in the depth of his difficulties to hand back

a special fee of a hundred guineas which he knew a poor client could

not spare, and the same day pay his hotel bill with a check doomed

never to be cashed. The incident is unfortunately only too typical of

one phase of his nature.

Three or four years immersed in such labors—one protracted series of

state trials—dealing in the most painfully realistic way with the

problem of Ireland’s destiny, could not fail to have a profound effect

on a man like Butt. Meantime, he grew into immense popularity. His

bold appeals for the prisoners, which soon came to be the sentiments

of the man rather than the pleadings of the advocate, were read with

avidity in every peasant’s cottage and workman’s home. The Fenians,

broken and defeated as an organization, yet still ramifying throughout

the country, looked to him with the utmost gratitude and confidence.

Under his presidency and guidance a society called the Amnesty

Association was established for the purpose of obtaining the royal

clemency for at least some of the Fenian convicts. A series of

mass-meetings under its auspices were held throughout the island, and

were the largest assemblages seen in Ireland since the Repeal meetings

of Tara and Mullaghmast. In fine, Mr. Butt found himself a popular

leader, at the head of at all events the pro-Fenian section of Irish

political elements, and daily becoming a power in the country.

The resentful Protestants, just now half-minded to hoist the national

flag, were many of them Butt’s old comrades, college-chums, and

political associates. He noted their critical position, and forthwith

turned all his exertions, in private as well as in public, to lead

them onward to the people, and to prevent them from relapsing into the

character of an English garrison. In his public speeches he poured

forth to them the most impassioned appeals. In private he sought out

man by man of the most important and influential among them. “Banish

hesitation and fear,” he cried. “Act boldly and promptly now, and you

will save Ireland from revolutionary violence on the one side, and

from alien misgovernment on the other. You, like myself, have been

early trained to mistrust the Catholic multitude, but when you come to

know them you will admire them. They are not anarchists, nor would

they be revolutionists if men like you would but do your duty and lead

them—that is, honestly and faithfully and capably lead them—in the

struggle for constitutional liberty.” The Protestants listened, almost

persuaded; but some sinister whisper now and again of the terrors of a

“Catholic ascendency” in an Irish parliament—a reminder that Irish

Catholics would vote for a nominee of their clergy right or wrong, and

consequently that if the Irish Protestant minority threw off the yoke

of England, they should bear the yoke of Rome—seemed to drive them,

scared, from the portals of nationality.

About this time, the beginning of 1870, Mr. Gladstone raised to the

peerage Colonel Fulke Greville Nugent, M.P. for Longford County. He

was a respectable and fairly popular “liberal” in politics, was a good

landlord, and, though a Protestant, kindly and generous to the

Catholic clergy and people around him. He had held his seat by and

from the priests; for Longford County, from the days when it

heroically won its independence a generation before, had been

virtually in the gift of the Catholic clergy. This vacancy occurred in

the very fever of the Amnesty excitement. A few months before Mr.

Gladstone had rather harshly refused the appeal for Amnesty; and

Tipperary made answer and commentary thereon by electing to Parliament

one of the Fenian convicts, at the moment a prisoner in Chatham. It

was proposed to imitate this course in Longford, but a more worthy

resolve was taken: John Martin of Rostrevor—“Honest John Martin”—one

of the purest, most heroic, and lovable of Irish patriots, was put in

nomination, although at the moment he was travelling in America and

unaware of the proceedings. But the clergy had at a private conference

committed themselves to the son of their late member—a brainless young

officer in the army. Neither party would withdraw their man; and out

of this arose a conflict as fierce, bitter, and relentless as if the

parties to it had been ancient and implacable foes instead of lifelong

and loving friends. Altar denunciations of the most terrible kind were

hurled at the men who dared to “oppose their clergy” by advocating

John Martin. Platform denunciations were hurled at the men who dared

to go “against Ireland” by preferring to a stainless and devoted

patriot a brainless little fop who had not a political idea in his

head or a spark of Irish patriotism in his heart.

Ireland, and England too, looked on in intense amazement and

curiosity. Here was a great problem brought to a critical test. The

old story of the anti-Catholic English press, that Irish Catholics

would slavishly “vote black white at the ordering of their priests,”

was about to be proved true or put to shame. The Longford clergy

defeated John Martin and carried their man, but he was subsequently

unseated on petition. The experiment otherwise, however, was decisive.

For John Martin, a Presbyterian Protestant, a Catholic people fought

their own clergy as vehemently as they and those clergy had ever

fought the Tory landlords. It was an exceptional and painful incident,

but at the moment one of vast importance, which proudly vindicated

both priests and people from a damaging calumny.[142]

There was no misunderstanding all this. No Irish Protestant,

patriotically inclined, could any longer be scared by the bugbear of

“Catholic intolerance.” The time at last had come for the step they

meditated. The moment had arrived also for some attempt to answer the

aspirations of Ireland. And “the Hour had brought the Man.”

On the night of Thursday, the 19th of May, 1870, there were quietly

assembled in the Bilton Hotel, Upper Sackville Street, Dublin—the most

exclusive and aristocratic of the quasi-private hotels in that city—a

strange gathering. Such men had never met to confer or act together

before. It was a “private conference of Irish gentlemen to consider

the state of Ireland.” But looking around the room, one might think

the millennium at hand, when the wolf would lie down with the lamb and

the lion slumber with the fawn. Men who were Tories, nay, Orangemen;

men who were “ultra-montanes,” men who had been Repealers, men who

were Whigs, men who had been rebels; Protestants, Catholics,

Presbyterians, Quakers, Fenians, anti-Fenians, knights, high sheriffs,

aristocrats, democrats—a strange array, about fifty in all.[143]

Soberly and earnestly and long they discussed and debated and

deliberated. The men seemed thoroughly to realize the gravity of what

they were about.

They did not claim any representative character whatever; they spoke

each man for himself. The questions they had proposed to discuss dealt

merely with “absenteeism and the consequent loss of trade and national

prosperity,” and “the advantages of a royal residence in Ireland in a

political and financial point of view.” But in the very first moments

of discussion even the new converts to nationality took up bolder

ground. Lord Mayor Purdon, a Protestant Conservative, a man

universally respected in Dublin; Sir William Wilde (husband of the

Young Ireland poetess “Speranza”), an archæologist of European fame;

the Hon. Capt. King-Harman; and the Rev. J. E. Galbraith, fellow of

Trinity College, one of the most distinguished mathematicians of the

age, were amongst the men of conservative politics who came especially

to the front. The nationalists, both “extreme” and “moderate,”

interfered but little in the discussions, looking on greatly

astonished at all they heard and saw; but their part of the case was

well handled by the man who was really the guiding spirit of the

scene, and who eventually rose and in a brief speech of thrilling

power proposed:

“That it is the opinion of this meeting that the true remedy for

the evils of Ireland is the establishment of an Irish parliament

with full control over our domestic affairs.”

A dozen men rose to second this resolution of Mr. Butt, which was

carried in the meeting not only without a dissentient voice, but with

enthusiasm. Considering the composition of the assemblage, this was

one of the most startling incidents in Irish politics for half a

century. Having appointed a committee to report resolutions to a

future meeting, the assembly adjourned.

This was the birth of the Home-Rule movement.

The course of procedure adopted, following upon the above events, was

one quite unique in Irish politics. Usually the promoters in such

cases would hold a meeting as “we the people of Ireland” and begin to

act and speak in the name of the country. Not only was this line of

conduct eschewed, it was expressty repudiated, by the semi-private

society or association which at first grew out of the Bilton Hotel

meeting. It was only four months afterwards (1st of Sept., 1870) that

they ventured to assume public form or shape as a political

organization. During all this interval they announced themselves

simply as a number of Irishmen associated together in an endeavor to

ascertain the feeling of the country upon the subject of national

autonomy. They had themselves arrived at certain general conclusions

or resolutions (hereafter to be noticed), but they declared they could

not arrogate to themselves any right or authority to speak for the

nation at large. When at length they broke ground and took the field

publicly as the “Irish Home Government Association,” they still

disclaimed the right to assume the authoritative functions or tone of

a great national organization.[144] _That_ would come at the right

time, if the country thought well of calling forth such a body; but

_this_ was at best a sort of “precursor society” projecting certain

views, and submitting them to public examination by the people, with

the avowed intention on the part of these “precursors” of some day, if

they found encouragement for their course, calling on the country to

pass its deliberate and decisive verdict upon those views, so that

_Ireland, the nation_, might speak, and, speaking, command obedience

from all loyal and faithful sons.

This was all Butt’s sagacity. _Festina lente_ was the motto that

befitted work so grave and momentous as an effort to lift Ireland up

and bid her hope and strive once more. There was need of this

deliberation and caution. The experiment of bringing together such

elements as he gathered around this new venture was a hazardous one.

There were prejudices to be allayed, objections to be removed,

antipathies to be conquered. Notoriously there were men who wanted not

to go very far on a road so new to them, and whom a very little bit

indeed of self-government would satisfy. Just as notoriously were

there men who wanted to go a great deal further than they could get

the rest of their countrymen to join them in attempting. These two

sections—the Protestant loyalists and the Fenian secessionists—were

the most widely opposed. Then there were men of the “Old Ireland”

school and men of the “Young Ireland” school—men who objected to

“repeal” as worthless without the addition of a separate and

responsible Irish administration; and men who objected to repeal as

dangerous without stronger guarantees against conflict and separation

of the kingdoms.

It was expected that the greatest difficulty would be with the (Irish)

Fenians; but this was not so. Mainly through Mr. Butt’s great

influence with them, but partly because adversity had taught them

useful lessons, they either came into the new scheme or else declared

for a friendly neutrality. Not that any of them did so in the sense of

recanting their Fenian principles. They expressly reserved their own

convictions, but announced their determination to give a fair trial

and a friendly aid to an honest endeavor in the direction proposed.

Some of their body, absent in America, disapproved of this resolve,

and bitterly decried the idea of letting any patriotic scheme but

their own find tolerance, much less favor, from their ranks. In

England, however—_i.e._, among the Irish in England—where the wreck

and disorganization that had broken up Irish Fenianism had had little

effect, and where for several years past there had resided whatever of

strength and authority remained of that body, the proposals of Mr.

Butt were taken up heartily, and even enthusiastically, by them.

A much more formidable work it was found to be to assure the men of

large property that this was not an embryo scheme for rebellion and

revolution; to persuade the Catholic clergy that it was not either a

cloak for Fenianism or a snare of Orangeism; and to convince the

Protestants that it was not a trap laid for them by Cardinal Cullen

and the Jesuits.

And now what was the scheme or plan or “platform” put forward after

such deliberation, inquiry, negotiation, and investigation? What

specifically has been the Irish national demand as put forth to the

world in 1870, solemnly ratified in a great National Conference in

1873, and unmistakably and triumphantly endorsed at the general

elections of February, 1874?

Substantially the old demand and declaration on the basis of which

Ireland has been ready enough any time for the last two hundred and

fifty years to compromise with the English connection—equality in a

copartnership, but no subjugation; the national autonomy of Ireland

secured; the right of Ireland to legislate for and control her own

affairs established. The Irish Confederate government of 1642, the

free Irish parliament of 1690, the free Irish parliament of 1782, and

the decree of the Irish millions organized in the Repeal movement of

1843 formulated just that programme—modified somewhat, no doubt, each

time, it might be, according to the requirements of the period; but

still, as the student of authentic historical documents will discover,

it was on all those memorable occasions in substance the same. The

Catholic Confederation at Kilkenny in the seventeenth century, and the

Protestant convention at Dungannon in the eighteenth, spoke in almost

identical tones as to Ireland’s position under the triple crown of

Scotland, England, and Ireland. It was very much as if Virginia in

1865 said: “I have fought you long and bravely; recognize and secure

to me the fulness of state rights, and I will loyally cast in my lot

as a member of the United States.” How closely the founders of the new

Irish movement kept on the old lines may be seen from the subjoined

“platform” laid down by the “Home Government Association” in 1870:

“HOME GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION.

“GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

“I.—This association is formed for the purpose of obtaining

for Ireland the right of self-government by means of a

national parliament.

“II.—It is hereby declared, as the essential principle of

this association, that the objects, and THE ONLY OBJECTS,

contemplated by its organization are:

“To obtain for our country the right and privilege of

managing our own affairs, by a parliament assembled in

Ireland, composed of her majesty the sovereign, and her

successors, and the Lords and Commons of Ireland:

“To secure for that parliament, under a federal

arrangement, the right of legislating for and regulating

all matters relating to the internal affairs of Ireland,

and control over Irish resources and revenues, subject to

the obligation of contributing our just proportion of the

imperial expenditure:

“To leave to an imperial parliament the power of dealing

with all questions affecting the imperial crown and

government, legislation regarding the colonies and other

dependencies of the crown, the relations of the United

Empire with foreign states, and all matters appertaining

to the defence and the stability of the empire at large.

“To attain such an adjustment of the relations between the

two countries, without any interference with the

prerogatives of the crown, or any disturbances of the

principles of the constitution.

“III.—The association invites the co-operation of all

Irishmen who are willing to join in seeking for Ireland a

federal arrangement based upon these general principles.

“IV.—The association will endeavor to forward the object it

has in view, by using all legitimate means of influencing

public sentiment, both in Ireland and Great Britain, by

taking all opportunities of instructing and informing public

opinion, and by seeking to unite Irishmen of all creeds and

classes in one national movement, in support of the great

national object hereby contemplated.

“V.—It is declared to be an essential principle of the

association that, while every member is understood by

joining it to concur in its general object and plan of

action, no person so joining is committed to any political

opinion, except the advisability of seeking for Ireland the

amount of self-government contemplated in the objects of the

association.”

Though rather diffidently and unostentatiously projected, the new

movement was hailed with general approbation. Yet it had for some time

hanging on either flank very bitter though not very numerous

assailants. The ultra-tories, led by the Dublin _Daily Express_,

shrieked fiercely at the Protestant conservatives that they had

entered the camp of Fenianism and Romanism; the ultra-whigs, led by

the Dublin _Evening Post_, howled wildly at the Catholics that they

were the tools of Orangemen who shammed Home Rule merely to spite Mr.

Gladstone for disestablishing the Protestant Church. There can be no

doubt this latter idea had long a deterrent effect on the Catholic

bishops and clergy; they thought the new movement too like a

Protestant revenge on an English minister whom they regarded as a

benefactor. “The newly-born patriotism of these Tory-nationalists will

soon vanish,” they said (not without show of reason); “wait until they

have driven Mr. Gladstone from office, and got Disraeli back

again—they will then draw off quick enough from Home Rule.” “Very

likely,” answered the Catholic Home-Rulers; “we are quite prepared to

find a large percentage of these men fall off, but enough of them will

remain faithful and true to make the movement a success; and

especially the Protestant _youth_ of the country henceforth will be

ours.”

Time—at all events such time as has since elapsed—has quite vindicated

this view.

Meantime the country was pronouncing gradually but decisively on the

movement. Within the first six months the following corporations, town

commissions, and boards of guardians passed formal votes endorsing its

principles:

Cork (Municipal Council).

Limerick “ “

Athlone (Town Commission).

Ballinasloe “ “

Clones “ “

Dungarvan “ “

Galway “ “

Kingstown “ “

Longford “ “

Nenagh “ “

New Ross “ “

Mullingar “ “

Queenstown “ “

Tuam “ “

Dublin (Board of Guardians).

Cork “ “

Drogheda “ “

Galway “ “

Kilkenny “ “

Kilmallock “ “

Millstreet “ “

Limerick Farmers’ Club

Cork “ “

Mallow “ “

This was barely a few months’ work as to the pronouncement of

popularly-elected public bodies. A number of public meetings in

various parts of the country, attended by tens of thousands of the

people, gave a further stamp of approval and a cheer of welcome to the

movement.

The mode of electing the governing body or council of the association

was peculiar. In place of the usual mode—proposing the list at the

annual public meeting, and passing it there and then—the members of

the council were elected by ballot-papers; each member of the

association, no matter where resident, receiving his paper and

exercising his vote as well as if he lived on the spot in Dublin. Much

curiosity existed to see the result of this secret ballot-vote in a

large body so mixed in religious class and (in a sense) political

opinions. Two-thirds or three-fourths of the voters would be

Catholics—was it not a grievous peril that by any chance they might

ballot in a nearly exclusively Catholic council, and thus sow

misgiving and mistrust amongst the Protestants? But never yet have the

Catholics of Ireland, in private or in public, failed to refute by a

noble tolerance the evil suspicions of their foes. The very first

council thus elected (under circumstances, too, that precluded concert

or arrangement as to either general or particular result) turned out

to be composed of thirty-two Catholics and twenty-nine Protestants;

and two Protestants headed the poll![145] The announcement had a

profound effect, not only in cementing and solidifying the new union

of parties and creeds within the organization, but also in spreading

its principles abroad. A good idea of the varied classes composing the

governing body thus elected may be gathered from the following

analysis of the Home-Rule Council for 1872:

Catholic clergy, 5

Protestant clergy, 4

(The late) Lord Mayor, 1

Aldermen, 7

Deputy lieutenants, 3

Doctors of medicine, 3

Knights, 3

Justices of the peace, 4

Lieutenant-Colonel, 1

Members of Parliament, 5

Queen’s counsel, 1

Solicitors, 2

Town councillors, 3

The British Liberal party, who at first pooh-poohed the “Home-Rule

craze,” at length began to take alarm; for without the Irish vote that

party could neither attain to nor retain office. They warned the

Catholic hierarchy to discourage this mischievous business. It was at

best “inopportune”; it would arrest Mr. Gladstone’s beneficent design

of settling the Catholic university education question; and would only

“play the Tory game.” Liberalism was not going to die easily. Things

came to a crisis in the Kerry election of 1872. On the death that year

of Lord Kenmare, his son, Viscount Castlerosse, then Catholic-whig-liberal

member for Kerry, attained to the earldom, and thus created a vacancy

in the parliamentary representation. By a compact between the great

landlords of the county, Whig and Tory, thirty years previously, it

was agreed to “halve” the county between themselves: one Protestant

Tory member from the great house of Herbert of Muckross, and one

Catholic Whig from the noble house of Kenmare—an “alliance offensive

and defensive” against all third parties or popular intruders being

thus established. On this occasion the new Earl of Kenmare nominated

as his successor in the family seat his first cousin, Mr. James A.

Dease, an estimable Catholic gentleman acceptable to the people in

every way but one: he was not a Home-Ruler. Although the Catholic

bishop, Right Rev. Dr. Moriarty, joined the county landlords in

nominating Mr. Dease, the bulk of the Catholic clergy, and the people

almost unanimously, revolted, and, amidst a shout of derision at such

a “hopeless” attempt, hoisted the flag of Home Rule. They, Catholics

almost to a man, chose out as their candidate a young Protestant

Kerryman barely home from Oxford University—Roland Blennerhassett, of

Kells. He was a Home-Ruler, and much loved even as a boy by the Celtic

peasantry of that wild Iveragh that breaks the first roll of the

Atlantic billows on the stormy Kerry coast. Ireland and England held

breath and watched the struggle as a tacitly-admitted test combat.

“Who spills the foremost foeman’s life,

His party conquers in the strife.”

Such an election-struggle probably had not stirred Ireland since that

of Clare in 1829. It resulted in an overwhelming victory for Home

Rule. Deserted by every influence of power that should have aided and

befriended them (save their ever-faithful priests, who, in nearly

every parish, marched to the poll at the head of their people)—the

frieze-coats of “O’Connell’s county,” rising in their might, tore down

the territorial domination that had ruled them for thirty years, and

struck a blow that decided the fortunes of the Home-Rule movement.

Barely less important (and only less important because of some

peculiar features in the Kerry struggle) was another election being

fought out in Galway County at the same moment. That county, about a

year previously, had elected unopposed, on Home-Rule principles, a man

the value of whose accession to the national ranks it would be almost

impossible to overestimate. This was Mitchell Henry, of Kylemore

Castle, near relative by descent of that Patrick Henry illustrious in

American annals. Not because of his large wealth—he is said to have

succeeded on his father’s death to a fortune of over a million pounds

sterling—but for his high character, his great ability and thoroughly

Irish spirit, he was a man of great influence, and his espousal of

Home Rule was quite an event. Now, however, another election, this

time contested, fiercely contested, had arisen; the candidates being

Colonel Trench, son of Lord Clancarthy, Whig and Tory landlord

nominee, and Captain John Philip Nolan, Home-Rule candidate, under the

auspices of the great “Prelate of the West,” the world-famed

Archbishop of Tuam. For years the grand old man had not interfered in

an election or emerged from the sorrowful reticence into which he

retired after the ruin of the Tenant League. But Ireland was up for

the old cause, and “John of Tuam,” O’Connell’s stoutest ally in the

campaign for Repeal, was out under the old flag. Not to let his name

and his influence be discredited in his old age was as much the point

of battle, certainly the point of honor, on the part of the people, as

to return the Home-Ruler. The struggle was one of those desperate and

merciless encounters between landlord tyranny on the one side and

conscience in the poor man’s breast on the other, which used to make

Irish elections as deadly and disastrous as armed conflicts in the

field. Happily, it was the last of its class ever to be seen in

Ireland; for the Ballot Act, passed a year after, closed for ever the

era of vote-coercion. Captain Nolan was triumphantly returned. The

famous “Galway Election Petition,” in which Judge Keogh so

distinguished himself, unseated him (for a time) soon after; but Kerry

and Galway struck and won together that week in February, 1872; and

the one blaze of bonfires on the hill-tops of all the western

counties, the following Saturday night, celebrated the double victory

for the national cause.

In the course of the next succeeding year every election vacancy in

Ireland but one resulted in the return of a Home-Ruler, Mr. Butt

himself being among the number. There was now no longer any question

as to the magnitude of the dimensions to which the movement had

attained. “Home Rule” had become a watchword throughout the land; a

salutation of good-will on the road-sides; a signal-shout on the

hills. To this had grown the work begun almost in fear and trembling

that night at the Bilton Hotel in 1870. The hour could be no longer

delayed for convening the whole Irish nation in solemn council to make

formal and authoritative pronouncement upon the movement, its

principles, and its programme. In the end of the summer of 1873 it was

accordingly decided that in the following November an Aggregate

Conference of Delegates from every county in Ireland should be

convened in the historic Round Room of the Rotunda, memorable as the

meeting-place of the Irish Volunteer Convention more than

three-quarters of a century before.

But the history of that important event fitly belongs to another

chapter of such a record as this. The point now arrived at closes the

first stage of the Home-Rule movement—from 1870 to 1873. The second

three years—from 1873 to 1876—will exhibit it in a new light, with the

mandate of a nation as its authority, and a powerful parliamentary

party as its army of operation.

[139] The above article is from the pen of Mr. A. M.

Sullivan, M.P. for Louth, editor of the Dublin

_Nation_, and one of the leaders in the national

movement for Home Rule in Ireland. The movement is one

of great importance and significance. It has many

enemies. It has been and continues to be much

misrepresented. For these reasons we open our pages to

one of its ablest and most eloquent exponents to give

its history to our readers. Mr. Sullivan will resume

and close the subject in the next number of THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.—ED. C. W.

[140] There were certain other issues, chiefly as to

alleged profligacy of financial expenditure, and as to

audit and publication of accounts, etc., which need

not be considered here.

[141] Their meetings in Dublin were constantly

“mobbed” for some time.

[142] Not many months later the climax was capped

by the triumphant return of Mr. Martin for Meath,

probably the most Catholic constituency in Ireland;

the candidate whom he defeated (in a stiff but

thoroughly good-humored contest) being the son of Lord

Fingal, one of the best and most popular of the Irish

Catholic nobility.

[143] As this assembly has become in a degree historical,

it may be interesting to give the following list

(never before published) of those who attended it, and

others added by vote thereat to make up a Committee on

Resolutions. In nearly every case an indication of the

political and religious opinions of the parties is now

added. The list includes some of the largest merchants

in Dublin:

The Rt. Hon. Edward Purdon, Lord Mayor, Mansion House,

Protestant Conservative.

Sir John Barrington, ex-Lord Mayor, D.L., Great

Britain Street, Prot. Cons.

E. H. Kinahan, J.P., ex-High Sheriff, Merrion Square,

Tory.

James V. Mackey, J.P., Beresford Place, Orangeman.

James W. Mackey, ex-Lord Mayor, J.P., 40 Westmoreland

Street, Catholic Liberal.

Sir William Wilde, Merrion Square, F.R.C.S.I., Prot.

Cons.

James Martin, J.P., ex-High Sheriff, North Wall, Cath.

Lib.

Cornelius Denehy, T.C., J.P., Mountjoy Square, Cath.

Lib.

W. L. Erson, J.P., Great Charles Street, Or.

Rev. Joseph E. Galbraith, F.T.C.D., Trinity College,

Prot. Cons.

Isaac Butt, Q.C., Eccles Street, Prot. Nationalist.

R. B. Butt, Eccles Street, Prot. Nat.

R. W. Boyle, Banker, College Green, Tory.

William Campbell, 26 Gardiner’s Place, Cath. Lib.

William Daniel, Mary Street, Cath. Lib.

William Deaker, P.L.G., Eden Quay, Prot. Cons.

Alderman Gregg, Sackville Street, Prot. Cons.

Alderman Hamilton, Frederick Street, Cath. Repealer.

W. W. Harris, LL.D., ex-High Sheriff of the County

Armagh, Eccles Street, Prot. Cons.

Edward M. Hodson, Capel Street, Prot. Cons.

W. H. Kerr, Capel Street, Prot. Cons.

Major Knox, D.L., Fitzwilliam Square (proprietor of

_Irish Times_), Prot. Cons.

Graham Lemon, Town Commissioner of Clontarf, Yew Park,

Prot. Cons.

J. F. Lombard, J.P., South Hill, Cath. Repealer.

W. P. J. McDermott, Great Britain Street, Cath. Rep.

Alexander McNeale, 104 Gardiner Street, Prot. Cons.

W. Maher, T.C., P.L.G., Clontarf, Cath. Rep.

Alderman Manning, J.P., Grafton Street, Prot. Cons.

John Martin, Kilbroney, “Forty-eight” Nationalist,

Presbyterian.

Dr. Maunsell, Parliament Street (editor of _Evening

Mail_), Tory.

George Moyers, Richmond Street, Or.

J. Nolan, Sackville Street (Secretary Fenian Amnesty

Association), Cath. Nat.

James O’Connor, Abbey Street (late of _Irish People_),

Cath. Fenian.

Anthony O’Neill, T.C., North Strand, Cath. Rep.

Thomas Ryan, Great Brunswick Street, Cath. Nat.

J. H. Sawyer, M.D., Stephen’s Green, Prot. Nat.

James Reilly, P.L.G., Pill Lane, Cath. Nat.

Alderman Plunket, James’ Street, Cath. Nat. Rep.

The Venerable Archdeacon Goold, D.D., M.B., Protestant

Tory—son of Goold of ’82.

A. M. Sullivan, T.C., P.L.G., Abbey Street, Cath. Nat.

Rep.

Peter Talty, Henry Street, Cath. Rep.

William Shaw, M.P., Beaumont, Cork (President of

Munster Bank), Prot. Lib.

Captain Edward R. King-Harman, J.P., Creevaghmore,

County of Longford, Prot. Cons.

Hon. Lawrence Harman King-Harman, D. L., Newcastle,

County of Longford, Prot. Cons.

George Austin, Town Commissioner of Clontarf,

Winstonville, Prot. Cons.

Dr. Barry Rathmines, Cath. Lib.

George Beatty, Henrietta Street, Prot. Cons.

Joseph Begg, Capel Street, Cath. Nat. (Treasurer of

Fenian Amnesty Association).

Robert Callow, Alderman, Westland Row.

Edward Carrigan, Bachelor’s Walk, Cath. Lib.

Charles Connolly, Rogerson’s Quay, Cath. Lib.

D. B. Cronin, Nassau Street, Cath. Fenian.

John Wallis, T. C., Bachelor’s Walk, Prot. Cons.

P. Walsh, Merrion Row, Cath. Nat.

John Webster, Monkstown, Prot. Cons.

George F. Shaw, F.T.C.D., Trinity College, Prot. Cons.

P. J. Smith, Dalkey, Cath. Nat. Repealer.

George E. Stephens, Blackhall Place, Prot. Cons.

Henry H. Stewart, M.D., Eccles Street, Prot. Cons.

L. J. O’Shea, J.P., Margaret Place, Cath. Rep.

Alfred Webb, Abbey Street, Nat., “Quaker.”

[144] “This association has never proposed to itself

the position and duties of such a great popular

organization as must eventually take up and carry out

to the victorious end the national question. It has

rather proposed to itself the less ambitious though

not less arduous task of preparing the ground for such

a comprehensive organization.”—_First Report of the

Irish Home Government Association._ Dublin: Falconer,

Upper Sackville Street. 1871.

[145] Every year nearly the same five or six men

have been returned at the head of the paper; Isaac

Butt always first, next to him either O’Neill Daunt or

John Martin; the others almost invariably being Rev.

Professor Galbraith, A. M. Sullivan, J. P. Ronayne,

and Mitchell Henry.—[Mr. Ronayne, we regret to say,

died while this article was in our hands.—ED. C. W.]

SIR THOMAS MORE

_A HISTORICAL ROMANCE._

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON

IX.

After the king had declared that he no longer wished her to assume any

authority in the household, the queen secluded herself entirely in the

most retired portion of the palace. In default of happiness, she at

least found forgetfulness there; for it was no longer thought

necessary to watch over her. Her rival, on the contrary, glorying in

the light of the king’s favor and of her own youth and beauty, spent

her days in festivity and enjoyment. She allowed herself to be carried

away by the flattery of the throng of courtiers who followed in her

train and servilely implored a glance from the eye, a smile or a word

from her whom they had so quickly abandoned but a short time before.

For several days, however, the tumult of these _fêtes_, the sound of

music and dancing, had not entered to wound the heart of Catherine in

her seclusion. She was seated near the fire, and turning in her hands

some worsted stuff intended to make a garment for a poor child. The

heavy folds of the curtains hung motionless, the light flame of the

waxen tapers burning near her had not wavered, and yet Catherine

started nervously and trembled. The anguish of mind she had so long

endured had, so to speak, worn away the mortal covering and brought

her soul in direct contact with exterior objects; she saw that which

possessed no corporeal shape, she heard that which had no sound. Some

person unknown has entered her apartments; her beautiful eyes are

turned towards the door. Very soon, in fact, the curtains roll on

their golden rings. A man enters. He advances a step and pauses. It is

Norris, the favorite attendant of Henry VIII.

“What wouldst thou?” asked the queen with that sweet but imposing

majesty of manner so natural to her that she could not lay it aside.

“Madam—the king—madam!” And the unfortunate man hesitated, trembling

in every limb.

A mist passed over Catherine’s eyes.

“Madam,” he was at last able to articulate, “the king, my lord, sends

me to tell you that before daybreak to-morrow morning he wishes you to

be ready to leave the palace.”

The queen turned pale.…

“Has your majesty any command to give me?” said Norris after a

moment’s silence.

“The king shall be obeyed,” replied the queen coldly, and she made a

sign for him to withdraw. He bowed and hastily left the apartment.

Catherine remained mute with grief and astonishment. “I have, then,

still more to suffer!” she cried at length, falling on her knees. “He

drives me from his presence—he, my own husband. He will not even

permit me to breathe in the most remote corner of his palace!… Ah!

well. Yes, I will fly from this house of malediction, whose

hearthstone has been soiled by infamy, and may I never enter it

again!”

But, alas! Catherine had as yet spoken for herself alone. Suddenly the

mother’s heart asserted its supremacy; she arose hastily, seized one

of the lights near her, and, passing rapidly through several

apartments, she at length paused, panting for breath.

“No one!” she exclaimed, looking wildly around her, “no one has been

near these apartments to disturb her rest. The most profound silence

reigns.” And in her turn she feared to awaken her daughter.

Softly approaching the bed on which reposed the little Mary, she drew

aside with her royal hand the heavy curtain of purple and gold. The

child was sleeping profoundly; her head rested on one of the delicate

arms; her long, golden hair, loosened from all confinement, hung over

her lovely neck and shoulders, and down on her light muslin

nightdress. She had thrown off the bedclothing that covered her. The

blood, pure and calm, circulated gently through the transparent veins.

She seemed as happy, as tranquil, as her mother was agitated and

miserable. Catherine, in an agony inexpressible, regarded her sleeping

child, her hand nervously clenching the curtain she was holding back.

“Sleep on, my daughter, sleep!” she murmured. “Mayst thou never know

the weary vigils and bitter anguish of suffering! But what do I say?

Does he not involve thee in the unjust proscription of thy mother? The

hatred he bears towards her, will he not extend it to thee? Art thou

not the very link that must be broken?”

And Catherine, in despair, drew back like a stranger in this apartment

she must leave before the dawn of the morning.… Again she returned to

the couch of her child. She bent over her; her lips almost touched her

forehead. Then a gloomy courage took possession of her soul.

“Why torture myself thus,” she cried, “since thou art still left to

me? Though all forget me, though the earth open beneath me, I will

never more be separated from thee. Thou shalt be my joy, my life, my

hope; thou shalt become my sole, my only friend! One day, yes, one day

thou wilt understand thy mother. Let him cast thee far away from

him—ah! what matters it? I open my heart to thee! The earth is vast;

she will welcome her unfortunate children. And when, worn down by

sorrow, I shall be ready to yield up my life, my hand will still be

raised to bless thee, and my eyes will be fixed upon thine. It shall

be thou who wilt close these eyes before I descend into the night of

the grave, and thy tears will bedew my last resting-place. Then wilt

thou be courageous, and in thy turn learn how to vanquish and defy

evil fortune.”

Thus spoke the unhappy queen. She arose and again fell on her knees.

But the hour strikes—that hour she had desired, hoped, waited for, as

a moment of happiness, of hope and consolation. It now strikes,

clashing, resounding through the silent chambers of her stricken

heart, only to awaken a new and fearful sorrow. Still, she hesitates

not; she again embraces the child, then tears herself away—flies. She

hastens eagerly on—Catherine has disappeared.…

* * * * *

On being informed of the clergy’s refusal the king fell into a furious

rage. For three days the bishops were shut up in Westminster. The

royal commissioners went to and fro continually from the king’s palace

to the assembly; but the deliberations were conducted with so much

secrecy that nothing was known of them outside.

Meanwhile, night came on, and the most profound silence reigned

throughout the long cloisters of the abbey. The pale rays of the moon

alone illuminated the splendid arches. The sanctuary was deserted, and

the red flicker of a lamp suspended in the immense vault showed no

larger than a luminous point set in space. A woman covered with a long

veil stood within the sacred place, leaning against the iron railing,

apparently absorbed in prayer. But no, she was not praying; the human

soul must be calm and resigned before it can truly lift itself up

towards God. Burning tears streamed from her eyes in torrents upon the

stone pavement beneath her feet; she started at the slightest creaking

of the wooden stalls surrounding the choir, and her attentive ear

caught even the least breath of air. Anon footsteps were heard.

“St. Catherine, pray for us,” said a dear and well-known voice.

“Amen,” responded the queen; and she advanced towards two men who were

approaching.

“More!” she exclaimed, “More! you have abandoned me, then?”

“Never, madam!”

“Well, then,” she cried, seizing his hand, “abandon me now! Cease,

cease to sacrifice yourself for me! Know that you have no longer a

queen; the banished Catherine leaves to-morrow the palace of her cruel

husband. No place of refuge is offered her; she is left to choose some

obscure corner of the earth where she will be at liberty to die. But

he is mistaken! I will never leave the soil of England—no, never!” she

cried. “I will never look again upon my own happy land. ‘Woman,’ they

would say to me, ‘you have deserted your children; you have not known

how to die in the land over which you ought to reign; has the Spanish

blood, then, ceased to flow in your veins?’ No, never!”

On hearing her speak thus More stood transfixed with astonishment and

sorrow.

“They have dared!” he said at last, “they have dared, Rochester!”

“Yes,” replied the queen, “they have dared! But, Rochester, speak; the

time is short; every moment is precious. What has passed in the

assembly?”

“Where shall I find words to tell you, madam?” replied the good and

venerable old man. “Parliament has been won over; your friends,

powerless, have been made to tremble for their own lives; threats of

death pass from mouth to mouth. I myself have scarcely been able to

escape their criminal attempts on my life; a dish on my table was

poisoned, and several of my people have died from eating of it.

Consternation reigns secretly in every heart. The clergy are

threatened on all sides; the people are exasperated by a thousand

calumnies, the sources of which remain scrupulously concealed. The

soil of old England seems about to be shaken to its foundations. Vice

stalks forth with head erect, while the virtuous man flies in terror.

There is time yet, madam. Save yourself! Save us all! Renounce an

alliance so fatal for you; abandon this prince who no longer puts any

restraint upon his passions—he is not worthy of you; and let the house

of the Lord become your retreat and be your refuge!”

“What sayest thou?” replied Catherine. “Was it for cowardly advice

like this I called you to me, Rochester? And my daughter—what kingdom

and what father would you give her?”

“God, madam, and the justice of her cause!” cried the afflicted old

bishop.

“Then you have yielded?” said the queen.

“Yes,” replied Rochester, “we have recoiled before our worst fears; we

have made a pact with falsehood, since we can no longer believe in the

veracity of the king. He has summoned before him in turn each one of

the most influential members of the conference. He has sworn to them,

in the presence of God himself, that he desired in naught to usurp the

authority of the spiritual head of the church; that naught could ever

change him from being the faithful and obedient child of the church he

is; that he hated heresy, and that his sole desire was to prevent it

spreading in his kingdom—in a word, that he wished to live and die in

the Catholic faith, in the faith of his fathers, and that he only

asked of them a title that would give him honor and prove the

confidence they had in their prince and the love they bore toward

their lawful sovereign. Now, madam, what shall I say to you? He has

been so far successful in convincing them that they have carried the

majority of votes. We have granted him everything—with this

restriction, however: that we acceded to his demand only so far as the

law of God would permit. But, alas! discouragement and dissensions

have entered among us, and the choice of men by whom the king

surrounds himself is sufficient evidence of the road he is resolved to

follow. Thomas Audley replaces More, and Cranmer, that base intriguer,

is installed in the place of the learned and immortal Warham.”

“Great heaven!” said the queen, “that vile tool of Anne Boleyn primate

of England? Then all is lost to faith, hope, the future, succor—all!”

Meanwhile, a strange disturbance was heard, and all at once a door

leading to the interior of the abbey was opened. A number of the

king’s guard appeared, armed and bearing torches. The queen,

terrified, hurriedly retired with More and Rochester within the shadow

of a chapel where for centuries had reposed the ashes of the old Saxon

kings. The tombs, on which they were represented in sculpture the size

of life, lying at full length, their hands crossed on their breasts,

the head and feet resting on pillows of stone, cast deep shadows all

around them. These shadows, fortunately, concealed the queen,

Rochester, and More entirely from observation, while they could see

distinctly all that took place in the choir.

The monks, marching in two lines, defiled two by two and took their

places in the stalls, while the guards stationed themselves at the

different openings. The gleam of the torches lighted up everything.

Soon was seen to enter the Abbot of Westminster, who preceded three

men richly dressed and enveloped in cloaks. They all three seated

themselves in large velvet arm-chairs; but one of them sat in the

loftiest and most richly adorned of all. In a word, it was plain that

a tribunal was constituted, but that it waited the presence of the

accused in order to give judgment. He tarried not long. The door again

opened, and they beheld a young woman enter whose countenance was very

pale. She walked between two guards, and her dress was that of a

religious.

“What!” said Sir Thomas in a stifled tone. “Why, that is the Holy Maid

of Kent! I believe she has her hands bound. No, it is her veil. What a

strange matter! Poor young girl! The rumor of her predictions must

have reached the king’s ears. I have so constantly warned her not to

meddle in affairs of state!” murmured More.

“Can it be she?” cried the queen and Rochester in the same breath.

“More, are you sure of it?”

“Quite sure,” he answered. “I remember perfectly her pale and

suffering countenance.”

In the meantime they made the young girl seat herself on a stool in

the midst of the assembly, and the Abbot of Westminster began to

interrogate her.

“What is your name?” he asked in a very loud tone of voice.

She neither moved nor replied.

“I conjure you, my sister, to answer me,” he added more solemnly

still. “What is your name?”

“Elizabeth Barton,” she answered, fixing on him a lingering look of

surprise and astonishment.

“Where were you born?”

“In Aldington, in the county of Kent,” answered she very distinctly.

“What is your age?”

“Twenty-three years.”

“Why did you become a religious?” continued the abbot.

“I am not a religious; I have assumed this habit in order to do

penance and take care of the poor.”

“Who has persuaded you to do this?”

“Myself.”

“But do you not pretend to have revelations from heaven, and have you

not told the assembled people of extraordinary things which are hidden

in the future?”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied; and her eyes began to gleam with a

singular light.

“Well! repeat what you have said,” interrupted he who was seated in

the loftiest chair, rising abruptly to his feet. “Repeat what you have

said,” he continued. And the long, flame-colored plume that shaded his

large hat seemed to tremble with impatience, like the head which it

covered.

At the sound of that voice, so imperious and bearing the expression of

a soul so deeply agitated, the Holy Maid of Kent seemed stricken with

horror. She arose and stood in the midst of the assembly, and, turning

toward the speaker, extended her hand.

“O King Henry!” she cried, “think not to conceal yourself from my

eyes. I know you; I know with what power you are invested; and now you

would have me tell you what I have said and teach you what I have

learned. Well, then, … yes, … king, … but mortal like myself, …

tremble, recoil with horror and dismay, at sight of the black

hypocrisy with which you have enveloped your heart. Look well; fix

your eyes on the infamous vices that have eaten out the last sentiment

of virtue God had implanted there.… Your crimes have multiplied like

the sands which roll with the waves in the depths of the sea; you will

inundate the steps of your throne with the blood of the noblest and

purest. Heresy, introduced by you into this land, will multiply under

a thousand different forms; everywhere with truth will be banished

true charity. The years of your reign will witness the birth of more

calamities than the rain of heaven will cause flowers to grow. The

woman you desire will dishonor your bed and perish on the scaffold

which your own hands will have erected; and your daughter, the child

you this day reject, shall reign. Yes! she shall reign,” she cried,

“in spite of all your efforts. Then your bones, eaten by worms, shall

be buried under the stones of the sepulchre; but your execrable memory

shall live among men, and your name—this name of Henry VIII., stamped

with the ineffaceable seal of blood—will carry down to ages most

remote the horrible memory of a monster!… I have spoken!”[146]

Who could describe the effect produced by these last words on the

spectators? Whiter than the linen robe which enveloped his form, the

Abbot of Westminster was seized with terror. It was he who had

persuaded the king to summon this woman, in order, he said, to

undeceive the people, who believed in her, and pacify in this way the

credulous and superstitious masses.

A prolonged silence reigned throughout that vast temple; who should

dare to speak?

Cromwell alone turned towards the king. He encountered his fixed and

furious gaze, which plainly said: “Woe to those who have deceived me!”

He was not at all disconcerted by it. “Be calm, sire,” he said in a

low voice, “be calm; nothing is lost yet.”

Henry made no reply, but Cromwell needed no answer.

“My dear sister,” he said in a gentle and honeyed tone, “who has

instructed you to say these things?” And he saw Henry VIII.

convulsively clench his fists.

“No one,” answered she in a sweet, sonorous voice.

“No one! That is hard to believe,” he replied in a tone almost of

derision.… “You have, at least, repeated all this to several others.…

That the king, your lord, may believe you to be sincere, you should

hide nothing from him. Have you not written to Cardinal Wolsey?”

“Without doubt,” she replied, “I have informed him of what I ought to

have let him know, … because that was my duty. Sir Thomas More, the

lord chancellor, can bear witness that I tell you the truth.”

“Ah! Sir Thomas too,” replied with emphasis the odious Cromwell; and

he dwelt especially on the name of this just man. “Sir Thomas More! It

is very well, my dear sister. We verily believe thee.”

The anxiety that seized on the invisible spectators of the chapel may

be imagined. The queen was entirely absorbed with the thought of her

daughter; but on hearing the terrible indiscretion of this foolish or

inspired woman she with difficulty stifled a cry of terror.

“More has written to you, then?” continued Cromwell, whose ingenuity

was never at fault.

“Yes, to recommend himself to my prayers, but not on this subject.”

“But you have spoken with him many times,” replied Cromwell in a

confident tone, although he really knew nothing about it.

“Once only,” she answered, “in the house of the Carthusians at

Richmond, where I saw him with Masters Beering, Risby, and my Lord

Rochester.… But they advised me not to speak of these things, and to

keep my revelations secret.”

“They were only the more criminal,” replied Cromwell; “because it was

their duty to have unfolded the wicked designs of which you are guilty

toward his royal majesty.”

At the word “guilty” she raised her head and fixed her black and

piercing eyes upon Cromwell.

“Guilty!” she exclaimed. “It is a crime, then, to speak the truth?”

She said no more, but took her seat without awaiting permission.

In the meantime the king, thanks to Cromwell, had time to recover from

the astonishment that had seized him, and to hide from the monks the

humiliation which he could hardly wait to avenge; for, not disdaining

himself to subdue this feeble enemy whom they had represented as

unable to speak in his presence, he had believed, on the faith of his

confidants, it was worth while to summon the Holy Maid of Kent before

him, in order to show that she was worthy of no confidence. Now the

most furious thoughts were at strife within him. How had she

recognized him? Had the queen’s friends instructed her?… But she would

not name them. What a story this would make throughout the kingdom!

And his hardened heart could not cease being troubled.

Cromwell, despite the joy he felt at having made her name More and the

Bishop of Rochester, was at a loss how to close with dignity this

disagreeable scene. The monks opened their office-books and pretended

to be reading; the woman remained seated on her stool and said nothing

more; the guards waited some signal, which no one gave.

The king decided the question, which was becoming every moment more

and more embarrassing.

“It is well,” he said; “we have had enough of it; I am satisfied.”

He arose abruptly. All followed him; the guards threw open the doors,

extinguished the lights, led away the Holy Maid of Kent, and the monks

slowly retired into the abbey.

* * * * *

The hours of night rapidly succeeded each other; already a whitish

circle began to rise and extend over the horizon. Nevertheless, all

were wrapped in sleep in the plain and beneath the shadow of the

woods. The industrious husbandman still rested his weary limbs on his

rude couch; the dog which guarded his thatched cottage had ceased to

howl; and even the invalid found, at the approach of day, a moment of

repose. But idleness, always so prolonged in the palaces of kings,

seemed to have been banished from the palace of Whitehall. Lights were

seen glancing to and fro athwart the large windows; hurried footsteps

were heard running up and down the marble stairways; whilst a coach

with several horses attached, slowly drove around a distant courtyard.

Anne Boleyn herself was already occupied with the arrangement of her

attire. She was seated upon soft cushions of velvet before a toilet

table of ebony and gold. A young girl named Anne Savage, whom she

preferred above all her maids because of her uninterrupted

cheerfulness, her merry chat, and her expertness in the arts of the

toilet, perfumed the long and beautiful hair which she was arranging

with extreme care on the brow of her mistress, while the latter was

searching in a casket she held in her lap for the jewels she wished to

adorn her ears and add to her _coiffure_.

“There is nothing at all in this box!” cried Boleyn, tossing over

pell-mell the most magnificent jewelry.… “These emeralds are so trying

to the face! These pearls injure the complexion! Anne, go bring me

something else. All these are frightful I tell you!… But what is that?

I hear a noise, … a cry.… Listen.… No, … it is in the king’s

apartments.…”

“I hear nothing,” replied Anne Savage after a moment’s silence, during

which she had not breathed.

“Ah! yes, I hear it,” replied Anne Boleyn; “I suspect the cause of it,

too.… But I do not want to think about this.… However, it is a bad

omen.…”

And as Lady Boleyn was very superstitious, and her conscience far from

easy, she let the casket fall at her feet, and, bowing her head on her

bosom, seemed to be absorbed in deep reflection.

Anne Savage tried to complete the _coiffure_ as she sat in that

position, but she failed in her task.

“If my lady cannot hold up her head,” at last cried the maid

impatiently, “it will be impossible for me to arrange her head-dress

properly.”

This admonition recalled Anne Boleyn to herself; she immediately

raised her head and began carefully to scrutinize herself in the

mirror placed before her. Well pleased with her appearance, she

arranged two or three hair-pins ornamented with pearls strung like the

beads of a rosary, and drew down a little the net-work of gold that

fell below her cap and confined her tresses.

With this improvement she arose, in order to choose from among the

dresses she had caused to be brought and laid out on all the furniture

in the room.

“This blue, … or rather this lilac,” she murmured; “no, these

embroideries are heavy and ugly. I will try this white.… I would have

liked a rose-color; here is one. Really, there is nothing here that

pleases me.… It is true,” she continued spitefully, “any of these

ought to be good enough for one who is going to be married in a

garret!”

“In a garret!” interrupted the maid. “What! is it not in the chapel my

lady is to be given away?”

“No,” replied Lady Boleyn, reddening. “The king has changed everything

since yesterday evening. He has had an altar put up in one of the

upper rooms of the palace. You alone are to carry my train, and Norris

and Heneage will serve as witnesses. These are the honors which he

deigns to accord the Queen of England.… Ah! my dear Anne, I am very

miserable,” added Lady Anne, almost ready to burst into tears.

“In a garret!” repeated Savage, and she stood as if stupefied. “In a

garret! O my lady! how can you suffer this?… Well, now do you not

think I was right in telling you that you would do wrong to marry the

king, and abandon so cruelly Lord Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and

lord of I know not how many boroughs? He would not have believed

himself obliged to marry you in the garret of Northumberland Castle!

He loved you so much; he was so proud of you! Many a time has he said

to me: ‘Anne, you are a good girl; you have the same name as your

mistress. You shall never leave my wife; I will give you a marriage

portion and an honest man for a husband.’ Besides, madam,” continued

Anne Savage in a grave, sententious manner, “I can never forget that

my grandfather, who was very learned and respected by all the parish,

used to say to me as I would sit by his side to sew: ‘Remember well,

my little Anne, never to marry a man who is above you in wealth or

rank; otherwise you will not be happy, because love flies away very

quickly, and reproaches follow.’”

“Ah! my dear Anne, do not recall anew my regrets,” cried Lady Boleyn,

with tears in her eyes. “I have never ceased to love Percy; … and when

I compare the violence and haughty manner of the king with the

gentleness and virtues of Percy, I am miserable for having listened to

my ambition. Oh! how severely I am punished. Henry considers me

overwhelmed with honor by his loving me! Submissive to all his

caprices, I am for ever fearful of losing his favor; while Percy,

happy in the sole hope of marrying me, always thanked me for every

smile or word that I addressed him. Anne, do you believe that he has

entirely forgotten me?” she asked suddenly.

“Truly, my lady, I wot not; I only know by my cousin Savage that he no

longer receives any one in his fair castle at York.… But be it as it

may, how, my lady, could it profit you to-day?”

“Nay, as thou sayest, naught, my poor Anne,” replied Lady Boleyn; but

as she spoke she could not restrain her tears.

She recalled to mind all that she had done to induce the king to marry

her; that, since she had been able to attain an end so difficult, she

certainly ought to feel satisfied; and yet, in spite of these

considerations, she found herself overwhelmed with regrets for the

past and fears for the future. She reflected that Henry had conducted

himself so cruelly toward the queen, if ever she ceased to please him

she would have everything to fear; and the happiness of that brilliant

picture of thrones and honors which she had always dwelt on with such

ardent longings seemed to vanish at the very moment when she saw it

about to be realized. But Anne Savage could not conceive what should

afflict her on this point.

“Why,” she exclaimed, “should you torture yourself in this way? It is

too late to think of bringing him back, since he is already married.

Besides, it is very strange; for you have told me a hundred times that

you loved nobody but the king.”

“You are right,” replied Lady Boleyn; “that is true. I did love him,

and I love him still; but I feel that it is impossible to love very

long a person whom one cannot respect.”

“Better to have thought of that sooner,” murmured the maid; but she

took care not to say so aloud.

Absorbed as she was in her sorrow, Lady Boleyn did not forget the care

of her toilet, and, to assist in drying her tears, she turned the

Venetian mirror in every direction in order to survey herself; but she

was by no means satisfied with the _ensemble_ nor the details it

presented to her.

“See!” she cried, “how badly these sleeves fit; and these heavy plaits

around my waist. In sooth, never was I so badly dressed. This white

satin robe with silver flowers is frightful.… Besides, I wanted a

rose-colored dress, … but of a color that is not here. They leave me

with naught indeed. This may not be borne. Go, bid all my women enter;

I would know what they think of me.”

Anne Savage ran to open the door. Scarcely had she opened it.…

But let us leave the frivolous and coquettish Boleyn to adorn with so

much care that form which the dust of the tomb has long since claimed,

and follow rather this man, all flushed, out of breath, and hurried,

who eagerly mounts the stairs in search of the king. The guards are

standing near the doors; the mats on which they passed the night are

still lying on the floor in the lower hall of the palace; they rub

their half-opened eyes, still bewildered with sleep. They offer the

usual salutations to Norris, who advances, and whom they recognize;

but he passes through their midst without seeming to perceive them,

and enters abruptly the apartment of the king.

Henry VIII., leaning against one of the windows, his face pressed

close to the glass, was gazing eagerly out to behold all he had been

able to see of Catherine’s departure; but, hearing the door open, he

turned quickly around, withdrew from the window, and, going to the far

end of the apartment, took his seat.

“Well, good Norris,” he said, looking attentively at him, “what a sad

air you wear! It was, then, very difficult to get Catherine off? I had

foreseen it all, however.”

“Your majesty had foreseen it all, and yet methinks you have chosen

not to be by the while.”

“What, then, has happed?”

“Naught, of great moment—no, in sooth, naught but what should have

been. But I vow my heart was bruised sore when the queen’s grief brake

forth. Nothing loath was she to go; but when she saw the Princess Mary

was not let go with her, and the door of the coach closed, she fain

would have cast herself without. Then she uttered cries the most

heartrending, and, stretching out her arms towards us, besought us to

let her return and once more embrace her daughter. The princess,

seeing the despair of her mother, with sobs and cries begged to follow

her. At length, there being no way to prevent the queen from

descending, she clasped her a thousand times in her arms. She then

wrote something on a scrap of paper I have here, and bade me deliver

it to your majesty, which I promised to do. She entreated all present

to beg you to have compassion on her and send the Princess Mary to

her; that she asked but this one favor, and then she would consent to

do all that you wished. It was necessary to carry her to the coach;

for she fell fainting while embracing her daughter for the last time.”

“Always these fainting fits of hers,” replied the king angrily; “yet

will she say it is I who have slain her. Come, let us see the paper!”

Norris presented it.

The king opened it and read the following words which the queen had

written in a trembling hand:

“SIRE: What have I done to you that you treat me thus? You banish me

from your palace and condemn me to exile. Alas! to this I had

submitted; but why have you the cruelty to separate me from the only

good of mine that is left in all the world? You know well that never

have I gainsaid wish of yours; but is it in my power not to be your

lawful wife? I conjure you, then, to have compassion on me! Give me

back my daughter; give her to me, and I will weep no more the lot you

have cast for me. Become a stranger in the land over which you reign,

at least permit to die in peace an unfortunate woman whom you have

deprived of her rank, her country, and her friends. Leave me my

daughter to console the last days of a life that is almost ended. What

can you hope or fear from her? Since you cast her out from your arms,

leave me the happiness to take her to mine. I am her mother; I have

brought her into the world in sorrow; I have nourished her from my own

bosom—she is mine; and, since it is your will to deprive her of a

father, do not, at least, tear her from the arms of her unhappy

mother.”

This letter, still all wet with tears, produced a painful impression

on the mind of Henry.

“This fellow will assuredly find me of the cruelest,” he said to

himself. “It is well, it is well,” he added in a loud voice. “It is a

request that she makes to me; we will see to it later on. Everything

is ready, Norris?” he added immediately.

“Yes, sire; your orders have been executed with the greatest

exactness. Heneage and Lady Berkley are below; they await your

majesty.”

“Is Dr. Roland also there?” demanded the king. “Yes, sire; he has been

there more than an hour.”

“Well, go and seek Lady Boleyn.”

Norris immediately descended. He found all the doors of Lady Boleyn’s

apartments open, and in the distance heard exclamations mingling, and

unceasingly repeated.

“Oh! how lovely is my lady. Never did she look more fair!” they cried.

“How handsomely my lady’s hair is dressed, and what beautiful hair it

is! What a sweet complexion, what a charming figure! There is not a

woman in all the kingdom who is my lady’s equal!”

Hearing this concert of praise, Anne Boleyn began to take courage.

“No, no,” she said with an air of disdain; “I am very badly dressed

to-day.”

As she said these words Norris entered and announced to Lady Boleyn

that the king awaited her.

She followed him at once, accompanied by Anne Savage; the other women

stood in astonishment, and were very curious to know why this favor

was shown to their companion, while the jealousy with which they

already regarded her was still further increased.

TO BE CONTINUED.

[146] See Sanders on the Holy Maid of Kent.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND.[147]

This volume reads pleasantly. There is attached to it a peculiar

interest, and something of the charm of a romance, for those who have

had some knowledge of the transcendental movement in New England, and

acquaintance with its leaders. The author has evidently written his

account with feelings of sympathy and friendship, which he

acknowledges, and these have led him to bring out all the good points

of the movement, while its shortcomings, exaggerations, and

absurdities are scarcely, if at all, hinted at. The style is clear and

smooth, the narrative never falters; the writer has contrived to throw

a certain halo around the leaders of transcendentalism, and succeeded

in presenting in his book a series of ideal portraits calculated to

impose somewhat upon strangers. The impression which the work leaves

on the mind of the reader is as if he had been listening to the

conversation of a member of a mutual admiration society. Octavius

Brooks Frothingham is not a “central thinker,” his knowledge of the

subject of which he treats is very limited, and his religious insight

is null. Transcendentalism requires a differently-equipped man to be

its historian. There is, somehow, a narrowness of structure and a

peculiar twist in the faculties of the New England mind—perhaps a

constitutional inheritance—which renders it inapt to conceive first

principles and grasp universal truths; and although transcendentalism

was an effort to rise above this condition, it nevertheless carried

with it in its flight all these defects.

Our author has not written a history, but an interesting sketch which

will be useful, no doubt, to some future historian. To write a

history, especially of a philosophical and religious movement such as

transcendentalism pretended to be, and really was, requires more than

an acquaintance with persons and facts. One must comprehend its real

origin, and have mastered and become familiar with his subject. This

is a task which Mr. Frothingham has not accomplished.

Every heresy segregates its adherents from the straight line of the

true progress of the human race, all deviations from which are, in the

nature of things, either transitory or fatal. They live, for the

greater part, outside of the cumulated wisdom and the broad stream of

the continuous life of humanity. When the heresy has almost exhausted

its derived life—for no heresy has a source of life in itself—and the

symptoms of its approaching death begin to appear, the intelligent and

sincere who are born in it at this stage of its career are the first

to seek to regain the unbroken unity of truth. This is reached by two

distinct and equally legitimate ways. The first class gains the

knowledge of the whole body of the originally revealed truth, from

which its heresy cut it off, by tracing the truths retained by the

sect to their logical connection with other no less important truths

equally contained in the same divine revelation. The second class

falls back upon the essential truths of natural reason; and as all

supernatural truth finds its support in natural truth, it follows that

the denial of any of the former involves a denial of the latter.

Heresy always involves a mutilation of man’s natural reason. Once the

integral natural basis recovered, the repudiation of heresy as

contrary to reason follows logically. But the experience of the human

race, that of the transcendentalists included, shows plainly that

nature does not suffice nature; and this class, at this moment, starts

out to find a religion consonant with the dictates of reason,

satisfactory to all their spiritual necessities, and adequate to their

whole nature. They ask, and rightly, for a religion which shall find

its fast foundations in the human breast. This appeal can only be

answered, and is only met, by the revelation given to the world in the

beginning by the Author of man, completed in the Incarnation, and

existing in its entirety and in unbroken historical continuity in the

Catholic Church alone.

This dialectical law has governed the course of all heresies, from

which they could not by any possibility escape; the same law has

governed the history of Protestantism on its native soil, in Germany,

as well as in old England, in New England, and wherever it has

obtained a foothold.

Our business at present is with those of the second class, under which

head come our New England transcendentalists; and what is not a little

amusing is the simplicity with which they proclaim to the world, in

this nineteenth century of the Christian era, the truths of natural

reason, as though these were new and original discoveries! They appear

to fancy that the petty sect to which they formerly adhered, and their

dreary experience of its rule, have been the sad lot of the whole

human race! It is as if a body of men had been led astray into a

cavern where the direct rays of the sun never penetrated, and, after

the lapse of some generations, their descendants approach its mouth,

breathe the fresh air, behold the orb of light, the mountains, the

rivers, and the whole earth covered with trees, flowers, and verdure.

For the first time this glorious world, in all its wonderful beauty,

bursts upon their view, and, in the candor of their souls, they

flatter themselves that they alone are privileged with this vision,

and knowledge, and enjoyment! Their language—but, be it understood, in

their sober moods—affects those whose mental sight has not been

obscured by heresy; somewhat like the speech of children when first

the light of reason dawns in their souls. For the transcendental

movement in New England was nothing else, in its first instance, than

the earnest and righteous protest of our native reason in

convalescence against a false Christianity for its denial or neglect

of rational truths.

Mr. Frothingham tells us that “he was once a pure transcendentalist,”

and that perhaps “his ardor may have cooled.” We protest, and as a

disinterested party assure him that he writes with all the glow of

youth, and in his volume he has furnished a pretty cabinet-picture, in

_couleur du rose_, of transcendentalism in New England, without

betraying even so much as the least sign of a suspicion of its true

place in the history either of philosophy or religion. In seeking for

the “distinct origin” and the place in history of the transcendental

movement in New England, he goes back to Immanuel Kant, born at

Königsberg, in Prussia, April 22, 1724, and finds it, as he supposes,

in Kant’s famous _Critique of Pure Reason_, published in 1771. After

mentioning some of the disciples of Kant, we are taken to the

philosophers of France—Cousin, Constant, Jouffroy; then we are next

transported across the Channel to old England, and entertained with

Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth; finally we are landed in New

England and are told:

“With some truth it may be said that there never was such a

thing as transcendentalism out of New England. In Germany

and France there was a transcendental philosophy, held by

cultivated men, taught in schools, and professed by many

thoughtful and earnest people; but it never affected society

in its organized institutions or practical interests. In old

England this philosophy influenced poetry and art, but left

the daily existence of men and women untouched. But in New

England the ideas entertained by foreign thinkers took root

in the native soil and blossomed out in every form of social

life. The philosophy assumed its full proportions, produced

fruit according to its kind, created a new social order for

itself, or rather showed what sort of social order it would

create under favoring conditions. Its new heavens and new

earth were made visible, if but for a moment, and in a

wintry season” (p. 103).

The contact with the productions of the foreign philosophers as well

as religious and literary writers whom Mr. Frothingham mentions

undoubtedly stimulated and strengthened the transcendental movement in

New England; but it did not originate it. The movement was the

spontaneous growth of the New England mind, in accordance with the law

which we have stated, aided by the peculiar influence of our political

institutions, as will be shown further on. Its real authors were

Channing, Alcott, and Emerson, who were neither affected at their

start nor afterward—or if at all, but slightly—by foreign or

extraneous influences.

Moreover, the Kantian philosophy afforded no logical foothold for the

defence of the movement in New England. Were our New Englander, who

still clings to his early faith in transcendental ideas, to present

himself to the philosophical offspring of Kant, he would no more pass

muster than his old orthodox Protestant antagonist of the exclusive

traditional school. The logical descendants of Kant are, in the region

of philosophy, to use an Americanism, played out, and those who still

keep up an existence will be found in the ranks of positivism,

materialism, and blank atheism.

The idea of God, the immortality of the soul, the liberty of the will,

the creation of the world—these and all such ideas the descendants of

Kant have politely conducted to the frontiers of philosophy, and

dismissed each and every one, but not before courteously thanking them

for their provisional services. Our New Englander would appear to

their eyes as a babe still in swaddling-clothes, or as a child

learning to read by amusing itself with the pictures of old Mother

Goose stories. Whatever hankering Mr. Frothingham and some few others

may have after their first love of transcendental ideas—and those in

New England with whom they are most in sympathy, one and all are

moving in the same direction—they are only in the initial stage of the

process of evolution of the Kantian germ-cell, the product of

Protestant protoplasm, and will end eventually in the same logical

issues as their less sentimental German, French, and English

_confrères_.

To give us a right history of transcendentalism, Mr. Frothingham must

enlarge the horizon of his mental vision, and include within its scope

a stretch of time which elapsed before his ancestors were led off by

heresy into the cavern of obscurity. He will find a historical no less

than a “dialectical basis” for its ideas or primary truths, and other

truths of natural reason of which he has not yet made the discovery,

in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, in Augustine, in Vincent of

Lerens, in Anselm, and above all in Thomas of Aquinas, whose pages

contain all the truths, but purified from the admixture of error, of

the pagan philosophers, as also of those who had preceded him in

Christian philosophy—men whose natural gifts, as well as devotion to

truth, were comparable, to say the least, with Immanuel Kant and his

French, or English, or American disciples. Those profound thinkers

maintained and demonstrated the truth of the great ideas which Kant,

according to his own showing, neither dared affirm nor deny, and which

the transcendentalists held for the most part by openly contemning

logic and by submissively accepting the humiliating charge of being

“sentimentalists.” What those great men taught from the beginning has

been always taught, even to our day, by all sound Catholic teachers in

philosophy. So jealous has the supreme authority of the church been in

this matter of upholding the value of the natural powers of human

reason against those who would exalt tradition at its expense it has

required, if they would teach philosophy in the name of the church, as

a test of their orthodoxy, a subscription to the following

proposition: “Reason can with certitude demonstrate the existence of

God, the spirituality of the soul, and the liberty of man.” Had the

author of the volume which we are briefly reviewing read the _Summa_

of St. Thomas, or only the chapters which treat of these subjects, and

understood them—which is not, we hope, asking too much from an

advanced thinker of our enlightened age, inasmuch as St. Thomas wrote

this work in the “dark ages” for mere tyros—he would have gained a

stand-point from which he might have done what he tells us in his

preface was “the one purpose of his book—to define the fundamental

ideas of philosophy, to trace them to their historical and speculative

sources, and to show whither they tended” (p. viii.) Such a work would

have been more creditable to his learning, more worthy of his

intellectual effort, more satisfactory to intelligent readers, and one

of permanent value. We commend to Octavius Brooks Frothingham the

perusal and study of St. Thomas’ _Summa_—above all, his work _Contra

Gentiles_, which is a defence of Christianity on the basis of human

reason against the attacks of those who do not admit of its divine

revelation; or if these be not within his reach, to take up any one of

the modern works on philosophy taught in Catholic colleges or

seminaries to our young men.

After all, perhaps, the task might prove an ungracious one; for it

would not be flattering to the genius of originality, on which our

transcendentalists pride themselves, to discover that these utterances

concerning the value of human reason, the dignity of the soul, and the

worth of man—barring occasional extravagant expressions attributable

to the heat of youth—were but echoes of the voice of the Catholic

Church of all ages, of the traditional teachings of her philosophers,

especially of the Jesuitical school; all of which, be it said between

ourselves, has been confirmed by the sacred decrees of the recent

Vatican Council! Still, passing this act of humiliation on their part,

it would have afforded them what our author says their system

“lacked,” and for which he has had recourse—in our opinion in vain—to

the great German systems: namely, a “dialectical basis.” He would have

found in Catholic philosophy solid grounds to sustain every truth

which the transcendentalists so enthusiastically proclaimed in speech,

in poetry, and prose, and which truths, in their practical aspect, not

a few made noble and heroic sacrifices to realize.

To have secured such a basis would not have been a small gain, when

one considers that these primary truths of reason are the sources from

which religion, morals, political government, and human society draw

their vitality, strength, and stability. Not a small service to

humanity is it to make clear these imperishable foundations, to render

them intelligible to all, and transmit them to posterity with

increased life and strength. It is well that this noble task of

philosophy did not depend on the efforts of the transcendentalists;

for Mr. Frothingham sadly informs us in his preface that “as a form of

mental philosophy transcendentalism may have had its day; at any rate

it is no longer in the ascendant, and at present is manifestly on the

decline, being suppressed by the philosophy of experience, which,

under different names, is taking possession of the speculative world”

(p. vii.) Who knows what might have been the precious fruits of all

the high aspiration and powerful earnestness which were underlying

this movement, if, instead of seeking for a “dialectical basis of the

great German systems,” its leaders had cast aside their prejudices,

and found that Catholic philosophy which had interpreted the divine

oracles of the soul from age to age, consonant with man’s original and

everlasting convictions, and sustaining his loftiest and noblest

hopes?

But with the best will in the world to look favorably on the practical

results of the transcendental movement, and our sincere appreciation

of its leaders—both of which, the issues and the men, are described

from chapter vii. to xv., which latter concludes the volume—in spite

of these dispositions of ours, our sympathy for so much praiseworthy

effort, and our respect for so many highly-gifted men, in reading

these chapters a feeling of sadness creeps over us, and we cannot help

exclaiming with the poet Sterling:

“O wasted strength! O light and calm

And better hopes so vainly given!

Like rain upon the herbless sea,

Poured down by too benignant heaven—

We see not stars unfixed by winds,

Or lost in aimless thunder-peals,

But man’s large soul, the star supreme,

In guideless whirl how oft it reels!”

But this is not to be wondered at; for although these men had arrived

at the perception of certain great truths, they held them by no strong

intellectual grasp, and finally they escaped them, and their

intellectual fabric, like the house built upon sand, when the storm

came and the winds blew, great was the fall thereof. This was the

history of Brook Farm and Fruitlands, communities in which the two

wings of transcendentalism attempted to reduce their ideas into

practice. Here let us remark it would have increased the interest of

the volume if its author had given to his readers the programme of

Brook Farm, “The Idea of Jesus of Society,” together with its

constitutions. It is short, interesting, and burning with earnestness.

There is scarcely any account of the singular enterprise of the group

of idealists at Fruitlands, and the name of Henry Thoreau, one of the

notables among transcendentalists, is barely mentioned, while to his

life at Walden Pond there is not even an allusion. True, these

experiments were, like Brook Farm, unsuccessful, but they were not

without interest and significance, and worthy of a place in what

claims to be a history of the movement that gave rise to them; at

least space enough might have been afforded them for a suitable

epitaph.

We will now redeem our promise of showing how the influence of our

political institutions aided in producing what goes by the name of

transcendentalism. But before doing this, we must settle what

transcendentalism is; for our author appears to make a distinction

between idealism and transcendentalism in New England. Here is what he

says:

“There was idealism in New England prior to the introduction

of transcendentalism. Idealism is of no clime or age. It has

its proportion of disciples in every period and in the

apparently most uncongenial countries; a full proportion

might have been looked for in New England. But when Emerson

appeared, the name of idealism was legion. He alone was

competent to form a school, and as soon as he rose, the

scholars trooped about him. By sheer force of genius Emerson

anticipated the results of the transcendental philosophy,

defined its axioms, and ran out their inferences to the end.

Without help from abroad, or with such help only as none but

he could use, he might have domesticated in Massachusetts an

idealism as heroic as Fichte’s, as beautiful as Schelling’s,

but it would have lacked the dialectical basis of the great

German systems” (p. 115).

If we seize the meaning of this passage, it is admitted that previous

to the knowledge of the German systems Mr. Emerson had already defined

the axioms, run out their inferences to the end, and anticipated the

results of the German transcendental philosophy. But this is all that

any system of philosophy pretends to accomplish; and therefore, by his

own showing, the distinction between idealism and transcendentalism is

a distinction without a difference.

Mr. Frothingham, however, tells us on the same page that

“transcendentalism, properly so-called, was imported in foreign

packages”; and Mr. Frothingham ought to know, for he was once, he

tells us, “a pure transcendentalist”; and on pages 128 and 136 he

criticises Mr. Emerson, who identifies idealism and transcendentalism.

With the genius and greatness of the prince of the transcendentalists

before his eyes, our author, as is proper, employs the following

condescending language: “It is audacious to criticise Mr. Emerson on a

point like this; but candor compels the remark that the above

description does less than justice to the definiteness of the

transcendental movement. It was something more than a reaction against

formalism and tradition, though it took that form. It was more than a

reaction against Puritan orthodoxy, though in part it was that. It was

in a very small degree due to study of the ancient pantheists, of

Plato and the Alexandrians, of Plutarch, Seneca, and Epictetus, though

one or two of the leaders had drunk deeply from these sources.

Transcendentalism was a distinct philosophical system” (p. 136).

So far so good. Here is the place, if the author knows what he is

talking about, to give us in clear terms the definition of

transcendentalism. But what does he? Does he satisfy our

anticipations? Mr. Emerson, be it understood, does not know what

transcendentalism is! Well, hear our author, who thinks he does. He

continues: “Practically it was an assertion of the inalienable worth

of man; theoretically it was an assertion of the immanence of divinity

in instinct, the transference of supernatural attributes to the

natural constitution of mankind.… Through all was the belief in the

living God in the soul, faith in immediate inspiration, in boundless

possibility, and in unimaginable good” (p. 137). Ordinarily when

writers attempt to give a definition, or convey information of a

“distinct philosophical system,” they give one to understand its first

principles or axioms, its precise method, and its important

conclusions, and particularly wherein it differs in these respects

from other systems of philosophy. This is what Mr. Frothingham in the

passage last quoted has led us to expect; but instead of this he gives

to the reader mere “assertions” and “beliefs.” And these assertions

and beliefs every one knows who has heard Dr. Channing, or Mr.

Emerson, or Mr. Alcott, or who has a slight acquaintance with their

writings, to have been the sources of inspiration in their speech,

which appear on almost every page they have written! Proof is

needless; for there is no one who will venture a contradiction on this

point. The men who were most influenced by the study of the

philosophers abroad were neither the originators nor leaders of the

so-called transcendental movement in New England—Brownson, Parker, and

William Channing. Mr. Frothingham, we submit, has not made out his

case, and has given too much credit where it was not due, while

robbing others of their just merit, whatever that may be. If

“transcendentalism was a distinct philosophical system,” nowhere in

his book has this been shown.

Transcendentalism, accepting the author’s statement as to its true

character, was never a philosophical system in New England; and had

its early disciples been content to cultivate the seeds sown by its

true leaders, instead of making the futile attempt to transfer to our

clime exotics from Germany which would not take root and grow in our

soil, we should have had, in place of a dreary waste, stately trees

whose wholesome and delicious fruits would now refresh us.

And now for our reasons why it was native to the soil from which it

sprang. If we analyze the political system of our country, we will

find at its base the maxim, “Man is capable of self-government.” The

American system exhibits a greater trust in the natural capacities and

the inherent worth of man than any other form of political government

now upon this earth. Hence all the great political trusts are made

elective; hence also our recourse to short periods of election and the

great extension among us of the elective franchise. The genius and

whole drift of the current of our political life runs in this

direction. Now, what does this maxim mean, that “Man is capable of

self-government”? It means that man is endowed by his Creator with

reason to know what is right, true, and good. It means that man

possesses free-will and can follow the right, true, and good. These

powers constitute man a responsible being. It supposes that man as he

is now born is in possession of all his natural rights, and the primal

tendencies of his native faculties are in accordance with the great

end of his existence, and his nature is essentially good. But such

views of human nature are in direct opposition to the fundamental

doctrines of Puritanism and orthodox Protestantism. These taught and

teach that man is born totally depraved, that his nature is

essentially corrupt, and all his actions, springing from his nature,

nothing but evil. Now, the political influence of our American

institutions stimulated the assertion of man’s natural rights, his

noble gift of liberty, and his inalienable worth, while the religion

peculiar to New England preached precisely the contrary. In the long

run, the ballot-box beat the pulpit; for the former exerted its

influence six days in the week, while the latter had for its share

only the Sabbath. In other words, the inevitable tendency of our

American political system is to efface from the minds of our people

all the distinctive dogmas of the orthodox Protestant views of

Christianity by placing them on a platform in accordance with man’s

natural capacities, his native dignity, and with right and honorable

views of God. Herein lies the true genesis of Unitarianism and its

cogenitor, the transcendental movement in New England.

Dr. Channing was right in discarding the attempt to introduce the

worse than idle speculation of the German and French philosophical

systems in New England. “He considered,” so says his biographer,

“pretensions to absolute science quite premature; saw more

boastfulness than wisdom in ancient and modern schemes of philosophy;

and was not a little amused at the complacent confidence with which

quite evidently fallible theorists assumed to stand at the centre, and

to scan and depict the panorama of existence.” “The transcendentalists,”

he tells James Martineau in 1841, “in identifying themselves a good

deal with Cousin’s crude system, have lost the life of an original

movement.” In this last sentence Dr. Channing not only anticipated

history but also uttered a prophecy. But how about a philosophy whose

mission it is to maintain all the great truths for which he so

eloquently and manfully fought? How about a conception of Christianity

which places itself in evident relations with human nature and the

history of the universe?—a religion which finds its sanctuary in man’s

soul, and aims at the elevation of his finite reason to its archetype

and its transformation into the Infinite Reason?

Unitarianism in New England owes its existence to the supposition that

Calvinism is a true and genuine interpretation of Christianity. “Total

depravity,” “election,” “reprobation,” “atonement,” etc., followed, it

was fancied, each other logically, and there was no denying one

without the denial of all. And as it was supposed that these doctrines

found their support in the divinity of Christ, and in order to bring

to ruin the superstructure they aimed at upsetting its base by the

denial of the divinity of Christ. They had grown to detest so heartily

the “five points” of Calvinism that they preferred rather to be pagans

than suckled in such a creed. Is it probable, is it reasonable to

suppose that our New Englanders, who have a strong vein of earnest

religious feeling in their nature, would have gone across the ocean to

find a support for the great truths which they were so enthusiastic in

affirming among the will-o’-the-wisps of the realms of thought, when

at their very doors was “the church which has revealed more completely

man to himself, taken possession of his inclinations, of his lasting

and universal convictions, laid bare to the light those ancient

foundations, has cleansed them from every stain, from every alien

mixture, and honored them by recognizing their impress of the

Divinity?”

But Mr. Frothingham tells us: “The religion of New England was

Protestant and of the most intellectual type. Romanism had no hold on

the thinking people of Boston. None besides the Irish laboring and

menial classes were Catholics, and their religion was regarded as the

lowest form of ceremonial superstition” (p. 107); and almost in the

same breath he informs his readers that “the Unitarians of New England

were good scholars, accomplished men of letters, humane in sentiment

and sincere and moral in intention” (p. 110). Is Octavius Brooks

Frothingham acquainted with all “the ceremonial superstitions” upon

this earth, and does he honestly believe that the Catholic religion is

“the lowest form” of them all? Or—what is the same thing—does he think

that the “good scholars and accomplished men of letters” of New

England thought so? Perhaps such was his received impression, but that

it was common to this class of men we stoutly deny. No one stood

higher among them than Dr. Channing, and his estimate of the Catholic

religion was certainly not the same as Mr. Frothingham’s. It would be

difficult to find in a non-Catholic writer a higher appreciation of

her services to humanity, and more eloquent descriptions of certain

aspects of the Catholic Church, than may be found in his writings. Mr.

Frothingham ought to know this, and only the limits of our article

hinder us from citing several of these. Is he aware that President

John Adams headed the subscription-list to build the first Catholic

church in Boston. Our author, by his prejudices, his lack of insight,

and limited information, does injustice to the New England people,

depreciates the intelligence and honesty of the leaders in

Unitarianism, and fails to grasp the deep significance of the

transcendental movement.