Pescara, being again called to arms, hurried to the north of Italy,

and after the battle of Sessia behaved with exquisite courtesy towards

the wounded and expiring Bayard. At the battle of Pavia, on Feb. 24,

1525, Pescara was grievously wounded. Although he greatly contributed

by his skill and valor to the fortunes of that day, he could not

conceal his disappointment at not being more generously rewarded by

the emperor, and was soon afterwards approached by Morone, the

experienced minister of the Duke of Milan, with an offer of the

kingdom of Naples for himself if he would join a league which was

being formed among the Italian princes to free Italy of foreign

rulers, whether French, Spanish, or German. Historians differ in their

accounts of his conduct in this delicate affair. Writers in the

imperial interest from that time to this assert that he indignantly

rejected the proposal, which involved both treachery and

ingratitude—even although he had not received the full measure of his

merits—and Sandoval says that he showed himself among those

double-dealing Italians “_verdadero Español, Castellano viejo_.”

Certain it is that Pescara used to consider himself more a Spaniard

than an Italian, was prouder of his Spanish blood than of his

Neapolitan title, and often regretted that he was not born in the land

of his ancestors. On the other hand, Italian writers say that he fully

committed himself, and was perfectly willing to abandon and turn

against his sovereign, but that at the last moment he quailed, and

basely betrayed his companions to the vengeance of the emperor, for

which reason the rancorous Guicciardini (xvi. 189) calls him, with

almost incredible insolence, “_Capitano altiero, insidioso, maligno,

senz’ alcuna sincerità_.” More moderate historians say that he was

merely dazzled by the prospect of a crown, perhaps even entertained

the proposition, and would probably have thrown himself into the

movement but for the protest and heroic abnegation of his wife. The

truth seems to be, as Gregorovius remarks, that national antipathy has

biassed the judgment of Italian writers. Immediately after the battle

of Pavia, Charles V. wrote a most flattering autograph letter to

Vittoria. Her answer from Ischia, May 1, 1525, is written in a fair

hand, and preserved among the papers of the Gonzaga Archives at Mantua.

Pescara received three wounds, and lay for some months suffering from

their effects, which he imprudently aggravated by copious draughts of

ice-water. He was too weak to travel, and, growing worse, sent a hasty

messenger to his wife to come to Milan and receive his last breath.

She started immediately, but was met at Viterbo by the fatal

intelligence that he had died on Nov. 25.[186] His funeral took place

on the 30th, and the body was afterwards transported to Naples and

buried in the church of St. Dominic. Paulus Jovius, a contemporary,

wrote his life—_Vita Ferdinandi Davali Pescarii_—in elegant Latin. A

literary memorial of Spanish domination in another extremity of

Europe, and of the days when, the great school of war being

transferred from classical Italy to the Netherlands, the gests of

illustrious soldiers were eagerly studied by military men—although, as

a rule, no longer in the learned language of Cæsar’s _Commentaries_—is

preserved to us in the _Historia del fortissimo y prudentissimo

Capitan Don Hernando de Avalos, Marques de Pescara_, published at

Antwerp in 1570.

Vittoria’s first impulse, following this shock, was to take the

religious habit, but she was prudently dissuaded by the learned

Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras, who was then in Rome, from a measure

which would seem to proceed rather from overwhelming grief than mature

deliberation. She did, however, retire for a time to the convent of

San Silvestro _in Capite_, which was closely connected with the

fortunes of the Colonna family. It was during this pious retreat that

she began that _In Memoriam_ to her dead husband which we will mention

a little further on.

The first seven years of her widowhood were passed in inconsolable

grief. She resided at different periods either with her father’s

family at Rome, Marino, or in some other of their castles, or at

Naples and Ischia with the relatives of her late husband. Being still

in the prime of life, in the bloom of beauty, and well provided for by

Pescara’s will, her hand was sought in marriage by several

distinguished suitors; but she turned a deaf ear to all proposals of

this kind, vowing that her first love still reigned supreme.

_Amor le faci spense ove l’accese._[187]

(Love lit his torch, and quenched it in the flame.)

When the Emperor Charles V. was in Rome in 1536, he made a ceremonious

visit, the more honorable as his stay was so short in the Eternal

City, to the widow of his faithful general. In 1537 she made a tour

among several cities in northern Italy, and was everywhere received

with the greatest distinction. We find her with the Ducal Estes at

Ferrara, with the celebrated Veronica Gambara[188] at Bologna, and

with the erudite Ghiberto, Bishop of Verona. From a letter of Pietro

Aretino it appears that she was bent about this period on making a

pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but was dissuaded by her adopted son and

husband’s heir, Del Vastro, who feared that her health would very

seriously suffer. During this time, also, she assisted Bernardo Tasso

(father of the poet), who acknowledges the benefit he received from

her religious sentiments.

In 1538 she was back again in Rome, and one of the most interesting

episodes of her life—her friendship with Michael Angelo—was then

begun. The austere artist, who was sixty-four years old, felt animated

by a fervent but chaste affection, such as he had never before

experienced. It brought him the poet’s crown to add to his other

crowns of painter, architect, and sculptor; for it is chiefly upon his

sonnets to Vittoria that his literary reputation rests. The few years

of this sacred friendship were the happiest in his life; and it is no

small part of our heroine’s reputation to have inspired in this

wonderful man a muse so chaste and powerful. His poetic addresses to

her, though marked, says Harford, by the highest admiration of her

mind and heart, are throughout expressive of the most reverential

respect. They gratefully acknowledge her condescending courtesy, and

the beneficial influence of her piety and wisdom upon his own

opinions, fluctuating between vice and virtue, but he never presumes

even to refer to her personal attractions. It was only after her

death, and then but in a single sonnet, that he relaxed in a slight

degree his habitual reserve and sang of her earthly beauty. But the

strain is still elevated far above the expressions of carnal love, and

describes a celestial countenance not unworthy of the Beatrice of

Dante.

How highly she was esteemed by all classes is shown, among many other

sources, from the words of an unprejudiced foreigner then in Rome, the

Spanish artist d’Olanda, who says in his journal that she is one of

the noblest and most famous women in Italy and in the whole world;

beautiful, chaste, a Latin scholar; adorned with every grace that can

redound to a woman’s praise; devoting herself since her husband’s

death to thoughts of Christ and to study; supporting the needy; a

model of genuine piety. From a letter of Cardinal Pole, dated April 2,

1541, we learn that she visited Ratisbon, but neither the motives nor

any details of this long journey have been discovered; only it is

known that she was received with honor by the emperor _and by the

citizens_. Her fame, then, had already passed the Alps. On her return

from Germany she rested for a while in the convent of San Paolo at

Orvieto, whence she wrote to Cardinal Pole, expressing how much

delight she found in the rules and society of the sisters, whom she

calls “a company of angels.” It was while in this holy place that the

apostate Ochino sent her a letter, in which he tried to explain and

apologize for his conduct; but she indignantly forwarded it to Cervini

at Rome, to be lodged with the ecclesiastical authorities, as it was

unbecoming in her to receive any communication from such a reprobate.

With fine womanly tact she had long before discovered the weak points

in the character of this gifted but miserable man, consumed by pride

and lust, and, after hearing him preach, she used often, as though

struck by some vague apprehension of a hidden conflict in that

eloquent soul, pray for his final perseverance.

And yet it is from her intercourse with several persons—Valdez,

Ochhino, Vermigli (Peter Martyr), and some others, who _afterwards_

became heretics, that her English biographers especially have striven

to make her out a Protestant! There is not one sentence in her

voluminous writings which can be honestly made to bear an uncatholic

sense. But we perceive everywhere a love of the church, a respect for

the pope—whom she styles, in the most orthodox language, “the Vicar of

Christ”—an admiration for celibacy and the religious life,[189] and,

finally, a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. If this be

Protestantism, Protestants are welcome to it; and God grant they may

make the most of it! Cardinal Pole, who was many years her junior,

used to honor her as his mother, and assiduously cultivated her

friendship. She left him a legacy of 10,000 scudi in her will, but he

made it over to her niece. At Viterbo she displayed a lively interest

in all matters of education, and took the greatest pleasure in

teaching the pupils entrusted to the religious community of St.

Catherine.

Vittoria returned to Rome at the beginning of the year 1547, and

retired to the palace of Julian Cesarini, who was married to Julia

Colonna. While here she fell very ill, and, feeling her end approach,

she was filled with the pious sentiments of one of her own sonnets,

composed but a short time before, and which will show her constant

preparation for death and serve as a specimen of her style. The

translation is by Harford:

“Would that a voice impressive might repeat,

In holiest accents to my inmost soul,

The name of Jesus; and my words and works

Attest true faith in him, and ardent hope;

The soul elect, which feels within itself

The seeds divine of this celestial love,

Hears, sees, attends on Jesus; grace from him

Illumes, expands, fires, purifies the mind;

The habit bright of thus invoking him

Exalts our nature so that it appeals

Daily to him for its immortal food.

In the last conflict with our ancient foe.

So dire to nature, armed with Faith alone,

The heart, from usage long, on him will call.”

—Sonnet 29.

She died towards the end of February, 1547—the exact date is not

known—in the odor of sanctity, as one of her Italian biographers says.

By her will she made Ascanio Colonna her heir, left one thousand scudi

to each of the four convents in which she had so often lived, provided

for all her servants, and disposed of a large sum in charity, besides

making other pious bequests. Her signature to this instrument is in

Latin, in these words: _Ita testavi ego Vitoria Columna_.

Strange it is, perhaps, but yet a worthy ending of a life of humility

and mortification, even in the midst of the glories of the world, that

no monument is raised over her remains. In fact, her body cannot be

identified; for having requested to be buried in the religious habit

of the nuns of _Sant’Anna de’ Funari_, and in their midst, it was

committed to the common vault of the community, where it lies

undistinguished from the others that repose there.

Her poetry may be classified into a series composed during her

husband’s life and the first years of her widowhood, and another

written when she had devoted herself to a stricter manner of living.

The former is taken up with conjugal love, descriptions of nature, and

miscellaneous subjects; the latter is exclusively given up to

religious ideas: one is the profane, the other the sacred, series. As

an example of the lofty energy with which her mind poured its whole

current of feeling into the channel of Christian devotion, we present

her 28th sonnet in Harford’s translation:

“Deaf would I be to earthly sounds, to greet,

With thoughts intent and fixed on things above,

The high, angelic strains, the accents sweet,

In which true peace accords with perfect love;

Each living instrument the breath that plays

Upon its strings from chord to chord conveys,

And to one end so perfectly they move

That nothing jars the eternal harmony

Love melts each voice, Love lifts its accents high,

Love beats the time, presides o’er ev’ry string;

Th’ angelic orchestra one signal sways.

The sound becomes more sweet the more it strays

Through varying changes, in harmonious maze;

He who the song inspired prompts all who sing.”

As an impartial critic we must confess that, however refined the

language, beautiful the sentiments, and learned the imagery, there is

too much classical grandiloquence in her love-songs to permit us to

forget the head that composed, and allow us to think only of the heart

that inspired, them. When Pescara went forth on his first military

expedition, she described her grief in a long rhymed letter of

thirty-seven stanzas, in which all that is heroic in ancient Greece

and Rome is summoned to witness her disconsolate state. The opening

address—_Eccelso Mio Signore!_ (My high-engendered Lord!)—while it

shows the reverential homage which the wife in those days was expected

to offer to her husband, and which, with all its formalism, was better

than the disrespectful familiarity of a later age, is the prelude to a

style altogether too much like that of the eccentric Margaret, Duchess

of Newcastle, whose biography of her husband—her Julius Cæsar, her

thrice noble, high, and puissant Prince, as she used to call him—is

the acme of connubial admiration. After the death of Pescara, Vittoria

depicted her own grief and his great, good qualities in a flow of

verses full of beauty, dignity, and pathos. Upwards of one hundred

sonnets are devoted to his memory. Trollope, with the conceit of his

class, calls these touching expressions of sorrow “the tuneful

wailings of a young widow as lovely as inconsolable, as irreproachable

as noble”; but the more generous feelings and, doubtless, the Catholic

instincts of her French biographer discover in this exquisite threnody

a form of prayer to God for peace to the living and eternal rest to

the dead. After seven years of widowhood a great change took place in

her nature. She gave herself up entirely to higher influences; and the

difference of style is remarkable between her worldly and her

religious poems. The first are, as we have said, devoted to the love

of a mortal object; the second to a divine dilection. This series is

entitled _Rime Spirituali_. She begins it:

“Since a chaste love my soul has long detained

In fond idolatry of earthly fame,

Now to the Lord, who only can supply

The remedy, I turn …”

—Sonnet 1.

And again we observe in the following production her resolve to

abandon pagan allusions and confine her poetry to sublimer subjects:

“Me it becomes not henceforth to invoke

Or Delos or Parnassus; other springs,

Far other mountain-tops, I now frequent,

Where human steps, unaided, cannot mount.”

All writers on Italian poetry are agreed that for delicacy and grace

of style Vittoria ranks next to Petrarch.

Several medals and portraits have perpetuated her features at

different periods of life. Of the former, two were made while her

husband was living—both heads being represented—and two during her

widowhood. A most beautiful medal was struck at Rome in 1840 on

occasion of the marriage of Prince Torlonia to Donna Teresa Colonna,

but the face is more or less ideal. Several portraits were painted

during her lifetime, but it is difficult to trace them all. Some are

lost, and others are doubtful originals. The thoroughly genuine one

(say the Romans) is that in the Colonna Gallery. It is a fine type of

chaste and patrician beauty. It was taken when she was about eighteen;

although how it can in this case (and it certainly represents her

still in her teens) be ascribed to Muziano, as it is by Mrs. Roscoe,

we cannot understand, because this artist was born only in 1528, when

Vittoria was already thirty-eight years old. The fact is that the

artist is unknown; but there should be some acuteness even in

conjecture. Although it would be highly flattering to the vanity of

her race, and of the Romans in general, to believe that her portrait

was sketched by Michael Angelo and painted by Sebastiano del Piombo,

they reject with horror the celebrated picture by their hands in the

Tribune at Florence in which others see her face and figure. The best

judges, however, call it simply “A Lady, 1512”; and our ideal of

Vittoria revolts from the voluptuous features and disgusting pectoral

development of this portrait; but if it were possible to determine it

in her favor (?) we should have to exclaim:

“Appena si può dir, questà furosa.”

All writers on Italian literature mention our heroine at considerable

length; but of separate biographies the principal ones are the

following: Gio. Batt. Rota, _Rime e Vita di D. Vittoria Colonna,

Marchesana di Pescara_, 1 vol. 8vo, 1760; Isabella Teotochi Albizzi,

_Ritratti_, etc., Pisa, 1826 (4th ed., copy in Astor Library); John S.

Harford, _Life of Michael Angelo Buonarotti_ … _with Memoirs of …

Vittoria Colonna_, 2 vols., London, 1857 (Astor Library); Cav. P. E.

Visconti, _Vita di Vittoria Colonna_, Rome, 1840; Le Fèvre Deumier

published a memoir of her in French in 1856; T. A. Trollope, _A Decade

of Italian Women_; Mrs. Henry Roscoe, _Vittoria Colonna_, 1 vol.,

London, 1868. In 1844 the _Accademia degli Arcadi_ at Rome decreed to

have a bust of Vittoria made and placed in the museum of the Capitol.

It was inaugurated with great pomp on May 12, 1845; and thirty-two

poems in Latin and Italian were written to celebrate the event, and

afterwards collected into a volume and published. The following is the

simple inscription beneath the bust:

A. Vittoria Colonna.

N.MCCCCXC. M.MDXLVII.

Teresa. Colonna. Principessa. Romana.

Pose.

MDCCCXLV.

[185] Published only in 1785.

[186] Philippe Macquer, in his esteemed work, _Abrégé

Chronologique de l’Histoire d’Espagne et de Portugal_

(1759-65), 2 vols. 8vo, says that there is ground for

believing that he was poisoned by his enemies, which

we think is very likely to have been the case.

[187] 18th Sonnet.

[188] One of the most distinguished females of the age, and

for love of letters and literary success ranking next

to Vittoria. She was born in 1485; her father, the

Count Gianfrancesco Gambara of Brescia; her mother,

Alda Pia of Carpi; her husband was Ghiberto, Lord of

Correggio. She died in 1550.

[189] Writing to Michael Angelo from the convent of

St. Catherine at Viterbo, as late as 1543, she calls

the nuns, her companions, “the spouses of Christ.”

ALLIES’ FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM[190]

The appearance of the third part of Mr. Allies’ great work offers an

occasion for expressing the interest with which we have regarded it

since the publication of the first volume in 1865. The author is well

known on both sides of the Atlantic, and the present work has been

noticed from time to time in this magazine.

It consists of a series of historical lectures grouping and

classifying the leading features of that wonderful movement which

began shortly after the foundation of the Roman Empire, and has

survived its downfall more than a thousand years.

Mr. Allies proposes to examine minutely and accurately into these

facts. Those who are familiar with his other works will fully

appreciate his ability to cope with his present task, while the need

of a calm and studious presentation of this period of history is

sufficiently evident.

The religious movement of the sixteenth century boasts, and not

without reason, of having been a radical departure from the spirit of

the age which preceded it. It broke with the past; first, in regard to

particular questions, concerning which it took issue with existing

belief. But the separation which ensued in the religious sphere soon

extended to the whole range of man’s spiritual faculties. The

followers of the new prophets were associated together in communities

and nations, and became entirely estranged from the ancient system.

This isolation was bound to produce in a short time wide divergence of

sentiment, and an ever-increasing estrangement from the past.

Americans going abroad find themselves constantly misinterpreting and

being misunderstood by foreigners.

We live in another era, and under circumstances so different that it

is only by earnest and thoughtful preparation that we can qualify

ourselves to judge of other nations.

Any person who will pause for a moment will realize the difficulty of

conceiving what the present state of the world would have been had the

movement towards a high material development, which preceded

Protestantism, been conducted under Catholic auspices alone. Of

course, such a conception is impossible to the common ignorant

Protestant; but even enlightened minds outside the Catholic Church

must acknowledge that it is not easy to acquire a full sympathy with

the intellectual epoch which preceded Protestantism. Wherever the new

religion became dominant, a thorough break was effected between past

and present. The American freeman resembles his English

great-grandfather far more closely than the Protestant of the

seventeenth resembles the Catholic of the fifteenth century. The

French communist still speaks the language in which the feudal tenant

addressed the seigneur of the last century; but it would be rash to

affirm his capacity to understand the sentiments of his peasant

grandfather.

The change wrought by the sixteenth century extends throughout the

world, and affects the deepest, most powerful, and most mysterious

range of sentiment. This change occurred just as the literature of

modern times had begun to take shape and form. Everything has borne

the stamp either of its action or of the reaction against it. It was a

veritable Lethe; and those who passed through it forgot the images,

expressions, and thoughts of preceding generations.

The results of this tendency were entirely overlooked by the partisans

of Luther and Calvin. But the most superficial student of history

nowadays perceives in them irrefragable proof of two things: first,

that the movement of the sixteenth century was something altogether

new in the world; and, secondly, that it was completely subversive of

the entire order which preceded it. To deny either of these

propositions is to bid defiance to truth and farewell to reason. And

whereas Catholics have been abused for predicting these facts, there

are not wanting Protestants who glory in acknowledging them, now that

they can no longer be controverted.

However, we do not wish to bring them forward in our condemnation of

Protestantism, but simply to illustrate another fact which is equally

true.

Protestantism, amongst other evils, has brought a spirit of scepticism

into historical research which is one of the most ghastly symptoms of

its present stage of dissolution. We do not mean a spirit which

demands proof, but a spirit which no amount of proof can satisfy—which

denies facts unquestionably true, and endeavors to cast discredit upon

the most authentic records.

It is not hard to perceive the cause or to trace the development of

this spirit.

The cause is that Protestantism was in every sense a break in history.

It was an abnormal and morbid occurrence. The consequences of its

denial—its protest—extended into every order of truth. But nowhere was

their influence more fatal than in the domain of history. It lost the

thread of sacred history by denying the authority of the Roman Church.

But the isolated position into which it was thrown soon rendered it

unfit to interpret any tradition. In fact, it had no tradition; it was

obliged to make one in accordance with its own needs. At first its

doubts were all directed against the Papacy, because the Papacy was

irreconcilable with its existence. Then the histories of the saints

were condemned, because Protestantism had nothing of the kind to show.

But the irreverent critic of the claims of the Sovereign Pontiff at

last attacked the Scripture, which was thrown to him as bearing its

own credentials. Far worse than this—the Bible having been destroyed,

the sacred person of the Author of Christianity has been exposed for

dissection. Nothing is deemed too blasphemous either to deny or assert

of him. But now that he has been judged by the high-priests of the new

religion, and condemned as an impostor, something has to be done with

that vast system which civilized the world and endured for sixteen

centuries, on the theory that Christ was what he proclaimed himself to

be—the Lord of all things, and that his revelation was true.

After practically demonstrating that Protestantism is a denial of

Christianity, we might expect the age to pause in its career of

denial. This, however, at present seems to be expecting too much.

Having denied the authority which Christ has commissioned, the

revolution soon came to deny Christ. Having denied him, it has

proceeded to deny him from whom Jesus was sent.

It only remains to deny every other fact which conflicts with the

negative theory. It is, therefore, considered necessary to express

doubt with regard to every historical fact connected with

Christianity. A notable instance of this is before our eyes in Mr.

Hare’s _Walks in Rome_, a book quite free from the more offensive

forms of Protestant vulgarity. Mr. Hare has spent many years in Rome,

and learned from its antiquarians the history of its secular

traditions. He knows that the scene of St. Peter’s imprisonment is as

well attested as any other which he describes in his work. In the

course of his remarks on the Mamertine Prison, he says:

“It was by this staircase that Cicero came forth and announced the

execution of the Catiline conspirators to the people in the Forum by

the single word _Viverunt_—‘they have ceased to live!’ Close to the

exit of these stairs the Emperor Vitellius was murdered.”

He discusses the age of the structure, and cites Ampère to prove it to

be the oldest building in Rome. The author further says: “It is

described by Livy and by Sallust, who depicts its horrors in his

account of the execution of the Catiline conspirators. The spot is

shown to which these victims were attached and strangled in turn. In

this dungeon, at an earlier period, Appius Claudius and Oppius the

decemvirs committed suicide (B.C. 449). Here Jugurtha, king of

Mauritania, was starved to death by Marius. Here Julius Cæsar, during

his triumph for the conquest of Gaul, caused his gallant enemy

Vercingetorix to be put to death. Here Sejanus, the friend and

minister of Tiberius, disgraced too late, was executed for the murder

of Drusus, son of the emperor, and for an intrigue with his

daughter-in-law Livilla. Here, also, Simon Bar Givras, the last

defender of Jerusalem, suffered during the triumph of Titus.”

Thus far the writer is dealing with facts of pagan tradition, which

has been dead for centuries. Observe the change of tone when he comes

to facts of the living Christian tradition—facts which he is evidently

inclined to believe, but which must not be spoken of with the

confidence appropriate to pagan narrative:

“The spot is more interesting to the Christian world as the prison of

SS Peter and Paul, _who are said_ to have been bound for nine months

to a pillar, which is shown here.” A little further on: “It is hence

that _the Roman Catholic Church believes_ that St. Peter and St. Paul

addressed their farewells to the Christian world” (pp. 94-96).

The testimony of the Egyptian hieroglyphs is unquestioned. The most

fabulous antiquity is readily admitted for Indian and Chinese history.

It is gratuitously assumed that the time of stone implements was not

coincident with the use of metals in other nations, though the

contrary may be witnessed on our own frontiers. If human remains are

found along with those of extinct animals, it is assumed that they

died together. No demand upon belief is too great unless it be in

connection with Christianity. This tendency is to make men imagine

that the era of our Saviour’s advent was purely mythical, and that the

events of his time are as obscure as those of the siege of Troy.

We think that we have accounted for the existence of this tendency in

the nature of Protestantism, as developed in Strauss and the “more

advanced” German speculators. But after having created this artificial

cloud in history, the same parties seek to give the impression that

Christianity was but a natural development out of the union of Eastern

with Western thought. Having endeavored to reduce it to a myth by

denying or questioning history, the process is reversed, and history

is appealed to in order to prove that Christianity was a purely

natural phenomenon which can be readily explained.

It is, according to these rash theorists, a syncretism of the best

thoughts of Egypt, India, and Greece, produced principally by the

agency of the Alexandrian schools. This explanation is mainly

satisfactory to them because it would explain the rise and

establishment of Christianity without a miracle.[191] The hypothesis

was eagerly embraced for this reason. Just so Strauss leaped for joy

at the hypothesis of Darwin, because it professed to account for the

existence of men without creation. But just as Darwin, while able to

produce both specimens and remains of man and ape, could never find

the intermediate animal, or even any trace of him, so this forged

account of the origin of Christianity breaks down in the very fact

which is necessary to give it even the semblance of value, viz., the

warrant of historical facts. In order still further to misrepresent

the origin of Christianity, it is necessary to observe the testimony

of history as to the moral condition of the pagan world. Tacitus and

Suetonius are pagan authors, therefore it will not do to impeach their

writings in the same manner as the Gospels and the Christian Fathers.

Being heathens, their works are certainly genuine, and they are to be

held as truthful men—a presumption to which the Evangelists and

Fathers are in no way entitled. But we notice the tendency to overlook

the frightful picture presented by these historians, and the attempt,

by a judicious comparison of the best specimens of paganism with the

worst scandals or most austere characters of church history, to draw

conclusions injurious to Christianity.

This whole process of doubting the records, misstating the origin, and

denying the real nature of early Christianity, is a fraud which will

not bear scrutiny; it is maintained by men who avow their willingness

to accept any hypothesis which conflicts with the ancient faith, and

to lend the prestige of their talents to any effort against it.

The historical warfare has been vigorously carried on in Germany by

both sides. The movement has penetrated into the English universities.

Its echoes have been heard in our own midst, in the utterances of

certain writers who, being possessed by the spirit of snobbishness,

cleave to outlandish modes of thought because of their foreign or

novel character.

Mr. Allies’ work is a thoughtful and profound exposition of facts, and

brushes away the cobwebs with which hostile criticism has sought to

envelop the history of Christianity. The author does not aim at a

connected narrative. The chapters of his work are lectures, each one

of which is an essay, complete in itself. The reader is presumed to be

acquainted with the general outlines of history, and the author

directs his efforts to answer such questions as naturally arise with

regard to the introduction of Christianity and the foundation of that

order which appeared under the title of Christendom in the Middle Age.

Accordingly, after giving his idea of the philosophy of history, Mr.

Allies draws a graphic picture of the state of the Roman world. The

civil polity of the Augustan age, the majesty of the Pax Romana,

appear in their splendid proportions. The reader is brought face to

face with all that is known of that epoch. Its ideas of manhood and

morality are set forth from the testimony of eye-witnesses. Then

follows a sketch of the work to be accomplished by Christianity,

entitled the New Creation of Individual Man. This is succeeded by a

series of lectures viewing the results which were to be expected from

the influence of Christianity upon human character. Here we find also

the testimony of eye-witnesses of the growth of the new religion, and

an instructive comparison between Cicero and St. Augustine,

illustrative of two most important ages of history. The fifth lecture

of this first volume is on the New Creation of the Primary Relation

between Man and Woman; and the seventh lecture deals with an equally

Christian doctrine, viz., the Creation of the Virginal Life.

A recent German writer, laboring under a delusion not uncommon in his

country, doubts whether the improved morality which appeared after the

introduction of Christianity was really due to that religion or to the

German race. This characteristic doubt is left undecided by the

writer, but will probably soon be settled adversely to Christianity by

some more adventurous Teuton. The public, for whose benefit these

speculations are likely to be extended, will do well to read a little

history, and will not find Mr. Allies’ chapters amiss.

The second volume, which appeared in 1869, treats of the developments

of that spiritual society which sprang into existence with the

original ideas of Christianity and from the same source. The peculiar

characteristics are traced of that hierarchical order which, after

three centuries of bloody persecution, came forth from its

hiding-place in perfect organization, to receive at once the homage of

Constantine and to become the guide of civilization and the supreme

ruler of nations for more than a thousand years.

The position of the church at the time of Constantine was that of

complete victory. The portent in the sky which appeared to that

emperor was not more miraculous than the spectacle afforded by

Christianity. Starting from a distant point in an obscure race,

without means, without facilities of communication, it had not only

revolutionized the pagan world but it had maintained its own unity as

a corporate body in the face of wholesale treason from within, and

intense intellectual opposition, accompanied with three centuries of

proscription, from without. Three centuries ago another movement

started in our modern world. It had all the prestige of the

civilization which germinated along with it. It has had the support of

the civil power. It has had the best blood and most vigorous races to

work for it. No earthly element of success has been refused to it.

What is the result? Where is its unity? The very idea is abandoned.

Where are its original convictions? Not one remains. What is its

present influence? It has none. What is its prospect in the future?

Entire destruction.

Nothing is better calculated to give us a correct idea of the

difference between Protestantism and Christianity than this sort of a

comparison. Such, however, is not Mr. Allies’ design. He aims, in his

second volume, to show that Christianity had a definite theory and

constructive spirit with regard to society. As he contrasts in his

first volume the pagan notion of individual man with the Christian

ideal, and shows a creative power in the latter producing results

undreamed of in the heathen character, so the author traces, in his

second volume, the social ideas brought in by Christianity.

The unity of the church, as taught and described by the fathers, was

an idea no less remarkable in its marvellous working than in its utter

novelty. This conception was based on the fundamental principle of

Christianity, that its divine Founder had authorized a corporate body

to teach the world those truths which he came to bring, and that the

power of God was pledged to the infallibility of his church. This

doctrine is the only constructive idea that has ever been broached

with regard to society. Protestantism was a direct assault upon the

very nature of Christianity, and is to be held responsible for the

absence of this idea in modern civilization.

Mr. Allies develops the history of this Christian idea with great

accuracy, filling out his comparison between Christian and pagan

thinkers in all departments of thought, and establishing the claims of

the new faith to be a creation fresh from the Author of all things,

and not a development out of the putrescent civilization of the

ancient world.

That Christianity produced a type of character wholly distinct and

peculiar, is a fact of which there can be no doubt on the part of

those who have the slightest disposition to consult authentic records.

That it possessed a vitality and organizing power of which there is no

other instance, is equally certain. But we often hear the sayings of

Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and the later Stoics quoted, as exhibiting

a tone of thought almost equal to that of Christianity, and by the

enemies of religion vaunted as something far above the morality of the

Gospel. No reader of Plutarch can escape the impression of his gentle

and refined philosophy. Though full of grievous errors, it has a

flavor of truth, a respect for purity, and an appreciation of virtue

which are not to be found in the earlier historians.

The great error of those who would make Christianity a development of

heathen thought is simply, then, mistaking the cause for the effect. A

great change was undoubtedly to be expected from the blending of Greek

and Roman speculation with the Jewish and Egyptian religions. This

change actually took place. But its product was acted upon by

Christianity, and did not become a factor of the new religion. Mr.

Allies gives us the summary of ancient philosophy, which he traces

down to its contact with Christian truth. We are able to see the

vanity of that false reading of history which seeks to represent

Christianity as a mendicant receiving crumbs from Plato, Pythagoras,

Philo, and the Stoics. We perceive from their writings and the tone of

their disciples the barrenness and emptiness of Attic thought, up to

the time when it received the few corrections and additions from

Christian doctrine which enabled it to appear for a short time as a

rival of heavenly truth.

The author goes with laborious scrutiny through that labyrinth of

error which is included under the title of Neo-Platonism. Outside the

Catholic Church, few scholars have read even the principal works of

St. Thomas Aquinas. Charles Sumner was said to possess them; Disraeli

the elder and George Eliot refer to them. But the former never showed

that he understood their contents, and the last-named writers show

that they have not. Although such a study is absolutely necessary

towards acquiring a correct knowledge of the intellectual life of the

Middle Age, it is rarely undertaken by non-Catholics. To study the

remains of Neo-Platonism is a task of equal subtlety, and yet nothing

is more common than to hear shallow speculators on history affirm that

Christianity was greatly affected by the Alexandrian school. But the

difference is no less marked when we come to find out what the views

of the leading Neo-Platonist actually were. This “distracted chaos of

hallucinations” was the highest effort of paganism. It was an attempt

to reconcile and weld together all the elements of the old world, as a

barrier to the new and irresistible power which was everywhere gaining

ground. It was the development which was to have been expected. It was

the fusion of East and West to which Christianity has been credited.

But, instead of acting upon, it was radically affected by,

Christianity; and, instead of bringing forth Christianity, it was the

deadliest foe of the Gospel. It is from this old armory of Alexandria

that modern error draws and refurbishes the clumsy weapons which

dropped thirteen centuries ago from the hands of the first opponents

of Christianity. It is a good place to go for this sort of

bric-à-brac. It contains a sum of all the aberrations of the human

intellect. Here, stripped of its modern garb, we find the cosmic

sentimentalism of Strauss. Here the absolute being of the German

pantheists stares us in the face. Here, from Iamblichus and Porphyry,

we hear the same mournful and unhealthy drivel which is printed and

sewed up in gilt morocco by enterprising and philanthropic publishers

of the present day. On rising from the perusal of Mr. Allies’ third

volume, we see clearly the end of that wonderful and brilliant

Hellenism which, while ever occupied “either in telling or in hearing

something new,” slighted the real truth which had come into the world,

and served but as a pit to its own pride.

Too much praise cannot be given to Mr. Allies for the labor bestowed

upon his history of the actual development of the philosophy of Greece

in the Roman Empire. He has traced each school of thought from year to

year, and reproduced a correct summary of its beliefs. The Neo-Stoic

philosophy, which is especially vaunted by the enemies of

Christianity, is studiously delineated. The points of agreement and

difference are clearly noted between its four great chiefs—Seneca,

Musonius, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The analogies and contrasts

between the developed Stoic school and the Christian teachers who were

its contemporaries, are also brought into relief.

In order to portray the effect of the Neo-Pythagorean doctrines and

the revived Platonism, the author gives a complete analysis of that

most singular and interesting character, Philo the Jew—singular, in

that he was the only one of the ancient Hebrew race who became a great

philosopher; interesting, because he shows us the precise difference

between Platonism and Jewish belief, and the immeasurable superiority

of the unreasoning Jew, who believed only that which he had received

by tradition, over the highest flight of heathen genius unaided by

revelation. The lecture on Philo closes with a summary of the interval

between his time and Plutarch’s, and the change during that epoch from

the old Roman world of Cicero, together with the cause of this change.

Following this, another lecture presents the state of the pagan

intellect and the common standing ground of philosophy, from the

accession of Nero to that of Severus.

Towards the close of his reign, under the auspices of the Empress

Julia and from the labors of Philostratus, came forth the new gospel

of paganism in the life of Apollonius of Thyana. This work, upon the

strength of which modern infidels have sought to attribute a mythical

origin to the Gospels, was a counterfeit of the truth, in which

paganism sought to construct an ideal teacher, to oppose to that

Master who was now beginning to be known throughout the world. This

sketch of Apollonius of Thyana is very complete, and shows a new phase

of thought yet more strikingly affected by that hated and persecuted

power which was daily growing in the midst of the Roman world. Having

completed his study of pagan belief and sentiments as far as the reign

of Severus, the author is fully prepared for the difficult and

thankless task of reviewing the struggle between Neo-Platonism, as

represented by Iamblichus, Porphyry, and Plotinus, and their

followers, against divine truth. The third volume closes with a

graphic summary of the intellectual results from Claudius to

Constantine, and a comparative glance at the relative power of the old

order and the new to reconstruct a society in stable and harmonious

proportions.

With this lecture, which seems to foreshadow the contents of a fourth

volume, Mr. Allies’ work stops for the present. Its publication in

parts has placed it at a great disadvantage, inasmuch as ten years

have passed since the first volume appeared. It may seem premature to

review a work not yet complete, but enough has been published to

establish the claim of the author to a most useful and successful

contribution to the needs of the time. He has grown into his task, and

has accumulated both facts and reflections. There is little reason to

fear that the remaining volume will not be equal to the three which

have preceded it.

The style is unpretending, and the whole work extremely modest. In

this respect, it will not meet the approval of those who prefer

rhetoric to exact truthfulness. Historical works must be plentifully

illustrated, either by the engraver or the imagination of the author,

to make them popular nowadays.

But the intelligent reader who will take pains to examine carefully

Mr. Allies’ volumes will be well repaid, and the author himself can

rest in the conviction that he has written a solid and useful book,

which deserves a place in every library.

[190] _The Formation of Christendom._ By T. W. Allies. Part

Third. London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. 1875.

[191] It is also necessary on account of its vagueness, and

eminently fits in or rather mixes with the confusion of

mind which is so marked a characteristic in this school of

speculators.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

_A HISTORICAL ROMANCE._ FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

X.

In that portion of the attic of Whitehall Castle looking toward the

west they had, according to the king’s orders, erected an altar in

order to celebrate Mass. Three persons had assembled there, and were

reflecting on the singularity of the hour and the choice of the place

where they found themselves called by this religious ceremony.

Lady Berkley, seated upon a high cane chair, had carefully gathered

about her feet the long train of her silk dress, to avoid having it

sweep over the floor covered with dust, and she observed with great

attention the old tapestries, which had been nailed all around the

altar in order to conceal as far as possible the unsightly appearance

of the rafters of the roof.

Heneage, with his arms crossed, not far from her, waited, having

nothing to do, while Dr. Roland Lee, invested with the pontifical

vestments, kneeled on the step of the altar, inwardly grieved at this

new whim of the king, which he found as inconvenient as disrespectful;

but being very pious, he endeavored to pray to God and occupy himself

only with the holy sacrifice he was going to offer up.

They had waited very nearly an hour in this position, when Norris

entered with a light in his hand.

“The king,” he said in a loud voice.

The assistants immediately arose to their feet, and the king appeared,

followed by Lady Boleyn, with Anne Savage carrying her train, gleaming

with embroidery.

On entering she cast a glance upon the surroundings of this improvised

chapel, and she was far from finding them to her liking. But Henry

VIII. gave her no time for reflection; he placed two chairs in front

of the altar, and, putting himself in one, he made a sign to her to

kneel upon the other; then, having called Sir Roland, he announced to

him that he had to proceed with the marriage.

Although he had presaged nothing good from the singular preparations

he had seen made in this attic chapel, yet poor Dr. Lee was far from

anticipating such an order as he now received; he found himself in a

horrible state of perplexity, and stood without making any reply.

“Come!” said the king after a moment’s silence, “commence the

prayers.”

But Roland turned toward him, and still continued to stand on the step

of the altar; he said with a great deal of dignity:

“No, your majesty cannot marry, the ecclesiastical authorities not

having yet decided.…”

“What say you, Roland?” interrupted the king brusquely. “God alone has

power to judge the conscience of princes, and mine has decided that I

should marry. Go on and do what I command you now.”

“Sire,” replied Roland, who feared that his days were numbered, “your

majesty has all power over my poor body, and I am your very unworthy

and very devoted subject; but I cannot solemnize your marriage without

having proof that you are at liberty to contract it.”

Henry bit his lower lip.

“Roland!” he said.

“Sire,” replied the other, as if he thought the king had called him.

“The imbecile!” exclaimed Henry VIII. to himself; but he saw it would

be better to dissimulate.

“Roland,” he replied, with an inflection of voice as different as his

new intention, “do you think I would command you to do anything wrong?

I have received from Rome the bulls of our Holy Father, who recognizes

the nullity of my marriage with Catherine, _the wife of my brother_,

and permits me to select for my spouse any other unmarried woman in my

kingdom. However, in order to avoid scandal, he bound me to do it

secretly.”

“Then I have nothing to say,” replied Roland Lee, relieved of an

immense weight; “but your majesty will, of course, first show me the

proofs.”

“Obstinacy!” thought the king. “How, Sir Roland,” he cried, assuming

an air of extreme mortification, “the word of your king, then, is no

longer sufficient? Is it necessary for me to go and bring you a thing

which I affirm to have in my possession? Roland,” he added in a severe

tone, “until now your conscience alone has spoken, therefore I have

not been offended; but take care that, instead of commending your

course, I no longer see in you other than an incredulous obstinacy. I

pledge you my royal word on the truth of what I have stated.… But add

not a word more.”

Roland dared not reply, and, unable to believe the king would dare to

prevaricate in that manner before such a number of witnesses, he

began, although much disturbed, to say the Mass.… But the quiet

solemnity of prayer influences the most obdurate heart: man is so

insignificant in the presence of God.

Henry felt more and more troubled. Queen Catherine’s letter, Norris’

description of her departure, the scene of the previous evening,

passed one after another before his eyes and continued to torture his

memory. The words of the holy daughter of Kent, “The woman you wish to

marry will dishonor your couch and perish on the scaffold,” arose

unconsciously to his lips, and aroused in his soul a gloomy jealousy.

He cast a glance upon Anne Boleyn; their eyes met, and the miserable

woman was terror-stricken at the expression of fury that gleamed from

his eyes. Then he looked around him. The sun had arisen, and brought

into bold relief the old and faded tapestries surrounding the altar.

“Is this place worthy of me?” he thought to himself. “Is it thus I

have prayed with Thomas More?—that quiet, peace, order, and respect?…

There one is happy; here they are consumed, devoured by remorse!

Happiness of the just, I execrate thee, because I have not been able

to attain thee!”… Thus all that was good excited his envy; even

Catherine, whom he had driven from the door of his palace a wanderer

on the earth, seemed to him happier than himself.

But it was still worse when the venerable priest, turning towards him,

began the ancient and solemn rites of marriage between the children of

God, and came to these words: “You, Henry of Lancaster, do confess,

acknowledge, and swear before God, and in presence of his holy church,

that you now take for your wife and legitimate spouse Anne Boleyn,

here present.”

“Ah!” said the king mentally, “hell would be better than the life that

I lead.” He trembled, and answered in a loud voice:

“Yes!”

“You promise to keep to her faithfully in all things, as a faithful

husband should his wife, according to the commandment of God?”

“Yes,” he answered again.

“And you, Anne Boleyn, you also confess, acknowledge, and swear before

God, and in presence of his holy church, that you now take for your

husband and legitimate spouse Henry of Lancaster, here present.”

“Yes,” stammered Anne Boleyn, who had no relatives, no friends around

her—no one except two valets and a _femme de chambre_.

“You promise to keep to him faithfully in all things, as a faithful

wife should her husband, according to the commandment of God?”

“Yes,” she answered more distinctly.

Then the priest took the nuptial ring, and, placing it in the hand of

the king, made a sign to give it to his wife.

Henry VIII., leaning toward Anne Boleyn, gave it to her, seeming

scarcely conscious that he did so. The sight of this ring recalled the

one he had given Catherine on a former and similar occasion, the

sanctity of the engagements he had contracted with her, the love he

then bore her, her youth, her sincerity, her charms, her virtues, the

tranquillity of his own conscience; now, he had dissipated all these

blessings—dissipated them wilfully and through his own fault; he felt

himself despised and despicable. His legitimate wife driven forth and

discarded, while he took another by means of a disgraceful falsehood

which must be very soon discovered. He no longer had children; he had

renounced at the same time all the rights of a man, a father, a

husband, in order to recommence, at his age, a new career, already

branded with disgraceful recollections and shameful regrets.

“May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob unite

you, and may he shower his benedictions upon you! I now pronounce you

man and wife, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the

Holy Ghost,” said the priest, making the sign of the cross over them.

“Amen!” responded the assistants.

“No benedictions! Don’t talk to me about benedictions, wretches!”

replied Henry in a stifled voice.

“It is truly just and reasonable,” continued the priest, ascending the

steps of the altar and extending his hands towards heaven, “it is

right and salutary, that we return thee thanks at all times and in all

places, O Lord, most holy Father, Almighty God eternal, who by thy

power hast created the universe out of nothing; who in the beginning

of the world, after having made man in thine image, gave him, to be

his inseparable companion, the woman whom thou hast formed from

thyself, in order to teach him that he is never permitted to put

asunder those whom thou hast united in the sacrament thou hast

instituted. O God! thou who hast consecrated marriage by so excellent

a mystery that the nuptial alliance is the figure of the sacred union

of Jesus Christ and his church; O God! by whom the woman is united to

the man, and who givest to this intimate union thy blessing, the only

one which has not been taken away, neither by the punishment of

original sin nor the sentence of the Deluge; O God! thou who alone

hast dominion over the hearts of men, and who knowest and governest

all things by thy providence, insomuch that no man can put asunder

those whom thou hast joined together—”

“When shall I get out of this place?” murmured Henry VIII.

“Nor injure those whom thou hast blessed—unite, we pray thee, the

souls of these thy servants, who belong to thee, and pour into their

hearts a sincere friendship, to the end that they may become one in

thee, as thou art the only true and all-powerful God. Regard with a

favorable eye thy servant, who, before being united to her spouse,

implores your protection. Grant that her yoke may be a yoke of love

and peace; grant that, chaste and faithful, she may follow the example

of the holy women of old; that she render herself amiable to her

husband, like Rachel; that she may be wise as Rebecca; that she may

enjoy a long life, and be faithful like Sara; that the author of

prevarication may find nothing in her that proceeds from him; that she

may abide firm in thy law and in the observance of thy commandments;

that, at last, being attached only to her husband, she defile not the

marriage-bed by any illicit connection.”

“Do you understand what the priest advises you?” said Henry VIII.,

angrily regarding Anne Boleyn, and speaking almost loud enough for her

to hear him.

“That, in order to sustain her weakness, she may fortify herself by an

exact and well-regulated life; that she may conduct herself with such

proper modesty as will ensure respect; that she inform herself of her

duties in the heavenly doctrines of Jesus Christ; that she may obtain

from thee a happy fecundity; that she may lead a life pure and

irreproachable—”

“I will not suffer her to do otherwise,” thought the king.

“That at length she may arrive at the rest of the saints in the

kingdom of heaven. Grant, Lord, that they may both live to behold

their children’s children until the third and fourth generation, and

attain a happy old age, through Jesus Christ our Lord, thy Son, who

liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world

without end.”

“Amen!” responded the assistants.

“It is over at last,” said the king, rising precipitately.

He motioned Anne Boleyn to follow him; but she made no reply, and he

saw that she was weeping, and had put her hands over her eyes to

conceal her tears.

He then left her, and immediately went out.

XI.

On returning to his apartments, the king found in his cabinet Cromwell

and Cranmer, who, pompously invested with the garb of his new

episcopal dignity, came with Cromwell to thank the king for having

conferred on him this exalted position.

The sight of these two intriguers produced a disagreeable impression

on Henry. He was very wearied already by the scene through which he

had just passed, and longed to be alone. Instead of that, he found

himself face to face with two new instruments of torture.

Cromwell regarded the king attentively, and was astonished at the

expression of dissatisfaction visible on every feature of his face.

“What does he want now?” mentally inquired this unprincipled man.

“Have we not procured the accomplishment of all his desires? Is he not

now the very legitimate spouse of the brilliant Anne Boleyn,

Marchioness of Pembroke?” But he thought it advisable under existing

circumstances to let the king speak first, and contented himself with

a profound salutation.

“What more do you want of me?” asked the king very brusquely.

“He is not very approachable this morning,” thought Cromwell; “but

never mind, he will not escape us for all that.”

“We come,” replied Cromwell, “to congratulate your majesty on the

clemency and magnanimity you displayed yesterday evening towards that

daughter of Kent; and Dr. Cranmer has come to lay at your feet the

assurance of his gratitude and his entire devotion.”

“Yes,” replied the king, happy to attribute his anger to something he

could confess; “you are clever men, and richly deserve to be driven

from my presence for having risked compromising me with that fool to

whom you have made me listen! I am beginning to get tired of your

fooleries; Sir Cromwell, understand that well!” And he emphasized the

last words with a marked intention and an expression of anger and

scorn.

“The marriage has not improved matters much, it would seem,” said

Cromwell to himself; but he considered it proper to display a little

dignity. “I understand,” he replied immediately, “that your majesty

may have at first taken some offence at the insolent audacity of that

woman of Kent; but I am astonished that you should be so unjust as to

think ill of your servants on account of it, and especially since

nothing could have been more fortunate in putting us on the track of

the infamous intrigues of the queen and her partisans.”

“Infamous intrigues! infamous intrigues!” cried the king. “That is a

word which may be very readily applied, and often it is not to those

who most deserve it.”

An angry flush mounted to Cromwell’s pale visage; he felt that it was

time to calm the storm about to burst upon him.

“I implore your majesty to believe,” he replied in an extremely

mortified tone, “that I advance nothing without proof; and I ask now

what he will say when he shall know that the queen, Thomas More, and

the Bishop of Rochester, concealed in the church, assisted with us at

the examination of the holy daughter of Kent, in order to assure

themselves that their instrument resounded loudly in the ears of your

majesty.”

“What do you say, Cromwell? The queen was in the Abbey last night? And

how did she gain admittance there? What! she has heard all? She has

enjoyed my humiliation? Why have I not known it? I would have punished

her audacity and wickedness on the spot; but I will surely have my

revenge.”

“Sire,” replied Cromwell, “the queen is but a woman, and you should

pardon her. The real culprits are the Bishop of Rochester and More,

whose ingratitude toward your majesty exceeds all conception. The

queen’s partisans laud More above the clouds, and publish it abroad

that he has retired from your majesty’s service because his conscience

would no longer permit him to remain there. It is time to put an end

to such excesses, and the honor of your majesty requires that they

shall no longer go unpunished.”

Cromwell intended by this discourse to excite the king’s wrath and at

the same time strike at his ruling passions—pride, and the fear of

losing his authority. Thus he held him in his hands, and changed him

from one to the other, like a piece of soft wax melted before a hot

fire.

“Yes,” cried the king, “yes, I swear it, I will chastise them! The

whole world shall learn what it is to try to resist me!” He was nearly

stifled with rage, which entirely transported him and rendered him

incapable of reflection.

“You will assist me, Cromwell,” he cried, “you will assist me! I shall

have need of you to help me tame this insolent clergy, who will raise

a loud howl when they hear I have banished Catherine and married Anne

Boleyn without their participation.”

“He is caught,” thought Cromwell. “Poor fish! you have too many vices

to hope to escape my nets! I am very happy to see,” he replied with a

satisfied air, “that your majesty has not been cast down or

discouraged by the trifling difficulties you have until the present

encountered. It is time your courage got the better of your

generosity, and that you should throw off the yoke which has been so

long imposed on you.”

“Yes, that is just what I want!” cried the king; “but it is a very

difficult question to deal with.”

“Not the least in the world,” replied Cromwell; “let your majesty

continue as you have begun, and you will very soon see every obstacle

fall before you. Not long since they declared your marriage was

impossible; to-day it is accomplished.… The clergy will not recognize

it!… Make Parliament proclaim it; then demand of them the oath of

fidelity to the new queen, to her children, and to the supreme head of

the church; because we must not lose sight,” continued Cromwell, “of

the fact that there is no longer any necessity for discretion now;

after the injury done to the Sovereign Pontiff of the church, there

remains no other way to proceed than to cast off his authority at once

and substitute another in his place.”

“Softly, softly,” said the king; “unless the necessity be forced upon

me, I do not wish to go to such an extremity.”

“This is not an extremity,” replied Cromwell, who had the plan already

perfectly arranged, and enjoyed in advance all the ecclesiastical

benefits he counted on appropriating to himself; “it is a decisive

victory, simple and easy to carry out. Is it not, Cranmer?”

“I think so,” said Cranmer, who had taken the habit of a bishop only

that he might be better able to serve his ambition and avidity.

“Softly,” continued the king, with an air of importance; “it is very

evident that neither of you are statesmen, and that you are not

experienced in such matters, nor acquainted with their difficulties.”

“I think, however, I know very well how to manage my own,” said

Cromwell under his breath.

“We know quite as much about it as some others,” thought Cranmer.

“It will first be necessary,” continued Henry, “to see if there will

be no means of arranging it otherwise. It is possible that Catherine

may submit, that she may ask to become a _religieuse_, that they may

decide at Rome that it is not necessary to enforce the law so urgently

in my case. At any rate, I wish to try them,” he added in a determined

voice, “by demanding, as is customary, Cranmer’s bulls of the pope.

Afterward—ah! well, we will see.”

“Then, sire,” replied Cromwell, “consider well that, by this act of

submission, you destroy all the terror you have inspired, and that if

Cranmer holds his rank and powers as Archbishop-Primate of England

from any other than yourself, he will be obliged to publicly

acknowledge the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and to take from him,

as usual, the oath of fidelity.”

“Oh!” hurriedly interrupted Cranmer, who feared that this remark of

Cromwell would make the king hesitate, and retard his installation,

“this oath is only a simple formality, … an ancient usage.… Nothing

could prevent me later from taking another to the king in the form and

tenor adopted.”

“Ah! well; yes, still—” said Cromwell, whose talent above all

consisted in never finding, nor letting the king find, any difficulty

in following his advice.

“These honest individuals!” thought the king; “an oath weighs no more

on their conscience than a gnat on the back of a swallow.”

With this remark his patience was exhausted with them.

“Well, it is all right,” he said; “we will return to this subject

after the council. Go now; I need rest; but keep an eye on Thomas More

and the Bishop of Rochester,” he added, turning toward Cromwell.

They then had to retire, and leave the king by himself, a prey to his

own reflections.

“They are gone at last!” cried Henry, throwing himself into a

_fauteuil_. “I am rid of them! These are, then, the agents of hell

with whom hereafter I must manage the affairs of my kingdom.”

And he angrily pushed from under his feet a footstool, which was

hurled against a chair they called the “queen’s chair,” because she

had shown a preference for it.

Henry recollected it; he arose abruptly, and changed his position in

order to avoid seeing the vacant chair, that annoyed him.

“Always Catherine,” he cried; “nothing but Catherine! I cannot take a

step without being reminded of her! So much trouble, and only to make

myself so wretched!… That doll-baby, Anne Boleyn, was weeping!… A weak

creature, and with no energy!… She is not equal to the position to

which I have elevated her. To weep the day that I married her, when

for her I have torn myself from the arms of the clergy, the people,

the pope, and the emperor!… I shall not be happy with this woman;… she

wearies me already!… It will be necessary to make all this known

before the coronation; … otherwise there will be no time to recede.…

To acknowledge that I have done wrong … it is impossible.… More, could

you, then, have been right? Shall I always be more unhappy in

following my own will than in conquering it?… That wretch! always

calm, always contented.… I see him now, down in his obscurity, seated

quietly in his cabinet, working, loving God, not fearing death, …

smiling at poverty and all the circumstances of life, which, as he

says, have no power to annoy him.… And I—I roll here on these velvet

cushions, with remorse in my heart, despair in my soul; and why, when

I have obtained the object I wanted?… Hell has already begun for me!…

If it is so, I should not, at least, be ashamed to acknowledge it!…

March on!”

The king, rising then precipitately, left his cabinet, and ordered

preparations for a grand hunting party, and for the assembling of the

ladies for a ball and supper in the evening.

XII.

Whilst they were dancing at court, and sought, in dissipation of mind,

to drown remorse of heart, a few leagues distant one of the victims of

Henry VIII. lay on his death-bed, rapidly approaching his end.

The night before some travellers had knocked at the gate of Leicester

Abbey. It was opened, and the Archbishop of York had alighted from his

mule, on which he was no longer able to sustain himself. He was

carried by the good monks to a chamber, and laid in bed, where he

still remained confined and nigh unto death.

All was gloom around this bed; two wax lights only burned on a table

at the extremity of the room, whilst several monks were on their knees

praying for the dying. Not a sound disturbed the silence around them

save the slight noise made by the rosary as they turned it in their

hands, and the labored respiration of the sick man.

“Monsieur Kingston,” he suddenly cried in a broken voice, “I conjure

you, say to the king that I have never betrayed him, that my enemies

have misrepresented me, that I have always been faithful to him!… Tell

him this, I conjure you!—ah! tell him this.”

But Sir William Kingston, lieutenant of the Tower, had left the room

and returned to the lower hall among his guards, with whom he had been

sent, by order of the king, to seek his prisoner at the castle of the

Count of Shrewsbury, and bring him to the Tower.

Fatigued by the journey, some of them were stretched on the floor,

while others slept on their arms, leaning against the wall, as if

death still required them to guard their prey.

Wolsey receiving no reply, turned himself over with a groan, and saw

the shadow of a man standing near his bed.

“Who is that?” he asked.

“It is I,” replied Cavendish, still remaining behind the curtain, and

who endeavored in silence to conceal his tears.

“How are you now?” said Wolsey.

“Well, my dear lord, if your grace was well also,” responded the

faithful servant.

“Ah! my dear friend,” replied the cardinal, “as for me, I am very

sick. I am rapidly approaching my end; but what most distresses me is

to have nothing to leave you, and not to be able to assure you of a

subsistence.”

“Do not trouble yourself about that,” said this devoted servant, who

approached and took the trembling hand of the dying man; “in a few

days you will be better, and we shall not lose you.”

“What time is it?” said Wolsey.

“Midnight.”

“Midnight!” replied the archbishop. “How short the time is! Before

eight o’clock I shall have to leave this world. God calls me to

himself, and I can remain no longer with you. Monsieur Vincent,” he

continued after a moment’s silence—“Monsieur Vincent, say to the king

that it was my intention to have left him all my property; but he has

himself deprived me of that pleasure, since they have seized, by his

orders, everything that I possessed.”

On hearing his name called, Monsieur Vincent hurried to the bedside;

but at these last words he shook his head in token of incredulity and

impatience. He was an employé of the king’s treasury, and his heart

was as hard as the coin he had charge of.

Having learned that Wolsey was very sick when he left the castle of

the Count of Shrewsbury, and fearing he might die on the road, the

king had despatched this man in all haste to secure the money and

valuables he supposed Wolsey might have concealed among his friends.

“I have told you the truth,” replied the archbishop, who remarked his

movement. “I have nothing left in London, and but for the assistance

of Monsieur Arundel I should have died of starvation at Asher. I

implore you, then, that the king may have compassion on my poor

servants, and allow them the wages now due them.”

“We will see, my lord,” said the dissatisfied scribe, who was waiting

for an avowal which he had continued to solicit, without any

consideration, ever since his arrival; “we will see. But the treasury

is so very much impoverished at this time!… However, we will do what

we can. We will ask the king, if it is convenient.”

“Monsieur Vincent, I implore you!” replied the cardinal.

“Master Vincent,” said Cavendish, “I beg you to leave the room; your

presence annoys and excites him. Have mercy, then, and leave him in

peace.”

The scribe hesitated, but he did not go; he returned to the corner of

the chamber and began to write as before.

Cavendish followed him with a look of indignation. It seemed very hard

that his master could not even be permitted to die without this

avaricious surveillance.

“Cavendish,” asked the archbishop immediately, “do you think she will

come?”

“They expect her every moment, my dear lord,” he replied; “she will

remain three days here.”

“O Cavendish!”

“My dear master!”

And he fell on his knees by the bed. He bathed with tears the hand of

the archbishop, which he held in his own.

“She will not see me, my son! She will not forgive me!”

“Ah! my dear, my beloved lord.” He could say no more, being entirely

overcome by grief.

“Remember, my son, remember,” continued Wolsey, “that it was my

infernal policy that persuaded the king of the possibility of his

divorce! Is that she? I hear a noise. My God! I am dying. Spare me,

that I may ask her forgiveness; yes, her forgiveness, even as God has

forgiven me. O my God!” he cried suddenly, fixing his eyes on a

crucifix he had made them hang on the wall in front of him,” had I

only served thee as faithfully as I have served this prince in whom I

have placed all my hopes and centred all my affections! Weak mortal

like myself, what had he to offer me that I should attach myself to

him? Vain splendor of an ephemeral power, where have you led me? O

man, crowned with a diadem! cast a glance upon the bed of a dying man,

and reflect. Why have I not despised your favors and the gifts you

have offered me? How fatal they have proved to me! To-day, solitary

and alone, I must appear before my God, with hands empty and void of

all those virtues and merits which you have prevented me from

acquiring. Why have I not come here in my youth, among these humble

monks, and learned to extinguish the pride that has governed my entire

life? Listen, all you who are here present! Come and behold my

emaciated limbs; see the flesh that covered them already destroyed by

the breath of death, that has struck them! And my tongue that now

speaks to you, and which was thought capable of dictating the decrees

of conquerors, will soon be silenced for ever.”

But exhausted by so violent an effort, he sank into a state of

insensibility.

Seized with terror, the monks gathered around his bed, recalling the

power and _éclat_ with which the name of Wolsey was surrounded, and

which had so many times resounded even through the most remote walls

of their solitude.…

Yes, it was she—it was indeed Queen Catherine. She had reached this

monastery, where she intended remaining several days before deciding

on the place of her retreat. Henry VIII., in order to entirely prove

that she had become to him an object of perfect indifference, had not

even offered her an asylum.

“She is free,” he said; “let her do what she pleases. That is the

widow of my brother, the Princess Dowager of Wales. Hereafter she must

bear no other name.”

However, they had opened all the gates, and the father abbot, preceded

by the cross and followed by all his _religieux_ carrying lighted

torches, went before the queen and conducted her into the

chapter-hall, which had been prepared for her reception.

There she found carpets, cushions, an arm-chair covered with velvet,

and everything the good monks could imagine would be agreeable and

testify their devotion.

Catherine felt touched to the heart by these testimonials of respect

and affection.

She seated herself a moment in order to thank them; then, rising with

that calm and majestic dignity which so eminently characterized her,

she said:

“Good fathers, it is no more your queen whom you receive in your

midst; it is a fugitive woman, an outraged mother, separated from all

that she holds most dear in the world. Do not treat me, then, with so

much honor. I have more need of your tears and prayers than of your

respect and homage.”

“Alas! madam,” replied the father abbot, “life is very short, and the

judgments of God are inscrutable. You come beneath the shadow of this

sanctuary to seek an asylum, while the first author of all your woes,

a man of whom you have had great cause to complain, has sought here a

refuge to die.”

“What!” said the queen. “Venerable father, explain yourself!”

“Yesterday, madam,” replied the abbot, “the Archbishop of York arrived

here in a dying condition. He was accompanied by Cavendish, his

servant, and the lieutenant of the Tower, who is conducting him to

London, there to be tried on the charge of high treason.”

“He here!” cried the queen, overwhelmed with astonishment. And

Catherine, a Spaniard and a mother, felt the hatred she had borne

Wolsey revive in her soul with extreme violence. The feeling she had

vainly sought to extinguish rekindled with renewed strength every time

she received a new outrage, or when the name and conduct of the

minister who had sacrificed her to his political views and interests

was brought to her recollection.

A sudden tremor seized her.

“Wolsey here!” she repeated. “No matter where I go, this man follows

me!… Here!” she said again.

“Yes, madam,” replied the father abbot, “here, dying, but more worthy

of pity than hatred; he weeps, he bemoans his past life, he implores

God’s mercy. It is sufficient to see him to be touched with

compassion. For two days we have watched him by turns; he has not

ceased to pray God, and I know that to see you will be a great

consolation to him.”

“See him?” replied the queen. “No! oh! no, never. God forgive him the

injury he has done me; but I will never see him.”

“Will Queen Catherine forget the charity of Jesus Christ?” replied the

father abbot in a severe tone. “Can that virtue be more than a vain

appearance which is stranded by coming in contact with a resentment,

just, perhaps, but none the less criminal?… I conjure you, madam,” he

continued, falling on his knees before the queen, “refuse not to see

him. Already, without doubt, he knows that you are here. He desires to

see you and ask your forgiveness. All of our brothers ask it with

him.”

Catherine remained silent, but she advanced a step forward, which the

father accepted as a mute consent; and passing immediately before her,

he conducted her into the chamber where Wolsey was lying.

She advanced to the middle of the room, and was struck by the

spectacle presented to her view. Cavendish supported the dying man in

his arms, and wiped the cold sweat from his face, now as white as the

sheet on which he lay. A convulsive movement agitated occasionally his

extended limbs, and it was from that alone they saw that life was not

yet extinct.

Catherine approached at once, and remained standing in silence, in the

face of this enemy, heretofore so powerful and so formidable.

She made no movement, and her eyes only were fixed on the dying. “And

I too will die!” she said in her heart. “The day will come when I

shall cease to suffer. O material life which envelops me! cease also

to burden _my_ soul, and let it flee into eternity. Let me find a

refuge even in the bosom of the tomb.”

* * * * *

“My daughter, my daughter!” she suddenly cried, as though beside

herself; “give her back to me, you who have torn her from my arms!”

A shudder passed over the form of Wolsey; he had heard that voice. It

seemed as though a burning fire had touched him. He rose up in his

bed, and, gazing at the queen with wildly staring eyes, “Your

daughter, madam!” he cried, “your daughter!… Alas! it is I who have

done all. You accuse me, and yet, as God is my judge, I threw myself

at the feet of the king, and tried to turn him from his evil

intention; but it was too late, and I had not foreseen the fatal

consequences of a policy which I believed would be advantageous and

beneficial. Alas! how differently I regard it at this terrible hour.

Pardon me! pardon me!… I conjure you, that I may not bear to the foot

of the throne of the Sovereign Judge the fearful weight of the

malediction of the widow and the orphan!” And he stretched towards her

his hands, which he was no longer able to raise.

“May God forgive you,” responded the queen, “may God forgive you! But

what can there be in common between you and me, unless it is

suffering? You will soon be delivered from your woes; but I—I must

live!”

“Ah!” cried Woolsey with expressions of the most profound

wretchedness, “you hear it, brothers, already the voice of God

punishes me by the mouth of this woman. And thus,” he continued,

fixing his terrified gaze on the queen, “I die at enmity with you, and

you will not have compassion on the condition to which I am reduced!

How can one human being call down upon another without trembling the

vengeance of the Most High? Are we not all formed of the same flesh

and blood? Are you not horror-stricken at the thought of the judgments

I must suffer and the account I must render?”

Catherine felt her blood congealed by the frightful eloquence of this

expiring man—this man whom but a moment separated from death and

eternity.

At the thought of the nothingness of all created humanity, she felt

the hatred she had borne Wolsey entirely effaced.

“Your reasoning enlightens me!” she cried. “Who are we that we should

wish to be revenged?. Weak and blind, should we precipitate ourselves

into the bottomless pit? We have received an injury, and shall we

inflict one in return? Who are we, and what is our duty?”

She then advanced toward him, and, taking in her own the hands of her

enemy, she said:

“I forgive you, I forgive you from the most profound depths of my

heart.… May God, the sovereign Creator of all things, bless you, and

blot out from the awful book of his justice your slightest fault! May

he open to you the mansions of eternal bliss! Then remember me, and

ask of him that my eyes also may soon be closed to the light of that

day which you have rendered insupportable. Tell him that I want to

die, and beg him to recall to himself the soul that he has given me;

say that my eyes are weary with tears, and my heart worn with

suffering; that sorrow has multiplied my days, and that I have lived

during the night, keeping tearful vigils; that I have only enjoyed the

blessings of life long enough to regret them; that I am ready, that I

listen, I wait to hear his voice, in order that I may arise and

depart.”

Wolsey drank in with avidity all of her words, and his eyes followed

every movement of the queen’s lips; but suddenly the fire of his

burning glance was extinguished, his head fell forward on his

breast—he had ceased to breathe!…

What pen can describe, what pencil portray, the terrible and solemn

moment when a man is called to leave for ever the world that gave him

birth—the moment when those who, having surrounded him with the most

constant care, loving words, and affectionate attentions, fall

prostrate around the silent couch, which now contains no more than the

despoiled and lifeless clay which a beloved and cherished being seems

to have cast aside like a soiled garment? Let the cold sceptic come,

and, passing through that throng of afflicted friends, let him place

his hand on the heart that has ceased to beat, and then turn and dare

still to tell them that man has been created to die, and nothing more

remains of him after death!… It is easy in the intoxication of joy,

amid the false glare of vanity and of worldly dissipations, to put our

trust in falsehood and array ourselves against the truth; but the day

and the hour will come when she will appear clothed in dazzling robes

of light, and the splendor of her irradiated countenance will strike

with terror and annihilation the last one of her wretched and

presumptuous enemies.

SOME ODD IDEAS.

“Our intelligence,” says the celebrated Montaigne, “is a kind of

vagabond instrument, daring and dangerous, to which it is difficult to

associate order or appoint limits. It is a hurtful weapon to its owner

himself, if he does not know how to use it discreetly.”

No one can doubt the truth of this observation who has ever studied

the workings of his own individual mind with some little attention.

And even when we cannot perceive the beam in our own eye, how very

evident is the straw in our neighbor’s! Though unsuspecting of the bee

in our own bonnet, how quickly we hear it buzzing in his!

A specimen of some of the extravagant vagaries of human wit may

perhaps interest and amuse. To begin at the beginning: thinkers have

endeavored to imagine what was going on before the Creation.

In the seventeenth century, a mystic writer composed a work on the

occupations of God before the creation of the universe! Nearly all of

it is incomprehensible, but a few sentences will give an idea of its

style:

“To ask what God was doing before the Creation is an impertinence, a

puerility.… It is certain that the eternal God who made this earth by

the power of his word had no need of the world and all the creatures

it contains—he had lived and reigned before Time began, happy and

contented in the paradise of his essence and in the essence of

himself.… He was contemplating his only Son, not made, not created,

but begotten from all eternity; in the eternal Word he contemplated

the archetype, the world of the world, angels, souls, and all things.

In conclusion, we may say that God, before the creation of the world,

did something and did nothing.…”

Singular problems, most daringly resolved, have been presented

respecting the epoch of the Creation. Chevreau, in his _Histoire du

Monde_, 1686, tells us that, according to some writers, the earth was

created in the spring; according to others, equally good authorities,

on a Friday, the 6th of September, at four o’clock in the afternoon!

A learned Italian of the last century, Monsignor Baiardi, in the

course of a conversation with the Abbé Barthélemy, mentioned that he

was about writing an abridgment of universal history, and that he

intended to commence his work with the solution of one of the most

important problems of astronomy and history. His desire was to

determine the exact spot in the firmament in which God had placed the

sun when he made the earth. “And,” says Barthélemy, “he had just

discovered it, and showed it to me on a globe.”

Our common father has been the subject of an infinite number of

curious suppositions, not to say crack-brained fancies. The

Talmudists, for instance, have constructed the following programme of

Adam’s first day of life:

In the first hour, the Creator kneaded the clay of which man was made,

and moulded the outlines of his form.

In the second hour, Adam was perfected and capable of action.

In the fourth hour, God called to him, and commanded him to give names

to the beasts, birds, and fishes.

In the seventh hour, the marriage of our first parents took place.

In the tenth hour, Adam sinned.

In the twelfth hour, the penalty of labor began.

James Salien, a Jesuit of the seventeenth century, tells us in his

_Annales Ecclesiastici_ that, “while man was being created, the divine

hands, ambrosial face, and admirable arms of his Creator were visible

to him.”

The Arabs have a tradition that Adam, when first created, stretched

from one extremity of the earth to the other. But after he had sinned,

God pressed him down with his almighty hand, and thus diminished his

height to nine hundred cubits. The Creator, it is added, did this at

the request of the angels, who regarded the gigantic mortal with

strange fear.

According to Moreri, Adam possessed a profound knowledge of all the

sciences, especially of astrology, many secrets of which he taught to

his children, besides engraving two tables of observations on the

movements of the planets. All the learned doctors of the Middle Ages

are agreed in ascribing the possession of immense science to Adam. The

angels themselves, they say, were inferior to him in knowledge; and

they relate as proof of this that God, having heard them speak of man

with contempt, determined to confound them by asking them what were

the names of certain beasts which he called into his presence at that

moment. The angels could not answer; man, summoned to the task, gave

each animal its due appellation without hesitation.

Adam, being thus endowed with unlimited knowledge, would have been

culpable towards his posterity if he had left none of it behind him.

We are accordingly told that he composed two works, one upon the

Creation, the other upon the Divinity. Having been present, we may

almost say, at the first, and conversed familiarly with the second, he

was able to tell us something interesting about both, and it is our

misfortune that the two works have been lost. It is, however, said

that they survived the Deluge, for a Mahometan author relates that

Abraham, being in the country of the Sabeans, opened Adam’s chest, and

found in it not only our progenitor’s writings but also those of Seth.

Opinions are various concerning the form the tempter assumed to

deceive poor Eve. It has been asserted that Sammaël, the prince of

devils, came to her mounted on a serpent as large in girth as a camel;

and then again it is said that Satan borrowed the form of the serpent,

and made it more seductive by the addition of a sweet maiden’s face!

This tradition has been adopted by poets and painters.

As the name of the forbidden fruit is not mentioned in the Book of

Genesis, conjecture has had full scope. Northern nations believe that

it was an apple; southern people that it was a fig or citron. Rabbi

Salomon thinks that Moses concealed the name of the fruit purposely,

fearing that, if it were known, nobody would ever eat of it.

According to St. Jerome, Adam was buried in Hebron; other learned

authors say on Calvary; either assertion is difficult of verification,

for both Hebron and Calvary only date from the Deluge. “Barcepha

alleges,” says Bayle, “that a highly esteemed Syrian doctor had said

that Noe dwelt in Judea; that he planted in the plains of Sodom the

cedar-trees with which he afterwards built the ark; and that he

carried Adam’s bones into the ark with him. When he came out of the

ark, he divided these bones among his three sons; the skull fell to

the share of Sem, and when the descendants of Sem took possession of

Judea, they buried it in the very spot where the tomb of Adam had once

been situated.” The reader will doubtless feel that Barcepha’s

allegation settles the question!

In 1615, a shoemaker of Amiens published a treatise entitled _De

Calceo Antiquo_. In this history of shoes, the writer begins at the

beginning of the world, and gravely informs us that Adam made the

first pair from the prepared skins of beasts, the secret of tanning

having been taught him by God himself!

In the last century, Henrion, a French Orientalist, and a member of

the Institute of France, conceived the idea of composing an exhaustive

work on the weights and measures of the ancients, and presented a

specimen of his labors to the Academy of Inscriptions, to which he

belonged. It was a kind of chronological scale of the differences in

man’s stature from the epoch of Adam’s creation to the time of our

Saviour.

Adam, he stated, measured one hundred and twenty-three feet, nine

inches; Eve, one hundred and eighteen feet, nine and three-quarter

inches; Noe, one hundred and three feet; Abraham, twenty-seven feet;

Moses, thirteen feet; Hercules, ten feet; Alexander, six feet; Julius

Cæsar, five feet.

He remarked upon this scale that “though men are no longer measured by

their stature, if Providence had not deigned to suspend such an

extraordinarily rapid rate of diminution, we, at this day, should

scarcely dare to class ourselves, with respect to our size, among the

large insects of our globe!”

Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, an attempt was made to

wrest from Adam the honor of being the first man. Isaac de la Peyrère

pulished a work in 1655, entitled _Præadamitæ, seu Exercitatio super

versibus 12, 13, 14 Capitis V. Epistolæ B. Pauli ad Romanos_, in which

he endeavors to prove that there were two creations of men—the first

on the sixth day, when God created _man_, _male and female_; which, he

asserts, means _men and women_ in all parts of the earth, _progenitors

of the Gentiles_. The second creation, he says, did not take place

until some time after, when God made Adam to _be the father of the

Jews_. Those who adopted this idea were called Preadamites. La Peyrère

lived to abjure his opinions at the feet of Pope Alexander VI.

Such are a few of the many odd ideas upon the Creation and the first

man which human wit, that “dangerous instrument” when not kept within

due limits, has been continually devising ever since the beginning of

history. The logic of the nineteenth century rejects them all;

nevertheless, while we laugh at the extraordinary suppositions of our

ancestors, it is pleasant to observe that, even in the most

extravagant about our common father, the sentiment of the first man’s

innate nobleness is always present. Adam always shines forth greater

and grander than his sons—stronger, both physically and mentally. The

old fathers of the church, nay, even the pedants of the Middle Ages,

adhered to the Scripture text, and believed that in the “looks divine”

of the first human pair

“The image of their glorious Maker shone,

Truth, wisdom, sanctitude, severe and pure.”

Is it not curious that the queerest crank of all concerning Adam—that

which strives to prove that he was an ourang-outang—should have been

reserved for our own days of culture, of philosophical research and

science?

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

SPIRITUALISM AND ALLIED CAUSES AND CONDITIONS OF NERVOUS

DERANGEMENT. By William A. Hammond, M.D. 8vo, pp. 366. New

York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1876.

It is evident, from the appearance of this work so speedily after the

publication of a larger volume on _Diseases of the Nervous System_,

that Dr. Hammond has contracted the _cacoëthes scribendi_ in its worst

shape. He is not easy unless the pen is in his hand, and so delightful

must be to him the sensation of a _calamus currens_ that, we fear, he

pauses not to reflect over the fate of the cyclical writer of old

whose long-continued parlurient efforts resulted in the production of

a ridiculously small animal. For all that, he must be quite jealous of

his reputation as a strong-minded and rational man, since he has

undertaken the vindication of reason, even at the expense of

reasoning. We give him credit indeed for research, but of that

doubtful sort which delights in jumbling together facts gathered from

the most opposite sources—

_Rudis indigestaque moles_—

in order that a boastful parade of erudition might impart weight to

his otherwise feather-light conclusions. A certain lack of method in

the handling of his subject is what first impresses the reader of Dr.

Hammond’s latest lucubration, and stamps the writer as illogical in

the last degree. So-called spiritual manifestations are by him

included in the same category as the pious acts of the saints, who

doubtless would reject with horror the fantasies of Katie King and the

_friponnerie_ of Home. Under the head of “curing mediums” we read of

cures wrought by some obscure personage called St. Sauveur, which, if

true, we are willing to accept, but which, like all unauthenticated

cases of the sort, we are free to admit or disallow as the weight of

evidence justifies. But, we ask, what relevancy to the heading of this

chapter can possess the case of a woman laying an egg, or of another

giving birth to two rabbits? If any such there be, we confess our

inability to discover it; for certainly in those cases there is no

question of curing. Neither can we perceive what induced the author to

adopt Kerdac’s absurd division of spiritual agents into “physical

mediums,” “seeing and auditive mediums,” and “curing mediums,” since

clearly the first caption covers the whole ground. This is a sin

against that canon of method which forbids one branch of a division to

overlap another. Then the doctor never can discriminate between

essential differences and accidental resemblances; and if a so-called

medium should, by slight of hand or electro-magnetism, produce

phenomena resembling the miraculous achievements of the saints, pop

they both go into the same category of frauds or victims to a

hallucination. He never dreams as being within the range of possible

things that personal sanctity on the one hand has any power which does

not belong on the other to deception or mental imbecility. It is

refreshing to see how he gets these things mixed together, and with

what complacent readiness he relegates all believers in the

supernatural to the regions of blind ignorance and grovelling

superstition, while he calmly stands on the undimmed hill-tops, or

sublimely soars through the placid atmosphere of pure reason. Dr.

Hammond rejects _à priori_ the possibility of an occurrence not due to

the operation of natural agents, and hence he is necessitated

constantly to indicate or suggest an explanation of what is most

marvellous and obscure. This, of course, is a very difficult

procedure, and hence we need not be surprised at the following

ingenious, if not entirely logical, scheme he has devised for making

straight paths that are crooked, and smooth those that are rough.

Whenever he has in hand the consideration of a general principle, he

illustrates it by reference to a case which the common tenets of

science can readily elucidate. This elucidation he deems amply

sufficient to establish the principle, and then he tacks on, as to be

accounted for in the same manner, a mass of cases of every shade and

degree of intricacy, often having no relation to the principle by the

light of which he pretends to judge them, or to the case he adduces in

illustration of the principle. The chapter on somnambulism will serve

as an example of this sort of paralogism. He divides this exceptional

condition of consciousness into natural and artificial. Somnambulism

produces two typical instances of both. In the one case a young lady

rises in her sleep, dresses herself, goes into the parlor, lights the

gas, and intently gazes on the picture of her deceased mother.

Sulphurous fumes are disengaged under her nose, quinine is placed on

her tongue, the corners of her eyes are touched by a lead-pencil, and

still she remained motionless and insensible. The same person soon

after acquired the power of placing herself in the somnambulic state

by concentrating her attention on a passage of a philosophical

treatise. These cases are, we will grant for sake of reasoning,

explicable on the principle of automatism, but what, we ask, does the

case of St. Rose of Lima possess in common with these, or how can the

principle of automatism be made to apply to her case? This saintly

personage dwelt in a climate where mosquitoes were numerous and

vicious, yet she enjoyed entire immunity from their sting, while

worshipping in a little arbor built by her own hands; and this, she

averred, was done in consequence of a pact by virtue of which the

blood-thirsty little insects agreed to strike their notes in praise of

the divine Being. Either the statement of Görres and its verification

in the bull canonizing St. Rose must be rejected _in toto_, or

admitted without any slipshod attempt at explanation as that which Dr.

Hammond offers. He pretends that if such a thing did happen, it must

be in consequence of the saint’s hypnotizing the mosquitoes, and thus

obtaining control over them. But is it possible that hypnotized

mosquitoes would continue to drone out their peculiar music even to a

livelier measure than usual, or would ferociously attack all other

persons except St. Rose?—for, as Dr. Hammond facetiously(?) remarks,

she was not filial enough to include her mother in the bargain. We

have here, then, a case which differs essentially from that of the

somnambulic lady mentioned, and one that stubbornly refuses to be

accounted for in the same manner. The somnambulic young lady exhibited

a condition strikingly abnormal; there was complete loss of

sensibility and power to observe what was taking place around her,

while the mosquitoes became more tuneful than ever, and followed the

natural bent of their instinct towards all but the little saint, who

made them join her in singing the praises of their mutual Creator. Yet

Dr. Hammond would have us believe either that the story is untrue or

that the mosquitoes were hypnotized. And this is his mode of

conducting warfare against the supernatural: _Doctus iter melius_. The

blunt scepticism of Paine or Hobbes is more tolerable than this

skim-milk reasoning. He does not hesitate even to intimate that the

prophet Daniel possessed this mesmeric power, and thus escaped the

fangs of the enraged and hungry lions into whose den he was cast. The

same inconsequence of reasoning may be traced in the conclusion drawn

from the experiments of Kircher and Czermak; Kircher having noticed

that a hen with tied legs ceased to struggle, when a chalk-line was

drawn before its eyes, in the belief that the line was the string

which tied it, and that so long as the line remained all efforts at

self-deliverance were useless. The good Father Kircher sought no

further explanation of the phenomenon till Czermak, in 1873, proved

that a true state of hypnotism or artificial somnambulism had been

induced. To place the matter beyond doubt, he modified and repeated

the experiment, so that now we cannot but accept this explanation, and

say of Kircher’s merely:

“Si non e vero e ben trovato.”

This hypnotic condition of the lower animals once allowed, Dr. Hammond

rushes to the conclusion that therein is to be sought and found the

only true solution of the control which at times the saints of the

church exercised over them. This is certainly the most perverse logic

that can be conceived of. As well might we infer from the fact that

certain characteristic features attend death by strangulation, and

that these have been scientifically studied, therefore all animals

died this death, and so reject as apocryphal all circumstances

pointing to another possible mode of exit from life’s cares. The

reasoning is entirely parallel to Dr. Hammond’s when he says that

Czermak having demonstrated the hypnosis of hens and craw-fish, and

himself a similar condition in dogs and rabbits, therefore whatever we

read or hear of in reference to a completely different state of things

we must equally set down to hypnosis as the cause. It is on this

account he scouts the notion of bees depositing their honey on the

lips of St. Dominic, St. Ambrose, and St. Isidore, or of following

them into the desert and obeying their commands. If, indeed, we accept

the lamp which science kindly furnishes, and, enlightened by its

light, call those miraculous occurrences the effect of hypnosis, we

may perchance escape the charge of credulity.

In this last sentence we confess to have fallen into an error which,

however, we will not correct for the sake of the salutary reflection

it has stirred up within us. We said: “Unless we accept the lamp which

science kindly furnishes,” etc., thereby seeming to intimate that we

are enemies to science, whereas nothing could be farther from our

purpose. True science is founded on the eternal principles of truth,

and, itself shining out with God’s holy light, can never go astray.

But there is a pseudo-science, a spurious affair, which has donned the

garb of truth and assumed its name, and which men, calling it science,

wonder and are amazed that science and religion so often find

themselves in antagonism. If men were always careful to discriminate

between what is founded on unquestionable facts on the one hand, and

the airy hypotheses of highly imaginative scientists on the other, and

not bestow the dignified appellative of science on these latter, they

would not be so easily captivated by the gilded sophistries of Draper,

or allured by the glitter of Hammond’s showy erudition. This _en

passant_.

In speaking of the cures said to have been accomplished by St.

Sauveur, Dr. Hammond makes this striking and pregnant remark: “If St.

Sauveur had really been the great healer he is said to have been, we

should find his doings recorded in a thousand contemporaneous volumes,

and every school-boy would have them at his tongue’s end. Neither do

facts go begging for believers, nor will they remain concealed in

obscure books.” Now, these two sentences fairly teem with fallacies.

In the first place, the alleged performances of St. Sauveur are by no

means regarded as authoritatively established or widely known, as Dr.

Hammond himself subsequently indicates; how, then, even if true, could

they have found their way into a thousand contemporaneous volumes?

Besides, the age in which St. Sauveur lived differed in this respect

from ours: that the recital of even the most marvellous occurrences

spread very slowly, and never very widely; how, then, even if true,

could the exploits of St. Sauveur have ever obtained much notoriety at

the time? And chief of all, there is that inherent spirit of

scepticism in every man which prompts him, often in the face of the

most positive evidence, to reject whatever is stated to have taken

place in derogation of physical law, or else to assign a purely

physical reason for it. It is this sceptical tendency which will ever

stand in the way of the ready and universal acceptance of supernatural

events, however well attested, and, in this respect, essentially

distinguishes them from facts of the natural order. It is the

operation of this tendency which has driven Dr. Hammond himself into

his illogical position, and will leave him there till he subordinates

this prejudiced feeling to the higher promptings of his intellect.

Long before him Voltaire gave expression to this sentiment when he

declared that he would more willingly believe that the whole city of

Paris had been deceived, or had conspired to deceive, than he would

that a single dead man had risen from the grave. Herein lies the whole

philosophy of Dr. Hammond’s position, if philosophy it can be called.

He sets out with the conviction that a supernatural occurrence is

impossible, and he is consequently determined to reject all testimony

of whatsoever sort, no matter how weighty, and which he would readily

allow in scientific affairs, which goes to support their authenticity.

Historical testimony is of no avail, the good sense and discrimination

of individuals goes for naught, when weighed against the flimsiest and

shallowest so-called scientific explanations. Whenever a saint either

performed a miracle or was himself the subject of a miraculous

affection, Dr. Hammond concludes that he was epileptic or cataleptic,

or suffering from some derangement of the nervous centres. Of St.

Teresa he remarks: “The organization of St. Teresa was such as to

allow of her imagining anything as reality; and the hallucination of

being lifted up, as I shall show hereafter, is one of the most common

experienced by ecstatics.” He thus places the saint in the light of a

feeble-minded woman, of weak judgment and puny intellect, whereas all

writers agree that in the various reforms she introduced into her

religious community she exhibited the rarest good sense, moderation,

and vigor of mind. The same remark is applicable to St. Thomas of

Villanova. But enough. Rational criticism should be expended on other

subjects. The _savant_ who compares Bernadette of Soubirous to the

monks of Mount Athos, who go into ecstasy by placing their thoughts on

God and their eyes on their navel, cannot expect much dignified

criticism. The book is calculated to produce an unfavorable impression

against the church in the minds of sciolists and those who are apt to

be influenced by the authority of a name. We have already expressed

our views on Dr. Hammond’s psychological attainments, and this present

volume, so far from inducing us to alter them, rather inclines us to

think that our strictures were unduly lenient. The comments which our

June article elicited from the press go far to show that the

intelligent portion of the community will not accept as genuine

science a mere jingling Greek nomenclature—_e Græco fonte parce

detorta_—and that, Draper and Hammond to the contrary, commonsense is

not yet so rare as but yet to be common. The style of the book is

good, the English pure, and the description graphic. It is well

adapted, consequently, for popular reading, and will no doubt have a

wide circulation—_tant pis_.

GERMAN POLITICAL LEADERS. By Herbert Tuttle. New York: G. P.

Putnam’s Sons. 1876.

If Mr. Tuttle were one of the hired scribes of the Berlin Press

Bureau, we should have looked for just such a book as he has written.

A genuine “mud-bather” could not have shown himself either a more

unfair partisan or a more flippant and inaccurate narrator.

Had the book appeared on its own merits, and not as one of a series of

biographies, edited under the supervision of Thomas Wentworth

Higginson, we should have passed it by like any other piece of

book-making; for it is merely a catch-penny performance, and was most

probably never meant to be anything else. This volume is of itself

sufficient to show how utterly worthless is the claim put forth by

Putnam’s Sons that the whole series is to be made reliable in every

statement of fact. Bismarck, we are told, was a youth of very tender

nature, and is even yet a devout and pious Christian. “His domestic

tastes were always strong; his longing for a wife and household of his

own would seem to have been very acute, till in 1847 it was satisfied

by his marriage with Joanna von Putkammer.”

The truth is, Bismarck was a wild and reckless youth, who

distinguished himself at the university by fighting some twenty-five

duels and by taking the lead in the boisterous and riotous debauches

habitual with so many German students. As a young man he continued

this mode of life on his paternal estates, where he was known as Der

Tolle Bismarck—Mad Bismarck. His favorite drink at this time was a

mixture of porter and champagne. His letters to his sister show that

the “acute longing for a wife” is only in the imagination of Mr.

Tuttle. “His whole career,” says this writer, “previous to entering

the Prussian ministry, was one of study and preparation, … at the

university he was a profound and philosophical student of history,

particularly that of his own country.” He never took a degree, and he

was a profound and philosophical student of nothing except fencing,

boxing, and hunting. Mr. Tuttle does not even quote correctly the

sayings of Bismarck, which are known to every newspaper reader.

Bismarck said: “Germany must be made with blood and iron”; and Mr.

Tuttle makes him say: “The battles of this generation are to be fought

out with iron and blood.”

The sketch of Dr. Falk is a still sorrier performance. In an attempt

to sum up the relations of the church and the state in Prussia from

1817 to 1862, he says: “Accordingly the Catholics made grave advances

along the whole line of social, educational, and political interests.…

The church, or the ecclesiastical element, wielded paramount authority

in the public councils” (p. 29). Nothing could be more false, nor

would one who knows anything of Prussian history commit himself to a

statement which can be excused from malice only by being supposed to

proceed from gross ignorance.

We might cite fifty passages from this book in which bitter and vulgar

prejudice against the Catholic Church has led the author into palpable

and unpardonable blunders. Dr. Krementz is the “obstinate and

disobedient bishop of Ermeland.” “The complaints of the Ultramontanes

are both extravagant and absurd.” The leaders of the Catholic party

“as the servants of an infallible spiritual master, were apparently

placed above those restraints of moderation, courtesy, and

truthfulness which apply in secular matters.… They led their hearers

into tortuous mazes of sophistry, they wrapped the subject in clouds

of paltry fallacies, at the command of bishops whose gospel is light.”

Dr. Falk’s courage “has stood the ordeal required of every statesman

who excites the hatred and exposes himself to the vengeance of the

pupils of the Jesuit Mariana. He has been threatened with

assassination quite as often as the emperor and Bismarck.”

The fact that a book written by an American, for Americans, and

published by a leading American house, should evince the most thorough

and earnest sympathy with the relentless persecution of the Catholic

Church in Germany, throws a very unpleasant light upon our

much-talked-of love of fair play and religious liberty.

The will to make martyrs and confessors of the bishops and priests of

the United States is not wanting to Mr. Tuttle or Mr. Higginson, if

the language of this book may be taken as an evidence of their real

sentiments. The only Catholic leader whose biography is given in this

volume is Lewis Windthorst, and this is the character which he

receives: “He would be the most daring and consistent of sceptics if

his interests had not made him the most faithful of believers. Even

his religious professions spring from one form of unbelief. To be a

free-thinker requires the exercise of faith in human reason and in

most of the results of human inquiry, while by espousing the Catholic

religion he proclaimed his disbelief in all positive and uninspired

knowledge. He doubts everything that is true and believes only what is

doubtful.” Since he cannot deny the ability of Windthorst, he makes

him a hypocrite; and then, suddenly forgetting what he has just said,

he supposes Windthorst to be a sincere believer only to declare him a

fool.