Take in pieces the story--untwist the intertwined classical and romantic

threads. Make sure of the fault, and then hasten to forgive it. The fault!

Are you quite sure that it is one? Recollect that it is not Chaucer who

relates the Knight's Tale. Chaucer is here a dramatic poet, and his Knight

relates his own tale. What!--Shall he, who has "full often time the bord

begun,"--

"Aboven alle natiouns in Pruce;"

who has "reysed in Lettowe, and in Ruce," has been--

"In Gernade at the siege

Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie;"

who was--

"At Leyes and at Satalie,

When they were wonne; and in the Grete See,

At many a noble armee;"--

he who has been at--

"Mortal battailes fiftene,

And foughten for our faith at Tramisene,

In listes thries, and ay slain his fo"--

shall he, upon the qualm of a queasy criticism, not be allowed to transfer

something of the

"Chevalrie,

Truth and honor, fredom and courtesie,"

which, "from the time that he first began to riden out," he has

loved--across a gap of a few hundred leagues and years? To what end else,

it may be asked, has he approved himself, "full worthy in his lordes

werre," and "ridden thereto no man ferre,"--

"As well in Christendom as in Hethenesse,

And ever honor'd for his worthinesse?"

Why, the Knight would have been no knight at all if he had been Richard

Bentley or John Milton, and not, as there is every reason to hope he was,

_le noble et vaillant Chivaler_ MATHEU DE GOURNEY, whose marble tells us

that he had fought at Benamaryn and Algezire, and been at abundance of

battles and sieges, named and unnamed, in Christendom and

Heathenesse--"_en les quex il gaigna noblement graunt los et honour_"--and

who "died in 1406 at the age of 96." It is therefore Sir Matheu de Gourney

who speaks, like a knight, of knighthood--and let him speak--

"Who never yet no vilainie ne sayde,

In all his life unto no manere wight."--

Let him speak, justifying his eulogist, and showing us, as well as may be

by his words, what his deeds showed the world, that--

"He was a veray parfit gentil knight!"

The first transaction that is related with some full process, is the

chivalrous enterprise of Theseus against Creon; King of Thebes. This

dispiteous and abominable tyrant prohibits the bodies of the warriors

fallen in the celebrated siege of that city from burial. The widows of the

slain princes and nobles move Theseus for vengeance and redress, which he

instantly undertakes, and forthwith executes. And now mark the admixture

of times and manners. In the first place, the heinousness of the crime,

and even the imagination of such an impiety, are purely antique, as, in

truth, the fact itself is on classical record in the "Antigone" of

Sophocles. Again, the suppliant, bereaved, and woebegone wives have

awaited Theseus's coming "in the temple of the goddess Clemency," than

which nothing can be more classical; and the manner in which, at his

return home from his victorious war upon the "Amasones," the sorrowful

company receive him, kneeling by two and two clothed in black, along the

highway, might persuade you that Sir Matheu had read the OEdipus

Tyrannus, and successfully imitated OEdipus's dolorous and picturesque

reception in the streets of Thebes, by the kneeling, plague-smitten

population of the city.

On the other hand, the claim of redress at the hand of the warrior carries

your imagination to the interesting volumes of St Palaye; and clearly

refers to the obligation by which the knight, at his investiture, bound

himself to redress all wrongs, especially those of the ladies. And Theseus

is nothing slack in acknowledging the obligation. He dismounts, takes them

each and all up in his arms,

"And swore his oth, _as he was trewe knight_,"

that he will do his endeavour that the world shall applaud the chastising

of the "false king."--Again, when the one day's demolishing fight has

given Creon to death, and his Land into Theseus's hand, and the two right

Heroes of the Tale, the Theban cousins, Palamon and Arcite, are dragged

out, half-alive and half-dead, from the heap of the slain, the "herauds"

know them, by the "cote-armoure," to be of the blood-royal. Of course,

they are designated "knights."--Again: Theseus will take no ransom for

them. That is perhaps, indifferently, ancient or modern; but it sounds to

our ears rather modern, that he shuts them up in a high tower, which

overlooks the Garden of his Palace.

But now we plunge into the bosom of our own Heroic times. To do observance

to the May is a rite that we find continually occurring in the poetry of

the middle ages. It is on May morning that Emelie, going into the garden

to gather flowers, and wreathe for herself a coronal, is first seen by the

two captive Theban kinsmen. Again, when Arcite, liberated by the

intervention of Pirithous, has returned, and is living unrecognized in the

service of Theseus, it is precisely upon the same occasion of going into

the wood to gather "grenes" for May morning, that he falls in with

Palamon, who has the night before broken prison, and hides himself during

the day in the forest--which encounter leads to their set encounter in

arms the next day, and so to the interruption of their duel by Theseus

himself, and so to all the consequent course of events. Whatever the true

rites of returning May may have been, in classical antiquity, the

observance comes into this tale from the manners of mediaeval Europe, not

of ancient Greece.

With what glad and light ritual, the Athenians, in the first years after

the war of the Seven Chiefs against Thebes, did homage to their king and

queen of the May, we do not remember to have seen distinctly described. At

this day the young folk of old Hellas parade the streets, shouting the

classical [Greek: chelidonisma], or song of the swallow, on the 1st of

March. The Romans held their Floralia from the 28th of April to the 1st of

May, danced and sang, and had games, and crowned themselves with garlands

and with flowers. Nevertheless, you instinctively feel that the singularly

graceful picture of Emelie, called up from slumber by the dawning May

morning, and proceeding to pluck in the royal garden the dew-fresh and

bright materials of her own coronal, owes nothing to the lore of books,

but is breathingly imaged from some gracious original of our own good

fourteenth century. You remain assured, that the trustworthy poet records

his own proper love-experience in adjusting the occasion that is to vivify

with a new passion the dolorous prison of the two Thebans, and turn the

sworn brothers-in-arms into rivals at deadly feud with each other. That

rougher age of the world--rude the day was not that produced and cherished

Chaucer--had this virtue, that the grown-up men and women were still, by a

part of their heart, children. The welcoming-in of the May is described by

the old poets in different countries of Europe as a passion--seizing upon

young and old, high and low. All were for the hour children--children of

nature. When, therefore, that love at first sight, which immediately

becomes a destiny to the two kinsmen, governing their whole after-life, is

in this manner attached by our poet to the visit made upon this occasion

by Emelie to the garden which their tower overlooks, the reader is

entitled to understand that the poet does for him the very best thing any

poet can do, that he infuses into his poetical dream his own pulsating

life-blood.

The immense joy and universal jubilee of nature, called out by the annual

renewing of warmth, light, life, and beauty, and the share and the

sympathy of man in the diffusive and exuberant benediction, fix themselves

and take form in stated and ordered celebrations all the world over. It

seems hard to deny to any nation the rejoicing on the return of summer.

All have it. Yet certainly Chaucer paints from his own experience, and not

from erudition. The poem of "The Cuckou and the Nightingale" is a mere

extolling of love and the May. The exordium is a sort of incidental hymn

to the Love-god, and runs into affirming and arguing at some length the

peculiar energy of his dominion in this month.

"And most his might he shedeth ever in May."

The Complaint of the Black Knight--love is his complaint--falls in May.

The unhappy lover has built himself a lodge or bower in the greenwood,

whether with returning May he withdraws himself from all feasts,

societies, and throngs of men, to dedicate himself to love-mourning, and

where, under the trees, whilst the month of love lasts, he remains

abandoned to his love-martyrdom. That 'Dreme of Chaucer,' which has been

supposed, although Tyrwhitt thinks fancifully, to refer to the marriage of

John of Gaunt with the Lady Blanche, happens as he lay alone on a night of

May thinking of his lady. The opening of the Flower and Leaf puts you in

doubt whether you are not rather in April than in May; but by and by you

find that the nightingale has been all the day long singing the service of

May. All this amorous and poetical caressing of the May discovers, in the

twice resting the process of events in "The Knight's Tale" upon the

observance of May-day, a significancy otherwise perhaps less evident.

Shakspeare, in the verse--

"As full of spirits as the month of May,"

expresses the natural ground which ceremony and eulogy, solemn or quaint,

have artificially displayed in the usages of old times, and in the poetry

of Chaucer.

But to return to our two knights. They are _brothers-in-arms_--by the by,

rather a romantic, than a classical institution--and so pledged to help

one another in love; and the question arises, as the ground of a long

argument, which is traitor to the other. Yet here, too, is intermixed the

classical with the romantic. For Palamon, who first sees Emelie, takes her

for the goddess Venus; on which Arcite ingeniously founds his own plea,

that _he_ first loved her as a woman, and so is entitled to the help of

the other. Their silent arming of one another, for mortal duel, in the

forest, each

"As frendly as he were his owen brother,"

reminds you of chivalrous loyalty and faith; although it would be hard to

deny that the antique warriors might have been as honest. But the truth

is, that in Homer every knight arms himself, and the two Thebans must have

worn modern armour to need this help. And yet here what a classical relief

in the simile of the hunter! Of all transplantation from the modern to the

ancient, tempered nevertheless with antiquity, their great listed Duel

stands foremost. Take it, with all the circumstances that introduce it.

Whilst the kinsmen are fighting, Theseus rides up, "pulled out a sword,

and cried, Ho!" This is the language of the 14th century, and the western

side of Europe. But he swears by "mighty Mars," that the first who strikes

another stroke shall lose his head. Both are liable to death. Palamon for

having broken prison, and Arcite, because his avoiding Athenian ground on

pain of death was an original condition of his liberation. Theseus'

challenge to them, "Tell me who ye are that are so bold as to fight here

without judge or officer," is the manner of the poet's day. In the time of

Theseus, fighting in a wood near Athens was free to all the world.

What saves them? The interposition of the ladies! Queen, princess, court

and all, who think it a pity two gallant young "gentil men" of "gret

estat" shall die, and all for love. The duke is moved; for pity soon melts

in a "gentil herte." And he appoints a regular Tournament--that at the

year's end they shall meet, each bringing a hundred knights, and fight it

out. He pledges himself 'upon his troth, and as he is a knight,' that he

who shall slay his adversary, or 'out of listes him drive,' shall have

Emelie to wife.

The lists are--from the hint of antiquity--a regular Amphitheatre, a mile

about--walled, and the seats in steps to the height of sixty paces. Art

and wealth have been lavished in making the field worthy of the fight.

Over the Eastern gate is an altar and an "Oratorie" to Venus--over the

Western, to Mars--on the North side is one to Diana. The description of

the three Fanes is of surpassing power. Among the portraitures in that of

Mars is the Suicide, for whom the relater, poet or knight, forgets himself

in his vivid conception, and says that he _saw it_.

The allies of the two knights are both classically and romantically

chosen. With Palamon comes "Licurge, the grete king of Trace." That is

classical. With Arcite "the grete Emetrius, the king of Inde." That is

romantic. The persons of the two kings are described at large, with great

strength and fecundity of painting. And here again, in the way of art, the

contrast is admirably sustained and effective. Licurge is the older, more

uncouth, and giant-like. The youthful Emetrius is more splendid and

knightly. Both are thoroughly regal and formidable. Licurge is

black-bearded, for the sake of more savage effect; wherefore the monarch

of Inde, contrariwise to the actual distribution of races over the earth,

or more properly speaking to the known influence of climate, is fair. His

crisp and ringed locks are yellow, and glitter like the sun. His

complexion may trouble the physiologists; but is not likely to discompose

the poetical reader under the tuition of Christopher North. The "foure

white bolles" that draw the 'char of gold' upon which the Thracian

_stands_, are as antique as you can devise. The tamed eagle as any lily

white, which Emetrius carries "for his deduit"--therefore, in lieu of a

hawk upon his hand, is of manners that are almost our own.

Each king brings his own hundred knights. They arrive "on the Sonday

abouten prime." The tilting will be next day. The three persons

principally interested in the issue of the impending combat perform, in

the interval, their devotions at the three several shrines, which have

been aptly provided for them in the building of the lists. Each of them

obtains an answer from the respective deity. Two hours ere the day,

Palamon visits the oratory of Venus. He prays that he may win Emelie,

although he should lose what comparatively he regards with indifference,

the palm of the conflict. The statue of the goddess renders, after a long

delay, the signal of acceptance. Emelie, at sunrise, worships Diana. Her

first prayer is, that she may remain till death the virgin servant,

herself a huntress, of the divine huntress; and if that may not be, that

he may win her who best loves her. Upon the altar she kindles two fires,

which burn ominously. One goes out and revives again. Then the other is

wholly quenched--drops of blood falling out from the hissing and burning

brands. All this the process of the combat and its consequences afterwards

elucidate; as the appearing goddess forewarns her chaste worshipper. The

'nexte hour of Marte'--whereof anon--Arcite offers prayer and incense to

the God of War. He is accepted, and victory promised; but the oracular

voice murmurs the words faintly and hollowly.

All this intricate omination comes forcibly out in the sequence of events;

and is in itself, as you feel, at all events right classical. The

treatment of the Hours lies deeper. It is astrological. For the twelve now

longer and now shorter hours, into which the time from sunrise to

sunset--and the twelve now shorter and now longer, into which the time

from sunset to sunrise was divided, belonged to the Seven Planets, in the

order Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna--by following out

which order, you will discover that, since the first hour of Sunday

belongs to the Sun, giving name to the day--the twenty-third hour, or the

second before sunrise of the following day, will belong to Venus, to whom

Palamon then prays--and the hour of sunrise, next day, belongs to the

Moon, or Diana, to whom Emelie then addresses herself. Following the

circle, you find that the fourth hour of Monday belongs to Mars. This is

Arcite's hour. And if you wonder how such Chaldaic and Egyptian lore

should come into your tale of chivalry, you will be relieved by

understanding that these dedications had, in our poetical ages, due

popularity for infusing into them a poetical efficiency; forasmuch as an

old French "Shepherds' Calendar," cited by Tyrwhitt, alleges the very rule

which we have given, for the instruction of him "who will weet how the

Shepherds do wit which planet reigneth every hour of the day and of the

night." This timing, therefore, of sacrifice and orison to the planetary

hours, is pertinently and speakingly feigned by Chaucer.

The Tournament follows, which is mediaeval enough. Arcite, according to the

promise of Mars, is victorious. Palamon is taken and bound. But here is

the difficulty. Venus has promised Emelie to Palamon. Saturn, the [Greek:

agchylometis], finds a remedy, and gratifies his grand-daughter. As

Arcite, the victor, having taken off his helmet, rides along the lists to

show himself to all, and especially to Emelie, Pluto, at the request of

Saturn, sends an infernal fury who starts up out of the ground before him.

The scared horse plunges and stumbles; Arcite is thrown upon his head, and

taken up for dead. He is not dead; but he dies, and is burned, after the

fashion of Patroclus and Hector; and twelve months after, his virgin widow

is by Theseus given in marriage to Palamon.

What is the real effect of all this commixture? The truth is, that under

such circumstances, after a little resistance and struggling, you give in,

and let the poet have his own way, provided that he is a poet. There is

but one condition--that the poet put, into whatever manners, true life.

Then you willingly give up your own dull book-learning, and accept his

painting for the authentic record of reality. You are, in fact, gradually

conducted to this pass, that you look upon history as useful for

ministering materials to poetry, not upon poetry as bound to teach

history. But Chaucer _has_ wonderfully put life into the classical part of

the poem, so that you can hardly say that he seems more at home in giving

the manners which he had seen, than in reviving the manners which he had

only read. He has this in common with Shakspeare. In common with

Shakspeare he has, too, the apology for the confusion of manners--of

having lived before we were as critical in the costume of ages and nations

as we now are.

The 'Knight's Tale,' after the requisition usually laid upon an epic

fable, makes use, and skilfully, of preternatural machinery. And here we

will venture a vindication against an illustrious critic. The first

suggestion to the banished Arcite of returning to Athens, comes to him in

sleep. There is a slight invoking of the supernatural--at least of the

fabulous. He dreams that Mercury appears, and announces to him an end of

his woe at Athens. On awaking, he casts his eyes on a mirror, and sees

that he is so changed with love-pining that he no longer knows

himself--goes in disguise to Athens, offers himself to serve in the

household of Emelie, and is accepted. Sir W. Scott blames this

introduction of Mercury as needless, but let it be remembered:----

_First_, That this is introductory to far more important divine

interpositions, is in keeping with them, and prepares the imagination for

them.

_Secondly_, That, so managed, it is the least violent intervention of a

god; the apparition being ambiguous between a natural dream and a real

divine manifestation: an ambiguity which, by the by, is quite after the

antique. So, Mercury appears to AEneas in a dream in the Fifth Book of the

AEneid: and compare Hector's Ghost, &c.

_Thirdly_, That a psychological fact may be understood as here "lively

shadowed:"--namely, that active purposes have often their birth during the

mystery of sleep; and it would be a very felicitous poetical expression of

this phenomenon to turn the oracular suggestion of the soul into a

deity--_Sua cuique_ DEUS _fit dira cupido_.

_Fourthly_, It is completely probable, that the fancy of a believer in

Mercury would actually shape his own dreaming thought into the suitable

deity.--The vision is lightly touched by Chaucer, and gracefully

translated by Dryden. The classical inventions throughout appear to be

very much from Boccaccio; but the poetry of the relation Chaucer's own.

Do you wish to see Dryden in his majesty? Look here:--

"But in the dome of mighty Mars the red,

With different figures all the sides were spread.

This temple, less in form, with equal grace,

Was imitative of the first in Thrace:

For that cold region was the loved abode,

And sovereign mansion of the warrior god.

The landscape was a forest wide and bare,

Where neither beast nor human kind repair;

The fowl that scent afar, the borders fly,

And shun the bitter blast, and wheel about the sky.

A cake of scurf lies baking on the ground,

And prickly stubs, instead of trees, are found;

Or woods with knots and knares deform'd and old,

Headless the most, and hideous to behold;

A rattling tempest through the branches went,

That stripp'd them bare, and one sole way they bent.

Heaven froze above severe, the clouds congeal,

And through the crystal vault appear'd the standing hail.

Such was the face without; a mountain stood

Threat'ning from high, and overlook'd the wood;

Beneath the lowering brow, and on a bent,

The temple stood of Mars armipotent;

The frame of burning steel, that cast a glare

From far, and seem'd to thaw the freezing air.

A straight long entry to the temple led,

Blind with high walls, and horror overhead;

Thence issued such a blast and hollow roar,

As threaten'd from the hinge to heave the door;

In through that door, a northern light there shone;

'Twas all it had, for windows there were none.

The gate was adamant, eternal frame!

Which, hew'd by Mars himself, from Indian quarries came,

The labour of a God; and all along

Tough iron plates were clench'd to make it strong.

A ton about was every pillar there;

A polish'd mirror shone not half so clear;

There saw I how the secret felon wrought,

And treason labouring in the traitor's thought,

And midwife Time the ripen'd plot to murder brought.

There the red Anger dared the pallid Fear;

Next stood Hypocrisy, with holy leer;

Soft-smiling, and demurely looking down,

But hid the dagger underneath the gown;

The assassinating wife, the household fiend;

And, far the blackest there, the traitor-friend.

On t'other side, there stood Destruction bare,

Unpunish'd Rapine, and a waste of war;

Contest, with sharpen'd knives, in cloisters drawn,

And all with blood bespread the holy lawn.

Loud menaces were heard, and foul disgrace,

And bawling infamy in language base,

Till sense was lost in sound, and silence fled the place.

The slayer of himself yet saw I there,

The gore congeal'd was clotted in his hair,

With eyes half closed, and gaping mouth he lay,

And grim, as when he breathed his sullen soul away.

In midst of all the dome Misfortune sate,

And gloomy Discontent, and fell Debate,

And Madness laughing in his ireful mood;

And arm'd complaint on theft, and cries of blood.

There was the murder'd corpse in covert laid,

And violent death in thousand shapes display'd,

The city to the soldiers' rage resign'd,

Successless wars, and poverty behind:

Ships burnt in fight, or forced on rocky shores,

And the rash hunter strangled by the boars;

The new-born babe by nurses overlaid;

And the cook caught within the raging fire he made.

All ills of Mars his nature, flame and steel;

The gasping charioteer beneath the wheel

Of his own car; the ruin'd house that falls

And intercepts her lord betwixt the walls.

The whole division that to Mars pertains,

All trades of death that deal in steel for gains,

Were there; the butcher, armourer, and smith,

Who forges sharpen'd faulchions, or the scythe.

The scarlet conquest on a tower was placed

With shouts, and soldiers' acclamations graced;

A pointed sword hung threat'ning o'er his head,

Sustain'd but by a slender twine of thread.

There saw I Mars his Ides, the Capitol,

The seer in vain foretelling Caesar's fall;

The last Triumvirs, and the wars they move,

And Antony, who lost the world for love:

These, and a thousand more, the Fane adorn,

Their fates were painted ere the men were born;

All copied from the heavens, and ruling force

Of the red star, in his revolving course.

The form of Mars high on a chariot stood,

All sheathed in arms, and gruffly look'd the God:

Two geomantic figures were display'd

Above his head, a warrior and a maid,

One when direct, and one when retrograde."

"The Knight's Tale, the longest and most laboured of Chaucer's stories,

possesses a degree of regularity which might satisfy the most severe

critic. It is true that the honour arising from thence must be assigned to

the more ancient bard, who had himself drawn his subject from an Italian

model; but the high and decided preference which Dryden has given to this

story, although somewhat censured by Trapp, enables us to judge how much

the poet held an accurate combination of parts, and coherence of

narrative, essentials of epic poetry." This is in Sir Walter's happiest

natural vein; not so the astounding passage that follows it. "_That a

classic scholar_ like Trapp should think the plan of the Knight's Tale

equal to that of the Iliad, _is a degree of candour not to be hoped for_;

but surely to an unprejudiced reader, a story which exhausts in its

conclusion all the interest which it has excited in its progress; which,

when terminated, leaves no question to be asked, no personage undisposed

of, and no curiosity unsatisfied, _is abstractedly considered more

gratifying than the history of a few weeks of a ten years' war, commenced

long after the siege had begun, and ending long before the city was

taken_!" Why, is not this the true and magnificent praise of the Iliad,

that from the heart of the immense war it has taken out a story of

individual interest, which begins where your curiosity asks, and where

your sympathy finds repose? Achilles--his quarrel with Agamemnon--his loss

of Patrocles--his vengeance on Hector--accomplished when he willingly

relinquishes the body to burial? That is the integrity of an epic fable,

which employs the Ten Years' War, not for its subject, but for the

illimitable field in which its gigantic subject moves. He was the greatest

of the poets, who knew how to make the storms, rising and falling, in the

single breast of the goddess-born _more_ to you, his hearer, than the war

which has encamped a hundred thousand Greeks in siege before the imperial

city of Priam. From a great poet, the most Homeric of modern poets--what a

judgment on the Iliad! Trapp's words are--"Novimus judicium Drydeni de

poemate quodam Chauceri pulchro sane illo, et admodum laudando, nimirum

quod non modo vere epicum sit, sed Iliada etiam atque AEneada aequet, imo

superet. Sed novimus eodem tempore viri illius maximi non semper

accuratissimas esse censuras, nec ad severississimam critices normam

exactas: _illo judice, id plerumque optimum est, quod nunc prae manibus

habet, et in quo nunc occupatur_." Perfectly true. What says Dryden? "It

is of the epic kind, and perhaps not much inferior to the 'Ilias' or the

'AEneid.' The story is more pleasing than either of them, the manners as

perfect, the diction as poetical, the learning as deep and various, and

the disposition full as artful, only it includes a greater length of time,

as taking up seven years at least." Godwin says truly, "This eulogium must

be acknowledged to be written in a spirit of ridiculous and impertinent

exaggeration." And he then says as truly, that it is "full of novelty and

surprise, is every where alive, comprises the most powerful portrait of

chivalry that was perhaps ever believed, and possesses every thing in

splendour and in action that can most conspicuously point out the scenes

of the narrative to the eye of the reader." Dryden's version is indeed

what Warton has pronounced it to be--"the most animated and harmonious

piece of versification in the English language."

If you ask what reconciles you to the prevalent confusion of manners in

this noble poem, it is the earnest simple spirit with which the Knight

goes on relating as if he believed every word. It is, as we said, with

Chaucer as with Shakspeare. Shakspeare mixes times of the world, and we

bear it. Iachimo, a complete modern Italian--a more courtly Iago--serves

under Lucius, general to some emperor--we forget which, if we ever

knew--of old Rome; and beguiles, to the death almost, that Posthumus

Leonatus--a Celt, by the by, with two Latin names--to whom Jupiter--not

exactly the supreme deity of the Celto-British Pantheon--descends in

actual presence. We, the auditors, or the readers, meanwhile, breathe no

whisper of doubt or dissatisfaction. Why should we? We believe with eye,

and ear, and imagination, and heart; and are as fain of our

wildly-compounded--_real-unreal_--dream, as the birds are of the dawning.

Hamlet, born and bred in the court of our own Elizabeth, and abruptly

called up to Town, on the point of graduating with honours at Oxford, is

shown to our credulous apprehension rooted upon a soil and in a century

when and where there were no human shapes to be met with but bloodthirsty

Vikings and invulnerable Berserkers. And we take all in excellent part.

Why shall we not? We gain past all computation by the slight intellectual

concession. Besides, we cannot well help ourselves; for we are not the

Masters. The enchanter is the Master:--who sets us down, not after the

saying of Horace, now in Greece and now in Britain--but in Britain and in

Greece at one and the same moment.

Shakspeare commingles widely divided times; and why, two hundred years

before him, shall not Chaucer? It requires practice to read Chaucer. Not

only do you need familiarizing to a form of the language, which is not

your own, but much more to a simplicity of style, which at first appears

to you like barenness and poverty. It seems meagre. You miss too much the

rich and lavish colours of the later time. Your eye is used to

gorgeousness and gaudiness. The severe plainness of the old manner wants

zest for you. But, when you are used to Chaucer, can accept his

expression, and think and feel with him, this hinderance wears off. You

find a strong imagination--a gentle pathos--no lack of accumulation, where

needed--but the crowding is always of effective circumstances or images--a

playfulness, upon occasion, even in serious writing--but the special

characteristic of the style is, that the word is always to the purpose. He

amply possesses his language, and his sparing expression is chosen, and

never inadequate--never indigent. His rule is, that for every phrase there

be matter; and narrative or argument is thus constantly progressive. He

does not appear to be hurried out of himself by the heat of composition.

His good understanding completely goes along with him, and weighs every

word.

Dryden's rendering of Chaucer is a totally distinct operation from his

Englishing of Virgil--Homer--Lucretius--Juvenal--Ovid. And you are

satisfied that it should be so. He could not transfer these poets,

accomplished in art, and using their language in an age of its perfection,

with _too_ close a likeness of themselves. He translates because the

language is unknown to his presumed reader. This is but half his motive

with Chaucer. The language would be more easily got over; but the mind is

of another age, and that is less accessible--more distant from us than the

obsolete dialect. We are contented to have the style of that day

translated into the style of our own. Is this a dereliction of poetical

principle? Hardly. The spirited and splendid verse and language of Dryden

have given us a new poem. Why should our literature have forborne from so

enriching herself? Hear Dryden himself.

"But there are other judges, who think I ought not to have translated

Chaucer into English, out of a quite contrary notion. They suppose

there is a certain veneration due to his old language, and that it is

little less than profanation and sacrilege to alter it. They are

farther of opinion, that somewhat of his good sense will suffer in

this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will

infallibly be lost, which appear with more grace in their old habit.

Of this opinion as that excellent person whom I mentioned, the late

Earl of Leicester, who valued Chaucer as much as Mr Cowley despised

him. My lord dissuaded me from this attempt, (for I was thinking of

it some years before his death,) and his authority prevailed so far

with me as to defer my undertaking while he lived, in deference to

him; yet my reason was not convinced with what he urged against it.

If the first end of writer be to be understood, then as his language

grows obsolete his thoughts must grow obscure.

'_Multa renascentur, quae jam cecidere; cadentque

Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,

Quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi!_

"When an ancient word, for its sound and significancy, deserves to be

revived, I have that reasonable veneration for antiquity to restore

it. All beyond this is superstition. Words are not like landmarks, so

sacred as never to be removed. Customs are changed, and even statutes

are silently repealed, when the reason ceases for which they were

enacted. As for the other part of the argument--that his thoughts

will lose of their original beauty by the innovation of words--in the

first place, not only their beauty but their being is lost, where

they are no longer understood, which is the present case. I grant

that something must be lost in all transfusion--that is, in all

translations; but the sense will remain, which would otherwise be

lost, or at least be maimed, when it is scarce intelligible, and that

but to a few. How few are there who can read Chaucer, so as to

understand him perfectly! And if imperfectly, then with less profit

and no pleasure. It is not for the use of some old Saxon friends that

I have taken these pains with him--let them neglect my version,

because they have no need of it. I made it for their sakes who

understand sense and poetry as well as they, when that poetry and

sense is put into words which they understand. I will go further, and

dare to add, that what beauties I lose in some places, I give to

others which had them not originally. But in this I may be partial to

myself; let the reader judge, and I submit to his decision. Yet I

think I have just occasion to complain of them, who, because they

understand Chaucer, would deprive the greater part of their

countrymen of the same advantage, and hoard him up as misers do their

granddam gold, only to look on it themselves, and hinder others from

making use of it. In sum, I seriously protest, that no man ever had,

or can have, a greater veneration for Chaucer than myself. I have

translated some part of his works, only that I might perpetuate his

memory, or at least refresh it, amongst my countrymen. If I have

altered him any where for the better, I must at the same time

acknowledge, that I could have done nothing without him. _Facile est

inventis addere_ is no great commendation; and I am not so vain to

think I have deserved a greater."

You are an Englishman, and a scholar in your mother-tongue. Good! You have

dabbled, it may be, in Anglo-Saxon, Alfred's English. It is all very well.

You read Chaucer easily. We congratulate you. You will, we hope, love the

speech, and the soul, and the green, grassy mould of old England all the

better. We praise you for searching England near and far, high and low. Do

this heartily; do this understandingly; and you are excellently engaged.

But do not grudge your next neighbour, who is merely a modern

Englishman--a thorough good-fellow of one, however--_his_ Chaucer, in a

tongue and manner that he can read without stepping out of himself--his

Chaucer, for his possession of whom he thanks Dryden, and from his

grateful heart ejaculates "glorious John!"

MAYNOOTH.

It is due to the character of this Journal, unflinching in its

Conservative politics through one entire stormy generation, that, in any

great crisis of public interest, or in any fervent strife of public

opinion, it should utter its voice strongly; under the shape of a protest

and a parting testimony to the truth, where the case practically may be

hopeless; under the shape of a hearty effort, co-operating with other

efforts, where the case is _not_ hopeless. There is nothing more

depressing to patriotic honour and loyalty than the cowardice of

despondency, even when a cause has touched the very brink of defeat; and

we believe that no spectacle of firmness is more naturally congenial to

the temper of our countrymen, than the fidelity which still makes signal

of its affection in circumstances desperate for resistance, and which in

mortal extremities will not relax its hold from a cause once

conscientiously adopted. Do we insinuate by this that the anti-Maynooth

cause looks desperate? Our trust is otherwise. But if it were, what we say

is, that not the less the duty remains sacred of hoping after all light of

encouragement seems to have departed. This in any case; whilst, in the

present, that duty is trebly sacred, because a whole succession of objects

will remain upon which our future hopes must retreat, even if this

foremost intrenchment should be forced. Maynooth will be no _solitary_

aggression on the great cause of Protestanism: that carried, others will

rapidly follow: their "aspiring heads" are already above the horizon; and

it is necessary to defend the first line in a spirit of gaiety and

confidence, were it only that the second line and the third may not be

abandoned under the contagion of dismay.

Of late this Journal has a good deal retired from the strife of politics.

Our readers must not misunderstand this. It was not through any treachery

to that duty of hope which we have been insisting on as sacred: it was

through a change in the public rather than in ourselves. Ireland had for

some time narrowed itself into Mr O'Connell; domestic feuds had dwindled

into the corn question. Neither of these subjects, it is true, was so

utterly exhausted that we could not have found something new to say. But

by the intolerable persecution of much speaking and much writing upon two

wearisome topics, the public attention at last fell into a mere lethargy,

from which it could not be roused to vibrate or react under any amount of

stimulation. The audience fell away to nothing as the garrulity of the

speakers increased; the public patience languished as its abusers

multiplied. Now, however, Ireland is again restored to us as a fountain of

interest under a new and most agitating impulse. Never, for many years,

has the public mind fermented with so uncontrollable a fervour. Ascendency

upon one field at least for Popery is now felt to be making a forward

rush; the balance of the constitutional forces, for a government

essentially Protestant, is threatened with overthrow; and, if this

Maynooth endowment prospers, Protestantism will receive a deadly wound in

the empire which is, and _has_ been, and by Providence was appointed to

be, its main bulwark.

In speaking to this question, it is our purpose to array briefly before

the reader its gravest aspects; to press upon his attention one or two

which have been entirely neglected; to do this with the utmost rapidity

that is consistent with distinct explanation of our meaning; but all

along, with no purpose of rousing angry prejudices, or appealing to any

one sentiment that a candid man of any one party could describe as

bigotry. We disapprove entirely, as a needless irritation to Roman

Catholic feelings, of going back to the Revolution of 1829. If that great

event were now pending, instead of being sixteen years in the rear, it

would be our duty, at any cost of possible offence in any quarter, to

speak of it as our conscience might require us to speak. But, as things

are, this would be to offer a wanton provocation, utterly useless for any

practical end, and tending towards the continued alienation of many

excellent fellow-subjects. Wrong or right, the policy of "Emancipation"

has triumphed; the thing is done, and cannot be undone; we must now adapt

ourselves to a system which has become the law of the land. It is in such

a case as with the past errors of a man's life: if he is wise, he will not

suffer his energies to waste themselves upon unavailing regrets. To revoke

the irrevocable being an effort so manifestly childish, he will apply

himself to an effort which is rational, manly, and full of hope--to the

correcting or mitigating of those consequences from his errors which are

most threatening for his future welfare.

Social forms often show the same principle of vitality and reproduction;

and, after the deadliest convulsions, put forward corresponding tendencies

to restoration of their natural health and equilibrium. It is one, indeed,

amongst the tests of excellence in any political constitution, that it can

stand very rude shocks, and that it has internal resources for healing all

injuries not organically destructive. Catholic emancipation, whatever

might be thought of it if viewed from a station of unlimited power to

choose or to reject, must now be reconciled to our minds for better and

worse; and in peaceable times will gradually adjust itself to the working

of our political system, settling into the general economy of the machine.

But this Maynooth endowment tends to other results. The steps are

inevitable from this centre to the very outermost periphery that bounds

the ambition of Irish Popery; viz. to absolute ascendancy for itself, to

absolute overthrow of Protestantism in Ireland, and therefore to ultimate

separation of that island from the British empire, so far as the dreadful

effort is concerned. For we must not overlook the modern symptoms of the

case. Formerly, as in 1782 for instance, Ireland dreamed not of any

further advantages than such as could be extorted from the occasional

difficulties of England under foreign hostility, and such as should be

sanctioned by English parliamentary concession. But under the long

agitation of Mr O'Connell a new party has grown up, which regards

Ireland--however inferior for aggressive war--as strong enough, by means

of its excessive population, and the local advantages inherent in every

_possessor_ of the soil, for throwing off the connexion with England.

Independence, on the footing of a separate nation, is seriously aimed at

by the young blood of Ireland; not with a view to any imaginary advantages

from development of native resources or alleviation of taxes, but on the

single excitement of nationality. And by this ultimate object, as

undoubtedly a favoured object working underground and extensively in the

Ireland of 1845, we must measure the tendencies of an endowment conferred

by Parliament upon the Popish religion.

Rightly to judge of any favour or privilege whatever conceded to Popery,

we must consider the position of Popery with respect to the altered

prospects of the world as it now is, and the duties of Protestantism,

permanently as well as specially, in relation to the changed and changing

attitude of our own particular crisis. But these being the capital aspects

of the case, we will first of all notice those more manageable and

rememberable topics which are flying abroad upon the popular breath

amongst our antagonists.

It is alleged that we, the confederate opponents of the grant, are not

natural allies. Being heterogeneous, our opposition cannot be cordial. Why

not? If comprehensive unanimity, and undistinguishing unanimity, were an

indispensable condition towards a legitimate confederacy, then it would be

an impossibility that any combined action of men (which is one main

purpose of human society) should ever arise. Some of us think it a high

duty of the state to endow and favour that form of Christianity which the

predominant opinion (as collected from the _total_ empire) pronounces the

true one. This is our own creed; and it is our further belief that this

duty is strengthened where not only the general opinion has pronounced

itself strongly for that particular religious system, but where also the

history and the institutions of the land have unfolded themselves for

centuries, and through memorable struggles, under the inspiration of that

system, conforming to it, and receiving its impress. On the other hand,

considerable masses of those who now pull together with ourselves, are

permanent protesters against all state endowments of any one particular

church; and not only so, but they object to any possible mode of connexion

between the government and the functions of ecclesiastical bodies. What of

that? Those are most thoughtless, or else incapable of self-control, who

at such a moment of common peril remind us of differences utterly

impertinent to the question. Can we not abstract? If we are in discord

upon political points, are we not agreed upon the great interests of our

common Protestantism? Why must we be in harmony further than as to the one

vast cause which we jointly defend? Upon this logic, Whigs and Tories

meeting upon the same deck must not unite to "sink, burn, and destroy" the

enemies of their common country; or two households, Radical and

Conservative, in the same village, must not work the same engine for the

extinction of a fire which threatens every hearth. As to the case of those

who oppose the grant _exclusively_ on the principle of hostility to state

endowments of religious bodies, all of us see clearly that they travel on

our road no inch further than it leads to a private purpose of their own,

and that they will violently wheel away from us at the point where our

purposes begin to divide. But, in the mean time, our purposes at this

moment, and for the instant result, do _not_ divide; and their support is

good for so much of the struggle as they are conscientiously able to share

with us.

But surely, say another class of objectors, though it is a pity that the

Irish are not Protestants, it is better that they should have Popery for

their form of religion than no religion at all. True. And if this were the

alternative necessity, viz. that, Popery decaying, all religion must decay

in Ireland; then we also should cordially support any _safe_ mode (but not

_this_ mode) of raising the standard of education for the priestly

instructors of Ireland. But we are not called upon to legislate for that

dilemma. If, indeed, the case were that of a Popish regiment, it is

clearly the duty of government to provide a Popish chaplain, and to see

that he is properly qualified for his office; because, if you do not open

a regular channel to Popish instructions, you are sure that both

conscience and worldly honour, paramount principles for cherishing amongst

soldiers, will lead them to withdraw from all other instructions. Not

being Papists, the men will become practically infidels. But the case is

far otherwise for the Irish people. Government is not summoned to provide

any part of an improved equipage for an Irish religious establishment.

That is done, or done sufficiently. Whether as Protestant or Catholic,

every man has access to religious instructions and religious consolations.

There is no call to improve the quality of the priestly ministrations;

for, considering the quality of the doctrines and usages which are

essential to Popery, we do not believe that the Irish priesthood is much

open to improvement as a machinery for carrying out its own indefeasible

purposes. To raise the standard of respectability at Maynooth, would not

alter the character of the creed which Maynooth teaches. And when it is

said that, with a higher education, the Romish priesthood would be more

likely to breed schism or incipient reformation within their own order, we

doubt greatly as to the interpretation of the facts upon which that

speculation is grounded. The Reformation, which shook the sixteenth

century, did not arise, (as we see it alleged,) because Luther or

Melanchthon was so much above the standard of monkish education. Men quite

as extensively learned as they, and even more highly endowed by nature,

had but the more passionately undertaken the cause of Papal Rome in

consequence of those great advantages. Luther was strong in the strength

of his forerunners. The men of Luther's age _inherited_ the zeal and the

light kindled by three centuries of growing truth. And what put the crest

and plumage upon the aspiring hopes of that period, was the providential

madness of Rome, and the towering altitude of her corruptions, which just

then, from mercenary causes, soared aloft more audaciously than ever

before. In the present state of the Papal church, and under the new hopes

which we shall point out further on, as just now opening upon her, it is

more than ever improbable that any laxity of discipline at Maynooth, or in

the general government internally of the Irish church, will be suffered to

leave openings for heresies to arise. Essentially, Rome is aware that, for

the next half century, beyond all the churches of earth, she will be a

church militant. Escaping decay during that critical period from the

immense diffusion of _general_ knowledge, [but of knowledge not by any

means concurrently connected with spiritual knowledge]--Rome is likely (as

we shall soon argue) to take a prodigious bound forward. And if, on the

other hand, any great fermentation of truth _should_ commence in the

Popish church of Ireland, and that a vacuum should thus be created, into

which the priests could no longer carry their minstrations acceptably,

that vacuum would be instantly filled by zealous Protestants. Such a

change would be so far from leaving any part of the Irish poor denuded of

spiritual aid, or in any way exposed to the risk of infidelity, (according

to the objection,) that Protestant help would arise (we are well assured)

in a ratio more than corresponding to a necessity that must naturally have

been gradual in its development. And thus it would appear--that, by

strengthening Maynooth, Government, so far from protecting the people

against the chances of infidelity, would (in the case supposed) have been

intercepting the fair chances of our own Protestant missions. Besides,

that (according to a constant reproach of our antagonists, which they must

not be allowed to forget exactly when it furnishes an argument

inconvenient to themselves,) the _regular_ clergy of the Irish Protestant

establishment, having churches (as they insist) without congregations,

will always compose a staff large enough to intercept any possible

expansion of infidelity that could attend the declension of Popery through

one generation at the least. Fully agreeing, therefore, that Popery is a

blessing to Ireland by comparison with any risk of no religion at all, we

deny firmly that she exposed to such a risk. And if unhappily she were, a

most Irish mode of averting that risk it would be--to fortify the claims

of Maynooth, that last asylum of unhallowed and fraudulent casuistry, a

casuistry which, like the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, makes

void the pure law of God.

But a more cogent objection at first sight to us, the opposers of the

Maynooth grant, seems this: "In 1796 your party it was that originally

proposed and founded any grant at all. If it was right then, it is right

now. And, as to the increase from nine thousand pounds _per annum_ to

twenty-six thousand, that is a consideration for accountants rather than

for statesmen; the sum cannot affect the principle."

Here are our answers; for there are more points to answer than one.

_First_, It is not true, or near to being true, that the sum at issue

could not affect the principle concerned. Many are the cases in which the

quantities of the objects concerned in acts entirely vary the qualities of

the acts. The law itself, which professedly neglects trifles, [_de minimis

nor curat lex_,] and which, in criminal cases, will not entertain a charge

where the injury is below a certain money amount, shows how essential to

the moral estimate of acts is the quantity of the value in issue. Money

being power, quite as much as ever knowledge was power, and much less

restrictedly so, there arises with the variations of the sum the largest

range of variations in the interpretation of the understanding between the

parties as to the intention of giver and receiver. That sum is a bribe,

which, divided by ten, is a fair acknowledgment of services performed.

That sum in other cases is an insult, which, being centupled, would be an

honourable expression of distinguished merit. Nine thousand pounds might

have been given, and (if we go back to the facts) really _was_ given as a

donation to an abject pauper; whilst an addition of seventeen thousand

more may be accepted--and (if we consult the facts) _will_ be accepted--in

the haughty spirit of one who affects to regard as a testimony to his own

merit what secretly he believes to be offered in trembling propitiation.

It was Burke who suggested the first endowment of a Popish College; but

how different are acts nominally the same! _His_ motives were the motives

of a reflecting patriot; Sir Robert Peel's are the motives of a

compromiser between adverse interests, whose heart, though honourable as

regards intentions, does not prompt him to give a preponderating weight to

either side, however opposed in principle. The _motives_, however, belong

to our next head. At present, we are dealing with the money amount. It is

alleged that seventeen thousand added to nine thousand can make no

difference as to principle, and that all we, who reverence Burke and Pitt,

are bound by their precedent. Now to that point the distinct answer

is--that the nine thousand of Burke and Pitt was given as an eleemosynary

dole to a body too poor, and at that time too abject, in political

consideration, to move jealousy in any quarter. But the sum now asked is

very nearly threefold of that fixed by Mr Pitt, and (if we add the

interest of the outfit for the new furniture, appointments, &c.) is _more_

than threefold. The small sum was given as charity; was given as an

_annual_ vote; and the large one will be given (if it _is_ given) as an

endowment in perpetuity to a haughty political interest, to a corrival of

Trinity college, to a body that _has_ moved jealousy in every quarter, and

finally, (which sickens us to recollect,) to a body that will have the

audacity, in concert with Mr O'Connell, one year after every favour shall

have been received, to disown it as a subject for gratitude--acknowledging

it only as the pledge and monument of English panic.

_Secondly_, As to the motives, these grew out of the perils diffused by

the French Revolution. The year 1797, which followed the suggestion of

this pecuniary aid to the Irish priests, was the last year of Burke's

life. In what light he viewed the contagion from the anti-social frenzy

then spreading over Europe, may be seen from the oracular works through

which he spoke his mind both in 1796 and 1797. He was profoundly impressed

with the disorganizing tendencies of the principles, but still more of the

licentious cravings for change, which from the centre of Paris had crept

like a mist over the whole face of Europe. France was in a less tumultuous

state then than in 1792-3-4; but, as respected Europe generally, the

aspect of things was worse; because naturally the explosion of frenzy in

Paris during the Reign of Terror, took a space of two or three years to

reproduce and train the corresponding sympathies in other great capitals

of the Continent. By 1797, the contagion was mature. Thence came the

necessity for some _domestic_ establishment where Irish priests should be

educated: it was no longer safe that they should resort to St Omers: both

because the unsettled license of thinking upon all things established

would form the very worst atmosphere for clerical sobriety; and more

specifically because all the Jacobins of the time bore deadly hatred to

England. The priests trained at St Omers, would in fact have become a

corps of spies, decoys, and conspirators in the service of France. The

rebellion of '98 read a commentary on this text. And no policy, therefore,

could have been wiser than to intercept such a result by a periodical

grant to Maynooth; whilst the requisite dependency of the institution was

secured by making the grant annual. Now, however, not only is it proposed

to make it permanent, which (together with the enlarged amount) totally

changes its character, but a greater change still is--that the original

reason for any grant at all, the _political_ reason, has entirely passed

away. The objection to a continental education may be strong as regards

the convenience of the Irish; but the inconvenience has no longer any

relation to ourselves. No air in Europe can be tainted with a fiercer

animosity to England than the air of Ireland. In this respect the students

of Maynooth _cannot_ be more perilously situated. Whilst we all know by

the Repeal rent and the O'Connell yearly tribute, that the Irish Papists

could easily raise three times the money demanded for Maynooth, if they

were as willing to be just in a service of national duty as they are to be

liberal in a service of conspiracy.

_Thirdly_, Connected with this question of _motives_, arises another

aspect of the case. A college, it may be said, cannot do much in the way

of modifying the political temper of a country, whether for the better or

the worse. If disaffection to the government prevails in Ireland, that may

argue no participation in such a spirit by the rules of Maynooth. But in

another direction, Maynooth cannot plead innocence. The O'Connell

agitation would at any rate, with or without Maynooth, have distempered

all public loyalty amongst the lower classes. _They_ could present no

resistance to influences operating too strongly upon their nationality.

But the priestly order, if originally by their training at all adorned

with the graces proper to their profession, would not have fallen under

the influence of acts so entirely mobbish. Yet we know that by no other

engine has Mr O'Connell so powerfully operated on the Irish mind as

through the agency of the priests. Not O'Connell moulded _them_ for his

service, but they presented themselves ready moulded to _him_; and with

exceptions so rare as to argue a more extensive secularisation of the

priestly mind throughout Ireland, than has ever been witnessed in the

strongholds of Popery. This early preoccupation by a worldly taint of the

clerical mind amongst the Irish Catholics, could not possibly have reached

an excess so entirely without parallel in Europe, unless chiefly through

profligate systems of training at Maynooth. In all Ireland there was found

with difficulty any specimen of the simple rural pastor (so common in

France) who withdrew himself from political strife. The priest who

considered his spiritual character degraded by partisanship, (no matter in

what service,) was nowhere to be heard of. Wherever Mr O'Connell wanted an

agent, an intriguer, an instrument for rousing the people, he was sure of

one in the parish priest. Now this fact is decisive upon the merits of

Maynooth. It matters not what latitude may be allowed to variety of

political views; no politics of _any_ sort can be regarded as becoming to

a village pastor. But allow him to be a politician, how could a priest

become a tool without ruin to his spiritual character? Yet this is the

Maynooth, training its _alumni_ to two duties, the special duty of living

_in procinctu_ and in harness for every assault upon the Protestant

establishment of their country, and for the unlimited duty of taking

orders in any direction from Mr O'Connell--this is the Maynooth to which,

for such merits, we have been paying nine thousand pounds annually for

exactly fifty years, and are now required to pay three times as much for

ever.

But from these narrower questions, directed to circumstantialities local

and transitory, we wish to draw the reader's attention upon certain other

questions larger and more philosophic. And, first of all, let us say a

word upon one point continually raised, and not at all limited to Irish

cases; viz. the latitude allowed by conscience to a Protestant in

promoting the welfare of Papists, where it happens that the personal

service is associated unavoidably with some service to the Popish cause.

As individuals, or even as a collective body in the commonwealth, every

liberal man would wish to protect and to favour his Catholic

fellow-citizens, if he could do so without aiding them in their natural

purpose of making proselytes. There are cases undoubtedly in which these

mixed advantages for the person and for the creed would so blend as to

offer a difficult problem in casuistry to a delicate conscience. Sir

Robert Peel in the final debate on the second reading of the Maynooth

bill, attempted to throw dust in the eyes of the House upon the principle

concerned in cases of this nature; and even if he had been right in his

argument, we believe that he would have gained little for the particular

question concerned in the Maynooth grant. He argued, by way of showing how

untenable was the notion that we could not conscientiously support a

religion which we believed erroneous, that upon that hypothesis we should

cut the ground from below our feet in the mode of supporting our own

religion. The law of England insists upon the Dissenters paying

church-rates and tithes to the English church; now, argued Sir Robert, the

Dissenter might turn round and plead, in bar of this claim, the English

churchman's demur to supporting Popery by supporting Maynooth. But the

case accurately stated is--that no English churchman ever _did_ demur to

paying his quota towards Maynooth; on the contrary, he has paid it quietly

for fifty years. What some few churchmen _have_ demurred to was--not

paying after the law had said "_pay_," but legislating for the payment;

passing the annual vote for the payment. Now, if a Dissenter happens to be

in Parliament, he is quite at liberty to make the same demur as to

church-rates; but he makes his demur in the wrong quarter if he addresses

it to the collector. So again, as regards the increased grant, and the

permanent grant to Maynooth, if it passes the two Houses, we shall all of

us pay our share without scruple; neither will our consciences be at all

wounded, for we pay under the coercion of a distress-warrant, contingent

upon our refusing to pay. It is the suffering the law to pass, without

opposing it in one way or other, that _would_ wound our consciences. And,

again, the English law does not require a Dissenter to concur in the

propriety of paying church-rates, it requires him only to pay them.

But we Protestants, in paying to Maynooth, supposing that we made

ourselves parties to the payment by consenting to the bill, feel that we

should be wilfully abetting the propagation of error. It is true that the

Papist finds himself in the same necessity of contributing to what he

regards as heresy by contributing to the support of the Protestant

Establishment. But if a Protestant resorts to a country, or acquiesces in

a country where Popery is established, he does not complain that he falls

under the relation of a tributary to a system which did not seek _him_,

but which _he_ sought.

There are other casuistical points, arising out of these practical

relations to systems of religious belief, which are often unskilfully

mingled with cases like this of Maynooth; but they cannot disguise the

broad distinction between the principle in that question and the principle

in the question of Catholic emancipation. There the object was purely

negative, viz. to liberate a body of men from certain incapacities.

Successive penal laws had stripped the Papist of particular immunities and

liberties. These were restored by emancipation. A defect was made good.

But no _positive_ powers were created by that measure. Now, on the other

hand, when a large revenue is granted, (as by the pending Maynooth grant,)

this is in effect to furnish artillery for covering advances upon hostile

ground. This gives positive powers to Popery for propagating its errors.

That Sir Robert Peel should hold such a mode of collusion with falsehood

to be lawful--would be astonishing, were it not that he manifestly

confounds the case of promoting, a law by votes, or any mode of active

support, which is a true and substantial assent, with the case of paying

under a demand of the law. Now this is no assent at all, any more than the

surrendering your person passively to the arrest of a police-officer is an

assent to the justice of the accusation, or to the reasonableness of the

law under which you will be tried. To pay on the demand of the law is no

assent at all, but an abridged process of yielding to the physical

coercion of the law. You are aware of the steps through which the

compulsory action of the law will travel, and it cannot make any

difference as to the principle of your submission, that, for the sake of

saving time, you yield to the first step, instead of waiting for the last.

It is, therefore, no duty of a Protestant, in any circumstances, to abet

Popery by any mode of support, but only seems to be so by confounding

cases essentially different.

Next arises for notice, the very interesting question on the prospects of

Popery at this moment and its chances of a great restoration, by means of

combination with various forms of human power. One cause of error upon

this subject lies in the notion that conspicuous obscurations of civil

grandeur, jurisdiction, and wealth, which Popery has suffered of late

years in almost every state, have therefore, been absolute losses of

spiritual power. On the contrary, these losses are likely to strengthen

Popery. Precisely in the most bigoted of Popish kingdoms--Austria,

Bavaria, Spain, and Portugal--the Popish religion has been shorn, during

the last fifty years, of it most splendid temporalities. The suppression

of the Inquisition in Spain, &c., the extinction of religions houses on

so vast a scale, the limitation of the Papal rights in the disposal of

Bishops' sees, the confiscation or sale of church lands, to an amount

unsuspected in Protestant countries--these and other convulsions have

shaken the Papacy in a memorable degree. But it is certain that the vigour

and vitality of Popery, in modes more appropriate to a spiritual power,

are reviving. Popery has benefited by the removal, however harshly

executed at the moment, of enormous abuses connected sometimes with

wealth, sometimes only with the reputation of wealth, but in either case

with a weight of popular odium. The vessel has righted and become buoyant

by the sacrifice of masts and rigging. A spirit of activity has again

manifested itself in many directions. And with this has concurred a new

body of hopes, arising from social accidents in America. Throughout the

great central valley of North America, and along the line of the most

recent inroads into the western forests, a great opening has arisen, of

late years, for throwing a network of spiritual power over a vast

territory that is rapidly unfolding its power and wealth. Through this

opening has poured, for some years like a spring-tide, a huge host of

Catholic missionaries. Such was the extensive demand for spiritual

ministration amongst a population multiplying to excess, that _any_ order

of Christian clergy would have been welcome. Here is a basis laid for

future magnificent development of Popish power. Rome itself has been

stirred and agitated with the prospect of seeing its energies revive, and

of reaping a malicious retribution by entering into combination with that

Teutonic race, from whom, during the last three centuries, she had

received her deadliest wounds. But a doubt arises, whether this very

combination will not be more likely to impress a totally new character

upon the Papal religion. The Saxon energy will be likely to strangle

Popery, rather than Popery in the long run to pervert that energy. In

England itself, through Oxford, unexpected auguries have dawned upon Rome,

of a new birth for the pomps of Papal Rome. And exactly at this crisis of

hope and unlimited anticipation, the splendid endowment of Maynooth,

solemnly proposed and vigorously pressed forward by a cautious minister of

England, coinciding also with the spasmodic throes of the Irish people to

establish an independent nationality, have doubtless spread through the

councils of the Vatican as much of what will probably be found visionary

expectation, as through the hearts of our own Protestant countrymen, they

have spread of what equally, we trust, will be converted by this national

insurrection against Maynooth into visionary fear.

Another point we are bound to notice, as error generally diffused--though

shocking to just logic. It is said, by way of reproach to ourselves--the

England of this day--that we took all the splendid endowments of Oxford,

Cambridge, and so forth, from Roman Catholics; which being so, we are

bound to make some restoration of the spoils to the Catholics of this day.

Was there ever heard more complex absurdity? Mark its stages:

1st, If you _had_ taken them from Catholics of the 16th century, how would

_that_ translate any interest of property in the institutions to people of

the nineteenth century, simply as professing the same faith? We took

various spoils about 1780 from Hyder Ali, the sultan of Mysore: in 1799 we

took others more costly from his son Tippoo: will that entitle some prince

of Turkestan, or Bokhara, in the year 2000, to claim these spoils on the

plea that he is a Mahometan? An interest of inheritance would thus be

vested in the emptiest of abstractions.

2d, They were _not_ Catholics, in a proper sense, who founded the chief

colleges at Oxford, &c. The Roman Catholic faith was not developed fully

at the period when many were founded: it could not be developed even as a

_religious system_, until after the great polemic writers, on the one side

and the other, had drawn out the differential points of doctrine. And when

partly developed, or showing a tendency to certain conclusions, it was not

fully _settled_ until the Council of Trent. Next, as a _political

interest_, it was not at all developed until between the beginning of

Luther and the termination of Trent. Impossible it was that it should; for

until a counter-pole existed, until an antagonist interest had arisen,

the relations of Popery, whether political or religious, must have been

indeterminate: as a kingdom surrounded by deserts and trackless forests,

cannot have its frontier line ascertained.

3dly, If they had been Catholics, in the _fullest_ sense, who founded our

Universities, it was not _as_ Catholics that they founded them, but as

great families who had accumulated property under our system of laws; and

secondly, as natives of the land. They were _able_ to found universities,

because they had been protected by English laws; they were _willing_ to

found universities, because they were of English birth, and loved their

native land. The Countess of Richmond, for instance, or Henry VI., in his

great foundations at Eton or Cambridge, or Baliol at Oxford, did not think

of Popery under any relation to heresy. They thought of it, so far as _at

all_ they thought of it, in its general abstraction of spiritual

loveliness; and under that shape it differed not at all from the

Protestantism of the English church. The temper in which they acted, is a

pledge that they thought of man, and the children of man, not in relation

to those points in which they differed, but to those above all in which

they agreed. They were compatriots of the islanders--they loved

knowledge--and in those characters, not as Papists, they founded colleges.

4thly, Supposing that in the plenary and controversial sense they _had_

been Catholics who founded our great mediaeval institutions; supposing,

next, that they had founded them as Catholics, and _because_ they were

Catholics; supposing, also, that from them, in that aerial character of

"_persons holding a creed_," any rights of inheritance could, by leave of

Thomas Aquinas, be imagined metaphysically to descend; lastly, and

notwithstanding all this, their establishments had passed into the hands

of other trustees by due course of law--that is, by legislation under the

countersign of king, lords, and commons; that is, by the same title under

which any man whatever, Papist or Protestant, holds any property whatever.

Are we obliged to settle an annuity upon A B, because he can trace himself

lineally to a man who held our lands under Edward the Confessor? Yet, by

the supposition, A B _can_ prove a relation in blood to the ancient owner,

though none at all to the lands. But the Catholics can show no relation

whatever either to the foundations at Oxford, or to the blood of the

founder. Upon this conceit, if a man could trace his blood to an ancient

Druid, he would have a _lien_ in law upon all the oak-trees in the island!

_Risum teneatis?_

Whilst this, however, is a mere vapour of the speculative brain, there is

a final absurdity, less showy in its extravagance, yet in practice more

misleading. We cannot allow ourselves, consistently with the rapid

movement of our sketch, to do justice to this fallacy; but we will

indicate its outline. Look back to all the pro-Catholic journals for the

last forty years, and you will find it every where appealed to and relied

on as a substantial argument--that, in many states on the Continent,

Catholics and Protestants sit as assessors on the same bench of judgment;

act harmoniously as officers, commanders and commanded, in the same

regiment; meet daily as fellow-students in the same schools and colleges.

The inference is--that mere partisanship, deeper bigotry, and no other

cause whatever, has made it difficult or dangerous for English Protestants

and Catholics to effect the same coalition. Having no room left for a

fuller exposure of this delusive representation, we shall here content

ourselves with an illustrative allusion or two. The Moors were expelled

from Spain before any English Catholics became the objects (having

wilfully _made_ themselves the objects) of something like proscription

under English laws. The chasm between the Moors of this day and their

ancestors stretches over more than three centuries. Has that rent closed?

Have those wounds healed? Is the reader aware of the figurative language,

under the symbol of house-door keys, still hanging over Moorish hearths,

&c., by which, to this hour, the Moors cherish for their children's ears

deep vindictive remembrances of their ancient habitations in Spain, and

their haughty vision of a bloody re-entrance? Does the reader imagine that

an invasion by Moors of Italy or France would move under the same burning

impulses as an invasion of Spain? The return of the Moors to Spain would

be like the _recoil_ of a catapulta. And, allowing for higher

civilization, of the same deep memorial character would have been any

re-entry of Roman Catholics upon _power_ in England, had it been less

gradual than the prudence of Parliaments made it. The deep outrages of

Catholics upon English rights, under the troubled movements amongst the

thrones of Europe during the century of strife, which made the temptations

to treason irresistible for vassals of Rome, forced from the Protestants

such stern reactions, as have left with both parties an abiding sense of

profound injuries. Attainders to be blotted out, judgments to be reversed,

burning records of shame for persons and for creed, sculptured in our

laws, to trample under foot, are likely to stimulate the malice (calling

itself the retribution) of lineal descendants, even if there were no

_estates to reclaim_. And surely those fantastic persons who think, that

merely to bear the name or classification of "_Catholic_" must confer upon

one, pleading no shadow of a connexion with the founder of a college, some

claim to a dividend upon its funds, are not entitled to hold cheap the

very different sort of claims, resting upon acknowledged heirship, which

are now lying amongst the muniments of thousands. It is a record of the

political imbecility, it is to the high _disgrace_, of the continental

states, that with most of them Catholics and Protestants _could_ meet in

this insipid harmony: it was a harmony resembling the religious toleration

of people--tolerant, because careless of _all_ religion. Had they, like

ourselves, possessed a constitution of slow growth, a representative

system, a popular mind, all stimulating to noble political feuds,--in that

case they would have had high principles like ourselves; they, like

ourselves, would have faced the action and reaction of endless contest;

and their political progress, like ours, would have been written on every

page of their history and legislation. It was because they slept and

snored for ages with no instincts of fiery political life, that they were

able, in modern times--Catholics and Protestants--to fraternise in

effeminate raptures of maudlin sentimentality.

We apply this last topic specially to our conclusion:--In pointing to the

yet unappreciated difference between our own feuds with popery and those

of other nations--which foreign feuds, at the very best, (if they rose at

all to the grandeur of civil strife,) moved through butchery and violence,

as in France, not through laws and scaffolds--moved like the uproars of

Afghans, not like the grand tribunitial contests of ancient Rome--we could

only indicate a feature or two of the inexhaustible case. And naturally it

was to England that we pointed. But now--but by this Maynooth revolution,

it is not England that is primarily menaced. Ireland it is upon which that

evil will descend, which, by the wisdom of Parliament, backed by the

protesting tumults of the people, did _not_ descend on England. For

England, Parliament was cautious and retarding in all its steps. The

"return of the Heracleidae" was by graduated movements; and, had it even

been abrupt, a thousandfold greater were the resources for combined

resistance of Protestants against combined reaction of Papists. But in

Ireland, deeper are the vindictive remembrances, more recent are the

deductions of claims to property, and louder the clamours for wide

resumption; from massacre and counter massacre, from Cromwell, from

Limerick, from Londondery, from Boyne, from Aughrim, the wounds are yet

green and angry; and the hostile factions have never dissolved their

array. This is the land into which a Moorish recoil is now threatened. The

reader understands us to speak of a return--not for the physical men--but

for the restored character of supremacy in which they will be able to act

with power.

_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._

Footnotes:

[1] _Etudes des Sciences Sociales._ Par J. C. SIMONDE DE SISMONDI. 3 vols.

Paris, 1837.

[2] Viz.:--

In Ireland, 2,300,000

... England, 1,500,000

... Scotland, 200,000

----------

4,000,000

just a seventh of the whole inhabitants, who are now about 28,000,000.

[3] Committals for serious crime, in--

Population of Great

England. Scotland. Ireland. Total. Britain and Ireland.

1805, 4,605 89 3,600 8,284 15,800,000

1819, 14,254 1,380 13,251 28,885 20,600,000

1842, 31,369 3,884 21,352 56,605 27,300,000

--PORTER'S _Parl. Tables and Prog. of the Nation_, iii. 172, 227.

From this table it appears, that from 1805 to 1842 the population of the

empire has advanced from 158 to 273--that is, increased about 70 _per

cent_; while serious crime has increased from 8 to 56--that is, 700 per

cent. Crime, therefore, has augmented ten times as fast as the number of

the people.

[4] From [Greek: chrema]--"money, riches."

[5] NICOLAI, _dell' Agro Romano_, iii. 167-171. SISMONDI'S _Etudes

Sociales_, ii. 46.

[6] _Ibid_, iii. 153. _Ib._, ii. 44. This part of Sismondi's work, which

will be found Vol. ii, pp. 1-74, is highly interesting. We may perhaps, at

a future period, give a detached account of it, under the title of "The

Campagna of Rome."

[7] The canal by which the waters of the river Guautitlan are carried

through the mountains into the valley of Tula.

[8] The Mexican Ceres, goddess of maize.

[9] Tatli is an Aztec word, signifying father.

[10] Monkish legend.

[11] The dry season.

[12] The best pulque is that of Tacotitlan. Frijolos are a species of bean

which grows in great perfection in the Chinampas, or swimming gardens upon

the lake of Chalco.

[13] Tenochtitlan is the ancient name of the valley of Mexico. It is here

used to designate the capital city.

[14] The _pique_ or _nigua_ is a small but exceedingly noxious insect that

abounds in some parts of Mexico, especially in the low grounds of Vera

Cruz and Acapulco. It bores holes in the skin and lays its eggs there,

causing a violent irritation and sometimes dangerous sores.

[15] A term used in mining operations. A rich vein of silver, or,

generally, success in mining.

[16] In Mexican houses of the more opulent class, a woman-servant is kept

for the sole purpose of preparing and baking the tortillas or maize cakes.

She is called a tortillera.

[17] _Que se tenga por blanco._ Let him consider himself white. The usual

form of the emancipation certificates which the Mexican Audiencia was

accustomed to sell at high prices to the coloured races. These

certificates were originally confined to the quadroons and quinteroons,

and other castes that had only a small admixture of Indian blood.

[18] To dine with St Antonio--on bread and water.

[19] La Virgen de los Remedios was the especial patroness of the Spaniards

in Mexico. Her picture was found by one of Cortes' soldiers, and she

proved herself on various occasions a warm partisan of the Spaniards.

During the fight of Otumba, she was seen to hover over the Spanish troops

and scatter dust in the eyes of the Indians. In other battles she also

fought against the Mexicans. The Spaniards, out of gratitude, built her a

chapel. Suddenly, however, to their exceeding sorrow, her portrait

disappeared. Half a year elapsed, and then an Indian, in stripping an aloe

plant, found the picture between leaf and stem. It was carried in triumph,

and so grateful did the Virgin show herself for this attention, that she

sent an abundant rain, which happened just then to be greatly needed. In

consideration of the innumerable miracles she had wrought in their favour,

the Spaniards chose her for their patroness, and gave her the command of

their armies. She struggled valiantly against the Virgin of Guadalupe,

whom the Mexicans had elected to be their leader.

The original and miraculously discovered picture of the Virgin of

Guadalupe is preserved in her magnificent church, two leagues from Mexico.

It is on coarse bast, canvass made up of the fibres of the agave, but in a

magnificent frame, and was found soon after the conquest of Mexico on a

barren hill, by an Indian whom strains of heavenly music attracted

thither. The Indian related the circumstance to the archbishop, who

refused to credit it; whereupon the discoverer repaired to the hill a

second time, and saw the harmonious picture lying amongst a heap of roses.

It spoke to him, and commanded him to return to the archbishop, which he

did, and now found him as eager to believe as he had before been

incredulous. The prelate greeted the picture with the title of Our Lady of

Guadalupe; a chapel was built, and this Virgin was finally promoted to be

patroness of Mexico. Her complexion being of a brown colour, she was

considered to watch more particularly over the aborigines.

When Hidalgo, after raising the standard of revolt, was excommunicated by

the archbishop, and in danger of being abandoned by his followers, he had

the fortunate idea of placing himself and his army under the guardianship

of the Virgin of Guadalupe. An enormous banner was got ready, with a

painting of that Virgin upon it; she was declared field-marshal and

general-in-chief, pay allotted, and obedience sworn to her. She held her

appointment for fourteen years--till 1824.

[20] White and blue were the colours of the ancient Mexicans and of the

patriots. The Spaniards adopted them for the clothing of their

executioners.

[21] The blue cloak was worn by the nobility, the brown by the lower and

middling classes in Spain and Mexico.

[22] _Curly_--diminutive of Cornelius.

[23] The commencement of a common Irish benediction, _God and Mary and St

Patrick be with (or bless) you!_

[24] A man concealing himself on arrest for debt is, in Ireland,

familiarly said to be _on his keeping_, probably from his keeping or

confining himself to the house when there is danger of the writ being

executed.

[25] Abbrev. for Larry or Laurence.

[26] The length of a spade's-handle of ground. _Over a man's

head_--i.e.--out-bidding the tenant in possession, by offering generally a

larger rent for the land out of which he is about to be ejected.

[27] _Spell_--very short space of time, as long as it would take to spell

a word.

[28] An achievement similar to that here described actually took place

about the same period nearly on the same spot. It was planned and executed

by two persons living at a town mentioned in the tale, and terminated in

the instant death of the unlucky highwayman, whose body they placed in

their vehicle, and brought back with them in an hour or two from the time

they set out. In the present day, such a deed (thus premeditated) would be

deservedly termed a rash and cruel act--the lawless and unprotected state

of that country, however, at the time, led it to be considered--we

believe--a laudable one.

[29] _Revelations of Spain._ By an ENGLISH RESIDENT.

[30] The Monk, too, has this characteristic, which is of dubious

exposition. Tyrwhitt thinks that the meaning _may be_--"Eyes sunk deep in

the head." Certainly a feature giving force and distinction to the

physiognomy has been intended.

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these

letters have been replaced with transliterations.

Punctuation has been corrected without note.

The following misprints have been corrected:

"on" corrected to "or" (page 537)

"und" corrected to "and" (page 566)

"sevesal" corrected to "several" (page 580)

"Tyrrell's" standardized to "Tyrrel's" (page 587)

"Tyrrell" standardized to "Tyrrel" (page 582)

"would'nt" corrected to "wouldn't" (page 585)

"ununhonoured" corrected to "unhonoured" (page 586)

"Tyrell" standardized to "Tyrrel" (page 587)

"hir" corrected to "his" (page 589)

"aparment" corrected to "apartment" (page 590)

"O'Connel" corrected to "O'Connell" (page 651)

"n" corrected to "in" (page 654)

Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and

hyphenation usage have been retained from the original text.