Without allowing the same degree of credence to the miracles which,

according to the archives of this church, signalized the future power

of Mary in times anterior to the Christian era, we will mention one

only of those among them which appear to be worthy of belief. This was

represented in the rich mediæval glass of the “Window of Miracles,”

destroyed at the Revolution, where also could be read the name of

Geoffrey [Gaufridus].

This Geoffrey, in the time of the Druids, was King of Montlhéry. There

were in those days kings in profusion, and this one was vassal to

Priscus, King of Chartres. Geoffrey had an only son, his chief joy,

who accidentally fell into the deep well of the castle, and was taken

out dead. The king was distracted with grief, but, having heard of

sundry miracles which had been wrought by the Virgin of Chartres (to

the amazement of the Druids, who had known nothing of the kind in

their false religion), he forthwith prayed to her with many tears,

entreating that she would restore his son to life. Little by little

the youth began to breathe, and soon was completely recovered. The

father, full of gratitude, went with large offerings to the grotto to

return thanks for the life of his son. Priscus showed himself no less

devout. He caused a statue to be made after the pattern of the one at

Chartres, and placed it at Longpont, where arose later a celebrated

abbey, and whither pilgrimages have ever since continued to be made.

Having no child, he bequeathed all his rights and possessions to the

Virgin of Chartres. Of these the Druids enjoyed the benefit, and the

French chroniclers observe that the bishops who have succeeded them are

thus, in fact, the temporal princes also of the city, and that the Holy

Virgin is by legal right Lady of Chartres.

It is, however, on entirely different and sufficient grounds for

belief that the facts must be placed which relate to the arrival of

the illustrious saints, Savinian and Potentian, two of those heroic

missioners who were called _bishops of the nations_, whom Christian

Rome, more eager to make the conquest of the world than pagan Rome had

ever been, sent to evangelize heathendom.

When these first preachers of Christianity appeared among the

Carnutes, they found them subjugated, indeed, by the Roman arms, but

exceptionally rebellious against all endeavors that were used to induce

their adoption of the Roman gods; still submissive to the Druids,

whom the conquerors persecuted as representing the party of national

resistance.

Potentian had associated with him in his labors two faithful disciples,

S. Edoald and S. Altinus. Led by the Spirit of God, and knowing the

religious belief of the Druids, he repaired at once to the renowned

grotto, where he found them assembled, together with a numerous

concourse of people; and, adapting to the occasion the words of S.

Paul at Athens, he said to them: “This Virgin whom you honor without

knowing I am come to make known unto you”; and soon the darkness

giving place to light in minds that were predisposed to receive it, a

large number of those present begged forthwith for baptism. They were

baptized in the water of the well, the Druidic image received Christian

benediction, the altar was consecrated to Mary, and the whole sanctuary

dedicated to the true God.

Mention is made of this ceremony in the breviary of Chartres, on the

17th of October.

The new Christian community was not destined to enjoy long peace.

Quirinus, the governor of the country under the Emperor Claudius, in

obedience to an edict issued by the latter against the Christians,

entered the grotto with a company of armed soldiers when the faithful

were there assembled, and, seizing S. Potentian, S. Edoald, and S.

Altinus, reserved them for more prolonged sufferings, while he caused

the rest of the worshippers to be massacred on the spot. Among these

was found his own daughter, since honored in the church as S. Modesta.

The bodies of the martyrs were thrown into the well of the grotto,

which from that time bore the name of _Le puits des Saints Forts_.

The governor, being struck with sudden death, was not permitted to

carry out his designs against S. Potentian and his companions, who,

being set at liberty, proceeded to Sens to continue their labors,

leaving S. Aventine at Chartres, of which city he was the first bishop.

Setting aside the improbable legend which relates that the people of

Chartres, upon learning that the Blessed Virgin was still living, sent

an embassy to Ephesus to convey to her their homage, and pray her to

receive the title of _Domina Carnoti_, which, according to Guillaume le

Breton, she willingly accepted, we hope in a future article to give the

eventful history of the erection of the cathedral over the primitive

grotto, which in the XIth century grew into the present vast and

massive crypt, perhaps the finest in the world.

EARLY MARRIAGE.

WHEN Dr. Johnson advocated the early marriage of young men, he spoke

the morality of the Christian, the wisdom of the philosopher, and the

knowledge of the man of the world. He knew from his own experience, and

from the wild lives of the men with whom he associated during the first

years of his London life, that early marriage is the great safeguard

of youth, the preserver of purity, and the sure promoter of domestic

happiness—“the only bliss of paradise that has survived the fall.”

Profoundly convinced of this, we deliberately declare that early

marriages should be, as a general rule, recommended and promoted by

those who have influence or authority over young people. By early

marriage, we do not mean the marriage of boys and girls, but of men and

women. Marriage is the only natural, proper, and safe state for the

majority of persons living in the world. If one-third of the angelic

host—those bright and pure spirits fresh from the divine Hand—fell

at the very first temptation, how can man, prone as he is to sin, hope

to escape? If the saints of old, who subjected their bodies to the

spirit by penances so terrible as almost to realize Byron’s remark “of

meriting heaven by making earth a hell”—if these holy men found it so

difficult to resist the allurements of the flesh, how can the pampered

and luxurious Christians of these days, living in an atmosphere

of seduction, mingling in a gay and wicked world, and thrown in

constant contact with men who break all the Commandments with perfect

indifference—how can these Christians of the latter days hope to avoid

the dangers that surround them if they refuse to seek the safety that

is presented to them in marriage, unless they make use of unusual means

and preventives which few are willing to adopt.

Byron, who had tried all pleasures, and gratified all his passions unto

satiety, declared that the “best state for morals is marriage.” This

was the mature and deliberate opinion of a man who had married most

wretchedly.

Shakespeare says, “A young man married is a man that’s marr’d.”[212]

But married, as he was, at the early age of eighteen, to a woman

eight years his senior, he was a most glorious contradiction of his

own assertion. So assured is his position as the monarch of the world

of literature, that the most daring and ambitious spirits have never

presumed to dispute his supremacy; much less has there ever been found

a man bold enough to play the part of the Lucifer of literature, and

attempt to deprive Shakespeare of his “pride of place.” Surely, the

fact of the poor Stratford boy filling the world with his name and fame

after marrying at eighteen, is an argument in favor of early marriage.

“A young man married is _not_ a man that’s marr’d.” Had Byron married

his earliest and purest love, Mary Chaworth, both the poet and the

world would have been the gainers. We would then have had more poems

like the magnificent Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, and no poem like

the voluptuous _Don Juan_. Domestic happiness, instead of domestic

misery, would have been Byron’s earthly blessing; for the pure

affection of his noble though erring heart would have been concentrated

upon one adored object. Moore’s early marriage to his beautiful and

beloved Bessie did not “mar” his brilliant career either in literature

or in society. Her love and sympathy cheered him in his young and

struggling days, when—

“All feverish and glowing,

He rushed up the rugged way panting to fame.”

When success crowned his efforts, the praise and admiration of Bessie

were dearer to the young poet than all the flattery lavished upon him

by the loveliest ladies of England; and, when misfortune came which

drove away his summer friends, she was ever by his side, brightening

and encouraging the desponding poet.

The wife of Disraeli was Disraeli’s best and truest friend. Her

influence fired his latent ambition, and brought into active use his

finest talents. Sustained by her, Disraeli abandoned the idle and

aimless life of a London dandy, and became a statesman and the leader

of statesmen, as Prime Minister of Great Britain. His domestic life

was most happy. From the triumph of the senate and the pageantry of

the court, he turned with unaffected delight to his home-life and

home-love. The sweetest associations of his life all clustered around

that home, where he always found the truest sympathy and love. Fully

realizing the blessing of married life, he has written: “Whatever be

the lot of man, however inferior, however oppressed, if he only love

and be loved, he must strike a balance in favor of existence; for love

can illumine the dark roof of poverty, and lighten the fetter of the

slave.”

These few examples, which may be multiplied indefinitely, are given to

show that, so far as fame is concerned, “a young man married is _not_ a

man that’s marr’d.”

Now, to another and more practical view of the matter. How many young

men give as a reason for not marrying that they can’t afford it—that

marriage is a luxury only for the rich? We know that the sordid forms

of fashionable society have encircled this heavenly rose called love

with so many thorns that the opulent alone can gather it with safety.

We also know that, in the gay world, as Lady Modish observes in the

_Careless Husband_, “sincerity in love is as much out of fashion as

sweet snuff—nobody takes it now.” But what man of sense, what man who

longs for love and a home, would think of marrying a woman of fashion

whose mornings are passed in bed over a sensational novel, whose

afternoons are spent on the street, and whose evenings are danced away

in the ball-room?

It is a great and deplorable mistake to suppose that only the rich can

afford to marry. Dining with Chief-Justice Chase in Washington, some

one mentioned that Mr.—— had of late grown cynical and censorious,

because he was engaged and could not afford to marry. Well do we

remember the remark of the Chief-Justice, that “any young man who can

support himself can support a wife—that is, if he is wise enough to

select the right sort of person.” Mr. Chase spoke from his own personal

experience; for he had married when he was young, poor, and unknown,

and his success began with his marriage. Take any young man of average

intelligence and industry—a lawyer, clerk, or journalist—he makes

enough to live comfortably and to save, but he is not willing to

follow Mr. Micawber’s philosophy of happiness: “Income, £100 a year;

expenses, £99 19_s._—happiness. Income, £100 a year; expenses, £100

1_s._—misery.” Which, in plain English, means—make more than you

spend, and you will be happy; spend more than you make, and you will be

miserable.

Our young lawyer, clerk, or journalist is not satisfied to live

comfortably: he must live luxuriously. He must smoke the best cigars,

drink the choicest wines, wear the most fashionable clothes; he must

belong to a club, play billiards, go to the opera; he must drive

to the park, when he can ride in the city cars; he must spend his

summer holiday at Saratoga or Long Branch—in short, he must live as

extravagantly as the idle sons of rich men with whom he associates. To

do this, he must necessarily live beyond his means.

These are the young men who say they _cannot afford to marry_. They

_can_ afford to marry if they will give up expenses which are always

useless and often dangerous. Addison says with admirable truth: “All

men are not equally qualified for getting money, but it is in the power

of every one alike to practise the virtue of thrift; and I believe

there are few persons who, if they please to reflect on their own past

lives, will not find that, had they saved all those little sums which

they have spent unnecessarily, they might at present have been masters

of a competent fortune.” Certainly, if young men will practise the

habit of saving “those little sums” which are so often “unnecessarily

spent,” they will no longer have to complain that they cannot afford to

marry.

The laws of Sparta required a man to marry when he became of age; if he

did not, he was liable to prosecution. The salutary effect of this was

seen in the superior morality of the Spartans over the other people of

Greece. The morality of the people of Ireland is one of the brightest

gems in the crown of the “loved Island of Sorrow”; the practice of

early marriage among the Irish contributes, in a great measure, to

this angelic virtue of chastity. The pernicious practice of marrying

late in life, which prevails generally among Frenchmen, is one of the

chief causes of the licentiousness of that gay and gallant nation.

Unfortunately, a tendency towards late marriage has been gradually

growing among the American people, especially in our large cities. This

is one of the most dangerous and disheartening signs of the times. It

arises from the love of luxury and display which has overspread the

land and destroyed that republican simplicity of life and manners which

was once the glory and strength of this nation.

Fathers are unwilling that their daughters should marry young men who

are not rich, forgetting that they themselves were poor when they

married, and that their wealth has been amassed by long years of

constant toil. Such fathers should remember the answer of Themistocles,

when asked whether he would choose to marry his daughter to a poor man

of merit, or to a worthless man of an estate: “I would prefer a man

without an estate to an estate without a man.” Daughters are unwilling

to abandon a life of idleness and luxury in their father’s house to

share the fortunes of young men who, though poor in person, are rich

in worth, and have that within them which will command success. Such

daughters should remember that a young lady once refused to marry a

young man on account of his poverty, whose death was mourned by two

continents—the noble philanthropist, George Peabody. When the late

Emperor of France was living in poverty in London, he fell in love

with a lady of rank and beauty, and solicited her hand. The lady, who

regarded him as a mere political dreamer, rejected his suit, when he

uttered this prophetic remark: “Madame, you have refused a crown.”

Few young ladies have an opportunity of “refusing a crown,” but, in

refusing young men of talent, industry, and virtue, on account of

their present poverty, to accept worthless young men of fortune, they

frequently refuse a life of domestic peace and happiness for one of

splendid misery.

The ancient philosophers very wisely defined marriage to be a remedy

provided by Providence for the safety and preservation of youth. We all

require sympathy and love, and where can there be sympathy so perfect

and love so enchanting as that which a true wife feels for her husband?

Chateaubriand, in his magnificent work, _The Genius of Christianity_,

gives us a sweet and affecting description of the Christian husband

and wife: “The wife of a Christian is not a mere mortal: she is an

extraordinary, a mysterious, an angelic being; she is flesh of her

husband’s flesh, and bone of his bone. By his union with her, he only

takes back a portion of his substance. His soul as well as his body is

imperfect without his wife. He possesses strength; she has beauty. He

encounters afflictions, and the partner of his life is there to soothe

him. Without woman, he would be rude, unpolished, solitary. Woman

suspends around him the flowers of life, like those honeysuckles of the

forest which adorn the trunk of the oak with their perfumed garlands.”

Well might the great poet of domestic bliss exclaim of marriage:

“Such a sacred and homefelt delight,

Such sober certainty of waking bliss,

I never heard till now.”

All readers will recall the exquisite description of the married life

of Albert and Alexandrina in _A Sister’s Story_; their charming home

at Castellamare, on the Bay of Naples; the soft air and brilliant

skies of Italy; excursions among the lovely islands of the bay; pious

pilgrimages to holy shrines; their summer trip to the East; their

winter in Venice, followed by the declining health of Albert; their

return to France; and the saintly death of Albert at the early age of

twenty-four.

Our American Catholic youth owe a duty to their church and their

country which they neglect with criminal indifference. What become

of the many young men of brilliant promise who each year leave our

Catholic colleges laden with honors? Why are their voices never heard

after commencement day? Why is their graduation thesis their last

literary composition? It is because the seed of learning planted in

their minds at college, like the seed of the husbandman in the Gospel

which fell among thorns, is choked with the riches and pleasures of

life, and yields no fruit.

No better example can be offered for the imitation of American Catholic

young men than that of Montalembert, the great orator of France.[213]

Even in his schoolboy days, his aim was high and beautiful: he scorned

all folly and idleness. When he was only seventeen, he solemnly

selected as his motto through life, “God and Liberty,” to which he

remained faithful until death. A young man of brilliant intellect,

vivid imagination, and noble ambition, he determined to play a man’s

part in the world, and earnestly longed for the time to commence his

glorious work. He wasted not the golden days of youth amid the gay

frivolities of fashionable amusement, for he vehemently denied that

youth was the time which should be devoted to the pleasures of society.

He contended that youth should be given up with ardor to study or to

preparation for a profession. “Ah!” he exclaims, “when one has paid

one’s tribute to one’s country; when it is possible to appear in

society crowned with the laurels of debate, or of the battle-field, or

at least of universal wisdom; when one is sure of commanding respect

and admiration everywhere—then it is the time to like society, and

enter it with satisfaction. I can imagine Pitt or Fox coming out of the

House of Commons, where they had struck their adversaries dumb by their

eloquence, and enjoying a dinner party.”

This admirable advice from one who so worthily won his way in the world

and in society should be carefully considered by the youth of America,

who too frequently rush into society half educated, and wholly unfit

for the duties and responsibilities of the world. An early marriage

is the best beginning for those not called to the ecclesiastical or

religious state. It gives at once an object and an aim to life. It

fixes the heart, and keeps it warm and bright, preventing it from

running to waste. It is a holy state, established by God as the

ordinary means for the happiness and salvation of the greatest number

of the faithful. As a rule, it is the safest state for persons living

an ordinary life, and for many it is the only one which is safe. As

there is no rule, however, without exceptions, we do not intend to

deny that there are many exceptions to this rule. Numbers of persons,

especially among the devout female sex, are called to a single life in

the world either by inclination or necessity, and are both better and

more happy in that state than they would be in any other. The reasons

which we have presented in favor of marriage and of early marriage

apply, therefore, only generally and not universally to persons in all

the ranks and conditions of society, and have their more especial force

in relation to those who live in what is called “the world,” but most

especially in reference to young men.

SCHOLARS _EN DÉSHABILLÉ_.

SCHOLARS before the world and scholars at home are often the greatest

contrast to themselves. Daily life is, after all, so levelling that

it makes a _tabula rasa_ of crowned heads and peasants, of sages and

fools, of good men and bad. There is no visible _nimbus_ round the head

of the man who towers above his fellows, as there is round the summit

of the mountain that pierces the clouds. Without the conventional

distinctions of costumes, attendance, or display, there is no means of

telling the man of giant intellect from the man of common attainments.

Not that some men lack that physical superiority which at once causes

a stranger to turn eagerly round and ask, “Who is that?” but this mark

so often accompanies other men whose interior life does not justify its

presence, or whose career has been a mistake and a failure, that it is

practically valueless. The outward sign or “ticket” requisite to denote

a man of acknowledged station is therefore as necessary in this blind

world as it is humiliating to the world’s sense of discernment. Take

an imaginary procession of magnates, financial, political, artistic,

royal, or noble, dress them in plain citizen’s garb, and then send in

a child to pick out the prizes among them, to distinguish the bishop

from the chancellor, the diplomatist from the banker, the king from

the scholar. Guided by purely natural instinct (not unlike that which

presided at the election of barbarian chieftains in the Vth century),

the child will call the tallest, strongest, manliest personage the

king, and will choose the most venerable, gentle, and serious as the

bishop. Ten to one it will have taken a soldier for king, and an artist

for bishop; and so on _ad infinitum_. Now place those great people

in suitable coaches, dress them in appropriate robes, put on them the

crowns, coronets, crosses, and insignia of their order, and the veriest

baby will recognize by the conventional instinct of civilization the

rank and importance of each; only it will then be seen that the king

is that quiet man of banker-like aspect, the bishop yonder retiring

individual with a bald head, the financier that dandy with the

unobtrusive gold ring and faultless yet severe costume, the ambassador

that commonplace-looking person hidden under stars and ribbons. Change

the slide once more, set all these good people down at their respective

homes, and look through the magic-lantern again. What do we see? A

dining-room, a table set with more or less perfection of appointments,

a few noiseless servants and romping children, a homely, middle-aged

matron, serene and placid, perhaps looking over an account-book or

hemming pocket-handkerchiefs. The bishop’s household alone will wear

a distinctive mark, but, compared with other ecclesiastical abodes,

will keep its master’s secrets as well as any secular one. God alone

knows where to point to a saint or a genius among these ordinary

surroundings, and the objects of his discernment would often surprise

any human observer who should be admitted to share his knowledge.

The craving which men have to know the details of the private life of

any one distinguished from the commonalty by talent or position is an

inexplicable phenomenon, and one that to the end will defy our solution

and persist in remaining in force long after we have decided that it

has no business to exist. Is it that we are envious of everything above

us, and wish to dim its glory by putting it to the same test as our

own dull being? Is it through a morbid desire to analyze that which,

against our will, enchants us, in order that, having done so, and

reduced it to various elements which separately are powerless to charm,

we may depreciate the whole? Or is it through that loftier feeling

that urges us to ally ourselves by sympathy with all that is noble and

exalted in human nature? Do we long to claim at least a fellowship with

intellect through the sacred instincts which intellect and mediocrity

share alike? It is unfortunately as often through the baser as through

the nobler feeling; and yet, when we have sifted the tendency to its

simplest elements, we cannot say that we have personally rid ourselves

of the foible or learned the lesson of lofty incuriousness which by

implication we have taught.

The daily life and privations, the struggles and successes, the

domestic joys, sorrows, and losses of great men have a deeper meaning

than shows on the surface; for not only have they influenced the works

or writings through which these men have become known to us, but they

show how independent of outward circumstances is their greatness.

In this sense, they present encouragement to many in whom the same

qualities are latent, but who from faintheartedness might otherwise

have neglected their gifts and wasted their powers. They teach yet

another lesson; for in them we see what compensations the mind gives

in the midst of even sordid trials, and how the higher a man’s

intellectual training is, so much the stronger is his moral endurance.

But draw what moral we will from them, the interest in them remains and

will remain to the end of time. Trivial as they are, too, they somehow

fix the personality of a man of genius better in the mind of posterity

than his greatest virtues or doughtiest deeds; as, for instance, King

Alfred is better remembered as the disguised soldier burning the cakes

of his peasant-hostess than as the wise lawgiver and heroic chieftain

of the Saxons. Prince Charlie’s romantic escapes have endeared him to

the Scottish heart and made him the centre of the later traditions of

a romantic people, while no such halo gathers round the person of the

First or Second Charles of England, even though the “Martyr-King” has

won by his tragical death a separate niche in the Valhalla of history.

In all ages and all climes, learning and wealth have seldom gone

together. Anecdotes of scholars whose daily wants were in sad contrast

with their aspirations abound in the records of all centres of

learning. Dr. Newman, in his lectures on universities, has given us

many touching as well as ludicrous examples of this truth. Among the

disciples of Pythagoras, if we recollect accurately, was one Cleanthes,

a professional boxer from Corinth, who, smitten with a love of wisdom,

came to Athens to become a philosopher. As he had not even the trifling

daily sum required by the professor of learning, he spent half of each

day in earning it by _carrying water_ and doing such like services to

the citizens, while the remaining hours he passed at the academy. One

day, the wind blew his upper garment open, and his luckier companions

most “unphilosophically” jeered him when they saw that his outer

covering was all that he had. He afterwards rose to great proficiency,

and taught a school of his own—never, however, discarding his simple

ways. The well-known story of the three students who had but one cloak

between them and wore it each in his turn in the lecture-hall while the

others stayed in bed, is told of Athenians as well as Saxons, Irish, or

Italians in the universities of the middle ages. Bp. Vaughan’s _Life of

S. Thomas_ abounds with such anecdotes of impecunious and enthusiastic

scholars. S. Thomas himself, it is related, wrote his _Summa_ (not the

great work, but a previous and less comprehensive book) on such stray

pieces of parchment, old letters, torn covers, etc., as he could pick

up or beg from his fellow-students. S. Richard of Canterbury, when

teaching in his chair at Oxford, was so careless of his _honorarium_

that he generally left it on the window-sill, unless he had need of it

to relieve some poor person. The same saint in his youth was sometimes

so frozen to the bone that he could not continue his studies and was

fain to run round the court of the school for half an hour every night

to restore circulation before he went to bed. The Oxford students

suffered hunger as well as cold in the service of philosophy, for they

often had no other resource than to beg the broken victuals from the

tables of the tradesmen, and one of them avers in a private letter

that, on a great holiday, he and his friends made merry over an unusual

feast—“a penny piece of beef between four.”

In Paris, the case was the same. The lay students suffered most, for

each of the great religious orders had its own representative house,

and the young religious lived in community. Among the seculars it

was different; they were quartered on the citizens, and, when they

were honest as well as industrious, led a terribly hard life. They

lodged in garrets, and lay on straw; their landlords extorted from

them exorbitant rents for their share of the filthy tenement, and

they often had to depend on charity for their food. Ingenious as

poverty always is, it suggested remedies to these harassed votaries of

learning, even as it has in all succeeding ages. The poorer students

took to copying books and selling them at starvation prices, working

for others when they could find patrons, for themselves when they were

forced to do so. Thus originated bookstalls and private shops for the

sale of books, parchment, wax, and ink. In the dark days of winter, the

want of light was severely felt by those who were too poor to buy oil,

and pale, shivering forms might be seen huddled in doorways, grouped on

corners, or gathered round a street-shrine, anywhere, in fact, where a

lamp could be found, all intent on their notes of yesterday’s lecture,

or busily examining the subject of to-morrow’s lesson. Beside them was

ever the other world of students—the gay, rich, and careless: those

who spent in one night’s revel what would have bought parchment and oil

for six months for the thrifty, hard-working copyist of MSS. But what

martyrdoms were undergone for knowledge’s sake in those days of earnest

search after science no man can tell. Knowing less of the details of

mediæval life than we do of the daily needs of later generations, we

can perhaps hardly appreciate the degree of privation endured by these

sturdy knowledge-seekers.

Turning to the chivalrous land of Germany, we find, in the same

century as that of S. Thomas and the students of Paris University,

the school of poor minstrels, the famous Minnesingers. Kroeger, in

his work on them and their novel art, says: “These singers led a life

most strange and romantic. At a time when cities had as yet barely

come into existence in Germany, and the castles of the lords were

the chief gathering-places of the vast floating population of the

Crusading times, these Minnesingers, with _little or nothing_ besides

their sword, fiddle, or harp and some bit of love-ribbon or the like

from their sweetheart, wandered from village to village, and castle to

castle, everywhere welcomed with gladness, and receiving their expected

remuneration with the proud unconcern of strolling vagabonds.... For

these singing knights felt no more delicacy in chronicling the good

things they received from their patrons than in immortalizing the

meanness of those who let them depart without _gifts of clothing, food,

and money_.... The young knight was by custom compelled to saunter

forth into the world, and generally by poverty to keep on sauntering in

this fashion all his lifetime. Then he perfected himself in the art of

composing songs and playing some stringed instrument, which became both

a source of infinite enjoyment and an unfailing source of revenue if

the knight was poor. With his art, he paid his boarding-bills; his art

furnished him with clothes, horses, and equipments. More than all, his

art won him the love of his lady.”

Walther von der Vogelweide—“bird’s pasture or meadow”—was one of

the foremost of these wandering troubadours, and, as he himself

tells us, was very poor. He went to Austria to better his fortunes

by the knightly art alone fit for one of gentle birth, and among his

patrons found one, the Duke of Kärnten, whose meanness has come down

to posterity, through the then obscure minstrel’s verse, in having

“withheld a promised suit of new clothes” from the poet.

Walther’s best luck seems to have been his appointment as tutor to the

son of the Emperor Frederic II. This led to his being given a small

estate with fixed income; but he had struggled long enough in gay

though hopeless poverty before fortune singled him out for her favors.

As usual, his mind was far beyond the standard of his circumstances; a

thinker, philosopher, observer of human nature, an active member of the

state when he participated in political duties, a conscientious patriot

and a true Catholic. In politics he never refused to recognize whatever

merits the opposite party held, nor to denounce any injustice on the

part of his own; in religion, he was always alive to the abuses of the

time, despite his devout faith and earnest worship. Kroeger says of

him that, though but “little tainted by the prejudices of nationality,

he is, in his thorough earnestness and rare purity of spirit, even

more truly a representative German than either Goethe or Schiller.” Of

later authors, poets, artists, there are ampler memoirs left to teach

us the inner and darker life of the spirit we know in this bright

public envelope. The Greeks, who held that all free-born men, Hellenes

by descent, had a right to become learned and elegant scholars, and

who upon this theory based their practice of having slaves to do that

work which did not comport with the calm attitude of mind necessary

to philosophical study, made use of very cogent arguments, humanly

speaking. It remained for Christianity to do something more sublime yet

than to devote an entire class of men to lofty aims and studies; it was

reserved for Christ’s law to change even menial pursuits and vulgar

necessities into employments fit for the highest intellect. The soul’s

sanctification became a loftier aim than the cultivation of the mind

alone, and every office, however lowly, was made capable of ministering

to this new aim. Thus was the stigma which the pagan world had set upon

poverty and dependence removed, but the fact of poverty was to remain

for ever. Just as by his death our Lord had taken away, not the fact of

death, but “its sting, its victory,” and its ignominy, so by his life

he took all bitterness from that inevitable condition of the majority

of mankind—physical need and suffering.

How far this century, and indeed the spirit of the world in all

centuries, has succeeded in counteracting this beneficent change, and

in fastening again upon poverty the disgrace entailed, on it by the

pagan system, each one can judge for himself. Nay, many have a personal

standard by which they can judge of it. One cannot read the life of

any person of merit in any branch of learning without this pathetic

element constantly cropping out. Here we have Kepler, the astronomer,

struggling with constant anxieties, telling fortunes for a livelihood,

and saying that astrology, as the daughter of astronomy, ought to keep

her mother. “I supplicate you,” he writes to a friend of his, “if there

is a situation vacant at Tübingen, do what you can to obtain it for me,

and let me know the prices of bread and wine, and other necessaries of

life; for my wife is not accustomed to live on beans.” He had to accept

all sorts of jobs; he made almanacs, and served any one who would pay

him. The gentle, melancholy Schiller wasted by necessity much of his

time in literary hack-work at a period when the pay of authors was

so miserable that they could hardly exist by the pen: he translated

French books at “a shilling a page.” Even Goethe, whose fortune was

quite independent, could not add to his income by his talent; and when

Merck, the publisher, offered three pounds sterling for a drama of his,

the old poet might well ask: “If Europe praised me, what has Europe

done for me? Nothing. Even my works have been an expense to me.”

Perhaps no life has ever been so continual a struggle as that of

Oliver Goldsmith. From his very childhood he was used to starvation;

for family difficulties caused him to go to Dublin University, not as

a pensioner (as he had hoped), but as a sizar. He had to sweep the

courts, wait at table, and perform other menial tasks of the same

sort. It was a bitter price to pay for learning, but his after-life

was no sweeter in its manifold experiences. Before he left college,

his father died, and he was thrown on his own resources, when he often

had to pawn his books, and at last took to writing street-ballads,

which he disposed of at five shillings per copy. Twice the shiftless

scholar tried to make his way to America, and failed; his pretensions

to Anglican orders were crushed by his failure to pass his examination,

and his venture as a tutor was equally unsuccessful. His good genius,

his uncle, Mr. Contarine, sent him to Edinburgh to become a physician,

and this was the last of the regular professions which he tried. We

find him wandering through Flanders, singing and playing his flute at

the houses of the peasantry, in order to obtain a supper and a night’s

lodging; then attending chemical lectures at the Universities of Leyden

and Louvain; taking part in the open discussions on philosophical

subjects held on certain days in the convents and colleges of Italy,

and returning to England without a farthing in his pocket; then taking

a fortnight to reach London from Dover, begging, performing, or playing

on the road. He went among the London apothecaries, “and asked them to

let him spread plasters for them, pound in their mortars, or run with

their medicines.” It was through a poor journeyman printer, a patient

of his, that he first gained the notice of a great publisher; but his

troubles were only increased by his literary ventures. Now he is in a

garret, with the milk-woman knocking at the door, pressing him for a

trifling milk-score, which he is too poor to pay; now he repeatedly

loses the chance of good situations, because he has not a decent suit

of clothes to his back. Once a publisher provided him with clothes, in

advance, for four reviews for his magazine; but before Goldsmith has

finished his work, his landlord is dragged away by bailiffs to pass

his Christmas in prison for debt. The impulsive author has no money,

but immediately runs and pawns his clothes, liberating his miserable

host, and rejoicing the poor family. Left starving himself, he gets

a trifling loan from a friend on the four books to be reviewed, when

the publisher makes a sudden and peremptory demand for the clothes

and books, or payment for the same. Goldsmith begs him, as a favor,

“for fear of worse happening to him,” to put him in gaol. The pay he

received for his ceaseless work was ridiculously slender; for his

_Plutarch’s Lives_ he got eight pounds a volume. The novel which has

immortalized his name, the _Vicar of Wakefield_, was sold for sixty

pounds, and in the most unceremonious fashion possible. Johnson, the

author’s fast friend, gives the story of the transaction thus: “I

received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he was in great

distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that

I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and

promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was

dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent,

at which he was in a violent passion.... I desired he would be calm;

... he then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he

produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merits, told the landlady

I should soon return, and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for

sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his

rent.” The famous novel, so hastily disposed of to stave off actual

starvation and imprisonment, was thought so little of by its new owner

that it was eighteen months before he published it. Although his fame

grew with years, Goldsmith remained in distress; for he never could

keep what he earned. Indiscriminate generosity, often lavished on

unworthy companions, swallowed up his growing but always transitory

income; and the week after a gorgeous supper or a tailor’s bill of

extravagant items duly receipted, we yet find him writing a short

English grammar for _five pounds_, and, later on, borrowing _one pound_

from his publisher.

The young poet Chatterton, impulsive, gifted, and unfortunate, the

contemporary and friend of Goldsmith, was another victim to the

fickleness of the muse. Starving and desperate, he at last committed

suicide in a miserable London garret, in a dirty street leading out of

Holborn, a neighborhood not much more desirable than Baxter Street, New

York. There was no one to claim his body, and it was finally taken to

the “bonehouse” of St. Andrew’s, and buried in the pauper burial-ground

in Shoe Lane.

In thriving America, the El Dorado of the untaught European

imagination, the scholar is hardly destined to a happier lot than in

the old realms where intellect is supposed to have a traditionary

value. Of Nathaniel Hawthorne we have various records of want and

manful struggle. Always brave under adverse circumstances, this is how

he words his own misfortunes in 1820, when, still a boy, he already

edited a small and obscure periodical called the _Spectator_. Among the

obituary notices one day, the following was conspicuous: “We are sorry

to be under the necessity of informing our readers that no death of any

importance has taken place, except that of the publisher of this paper,

who died of starvation, owing to the slenderness of his patronage.”

In 1839, he had been so lucky, in a worldly sense, as to have secured

the post of head-collector of the port of Salem, Mass.; and, in this

uncongenial yet lucrative situation, he felt beyond the reach of

necessity. He curiously laments his ludicrous dilemma, and comments on

his name, “Nathaniel Hawthorne,” which he had fondly hoped from his

childhood to have sent forth to the world on the title-page of some

important work, now taking wing for the remotest ends of the earth,

scrawled in red chalk on the covers of packing-cases, tea-chests, and

cotton-bales. Political changes twice ousted him from his position,

and the second ejection was definitive—a starting-point in his life.

He went home one evening, and announced his dispossession to his wife.

There were no provisions in the house, save a barrel of flour and some

insignificant adjuncts. The family had hardly any money in hand, but

no one complained. Hawthorne told his wife he was going to write in

earnest, and they must trust to Providence in the meanwhile. Partly by

economy of the most rigid kind, partly by the helping hand of friendly

neighbors, the Hawthornes managed to keep the “wolf from the door”

till the novel was completed. The evening it was finished, the author,

feverish, excited, and emaciated, closeted himself with his wife, and

read her the MS. She listened intently, the interest becoming painful,

her breath came and went, her color faded gradually, and, at the

climax of the wonderful story, fell at his feet almost in convulsions,

exclaiming, “For God’s sake, do not read further; I cannot bear it.”

Next morning, he sent the novel to a friend of his, a sound judge and

unsparing critic in the literary world. The friend _raced_ through the

MS., enthralled by its powerful word-imagery, and came himself with his

answer. Meeting the author’s little boy, Julian, in the garden in front

of the house, he caught him up in his arms, exclaiming: “Child! child!

do you know what a father you have?” and rushed into the house, fairly

storming the newly revealed genius with congratulations.[214] Thus was

the _Scarlet Letter_ produced and Hawthorne’s name made. After that,

his success was rapid, and literature proved a sufficient support for

her gifted votary.

Another American genius was less fortunate. In Baltimore, a periodical

entitled the _Saturday Visitor_ offered a prize for the best poem and

story (the amount we cannot precisely recollect). When the candidates’

MSS. were examined, one of them proved to be a collection of clever

poems and a story written almost in “copper-plate” hand. The editors

looked no further, but said, in joke, “Let us give the prize to the

first of geniuses who has written legibly.” The name of the young

author was Edgar Allan Poe.

“He came just as he was,” says his biographer, “the prize-money not

having yet been sent him, with a seedy coat buttoned up to conceal the

total absence of linen, but with shoes whose gaping crevices could not

be made to hide the absence of socks.” Mr. Kennedy (the editor) took

him to the tailor, and fitted him out as comfortably and completely

as possible, after which he was installed as an inmate of his house,

and for a little time employed on the staff of the _Saturday Visitor_.

This was in 1833. The vicissitudes of fortune were perpetual, though to

his terrible propensity to intemperance much of his constant distress

was due. A gentleman despite the squalor of his appearance, a genius

despite his uncontrolled vices, he was one of the most unfortunate

of men. A few years later, he writes to a friend: “Can you not send

me five dollars? I am sick, and Virginia (his wife) is almost gone.”

In 1839, his prospects were for the moment not so hopeless, and one

who often visited him testified to his home in Philadelphia, “though

slightly and cheaply furnished,” being yet “so tasteful and refined,

so fitly disposed, that it seemed altogether suitable for a man of

genius.” Again, his biographer speaks of him as “always in pecuniary

difficulties, and his sick wife frequently in want of the merest

necessities of life.” For his poem “The Raven,” first published in the

_Whig Review_, and since become the pedestal of his worldwide fame, he

received the sum of _ten dollars_; and in 1848, while writing for the

_Southern Literary Messenger_, he was content to work for two dollars

a page. And yet, so far as fame was concerned, Poe’s name and talent

were known beyond the seas, admired by two continents; and when, upon

entering an office in New York, he would mention who he was, men turned

round to stare at the gifted poet who, all starving as he was, was

already enrolled among the great men of America.

The philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, had equal occasion to put

his philosophy to the same universal test of patience. Finding a

mercantile clerkship ill-adapted to his poetic and vagrant humor, he

left Geneva and went to Lausanne, where he tried music as a profession.

His experiences were curious. He tried to teach music, but, as he

says himself, “The scholars _did not crowd_, and two or three German

boys, luckily as stupid as I was ignorant of my business, were my only

pupils. Under my tuition they did not become great _croquenotes_. One

day, I was sent for to a house to teach a little ‘serpent of a girl,’

to whom it gave infinite pleasure to show me a quantity of music I

did not know, and then to play one piece for me, ‘just to show the

master how it should go.’ I knew absolutely so little of reading that

I could not follow a note of my own composition in such a manner as

to be able to regulate its execution.” It may be supposed the poor

man did not thrive on these means of livelihood; his fare was meagre

enough, and he paid only thirty francs a month for his board and

lodging in the little inn where he made his home. For his dinner, he

had but one dish of soup, with something a little more substantial for

his supper at night. Notwithstanding his desire for independence and

freedom from the personal thraldom (_assujettissement_) of a fixed and

sedentary occupation, he found out that “one must live.” So he took

to copying music at a small remuneration, and so fond did he become

of his self-chosen trade (for with him it was not art) that in later

life, when in comfortable circumstances, he took to it again. But his

musical mania went yet further. He composed an operetta entitled _Le

Devin du Village_—“The Village Astrologer, or Fortune-teller”—and

had it executed at Lausanne. He says of its first performance “that it

was such a _charivari_ as could not be surpassed; that every one shut

their ears and opened wide their eyes; that it was a witch’s sabbath, a

devilish hubbub, insupportable and monstrous.” The tide turned one day,

and the same play was performed in the court theatre at Versailles,

the family and courtiers of Louis XVI. calling the music dream-like,

divine, entrancing! This sounds like an anticipation of the diversity

of opinion now observable concerning Wagner and Liszt.

Real artists, like Mozart, were hardly more fortunate in their domain

of legitimate art than was Rousseau in his queer attempts at music.

Although his name was known, his music extolled to the skies, and his

person retained as a priceless court treasure at Vienna, Wolfgang

Mozart hardly made a competency by his unrivalled and acknowledged

genius. His early death was mainly the result of continual anxiety on

the score of personal necessities. When the mysterious stranger came

and gave the order for the requiem, Mozart was already ill, worn, and

exhausted. The stranger’s opportune gift, or fragment in advance, came

too late, though it was sorely needed at the time; and, before the

order was completed, the great musician was on his death-bed, his wife

Constance by his side, his friends rehearsing the finished part of the

requiem at the foot of his bed, while his haggard features were lit up

to the last by the feverish enthusiasm so soon to be quenched in death.

It would seem as though the greater the genius, the greater the

destitution. Hardly one has escaped the furnace of poverty. Curran,

the great Irish lawyer and orator, was stranded early in life, without

friends, connections, or fortune, conscious of talent above the crowd

that elbowed him, and sensitive to a painful degree. He himself thus

tells the story of the first fee of any consequence which he received

in his profession: “I then lived upon Hog Hill, Dublin; my wife and

children were the chief furniture of my apartments; as to my rent, it

stood much the same chance of its liquidation with the national debt.

Mrs. Curran, however, was a barrister’s lady, and what was wanting

in wealth she was well determined should be supplied by dignity. The

landlady, on the other hand, had no idea of any other gradation except

that of pounds, shillings, and pence. I walked out one morning, in

order to avoid the perpetual altercations on this subject, with my

mind, you may imagine, in no very enviable temperament. I fell into

gloom, to which from my infancy I had been occasionally subject. I had

a family, for whom I had no dinner, and a landlady, for whom I had

no rent. I had gone abroad in despondence; I returned home almost in

desperation. When I opened the door of my study the first object that

presented itself was an immense folio of a brief, twenty golden guineas

wrapped up beside it, and the name of _old Bob Lyons_ marked on the

back of it. I paid my landlady, bought a good dinner, gave Bob Lyons a

share of it, and that dinner was the date of my prosperity!”

One of the most Christian and sympathetic authors of France (in a

department in which it must be confessed she does not excel—poetry),

Alphonse de Lamartine, was both in his youth and in his old age

the victim of poverty. Though in his childhood his poverty was not

absolutely sordid, like that of many a scholar as talented and even

as well born, still it was such that his mother had to exercise the

strictest economy on her small property, to help her peasant-servants

in many a lowly household task, and was in such straits that the

failure or success of her slender vintage was to her the chief event

of the year. A noble woman, a Christian Cornelia, she knew how to

turn these troubles into lessons for her son; and a more genial,

lovable “great man” than Lamartine has seldom claimed our homage,

notwithstanding the foibles which necessarily qualify our admiration.

Political and diplomatic success gave him far different prospects in

middle life. His poems were the first heralds, the joy-bells, of a new

school; his name was a talisman. But the shadow of genius—relentless

poverty—fell upon him again, and his last days were little better than

a pauper’s.

The literary world of Paris presents the acme of this

combination—squalor and talent. Dramatists, poets, painters,

musicians, the smaller fry of the daily press, the heavier authors of

yellow-covered _romans_, all mingled in one inextricable _bohemia_

of distress, of recklessness, of generosity, of self-sacrifice. Good

and bad are strangely interwoven; the starving writer stints himself

to help the dying artist, or the swaggering playwright repudiates his

debts to gamble away in one night the rare remuneration of months of

toil; and amid the confusion, the din of this assemblage, amid this

fellowship of misery, remains the seemingly eternal truth that the path

of scholarship, or even its counterfeit, is _not_ the legitimate path

of success.

In France, where the intellect is so fertile that it is almost the

only land where literature is a profession, not a pastime, we may turn

to one figure more, a sweet and angelic one, very different from the

stormy and erratic geniuses among whom we have been wandering—Eugénie

de Guérin, the Catholic poetess, the devoted type of sisterly love. She

was poor, though not to destitution. The family, once famous among the

Languedoc Crusaders, and owning a great feudal estate, had dwindled

down to the possession of a patrimony hardly so large and not half

so rich as a modern farm. The woman now known throughout Europe and

America by her exquisite _Journal_ and _Letters_—the starting-point

of a new class of domestic literature—tells us simply and playfully

enough in those writings—which during life she never dreamed of giving

to the public—of her humble avocations in her father’s household. Now

we see her, having cooked the supper with her sister’s aid while the

servants were all gone to an instruction for confirmation, sitting by

the huge fire in the kitchen, because it was warm there, and making

a hearty meal of coarse soup, boiled potatoes, and a cake baked by

herself, “with the dogs and cats to wait upon us,” as she says. She

did not like these household cares, however; they were a cross to her,

and her good sister “Mimi” took much of this cross off her hands.

Another day she has been washing, but she consoles herself with the

thought of Homer’s Nausicaa washing her brother’s tunics. Once, when

she was lifting a heavy cauldron from the kitchen fire, her father

tenderly said he did not like to see her doing such work; but she

answered with a smile that S. Bonaventure was found washing the dishes

after the refectory meal when the Papal deputation came to offer him

the cardinal’s hat! So she taught herself to do “disgusting things

without feeling disgust; as, for instance, blackening her hands in the

kitchen.” Another time she makes a hasty note of her affection for her

brother and her unconquerable longing after solitude, but adds that

she has no time for it now, “as there are ducks to be plucked, a pie

to be prepared, a little carnival-dinner got up; in a word, because

the parish priest was coming, and her help was anxiously waited for

in the kitchen”; while another day she is mending old house-linen. On

the other hand, she was reading S. Augustine, S. Jerome, S. Teresa,

Bossuet, Fénélon, Plutarch, books of theology and philosophy, mysticism

and morals, the works of great thinkers; she was writing poems of

more exquisite purity and wealth of imagery than the famous young

brother whom Sainte-Beuve and George Sand declared one of the foremost

poets of the day: she was a child in her simplicity, a saint in her

abnegation—a woman in a thousand. We have dwelt with the greater

emphasis and satisfaction on this last reference for the reason that

the modern world, in its haste to find countenance for its license in

thought and morals, has brought into prominence only the less worthy

specimens of French genius, to the neglect of the many admirable

writers who are now for the first time, becoming familiar to English

readers.

This strangely mingled thread of life which we have illustrated in

these pages has its pathetic as well as its ludicrous aspect. Men are

constantly complaining of the “injustice” of God in making inequalities

among them; if they looked a little deeper, they would see that what

they call inequalities are compensations. The world has to be ballasted

like a ship; the heaviest merchandise is not always the most precious,

but it is none the less necessary. It would be preposterous to expect

_all_ men to be rich, good, and clever; gifts balance each other in

God’s plan, and, since men sigh so for riches, the wise Distributor of

earthly prizes has answered many men literally, and given them riches

alone, leaving their brains a blank. To discuss this vexed question is

not, however, our intention; a few examples, such as we have drawn from

real life, speak for themselves, and facts are ever more tolerated than

disquisitions. We may learn from those facts a new interest in books;

we may remember, when we read a new work, that a human being’s life is

sewed in with those pages; that what we carelessly toss aside after

a moment’s perusal has cost hours of trouble, of research, probably

of privation; that the pathos that draws tears from our eyes is often

transcribed and softened down from the actual experience of the writer;

while the humor we approve of and the piquancy we admire are rather

born of bitter defiance against an adverse fate than grown from the

natural soil of a healthy sense of fun. A book is often the hot-pressed

fruit of an unhappy life rather than the product of elegant leisure,

and one cannot help feeling a tender but far from disparaging pity for

the thousands of educated men and women whose very talent, in a sense,

compels them, through circumstances of privation, to write in haste and

anxiety books that are inadequate representatives of that talent.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE S. AUGUSTINE SERIES: I. On the Trinity; II. Harmony of

the Evangelists, and the Sermon on the Mount. Edinburgh: T. & T.

Clark. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

These two volumes continue the series of patristic translations edited

so carefully and published in such splendid style by the firm of Clark,

at Edinburgh. The publication and perusal of long and entire works of

the fathers, especially S. Augustine, must have a most happy effect

in promoting the cause of the Catholic faith. We notice with especial

pleasure the volume on the Trinity. This is one of the greatest works

of S. Augustine. His argument is wonderfully exhaustive and conclusive,

wonderfully sublime and devout, wonderfully rich in the exposition of

Holy Scripture. It is also very plain and intelligible to a patient

and attentive reader when the peculiar difficulties of the Latin style

have been overcome. In this translation, the structure and meaning of

the sentences and phrases are made very plain, and one reads with a

pleasure and facility much enhanced by the clearness and beauty of the

page. We recommend this translation to all who wish for a very valuable

help to the rendering of S. Augustine in the original, as well as to

those who desire to become acquainted with his doctrine, and can only

do so through the medium of their own language.

A LIFE OF S. WALBURGE; WITH THE ITINERARY OF S. WILLIBALD. By

the Rev. Thomas Meyrick, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York:

Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

All who love the mediæval saints, and particularly those of once

Catholic England, will find a delicious treat in this simple story.

Besides the life and death of S. Walburge, an account is given of

the miraculous oil that “distils from the coffer in which her relics

are enclosed in her church of Eichstadt.” Cures are wrought by this

oil to-day. We happen to know personally of one—the instant and final

cure of a case of S. Vitus’ dance by a drop of the oil received on the

patient’s tongue, after a novena and communion in the saint’s honor.

The “Journey of S. Willibald to the Holy Land,” which forms the second

half of the little volume, was written at Heidenheim about the year

760. “It is interesting,” says F. Meyrick, “as confirming, by the

testimony of an eye-witness a thousand years since, the Catholic

traditions of some disputed localities, and as a specimen of a nun’s

composition in the VIIIth century.”

THE QUESTION OF ANGLICAN ORDINATIONS DISCUSSED. By E. E.

Estcourt, M.A., F.S.A., Canon of S. Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham. With

an Appendix of Original Documents and Fac-similes. London: Burns &

Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

A controversial work written in a calm and mild tone is sure to claim

attention and wise confidence, especially if that work deals with a

difficult question, and one involved in much obscurity and uncertainty.

Such is the style of the work before us, and such is the character of

the question the Rev. Canon Estcourt treats—Anglican Ordinations.

This is truly a masterly work, and the author exhibits throughout that

modesty which is the mark of a true scholar. But he does not condescend

to his antagonist; he is fully aware that he is at warfare, but at

warfare _pro causa veritatis_. He is a brave warrior, and wields a

heavy weapon; he studies his foe well before he strikes, but, when he

strikes, he strikes in a vital part.

We do not mean to say that he has finished the much-discussed

question of Anglican ordinations, or that Anglicans will hereafter

have nothing to say. They will always have something to say so long

as the Establishment lasts. But we believe there are a large number

of Anglicans who are serious and in earnest, and who conscientiously

believe they have a priesthood, and it is among them we hope to see

this book produce some practical result.

The present work starts out in the introduction with a “statement of

the question” it is about to treat of, in which the author says he

does not claim to bring forth much in the way of new facts or new

principles, but aims rather at a more careful application of principles

already laid down, and to show the real influence of the facts alleged

by Anglicans (as, for instance, the consecration of Parker), even if

true. It then states the Catholic doctrine on the question of holy

orders, and finally lays down the principles of evidence to be followed

in the investigation of historical facts.

The author commences with the “Origin of the Controversy,” in which,

after showing how the seeds of heresy were first planted by Wyckliffe,

and spread by the Lollards, and that the heresies on the Continent

and in England were all one and the same growth—which Anglicans have

so strenuously tried to deny—he exhibits the manner in which the

Anglican rite was compiled, and shows that the form of ordination in

the Edwardine ordinal was not primitive, but a compilation from the

ritual of the Roman Church of the middle ages, there being nothing in

it earlier than the IXth century, and most from the XIIIth and XIVth.

He then treats of the validity of the orders given in the new form, as

tested by Queen Mary’s reign and the acts of Cardinal Pole, and shows

by a number of cases, and a careful analysis of the different classes

the Cardinal Legate had to deal with, that both “the Papal brief and

the cardinal’s acts furnish the clearest possible evidence that the

Holy See regarded the Edwardine ordinations as utterly worthless” (p.

40), and therefore that the Anglican claim of Catholics admitting these

ordinations as valid is a false one.

The second, third, and fourth chapters are devoted to the “History of

the Controversy.”

First, the mere matter of fact, with regard to those much-contested

consecrations, is discussed. As to Barlow, the author, while giving

the Anglicans the full benefit of all their documents and proofs of

this poor man so involved in mist, shows that his consecration at least

cannot be proved.

The author very justly concludes respecting Barlow that while we cannot

come to any positive decision, yet, “with so many circumstances of

suspicion arising from different quarters, yet pointing the same way,

it is impossible to admit the fact of his consecration without more

direct proof of it” (p. 81).

Parker’s case is next taken up. Of course, the author discards the

Nag’s Head story; and with regard to the mere fact of Parker’s

consecration having taken place, he acknowledges it must be admitted.

But he shows that such a consecration, from the grave doubts whether

Barlow was ever consecrated, and the manner in which ordinations of the

Book of Common Prayer of 1552 were treated, was utterly worthless.

After giving the testimony of contemporary Catholics in the matter of

Parker’s consecration, he says: “But taking them all together, it must

be granted that they admit the fact of the consecration having taken

place as alleged, but it is also evident that they imply some serious

difficulty respecting it, and apparently touching the persons acting

therein; and, further, that this difficulty extended so far as not

merely to render the consecration uncanonical, unlawful, and irregular,

but also to affect its validity” (p. 126).

Then having shown the practice of the church with those who returned to

the true faith, he gives a list of the Anglican ministers who became

reconciled to the Catholic Church down to the year 1704, and thus

answers by facts the claim set up by Dr. Lee, founded on the alleged

refusal of twelve converts to be reordained because they claimed to be

true priests.

Next follows a short review of the controversy as carried on so far by

both Anglicans and Catholics, after which commences what we consider as

really the most important part of the book; for the rest of the work

deals entirely with the _validity_ of Anglican ordinations.

This second half of the work we look upon as instituting a new era

in the controversy. Heretofore, writers have occupied themselves

principally with trying to disprove the facts with regard to the

Anglican consecrations, and have done very little to prove the

invalidity of such consecrations, even if they took place. Canon

Estcourt has entered into this very thoroughly, and made it clear.

He commences by an examination of the most ancient forms of ordination,

and coming down through the various rites, and giving the teaching of

the fathers, shows what the matter and form of ordination most probably

consists in. Having established this, he gives the practice of the

church in her official decisions in two important cases.

The author has devoted a chapter to the refutation of the story of Pius

IV. and Queen Elizabeth, which is the Anglican Nag’s Head, and which we

suppose is at least well to have repeated, as there may be some on whom

this worn-out fable would still have an influence.

In the concluding chapters, the argument is summed up, and “the

inevitable conclusion follows that Anglican ordinations must be

considered as altogether invalid, and that there is neither bishop,

priest, nor deacon in the Anglican communion. And the reasons for this

conclusion may be stated in a summary way as follows:

“1. Because from the year 1554 it has been the unvarying practice of

the Catholic Church so to consider and treat them.

“2. Because there are grave doubts whether Barlow, the consecrator of

Parker, had ever himself received episcopal consecration; and, in fact,

the probabilities of the case incline more strongly against than in

favor of it.

“3. Because the Anglican forms of ordination have been altered from the

ancient forms, both by way of mutilation and addition, in such a manner

as to exclude, on the part of those participating in the acts enjoined,

any intention of conferring or receiving a sacrament, or sacramental

grace, or a spiritual character, or any sacerdotal or episcopal power.

“4. Because the same forms have been also altered purposely, with the

view of excluding the idea of the priest at his ordination receiving

power to offer sacrifice.

“5. Because Anglican bishops and priests, at the time of ordination,

join in a profession contrary to the Catholic faith in the holy

sacrifice, thus assuming on themselves, by their own act, the spirit

and erroneous intentions with which the alterations were made.

“6. Because the meaning here attributed to the Anglican forms

receives confirmation from the fact of its being doubtful whether

the word ‘priest’ in the Anglican forms of ordination means a priest

in the sense of the Catholic Church; that is to say, _sacerdos_, ‘a

sacrificing priest.’

“7. Because the meaning of the same forms is further illustrated from

the ‘Order of Administration of Holy Communion’ in the Book of Common

Prayer,

which is found to be contrary to the Catholic faith in the doctrines of

the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist and the Real Presence” (pp. 373-4).

Let us leave the author’s last words for those who are serious and in

earnest, to meditate upon:

“What, then, Anglicans have to consider, the questions they have to

ask themselves, are these: What do they really believe about the grace

of holy orders, and even about the grace of the sacraments in general?

and next, What are the conditions on which that grace is ordinarily

given? And then to look whether those conditions are fulfilled within

the Anglican communion. If they would seriously, as in the sight of

God, consider these points, we might hope to attain to truth, which is

before all things, and after truth to see peace following in her train,

and union, not based on vague terms and unharmonious professions, but

in ‘one body and one spirit, as called in one hope of our vocation, one

Lord, one faith one baptism’” (p. 379).

LECTURES ON CERTAIN PORTIONS OF THE EARLIER OLD TESTAMENT

HISTORY. By Philip G. Munro, Priest of the Diocese of Nottingham,

and Domestic Chaplain to the Earl of Gainsborough. Vol. I. London:

Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication

Society.)

This being but the first volume of a most valuable work, we shall wait

for the whole to be completed before writing a lengthy notice. We will

only say at present that the solidity of scholarship which the work

displays, together with its entertaining style, make it a long-desired

aid to the study of the Holy Scriptures on the part of our educated

laity.

What we have been most struck with in the present volume is the

simple yet masterly proof of a visible church—_i.e._ a teaching

authority—having always existed from the time of Adam; as also of the

coeval use of place and ritual for the worship of God.

THE PROPHET OF CARMEL. By the Rev. Chas. Garside. London:

Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication

Society.)

This is a peculiar work, hardly classifiable under any conventional

head in religious literature. It has the charm of refined and

elegant diction, joined to the weightier recommendation of practical

usefulness. It is a history of the prophet Elias, following the

startling yet meagre facts of his life as revealed in the Old

Testament, and drawing from them analogies wonderfully suited to our

own times, lives, temptations, and hopes. It is not one of the least

perfections of that incomparable Book, the Holy Scriptures, that

it should apply with such marvellous truth to any time, person, or

circumstance; that it should offer as living a counsel, as efficacious

a comfort, as dread a warning to every individual man in his own

obscure orbit of to-day as it did thousands of years ago to exalted

personages in unwonted trials. It is not only the political history

of one people; it is the history of the human soul at all times

and in all places. Thus, the author has drawn from the mysterious

records of Elias—who at first would seem but a colossal saint,

utterly removed from any appreciation that would seek to go beyond

admiration—parallels between human duties and human weaknesses under

the reign of Achab, and the same duties and weaknesses under the rulers

of our day. There is something in this book of the alluring style of

F. Faber’s religious works, but without that floweriness of speech of

which no one was a safe master but that prose-poet himself.

THE VALIANT WOMAN. By Mgr. Landriot. Translated from the

French by Helena Lyons. Boston: P. Donahoe. 1873.

This collection of discourses, addressed to women on the duties of

their daily life by the former Bishop of La Rochelle, now Archbishop of

Rheims, is a most valuable work, and contains an epitome of everything

woman should do, know, and teach. There can hardly be too much of the

same tenor written on this subject, and all that is written should be

sown broadcast over Christendom by the best translations. That before

our notice seems a very terse one, faithful but not slavish. Indeed, a

translator often has it in his power to mar the whole effect of a most

important work by dressing it in such unmistakably foreign garb that it

becomes unacceptable to the peculiar mind of this or that nationality.

Mgr. Landriot’s discourses, though addressed to French women and to

_provinciales_, are couched in such broad terms, and inspired

by so comprehensive a spirit, that they are equally applicable to women

of all nations, whether in populous cities or retired country towns.

The conditions of all classes are also so delicately brought within

the circle of his consideration that even poor and obscure women may

find in them as effectual guidance as the wife of a cabinet minister

or of a financial magnate. True Christianity alone can inspire true

cosmopolitanism, and that without violating patriotism. The spirit

of petty localism, or, in fact, of any narrow-mindedness on any

subject, is foreign to the wise prelate’s mind, and nowhere defaces

his writings; yet, at the same time, he knows how to make skilful use

of his surroundings, and take illustrations from objects constantly

before the eyes of his immediate hearers. In the fourth discourse he

expounds the text of Proverbs, “She is like the merchant’s ship, she

bringeth her bread from afar” (xxxi. 14); and speaking as the bishop

of a seaport town to a community whose interests were probably in many

cases connected with the sea, he draws the most original comparisons

between an ideal woman and a perfect ship. Masts, helm, rigging,

cargo, ballast, compass, chart, crew, etc., nothing is forgotten, and

every detail tallies with some spiritual attribute of the life of a

holy and “valiant” woman. In another place he compares woman to a

bridge, the support and link of many souls, and makes the bold simile

very plausible by his well-chosen remarks on the united flexibility

and strength required in woman’s character. There is not a point of

domestic life which he does not touch upon fearlessly, not a duty he

does not point out minutely. Sins of sloth, of vanity, of imprudent

speech, of undue susceptibility, are all unmasked; the relations

between woman and those who come in contact with her as wife, mother,

mistress, or friend are all accurately sketched; her pursuits are

regulated, but with no intolerant hand; her sphere mapped out, but with

no niggardly restrictions. Country life and occupation are commended

as healthful for the body, and leading to peace of mind and soul; good

sayings, tersely expressed, are scattered here and there; as, for

instance: “Virtue and vice are distinguished by the quantity of the

dose; put the right quantity, and you have a virtue; take away that

quantity, or exceed it, and you have a vice.” There is in the whole

work a tone of moderation singularly adapted to the needs of the day, a

shrinking from exaggeration in any form, and a hesitancy in condemning

anything the excess of which only can be styled a sin. The lecturer

leans for these moderate views on the writings of S. Francis of Sales,

that rare director of virtuous women in the world. One very beautiful

idea, with which we do not remember ever to have met before in any

shape, is that of the “divine magnetism” exercised by Providence, and

which turns the bitterest draught of human woe into a delicious nectar

for those who trust in God, while “the cup of earthly happiness” held

to the lips of the “spoiled child of fortune ... has infused therein a

poison to disturb and agitate the inmost depths of his being.”

The picture of the valiant woman of the Proverbs is thus brought before

the eyes of women of the XIXth century, not as something magnificently

inimitable, as personated by a Judith, a Jael, or an Esther, but as

a perfectly attainable state, as exemplified by S. Monica, S. Paula,

S. Elizabeth of Hungary. Neither the heroic, the learned, nor the

commercial side of life is shut out from them, although the domestic is

specially inculcated; and in Mgr. Landriot woman will find a meeter and

more dignified champion than in the prophetesses of “woman’s rights.”

Our only regret is that such “valiant” and perfect women should be so

rare among us. A few such Christian matrons would revolutionize their

sex.

RUPERT AUBREY, OF AUBREY CHASE. By the Rev. Thos. Potter.

Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1873.

This a short historical tale of the latter end of the XVIIth century,

and is put together from various records of known details of the Titus

Oates plot. It was quite another phase of religious persecution from

that prevalent a hundred years before under Queen Elizabeth, and Titus

Oates, in his hypocrisy and meanness, forms a contrast to the more

open though not less cruel inquisitors of Tudor days. The incidents

of the story are, as facts, quite imaginary, though fashioned in

accordance with probability and the known incidents of similar _real_

vicissitudes; the style is very clear and agreeable, and the personages

attractive in character, especially the old soldier and royalist, Sir

Aubrey Aubrey. The details of the martyrdom of the saintly Archbishop

of Armagh, Oliver Plunket, are beautifully woven in with the lesser but

hardly less touching sorrows of the young Rupert, the hero of the tale.

The end is bright and hopeful, unlike many of those solemn tragedies in

days of old, but just such as is fitted to encourage the minds of our

day. There is in the beginning of the book a very pleasant description

of an old English village of Yorkshire, and a hint to travellers who,

in frantic pursuit of distant pleasure, are whirled past such sylvan

retreats on their way to fashionable places of “repose.”

A TREATISE ON THE PARTICULAR EXAMEN OF CONSCIENCE, ACCORDING TO

THE METHOD OF S. IGNATIUS. By F. Luis de la Palma, S.J. With a

Preface by F. George Porter, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1873. (New

York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

It would be almost equal to the attempt “to gild refined gold” to speak

approvingly of a work gotten up under the auspices and derived from the

sources above indicated.

The Jesuits have always been accorded a practical eminence as

father-confessors; and one who is familiar with the _Spiritual

Exercises_ of S. Ignatius and the _History of the Sacred Passion_ of F.

de la Palma will not doubt that he is, indeed, among the masters of the

spiritual life while listening to the counsels contained in the present

work.

SKETCHES OF IRISH SOLDIERS IN EVERY LAND. By Col. James E.

McGee. New York: James A. McGee. 1873.

The half-historic, half-conversational style in which these sketches

are written makes good display of the author’s undoubted powers; and

this, too, in spite of some carelessness. With the exception of the

unfortunate mention made of the share which Irish gentlemen took in

the practice of duelling, the book is excellent reading. The subject

is one invested with a sad charm for all who, by blood, or religion,

or love of valor, can sympathize with a cruelly oppressed yet warlike

and adventurous people. The author gives us only a small fragment of

the history of Irish military exploits—“some flowers,” as the preface

says, “culled from the immortal garlands with which modern history has

enwreathed the brow of Irish valor.” Yet it suffices to produce a vivid

impression of how Irishmen have done honor to their own race, and given

generous and valuable service to the military enterprises of nearly

every civilized nation. We hope that as good a pen and as appreciative

a mind will some day give a complete history of the Irishmen who

figured conspicuously in our late war. The author, indeed, dedicates

his book to the memory of his countrymen “who fought and fell” in that

great struggle, and refers specially to some few of them, while turning

over to the future historian the task of doing them all full justice.

MEDITATIONS ON THE MOST BLESSED VIRGIN. By Most Hon. Brother

Philippe, Superior General of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Translated from the French. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1874.

This substantial volume bears the _imprimatur_ of His Grace

the Archbishop of Baltimore. And the other approbation, by the

Vicar-General of the Right Rev. Bishop of Versailles, says that the

writer is officially assured that the work “will prove a new and most

precious fountain from which pious souls may be abundantly supplied

with the healing waters of devotion to the Mother of God.” From what

we have had time to see of the book, we also are convinced that it is

a most solid and valuable addition to the best manuals of a devotion

which can never be exhausted, but, on the contrary, is destined to

increase till He who first came into the world by Mary shall in some

sense come again by her.

We therefore welcome this volume very gratefully, and recommend it to

our Catholic readers.

ANNOUNCEMENTS.—The Catholic Publication Society has in press,

and will publish this fall, _The Life of the Most Rev. M. J. Spalding,

D.D._, Archbishop of Baltimore, by Rev. J. L. Spalding, S.T.L. It will

make a large 8vo volume of over 500 pages, and will be brought out in

good style. Also in press, _The Life and Doctrine of S. Catharine of

Genoa_; _The Illustrated Catholic Family Almanac for 1874_; and _Good

Things_, a compilation from the _Almanac_ for the last five years,

making a handsomely illustrated presentation volume.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 1 Cor. xiii. 1-3.

[2] We had intended to give a brief outline of what the church has

done from time to time for the various forms of human want, but found

we could not do so in the present article without departing from the

diversified character essential to a magazine. Such a sketch of the

efforts made by the church, during her long history, to alleviate

physical suffering, and for the moral elevation of the race, would

almost be a history of the church itself, inasmuch as the poor have

always been her heritage, in accordance with our Lord’s words. To the

Catholic reader this would have been unnecessary; and if this reference

serves the purpose of inducing the candid non-Catholic to look into the

record, a desirable end will have been accomplished.

[3] _Constitution of U. S._, Art. 1, of Amendments.

[4] _Kent_, ii. 24.

[5] _Story on the Constitution_, ii. 661.

[6] _Report of Special Committee_, p. 17.

[7] _Monthly Record_, p. 285.

[8] _Catholic Review_, January 11, 1873.

[9] _Twelfth Annual Report_, p. 12.

[10] See _Half a Century with Juvenile Delinquents_. By the Chaplain of

the House of Refuge, Rev Mr. Pierce.

[11] _Nineteenth Annual Report_, p. 12.

[12] _Blackstone’s Com._, part. i, p. 137.

[13] _Sunday Mercury_, June 23, 1872.

[14] _Investigation into the Management of the Providence Reform

School_, made by the Board of Aldermen, under the direction of the City

Council of the City of Providence, 1869.

[15]

“_Indico legno, lucido e sereno_:”

Whatever kind of richly tinted wood is referred to in this passage,

_lucid_ and _serene_ do not seem very descriptive epithets, applied

to wood, and it is not much after the manner of Dante to qualify any

object with two vague adjectives. As he is presenting an assemblage of

the most beautiful and striking colors, and since we do not imagine

(as Mr. Ruskin suggests) that by “Indico legno” he could have meant

_indigo_, it seems most natural that he should have mentioned _blue_.

We have therefore ventured to translate as if the verse were written,

“Indico legno, lucido sereno.” In a preceding Canto (V.) the poet has

used _sereno_ in the same way, without the article—“_fender sereno_”

also in Canto XXIX., v. 53:

“Più chiaro assai che Luna per sereno.”

—_Trans._

[16] A name given in derision to the German nation.

[17] One of the martyrs omitted by Foxe.

[18] _The Fuller Worthies’ Library._ The Complete Poems of Robert

Southwell, S.J., for the first time fully collected, and collated

with the original and early editions and MSS., and enlarged with

hitherto unprinted and inedited poems from MSS. at Stonyhurst College,

Lancashire. Edited, with Memorial Introduction and Notes, by the Rev.

Alexander H. Grosart, St. George’s, Blackburn, Lancashire. London:

Printed for private circulation (156 copies only). 1872.

[19] Turnbull, p. xvi.

[20] _The Condition of Catholics under James I._ Father Gerard’s

narrative. London. 1872.

[21] So printed in Strype.

[22] Topcliffe here describes what he facetiously likens to a

Tremshemarn trick with great delicacy. It was, in fact, a piece of

horrible torture, by which the prisoner was hung up for whole days by

the hands so that he could just touch the ground with the tips of his

toes.

[23] See _Annals of the Reformation_, Strype, Oxford, 1824 ed., vol.

vii. p. 185. If the reader has any curiosity to see more remarkable

proof of the infamy of this man, Topcliffe, he may peruse another

letter in Strype, vol. vii. p. 53.

[24] He was afterwards condemned and executed as a traitor.

[25] For this and many other cases see, _Martyrs Omitted by Foxe_.

London. 1872. Compiled by a member of the English Church. With a

preface by the Rev. Frederick George Lee, D.C.L., F.S.A., Vicar of All

Saints’, Lambeth.

[26] _Retrospective Review_, vol. iv., 1821, p. 270.

[27] _Specimens of the Early English Poets_, first edition, vol. ii. p.

166.

[28] Vol. i. p. 644, fourth edition.

[29] _Notes of Ben Jonson’s Conversations with William Drummond of

Hawthornden_, p. 13.

[30] Here are seven of its seventeen stanzas:

Enough, I reckon wealth;

A mean the surest lot,

That lies too high for base contempt,

Too low for envy’s shot.

My wishes are but few,

All easy to fulfil,

I make the limits of my power

The bounds unto my will.

I feel no care of coyne,

Well-doing is my wealth;

My mind to me an empire is,

While grace affordeth health.

I clip high-climbing thoughts,

The wings of swelling pride;

Their fall is worst, that from the height

Of greatest honors slide.

Spare diet is my fare,

My clothes more fit than fine;

I know I feed and clothe a foe

That, pampered, would repine.

To rise by others’ fall

I deem a losing gain;

All states with others’ ruins built,

To ruin run amain.

No change of Fortune’s calms

Can cast my comforts down;

When Fortune smiles, I smile to think

How quickly she will frown.

[31] This was a German Reformer who died in 1551. His name was Kuhhorn

(Cowshorn), but, after the fashion of that day, he Greekified it into

_Bous_ (ox) and _Keras_ (horn): the same as Melanchthon, another German

Reformer, changed his name from Schwarzed (black earth).

[32] Abbots were then, as Bishops are now, Members of the House of

Lords.

[33] Some of these “foundations” were made up with Secular Priests, who

had pensions to say Masses for the souls of the founders.

[34] “Premunire” is a punishment inflicted by Statute, and consists

of the offender’s being out of the Queen’s protection, forfeiting his

lands and goods, and imprisoned during the pleasure of the Monarch.

[35] “That which is most divine in the heart of man never finds

utterance for want of words to express it. The soul is infinite [this

is saying too much: it is one thing to be infinite, and another to

have a sense of the infinite], and language consists only of a limited

number of signs perfected by use as a means of communication among the

vulgar.”—Lamartine, _Preface des Premières Meditations_.

[36] As we are not without experience in the management of children, we

cannot agree with our contributor in the proposed banishment of the rod

from the nursery, however much we may prefer moral suasion when found

effectual.—ED. C. W.

[37] Canadian snow-shoes.

[38] Breviary.

[39] The _ex-voto_ spoken of in the beginning of our story represents

this scene.

[40] Cap worn by the peasantry.

[41] Luke xvi. 9.

[42] “A great politician is dead!”

[43] “This will be a dangerous spirit.”

[44] _Land of the Veda._ By Rev. Dr. Butler.

[45] _Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States_,

transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President,

December 4, 1871.

[46] _British Blue-Book._ China, No. 3, 1871.

[47] _Evolution of Life._ By Henry C. Chapman, M.D. Philadelphia: J. B.

Lippincott & Co. 1873.

[48] See _Dublin Review_, July, 1871.

[49] Hugonis Floriacensis _de Regia Potestate_ lib. i. 4 ap. Baluze

_Miscell._ ii.

[50] Petr. Blesens, _Epist._ lxxxvi.

[51] _S. Francis de Sales_, Bishop and Prince of Geneva. Rivingtons:

London, Oxford, and Cambridge.

[52] “Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own

well; let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide

thy waters.”—_Proverbs_ v. 15,16.

[53] The title of his bishopric, by which Francis de Sales was then

generally known in Paris.

[54] “_J’ai ajouté beaucoup de petites chosettes_,” he said. “_Petites

chosettes_” is almost untranslatable in its deprecating modesty.

[55] In 1656, forty editions had already appeared.

[56] “Il met force sucre et force miel au bord du vase.”

[57] See _Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française. Préface de M.

Villemain_. He says: “En 1637, l’Académie avait discuté longtemps sur

la méthode à suivre pour dresser un Dictionnaire qui fût comme le

trésor et le magasin des termes simples et des phrases reçues. Puis,

elle s’était occupée du choix des auteurs qui avaient écrit le plus

purement notre langue, et dont les passages seraient insérés dans le

Dictionnaire. C’étaient pour la prose”—and he then gives a list of

authors, as above indicated.

[58] A translator—a traitor.

[59] Pallavicini, _History of the Council of Trent_, b. vi. ch. xi. No.

4.

[60] See Renan’s _Vie de Jésus_, Introduction; also, Albert Réville,

_Revue des Deux Mondes_, for May and June, 1866.

[61] Pallavicini, _History of the Council of Trent_, b. vi. ch. xi.

Leplat, _Monum. Conc. Trid._, vol. iii. p. 386 _et seq._

[62] M. de Pressensé means the _deutero-canonical_ books of the Old

Testament. _Deutero-canonical_ and _apocryphal_ are by no means

synonymous. The authenticity of the deutero-canonical books has been

demonstrated sufficiently often within three centuries to prevent

a writer, with any respect for himself, from alluding to them as

apocryphal.

[63] We wish M. de Pressensé would be kind enough to inform us what

Fathers of the IId and IIId centuries have questioned the origin of

the Gospel according to S. Matthew. We are well aware that French

rationalists have borrowed the German idea of a primitive Gospel,

which, perhaps, served as a basis for the other abridgments. The

promoters of this system are Eichorn, Eckermann, Gieseler, Credner,

and Ewald, in Germany; in France, Messrs. Réville and Renan have lent

to it the support of their names. They have endeavored to support it

by one or two words of Papias, which by no means prove so strange an

assertion. Where are the Fathers of the IId and IIId centuries who

had any doubt as to the authenticity of the first Gospel? As to the

Epistle to the Hebrews, we wish M. de Pressensé would read a few pages

on this question by the Rev. Père Franzelin, in his able treatise, _De

Traditione et Scriptura_. He would see how little doubt the Fathers of

the first ages had respecting this epistle. Some, on account of the

absence of S. Paul’s name, and the difference of style, have doubted it

was by the doctor of nations, but all the Fathers, unless we except two

or three of the least known, invariably asserted its canonicity. For it

is one thing to doubt whether S. Paul was the author of this epistle

and another that it is of the number of inspired books.

[64] _Histoire du Concile du Vatican_, p. 283.

[65] Pressensé, _Histoire du Concile du Vatican_, ch. xi.

[66] _Hist. Revelat. Bibl._, Auct. D. Haneberg, p. 774.

[67] Sess. XIV. _De Extr. Unct._, c. i. can. i.

[68] _Défense de la Tradition des SS. Pères.—Instruction sur la Version

de Trévoux._

[69] _Myths and Myth-Makers_: Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted

by Comparative Mythology. By John Fiske, M.A., LL.B., Assistant

Librarian and Late Lecturer on Philosophy at Harvard University.

[70] Page 122.

[71] Tob. ii. 19.

[72] Eccl. xvii. 5.

[73] Ibid. xxvi. 3, 16.

[74] Prov. xix. 15.

[75] Levit. xxv. 39, 40, 53.

[76] Numb. xxx. 10.

[77] Deut. xv. 12-14.

[78] Acts. xvi. 14, 15.

[79] Ibid. xvi. 40.

[80] Rom. xvi. 1, 2.

[81] Judith viii. 7.

[82] Prov. xxxi. 10-31.

[83] “Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim.”—Modern editions of

_Romeo and Juliet_.

[84] White’s _Shakespeare’s Scholar_, 371, 372.

[85] See note 2, as to “Abraham-men,” in _King Lear_, Singer’s Edition,

act ii. sc. iii.

[86] _Satires_, b. iii. sat. 5.

[87] Perusing, while this article is in the press, Thackeray’s

ingenious story of _Catherine_, we observe that he describes one of his

characters (in the year 1705) as wearing “an enormous full-bottomed

periwig that cost him sixty pounds.”

[88] Cook’s _Voyages_, vi. 61.

[89] Browne’s _British Pastorals_, b i. s. v.

[90] _Hamlet_ (song), act iv. sc. v.

[91] Fawkes, _Apollonius Rhodius_. The Argonautics, b. iii.

[92] Sir M. Sandys’ _Essays_ (1634), p 16.

[93] Anthon’s _Classical Dictionary_.

[94] Keightley’s _Mythology_, 112.

[95] _Redgauntlet_, i., pp. 219, 220. Ticknor & Co.’s edition.

[96] _Spectator_, 129.

[97] Notes to _Dunciad_, b. i. p. 260. British Poets, Little & Brown’s

ed.

[98] “The Fair One with the Golden Locks” was a Christmas

piece produced on the stage in London, in 1843. See Planché’s

_Recollections_, etc., ii. 67.

[99] In Thackeray’s _Catherine_, already quoted, a character appears

with “a little shabby beaver cocked over a large _tow-periwig_.” Still

further on he tells us that one of his principal personages “mounted a

large chestnut-colored orange-scented pyramid of horse-hair.” Indeed,

we have reason to believe that the judges and the bar in England still

wear wigs manufactured out of the latter article.

[100] To show, by a further instance, the employment of another article

than hair for the manufacture in question some time ago. Thackeray, in

his _Book of Snobs_, chapter xxxiv., tells us of a London “coachman in

a tight _silk-floss_ wig.”

[101] 2 _Henry VI._, iv. 8.

[102] A sum estimated at about seven million francs of modern money.

[103] Fearless and stainless.

[104] Gilt door.

[105] “A guarded prisoner is not bound by any oath, nor can he be held

to any vow made under compulsion.”

[106] For the preceding articles of this series, the reader is referred

to THE CATHOLIC WORLD for December, 1868, and June, 1870.

[107] See _Myvyrian_, vol. i. p. 150.

[108] _Trioed inis Prydain_, vol. iii. s. 1.

[109] _Myvyrian._

[110] _De Schismate Donatistarum_, lib. iii. c. 2.

[111] _De Civ. Dei_, lib. xviii. c. 23.

[112] “We read everywhere that this world is a sea.”

[113] Gal. iii.; John xv. 16.

[114] Minucius Felix, _Octav._, c. 9.; Justin, _Dialogicum Tryph._, c.

10; Athenagoras, _Legatio_, c. 3. etc.

[115] In ancient usage, the Holy Eucharist was put into the hands of

the Christians.

[116] Maurus Wolter, _The Roman Catacombs, and the Sacraments of the

Catholic Church_, p. 28.

[117] Overbeck, _History of Greek Plastic Art_, ii. 29.

[118] “Nihil præter Catholicam fidem, et quidquid Sancta Romana

Ecclesia approbat, a me unquam prolatum est, cujus castigationi semper

me subjeci, et quoties oportuerit iterum atque iterum me subjicio....

Manifeste apparebit, an ego hæresium, quod absit, an Catholicæ

veritatis sim disseminator.”

“No word of mine can be produced against Catholic faith or against

whatever is approved by the Catholic Church, to whose correction I have

always submitted, and, if need be, again and for ever submit myself....

It will be made manifest whether I have disseminated heresy—far be it

from me—or Catholic truth.”

[119] _La Storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de’ suoi Tempi, Narrata da

Pasquale Villari con l’Aiuto di Nuovi Documenti. Firenze. 1859._

[120] The original is very picturesque: “A ciò ch’el diavolo non mi

salti sopra le spalle.”

[121] He ruled from 1469 to 1492.

[122] “Egli secondò il secolo in tutte le sue tendenze: di corrotto che

era, lo fece corrottissimo.” “He helped forward the period in all its

tendencies,” says Villari. “From corrupt he made it most corrupt.”

[123] M. Perrens and Dean Milman both express some doubt as to this

fact, but we prefer to follow Villari, whose explanation of the matter

is satisfactory.

[124] Here are his own words: “E mi rammento come predicando nel

Duomo l’anno 1491, ed avendo già composto il mio sermone sopra questi

visioni, deliberai di sopprimerle e nell’avvenire astenerme affatto.

Iddio mi è testimonio, che tutto il giorno di sabato e l’intera notte

sino alla nuove luce, io vegliai; ed ogni altra via, ogni dottrina

fuori di quella, mi fu tolta. In sull’alba, essendo per la lunga

vigilia stanco ed abbattuto, udii, mentre io pregava, una voce che mi

disse: Stolto, non vedi che Iddio vuole che tu sequiti la medesima via?

Perchè io feci quel giorno una predica tremenda.”

[125] The original is, “Avendo perduto ogni fiducia degli uomini,”

which the English Protestant translator (London, 1871) renders, “He had

lost all confidence in the priests.”

[126] We have followed Villari in the account of this interview. M.

Perrens questions its authenticity for several very good reasons.

If it was a confession, no one would know anything about it. But it

is claimed by some that it was merely a consultation on a case of

conscience, and that Politian was an _ocular_ though not an _auricular_

witness. If such an interview took place, we should be inclined to

admit Villari’s account of it only on the latter hypothesis.

[127] Master of the Hounds.

[128] Pavilion of Stoves.

[129] Comedian.

[130] Tragedian.

[131] 2 Thess. ii. 4.

[132] Job. x. 22.

[133] No. 360 of the journal _Il Precursore_, of Palermo, dared lately

to apply to the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX. the names sacristan-pontiff,

blockhead, dullard, swindler, huckster, dotard, and other epithets

so coarse that the pen refuses to transcribe them. But the Italian

Exchequer, notwithstanding the law which declares the Pope to be as

inviolable as the king, found nothing to say against this foul sheet.

And the government pretends that the so-called law of guarantees is

scrupulously observed by it. We appeal to the common sense, not of

Christians, but of persons simply not barbarians like the Hottentots.

[134] Apoc. ii. 16.

[135] “Sunt quatuor persecutiones principales: prima tyrannorum,

secunda hæreticorum, tertia falsorum Christianorum, quarta erit ex

omnibus conflata, quæ erit Antichristi et suorum complicium. Et hæ

designatæ sunt in quatuor bestiis quas vidit Daniel.”—_S. Bonav. in

cap._ xvii. _Lucæ._ Again, see _Ugone card. sup. Psal._ liv.

[136] 2 Timothy iii. 1-4.

[137] _Osservatore Romano_, Jan. 8, 1873.

[138] Rev. John Henry Newman.

[139] The opinions of the Abbé Gaume are generally regarded by the most

competent judges of matters pertaining to the higher Catholic education

as exaggerated. We concur in this judgment, which is, moreover, in

accordance with the instructions on this subject emanating from the

Holy See. At the same time, we are strongly convinced that there is a

very considerable amount of truth in the criticisms of the Abbé Gaume

on the actual method of education even in strictly Catholic colleges,

and that it needs to be made more Christian.—Ed. C. W.

[140] It may well be doubted whether this was a real advantage.—Ed. C.

W.

[141] _Hieronymus Savonarola und seine Zeit. Aus den Quellen

dargestellt._ Von A. G. Rudelbach. Hamburg. 1835.

[142] Girolamo Savonarola, aus grösstentheils Handschriftlichen Quelten

dargestellt. Von Fr. Karl Meier. Berlin. 1836.

[143] This passage certainly does not prove Savonarola to have been a

great philosopher.—Ed. C. W.

[144] Translated in England more than two hundred years ago. _The Truth

of the Christian Faith; or, The Triumph of the Cross of Christ._ By

Hier. Savonarola. Done into English out of the Author’s own Italian

copy, etc. Cambridge John Field, Printer to the University. There is

also a modern translation by O’Dell Travers Hill, F.R.G.S., a handsome

edition. Hodder & Stoughton, London. 1868.

[145] “Seeing the whole world in confusion; every virtue and every

noble habit disappeared; no shining light; none ashamed of their vices.”

[146] A precisely similar vision is described by Christopher Columbus

as having appeared to him in America when he was abandoned by all his

companions. The letter in which he speaks of this vision is given by

the rationalist Libri in his _Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques_,

and he justly describes it as one of the most eloquent in Italian

literature.

[147] Cicero says: “Fuit jam a Platone accepta philosophandi ratio

triplex: una de vita et moribus; altera de natura et rebus occultis;

tertia de disserendo, et quid verum, quid falsum, quid rectum in

oratione, pravumque, quid consentiens, quid repugnans, judicando”

(_Acad._ lib. i. 6). This division is still recognizable in our modern

logic, metaphysics, and ethics.

[148] Ex. xviii. 25.

[149] London _Times_, April 19.

[150] London _Spectator_.

[151] _Saturday Review._

[152] London _Spectator_, April 26.

[153] This sentence, we wish to have it distinctly understood, is one

which we approve only in the sense that loyalty to the church takes

precedence of patriotism, but not that it is indifferent whether a man

is a patriot or not, provided he be a good Catholic.—ED. C. W.

[154] “I sleep and my Heart watcheth.”

[155] “I say, my Jesus, thou art _mad_ with love.”—_S. Mary Magdalen of

Pazzi._

[156] See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, December, 1868.

[157] _I.e._, _Ill-gotten gain never profits_. “Pol” is a contemptuous

name in Brittany for Satan, who is said to have horned hoofs shod with

silver, but he has always lost one of his shoes.

[158] The head of Morvan, after the battle, was taken to the monk

Witchar, who held on the Breton frontier an abbey, by permission of the

Frankish king.

[159] Lez-Breiz was slain A.D. 818. In seven years after that

date, Guionfarc’h, another of his family, arose, as a second Lez-Breiz,

to resist the encroachments of France, and maintain the independence of

Brittany.

[160] Ermold Nigel.

[161] This mystical plant was only to be plucked by the hand: if cut

with any blade of steel, misfortune of some kind was always supposed to

follow.

[162] Ablutions were anciently made before a repast at the sound of a

horn; thus “korna ann dour”—to horn the water.

[163] The balls (six) in the arms of the Medici.

[164] _Discorso circa il Reggimento i Governo degli Stati e

Specialmente sopra il Governo di Firenze._

[165] O’Dell Travers Hill, F.R.G.S., author of a biographical sketch

of Savonarola, and translator of _The Triumph of the Cross_. London:

Hodder and Stoughton. 1858.

[166] The most conclusive proof of the orthodoxy of Savonarola’s

doctrine is found in the fact that his works, after a rigorous official

scrutiny at Rome, were pronounced free from any error of faith or

morals deserving censure.—ED. C. W.

[167] Song of Solomon, i. 6.

[168] This pillar was destined by the first Napoleon for the decoration

of the triumphal arch at Milan, the intended monument of his Italian

victories. His fall frustrated the design. Many years later,

Wordsworth, while descending into Italy by the Simplon Pass, came upon

the unfinished mass as it lay half raised from the Alpine quarry, and

addressed to it his sublime sonnet beginning:

“Ambition, following down the far-famed slope,”

and proceeding:

“Rest where thy course was stayed by power Divine.”

[169] _Ann._ l. iv. ch. xlvi.

[170] This article and the one in our May number are from the pens of

two distinct writers.

[171] _The Expressions_, etc., p. 12.

[172] _Expressions_, etc., p. 30.

[173] Gen. i. 24.

[174] Gen. i. 26.

[175] Gen. ii. 7.

[176] _Tongiorgi_, pars. ii. l. ii. c. iii. p. 292.

[177] Balmes, _Fund. Phil._, v. ii. c. ii.

[178] Ibid., v. ii. c. ii. p. 9.

[179] Ibid., v. ii. c. iii.

[180] _Tong._, l. iii. c. i.

[181] S. Augustine, _De Civ. Dei_, xix. 13.

[182] Cic.,_ De Offic._, i. 40.

[183] _Histoire du Canada_. Par M. F. X. Garneau, ii. 23.

[184] Chimney-swallow.

[185] Fact.

[186] A fact. She was never heard of afterwards.

[187] Horrible as this scene is, it is nevertheless perfectly true,

even in minutest detail.

[188] Persons familiar with the Indian character well know their

thieving propensities.

[189] These reptiles were still so numerous in this part of the country

not many years ago that it was extremely dangerous to leave the windows

open in the evening. My mother related that, while she was living at

Sandwich with her father, one of the domestics was imprudent enough

to leave a window open. During the evening, they had occasion to

move a sideboard which stood against the wall, and a large snake was

discovered behind it fast asleep. Another day, when playing truant, a

snake sprang upon her, and tried to bite her waist; but happily her

clothes were so thick that its fangs could not penetrate them. While

she ran in great terror, her companions called to her to untie her

skirt. And that advice saved her life.—AUTHOR.

[190] “Weep not for me.”

[191] “For the law of his God strove even unto death, and took no fear

from the words of the impious; for he was founded upon a firm rock.”

[192] “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world.”

[193] “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity.”

[194] To save disappointment to those who may desire to possess a copy

of the _Memoirs of Bp. Bruté_, we deem it proper to state that the work

is out of print, but that the author has intimated his intention to

publish a revised edition at some future day—of which the public will

doubtless be duly informed.—ED. C. W.

[195] A nickname for Spaniards.

[196] Do your duty, come what will!

[197] “Nature, when driven off, returns at a gallop.”

[198] These lectures are delivered in the chapel of Jésus-Ouvrier,

on Mont Sainte-Geneviève, every Monday and Thursday. They were

commenced by the Catholic Circle of Workingmen, and have been eminently

successful.

[199] Mgr. Mermillod, _La Question Ouvrière_, p. 25.

[200] Mgr. Mermillod.

[201] M. Ch. de Beaurepaire, _Histoire de l’Instruction publique en

Normandie_.

[202] Ch. de Beaurepaire, l. i.

[203] A fact.

[204] The reader will find this subject amplified, under some of

its aspects, in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for Aug., 1872, article

“Symbolism of the Church.”

[205] We should surmise the circular shape to be no less symbolical

than the other facts, and to denote the eternity of the church.

[206] F. Mullooly, _S. Clement, Pope and Martyr, and his Basilica at

Rome_.

[207] _Cæs. Comm._

[208] _Josephus._

[209] “This image of the Druids is of a Moorish color, as are nearly

all the others in the church of Chartres. We suppose this to have been

done by the Druids and others who followed them, on the presumptive

complexion of the oriental people, who are exposed more than we to

the heat of the sun; for which reason the Spouse in the Canticle of

Canticles says that the sun has discolored her, and that, although she

is dark, she does not cease to be beautiful. Nevertheless, Nicephorus,

who had seen several pictures of the Virgin taken by S. Luke from life,

says that the color of her countenance was _σιτοχρόε_, or the color of

wheat. This seems to mean the brown or chestnut color of wheat when

ripe.”

[210] “The Virgin was of middle height.... Her hair bordered on gold,

her eyes were bright and sparkling, with the pupils of an olive color;

her eyebrows arched, and of a black tinge, very pleasing. Her nose

was long, her lips bright red, her face neither round nor sharp, but

somewhat long; her hands and fingers equally so. She was in all things

modest and grave, speaking but seldom and to the purpose; ready to

listen to every one, affable to all, honoring each according to their

quality. She used a becoming freedom of speech, without laughter and

without perturbation, without being moved to anger. She was exempt from

all pride, without lowering her dignity, and without fastidiousness,

and showing in all her actions great humility.”

[211] “The church of Chartres is the most ancient in our kingdom,

having been founded by prophecy in honor of the glorious Virgin Mother

before the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in which the same

glorious Virgin was worshipped during her lifetime.”

[212] _All’s Well that Ends Well_, act ii. sc. iii.

[213] The mention of the name of Montalembert by the writer of the

present article gives us the occasion to make an explanation which we

think it proper to make, on account of some criticisms that have been

called forth by the manner in which we have spoken of him in former

articles. The eulogium which we give or permit others to give this

illustrious man in our pages by no means implies any approbation of

any opinions or acts of his in sympathy with the party known by the

sobriquet of “Liberal Catholics.” These were deflections from a course

which was in the main orthodox and loyal, and it is not for these

deflections that we honor his memory, but for his virtues, merits,

and services, and the cordial submission to the authority of the

Holy See at the close of life, by which he effaced the memory of his

faults.—ED. C. W.

[214] These facts are chiefly gathered from an article on Hawthorne by

Mr. Stoddard; but this anecdote is from a weekly publication, to which

we are also indebted for the incident in the life of Edgar A. Poe.