BRYANT’S TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD.[86]

The appearance at this time and in this country of a first-rate

translation of the _Iliad_ is an event of much significance.

Through the exaggerated praise which London critics bestow on our

dialect poetry, there runs a quiet assumption that our culture is

narrow and unsound. Our oaten pipe is well enough, but our lyre

disjointed and unstrung. To such insinuations Mr. Bryant’s work

is a complete and final rejoinder. We shall find it easy to show

that he has made the best translation of Homer in our language,

and with one exception the very best extant. In the face of such

an achievement, it will henceforth be preposterous to sneer at

American scholarship.

Winged words the Homeric poems may well be called, which, fledged

in the dawn of time, have not yet faltered in their flight across

the centuries. Their superiority as works of art is not more

unquestionable than is their procreative power. They have ever

been--to use Milton’s words--as lively and as vigorously productive

as those fabulous dragon’s teeth. The history of Greek letters, we

might almost say, is the genesis of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_.

Upon them Aristotle based his canons; from them the Attic tragedy

drew her inspiration and her argument. To the same source the most

delightful of Greek historians referred his style and his method,

while the choir of lyric and erotic poets confessed their debt to

him who “gave them birth, but higher sang.” The direct action of

the Homeric poems upon the masters of the Latin literature has been

compared to that of the sunlight, but their indirect influence

through the medium of Athenian models was pervasive and quickening

as the solar heat. The development of poetry among Western nations

can be accurately measured by the thoroughness with which they have

assimilated Homer. The _Orlando_ and the _Lusiad_ repeat the story

of Ulysses. Even minor excellences of the _Iliad_ are reproduced in

the _Jerusalem Delivered_. Milton and Goethe have drawn copiously

from the same stores. Nor is there a single modern poet of the

first rank, with the exception of Shakespeare, whose obligations to

Homer are not manifold and obvious.

It is true that the eighteenth century, which sought to shatter

so many idols, chose to depreciate these poems. Embellished by

Pope, dissected by Fontanelle, and patronized by Mme. Dacier, they

fell, it must be confessed, upon evil times. It is a suggestive

commentary upon the self-styled _siècle du goût_ that the autocrat

of letters could pronounce the _Iliad_ “une poème qu’on admire,

et qu’on ne lit pas.”[87] To the author of the _Henriade_, Homer

was only a _beau parleur_. It is now many years since the stigma

went home to roost. Perrault and La Motte Houdart, who knew him

only in the rags and gyves of an obscure translation, point with a

satisfied smirk to the “coarseness” and “barbarism” of Homer. One

is reminded of those Philistine lords who flung their jests at

Samson Agonistes while he leaned against the pillars in Gaza.

Of living English poets, the strongest and sweetest acknowledge

gratefully in Homer a source of their melody and strength. The

fragment of an epic which is perhaps the Laureate’s best work was

presented by the author as “faint Homeric echoes.” From Homer,

quite as truly as from Chaucer, has the _Earthly Paradise_ caught

its genial sunshine and bracing air. The world, we presume, would

have lost nothing had Mr. Swinburne read Euripides less and the

_Iliad_ more. A timely reaction has set in against the morbid

self-consciousness and the hankering after glitter and novelty

which are sure precursors of decay. Of that reaction, Matthew

Arnold, who in childhood was taught to reverence Homer, has been

the prophet and protagonist. With the same movement the temper and

discipline of Mr. Bryant’s mind place him in active sympathy. We do

not doubt that it was the aim of his _Iliad_ to elevate and purify

the taste of his countrymen. The success which his translation has

already achieved augurs for it not a little influence upon the

national literature.

To the thoughtful artist, Schlegel could suggest nothing more

useful than the study of casts from the antique. A faithful

version of the _Iliad_ opens whole galleries of casts. The

sculptor Bouchardon, we are told, was discovered reading Homer in

a translation, and that a sorry one. “Ah, monsieur!” he exclaimed,

“depuis que j’ai lu ce livre, il me semble que les hommes ont

quinze pieds de haut.”[88] We know what Keats beheld upon looking

into Chapman’s _Homer_, and we know that the quarry from which he

hewed _Hyperion_ is not yet exhausted. Of the thousands who will

now listen for the first time to the story of Achilles, it may well

be that some will kindle at what they hear. They will know how to

thank Mr. Bryant that those flames which blazed over Troy, leaping

from headland to headland, have once more borne a message across

the sea.

Since the beginning of the seventeenth century, repeated attempts

have been made to translate the master-poems of the Greek and Latin

literatures into English verse. We suppose it will be acknowledged

that those attempts have for the most part failed. The truth is

that translation as commonly practised in England cannot properly

be called an art. There are no fundamental principles universally

recognized as the conditions of its development. It is still hardly

more than a trick, in which one succeeds better than another, but

each proceeds upon a method of his own. Who has prefaced his work

with such a definition of translation as criticism can admit to be

exhaustive and final? We might have expected so much from Hobbes.

We do not find it. Dryden’s cardinal idea, that translation is “a

kind of drawing after the life,” has never been literally accepted

by others. It did not uniformly govern himself. The face seen and

the face drawn both appeal to the brain through the eye, whereas

even those English translators who aim to infuse the identical

thought, feeling, or fancy of their original have recourse to

media of sensual metaphor, sometimes modified, sometimes distinct

from those employed in their author’s language. On Sir George

Cornewall Lewis’ view of translation we will not dwell, because we

are not sure that we understand it, and at least cannot conceive

the practical application of it. It is enough for us that he

heartily commended as an instance of right treatment Hookham

Frere’s _Aristophanes_, which is clever, fresh, and racy enough,

but certainly not Attic. There is another theory, that we should

ask ourselves what our author _would_ have said had he been writing

in English. One objection to this is, as Mr. Newman remarks, that

no two men would agree in their answers to such a question. Homer,

if an Englishman and writing in our tongue, would unquestionably

have given a different turn and tinge to his verse from that which

it takes in Greek. But are we not bound to make the province of

translation, as discriminated from paraphrase, the reproduction

of what an author did actually say? Certainly the aim of Homeric

translators into our tongue should be, not of course to compass

the effect produced upon an Athenian reading Homer in the age

of Peisistratos or upon a consummate scholar capable, we will

say, of _thinking_ in Ionic Greek, but to make upon Englishmen

or Americans of average culture an impression nearly identical

with that which they derive from the _Iliad_ itself. Achieve

this, and they who are themselves not scholars will at least be

assured that they are reading Homer, not Sotheby or Pope. Such an

aim does not seem too ambitious, but it has never been attained,

rarely approached, in English. A radical error runs through all

our metrical versions of the classic poets. Literal accuracy is by

some repudiated, attempted by others, and occasionally secured in

detached passages, but is always subordinate to the attainment of

harmonious numbers and agreeable diction. Whenever literal accuracy

seems likely to conflict with these, it is sacrificed. Now, if

it be true that such sacrifice is frequently inevitable, then a

genuine translation of the _Iliad_ is an impossibility. But this we

are reluctant to admit. The matchless version of Voss has proved

that it is possible to be at once literal and musical, to preserve

in one Germanic language at least as much of the Homeric flavor

as Germans of average culture can detect in the original. Perhaps

one clue to his success is to be found in his employment of the

hexameter. A profound artist, he could not fail to recognize the

inextricable connection of rhythm and cæsura with the shape and

play of thought. He saw that in some subtle sort the metre _is_

the poem. We have not abandoned the hope of seeing the hexameter

one day naturalized in English. Mr. Kingsley’s _Andromeda_ showed

a marked improvement on _Evangeline_, and what the Laureate might

do in this way is sufficiently clear from his _Ode to Milton_,

where he has grappled successfully with alcaics, undoubtedly the

most intricate and difficult of dactylic measures. The distinction

between quantitative and accentual metres has been pressed too far

by men who have wanted patience to cope with those peculiarities

which render our language somewhat intractable to dactylic verse.

Almost every familiar scheme of English metre has been applied to

the reproduction of Homer. We have had Chapman’s fourteen-syllable

line, the rhymed couplet of Pope and Sotheby, the unrhymed iambics

of Cowper, Mr. Worsley’s Spenserian stanza, the ballad movement in

seven beats of Mr. Newman, and many more. One or two of these are

noble English poems, but as translations none can be compared with

the work of Voss. We should have said, before the appearance of Mr.

Bryant’s volumes, that a new version of the _Iliad_ executed upon

one of the old plans and in one of the old metres was not called

for. The attempt of Lord Derby to vie with Cowper in blank-verse

had proved singularly unfortunate. Failing to accredit the scholar,

its publication belittled the statesman. It is not with such a

performance that the conservative party can match Mr. Gladstone’s

_Homeric Age_. We should not highly commend Mr. Bryant were we to

say that he is every-way more successful than Lord Derby. He has,

in our judgment, surpassed Cowper, and that was no easy task. The

associations, indeed, connected with what is known as blank-verse,

render it to an English ear somewhat unsuitable to a poem like

the _Iliad_, which presents an infinite variety of incidents and

situations quite as often trivial as dignified. Still, Cowper,

although his muse, stooping to certain homely details, discovers a

sort of prudishness which is highly amusing, is generally vigorous

and noble where energy and majesty are required, and had hitherto

been the least unsatisfactory of Homer’s English translators. In

examining Mr. Bryant’s work we shall mainly confine ourselves--so

far as English writers are concerned--to a collation of Cowper and

Lord Derby. We have neither space nor inclination to quote from

the rhymed versions. Faithfully to reproduce Homer in rhyme was

declared by Pope to be impossible, and Mr. Worsley’s _Odyssey_,

delightful as it is, has not availed to set aside the judgment.

It would be easy to misinterpret the views which have governed Mr.

Bryant’s work by his application of Latin names to the Homeric

deities, and the reason which he assigns in the preface for this

practice. It is true that he is countenanced by Lord Derby, but

we think we had a right to expect more from his scholarship. We

cannot but deem them both in the wrong, and to our mind the error

is serious and far-reaching. The denizens of Homer’s Olympus are in

the strictest sense personal gods. Such superhuman attributes as

they severally possess are sharply defined, the degree and scope of

their authority, except, perhaps, in two instances, clearly marked.

They live the life of men, eat, drink, love, quarrel. They exhibit

the most passionate interest in the war which rages before Ilium.

They are bitter and unscrupulous partisans, wheedle, lie, bargain,

rebel, in the cause of their _protégées_. They forsake their

dwellings to take part in the debates of mortals, mix in the fight,

are pierced with spears, and the celestial ichor flows precisely

like human blood. In short, they resemble rather the demigods of a

later mythology, and are rarely invested with that awful sublimity

and mystery which enshroud most of the elder Roman divinities.

Even in the _Theogony_ of Hesiod, the attributes of certain gods

have undergone a degree of alteration which it is tax enough to

bear in mind. To insist upon confounding Ares, Aphroditê, and

Athenê with Mars, Venus, and Minerva, deities which, as enshrined

in the literature purely and distinctively Latin, are as native

and peculiar to Rome as her language, is to mystify the reader

who knows anything of either. It appears to us as unreasonable to

rename the gods as to miscall the heroes of the _Iliad_. Surely it

is no apology for the confusion of things essentially distinct that

the practice has been in some sort naturalized in our literature.

So are the legendary chronicles of the kings of Rome, so are the

distorted portraits of Shakespeare’s histories. A manifest error

cannot plead undisturbed possession. Moreover, it is now many years

since English scholars have labored to educate their countrymen

up to something like discrimination between the Greek and Latin

mythologies. Their task is well-nigh done. Lemprière’s Dictionary

is at length obsolete, and the volumes of Grote are in the hands

of every schoolboy. If the prevailing excellence of Mr. Bryant’s

work had not disarmed us, we should be disposed to protest against

the repetition of an error, as well as against the presumption of

national ignorance, by which it is excused. It is certainly matter

of regret that such an objection should lie on the threshold of a

work in most respects so sound and scholarlike.

The new version begins well:

“O Goddess! sing the wrath of Peleus’ son

Achilles; sing the deadly wrath that brought

Woes numberless upon the Greeks and swept

To Hades many a valiant soul, and gave

Their limbs a prey to dogs and birds of air.

For so had Jove appointed, from the time

When the two chiefs--Atrides, King of men,

And great Achilles--parted first as foes.”

Seven hexameters in eight lines of blank-verse--certainly a

remarkable instance of compression. Except ἡρωων, πασι (almost

an expletive), and προ in προιαψεν (which, perhaps, is faintly

suggested by “swept”), not a word of Homer is omitted, not a word

is added. “Birds of air” is an accurate translation of οἰωνοισι.

“Parted first as foes” is exceedingly close. There is but one

error, διος is rendered “great.” To this word no moral attribute

whatever is attached in the Homeric poems. It is equivalent to

“high-born” or “noble” (as Cowper gives it) in the primitive

sense of that word. Lord Derby makes it “godlike,” which is quite

incorrect. If there be a fault in the lines just quoted, it is a

certain coldness. They hardly lift us to the height of the great

argument. But for conscientious fidelity to the original, these

lines have not been approached in English, and are in this respect

fully equal to Voss. Hear, for instance, Cowper, who requires an

extra line:

“Achilles sing, O Goddess, Peleus’ son,

His wrath pernicious, who ten thousand woes

Caused to Achaia’s _host_, sent many a soul

Illustrious into Ades premature,

And heroes gave (so stood the will of Jove)

To dogs and to all ravening birds a prey.

When fierce dispute had separated once

The noble chief Achilles from the son

Of Atreus, Agamemnon, King of men.”

This is pitched in the right key, although the finest line, the

fourth, is perhaps too suggestively Miltonic. In his scholarship

Cowper is loose. “Who” is grammatically wrong and æsthetically a

blunder. It is not Achilles, but Achilles’ wrath that Homer means

to sing. “Host,” “ravening,” “fierce,” “chief,” “Agamemnon,” are

merely supernumeraries. “Illustrious” was inserted, we presume,

for rhythmical reasons; it does not translate ἰφθιμους. “Stood”

for ἐτελειετο is fine; Mr. Bryant fails to convey the notion of

fulfilment, of inevitable accomplishment, which the word seems

to carry. The antithesis between ψυχὰς and αὐτους, significant

as regards the Homeric theory of a future life, is quite lost in

Cowper, while it is cleverly projected in Mr. Bryant’s lines.

“Premature” preserves the force of the preposition in προ-ιαψεν,

which ought not to be overlooked.

It may be well now to quote Lord Derby. He needs _ten_ lines:

“Of Peleus’ son, Achilles, sing, O Muse.

The vengeance deep and deadly whence to Greece

Unnumbered ills arose, which many a soul

Of mighty warriors to the viewless Shades

Untimely sent, they on the battle plain

Unburied lay, a prey to ravening dogs

And carrion birds, but so had Jove decreed.

From that sad day when first in wordy war

The mighty Agamemnon, King of men,

Confronted stood by Peleus’ godlike son.”

This is hardly worth criticising in detail. First, why “Muse”?

“Vengeance” is bad for μηνις. “Deadly” translates οὐλομένην well

enough, but “deep and deadly” suggests the harrowing phraseology of

the _Ledger_ romance. “Viewless Shades” is possibly poetical, but

Homer chooses to be geographical--he says Ἀις. “They on the battle

plain unburied”; we cannot find this in the Greek, but it accounts

for one extra line. “Ravening” and “carrion” raise Cowper’s

expletive to the second power. “Sad day”! And so it was, but to

call it so is almost maudlin. Ἐριζω does indeed mean to wrangle,

but “wordy war” is petty and poetastic. “The mighty Agamemnon”!

Homer is satisfied with _Atrides_. And now we will see if it be

possible to give this magnificent prologue measure for measure,

line for line, almost word for word. Hear Voss:

“Singe den Zorn, O Göttin, des Peleiaden Achilleus,

Ihn der entbrannt den Achaiern unendbaren Jammer erregte,

Und viel tapfere Seelen der Heldensöhne zum Ais

Sendete, aber sie selber zum Raub’ ausstreckte den Hunden

Und den Gevögel umher--so ward Zeus’ Wille vollendet,

Seit dem Tage als einst durch bitteren Zank sich entzweiten

Atreus’ Sohn der Herrscher des Volks und der edle Achilleus!”

The figurative _entbrannt_ for οὐλομένην is not to our taste.

_Bitteren_ is superfluous, and _sendete_ imperfectly translates

προιαψεν. Otherwise these lines are flawless.

We pass to the sixth book, to a passage which Pope and Chapman

have done well, Sotheby on the whole better, where even Hobbes

grows tender, where every translator has sought to do his best.

The parting of Hector and Andromache is a scene (if we except the

_Alcestis_) unique in classic literature. When we consider the

state of society depicted in the Homeric poems, the figure of

Andromache seems anomalous and inexplicable; or rather she almost

constrains us to recast our notions of the social framework in

which we find her set. In her the sexual passion is refined and

sublimated to that noblest form of conjugal love which is thought

to be peculiar to the civilized and christianized descendants from

the chaste German stock. Through the historical ages of Greece, in

the Roman Republic and Empire, we seek in vain a pendant to this

portrait. The ideal would seem to have been lost. The painter who

drew Alexander’s favorite could not have limned Andromache; he who

sang _Ariadne in Naxos_ would have failed to understand her. To

recover the type, we must descend to a much later age--to Raphael

and to Wordsworth. The sweetest words in our language--sweetheart,

helpmate, wife--describe Andromache. She is not the wanton idol of

a despot’s caprice, nor the dull victim of a convenient Athenian

marriage, nor the selfish _protégée_ of the cynical Roman law. She

might have been bred in a Christian world and blessed an English

home. We quote twenty lines from Mr. Bryant:

“She came attended by a maid who bore

A tender child--a babe too young to speak--

Upon her bosom, Hector’s only son,

Beautiful as a star....

* * * * *

The father on his child

Looked with a silent smile. Andromache

Pressed to his side meanwhile, and all in tears

Clung to his hand, and thus beginning said:

‘Too brave! thy valor yet will cause thy death!

Thou hast no pity on thy tender child,

Nor me, unhappy one, who soon must be

Thy widow. All the Greeks will rush on thee

To take thy life. A happier lot were mine,

If I must lose thee, to go down to earth,

For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,

Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none,

And no dear mother....

Seven brothers had I in my father’s house,

And all went down to Hades in one day.

* * * * *

Hector, thou

Art father and dear mother now to me,

And brother and my youthful spouse besides.’”

No man, we imagine, who examines the above lines will question the

general accuracy of Mr. Bryant’s scholarship. They are at once the

most succinct, literal, and beautiful reproduction of Homer’s words

which has been achieved in English. As Americans, we are proud of

them. Cowper, indeed, had finely rendered this passage, and it is

possible that some persons unfamiliar with the Greek and habituated

to the movement of the _Paradise Lost_ may prefer his inverted

construction and sonorous phrase. We will not quote him, however,

but rather choose to pay Mr. Bryant the highest homage in our power

by placing beside his lines the version of Voss:

“Die Dienerin aber ihr folgend

Trug an der Brust das zarte, noch ganz unmündige Knäblein.

* * * * *

Hektor’s einzigen Sohn, dem schimmernden Sterne vergleichbar.

Siehe, mit Lächeln blickte der Vater still auf das Knäblein,

Aber neben ihn trat Andromache Thränen vergiessend,

Drückt ihm freundlich die Hand, und redete also, beginnend,

Seltsamer Mann, dich tödtet dein Muth noch und du erbarmst dich

Nicht des stammelnden Kindes, noch mein des elenden Weibes,

Ach, bald Witwe von dir, denn dich tödten gewiss die Achaier

Alle mit Macht austürmend; allein mir ware das Beste

Deiner beraubt in die Erde hinabzusinken; denn weiter

Bleibt kein Trost mir übrig, wenn du dein Schicksal erreicht hast,

Grau nur und nicht mehr hab’ ich ja Vater und liebende Mutter.

* * * * *

Sieben auch waren die Brüder mir dort in unserer Wohnung,

Und die wandelten all ‘am selbigen Tage zum Ais.’”

We doubt if these lines can be surpassed except by the Greek

itself. They echo the melody of Homer. Mr. Bryant, of course,

relinquished the hope of competing with him in this respect when

he adopted iambic verse. In point of compression, however, and

literal accuracy, we shall find him not inferior. There are in

both versions some imperfections. “Tender” (_zarte_) may perhaps

stand for ἀταλαφρων although it represents but partially that

exquisite epithet. Cowper omits this word altogether, and Lord

Derby substitutes something of his own, “all unconscious.” To our

mind Mr. Bryant’s “too young to speak” is most felicitous for

νηπιον αὐτως. The word, however, in many passages of the _Iliad_

shows no trace of relation to επος, and means simply “under age,”

as Voss gives it. The force of the adverb is nicely preserved in

the German. Both versions make ἁγαπητον “only” (_einzigen_). The

line of the _Odyssey_ (b. ii. 365) seems to us conclusive against

the propriety of this translation. We prefer Cowper’s “darling.”

And now we come to the famous simile, ἀλιγκιον ἀστερι καλῷ. Mr.

Bryant, following Cowper, writes “beautiful as a star.” But Homer

is far more picturesque than this. He shows us the bright cheeks

and glancing eyes of Hector’s boy gleaming from his nurse’s bosom,

as a star gleams. “A fair star”--Lord Derby would make it a planet,

“morning star” he calls it. But stars that twinkle and glimmer

are most alluring to the eye, are the fairest, and therefore Voss

is right--_schimmernden Sterne vergleichbar_. Mr. Bryant is not

successful in the next line. We cannot like “silent smile.” Can a

smile be other than silent? Neither can Voss match Cowper’s

“The father silent eyed his babe, and smiled.”

“Pressed to his side” is vivid, where Cowper and Voss are tame;

“clung to his hand”--the Greek is yet stronger, “grew on his hand.”

Voss was certainly drowsy when he could render this “pressed kindly

his hand.” Andromache’s touching first word is quite lost in the

“Dear lord” of Lord Derby. Cowper’s “My noble Hector” is even

worse. The truth is that Δαιμονιε is uttered by the young wife

in tender reproach, and this is conveyed in good measure by “too

brave,” but _seltsamer Mann_ is perfect. “Tender child”--Cowper

and Lord Derby write “helpless.” Voss’ _stammelnden_ is based, we

presume, on _Il._ 2, 238, where some command of speech more or less

articulate seems to be conceded to νηπιαχοις. The next four lines

of the new version are close and felicitous, but θαλπωρη is not so

much “hope” as “comfort”; and “when thou art gone” hardly expresses

the thought in ἐπει ἄν συ γε ποτμον ἐπισπῃς, whereas the German

delivers it faithfully. We have reached finally a wonderful couplet

which fairly throbs with passionate devotion. Here is the Greek:

“‘Ἑκτωρ, ἀταρ συ μοι ἐσσι πατηρ και ποτνια μητηρ,

Ἠδε κασιγνητος, συ δε μοι θαλερος παρακοιτης.’”

Which we may venture to render thus:

“‘Hector, united in thee still, find I my worshipful mother,

Father and brother in thee, O blooming Hector, my husband!’”

Voss is exceedingly sweet:

“‘Hector, O du bist jetzo mir Vater und liebende Mutter,

Auch mein Bruder allein, O du mein blühender Gatte!’”

Derby:

“‘But, Hector, thou to me art all in one,

Sire, mother, brother, thou my wedded love.’”

Cowper:

“‘Yet, Hector, O my husband, I in thee

Find parents, brothers, all that I have lost.’”

Bryant:

“‘Hector, thou

Art father and dear mother now to me

And brother and my youthful spouse besides.’”

Lord Derby’s version is curiously bad. Strange that one striving

to utter to modern ears words which in the _Iliad_ seem to break

from the heart should go out of his way for “sire” and “brethren”!

And for “wedded love,” it is not only incorrect, but mawkish, and

therefore in this place detestable. Cowper likewise is weak and

false. “Parents” is intolerable; ποτνια and θαλερος are overlooked.

And in exchange for those adjectives we have “all that I have lost”

(pure Cowper). Mr. Bryant does very much better, but he is again

somewhat cold; and coldness here is hardly pardonable. He was

determined to give the last line literally; but to put παρακοιτης

in the vocative, as Voss has done, makes the verse literal enough

and more glowing. Both Voss and Mr. Bryant are wrong in ποτνια. The

active participle (_liebende_) is out of the question, and even

“dear” conveys an erroneous impression of the relations subsisting

between mother and daughter in the Homeric age. Ποτνια predicates

a sentiment of respect and reverence, and is often associated

with the names of deities. For an exact analogue we must go back

to English domestic life in the last century. We shall find it in

what was then a household word--“honored mother.” We must do Lord

Derby the justice to say that he had hit upon the translation in

line 413. It is a pity that he did not repeat it here. Θαλερος has

proved a stumbling-block to most translators. It is a beautiful

word: and placed with exquisite propriety in the mouth of a young

wife who gazes on the bravest face and noblest form in Ilium. Mr.

Bryant’s “youthful” is not absolutely wrong, but it is rather

the impression which youth and health make upon the eye, their

visible glory, their “purple light,” which Homer makes in θαλερος.

_Blühende_ gives it exactly. We wish that with these perfect words

Andromache might have vanished from literature. The later myths

dishonor her. It seems a crime against nature to recount of this

woman that

“Victoris heri tetigit captiva cubile,”

and that Hector’s widow bore children to the son of Achilles.

Surely instinct would have taught her the tenet of a later

philosophy: “We are in the power of no calamity while death is in

our own.” Not in Euripides and Virgil, but rather in Racine, would

we follow the fortunes of that Andromache whom we knew by the Scæan

gate.

Let us glance next at the concluding lines of the eighth book. They

have been translated by Tennyson, and it may be interesting to

contrast his version. Mr. Bryant writes:

“So high in hope they sat the whole night through

In warlike lines, and many watch-fires blazed

As when in heaven the stars look brightly forth

Round the clear-shining moon while not a breeze

Stirs in the depths of air, and all the stars

Are seen and gladness fills the shepherd’s heart,

So many fires in sight of Ilium blazed

Lit by the sons of Troy between the ships

And eddying Xanthus: on the plain there shone

A thousand; fifty warriors by each fire

Sat in its light. Their steeds beside the cars--

Champing their oats and their white barley--stood,

And waited for the golden morn to rise.”

Tennyson renders the same passage thus:

“And these all night upon the ridge of war

Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed;

As when in heaven the stars about the moon

Look beautiful when all the winds are laid

* * * * *

... and all the stars

Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart.

So many a fire between the ships and stream

Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,

A thousand on the plain, and close by each

Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire.

And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds

Stood by the cars waiting the thronèd morn.”

Some may prefer the general effect of the Laureate’s lines, but

our American version adheres quite as closely to the text. We

are surprised, however, to find “warlike lines.” Mr. Tennyson’s

alternative translation, “ridge of war” is an exact reproduction of

the Greek, ἀνα πτολεμοιο γεφυρας. “Bridge,” which he first wrote,

is post-Homeric. Lord Derby’s phrase is close enough, but wanting

in pictorial power:

“Full of proud hopes, upon the pass of war

All night they camped, and frequent blazed their fires.”

If one care to see what sad work may sometimes proceed from a

true poet, here is Cowper’s version of these lines--ten words are

required to misconstrue three:

“Big with great purposes and proud they sat,

Not disarrayed but in fair form displayed

Of even ranks, and watched their numerous fires.”

The familiar simile of the moon and stars in the above passage is

sharply and faithfully reproduced by Mr. Bryant, whereas Tennyson’s

“look beautiful” for φαινετ' ἀριπρεπεα is both loose and weak.

“All the winds are laid”; Cowper says “hushed.” Either is closer

than Mr. Bryant’s phrase. Lord Derby’s translation of παντα δε τ'

ειδεται ἀστρα is ambitious and clumsy--“Shines each particular

star distinct.” The last six hexameters are given in seven lines

of our version. Tennyson has compressed them into six, but with

the sacrifice of Τρωων καιοντων, which the other neatly expressed

by “Lit by the sons of Troy.” We could have dispensed with the

Laureate’s “towers,” but are delighted to find ἐυθρονον preserved

in “throned.”

To some readers our criticism may have seemed to dwell too nicely

on details; but, if they will reflect a moment, they will perceive

that this is itself a guarantee of sincerity. We propose to give

grounds for our opinions, that others may accept them knowingly, or

refute them, if they can. To flood with general praise or spatter

with vague abuse belongs to the Cheapjacks of literature. Moreover,

no American needs to be told that Mr. Bryant is a poet. Men do

not ask whether his _Iliad_ is a delightful poem, but whether it

truthfully photographs Homer. That question, if we may judge from

his performances, the average magazine critic has preferred to

evade.

From the extracts already presented, it is manifest that our

American translator has followed the text of his author with

a scrupulous exactitude which required unusual self-command

from a poet of original powers; yet he is often so truly and

nobly poetical that many will overlook the superiority of his

scholarship. Most countries of Western Europe have produced

several translators of the _Iliad_. But in each language one has

eventually obscured the rest, and thenceforward kept unchallenged

a niche in the national literature. Some such pre-eminence among

English versions belongs, in our judgment, to Mr. Bryant’s work.

For conscientious adherence to the text, his version has no rival

in our tongue, and ought, in justice, to be compared with Voss. In

point of scholarship, Cowper had shown himself much stronger than

Pope, but his translation beside Mr. Bryant’s _Iliad_ seems to us a

paraphrase. Both are masters of blank-verse, but Cowper is a pupil

of Milton, while Mr. Bryant’s diction and rhythm are his own.

The iambic pentameter is, in his hands, surprisingly plastic. We

should not have supposed it capable of such happy adjustment to the

shifting mood and varying pitch of the original; yet we cannot help

a regret that this version was not executed in hexameters. We are

quite sure that the achievement was possible to the author of this

translation.

In such extracts as we have yet to make from Mr. Bryant’s work, we

propose to compare him, not with his English rivals whom we hold

him to have excelled, but with some of those translators who are

most highly esteemed in other countries.

Few lines of the _Iliad_ have been more frequently imitated than

those which paint with the tints of Albano the girdle of Aphroditê.

The incident which calls forth the description is well known.

Determined to lull the vigilance of Zeus and rescue her darling

Greeks, Herê flies to her toilet. The most truthful of poets puts

no faith in beauty unadorned, and himself performs the part of

tire-woman. It occurs, however, to Herê that her lord is already

familiar with the resources of her wardrobe, and the fear of a cold

or careless eye leads her to borrow of Aphroditê. She receives

a talisman, but precisely what this was is--to men, at least--a

riddle. It was an embroidered strap, so much is certain; but how

used, and where? Belt or waist-girdle it was not, for that Herê had

on. It was plainly a slender and dainty thing, or how could she

hide it in her bosom? For our part, we believe it to have been a

breast-band (_Brustgürtel_) worn just under the breast, although a

French commentator with much heat pronounces this view an insult to

the figure of the goddess. The one translator competent to decide

so nice a question was Mme. Dacier. Unhappily she throws no light

on it. Mr. Bryant turns the passage thus:

“She spake, and from her bosom drew the zone

Embroidered, many-colored, and instinct

With every winning charm--with love, desire,

Dalliance, and gentle speech that stealthily

O’ercomes the purpose of the wisest mind.”

We must object to “zone.” Mr. Bryant has just given (_Il._ 14, 181)

the same name to a broad, heavily-fringed belt which Herê is now

wearing. But Homer makes a difference, calling that ζωνη and this

ἱμας. Voss likewise is here somewhat careless, rendering both words

by _Gürtel_. “Dalliance” translates a stubborn word, and projects

the idea which lay at the root of ὀαριστυς. Let us turn to Voss:

“Sprach und löste vom Busen den wunderköstlichen Gürtel

Buntgestickt; dort waren die Zauberreize versammelt.

Dort war schmachtende Lieb’ und Sehnsucht, dort das Getändel,

Dort die schmeichelnde Bitte die oft auch den Weisen bethöret.”

How neatly ποικιλον and κεστον are compressed in _buntgestickt_!

_Wunderköstlichen_ is, of course, mere padding. _Schmachtende_

likewise is superfluous. Neither can we altogether like “befool”

for ἐκλεψε νοον. Mr. Bryant’s phrase is certainly more felicitous.

On the whole, it must be conceded that Voss flickers in these lines.

When Mme. Dacier brought out her _Iliad_, it was affirmed on all

hands that Homer could never, in the nature of things, be presented

in French verse. From that verdict an appeal has from time to

time been taken, but the decision has never been reversed. Mme.

Dacier’s stiffness and the flippancy of La Motte are indeed equally

intolerable. We decidedly prefer to any metrical version in French

the prose translations of Bitaube and Dugas Montbel. Both are

in the strictest sense belles-lettres works, and are generally

accurate and spirited. Bitaube portrays the girdle thus: “En même

temps elle détache sa ceinture riche d’une superbe broderie. Là se

trouvent réunis les charmes les plus séduisants; là sont l’amour,

les tendres désirs, les doux entretiens et ces accents persuasifs,

qui dérobent en secret le cœur du plus sage.” There are some

adjectives here for which Homer is not responsible.

Monti’s version is well known. It has been called the golden ring

which links the Greek and Italian literatures, and is ranked

with Caro’s _Æneid_. Beside _La Morte d’Ettore_ it appears a

meritorious work. No doubt the climax of false taste was reached

when Cesarrotti, who had executed a good translation in prose,

proceeded to metamorphose the _Iliad_ into a strange monster which

he called The _Death of Hector_. We will not quote Monti now, for

in this place he is tame and redundant. Yet he has skilfully hit

with _favellio_ a secondary meaning of ὀαριστυς. The French have

a word from the same root, _babil_; but we have nothing in English

which so happily expresses the _cooing_ of young lovers. Tasso’s

reproduction of these lines is exquisite. He is depicting Armida’s

girdle. It was fraught, he says, with--

“Teneri sdegni, e placide, e tranquille,

Repulse, cari vezzi e liete paci,

Sorrisi, parolette, e dolci stille

Di pianto, e sospir tronchi, e molli baci.”

After the short, swift strokes of Homer, this picture seems almost

florid with _concetti_. But each poet meant to epitomize the charms

he had beheld in life. The countrywomen of Tasso were skilled in

lovers’ sleights, whereas the simple virgins of Homeric times

had never heard of the _gai scavoir_. If we may trust Brantôme,

who knew something of Italian manners in that age, the dames of

Sienna were quite competent to instruct Aphroditê in the arts of

fascination.

The range of Homeric similes is not limited to the phenomena of

sky, river, and ocean, to the familiar experiences of the forge,

the vineyard, and the chase. The lightning play of fancy and memory

and the emotions of the heart are submitted to the same scrutiny,

and portrayed with like felicity. “Rapid as thought” has become the

tritest commonplace in every European language, but the guise which

the simile originally wore in Homer is still novel and effective.

Incensed at the trick which has just been cleverly executed, Zeus

orders Herê back to Olympus. Then Mr. Bryant:

“He spake, the white-armed goddess willingly

Obeyed him, and from Ida’s summit flew

To high Olympus. As the thought of man

Flies rapidly, when having travelled far,

He thinks, Here would I be; I would be there--

And flits from place to place.”

“Willingly” is supported by Voss’ _willig_, but has no correlative

in the Greek. The context, moreover, shows that Herê departed

in a pet, and her peevishness finds full vent when she reaches

Olympus. Mr. Bryant omits to translate φρεσι πευκαλιμῃσι. For this

phrase Voss gives _spähenden Geiste_, deriving the adjective from

πευκη, by which, with Buttmann, he understands the _pointed_ (not

_bitter_) fir-tree. But if Schneider be right, these words are

equivalent to πυκα φρονεοντων in the description of the girdle just

quoted. The root would then be looked for in πυκνος, and the latter

phrase might find an analogue, though not an exact one, in our

“close schemers.” These details are worthy of notice, for Chapman,

mistaking the primitive sense of this adjective, has utterly missed

the point of the simile. The perversity of Hobbes is ludicrous. He

condenses Homer after this fashion:

“This said, went Juno to Olympus high,

As when a man looks on an ample plain

To any distance quickly goes his eye.”

Voss and Mr. Bryant are in this place so much alike that we will

not collate the German, but give instead Monti’s blank-verse:

“Disse e la Diva dalle bianche bracchia

Obbediente dall’ Idea montagna

Al Olympo sali. Colla prestezza

Con que vola il pensier del viatore

Che scorse molte terre le rianda

In suo segreto e dici, Io quella riva

Io quell’ altra toccai.”

_Scorse_ and _rianda_ are pictorial, and perhaps sufficiently

literal. We like also _suo segreto_ for “close mind.” Altogether

the version is neat and animated, but less compact than Mr.

Bryant’s. Both are quite as faithful as the prose of Bitaube and

Montbel. The former writes: “Il dit, et Junon soumise à son époux

s’élève des sommets d’Ida sur Olympe. Tel que le rapide essor de

la pensée de l’homme lorsqu’ayant parcouru des pays d’une vaste

étendue, et se rappelant en un moment tous les objets qui l’ont

frappé, il dit en lui-même, j’étais ici, j’étais là.” It will be

observed that Mr. Bryant’s “Here would I be, I would be there!”

reproduces the optative εἰην. So does the _Dorthin möcht ich, und

dort_ of Voss. An alternative reading is ἠηv which Bitaube and

Monti have preferred. The verb, however, should then be in the

third person, not the first as they give it. The imperfect would

impart to the thought a slightly different tinge, and make the

traveller rather retrace in memory than revisit it in desire. If

this reading be accepted, we might, perhaps, venture to present the

passage in this form:

Thus he pronounced; and Herê, the white-armed goddess, obeyed him,

Down from the summits of Ida speeding to lofty Olympus,

Darting as darteth the mind of a man who whilom has travelled

Up and down on the earth, in close thought ponders his travels,

Here was he now--now there!--still aiming in many directions.

In the battle which opens in the twentieth book culminates the

action of the poem. Achilles now enters the field, and Mr.

Gladstone has justly remarked that we seem never to have heard

of wars or warriors before. To frame his central figure, Homer

summons from Olympus the whole hierarchy of heaven. Amid thunder

and earthquake, the gods are seen rallying to either side. No part

of the _Iliad_ is pitched in a loftier key. Nowhere is a translator

more strongly impelled to put forth all his powers. We quote Mr.

Bryant:

“From above with terrible crash

Thundered the father of the blessed gods

And mortal men, while Neptune from below

Shook the great earth and lofty mountain-peaks.

Then watery Ida’s heights and very roots,

The city of Troy, and the Greek galleys, quaked.

Then Pluto, ruler of the nether world,

Leaped from his throne in terror, lest the god

Who makes the earth to tremble, cleaving it

Above him, should lay bare to gods and men

His horrible abodes, the dismal haunts

Which even the gods abhor.”

We ought not, perhaps, to dislike the expansion of πατερ

ἀνθρωπων τε θεων τε in the second line, for the epithets added

are themselves hardly more than formulas. The next four lines

exhibit Mr. Bryant’s best work. Their vigor and elegance are not

extraneous, but wrought with patient fingers out of the text

itself. “Leaped from his throne in terror” is a melancholy falling

off. This indifferent line must stand for three Greek verbs which

render with startling accuracy the staccato movement of fear. We

give from Voss the three hexameters which depict the panic of

Aïdoneus:

“Bang auch erschrack dort unten des Nachtreichs Fürst Aldoneus,

Bebend entsprang er dem Thron, und schrie laut dass ihm von oben

Nicht die Erd’ aufrisse der Landerschüttrer Poseidōn.”

_Nachtreich_ is not quite equal to “nether world,” but really these

lines are incomparable. Beside them even the prose of Montbel seems

a little wide of the text: “Dans ses retraites souterraines le

roi des ombres Pluton frémit; épouvanté il s’élance de son trône,

pousse un cri, de peur que le terrible Neptune entr’ouvrant la

terre ne montre aux dieux et aux hommes ces demeures terribles en

horreur même aux immortels.”

We are unable to speak without contempt of the _Morte d’Ettore_,

but it is right to state that Cesarrotti’s prose translation of

this passage is perhaps the closest extant. Monti’s verse will be

found less literal:

“Tremonne

Pluto il re de sepolti et spaventato

Die un alto grido, e si gitto del trono

Tremendo non gli squarci la terrena

Volta sul capo il crollator Nettuno

Ed intromessa collaggiù la luce

Agli Dei non discopra ed ai mortali

Le sue squallide bolge, al guardo orrende

Anco del ciel.”

Homer says nothing of _intromessa luce_. The words are no doubt

transferred from Virgil’s paraphrase--

“Trepidentque immisso lumine Manes.”

Longinus, in his treatise _On the Sublime_, had quoted this

passage of the _Iliad_, and Boileau in a translation of that work

has reproduced it with considerable care. Boileau had positively

condescended to defend Homer, but it is plain that his own theory

of translation was that accepted by his age. La Motte has stated it

in his ode. He tells Homer that he proposes

“Sous un nouveau langage

Rajeunir ton antique ouvrage,”

and deeming the unconscious energy of his author _un peu sauvage_

engages to _régler son ivresse_. From Boileau no engagement was

required. His Muse was too thoroughly the _grande dame_ ever to

forget herself, and even in Pythian convulsions retained a measure

of decorum. We shall find his version at once droll and impressive.

It is, so to speak, a Greek myth treated by Paul Veronese:

“L’enfer s’émeut au brait de Neptune en furie

Pluton sort de son trône, il pâlit, il s’écrie

Il a peur que ce dieu dans cet affreux séjour

D’un coup de son trident ne fasse entrer le jour

Et par le centre ouvert de la terre ébranlée

Ne fasse voir du Styx la rive désolée

Ne découvre aux vivants cet empire odieux

Abhorré des mortels, et craint même des dieux.”

To us no book of the _Iliad_ is more delightful than the

twenty-fourth. There are many scenes in which we would willingly

linger not alone for the tender pathos with which the poet has

informed them, but also for the light they throw on the social

ethics of the later as well as primitive Greek world. The figure

of Achilles weeping through the long night the loss of the

beloved Patroclus is the immortal type of that devoted friendship

which illumines with a peculiar radiance the stream of Hellenic

biography. In the incessant warfare of sympathy with selfishness,

friendship between man and man seems to have played something of

the master _rôle_ which in modern times has been engrossed by

the passion of love. Again, Helen in her lament over Hector’s

corpse lets fall some bitter words that deserve to be weighed in

connection with the peculiar attitude which Menelaus maintains

throughout the poem. They would assist us to understand her

strangely equivocal position, as well as the conception of the

marriage relation which obtained in the Homeric age. We have space,

however, but for a single extract. We will choose Priam’s prayer

to Achilles. How often and with what careful hand these lines have

been reproduced in English is well-known. In French there are no

less than ten metrical versions, to say nothing of prose. To poets

of every nation this passage has remained a bow of Ulysses which

many have been eager to grasp, but none save Voss has hitherto had

sinew enough to bend. The circumstances under which the prayer is

made are inexpressively affecting. The fate of Troy has at length

compelled the combat of Hector and Achilles. From the walls of the

city Priam has beheld the fatal issue. The pride and prop of his

old age, the bulwark of his kingdom, lies dead and dishonored in

the hostile camp. Conducted by Hermes, Priam passes the sentinels,

and gains the quarters of his foe. He enters, springs toward

Pelides, clasps his knees, and kisses those “slaughter-dealing

hands” which had slain so many of his sons. Then Mr. Bryant:

“Think of thy father, an old man like me,

God-like Achilles! on the dreary verge

Of closing life he stands, and even now

Haply is fiercely pressed by those who dwell

Around him, and has none to shield his age

From war and its disasters. Yet his heart

Rejoices when he hears thou yet dost live,

And every day he hopes that his dear son

Will come again from Troy. My lot is hard,

For I was father of the bravest sons

In all wide Troy, and none are left me now!

* * * * *

Oh! revere

The gods, Achilles, and be merciful,

Calling to mind thy father, happier he

Than I; for I have borne what no man else

That dwells on earth could bear--have laid my lips

Upon the hand of him who slew my son.”

Had these lines been pointed at by the legend, we could well

understand why Solon should have burned his epic. Let us not stay

for criticism, but, with eyes fixed on the Greek, give our ears to

Voss!

“Deiners Vaters gedenk! O gottergleicher Achilleus,

Sein des Bejahrten wie ich, an der traurigen Schwelle des Alters,

Und vielleicht dass jenen die umbewohnende Völker

Drängen, und niemand ist ihm Jammer und Weh zu entfernen.

Jener indess so oft er von dir dem lebenden höret

Freut er sich innig im Geist, und hofft von Tage zu Tage

Dass er den trautesten Sohn noch seh’ heimkehren von Troja.

Ich unseliger Mann die tapfersten Söhn’ erzeugt’ ich

Weil im Troegebiet, und nun ist keiner mir übrig!

Scheue die Götter demnach, O Peleid! und erbarme dich meiner

Denkend des eigenen Vaters! Ich bin noch werther des Mitleids:

Duld’ ich doch was sonst kein sterblicher Erdebewohner

Ach die die Kinder getödtet die Hand an die Lippen zu drücken.”

We hold that it lies not in the power of translation to surpass

these lines of Voss. They are truly marvels in photography. To

every Homeric line corresponds a German hexameter. In every verse

the emphatic word stands where Homer placed it. The very pauses

are for the most part preserved. The translator has not retrenched

a word. He has scarcely added one. He has certainly not added

an idea. On the nice propriety of his diction, and his perfect

sympathy with the _feeling_ of the Greek, we need not dwell. In

these respects Mr. Bryant must be ranked next to him--with an

interval, perhaps, but next. His “dreary verge of closing life”

skilfully interprets an ambiguous phrase which Voss has chosen

to retain. Again, _unseliger Mann_ is somewhat cold, whereas

“my lot is hard” has caught, so to speak, the genuine accents

of heartbreak. “And every day he hopes that his dear son,” etc.

Readers of the _Holy Dying_ will recall the touching picture of a

drowned sailor rolled upon his floating bed of waves, while at home

_his_ father “weeps with joy to think how happy he shall be when

his beloved boy returns into the circle of his father’s arms.”

Voltaire has somewhere asserted that Homer never drew a tear. Yet

even he could not behold this scene unmoved, and himself entered

the lists as a translator. His version of this passage embodies

the principles which he maintained ought to govern translators of

Homer. It forms a curious chapter in the history of taste. Achilles

turning discovers Priam, “ce vieillard vénérable,”

“Exhalant à ses pieds ses sanglots et ses cris

Et lui baisant la main qui fit périr son fils;

Il n’osait sur Achille encor jeter la vue,

Il voulait lui parler, et sa voix s’est perdue,

Enfin il le regarde et parmi ses sanglots

Tremblant, pâle, et sans force, il prononce ces mots.

‘Songez, seigneur! songez que vous avez un père--’

Il ne put achever. Le héros sanguinaire

Sentit que la pitié pénétrait dans son cœur,

Priam lui prend les mains, ah prince! ah mon vainqueur?

J’étais père d’Hector, et ses généreux frères

Flattaient mes derniers jours, et les rendait prospères.

Ils ne sont plus.”

These lines are not altogether without merit, but no man,

we suppose, who possesses what has been termed a historical

_conscience_ will allow them to be poetic. The elements of the

scene are there, but they are worked up in accordance with the

tricks and traditions of the _Comédie Française_. To the eye of

Voltaire, Priam was simply an antitype of the _père noble_, and

must assume the attitude and demeanor appropriate to that _rôle_.

In short, the verses are conceived in the spirit of his age, and

exhibit his best manner. But read them after the Greek, and what

fresh point they impart to the familiar words, “In old times men

wrote like orators, but now like rhetoricians.”

From Voltaire to Monti is a long stride toward Homer’s Olympus.

The Italian has infused much sweetness into this passage. And it

is a native, not a grafted, sweetness. Writing in blank-verse, he

neither needs nor claims the license of French translators; yet we

sometimes miss Mr. Bryant’s terseness and simplicity; as in the

initial lines:

“Divino Achille ti rammenta il padre

Il padre tuo da sia vecchiezza oppresso,

Qua io mi sono! In questo punto ei forse

Da potenti vicini assediato

Non ha chi lo socorra e all’ imminente

Periglio il tolga.”

To appreciate this version one needs only to glance at

Cesarrotti’s. Priam’s first three words--Μνησαι πατρος

σοιο!--comprise the most effective exordium in literature. They are

true projectiles shot from soul to soul. Let us see if they are

easily recognized in the _Morte d’Ettore_:

“Ah pieta, grida,

Divino Achille! Il padre tuo t’implora

Per tuo padre, pieta!”

Is it possible to place artist and word-monger in sharper

antithesis? The success of his mission--perhaps his life--depends

upon the first impression. Conceive royal Priam whining forth

“Pity, pity!” like some professional beggar mumbling his worn-out

lies. Homer said simply, “Think of thy father, Achilles!” The

words, like the stroke of Moses’ rod, split the stubborn heart, and

pity gushed forth in tears.

It must be admitted that Mr. Bryant’s lines are not always invested

with the impassioned fervor and glowing life which have rescued

the works of his English predecessors from oblivion. But it

will often be found that where they were most spirited they were

least Homeric. It is inevitable that a conscientious workman who

resolves to copy his model in the minutest details will produce at

times a _mosaic_ rather than a _casting_--his materials will seem

pieced and not fused. But we are sure that the sweetness of Mr.

Bryant’s verse will delight the general reader, while scholars will

appreciate his self-control. Animation is desirable, but fidelity

is indispensable; and they who truly love the _Iliad_ will prefer

Homer in marble to Pope and Chapman in the flesh.

Over all translators of the _Iliad_, we confess that Voss is

paramount; but no other version with which we are acquainted

will bear a sustained comparison with Mr. Bryant’s. The latter’s

obligations to Voss are undoubtedly great; but he has well-nigh

cancelled the debt, for the next worker in the field will owe much

to him. It may be that translation is not the highest function of

genius; yet where it is nobly fulfilled it deserves and commands

our gratitude. Nor is this all. It is something more than a figure

of speech--the fine figure of Politian’s--by which Homer, assisting

in the person of Ganymede at the banquet of the gods, is made to

distribute to his best lovers some portion of his own ambrosia.

FOOTNOTES:

[86] _The Iliad of Homer._ Translated by Wm. Cullen Bryant. Boston:

Fields, Osgood & Co.

[87] “A poem people admire without reading.”

[88] “Ah, monsieur! since reading that book men seem to be fifteen

feet high.”

SPAIN: WHAT IT WAS AND WHAT IT IS.

A nation vegetating on old memories; a people for two centuries

priest-ridden, just beginning to awaken and show some signs of

the enlightenment of the age; a government liable to change every

twenty-four hours; an empty treasury shifting from one to another

incapable ministry; and, above all, a ridiculous pretension and

holding to such an Old World phrase as national honor--such is the

ordinary run of opinion on Spain. What is it coming to? What is its

destiny? Has it a destiny in these busy, practical days? Or is its

life played out long ago, and the nation simply drifting downwards

into the yawning gulf of insignificance where many another has been

swallowed up?

Have Catholics an interest in the question?

Yesterday, when mention was made of Spain, the enlightened world

lifted up its eyes and hands in pious protestation against such an

outrage on our nineteenth century of civilization. A superstitious

race given to the worshipping of graven images, hoodwinked by the

priests, those inveterate enemies of progress; no free-will among

them; no understanding; nothing but memory. To-day all is changed.

The dawn long delayed of enlightenment has come at last to the

unhappy land--has come accompanied by the usual signs. Churches

have been rifled, the sanctuary has been desecrated, the Jesuits

have been scattered, nuns and monks have been robbed of their homes

and driven naked into the world, blood has flowed freely, murder

has been done. So, to-day the world smiles, and rubs its hands,

and hopes better things for Spain.

That it was a great nation we all acknowledge, and the title is

a true one. It was not alone a mighty nation; those buried under

the Eastern sands were mighty nations, yet their workings in this

world were as barren of fruit as the shifting covering that has

hidden them away, without an oasis to redeem their barrenness.

China might be called a mighty nation, but it has walled itself in

from the world by the most narrow-minded and selfish policy, and we

have had to fight our way through good and evil up to our present

standard without a helping hand from it. Russia is a mighty nation,

and we look anxiously to the development of its vast power, but

up to the present its only effect on the world has been that of

brute strength. But Spain has been pre-eminently a _great_ nation;

that is, a nation that has done much for its own and others’

development, in all that can make peoples sound, intelligent,

prosperous, and happy.

Looking back at its history as far as we can look back, we find

the same characteristics in the race as we find to-day; above all,

that intense, all-absorbing nationality which has kept it unmixed

and unconquered. Hannibal courted its alliance; the Roman failed

ever to subdue it thoroughly. Great stubborn resistances to the

Empress of the World stand out now and then in clear relief from

that dim background--awful sieges wonderfully sustained, where the

women play an equal part with the men. We shall always find these

Spanish women leading the van in the hour of their country’s

danger. The victories gained over them resembled the victory of

Pyrrhus. The Romans went and the Moors came, and fastened on the

heart of the kingdom, populating and flourishing there, sucking

out its life. They built their cities and their palaces in the

fairest spots in the land. Powerful, warlike, rich, with immense

resources, they laughed at the handful of men, kingless, skulking

among rocks, and starving for liberty. But that handful will not

surrender what is their own while one arm can be raised to defend

it. They are true to one another as Spaniards and as Catholics now;

for a new element is in them binding them more firmly than the

very blood that is common to their veins--religion, the religion

of Christ, which they have seized upon with all their passionate

nature, never to relinquish. Inch by inch the Moors are driven

back over the sea. They were invaded again by a more terrible foe

than all--more terrible even than France in her deep distress has

lately seen. Bonaparte had drained the country of its armies, had

emptied its coffers, and taken away its king, all under the shadow

of friendship and alliance. When he held it thus powerless in his

hands, he sent in his armies, and impudently set his brother on

the throne. Kingless, moneyless, defenceless as they were, the

people rose up, the women again leading the van, and the priests

inflaming all. Bonaparte was driven out. The priests, for all their

hoodwinking, can be good patriots, it seems. The London _Times_,

the mouthpiece of the enlightenment of the age, certainly no great

friend to Spaniards and Catholics, contrasted the conduct of

France during the late invasion with that of Spain. France, in her

sorest straits, was never so hard pushed as Spain when the first

Napoleon entered; yet a nation of over 30,000,000 could not rid

themselves of half a million. There was no Carthagena, no Saguntum,

no Saragossa--no approach to such. And the _Times_ confessed that

France failed because she possessed neither the patriotism nor the

religious enthusiasm of the Spaniards. Such examples has Spain

given to the world of the purest patriotism, the first element of

greatness in a nation; of a self-reliance that, when all seems

lost, will not look without for aid, but to itself.

She has not ceased her working here. In no department has she

been backward. Science owes her much. Literature is enriched by

her authors. The inspirations of Murillo are the embodiment of

all that our religion can feel in its deepest moments; before his

canvas, the Christian prays, the infidel cannot scoff. She has

given soldiers of the noblest type; statesmen the most benevolent

and enlightened. The Spanish constitution in itself is from days

remote admirable for equipoise and justice. In England they are

just approaching the Spanish marriage laws. A Spanish merchant will

tell you that for the generality of commercial questions he is his

own lawyer, so clear and well-defined is the law.

What do we Catholics owe to Spain?

First of all, that high example of unswerving faith and devotion to

the Holy See through ages of evil report and good report. The great

heart of the nation is not moved by events that will come under our

notice after. She has not only given a host of theological writers,

but, what is still better, a host of theological actors--notably

the Order of St. Dominic and the Society of Jesus, the names of

which are enough to recall our debt.

To the Old World she opened up a New. Here Spain had a mission

that is rarely given to nations. She failed, though the monarch

sent priests to accompany the soldiers, to temper the conquest of

the sword by that of the cross. How well the warriors of Christ

demeaned themselves, our Bancroft and Prescott tell us.

She failed; but who shall cast the first stone at her? That nation

only which has subdued another by Christian love and the weapon of

the cross--a phenomenon that has not yet appeared even in these

blessed days.

We hear much of the cruelty of these Spanish settlers, of their

selfishness, of their greed of gold.

We must make a little allowance for the days in which they lived.

Men were untutored then; peace congresses (save the mark!) were

unknown; an _Alabama_ case would either have been let alone or

settled by the sword long ere it could have grown into a mere

talking difficulty; men did not consult lawyers on the nice

distinctions of _meum_ and _tuum_. The Spaniards landed, and

held their own by cruelty, oppression, and rapine, no doubt. We,

with all our enlightenment, have followed their example pretty

faithfully; except that, for men like the saintly Las Casas, we

despatched an agent that worked a speedy conversion--fire-water.

We have taken root here and grown up, and are a great nation,

spreading out in all directions, wealthy, prosperous, enlightened,

with civilization at our finger-ends, and Bibles willy-nilly in

every one of our schools. Yes, we are a decided improvement on the

Spaniards. But a hundred years ago there existed a race in this

country to whom the land that we tread upon belonged. Where is

that race now? A wretched remnant of it scowling and prowling on

our outskirts; we are killing them off. We heard of them the other

day joining in the great hunt. The most enterprising and powerful

of our journals, one that has fitted out a purely benevolent

expedition to Africa, sent its correspondent down to record it

all. We had an “idyl of the plains”; the course of our great

enlightenment and progress was drawn in fanciful colors, with this

correspondent for central figure, riding for miles and miles under

the stars to tell us at our breakfasts of the exact position of a

soldier throwing an ornament round the neck of a savage maiden, and

the evident appreciation the savages exhibited of champagne.

Spain failed in her mission, great and glorious as it was. Have we

succeeded better? Has England, in India, or Tasmania, or wherever

she set her foot?

Gold brought its own curse. When wealth comes unasked, few men will

labor. The “Eldorado” filled the dreams and stopped the life of the

Spaniards. One by one her rich possessions dropped from the parent

nation, till Cuba was the only one left, and Cuba wishes to go also.

She has become a second-rate power in Europe, if so high--the

kingdom “on whose dominions the sun never set.”

And here, with this glance at her past history to call to mind

what she was, what she has achieved, the truly great elements that

were always in her, we turn to look at her as she is; to consider

her present bearing on the church, for we Catholics must always

look at all things with a Catholic eye, knowing, as we do, that

our religion is the one religion upon which the salvation of this

world hangs; that, if the world is to be saved by us, we can never

put our faith upon the shelf and enter the world as worldlings. The

Spirit of God must permeate and pervade all people, all places,

all things, at all times; and when that is accomplished, and not

before, then will the world be saved.

Spain groaned under the rule of Isabella, or rather under the

rule of her rulers. She was a woman far “more sinned against

than sinning.” We are apt too often to blame the victim for the

circumstances which make the victim. From her infancy a tool in the

hands of unprincipled men; forced to marry a man utterly worthless

in every respect; almost without one true friend, without a soul

for her woman’s heart to cling to. We accuse her of all the evils

created, fostered, encouraged by a host of powerful men, who used

her as a chess-piece; while she stood, their game was safe. The

revolution more than smouldered; but O’Donnell, at once a statesman

and a soldier, kept it down. Narvaez, crafty and bold, succeeded

him, and in turn went. These men, particularly the latter, in

striking at their own foes, left a bitter legacy of hatred and

revenge to the queen. What all foresaw came to pass--the last

rising which ousted her. Prim came in; the nation’s destiny was at

last in its own hands; now for the millennium.

Prim commenced it--a likely man for such a purpose. A bold,

unscrupulous adventurer, whose chief virtue was his reckless

bravery; no great talker; not a man who would astonish you by the

wisdom of his words, but quick to decide, speedy to execute; a

very soldier whose “voice was in his sword”--such was Prim. He

found himself adored by the soldiers, glorified by the people. He

did not care for the latter: when they wished to tear the crown

from his cap on his entry into Malaga, he would not let them; he

declared himself in plain words for monarchy from the beginning.

He found the cortes split up into parties. Many for Don Carlos,

a strong body, who if not crushed would have their king; so Prim

resolved to crush them. A few for Montpensier; another few for

Don Alfonso, the queen’s son; neither worth bothering about,

Prim let them alone. A small compact party of republicans, very

ably led; nearly all young, enthusiastic, lawyers many of them,

excellent speakers, excellent fighters at a pinch, too. This was

a dangerous party, who had been most instrumental in putting Prim

where he was. He dared not turn round on them at once, the people

were still armed. He coquetted with them. They were young, and

many unfledged, eager to try their lungs, fond of the sound of

their voices. Spain should be governed only as Spain wished; she

should have a model constitution; freedom of the person, freedom

of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of everything. No more

conscriptions, only a few more thousands just to enable the army

to quell those troublesome Carlists. He threw them a constitution,

a model indeed in its construction, fit for Utopia, but scarcely

for the wild spirits then raging in Spain. He let them wrangle

over that, and turned himself to the army. He had always been

popular with the soldiers; he moved everybody up a grade; by this

means he created all the colonels, and the army was his. With this

weapon secure in his grasp he could beat them all, and he did. He

played them off, one against the other, in the cortes; he knew,

split up as they were, the elements too opposed to coalesce, they

would never agree about any single thing or any single person; he

suggested this and he suggested that; if they would not take his

suggestions, that was their fault. One thing was clear, they must

support him, or anarchy would ensue. The Carlists left the chamber

to fight. Precisely what Prim wanted; he had encouraged it, in

fact; the sooner, the better for him, as he could the more easily

crush them. He did so, cruelly and mercilessly. In the meantime,

he was all honey to the republicans. But at last they began to see

that they had been hoodwinked; that there was no hope of a republic

from Prim; that the monarchy they hated would come in again, and

all their efforts prove fruitless. Prim demanded the arms of the

people--the arms which had been distributed to enable him to crush

the monarchy. The republicans in their turn left the chamber to

fight; and well they fought, too, against the overwhelming forces

that Prim sent to quell them; for no half measures would do for

Juan Prim. Those men who rose and fought so tenaciously at Cadiz,

at Jerez, at Malaga, Valencia, had been well schooled beforehand

by the preachers of the age. “You are poor, and your children will

be poor after you. The labor of your hands goes to dress the fine

ladies of the rich; to fatten lazy priests, who do nothing for

a living; to set those brave gentlemen on horseback, who think

themselves made of other flesh and blood than yours. We will change

all that when the queen is driven out. We will all be equal, and do

equal work or no work. Our men are men as theirs are; our women are

women also.”

The queen was driven away; the friars, and the Jesuits, and the

nuns banished. The government seized upon their houses and what

was in them; of course it was not robbery when the government took

them. Still the poor were not a penny the richer. These plausible

doctrines had seized upon their simple minds. It was something

worth fighting for, and they fought. No Paris barricades were

ever defended with half the fury and obstinacy displayed by those

Andalusians--the mountaineers and villagers whose fathers and

grandfathers had harassed, surrounded, and captured a force of 4000

or more, under one of the First Napoleon’s generals. Still, we

hear of none of those outrages at which the world sickened lately

in Paris. “Aqui nadie se roba caballeros”--“Gentlemen, no one robs

here,” was the first cry at Cadiz. A commandant of the forces was

struck down in the midst of the revolutionists by a shot. They knew

him well, and that he was going to fight against them; yet they

were the first men to take him from the street and care for his

wounds. There is all that is noble, generous, and faithful in the

heart of this people, which it only requires a wise government to

draw out.

They were beaten on all sides. They dared not rise in Madrid, for

Prim kept his forces there, as a centre, menacing the country. In

the midst of all this distraction, we see one flash of the old

spirit that, however it might split against itself, was one against

a common foe. Cuba saw its chance, and, though many concessions had

been made, it would have liberty at once. Prim had quite enough to

do at home; his hands were full with Carlists and republicans. We

lent our sanction to the Cuban claims, with an after-eye to our

own interests; and our minister made some representations that

never quite came to light. Prim made no answer to them, at least

in words. But, notwithstanding the dearth of money and of men, the

strain at home requiring every nerve to sustain it, the old Spanish

blood was true to itself. Volunteers sprang up in crowds; and

force after force was shipped, is shipped still, to the island,

ostensibly to quell a rebellion that never held a position from

the first. A nation that can act so in such a moment must have

something in it.

Before taking leave of Prim, in turn the hero and the terror of

the revolution, much as we deplore that the destinies of such a

nation at such a crisis should have fallen into the hands of such a

man, we cannot help paying a tribute to his never-flagging energy,

dauntless courage, and prompt decision. Men laughed at Prim, at his

speeches, and wondered how he ever gained his position. Speaking

on the deficiency of the national treasury, and utterly unable to

tide over those rocks on which all governments break--figures: “I

know we shall be able to meet the deficiency,” said Prim, “But

how?” asked the deputies. “I do not know exactly how; but I have

a _feeling_ in my breast which convinces me;” the words are from

memory, but they convey the substance. Men laughed, but Prim stood

his ground; and gradually the question, “What will Spain do?”

merged into that of “What will Prim do?” A better man and a wiser

statesman, neither very difficult to obtain, would have availed

himself of such an opportunity to heal his country’s wounds. Prim

could not do this; he did not know how; but he was at least “wise

in his generation.” He could not save the sick man; he did the next

best thing, he kept him from killing himself. The foolhardiness of

the man was his destruction. He had often had warnings, but he knew

not what fear was, and took no precautions.

“To have the republic is easy,” said Castelar, the leader of the

republicans, after one of his defeats, to Prim. “We have only to

kill one man.” “Nothing but a thunderbolt kills me,” retorted Prim,

“and of those very few fall.”

The thunderbolt fell and crushed him, but failed to crush what it

was aimed at, the monarchy. Amadeus landed just in time to learn

that his right-hand man was gone--a fearful venture for a young

king and his queen. But he braved it royally; and though the race

of Victor Emanuel can never find much favor in our eyes, this

son of his, we confess, has borne himself through trying scenes

like a king and like a gentleman, nobly supported by his brave

and Catholic lady. That he was never elected by the people is

clear; that, notwithstanding his personal merit, he is not likely

to stay long where he is, is the surmise of all. If a telegram,

without the slightest foundation in fact, announced his expulsion

to-morrow, not a man in the world would disbelieve it. The people

can feel no sympathy with a man who has no sort of title to their

ancient crown; who is a perfect stranger to them, and almost to

the world; who after the hawking of their throne about Europe, was

forced upon them against their will. Besides, the Italians, of all

European nations, are despised in Spain. They are considered there

as good singers, dancers, cooks, and such like, but not the men for

anything manly or great: how much less for the throne of Ferdinand

the Catholic! “King Macaroni the First” was the burlesque that

greeted Amadeus on his arrival in the capital. With him we will

not trouble ourselves further, but with the revolution that gave

occasion to the accident of his accession, and which will displace

him to-morrow or the next day.

Spain undoubtedly was in a bad state under the _régime_ of

Isabella. The question is, Has she bettered herself by driving out

the queen? The new order came in with a grand flourish of trumpets.

Progress was the watchword: the “Progressistas” were Prim’s party

till he broke them up. We have touched already on the blood shed

in civil strife for this party and for that, but there are other

things to consider. Education is the word of the day; let us see

what the revolution effected in this direction.

The Jesuits under great difficulties were organizing colleges

and missions; they were straining every nerve to educate and

improve the people, and were just beginning to make some headway

when the revolution came; and of course the first “abuse” to be

abolished was the Order of Jesus--that order that flourishes

even in Protestant countries like England, where the government,

under such a chancellor as Mr. Lowe, grants them a pension for

their observatory at Stonyhurst. They had to fly the country;

their establishments were all broken up and seized upon by the

government. A case in point:

At Port St. Mary’s, between Cadiz and Jerez, the gentlemen of the

town, seeing the good effected by the Jesuits in their missions,

and feeling it in the improved conduct of the men they employed, as

more than one of them assured the writer, united and raised funds

sufficient to build a magnificent college which they presented to

the society. The government, then of Isabella, had nothing to do

with it. When the revolution broke out, there were three hundred

students there, many of them from the first families of Spain.

In addition to these, forty of the poor children of the district

were admitted to the course of studies free. The Jesuits were

banished, and escaped with their lives, thanks to the courage

of a noble-hearted gentleman of the town and his sons, who at

the risk of their own lives and property gave them shelter till

Topete himself went and conducted them to the sea. The college was

closed and seized by the government. The gentlemen who built it

demanded the building to be used at least for educational purposes,

no matter under whom. To all their remonstrances a deaf ear was

turned; and the college stands tenantless to this day. Those who

had the means sent their children out of the country to England,

France, or elsewhere. Many could not, and for them there was no

remedy. Their children must do without education while the work of

enlightenment goes on.

They drove out the friars and the nuns destitute into the world;

seized upon their property, and possessed themselves of their

treasures, the vessels of the sanctuary, vestments, paintings,

gifts given in expiation of sins or propitiation of heaven by

men and women long ago resting in their graves. Not a year back

the writer, then in London, saw an announcement in the _Times_

of the accession of some rare Spanish jewelry to the curiosities

of the very interesting Museum at Kensington. He went, and found

the ornaments that had decked the images and altars of the Virgen

del Pilar at Saragossa, neatly arranged in two large cases, each

ornament ticketed off as in a Jew’s shop, with the estimated value

underneath in sums varying from over a hundred, sometimes over two

or three hundred, pounds downwards. This sacrilegious robbery was

repeated throughout the country--a dangerous example to the poor,

whom they had indoctrinated with the pernicious ideas so prevalent

in these times, the climax of which we saw the other day in Paris.

There was to be no state religion, and the clergy no longer to be

salaried by the government. We must observe how all these movements

strike at the church first; as is right they should do, for, that

power destroyed, there is an end to morality, and the rest is easy.

After a fierce and prolonged debate, in which the republicans came

out in their true colors, and gave utterance, not the greater

number happily, to open-mouthed blasphemy not simply against the

church, but against the God whom Protestant and Catholic adore in

common, the motion was not carried. The Catholic Church continues

the church of the state, as it is the church of the whole nation.

“There are three things I hate intensely (_que me odian_): God,

the monarchy, and phthisis,” said an alcalde in the north. It is a

comfort to know that the wretch who said this craved a priest on

his dying bed when attacked by the last object of his hatred, and

God, ever merciful, allowed him one.

Emilio Castelar, the prime mover in the motion, spoke differently.

He is the leader of the republicans: young, gifted beyond measure

in all that can give a man influence among his fellows, a

marvellous orator, whom the whole cortes, from the prelate to the

red-hot republican, listens to spell-bound when he speaks. His

attacks on Prim were terrible, unceasing, unsparing; he lashed the

cortes into foam; but Prim, conscious of his power, had a dry,

sarcastic manner of meeting them that took a good deal of the

eloquent edge off. On the religious question Castelar said, “For

my own part, if I chose any religion, it would be the Catholic, in

which I was born and in which my mother died. A Protestant I could

never be: it is too frigid for me.”

Liberty of the press, in these days the bulwark of our rights,

liberty of public discussion, were proclaimed. The press was free

to attack everything and every institution we consider holy. The

republican papers poured forth floods of blasphemy unchecked. The

Carlist, the Catholic organs alone were suppressed. Villaslada,

the editor of the _Pensamiento Español_, the leading Carlist and

Catholic newspaper, which bears the Holy Father’s blessing on its

page, was forced to fly the country, and his papers seized. He has

since returned, and has now a seat in the cortes. His offence was

attacking the government and advocating the cause of Don Carlos at

a time when Prim professed to await the expression of the will of

the people to declare the king. So much for free discussion.

It would be tedious as well as profitless to take every item in the

catalogue of a nation, and contrast them now with what they were

before the overthrow of the Bourbon line. Certain it is that, bad

as things were in Spain under Isabella, they are worse at present.

Her commerce has deteriorated wofully. “We know not what to expect

in Spain at any moment. The men we employ have been so preached to

by the apostles of the revolution that they are ready to turn on us

we know not when. We dare not keep a large stock on hand. We are

trying to sell things off even at a sacrifice, we get our money

safe banked in England, and, if the revolution and ruin come, well,

at least we shall have some provision for our wives and children.”

That is how any merchant will speak to-day on Spanish affairs.

“The shortest road to peace is through the revolution,” said

Villaslada, and that is the opinion of all the thoughtful men the

writer has met. They look upon a revolution as inevitable, the

passions of the people have been so tampered with. It is hoped for

that the people may sicken of their illusions; that the fury may

waste itself; that the blood-letting which must follow may allay

the fever, may open their eyes to the Utopia which their frenzy

pictures.

It is a sad state for such a nation. It makes us anxious about the

question we asked at the beginning, What is its destiny? Its debt

is increasing as its credit declines. And yet the nation might be a

great nation still.

Its foreign possessions it can do without. To get rid of Cuba

would really be a relief. The advantages which the island

affords for commerce by no means compensate for the continual

anxiety it causes--the support of an army and a fleet. Spain is

self-sufficient. With an area similar to that of France, her

population is only one-third as large. The country if worked could

produce corn enough to feed more than half Europe. Magnificent

forests of chestnut and mahogany, soft groves of orange and olive

trees, clothe and beautify the soil. Splendid rivers roll through

the land, while bays and safe harbors indent the coast. In a little

district perhaps not more than ten miles square grows the wine

that supplies the whole world with sherry. Spanish wool holds its

own in the mart. The people are intelligent, peaceful, and moral

by nature. In no country can an inferior talk to a superior as

freely without passing beyond the bounds as in Spain. Beautiful,

historic cities are scattered through the land. Treasures of art

are in their churches and galleries, refining the feelings and

quickening the intellect. Their language is music; their climate

delicious; their soil fruitful; land and living cheap. Their fleet

is a formidable one; the Biscayan mariners for boldness and skill

are unsurpassed, tossed as they are from infancy in the cradle

of their bay, where the wide-spreading Atlantic is for ever wroth

that it can go no further. The bravery and discipline of their

army is within our recollection. That the energy of the race has

not died out is proved by the war in Morocco, the speedy quelling

of the revolution, the readiness of the nation to engage in war

with such a power as ourselves, where the final issue could not

be for a moment doubtful; but that much derided phrase “national

honor” kept them true to themselves and their traditions, and we

were wise enough not to provoke a contest with a people ready to

sell their lives so dear. Yet with all these advantages, their

course to-day is a downward one, and will continue so until one of

two governments comes--either a man like the First Napoleon or a

Bismarck, who to the iron will of Prim shall add a genius which the

latter neither possessed nor pretended to possess; strong enough to

grind down if necessary, but great enough to lift up. To such a man

both Spain and France to-day present fields ripe with opportunity.

Or, for Spain at least, where there is still great faith and

reverence for what is great and true, where happily materialism has

not yet seized upon the hearts and the intellect of the people,

a government that, instead of striking at the church which still

is the church of the nation, and sapping the roots of Catholic,

that is, of all morality, should call that church to its aid, and

say to the people, “Your God shall be my God”--such a government

would have from the start the greatest ally it could hope for in a

religious people. Let it tell the people boldly that it shall have

liberty, but not license, that it shall march with the age, that

its great possessions are gone, never to return; but that at home

it has resources that cannot fail, which only require the working

to make them produce a hundredfold; a government which shall

educate the children in religion, and from their infancy pour into

their souls lessons of truth. Such a government might regenerate

Spain. Such is partly the programme of Don Carlos. But he is the

disciple of another school. Could he unlearn a little the doctrines

of his school, Don Carlos holds the best chance to-day not only of

occupying the throne, but of occupying the hearts and hopes of the

nation.

And here we close with a remark on the failure of revolutions to

work their purpose.

“The driving out of one unclean spirit to make room for seven more

unclean,” is the history of all movements that have ever upset a

throne which tradition has set in the intellect of the people,

which custom has rooted in the soil, which has literally “grown

with their growth and strengthened with their strength,” and even

declined with their decline or caused it, which is _of_ them. It

is a strange fact, but history bears it out. As we have shown,

the Spaniards drove out their queen, and for a moment held their

destiny in their own hands. The French drove out the Emperor, and

held their destiny in their hands. Is either country the better for

their action? In great contrast to these stands out Germany, before

the war composed of a number of independent or semi-independent

peoples. They united and placed themselves under the yoke, and

present to the world a combination so great, so powerful, so

irresistible by any single state save Russia or our own, that the

world was convulsed by it, and the face of Europe changed in a day.

Whether it will last or not is foreign to our present purpose. Men

should “count the costs” before they overturn any government.

It is a hard thing to change a nation. Even though you present

something better, you must combat rooted prejudice, immemorial

tradition, every spontaneous feeling that rises, before your idea

can hold the popular mind. Look at the slow spread of Christianity.

People would not give up their gods of wood and stone. Our Lord

cast out devils before their eyes. “It is by Beelzebub you cast

them out,” they cried. But the agents of revolution generally begin

on the other side. They cast in devils. They uproot everything

that is stable; they undermine morality; they teach men to scoff

at everything; to obey no law. Man is free, and this world is his

to do as he likes with. Who says no? The priest? The priest and

the monarchy go hand-in-hand to bind free-born nations down in

superstition and slavery. So they work, and, when their harvest is

ripe, they reap their reward. They hack at everything right and

left. But demons are powerful only to destroy, and they have raised

those that they cannot lay, save by blood and iron, as Prim did, as

Trochu and the rest were compelled to do. “And the last state of

these nations is worse than the first.”

We were saved from a like fate because the monarchy was never

known here; our constitution was not a new one, it was in the

intelligence of the people from the first, and its exponent was

George Washington.

People with their own destiny thrust upon them can do nothing with

it. Men have brooded for years under evil government, and when that

falls a thousand quacks are ready, each with his panacea for the

cure of the nation’s woes, and one is as likely as another. As for

the nation at large, it wants to be governed. It cannot sit down

and think, the matter out, rejecting this and choosing that. The

first that is ready, if it happens to be good, good; if not, so

much the worse. They have already knocked one government on the

head; why should they stop at a second, or a third, or any number?

And so step in cruelty and oppression on the one side, lawlessness

in every form on the other. It is better to cure than to kill;

better to reform than to overthrow; and if we must overthrow, let

us do it like men and not like fiends. If the joint is rotten ere

you displace it, see that you can replace it. The monarch is the

key-stone of the constitution in lands where monarchy prevails.

Remove that, and the whole fabric is shattered. You must build

anew. You may build better; at all events, time is lost; most

likely you will build worse; strengthen, reform the old--beware how

you destroy it.

OFFICIAL CHARITY.

FROM REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.

In these times, all is laical--that is to say, in accordance with

modern language, everything is bound to bear the stamp of the

state. No contract is possible without the intervention of the

state; no marriage exists without the ratification of the state; no

school can be opened without the sanction of the state. In short,

the state puts its iron clasp on all that man possesses, even his

personal liberty and right. Henceforth, then, in the name of those

immortal principles which consecrated the absolute and illimitable

liberty of the human family, are abolished the most sacred rights

of man--liberty in the bosom of the family and individual rights.

In the name of liberty, the state confiscates all; it proclaims

itself, without ceremony, the original author of all its laws. It

is the god-state.

It is astonishing that, following a parallel exaggeration, the

state has come to proclaim itself alone capable of exercising

charity, as it is alone capable of teaching it! Logic ought to

forcibly bring about this result. The state which adjudicates to

itself the monopoly of direction, can it not also adjudge to

itself the monopoly of the charity?

Yes, charity has become a monopoly of the state. What is it, then,

other than _official_ charity? Give alms if so be, but do not

forget to pass them through the hands of the state. It is it alone

that can distribute your generous gifts. Found hospitals if you

will, but on the express condition that you are to abandon them to

the hands of the state, who will administer them as masters. Such

is in substance the idea of official charity, centralizing in the

hands of the state, and administering through its functionaries,

the benefits and alms given in a spirit of self-sacrifice.

Very well! The church has never exercised a similar tyranny. She

has crushed the heathenish proposition of the _Syllabus_, “39. The

state, from being the source of all good, enjoys a right which is

not circumscribed by any limits,” and, always free from the errors

which she points out, the church has never imposed any act that

even appeared as a simple pretext to accuse her of inconsistency.

Though divinely commissioned to guide men, enlighten and direct

their intelligence, their will, and all their steps, the church

has never believed it her right to say to her faithful: “Put your

alms into my hands; I alone know how to properly distribute them.”

No! assiduous in stimulating charity, active in giving it birth,

the church contents herself with encouraging the sacrifices that

holy love inspires, and to show herself happy in having children

who evince in so tender a manner the sentiment of Christian

brotherhood. An exquisite sense reveals to her that charity

delights in secret and mystery; a marvellous delicacy teaches her

that the poor and the unfortunate neither consent to pour out their

griefs indiscriminately, nor to have their wants relieved by every

hand.

Thus, in reference to works of charity, the supremacy of the church

consists in helping to accomplish that which the spontaneous

piety of her faithful confides to her, and to exercise an exact

surveillance over the faithful accomplishment of the charitable

dispositions shown by her children who are numbered among the

dead. Inviting, encouraging, thanking, and supervising--such is

the _rôle_ of the church. If she welcomes with gratitude the

faithful who select their pastors to dispense their bounty or for

a go-between in their good works, she does not impose it upon them

as a duty to confide alms to the care of bishops or of priests. And

all doctrine tending to create a similar obligation is rejected by

canon law as tainted with an odious exaggeration. Now, then, we

have a right to reject the pretensions of the state over charity.

Under what title does it place itself between the man who gives

the alms and he who receives it? Is the sanctuary of charity less

sacred than the domestic hearth? And if the home is inviolable,

should not the secrets of charity be equally so?

We protest against official charity with all the energy of

indignation. We proclaim it as an injury alike to the rich who give

and to the poor who receive. The demonstration does not appear

difficult.

Nevertheless, before undertaking it, we hope to interest our

reader in placing before his eyes the sentiments of a judge whose

views modern politicians do not ordinarily challenge. Portalis,

every one knows, elevated the rights and prerogatives of the state

high enough. “The state is nothing if it is not all,” said he,

one day, before the legislative body. Here is certainly a witness

unsuspected of partiality for the theory we are about to defend.

Listen, then, to what he said himself to the proposition of

official charity.

I.

Let it be remembered here, that one of the most constant

preoccupations of Napoleon I. was to centralize everything into

his own hands. The emperor wished to the letter to know all and to

govern all. Not content with having created the formidable monopoly

of the universities, he had even dared to try his hand at flattery

in pretending to treat religious affairs as a simple department of

his vast administration. Could it, then, be hoped that his ambition

respected the liberty of charity? Napoleon, then, dreamed very

seriously of controlling its exercise. Portalis hindered him.

The good sense of this celebrated counsellor of the emperor

refused on this occasion to consent to the caprices of his

master. Portalis declared fearlessly that official charity was the

product of a hollow, weak brain, altogether an Utopia of one’s own

creation to amuse the leisure hours of some philosopher seeking a

distraction.

“Certain men,” wrote he to the emperor, “more jealous of their own

attributes than of the public good, believe in finding abuses in

all establishments that are not of their own creation. They scorn

the good in the hope of finding the better; they imagine that all

is resolved by calculation, and that, with two or three general

maxims, they could reconstruct the world. With such ideas, states

are disorganized. Such minds exhibit a greater power to destroy

than an ability to construct.

“It is said with truth that the laws would be nothing without

morals. It is, then, in the morals that the power of the laws

will be sustained, that is to say, it is necessary to study the

direction of the minds of men; that they should know the common

affections of the human heart, and not govern by metaphysical

abstractions and submit to cold calculation those things which

cannot be other than the result of zeal, devotion, and of

virtue.”[89] This was adroitly cautioning the emperor against

the deleterious influences of that sad philosophy which sought

to control him. Applying these principles to those hospitable

communities that irreligious passions wished to banish, Portalis

subjoined:

“The associations with which are connected so many touching

memories were recommended to the considerate attention of your

majesty by the gratitude of the people. Experience speaks loudly

in favor of the imperial decrees which have authorized these

associations. It is not, then, to balance between the vain theories

of an infatuated sophist and the real assistance that charity

administers to suffering humanity.”[90]

“These miserable objections derive their source ... in the vain

theories of which experience has demonstrated the illusion.”[91]

It is, then, clear that official charity found no advocate in

Portalis. It presented to him the too evident imprints of a lying

and anti-Christian philosophy. We will continue our citations.

II.

Portalis was convinced that religion only could induce charity. He

believed that in this case religion only is capable of receiving

and executing the mandates of charitable bequests.

“Your majesty,” wrote he again, “in your great wisdom has desired

to leave the care of the poor under the guard of religion. She has

undertaken the service that is accompanied with so many sacrifices

and discouragements, which could not be guaranteed but by the most

elevated and the most generous sentiments. She has dispersed the

false systems of men who would wish to enjoy the benefits of the

great work we see in operation under our eyes, in draining with

as much imprudence as ingratitude the source from which they are

furnished.”[92]

The experience he had besides superabundantly apprised him of what

reason made him sensible. He had seen the works of the state and

that of the religious bodies. Doubt, then, was no longer possible.

It became manifest to him that, generally speaking, charity could

only be duly administered through consecrated hands. Listen to his

grave remarks:

“His majesty, in his travels, has convinced himself that all the

hospitals confided to simple civil administration languish; that

the poor there are often treated with negligence, and even with

cruelty, by mercenary agents. In consequence of this, he has

directed me to send the Sisters of Charity to all the departments

beyond the Alps, and in all other places where they have not

been.”[93]

Is it properly to Napoleon that the honor of such an initiative

reverts? Was it not Portalis who inspired him? He sent very few.

It is always the imperial counsellor giving, under his report,

absolutely all the confidence to the clergy and to the church.

“It is constantly urged that the ecclesiastics and the bishops

have appropriated to their own benefit; but are laic functionaries

impeccable? Men, wherever they may be, commit abuses because they

are men; but it is clear that there will be less abuse in all

things when each kind of administration shall be left to men who

by their office and their position have the largest means and the

greatest interests for right administration.”[94]

“It is argued that the needs of the poor are sufficiently

guaranteed by the civil administrators of the hospitals. I am not

only surprised, but also grieved at this assertion. They overlook,

then, all the great good for which humanity is indebted to the

Sisters of Charity, to the hospital nurses, and also to many

societies of estimable women who, by their tender piety, have

consecrated themselves to the service of the poor. The public

administrators are forced to depend upon the care of agents, to

those mercenaries whose frauds are beyond scrutiny, and who possess

no virtues. The spirit of charity cannot be supplied by the spirit

of administration. Other management must disburse the revenues,

other means must console or help the sick.... One must be possessed

of very little philosophy to believe that the cold solicitude of an

administrator can replace the generous care of ardent charity....

The service of the poor, as they are attended to in the hospitals

and outside of them by religious associations, is not a simple

administration or the effect of a simple management. It requires a

continual succession of night-watching, privation, danger, nausea,

painful and disinterested fatigue. This service demands a great

abnegation of self, which could not be sustained save by motives

superior to all human considerations. In an association, forces

are combined to multiply resources; they encourage each other by

example, and are enlightened by counsel; they are directed by rules

which call them to duty and guarantee its observance. They receive

novices whose health, character, and disposition are tested,

and to whom they transmit with the knowledge of the subject the

daily lessons of experience. All these means of recruiting and

encouraging, of direction and perpetuity, are wanting when the

service of the poor rests upon passing administrations, or with

salaried agents who can be arbitrarily replaced at any moment

by others. To achieve a permanent good we must have permanent

institutions.”[95]

This is certainly a complete and beautiful explanation of religious

associations. The experience of more than half a century has

not lessened the value of these reflections of Portalis; on

the contrary, it would be easy to enumerate the frauds, the

misrepresentations, and the wastefulness which too often occur in

administering to the wants of the poor, but we forbear the recital

of the afflicting details. Portalis had but too much reason to

condemn.

III.

In another point of view, Portalis reproved official charity. It

seemed to him irreconcilable with the rights of donors to the poor,

who wish to feel free in the distribution of their alms, and also

with the rights of the poor, who do not consent at first sight to

make acknowledgment of their misery.

“This would be,” said he, “destroying the character of charitable

commissions, and perhaps even destroying their usefulness, in

transforming them into exclusive institutions. Benevolence breathes

as it wishes and where it wishes. If you do not let it respire

freely, it stifles or becomes weakened in the midst of those who

are disposed to its exercise. I argue that it would show a false

estimate of the interests of the poor to isolate them in any way

from the religious souls who would protect and assist them. Such

people desire to place their alms in a religious organization,

which will not dispose of them in any other establishment. Far

from prescribing limits and imprudent conditions to benevolence,

I would, on the contrary, open all avenues that benevolence might

select for itself, and through which it shall choose to extend

itself.”[96]

“The administration of alms is not and cannot be the exclusive

privilege of any establishment whatever. Alms are free and

voluntary gifts. He who gives can do no more. He is the one to

charge the dispenser of his own liberality. The man who is able

to give alms, and has shown his willingness to do so, can ask

himself the simple question, To whom belongs their administration?

To him or to them whom the donor will have charged to make the

distribution? There is not and there cannot be any other rule in a

similar matter. To do away with this rule would be to dry up the

source of the charity.

“How is it possible to think that religious organizations should

be excluded from the right of administering the alms which they

receive? Under such a system, they might as well assert that they

are not allowed to receive alms, that is to say, they would have to

destroy the natural liberty of those men who lay aside a portion

of their income to devote to charity, from charging the agents of

their own alms and their liberality.”[97]

As for the poor themselves, Portalis thought, with reason,

that many among them refused to receive assistance from any

administration whatever, and this is why he wished that a portion

of the accumulated alms might be left to the disposition of the

curates of the parishes:

“Because these alms could be profitably disposed of to those poor

who from circumstances and misfortunes have met with reverses and

change of position, and who, not wishing to acknowledge their

misery to the administrators of benevolent institutions, their

equals and sometimes their enemies or rivals, go to seek from their

pastors the consolations that sustain their courage, and obtain

assistance that does not humiliate them. It is to this interesting

use that the alms are generally consecrated by the religious

organizations and the priests.”[98] Thus Portalis reasoned that,

even for the interests of the poor, official charity should be

energetically repulsed.

IV.

Meanwhile, if the objection should arise that, after all, these are

but opinions, and that simple opinions are not sufficient always

to impede the action of the state in what it believes to be its

rights, Portalis meets this objection, and in a decided tone he

asserts clearly that the state enjoys no right over the exercise of

charity. Here are his own words, which we recommend to the minds of

modern statesmen:

“The principal office of authority is to dispose of to advantage

the gifts that are offered to it, to cause them to prosper in

protecting them. It rarely originates them. We have not yet

replaced among a multitude of reforms the institutions that have

been overturned. Experience brings us back every day to the

principles that we have too easily abandoned.”[99]

“This would be but imperfectly to understand the human heart, and

hinder its free respiration in the things that law can protect

indeed, but which sentiment alone commands. The office of a

magistrate is to watch over the essential duties of a citizen,

but, in works of supererogation, he must allow great latitude to a

liberal arbitration.”[100]

A remarkable avowal, above all, from a lawyer of the temper of

Portalis, who willingly elevated into a dogma the omnipotence of

the state. He has, however, said: “No, the omnipotence of the

state does not go so far as that; and that for the very simple

reason that the state could exact from its citizens only the

observance of precepts imposed by the natural and divine laws. It

can never compel them to submit to obligations that nature has

never created.”

Is it to say that we refuse to the state the right of showing

itself benevolent and charitable? God forbid! If the state would

practise boundless liberality, we would bless it. If it would

be the protector of all the works destined for the relief of

unfortunate humanity, we would exalt it with transport. But never

to make this protection a monopoly, otherwise the benefaction would

change to tyranny.

Listen to M. Charles Périn, who has treated with as much depth as

sincerity the difficult problems of political economy:

“The action of the state in giving assistance will not be free from

danger, inasmuch as it would have a purely preventive character....

That the state intervenes to assure by its civil existence the

duration of those institutions founded by the free inspirations

of private charity; that it assures itself that the conditions of

the foundations for which it calls its meetings contain nothing

which repudiates the rules of public order; that it exercises

over the administrations of those foundations a watchfulness that

prevents abuses and which secures the observation of the essential

rules of the institution, without annulling the free action of

those who have received the mission of donators to represent

them among the poor, and continue the work of charity which has

inspired them--under these conditions, the intervention of the

state will become a benefit, because then she does no more than aid

liberty.”[101]

Here is also the doctrine of the great Bishop of Arras, Mgr.

Parisis:

“That which governments can and ought to do to aid charity is not

to disfigure, to dry up, and to destroy it in making it entirely

legal, but to reanimate it by all possible means in maintaining it

Christian, in preserving the sentiment, and everywhere encouraging

efforts in its regard, to make not rulers, but auxiliaries, not

oppressors, but friends.”[102]

Admirable formula, that the politicians of the present day should

study a little more!

We have placed before the reader the sentiments and doctrines of

Portalis touching official charity. We do not think that we could

give higher authority. We have found in the alleged proofs good and

solid reasoning. We record a true demonstration.

We have been reluctant heretofore to discharge this great duty. Why

we take up the subject at this late period is to expose the vices

and the dangers of official charity.

FOOTNOTES:

[89] _Travaux sur le Concordat, etc., Rapport du 24 Mars, 1807._

[90] _Ibid._

[91] _Ibid._

[92] _Ibid._

[93] _Rapport sur les Fabriques d’Eglise, Juillet, 1806._

[94] _Ibid._

[95] _Rapport du 24 Mars, 1807._

[96] _Rapport du 16 Avril, 1806._

[97] _Ibid._

[98] _Rapport du 16 Avril, 1806._

[99] _Ibid._ _Rapport du 24, Fructidor an XIII._, 11 Sept., 1805.

[100] _Ibid._

[101] _De la Richesse dans les Sociétés chrétienne_, t. i. p. 498.

[102] _La Democratie devant l’Enseignement catholique_, p. 107.

THE CHURCH AND THE PRESS.

The following item of news is clipped from a recent number of a

leading New York publication:

“The proposition is under discussion to establish in this city a

new anti-Catholic paper, partly devoted to opposing the religious

tenets of the Romanists, but still more their supposed attempts

to secure political control in the country. It will support the

ultra-Protestant position of the Bible in the public schools, and

will be backed, it is expected, by a large subscription among the

three or four secret anti-Roman Catholic societies that exist in

this country.”

We do not know what truth there may be in this report. It is

intrinsically probable that the establishment of an “anti-Romanist”

periodical is in contemplation, because there is always a large

politico-religious party in the United States whose chief principle

is bitterness against the Catholic Church, and there are certain

reasons why such a party just now should be especially active.

The Catholic element in our population is rapidly increasing, and

many circumstances have recently combined to bring its numerical

strength into prominence. A moderate estimate makes it not less

than six or seven millions. The published returns of the census

of 1870 have not thus far furnished any statistics of religious

belief, but they give some facts from which we can get at least an

idea of the rate at which the church in America is growing. There

were, for example, in 1870, no fewer than 1,855,779 persons of

Irish birth in the United States, and of these the preponderance of

Catholics over Protestants was so large that the Protestant element

may as well be disregarded. In Ireland, the ratio of Catholics

to Protestants is at least as high as four to one, and here the

proportion is still greater, because emigration is largely from

the Catholic counties; probably the whole number of Irish-born

Protestants in the United States does not equal 200,000. The

German-born population, according to the same census, is 1,690,533.

In Germany, about three-fifths of the inhabitants are Catholics,

but emigration takes place rather more from the Protestant than

from the Catholic districts, so that competent judges estimate

that the Catholic Germans in this country are only two-fifths of

the entire number. That would give us, for Catholics of German

birth, 676,213. Then there are 193,504 natives of other Catholic

countries, including 116,402 Frenchmen, but not counting Swiss,

Poles, Canadians, and others of whose religious belief we have

no means of making an estimate. A great many of the French and

Italian immigrants are either Protestants or people of no religious

profession at all; and, upon the whole, we prefer to leave out

of consideration these 193,000 settlers of the Latin race,

balancing with them the Protestant Irish. Now, the census shows

that for every foreigner in the country there are two native-born

inhabitants of foreign parentage. According to this rule, we ought

to have 3,711,558 descendants in the first generation of Irish

immigrants, and 1,352,426 descendants of Germans. Supposing,

therefore, that the children are brought up in the faith of their

parents, there ought to be the following numbers of foreign-born

Catholics and Catholics born in this country of foreign fathers and

mothers: