"Not just yet, Poucette," I replied. "Tell me something about yourself

first, and eat more walnuts."

{264}

She looked up sharply at this, as if to say, What business is that of

yours? then away into the fire, which was evidently a novel luxury to

her; and finally her glance rested on Mouton, who, having devoured

every superfluous piece of meat, and gnawed the only bone at table,

had now stretched himself on the hearth-rug, and slumbered peacefully

at her feet. "Monsieur is very good," she said presently, with a sigh,

still with her eyes fixed on Mouton. "My history is nothing very

great. I am not a Parisian; my father was a Norman."

"Is he alive now?" I asked, as she paused here.

"I don't know about that," she answered haughtily. "He was a wicked

man. Monsieur understands me?" she said questioningly, with a piercing

look.

"Yes, poor child. And your mother, what of her?"

"She is an angel," faltered the girl. "She went up to heaven last

Christmas;" and the tears filled her eyes as she said it.

"How have you lived since?'

"Oh, that was at Marseilles; and I came on here with Mouton. We

dance," she continued in a firmer voice; "we go out with a man called

Emile, who plays the organ very well, and he has another dog like

Mouton,' only not at all clever: the stupid creature can only hold a

basket in his mouth, and beg for sous; he has no talent." She shrugged

her shoulders, and continued, "We live with Emile and his wife; they

are not always kind to me; but I love Jean."

"Who is this Jean?" I asked.

"Ah! he is a poor boy," she replied; the whole expression of her

countenance softening at his name, and her sallow cheeks crimsoning

with a tender flush. "He is lame; he cannot walk, and is pulled about

in a little carriage; but he does not like to beg, so Emile will not

take him out with us."

"Is Emile his father?" I asked.

"No, monsieur; his father is dead but his mother is Emile's wife. I

take care of Jean myself."

"Are they good to you?"

"Yes, pretty well. You see I dance for them, and people give more

money because I am there; and then Mouton is so clever; one does not

easily meet with a dog like that, who will stand on his hind-legs for

an hour together, and dance as he does. Look at his dress too;" and

she pulled out of the bosom of her frock Mouton's paraphernalia, and

displayed it with evident pride. "In my opinion now, there is no such

dress as that for a dog in all Paris," she said, as she held it up

admiringly to the lamp. "Jean made those shoes; ar'n't they droll? And

the wig; look, that is superb!"

"Who made the wig?" I asked.

"Ah! it was a little boy who is apprenticed to a wigmaker," she

answered. "Monsieur, it was a bargain between us; he wanted something

from me, and--and I said I would give it him if he made a wig for

Mouton; and this is the wig. He is not bad himself, that little boy;

but he is not at all so good as Jean."

"How old is Jean?" I asked.

"He is twelve years old, monsieur."

"And you?"

"I am ten," she replied, with a little sigh and a blush. "But I may

grow still, may I not?" she asked timidly, looking up into my face so

pathetically, that I had hardly sufficient gravity to answer, "Yes, of

course; you will doubtless grow for a long time yet."

"Ah! that is exactly what Jean says," she exclaimed gaily; then added

in a lower voice, "Jean says he likes little people best; but, you

see, he may say that because he likes me."

I answered nothing to this; and presently she roused herself from a

little reverie, and said, "Now we shall dance for you, because it gets

late, and I must go home."

"If you like to remain here all night," I said, "the wife of the

concierge will let you sleep in a little {265} room off theirs, down

stairs; and when you have had some breakfast, you can then return."

"No, no," she repeated sharply; "I will not sleep here; I go home to

Jean."

"Will Emile be glad to see you?"

"That depends; if he is cross, he will beat me for staying so long;

but it does not matter; I wished to stay, and I liked my dinner, and

this warm fire" (she looked wistfully at it). "Monsieur is very good.

Come, Mouton, my friend; wake yourself up."

The dog rose, shook himself, and patiently allowed himself to be

dressed once more. He took an unfair advantage of his mistress,

however, when she knelt down to put on his shoes, and licked her face.

"Ah, _cochon_, how often must I box your ears for that trick!" she

said, as she gave him a tap on the side of his head, for the liberty.

"Come now, walk along." The dog paced soberly toward the door on his

hind-legs.--"That is the _ancien regime_," she explained to me.--"Now,

Mouton, show us how people walk at the present day." The dog stopped,

and at once imitated the short, mincing step of a Parisian belle,

shaking his hoop from side to side in most ludicrous fashion; and as

he reached his mistress, he dropped a little awkward courtesy.

"That is well," she said. "Now sing for us like Madame G----," naming

a famous opera-singer, whose fame was then at its height, and she laid

a light piece of music-paper across his paws. The dog looked closely

down on the paper for an instant, licked his lips, looked round at an

imaginary audience, and then throwing back his head, and fixing his

black eyes on the ceiling, he uttered a howl so shrill and piercing

that I stopped my ears; he then ceased for an instant, looked at his

music attentively, then at his audience, and again uttered that

ear-piercing howl. "That is enough," said Poucette; "bow to the

company." The dog rose and sank with the grace almost of the prima

donna herself.

"Now, Mouton, we are going to dance;" and taking the animal by its

paw, she put the other arm round it, and the two whirled round in a

waltz, keeping admirable time to a tune which Poucette whistled. "Now

read a book, and rest yourself whilst I dance;" and again the piece of

music was laid on Mouton's paws, and he bent his eyes on it,

apparently with the most devoted attention, whilst Poucette slipped

off her heavy sabots, and with naked feet thrust into a pair of old

satin slippers, which she produced from some pocket in her dress, she

executed a sort of fancy dance, half Cachuca, half Bolero, throwing

herself into pretty, graceful attitudes, with a step as light as a

fairy's; then, as she approached Mouton in the figure, she lifted the

music, and taking him by one paw, she led him forward to the front of

my chair on the points of her toes, the two courtesying nearly to the

ground, when Mouton affectionately kissed his mistress on the cheek.

"There, it is over now," said Poucette; "that is all. He does not know

the minuet perfectly yet: next week, perhaps, we shall try it for the

_Jour de l'An_."

"Well done!" I exclaimed, and clapped my hands. "He is a famous dog;

and you--you dance beautifully."

Mouton came to be patted and made much of; and his mistress now

announced her intention of going home at once. Finding it useless to

try and induce her to stay, I offered to go with her myself, and see

her safely through the still crowded streets; but this she firmly

declined.

"No, not to-night," she said. "You may come to-morrow, if you will be

so kind, but not to-night. You have been very good, monsieur; I am not

ungrateful. You may come to-morrow; Rue----, No.----, quite close to

Notre Dame." She took my hand, raised it to her lips, courtesied, and

was gone.

{266}

I followed her down stairs, and watched the little figure hurrying

along with a firm step, upright as a dart, the light from the

gas-lamps falling now and then on the spangles of her dress, and

making them twinkle for an instant; and the dark outline of Mouton

following closely behind her, under the shadow of the houses.

Presently they crossed the street, and disappeared in the distance;

and I turned and walked up stairs to my cosey well-lighted room, to

think over the strange life of a street dancing-girl.

After this, I made inquiries about Poucette in the part of the town

where she lived, and visited the man Emile and his wife often. Here I

found the cripple boy Jean, to whom Poucette clung with a tenacity of

affection that was touching to witness. He had had a fall as an

infant, so his mother said, and never had walked; but his fingers were

skilful in making toys, baskets, and small rush-mats, which Poucette

sold during her daily rounds. To him she devoted her affections, her

life, with a steady ardor not often met with at her age. Toward

others, she was always grave, distant, often haughty and bitter in her

expressions of anger, but to him never. However tired she might return

home after dancing or selling his wares on the boulevard, she never

showed him that she was so; if he wished to go out, she drew him in a

rude wooden sledge to the gardens of the Luxembourg; and the two would

sit there by the hour together on Sundays, criticising the passers-by

as they walked about in their gay dresses. At night, if the invalid

was restless or in pain, Poucette sat beside him, sometimes till day

dawned, with a sympathizing cheerful face, ready to attend upon every

want. There she shone; but take away Jean out of her world, and

Poucette stood forth a vixen. Madame Emile, who was herself somewhat

of a shrew, vowed that if it were not that she and Jean were so bound

up together, and nothing could separate them, she must have sent away

Poucette long ago. "No one could endure her temper, monsieur," she

would declare to me; and when she began upon this subject, madame

waxed eloquent. "She is a girl such as there is not besides in Paris.

For Jean, she will give up dress, company, the theatre, everything;

but except for him, she would not go one step out of her way to be

made an empress. It is not natural that. After she first came here, we

had a great deal of trouble with her, and Emile beat her well; but

then she would run away in a rage, and come back again during the

night, for fear Jean should want something. Now we are more used to

her, and we let her have her own way pretty much."

Jean I could get nothing out of except a "Bonjour, monsieur" at

entering and on leaving his house. He sat silently plaiting his mats

or carving toys with his long fingers, looking as if he neither heard

nor understood what we were talking about; but he carefully repeated

all the conversation afterward to his friend Poucette, for she told me

so often when we were together. She used to come and see me at my

rooms, when it was wet, or business was slack; and I succeeded in

finding a customer for her wares in a toy-merchant, who promised to

take all Jean's work at a reasonable price, and was liberal toward the

two children. Poucette was thus able to give up her public dancing,

and stay more at home; and the toyman's daughter taught her dainty

embroidery, in which her skilful fingers soon excelled. She tamed down

wonderfully that winter, and even made some efforts to learn reading,

as I suggested to her what a source of pleasure it would be to Jean,

whose thirst for hearing stories related was intense, if he could read

them for himself. But she was very slow at this; the letters proved a

heavy task to learn, and when we came to spelling, I often despaired;

still she toiled on, and when I left Paris in May, she could read a

very little.

{267}

Six months passed, and again I turned my steps to my old

winter-quarters. The summer and autumn had been spent by me partly in

England, partly in Switzerland. My protege was unable to write, and I

had heard nothing of her since I left Paris. I had not returned there

longer than a week, when I set off into the _cite_, to discover again

my little pupil. It was much the same sort of a day as that on which

we had first met; cold, dank, misty rain kept falling, and streets

were wet and sloppy. The part of the town where Poucette lived was

wretchedly poor, dingy, and dirty-looking, especially in such weather

as I now visited it, and the reputed haunt of thieves and evil-doers

of various kinds. I picked my way along narrow ill-paved streets, with

the gutters in the middle, and at last I reached her old abode. There

was no one stirring about; but the door was ajar. I pushed it open,

and walked in. The dwelling had once been some nobleman's hotel in

bygone days, and its rooms were large and lofty, and at present each

inhabited by different poor families. Emile's was on the ground

floor--a long room, formerly used either as a guard-room or for

playing billiards in. It had one large window, opening in the center,

and crossed outside with thick iron bars, which partially excluded the

light. I was confused on entering from the outer air, and at first

could only perceive that the room was filled with a crowd of people,

of various ages and sexes, but all of the lowest order, some sitting,

some standing. A woman came forth to meet me, whom I recognized as

Madame Emile, sobbing and holding her apron to her eyes. "Ah, mon

Dieu, mon Dieu!" she whispered, as she looked at me and clasped her

hands piteously; "the poor Poucette, how hard it is! Monsieur, you are

welcome; but this is a sorrowful time; she is much hurt." She led me

gently through the various groups, all sorrowfully silent, toward a

low pallet, at the head of the room, where, crushed, bleeding, and now

insensible from pain, lay the form of poor Poucette. "What is this?" I

asked in a whisper. "How did it happen?"

"Ah, it was a vile remise," eagerly answered a dozen voices. "She was

returning home yesterday from selling the mats, and the driver was

drunk. She fell in crossing, and he did not see her. The wheel crushed

her poor chest. Ah, she will die, the unhappy child!"

"Where is Jean?" I asked.

His mother silently pointed out what looked like a bundle of clothes

huddled up in the bed beside the dying child. She was dying, my poor

Poucette. One of the kind-hearted surgeons from the _hopital_ had been

to see her early that morning, and pronounced that beside the blow on

her chest, which was of itself a dangerous one, severe internal

injuries had taken place, which must end her life in a few hours. Poor

Poucette! I seated myself by the little couch in the dark room, which

was so soon to be filled by the presence of death, and presently the

surgeon came again. All eyes turned anxiously toward him as he walked

to the bed, and kneeling down beside it, carefully examined the poor

little sufferer, whose only sign of consciousness was a groan of

anguish now and then.

"Can nothing be done for her?" I asked, as he rose to his feet and

stood by the bed, looking pityingly down at the two children.

"Nothing whatever," he said, with a mournful shake of his head. "She

will not last through the night."

"Does she suffer?" I asked.

"Acutely, but it will not be for long. Mortification is setting in

rapidly." He paused, then added: "She will probably regain

consciousness at the last;" and left the room.

Slowly the weary hours glided on; gradually the moans became weaker,

and the pulse quick and fitful. Suddenly she opened her eyes, and

looked at me inquiringly; then her eyes fell {268} on Jean, who lay at

her side, and uttered an exclamation of joy. "I am not in pain now,"

she said faintly; "that is over.--Ah, my good monsieur, you said you

would return. I am glad."

"I am grieved to find you thus, Poucette," I whispered. "Can I do

anything for you?"

"Perhaps you would like to have Mouton," she said calmly, as if

thinking aloud.

"I will keep him, if you like it," I replied. "Is there anything else

you would like?"

"Only Jean, dear Jean," and her soft dark eyes were fixed timidly yet

imploringly on my face.

"I will take care of Jean."

"The good God reward you, my kind monsieur! That is all that I want.--

Adieu, madame. Adieu, my good friends. It is over." Just then Mouton

raised himself on his hind-legs by the bed, and peered anxiously into

her face. She put out her little right hand, and gently patted his

head; then, with a last effort, she turned round from us, and flung

one tiny arm round the crippled boy at her side. "Je t'aime toujours,"

she whispered, as she bent over and kissed him. It was a last effort.

A slight shiver passed over the little figure; one long-drawn sigh

escaped the white lips. Poucette was gone to her mother; the wanderer

had been taken home; the desolate one was comforted!

My tale is ended, except to say that, from that evening, Mouton has

been my inseparable companion. He is by no means, however, as

complaisant to me as he was to his mistress; on the contrary, Mouton,

like many other _nouveaux riches_, is rather a spoiled dog, and the

tyrant of my small household. Jean became a basket-maker, and it is

not improbable that my fair readers may have in their possession some

of the productions of his skilful fingers. Such was the fruit of my

Christmas-eve in Paris six years ago. I have never spent one there

since.

----

Translated from Der Katholik.

DANTE'S DIVINA COMMEDIA.

There is none of the Christian poets who has exercised so great an

influence in the intellectual world as Dante Alighieri. His "Vision of

Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise" has been, ever since its appearance, a

mine in which artists, poets, philosophers, theologians, historians,

and statesmen have found treasures. In Italy, immediately after his

death, professors were appointed in the universities to explain his

work, and numbers of both lay and clerical savants, among them even

princes, bishops, and archbishops, took delight in its study and

exposition. With the spread of the Italian language, on which Dante

has stamped for ever the impress of his genius, and with the progress

of Italian culture, all Europe became acquainted with the Commedia,

and learned to admire its beauty and its grandeur. It was translated

into other tongues; learned foreigners undertook to fathom its depths;

and even the spirit of religious unity in the sixteenth century did

not check its influence over the Roman-Germanic nations. Protestant

translators and expositors contended with the Catholic writers who

made of the work of Dante a special study. The Germans especially have

{269} not been backward in this respect, and to prove it we need only

name Kannegieser, Strecksufs, Kofisch, Witte, Wegele, and Philalethes

(the present king of Saxony).

When we wish to assign Dante his proper place in Christian art and

poetry, by comparison with antiquity, we are reminded at once of Homer

and the veneration in which he was held by the Greeks. But how has the

Florentine poet merited such high consideration? Is it by the might of

his genius and the peculiarity of his chosen theme? By the perfection

and the poetic charm of his expression and language? By his deep

knowledge of life and of human nature? By the philosophic and moral

truths which he has woven into his poem? By his religious and

political views? Or by his judgment of historical personages and

facts?

No doubt all these have been helping causes to establish Dante's fame

and give him the position which he holds. But the true reason of all

the singular prerogatives of the poet and of the poem, the reason

which gives us the key to the right understanding of the "Divine

Comedy," and of the various and discrepant explanations of it, must be

sought deeper. There is a principal cause of Dante's greatness, from

which the secondary causes, just named, diverge, as rays of light from

a common centre, and to the knowledge of which only a philosophical

comprehension of history, and especially of poetry, can lead us. We

shall endeavor in this essay to discover this cause, after having

given a brief sketch of the contents and the scope of the great poem.

I.

The _Commedia_, which, in the form of a vision, paints the condition

of the soul after death, is divided into three parts, Hell, Purgatory,

and Paradise. Each part consists of thirty-three cantos, which, with

the introductory canto, make the round number one hundred. Surrounded

by trials and troubles of various kinds, Dante is guided into the

regions of the invisible by his favorite poet Virgil, who comes to his

assistance. Virgil here represents poetry and the idea of the poem. It

was through him that Dante was first led to the serious study of

truth, and to direct his mind to the philosophical consideration of

the condition of mankind.

Our poet now proceeds into the realm of the damned souls, into the

regions of night and hell, which he represents in the form of a funnel

having nine gradually narrowing eddies, in which the souls of the

damned are revolving to the throne of Satan, who sits at the top of

the cone. The narrower grow the circles, the more intense become the

punishments inflicted, in proportion to the increasing guilt of the

culprits. The lowest place among the lost souls is occupied by the

traitors, Brutus, Cassius, and Judas.

The power of the devil over men, and the inexorable character of the

Christian idea of retributive justice, is grandly portrayed in this

part of the work, by interweaving the most moving and striking

episodes, in which well-known characters are described as receiving

punishment equal to their crimes. Even paganism is made to lend its

graces to increase the sublimity of the picture, and clothe the

thoughts of the writer in poetic garments.

Both poets then leave the darkness and horror of hell behind them, and

approach the regions of purification or purgatory, over which

perpetual twilight reigns. This realm of temporary suffering is

supposed by the poet to be on the opposite side of the earth, where

the antipodes dwell. This abode of those souls who are being purified

and doing penance for minor offences, and whose pains are lessened by

the hope of future happiness, is represented in the form of a

mountain, to whose summit one ascends by nine successive degrees, as

the descent through the {270} funnel of hell was by nine lessening

circles. At the top of the mountain is placed that earthly paradise

which was lost by the sins of our first parents, and from which the

way to heaven leads. Having arrived in the terrestrial paradise, Dante

suddenly finds himself deserted by Virgil, who from the beginning had

promised to guide him only so far. But Beatrice meets our poet here,

Beatrice the beloved of his youth. She teaches him the science of God,

and, aided by the light of faith and revelation, which Virgil had not,

she shows him the higher knowledge given to human reason under the

influence of Christianity. At her voice and teaching, Dante is moved

to repentance for his transgressions, and she becomes his future

guide.

Dante paints in the most lively colors, and describes with the

greatest beauty, in episodes and conversations, the intimate relation

of the souls in purgatory with each other, and with those they left

behind them on earth, and with the blessed in heaven. This latter

point is illustrated by the frequent appearance of angels, who descend

from time to time into the dusky realms of purgatory.

Led by his beloved Beatrice, our poet now mounts to heaven, and

traverses its various spheres, which are represented according to the

system of Ptolemy. Beginning by the moon, the poet travels through

Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the glory and

happiness of the beatified increasing as he advances, in proportion

with their virtues and holiness, till he arrives at the so-called

Empyrean, at the very throne of God. In the highest sphere Dante

beholds the mystical rose, that is, the glory of the Blessed Virgin,

who is surrounded by the highest saints and angels in the form of a

rose; and among these glorified spirits he sees with delight his

Beatrice near the Mother of God, who gives an honorable place to those

who had been her fervent followers during life. The Vision of Heaven

ends by a glance at the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the

Incarnation, which mortal eye, though supernaturally strengthened, is

unable to dwell upon for excess of light.

Dante in this part of his work treats the most difficult questions,

not only of philosophy, which he had also done in the preceding

cantos, but also of theology, with the greatest clearness, depth, and

poetic grace. He treats in it of the fundamental ideas of

Christianity, of faith, hope, and charity. The spirits that he

represents to the reader in hell, purgatory, and paradise are by no

means the mere wilful creations of his fancy, but for the most part

are historical characters, some of them but little removed from his

own time, others contemporary; and even those which he borrows from

Judaism or paganism to embellish his poem are symbolical, and have an

intimate connection with some reality. On this very account we should

not judge the Vision as an allegory, although in many respects it has

the peculiarities of an allegorical poem. It is, rather, a mystic

poem, in which the deepest religious and philosophical truths are

represented under the shadow of visionary forms and ethereal

similitudes; and realities are raised to an ideal sphere, where the

mind's eye can penetrate through their misty covering and contemplate

them to satiety. But what is the cause of the great influence which

this poem has exerted on mankind? This is the question which we have

undertaken to answer, and which we shall now endeavor to solve.

II.

As in the history of nations and of mankind there are certain epochs

in which the elements that had formed the groundwork of society, and

of national life, in their gradual development, culminate in a certain

point, where the mental powers of the people put forth all their

strength in the production of facts, or works of various kinds that

give expression to the spirit {271} of the age; so in the history of

poetry there are poets and poems in which the ruling ideas of their

time and nation appear in all their truth and power.

In the works of great poets we have, as it were, a copy of God's

creative power. He seems to lend it to the poet. Of all the

productions of the human mind, the poem has the greatest similarity

with the works of Almighty power, and both offer to human

contemplation beauties ever varying and ever new. But between the

works of divine and of human skill there is an essential difference.

The works of God express the thoughts of the Creator, whose glory and

invisibility, according to the Psalmist, the heavens declare, and

whose eternal might and divinity creatures proclaim; but with the

effects of human genius it is entirely different.

Every individual is but a member of the great whole, which we call the

human family; he can do nothing alone, but depends on others both for

his material and spiritual support; and the degree of culture which he

attains, the aim which he proposes to himself in life, and the germ of

his future progress, are as much the result of the influences

exercised on him from the cradle to the grave, by the family circle,

by the school, and by the associations of society, as they are the

effects of his own independent strength and originality. Hence the

work of the poet, no matter how great he may be, is not to be

considered the exclusive product of the individual, for it must bear

on it the stamp of his education, and of the people among whom he

dwells, and of the age in which he lives. As the waters of a lake do

not merely reflect their own color, but also the green shore of the

surrounding woods and hills, the passing clouds, the deep blue of the

heavens above, and of the stars that glitter in it; so in the poem we

see not only the soul of its creator, but every great emotion that

swelled in the breast of the men of his age and nation. In a word, we

see the whole circle of contemporary ideas more or less vividly

expressed in it. Nor are the productions of human genius lessened by

this fact; they are, on the contrary, enhanced in value. For it is no

longer one person, with his subjective views of his own world and

life, who speaks to us in them, but it is the spirit of a portion of

mankind, expressing to us the ideas of a certain stage in the progress

of civilization.

Now, if such a work of genius be at the same time the foundation of a

further development in the future, and of such a character that it

represents the condition not only of one nation, but of several; and

if the ideas which it contains and which sway men be such as by their

truth and universality overleap the limits of time and space; then

such a power will maintain its hold upon the admiration and esteem of

men, not only in a certain epoch and among a certain people, but for

ever and among all nations where the same order of civilization

reigns. Poets who are distinguished above others by the creative power

and superiority of their genius in the production of such a work, are

not merely the poets of one age, or of one nation, but they belong to

all times and to all nations. They will not be merely read once, and

then thrown aside; but they will be reperused and studied with ever

increasing pleasure.

The age of Dante was an epoch of this character among the Christian

nations. He has hardly his superior as a poet, either among the

ancients or the moderns. Hence, if we contemplate the _Commedia_ from

this point of view, we shall be able not only to understand the

general scope of the work, but even to comprehend with ease all its

details and peculiarities.

But in order to show that the period at which Dante appeared (the

second half of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth

century) was one like that which we have described, we must briefly

recall to mind the condition of the Church, of the state of science

and art, and give {272} expression to the spirit of the age in a

scientific formula.

If we then look at the Church, we find her displaying such fecundity

and power as we shall hardly find at any other period in her history.

She is not only busy in the work of converting the still pagan nations

of Europe, especially in the north, and strengthening the faith among

believers by missions, voyages, and diplomacy; by the foundation of

new congregations and bishoprics; by councils; by stringency of

external discipline, and greater solemnity in the public worship; but

also by the internal reformation effected by such men as popes

Alexander III., Innocent III., and Innocent IV., who continued the

good work begun by Gregory VII., of freeing the Church from the

oppressions of secular power. They succeeded at length in propagating

and realizing among the Christian nations of the West the idea of one

vast spiritual community, under the headship of one spiritual ruler,

who, instead of destroying national diversity and independence,

protected and favored them. This idea prevailed through the agency of

the supreme pontiffs over the pagan idea so cherished by the emperors

of a universal monarchy. The crusades, too, fostered and led by the

Church, and which are the clearest expression of the thoroughly

Christian spirit of those centuries, bring the West into closer

intimacy with the East, and enrich the former with all the material

and spiritual treasures of the latter. Then arise those great orders

which--half religious and half secular, as the Knights Hospitallers

and the Templars, or entirely religious, like the Dominicans and

Franciscans--defended the Church, cared for the sick and the poor,

sacrificed themselves in spreading Christian faith and morality, and

gave birth to countless institutions of charity.

If we now glance at the political condition of the people, a spectacle

equally grand as that just described offers itself to our view. On the

imperial throne of Germany appear those powerful princes of the house

of Hohenstaufen, who contended so heroically with the papacy for the

success of the Ghibelline idea of a universal monarchy, but who in the

end were worsted in the fight; while in France a St. Louis IX., and in

England a Richard the Lion-hearted, excite the admiration of the

world. In Italy, even in the midst of the struggle between the secular

and the spiritual powers, and between the Guelphs and Ghibellines,

mighty republics spring up under the protection of the Church; and in

the other nations also we see a powerful effort for national

independence and freedom appearing in the many guilds, corporations,

free cities, states, and parliaments which were everywhere rising into

a dignified existence. But above all, the order of chivalry in the

twelfth and thirteenth centuries--an order which even yet throws such a

halo of poetry and romance around the middle ages in which it

nourished, walking hand in hand with religion, which had consecrated

it--helped much to civilize the barbarian character of the age, and

improve the moral condition of society.

As to science in the epoch of which we write, it was mostly occupied

in the investigation of those subjects which lay next the Christian

heart of the people; namely, in theology, philosophy, and ethics. And

how great has been its success! What great results has not mediaeval

science effected! I need only mention the immortal names of Anselem of

Canterbury, of St. Bernard, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas,

Bonaventure, Roger Bacon, and Vincent of Beauvais; men whose works in

theology, philosophy, history, and in the natural sciences, remain to

the present time as monuments of genius, hardly equalled by ancient or

modern productions.

At this period, too, sprang up the universities, which realize in

their conception the universal idea of catholicity. They were founded

in every land, and all the sciences were taught in {273} them. The

Church herself, in the Council of Vienne, in 1311, decreed that,

beside the chairs of theology, philosophy, medicine, and

jurisprudence, there should be in the four principal universities, and

wherever the papal court should be held, professors of Hebrew,

Chaldaic, Arabic, and Greek. But what especially shows the

intellectual bent of this age is the zeal and youthful ardor

manifested in every rank for all the different branches of science.

Popes, emperors, kings, and nobles emulated each other in this

respect, and consecrated their energies to the furtherance of

learning.

If we now turn to the state of art and poetry, on every side the old

cathedrals and monuments erected in the twelfth and thirteenth

centuries meet our eyes, and in their various styles of Gothic and

Roman architecture excite our admiration, fill us with holy awe, and,

as they lift their spires to heaven, speak more eloquently of the

greatness of the spirit and aesthetic feeling of the people than any

words of ours could do. In the suite of architecture the other arts

followed and were elevated to its height; and even before Dante, and

contemporaneously with him, lived the founders of the Italian schools

of painting and sculpture, which so soon after attained to such

perfection. As for poetry, we need only remember that at this time

most of the modern languages began to be developed and become the

mediums of literature. "It was the gay time of the troubadours and

incense-singers," says Vilmar, in his History of German National

Literature, "in which the melody of song rang out from hamlet to

hamlet, from city to city, from castle to castle, and court to court,

and a thousand harmonious echoes, near and far, from hill and valley,

answered out of the people's heart." It was the first classic period

of German literature, in which the national and artistic epic appear

well developed in such works as the _Nibelungen, Gudrun, Parceval_,

and others.

No doubt there are shadows on the picture of the age just described,

as there are in our own. But still, whoever considers the facts we

have alleged, cannot fail to admit the age as a real epoch in the

history of the Christian world, unless he is blind or wilfully shuts

his eyes to the light. In view of these facts, also, he must perceive

that the civilization of the various western nations was most

intimately connected; that it rested on the same common foundation;

and that the ideas which ruled them and constituted their vital

principle were eternally and universally true, and became the platform

of succeeding intellectual evolution. Hence, those nations, though

differing in origin and political independence, made but one grand

spiritual community, bound together by a common faith and a common

church. But if we would now express the spirit of this epoch in a

philosophical formula, we should say that it was the period in which

the Roman and Germanic races were converted to Christianity after the

decease of the old world and of pagan civilization; and after these

races had become a spiritual community under the hierarchy of the

popes, and become bound together under the government of one worldly

empire, after various combats with outward enemies and triumphs over

internal elements of discord; when these races had appropriated to

themselves Christianity as their vital element, and recognized it as

the power which moved and governed the world, and sought to produce,

realize, and use Christian ideas in every direction, in the sciences,

in arts, in society, in the state, and in the Church. The Protestant,

Vilmar, whom we have already cited, agrees with this assertion, when

he writes: "It was the spirit of Christianity which had become the

spirit of the western nations, and which inspired, in the highest

degree, the higher ranks of society, the nobility, and the clergy; and

which penetrated into the masses, not so much as a theory, but as a

fact--not as a science, but as an element of their life; it was

Christianity, not as a simple doctrine or idea, but as a practical

{274} boon and benefit; it was a joy to the Christian Church and to

its internal and external glory, and a blessing with its gifts, more

general than it has been since, and so strong that even the struggle

between the popes and the emperors, for over two centuries, could not

affect the great happiness of men whose social and individual

existence was actuated by the spirit of Christianity."

III.

Taking, therefore, this comprehensive view of the state of society;

considering the triumph of the Christian idea in history, the

consciousness of Christianity as the principle of life in the

newly-organized world, and the struggle of this element to mould and

fashion everything according to its nature, we may easily answer the

question as to the character of a poem which should thoroughly express

the spirit of the age. It would not be hard to show that the Divine

Comedy of Dante derived its matter, its form, its name, and its

sentiment from the peculiar condition of the epoch. In fact, any poem

that represents, the conquest of the Christian idea in all conditions

of private and public life must ever exercise great influence over

men. But in order to give a poetical representation of this thought,

the poet should choose a framework sufficiently large to contain the

vast picture in which God and man, heaven and earth, nature and grace,

creation and redemption, past, present, and future, science and life,

church and state, appear; and such a framework was offered to him in

the Christian idea of the judgment, of God, and of the existence of

the other world, in its three divisions of hell, purgatory, and

paradise.

Now, only by carrying up ordinary facts to this higher, ideal sphere

was it possible to overleap the limits of time and space, and give

greater unity to the picture, and make it a masterpiece. But he who

lives here below is ignorant of the future, and of the condition of

the departed souls. Only by a supernatural revelation can we know

their lot. Consequently, the form of a wonderful vision, in which the

poet enters into communion with the spirits of the dead, and wanders

through their regions, is the most natural manner of representing his

idea in the poem; consequently, it should be called by right a "divine

drama," a _Divina Commedia_, as the most appropriate title.

The true scope of the poem, therefore, must not be sought for either

in a purely religious, or a purely political, or a purely scientific

or personal point of view; but in the prosecution of a far more

general, comprehensive, higher, philosophic, theological, and

particularly moral or ethical object, to which all the details of the

work are subordinated. Hence, he who examines these details from this

or that stand-point may give them the most different explanations, as

in fact many commentators of the poem do--not having fathomed its

depths and perceived the general object of the sacred epic.

Dante himself leaves us no reason to doubt on this point. In his

dedicatory epistle to Cardinal Grande della Scala, he speaks thus:

"The meaning of this poem is not simple, but multiple. The first sense

is in the words, the second in the things expressed: the one is called

literal, the other moral or allegorical. Taken literally, the whole

work is simple, and expresses the condition of souls after death, for

this is expressed by the whole tenor of the poem. But taken in the

higher sense, its object is man, either deserving rewards or

chastisements through the exercise of his free will. And if we wish to

name the kind of philosophy contained in the work, we must call it

moral, or ethics. For the whole tends to practice and action, and is

not content with simple contemplation and speculation."

Giacomo di Dante, the son of the poet, develops more clearly the scope

of the work, in the preface to his {275} commentary. "The whole work,"

says he, "is divided into three parts; the first of which treats of

hell, the second of purgatory, and the third of paradise. In order to

understand the general allegorical bearing, I say that the object of

the poet is to represent to us in figurative language the three

several divisions of mankind. The first part considers vice in man,

and is called hell, to show us that mortal sin by its depth of

iniquity is directly opposed to the sublimity of virtue. The second

contemplates those who detach themselves from vice and strive after

virtue. His place for such persons he calls purgatory, or place of

purification, to show the condition of the soul, which cleanses itself

from its sins in time, for time is the medium in which all changes

happen. The third considers perfect man, and is called paradise, in

order to express the greatness of its bliss, and the elevation of mind

connected with it; two things without which a knowledge of the supreme

good cannot be attained. And thus the poet pursues his object through

the three several parts of his poem by means of the figures and

representations with which he surrounds himself."

But the poet, in order to realize his grand idea, should be gifted not

only with the highest poetical genius in order to represent the

philosophical principles of Christianity in the peculiar characters

and types of Christian art, and give them a new, independent, and

majestic appearance; but he should be also possessed, on the one hand,

of a clear and perfect knowledge of Christian doctrine and ethics, and

a deep and extensive knowledge of philosophy and theology; and, on the

other, of a profound and extensive acquaintance with men and human

life, as well as with the history of the human race. Both these

requisites are found in Dante in the highest degree. Christian faith

and morality is as well and correctly explained by him as by the best

approved theologians. But this fact will not excite our surprise if we

consider that, in his Vision, without however sacrificing his

individuality, he adheres strictly to the great doctors of the age,

Saints Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, as King John of Saxony clearly

proves in his commentary on the Divine Comedy.

Hence, at an early period Dante's work became a favorite theme of

scholastic study, and under the portal of the cathedral at Florence

there is seen an old statue of the poet near that of the patron saint

of the city, with this inscription: _Theologus Dante, nullius dogmatis

expers_--"Dante the theologian, to whom no dogma was unknown." In the

Raphael chamber in the Vatican, he is represented crowned with laurel

on the famous painting of the _disputa_, among the popes, bishops, and

doctors assembled round the holy sacrament of the altar.

An occasional writer has suspected the faith of Dante, because in his

poem he deplores several abuses in the Church, such as the corruption

of some of the clergy and monks, and lashes some of the popes and the

relation of the papacy to the secular power in his time. But such a

suspicion is unwarranted when we consider that many Catholic

reformers, even saints like Peter Damien, Saint Thomas of Canterbury,

Saint Bernard, Saint Hildegard, Jacopone, and others, have spoken even

more strongly than Dante against abuses; and that he never confounds

the use with the abuse, excrescences of an institution with the

institution itself, or persons with principles.

Dante's thorough knowledge of human life and of history is fully shown

in his surprising explanations, and by the manner in which with one

trait he paints the famous characters and facts in the _Commedia_, as

well as by the examples and narrations which he takes from all times,

regions, and nations of the earth. But in his judgment of persons and

facts in the past and present, Dante is not always impartial or just,

for, being {276} subject to human frailties and prejudices, he is

often guilty of great injustice to those against whom he had motives

of hatred. Consequently, in order to appreciate Dante's poem on this

point, we must consider the character of his life and fortunes, as

well as the history of his native city and country.

Dante Alighieri was born at Florence in the year 1265, and received in

baptism the name of Durante, which was shortened to that of Dante.

Early in his youth an event happened which determined his life, and to

which posterity is indebted for his great work. In the year 1274, in

the ninth year of his age, Dante saw, at a church festival, the

daughter of Falco Portinari, Beatrice, a child eight years old, whom

he says, in one of his poems, no one could see without crying out,

"This is not a woman, but one of the most beautiful of the heavenly

angels!" He conceived for her, on the spot, the most violent passion,

but, at the same time, one so pure and holy that Beatrice, even on

earth and wedded to another, became for him and his muse a perfect

ideal that inspired all his first and tenderest poems, and moved him

to high and holy thoughts. But after Beatrice's untimely death, she

became, in the imagination of the poet, a holy spirit, whose glory he

undertook to exalt after a wonderful vision which he had, and who

became, in all the sorrows of his life, a star of hope and anchor of

safety to him. A few years after the decease of his beloved, Dante

espoused Gemma di Donati, a lady of a noble family in Florence, and

through this marriage, as well as by his profound theological and

philosophical studies, he was drawn into the vortex of the politics of

his native city, in which, after many struggles, the Guelph party

gained the ascendency, toward the end of the thirteenth century.

Sprung from a Guelph family and surrounded by Guelph influences, and

prominent by his genius in the party, although keeping clear of its

excesses, Dante, from 1293 to 1299, filled many posts of honor,

especially many places of ambassador, and was elected, with five

others, in the year 1300, to the priorate, the highest office in the

republic. But soon after his prosperous career was changed to one of

misfortune. In 1292 a division was made in the Guelph party, when,

under the tribune Giano della Bella, the constitution of the state was

changed, the nobles driven from the magistracy, and the government of

the city given entirely into the hands of the plebeians; and this

division led gradually to an open rupture between the parties called

the Blacks and the Whites "_Neri_" and "_Bianchi_." The latter were by

far the more moderate, and the Ghibellines, both nobles and plebeians,

joined them. Dante belonged to the Whites, who stood at the head of

affairs. But by the interference of Charles of Valois, whom the Blacks

called to Florence in order to seize the government with his aid, the

Whites lost their power, and Dante, who was then on an embassy to

Rome, together with the other chiefs of the party, was exiled by a

decree, which was repealed in the year 1302.

This trial was important in two ways to our poet. It excited his

hatred against one party of the Guelphs, and then against them all;

and evoked his inclination for the Ghibellines and his dislike toward

the popes, who gave assistance to the Guelph party, and finally made

him a strong partisan of the Ghibellines and their operations against

Florence, and of the empire against the papacy. On the other hand, he

became, by his misfortunes, more devoted to virtue, his studies, and

his poem, from the prosecution of which he had been distracted by

political cares; so that the whole history of his exile is nothing

else than the history of his scientific life and the execution of the

Divine Comedy. After having wandered from city to city, from country

to country, to Verona, Bologna, Padua, Paris, and England, and dwelt

for a time in Pisa, and in {277} Lucca at the monastery of

Fonteavelluna and in Udine, and after having finished his great

works--"The Banquet," "_De Vulgari Eloquio_," "_De Monarchia_"--and

the three parts of his great poem, he rested at last in Ravenna,

where, in the year 1321, he fell sick and died, in the 56th year of

his age, after having received, as Boccacio tells us, the last

sacraments with humility and piety, and become reconciled to God by

true repentance for all he had done contrary to his holy will. The

poet was buried in the Franciscan church, where his ashes still

repose.

This sketch of his life and fortunes gives us the key to the solution

of many peculiarities of the Divine Comedy. We can now understand why

politics play so conspicuous a _role_ in the great poem, in spite of

its higher philosophico-theological and ethical scope; and why some

should have considered the work as of a purely political character.

This sketch of his life also shows the partial truth contained in the

assertion of Wegele, a German commentator on Dante. This writer says

the leading thought of the poet was to work out his own salvation by

considering the state of the world at his time; and in fact Dante

found consolation and strength against earthly misfortune, found the

way of virtue and eternal salvation, in the execution of his poem. For

similar reasons, others considered the poem as purely didactic, and

this view has a foundation in the confession of the poet himself.

But above all, the life of Dante explains his ideas about the

relations between the papacy and the empire, expressed not only in his

book on monarchy, but also in the Divine Comedy; and his strange

judgments about persons and circumstances, especially of his own age.

It is true Dante never for a moment disputes the primacy and divine

appointment of the popes in the Church; and even in hell he describes

those pontiffs whom he condemns to it as having certain distinctions.

He maintains in the clearest manner the freedom and independence of

the divine power in regard to the secular, and acknowledges a certain

superiority in the former, for he requires that Caesar should have

that reverence for Peter which the first-born son should have to his

father, so that Caesar, illuminated by the light of paternal grace,

might shine more brilliantly over the earth. But as Dante was

possessed with the Ghibelline idea, and as he saw in the temporal

power of the popes, who were the head of the Guelph party, the

greatest obstacle to the success of his principles, we must not be

surprised to find him the enemy of the pope's temporal power, and, in

his judgment of men and things, to see him frequently led away by

party rage and revenge for injuries received.

Dante, however, was noble and Christian enough to keep his eyes open

even to the faults of his own party, and he spared not even the heads

of the Ghibellines, as Frederic II. and other noble and popular

persons, if they seemed to him deserving of blame. Nor must we imagine

that Dante really thought all those were in hell whom he places there,

any more than he thought the real pains of hell were such as he

described them: only the vulgar could believe this. Those persons were

only such as in his eyes were guilty of mortal sins; and the

punishments inflicted were such as his fancy conceived to be adequate

to the guilt. But we must bear in mind that his judgments must always

be received with caution when there is question of facts, persons, and

circumstances connected with the opposite party; and we have the right

to examine and correct the criticisms of Dante by the light of

history. Dante, for instance, goes so far as to put in hell even Pope

Celestine, who, after governing the Church for six months, tired of

the tiara, went into solitude; because, in the opinion of the poet,

Celestine renounced the pontificate through timidity and weakness, and

made way {278} for the hated Boniface, VIII. The Church, on the

contrary, puts Celestine among the saints on account of his

extraordinary virtues.

But let us now turn from the dark side of the picture, and from the

weakness of the great man, to take a view of the fortunes of the

_Commedia_ in the course of six centuries. We have already in the

beginning of this essay spoken of the great number of editions,

translations, and commentaries on the great work, and in this respect

no other work can compare with it except the Holy Scripture and the

Following of Christ. But these proofs of admiration and study of the

Divine Comedy are not equally divided among the centuries, and the

recent and renowned writer of Dante's life, Count Caesar Balbo, justly

remarks that, at those periods in which an earnest religious and truly

patriotic feeling pervaded the fatherland of the poet and Christian

Europe in general, those proofs are to be found in greater number than

when the knowledge and study of supreme truth had grown less, love of

religion and country had died or gone astray, and the minds of men

sunk in the earthly and the sensible. Thus, in the fifteenth century,

after the invention of the art of printing, nineteen or twenty

editions of Dante appeared; in the sixteenth century, forty; in the

seventeenth, only three; in the eighteenth, thirty-four; in the

nineteenth, up to 1839, over seventy, and perhaps up to the present

year one hundred. This is a striking proof of the increasing love of

the spiritual in our century, in spite of the great influence of

materialism.

But in this age of surprises and contradictions, a new glory of which

he had never dreamt has been added to Dante's name. For some time in

Italy that political party which aims at the subversion of the

existing order of things, and the establishment of a single republic

or monarchy, and which finds in the papacy or States of the Church the

principal obstacle to the carrying out of its plans, has made use of

commentaries on the Divine Comedy, among other means, to spread its

principles among the people. Hence, two Italian refugees, Ugo Foscolo

and Rosetti, during their sojourn in England, undertook the dreary

task of explaining Dante's poem in a purely political point of view,

and with learning and wit they have attempted to prove that the poet

was opposed to the temporal power of the pope, and the head, or at

least a member, of a secret society.

In Italy, however, and in Germany, especially by the great critic,

Schlegel, this theory has been refuted. It falls to the ground by the

simple consideration of the fact, that if the Divine Comedy was as

clear in every point as where he speaks against the popes of his time

and their earthly possessions, no commentary on the poem would be

necessary. Yet, no sooner was war against Rome proclaimed at Paris and

Turin, than recourse was had to Dante, and an attempt made to conjure

up his spirit as a partisan in the fight. Rosetti already occupies a

chair in the Sardinian capital, from which he expounds Dante in the

interest of Italian unity, and in Germany the secret societies applaud

his course; so that, if in 1865 there be in Italy a celebration of

Dante's six hundredth birthday, as in Germany there is of Schiller, we

may expect to find the politicians make use of it to further their

ends.

So then we have lived to see the day when Dante, the Ghibelline and

fanatical adherent of the German empire; who was opposed to the

temporal power of the pope only because it stood in the way of a

universal secular monarchy; who invoked the wrath of heaven on the

German Albert because he delayed coming to subjugate Italy; and who

wrote the famous letter to the Emperor Henry VII., inviting him to

come and chastise his native city; when that Dante, I say, has become

the herald and standard-bearer of a party which calls itself the old

national Guelph party, whose {279} watch-word is "Death to the Germans

and foreign rulers," and which, like the ancient Guelphs, is aided by

French soldiers in its struggle against the German emperors.

In spite of his Ghibelline proclivities, Dante was filled with lively

faith, and he had so great a veneration for the power of the keys

entrusted by Christ to Peter and his successors that even in hell he

bowed with respect before one of those who had borne them, and even in

his narration of the arrest and ill-treatment of Boniface VIII., whom

he hated and placed in hell, he breaks out into the following strains:

"Lo! the flower de luce

Enters Alagna; in his Vicar Christ?

Himself a captive, and his mockery

Acted again. Lo! to his holy lip

The vinegar and gall once more applied;

And he 'twixt living robbers doomed to bleed.

Lo! the new Pilate, of whose cruelty

Such violence cannot fill the measure up,

With no decree to sanction, pushes on

Into the temple his yet eager sails.

O sovereign Master! when shall I rejoice

To see the vengeance, which thy wrath, well pleased,

In secret silence broods?"

(Purg. xx. 85-97. _Carey's translation_.)

So we have lived to see the day when the author of the above lines is

represented as the herald of a party which has treated so shamefully

the gentle successor of Boniface VIII., Pius IX., whose only fault was

to have opened the prison doors to his enemies, and recalled them from

exile with too great indulgence. They have made him drink the chalice

of humiliation to the dregs, and, leagued with a French despot, they

renew in the Vicar of Christ all the insults heaped of old on the

Saviour by the Roman soldiers, when, putting on him the mantle of

purple and the crown of thorns, they mocked him, saying, "Hail, King

of the Jews!" Dante was no such Christ-killer.

And what folly is it not to imagine Dante, the haughty aristocrat,

whose pride of birth shows itself everywhere in his poem, a partisan

of a faction which, like that which governed Florence during the

middle ages, is made up of the rabble and of levelers, haters of all

nobility.

In another age, when it was not the principle of public life to have

no principle at all, such contradictions as those of which we write

would have been incomprehensible; but in our own century, in which

truth wages an unequal conflict with falsehood, not so much because

men do not know how to separate truth from falsehood, as because men

find truth less useful for their purposes than falsehood, the conduct

of the so-called national party in Italy is easily explained. But if

Dante were to rise up from the grave, how strongly he would rebuke

those who are making such an unwarrantable use of his name! He would

quote for them, perhaps, as he does in many parts of his great work,

an apt text of the Holy Scriptures; and none, probably, would come

sooner to his mind than the following:

"Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things?

"The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together,

against the Lord and against his Christ.

"Let us break their bonds asunder: and let us cast away their yoke

from us.

"He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them; and the Lord shall

deride them. Then shall he speak to them in his anger, and trouble

them in his rage."

------

{280}

MISCELLANY.

SCIENCE.

_Important Geological Discovery_.--Sir Charles Lyell, in his address

to the British Association a few months ago, mentioned the discovery

of a fossil animal much more ancient than any previously supposed to

exist. Heretofore, as is well known, an immense series of rocks below

the silurians have been termed _azoic_, as exhibiting no remains of

animal life; but this term must now be dismissed.

It is well known that a staff of competent geologists, under the

direction of Sir William E. Logan, have been engaged for some years in

a geological survey of Canada. The oldest rocks in that country are

granite, described as upper and lower Laurentian, their thickness

being 40,000 feet, with bands of limestone intervening. In one of

these bands in the lower series of rocks, which are the most ancient,

there were discovered, in 1858, certain flattish rounded masses, which

seemed to be of organic origin. These were examined under the

microscope by Dr. Dawson of Montreal, who, from their structure,

declared them to be _foraminifera_, similar in character, but by no

means in size, to the _foraminifera_ living at the present day in vast

multitudes at the bottom of the sea; and to this newly-discovered and

wonder-exciting creature he gave the significant name _Eozoon

Canadense_, or the Dawn-animal of Canada.

The _foraminifer_ of the present day is a microscopic creature; the

_eozoon_ was enormous in comparison, about twelve inches diameter, and

from four to six inches in thickness, presenting the general form of a

much flattened globe. Its growth was by the process technically known

as gemmation, or the continued development of cells upon the surface;

hence, these cells form successive layers of chambers, separated by

exceedingly thin walls or laminae of calcareous matter. They are now

all filled with solid matter, mineral silicates, serpentine, and

others; but sections or slices cut from the mass, and examined, show

the form of the cells still perfect, and what is more remarkable, the

very minute tubes (tubuli) by which communication was maintained from

one to the other throughout the entire animal. Mr. Sterry Hunt, the

chemist employed on the Canadian survey, is of opinion that the

silicates and solid matters were directly deposited in waters in the

midst of which the _eozoon_ was still growing, or had only recently

perished, and that these solid matters penetrated, enclosed, and

preserved the structure of the animals precisely as carbonate of lime

might have done. Here, then, we have an example of fossilization,

accomplished by reactions going on at the earth's surface, not by slow

metamorphism in deeply-buried sediments.

Papers on this subject and one by Sir W. Logan himself--have been read

before the Geological Society, and will shortly be published; and at a

recent meeting of the Royal Society, a highly, interesting

communication in further elucidation of the matter was made by Dr.

Carpenter, who has devoted himself for some years to the study of

_foraminifera_. He confirms Dr. Dawson's general conclusions, and

identifies among living _foraminifera_ the species which has most

affinity with this very ancient dawn-animal. He makes out the

identification in an ingenious way, resting his proof on the peculiar

structure of the cell-walls, and of the minute tubuli by which, as

before observed, communication between the cells was maintained.

Henceforth, we shall have to regard the silurian fossils as modern.

Since this discovery was made public, it has been ascertained that

there are fossil remains of the eozoon in the serpentine rocks of

Great Britain. The importance of this of course depends on the age of

serpentine, and that is a question which geologists have not yet

settled; but some of them are of opinion that the British serpentines

are of the same age as the Laurentian rocks in which the Canadian

eozoon was found. Pending their decision of the question, keen

explorers are on the search for other specimens.

_Curious and Delicate Experiments_.--Dr. Bence Jones recently

communicated to the Royal Society of Great Britain the result of a

series of experiments by {281} which he had attempted to ascertain the

time required for certain crystallized substances to reach the

textures of the body after being taken into the stomach. In other

words, he proposed to solve these problems: If a dose of medicine be

given, what becomes of it, and does it arrive quickly or slowly at the

parts for which it is intended? It is obvious, that if these questions

could be accurately determined, medical men would have a better

knowledge than at present of the action and progress, so to speak, of

medicine within the body. Substances, when taken into the stomach,

pass into the blood, which may be supposed to distribute them to all

parts of the body. If, in ordinary circumstances, no trace of a

particular substance can be found in a body, but is found after doses

of the substance have been administered, it is clear that the doses

are the source from which that trace is derived.

Lithium is a substance sometimes given as medicine. Dr. Jones gave

half a grain of chloride of lithium to a guinea-pig, on three

successive days; and, by means of the spectrum analysis, he found

lithium in every tissue of the animal's body, even in the cartilages,

the cornea, and the crystalline lens of the eye. In another

experiment, the lithium was found in the eye eight hours after the

dose had been administered; and in another, four hours after. In

another, the lithium was found after thirty-two minutes, in the

cartilage of the hip, and in the outer part of the eye. These cases

show that chemical substances do find their way very quickly into the

tissues of the body; and a similar result appears from experiments on

the human subject. A patient, dying of diseased heart, took fifteen

grains of nitrate of lithia thirty-six hours before death, and a

similar quantity six hours before death. Lithium was afterward found

distinctly in the cartilage of one of the joints, and faintly in the

eye and the blood. A like result was obtained with a patient who had

taken ten grains of carbonate of lithia five and a half hours before

death. And to this Dr. Bence Jones adds, that he expects to find

lithium in the lens of the eye after operation for cataract.

_Giant Trees of California_.--Some time ago, much regret was expressed

that the giant trees (_Wellingtonia_) of California had been

recklessly cut down. Their fall was a loss to the world. But Sir

William Hooker has received a letter in which Professor Brewer, of the

California State Geological Survey, reports that "an interesting

discovery has been made this year of the existence of the big trees in

great abundance on the western flanks of the Sierra Nevada. They

abound along a belt at 5,000-7,000 feet of altitude for a distance of

more than twenty-five miles, sometimes in groves, at others scattered

through the forest in great numbers. You can have no idea of the

grandeur they impart to the scenery, where at times a hundred trees

are in sight at once, over fifteen feet in diameter, their rich

foliage contrasting so finely with their bright cinnamon-colored bark.

The largest I saw was 106 feet in circumference at four feet from the

ground, and 276 feet high.

"There seems no danger of the speedy extinction of the species, as it

is now known in quite a number of localities; and, contrary to the

popular notion, there are immense numbers of younger trees of all

sizes, from the seedling up to the largest. There has been much

nonsense and error published regarding them."

_Photographing the Interior of the Great Pyramid_.--Our readers may

remember that some time last winter a distinguished English savant,

Professor Piazzi Smyth, went out to Egypt for the purpose of taking

photographic views of the interior chambers of the great pyramid. The

impossibility of lighting these vast halls had hitherto proved an

insuperable bar to the undertaking; ordinary methods of illumination

seemed, if we may so speak, to make no impression upon the thick

darkness. But with the discovery of the wonderful powers of the

magnesium wire light, this difficulty was removed. Professor Smyth

writes as follows to the London Chemical News; his letter is dated

East Tomb, Great Pyramid, February 2d:

"We are settled down at last to the measuring; the chief part of the

time hitherto (about three weeks) having been occupied in concert with

a party of laborers, furnished by the Egyptian government, in clearing

away rubbish from important parts of the interior, {282} and in

cleansing and preparing it for nice observation. The magnesium wire

light is something astounding in its power of illuminating difficult

places. With any number of wax candles which we have yet taken into

either the king's chamber or the grand gallery, the impression left on

the mind is merely seeing the candles and whatever is very close to

them, so that you have small idea whether you are in a palace or a

cottage; but burn a triple strand of magnesium wire, and in a moment

you see the whole apartment and appreciate the grandeur of its size

and the beauty of its proportions. This effect, so admirably complete,

too, as it is, and perfect in its way, probably results from the

extraordinary intensity of the light, apart from its useful

photographic property; for side by side with the magnesium light the

wax candle flame looked not much brighter than the red granite of the

walls of the room. ... Whatever can be reached by hand is chipped, and

hammered, and fractured to a frightful degree; and this maltreatment

by modern men, combined with the natural wear and tear of some of the

softer stones under so huge a pressure as they are exposed to, and for

so long duration, has made the measuring of what is excessively

tedious and difficult, and the concluding what _was_, in some cases,

rather ambiguous."

ART.

_Domestic_.--The National Academy exhibition will probably be open

before our readers receive these pages; and from those cognizant of

the internal arrangements of the new building, and of the preparations

making by our resident artists, we learn that the collection will

exceed in the number, and probably in the merit of the pictures, any

of its predecessors. The make-shift character and unsuitableness of

the rooms in which the Academy has of late years held its annual

exhibitions, have deterred many of its most prominent members from

sending in contributions, which they were satisfied could not be seen

to advantage; and this sin of omission was so evident in the last two

or three exhibitions, that one of the leading objects of the

Academy--the improvement of public taste by the display of the annual

productions of our best artists--seemed in danger of being defeated.

The new galleries, it is said, can exhibit to advantage more than

fifteen hundred pictures, and a capacity so ample, in conjunction with

the prestige attending the opening of the new building, ought to cover

the walls to their fullest extent. The public will not be surprised

then to learn that an unusual number of artists have been, and are

still, busily applying the final touches to their works, in

anticipation of "opening day" (to borrow a phrase from the milliners);

and it is to be hoped that the Academy, having now "ample room and

verge enough" to satisfy fastidious members, may soon become the

fostering abode of art which its projectors intended to make it. A

slight foretaste of what the exhibition is likely to contain was

afforded at the recent reception of the Brooklyn Art Association,

where an elaborate and effective work by Grignoux, entitled "Among the

Alps," and several by Leutze, Gifford, Huntington, Stone, White, Hart,

Beard, and others, were on view. A number of pictures destined for the

Academy were also exhibited at the monthly social gatherings of the

Century and Athenaeum clubs of this city in the beginning of April. We

propose to give an extended notice of the new building and its art

collections in our next number.

The inaugural ceremonies of the New York association for "The

Advancement of Science and Art" took place at the Cooper Institute on

the evening of March 31st. One of the objects of the association is

the collection and preservation of works of art, and one of the

fifteen sections into which it is divided is devoted to the fine arts.

Amid the multiplicity of special branches, which the association

proposes to investigate and promote, from jurisprudence and the

prevention of pauperism down to chronology, the fine arts must

necessarily receive but a limited share of attention; but even this,

if guided by taste and intelligence, is better than the indifference

to aesthetic matters which is too often characteristic of a commercial

metropolis; and the association will find plenty of well-wishers, and,

we trust, some who will add substantial aid to their sympathy.

Among the attractions of the Central Park will be a hall of statuary,

now in the course of preparation in the old {283} arsenal building

near the Fifth Avenue, which is not yet open to public inspection. It

will contain, what ought to prove a boon to all students of form, a

collection of casts from Crawford's principal works. The Park

Commissioners have, in this instance, shown an enlightened enterprise

which might be imitated by wealthy private individuals. A few bronze

statues of American statesmen, soldiers, or authors, placed on

appropriate sites in the park, would add greatly to its attractions.

And if it should be thought desirable to illustrate a national era,

what one more worthy than the memorable epoch through which we are now

passing, the termination of which will be coeval with the completion

of the park?

A new group by Rogers, entitled "The Home Guard--Midnight on the

Border," attracts throngs of gazers before the windows of Williams and

Stevens's art emporium in Broadway. The story is naturally and

effectively told. A mother and her daughter, the only inmates,

probably, of some lonely farm-house, have been aroused from their

slumbers by marauding bushwhackers, and tremblingly prepare to repel

the assailants, or sell their lives dearly. The elder of the two

females, with her body slightly poised on one foot, stands in attitude

of rapt attention, while mechanically cocking a revolver, her sole

weapon of defence. The daughter, less resolute in expression and

action, cowers at her side. As a work of art, it is perhaps inferior

to the "Wounded Scout" or "One Shot More," which exhibit the artist's

highest efforts in characteristic expression and the management of

details; but it presents a vivid idea of a scene we fear only too

frequently enacted along the border, and will speak to aftertimes of

the horrors of civil war. The steady improvement which Mr. Rogers has

shown in his groups, illustrating the episodes of our great struggle,

can be readily seen by an inspection of his collected works, the

earliest of which were scarcely better than clever caricatures; and it

is not surprising to learn that there is a demand for them in Europe,

whither the artist himself proposes going during the present season.

Foreign critics may now obtain a correct notion of the outward aspects

of the participators in the war, if they cannot appreciate its motives

or character. Mr. Rogers is at present engaged upon a group entitled

"The Bushwhacker," which he will finish before his departure.

According to one of the daily newspapers it "represents a wife in the

act of drawing away from her husband--an old, grizzled, and care-worn

fighter--his gun, and at the same time appealing to him to leave his

perilous vocation. The Bushwhacker clasps in his arms his little

child, who is toying with his shaggy beard. If we may judge from the

half-relenting expression of his countenance, we can safely conclude

that the wife will not sue in vain, although he still resistingly

grasps his musket with one hand. The pose and execution of the figures

are carefully attended to, and the work is one of the most spirited

and successful of Mr. Rogers' productions."

Among other American artists who intend to visit Europe the present

season, are Ives, the sculptor, and Haseltine and Dix, painters of

coast and marine scenery. The last named gentleman four years ago

forsook his profession, in which he had begun to attain some skill, to

accept a place on the military staff of his father, Major General Dix,

and now, with renewed ardor, resumes his pencil. He will study

principally along the Mediterranean coasts.

A very miscellaneous collection of pictures, containing a vast deal of

rubbish, and a few good specimens of foreign artists, was disposed of

at auction by Messrs. Leeds & Miner, in the latter part of March, at

tolerably fair prices. The following will serve as examples: "Snow

Scene" by Gignoux, $900 (quite as much as it was worth); "Lady with

Flowers," by Plassan, $750; "A Reverie," by Chavet, $850; "Evening

Prayer," by E. Frere, $1,000; "The Alchemyst," by Webb, $380. A

curious essay of Col. Trumbull in the perilous regions of "high art,"

entitled "The Knighting of De Wilton," fetched the moderate sum of

$150. As an example of the style of composition and treatment affected

by the painters who illustrated Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery, it was

both amusing and instructive. Fortunately for his reputation, the

painter of "Bunker Hill" and the "Sortie from Gibraltar" did not often

recur to Walter Scott for subjects.

Quite recently there has been on exhibition at Goupil's gallery a

remarkable picture by the French artist Jean Leon Gerome, entitled

_L'Almee_, which {284} may be thus briefly described: Scene, a

dilapidated Egyptian Khan or coffee shop; in the foreground and centre

of the picture a Ghawazee, or dancing girl, performing a striking but

immodest dance, which consists wholly of movements of the body from

the hips, the legs remaining stationary; a group of fierce looking and

fantastically bedizened Bashi-Bazouks, sitting cross-legged on a

divan, spectators of the performance; and in the background some

musicians and an attendant or two. It would be almost impossible to

over-praise the marvellous finish of this work, the skilful blending

of the colors, the subdued yet appropriate tone, or the dramatic force

of the composition. If these qualities were all that are demanded in a

work of art, we might stop here; but when the subject is repulsive,

they prove a source of aggravation rather than of pleasure, and few,

we think, will deny that the scene depicted by Gerome, though

illustrating a peculiar and perhaps important phase of Oriental life,

is one of too gross a character to subserve the purposes of true art.

A vast deal of sentiment has been wasted upon the "moral significance"

of pictures of this type. The less said upon that score, the better.

We do not instruct children to abstain from vice by putting immoral

books into their hands, trusting that some innate sense of propriety

may prompt them thereby to see virtue in a clearer light. If disposed

to criticise the technical part of this work, we should say that the

finish is too elaborate. Everything, to the smallest minutiae, is

polished almost to the degree of hardness, and one instinctively longs

for an occasional roughness or evidence of the brush--something of

that manual movement which indicates the passing thought of the

painter. Where all is of so regular and level a merit, the contrasts

which should give strength and spirit to a painting are sure to be

wanting. In this respect Gerome compares unfavorably with Meissonier.

Both finish with scrupulous exactness; but the latter never makes

finish paramount to the proper expression of his subject. Hence the

life and action, so to speak, of his most nicely elaborated figures.

In the _Almee_, on the other hand, the group of soldiers, though

wearing an admirable expression of stoical sensuality, are too rigid

and immovable, too much like well painted copies of the lay figures

which served as models for them. So, too, of many of the details,

excepting always the draperies, which could not be improved. A little

more attention to the _ars celare artem_ would render Gerome almost

unapproachable in his peculiar style.

Before leaving Goupil's, we cannot avoid drawing attention to some

studies of trees and foliage, by Richards, of Philadelphia, now

exhibited there. One of them, representing the interior of a wood in

early autumn, is the best delineation of that phase of nature we have

recently seen. Generally, the pictures of this artist are wanting in

relief; his foliage lies flat upon the canvas; the trunks of his trees

have no rounded outline, nor can the eye penetrate through the

recesses of the wood; there is, in fact, no atmosphere to speak of.

These defects have been happily overcome in the present instance, and,

with no lack of Pre-Raphaelite power in delineating the outward aspect

of nature, there is a pervading tone of melancholy appropriate to the

scene and the season. Less remarkable than this, but of considerable

merit, is a mountain landscape, in which the season depicted is also

the autumn.

_Foreign_.--Abroad there seems to be a perfect fever to buy and sell

works of art. "Everybody," says the London Athenaeum, "who has a

collection, seems determined to dispose of it, and accident has thrown

a large number of works on the art-market; but as those who have taste

and means seem just as eager to buy as the collectors are to sell, the

activity of the art-marts is but a natural consequence of the law of

supply and demand, the natural limit having been extended in several

instances by the accidental re-appearance of many works twice or three

times during the season." This has been the case especially with

respect to the pictures of Delacroix. It is always dangerous to assume

the prophetic character; but it appears very improbable that, on the

average, works of art will fetch higher sums than they have during the

present season.'' In Paris the Pourtales sale continues, and is daily

crowded by eager _virtuosi_, whose competition runs up prices to an

extent bordering on the extravagant. The proceeds of the third portion

of the sale, which occupied three days, and included the engraved

{285} gems, antique jewelry and glass, were 45,743 francs; those of

the fourth section, the coins and medals, 18,430 francs; and of the

fifth, which comprised the sculpture in ivory and wood, the

renaissance bronzes, arms, _faiences_, glass, and some miscellaneous

articles, 505,640 francs. The following are some of the prices

obtained for the sculptures in ivory, of which there was a magnificent

collection of 70 pieces: A statuette of Hercules resting on his club,

one foot on the head of the Hydra, purchased for England,

$3,280.--Venus with Cupid at her side, left by Fiamingo as security in

the house at Leghorn wherein he died, $1,180.--A renaissance bronze

bust of Charles IX., of France, life size, artist unknown, formerly

the property of the Duc de Berri, brought $9,000.--"Henry II. ware,"

the well-known _biberon_, with cover bearing the arms of France,

surmounted by a coronet, and bearing the arms and initials of _Diane

de Poitiers_, uninjured, just over ten inches in height, $5,500.--The

celebrated Marie Stuart cup, presented to her when affianced to the

Dauphin, was disposed of for $5,420. It is but a few inches in height,

but is covered, inside and out, with designs illustrating classical

mythology and allegory, and with profuse ornamentation, all in

exquisite taste and of perfect workmanship. It was executed by Jean

Court _dit_ Vigier, about 1556.--A round basin, in grisaille, by

Pierre Raymond (1558), representing the history of Adam and Eve, in

enamel on a black ground, brought $4,040; a large oval salver, by Jean

Courtois, enamelled in the richest manner, representing the passage of

the Red Sea, with borders decorated with figures, medallions, etc.,

$6,000. These prices, it may be observed, were considered by competent

judges to be rather low! The vases and goblets of rock crystal were

also well contested. A magnificent head, of Apollo, in marble,

formerly in the Justiniani gallery, was bought, it is said, for the

British Museum, for $9,000; and the celebrated Pallas vase, the most

perfect specimen of Greek work in porphyry extant, fetched $3,400.

The new chapel of the Palais de l'Elysee has just been completed, and

is said to be a perfect gem of artistic decoration. The style is

Byzantine, the mosaic work of the altar being executed in marbles of

the rarest kinds; but the pillars and vaulted roof are in stucco,

imitating porphyry, vert antique, and gold, in such perfection that it

is difficult to believe that the mines of Sweden and Russia had not

been ransacked to produce the rich coloring and massive effect which

strikes the eye of the visitor. The twelve patron saints of France are

represented--including Charlemagne and St. Louis.

The Aguado pictures were announced for sale, in Paris, on the 10th of

April. They include the famous "Death of Sainte Claire," by Murillo,

brought from the convent of Saint Francois d'Asrise in Seville, by

Mathieu Fabirer, Commissary-General of Napoleon's army--a very large

canvas, including no less than twenty-eight figures.

The collection of ancient and modern pictures and water-color drawings

formed by Mr. Thomas Blackburn, of Liverpool, was recently disposed of

at auction in London for L8,763. Some of the water-color drawings by

Copley Fielding, Louis Haghe, John Gilbert, Prout, Birket Foster, and

others, realized very large sums.

Theed's colossal statue of the Prince Consort, which has been cast in

bronze at Nuremberg, has recently arrived in London. The model of this

figure was originally executed by command of her majesty, and sent as

a present to Coburg, where it at present remains, a bronze cast having

been taken from it. The town of Sydney being desirous of erecting a

statue of the prince, this second cast was executed by command of the

Duke of Newcastle, on the ground that of all the numerous likenesses

now extant this was the best. The figure is ten feet high, and

represents the prince in a commanding attitude, dressed in the robes

of the garter.

The alterations in progress in the Wolsey Chapel, at Windsor Castle,

have brought to light three full-length portraits of knights of the

garter, attired in the military costume of the order, capped with

helmets, and wearing cloaks with the insignia. These were hidden by

stone slabs, and as there are upwards of twenty similar slabs, it is

probable that other similar paintings may be discovered.

Mr. G. T. Doo's large line-engraving from Sebastiano del Piombo's

"Resurrection of Lazarus," in the National Gallery, by far the most

important of its kind produced for many years past, is {286} now

finished. The figure of Christ is 13 inches high, that of Lazarus is

still larger, and, being naked, invoked the utmost care and knowledge

of the engraver to deal with its superbly drawn forms and perfect

surface. The execution, if not the whole design, of this figure has

been, on good grounds, attributed to Michael Angelo. Mr. Doo has

rendered these with great success, even to giving the somewhat hard

and positive tone of the original; and with one or two exceptions, the

drawing is described as admirable throughout. In view of the few

really good line-engravings now produced, and of the prospect of the

art perhaps becoming extinct within the present century, the

production of such a work possesses a genuine though somewhat

melancholy interest.

Kaulbach, it is said, will finish his paintings in the Berlin Museum

this spring. The price he has received for them is given at $187,000,

with an addition of $18,700 for the cost of materials. One of the

smaller pictures for the series represents Germany absorbed in reading

Humboldt's "Cosmos," and letting the imperial crown fall off her head

in the abstraction caused by her studies. Underneath, the various

small states that compose the confederation are poking out their heads

as far as possible to escape from under a hat which is coming down

upon them--an illusion to the popular phrase of uniting the whole of

Germany "under one hat."

The Pontifical Academy of Roman Archaeology has decreed that the

collossal statue of Hercules in gilt bronze, recently discovered among

the ruins of Pompey's theatre, and sent to the Vatican, shall bear the

name of "The Hercules Mastai," in honor of Pius IX.

------

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE BOYNE WATER: A TALE. By John Banim. Post 8vo., pp. 578, Boston:

Patrick Donahoe. [For sale in New York by P. O'Shea, Bleecker street].

This story is reprinted from _The Boston Pilot_, of whose columns it has

formed for some months past a principal attraction. It is one of the

earliest of Banim's works, and the favorable judgment which it

received on its first appearance has now a success of forty years to

confirm it. It is a novel of the historical school which Scott made so

popular in the last generation, the incidents upon which it is founded

belonging to the revolution of 1688, which established William of

Orange on the throne of Great Britain. It gives a graphic picture of

the siege and capitulation of Limerick, and brings upon the scene

James and William, Sarsfield, Tyrconnel, Ginkell, and other familiar

characters of that stirring epoch. Banim delights, also, in

descriptions of natural scenery. In these he is spirited, and, we

believe, accurate. He spared no pains to make himself thoroughly

familiar with the localities of which he wrote. While he was engaged

upon his novels he used to journey, in company with his brother,

through the theatre of action, and study each historical spot with the

care of an antiquary. The perfect acquaintance thus obtained with the

places of which he wrote had, of course, no little effect upon the

vivacity of his narrative.

His pictures of Irish life are vivid and truthful, though he is

happier in narrative or description than in dialogue. His heroes and

heroines are too much addicted to stilted conversation and to

sentimental remarks, which look very well in print, but are never

heard in ordinary life. The minor characters, especially those of the

peasant class, such as Rory na Choppell, the "whisperer," or

horse-tamer, have the gift of speech in a much more natural and

agreeable manner. The subordinate parts of the book, in fact, are its

best parts. The Gaelic chieftain, reduced to poverty by the English

conquerors, but retaining all his pride of spirit and {287} authority

over his people, in a sequestered hut among the mountains; the blind

harper; the old priest; the mad woman of the cavern; the fanatical

soldier of Cromwell; and the lawless Rapparees, are depicted with

great skill. The heroes of the story--for there are two--are the one a

Catholic, the other a Protestant. They fight on opposite sides, and in

the delineation of their characters, and the division of fine

sentiments between them, Banim holds an even hand. He wrote for an

English public, and fearful of offending by too warm an avowal of his

religious convictions, he seems to us to have gone occasionally to the

opposite extreme, and penned several passages which Catholics cannot

read without displeasure. But, despite these faults, which are neither

very many nor very serious, "The Boyne Water" ranks among the best of

Irish novels, and Banim as a worthy companion of Carleton and Gerald

Griffin.

SERMONS ON MORAL SUBJECTS. By his Eminence Cardinal Wiseman. 8vo.,

pp.434. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

The discourses contained in this volume form an appropriate supplement

to the "Sermons on our Lord and on His Blessed Mother" which we

noticed last month. They were delivered under the same circumstances

as the previous collection--that is, for the most part, at the English

College in Rome--and ought not, therefore, to be considered as a

regular course. But if they do not pretend to be a complete series of

moral instructions, they will, nevertheless, be found to touch upon

nearly all the fashionable sins, and to afford ample food for

reflection to all classes of persons. They have the same

characteristics of thought and expression which mark the cardinal's

other writings--the same kind tone of remonstrance with sinners and

encouragement for the penitent, the same earnest love of God and man,

and the same, rich, sometimes exuberant, diction. Cardinal Wiseman

ranged through a great variety of subjects, and touched nothing that

he did not adorn, but his style never varied much; from one of his

books you can easily judge of all. There is little difference between

the style of the "Sermons on Moral Subjects" and that, for instance,

of "Fabiola," or the "Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion." It

is an ornate mode of writing which accommodates itself to a diversity

of subjects, and never, in the cardinal's pages, seems out of place.

The sermons now before us are eminently practical; and, although a

large proportion of them are addressed directly to irreligious

persons, and treat of such subjects as "The Love of the World,"

"Scandal," "Detraction," "Unworthy Communion," "Unprepared Death," and

the "Hatefulness of Sin," they display, in a very marked manner, that

affectionateness to which we have elsewhere alluded as a

characteristic of the cardinal's discourses. He seems to love rather

to expostulate than to upbraid; rather to remind us of the happiness

we have lost by sin than to threaten us with the punishment of

impenitence; and even when his subject calls for stern language, the

kindly spirit continually breaks out.

The last sermon in the volume is entitled "Conclusion of a Course." It

contains the following passage, explanatory of the purpose of the

whole collection:

"These instructions, my dear brethren, have obviously one tendency;

they are all directed to expound what the law of God commands us to

believe and to practice, in order to reach those rewards which he has

prepared for his faithful servants. They are directed to suggest such

motives as may induce us to fulfil these commands; to encourage those

who are already on the path to persevere in it; to bring back those

who have wandered; to impart strength to the weak and resolution to

the wavering and undecided."

AT ANCHOR; A STORY OF OUR CIVIL WAR. By an American. 12mo., pp. 311.

New York: D. Appleton & Company.

The writer of this novel is evidently a Catholic, but the story is

political, not religious. It purports to be the autobiography of a

loyal Massachusetts woman. She marries a Carolinian whom she does not

love, and accompanies him to his plantation-home. At the breaking out

of the war, the husband accepts a commission in the Confederate

service. He is reported killed, and the wife, having learned during

his absence to love him, devotes herself to the sick and wounded in

Richmond. After a time she makes her way back to Massachusetts, and

there, at the end of the book, the missing lord turns up; not only

safe and sound, but converted from the political errors of his ways,

and eager to fight under the Federal {288} flag. He enlists as a

private, and has risen to be sergeant when a wound disables him for

further service, and husband and wife are at last united and happy in

each other. This plot, if it is a plot, is interwoven--we cannot say

complicated--with several interesting incidents. The heroine has

another lover, toward whom she leans a willing ear, both in maiden

life and during her supposed widowhood; and he, on his part, has

another mistress, who turns out to be our heroine's half-sister. Of

course he marries this lady; and so both couples, after much tossing

about, are peacefully "at anchor."

This is something far better than the common sort of sensational

war-stories. It contains neither a guerrilla nor a spy; narrates no

thrilling deed of blood or hair's-breadth escape; describes no battle;

and admits that both parties embrace many noble and honorable men. The

writer (it needs little penetration to see that she is a woman)

expresses herself fearlessly, but without undue bitterness, on

political matters, and scatters over her pages many excellent

reflections.

THE MYSTICAL ROSE; OR, MARY OF NAZARETH, THE LILY OF THE HOUSE OF

DAVID. By Marie Josephine. 12mo., pp. viii., 290. New York: D.

Appleton & Company.

The authoress of this work is a Vermont lady of some literary

experience. Her book gives ample evidence of a cultivated and

well-stored mind. It is an attempt to present, in irregular verse, a

legendary narrative of the life of the Blessed Virgin; and if the

poetry is not all of the first order, it is at least devotional, or

perhaps we should, say consistent with devotional ideas--for the

writer deals more with the poetical than the religious aspect of her

subject. She has drawn the rough materials for her poem from a great

variety of sources, to which she gives reference in copious notes. She

claims to have "appropriated every coveted relic or tradition handed

down by historian, Christian or pagan, from the archives of Latin

Church, Hebrew, or Greek, coming within scope of her original plan."

She has certainly succeeded in bringing together a great number of

beautiful legends, which she handles in the most affectionate manner.

THE CORRELATION AND CONSERVATION OF FORCES: A series of Expositions,

by Prof. Grove, Prof. Helmholtz, Dr. Mayer, Dr. Faraday, Prof. Liebig,

and Dr. Carpenter. With an Introduction and brief Biographical Notices

of the Chief Promoters of the New Views. By Edward L. Youmans, M. D.

12mo., pp. xlii., 438. New York: D. Appleton & Company.

This excellent work reached us too late for an extended notice in the

present number. We shall speak of it at greater length next month. In

the meantime we warmly recommend our readers to buy it.

We have received the April number of _The New Path: a Monthly Art

Journal_, the publication of which, after an interval of several

months, is resumed under the auspices of James Miller, 522 Broadway.

This little periodical represents radical and peculiar views or art,

Being allied in opinions to the Pre-Raphaelite school; but its

independent and out-spoken, and often valuable, criticisms must have

struck the limited circle of readers to whom it formerly appealed. We

hope under its new management it will exercise a healthful influence

on American art. The present number contains articles on Miss Hosmer's

Statue of Zenobia, "Our Furniture," notices of recent exhibitions,

etc., etc.

Murphy & Co., Baltimore, send us _The Mysteries of the Living Rosary_,

printed in sheets, and accompanied by appropriate instructions,

prayers, and meditations.

----------------

{289}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD,

VOL. I., NO. 3. JUNE, 1865.

THE WORKINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

A LETTER TO THE REV. E. B. PUSEY, D.D. BY HENRY EDWARD MANNING, D.D.

MY DEAR FRIEND,--I do not know why twelve years of silence should

forbid my calling you still by the name we used both to give and to

accept of old. Aristotle says indeed--

[Greek text]

but he did not know the basis and the affections of a Christian

friendship such as that to which--though I acknowledge in myself no

claim to it--you were so kind as to admit me. Silence and suspension

of communications cannot prevail against the kindliness and confidence

which springs from such years and such events as once united us.

Contentions and variances might indeed more seriously try and strain

such a friendship. But, though we have been both parted and opposed,

there has been between us neither variance nor contention. We have

both been in the field indeed where a warfare has been waging, but,

happily, we have not met in contest. Sometimes we have been very near

to each other, and have even felt the opposition of each other's will

and hand; but I believe on neither side has there ever been a word or

an act which has left a needless wound. That I should have grieved and

displeased you is inevitable. The simple fact of my submitting to the

Catholic Church must have done so, much more the duties which bind me

as a pastor. If, in the discharge of that office, I have given you or

any one either pain or wound by personal faults in the manner of its

discharge, I should be open to just censure. If the displeasure arise

only from the substance of my duties, "necessity is laid upon me," and

you would be the last to blame me.

You will perhaps be surprised at my beginning thus to write to you. I

will at once tell you why I do so. Yesterday I saw, for the first

time, your pamphlet on the legal force of the Judgment of the Privy

Council, and I found my name often in its pages. I have nothing to

complain of in the way you use it. And I trust that in this reply you

will feel that I have not forgotten your example. But your mention of

me, and of old days, kindled in me a strong desire to pour out many

things which have been for years rising in my mind. I have long wished

for the occasion to do so, but I {290} have always felt that it is

more fitting to take than to make such an occasion: and as your

kindness has made it, I will take it.

But before I enter upon the subject of this letter I wish to say a few

words of yourself, and of some others whom I am wont to class with

you.

Among the many challenges to controversy and public disputation which

it has been my fortune to receive, and, I may add, my happiness to

refuse, in the last twelve or thirteen years, one was sent me last

autumn at Bath. It was the only one to which, for a moment, I was

tempted to write a reply. The challenger paid me compliments on my

honesty in leaving the Church of England, denouncing those who,

holding my principles, still eat its bread. I was almost induced to

write a few words to say that my old friends and I are parted because

we hold principles which are irreconcileable; that I once held what

they hold now, and was then united with them; that they have never

held what I hold now, and therefore we are separated; that they are as

honest in the Church of England now as I was once; and that our

separation was my own act in abandoning as untenable the Anglican

Church and its rule of faith, Scripture and antiquity, which you and

they hold still, and in submitting to the voice of the Catholic and

Roman Church at this hour, which I believe to be the sole

authoritative interpreter of Scripture and of antiquity. This

principle no friend known to me in the Church of England has ever

accepted. In all these years, both in England and in foreign

countries, and on occasions both private and public, and with persons

of every condition, I have borne this witness for you and for others.

I felt no little indignation at what seemed to me the insincerity of

my correspondent, but on reflection I felt that silence was the best

answer.

I will now turn to your pamphlet, and to the subject of this letter.

You speak at the outset of "the jubilee of triumph among

half-believers" on the occasion of the late Judgment of the Crown in

Council; and you add, "A class of believers joined in the triumph. And

while I know that a very earnest body of Roman Catholics rejoice in

all the workings of God the Holy Ghost in the Church of England

(whatever they think of her), and are saddened in what weakens her who

is, in God's hands, the great bulwark against infidelity in this land,

others seemed to be in an ecstasy of triumph at this victory of

Satan." [Footnote 55] Now, I will not ask where you intended to class

me. But as an anonymous critic of a pamphlet lately published by me

accused me of rejoicing in your troubles, and another more

recently--with a want of candor visible in every line of the attack--

accused me of being "merry" over these miseries of the Church of

England, I think the time is made for me to declare how I regard the

Church of England, and events like these; and I know no one to whom I

would rather address what I Have to say than to yourself.

[Footnote 55: "Legal Force of the Judgment of the Privy Council," by

the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., pp. 3, 4.]

I will, then, say at once:

1. That I rejoice with all my heart in all the workings of the Holy

Ghost in the Church of England.

2. That I lament whensoever what remains of truth in it gives way

before unbelief.

3. That I rejoice whensoever what is imperfect in it is unfolded into

a more perfect truth.

4. But that I cannot regard the Church of England as "the great

bulwark against infidelity in this land," for reasons which I will

give in their place.

1. First, then, I will say what I believe of the Church of England,

and why I rejoice in every working of the Holy Spirit in it. And I do

this the more gladly because I have been sometimes grieved at hearing,

and once at even seeing in a handwriting which I reverence with

affection, the {291} statement that Catholics--or at least the worst

of Catholics called converts--deny the validity of Anglican baptism,

regard our own past spiritual life as a mockery, look upon our

departed parents as heathen, and deny the operations of the Holy

Spirit in those who are out of the Church. I do not believe that those

who say such things have ever read the Condemned Propositions, or are

aware that a Catholic who so spoke would come under the weight of at

least two pontifical censures, and the decrees of at least two general

councils.

I need not, however, do more than remind you that, according to the

faith and theology of the Catholic Church, the operations of the Holy

Spirit of God have been from the beginning of the world co-extensive

with the whole human race. [Footnote 56]

[Footnote 56: Suarez, _De Divina Gratia_. Pars Secunda, lib. iv., c.

viii. xi. xii. Ripalda, _De Ente Supenaturali_, lib. i., disp. xx.,

s. xii. and s. xxii. Viva, _Cursus Theol_., pars iii., disp. i.,

quaest. v. iii.]