The Catholic World, Vol. 02, October, 1865 to March, 1866 / A Monthly Eclectic Magazine

by Various

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MEMOIR AND SERMONS OF THE REV. FRANCIS A. BAKER, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul. Edited by the Rev. A. F. Hewit. Crown octavo, 504 pp. New York: Lawrence Kehoe.

Now and then, in our way through this world, we encounter persons of a peculiar character, so placidly gentle in their manners, so unworldly in all their ways, that they do not seem fairly to belong to this world at all. Not that they are melancholy, reserved, and unsocial. On the contrary, they play their own part in society thoroughly and well; so well, indeed, so thoroughly do they harmonize in every circle where they may be thrown, so little they display of that roughness and rudeness, that froward importunity, that obstinate self-will, self-conceit, and self-devotion which are so common among us, although we acknowledge them as blemishes upon our nature—in fine, so much more perfectly do they wear the garment of humanity than we ourselves, and so easily, that they seem like better creatures from a better world, mingling among us like good angels sent hither to exhibit before our eyes the perfect type of a true manhood. Of course, all men have their temptations and imperfections, but the ordinary life of some rare men is such as we have described; so they appear before the world, and so they live in the memories of their friends. So will Father Baker long live in many memories. That joyous face, that sweet smile, that gentle voice, that soft step, have passed away. One may visit the Paulists still in their convent, and a thousand attractions lead us there, but we shall miss Father Baker. So quietly, so easily, so naturally he dropped into his place—and everyplace was his that charity, and courtesy, and Christian zeal found open—no one could appreciate how much he did, what large areas he occupied on this scene of life, until he was taken away. Who will now make up the loss to his brethren? Who will take his place in the missions? Who will comfort and sustain that long line of penitents? Who will guide the feet of those converts? Who will supply in the churches that silver voice, now soft as the flute, now thrilling like the trumpet, that roused us and warned us, that pierced our hearts betimes as with a sword, and yet so kindly that we would not wish to escape unwounded? Our sorrow for such a loss can find no refuge but in resignation. "The Lord gave, And the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

In this volume of memoirs F. Hewit has undertaken a far greater task than merely to respond to the fond recollection of friends, or to pay a tribute to the memory of a good priest. He has made a most valuable contribution to the Catholic literature of this country. One of the most pregnant periods in the history of our American Church is that during which Father Baker was either a student or a Protestant preacher. That aspiration toward Catholicism called Puseyism (although, in truth, Dr. Pusey was not its chief ruling and guiding spirit) which swelled in the hearts of so many members of the Church of England, so called, who struggled for a reformation, or restoration, until their great water-logged craft, timbered, and tinkered, and coppered by so many sovereigns and parliaments, shook and trembled in every joint, and which finally burst forth in a flood of conversions to the Catholic Church—that memorable movement gave birth to a parallel agitation here, and with the same results. In no part of the country perhaps, New York excepted, was the storm greater than in the diocese of Baltimore, where Father Baker and his biographer then resided. In these memoirs we see graphically portrayed the rising, the swelling, and the various fluctuations of that storm. All this belongs to Catholic history, and Catholics ought to know it. Episcopalians are glad to forget those days, and no writer of theirs will dare to recall the stirring scenes which displayed their own religion in its poverty and helplessness, and drove so many gallant but tempest-weary souls into the haven of the true Church. Those, however, who like Father Hewit participated in this revival of true faith, and had the courage to follow the truth which it [{567}] unfolded, have no reason to be ashamed of the history, and he gives it in life-like colors. This part of his task is charmingly done. We have here descriptions of Baltimore and its churches, both Anglican and Catholic; early rambles of the author with Father Baker through the city, when a secret impulse led them so often to visit the Catholic sanctuaries, especially that quiet little Sulpician church of St. Mary's—sweet and holy spot it is indeed; the amusing efforts of the Protestant bishop and his disciples to ape Catholicism, at least in its exterior dress, with their long cassocks, crosses, their profound bows before naked altars draped in broadcloth or velvet, like drawing-room tables; the very natural wrath of the Low-Churchmen—all this is placed before us very naturally, and with a life-like simplicity. Our biographer has had, moreover, the good judgment to recognize what great questions are involved in the life of a convert such as Father Baker, and he takes them up directly and boldly. The pretensions of Anglicanism to be a branch of the universal Church, and a representative to the world of Catholicism, are exposed with a straightforward, nervous logic which leaves poor donkey little room to sport the lion's skin.

Perhaps the most interesting portion of these valuable memoirs is that which contains a series of letters, written by Father Baker to an intimate friend, during the last ten years before his conversion. There are chasms in this correspondence, but they are well filled up by the explanations of his biographer. We have here a glimpse of his inner life, and a chart is given us, imperfect, of course, but deeply interesting, of that pathway by which he was led to the Church. It commences with the pleasing delusions of a young Puseyite who looked upon his own insulated communion as the great Church Catholic, and his little table within the chancel as an altar of sacrifice, and his cross, and candlesticks, and other clandestine playthings, as legitimate heirlooms of Anglican devotion. Thus he writes: "Your brother told me of his intended repairs in his church. I am delighted to hear it. It will not be long, I hope, before such is the universal arrangement of our churches. Only one thing will be lacking (if he has a cross), the candlesticks. I have come to the conclusion that we have a perfect right to them, for they will come in by the Church common-law, as the surplice did" (p. 71). By-and-bye comes a change. "The workings of a mind and heart struggling with doubt and disquietude, weary of a hollow and unreal system, weaned from all worldly hopes, detaching itself from all earthly ties, and striving after truth and after God, become more and more manifest, until at last, after seven long years, the result is reached." The result is announced in the following brief and startling communication to his friend:

BALTIMORE, April 5, 1858.
MY DEAR DWIGHT:
The decision is made. I have resigned my parish, and am about to place myself under instruction preparatory to my being received into the Catholic Church. I can write no more at present. May God help you. "Your affectionate friend,
"FRANCIS A. BAKER."

Three years after this, namely, in the summer of 1856, commenced Father Baker's career as a Catholic priest and missionary, which continued until his death. During this time his active life was bound up with that of his associates, first in the Redemptorist order, and then in the new congregation of St. Paul, formed by himself and his fellow-missionaries. His biographer, therefore, furnishes us a description of those protracted spiritual exercises called "Missions," with a brief history of their introduction into this country. Then follows an account of those missions in which Father Baker took part, or rather it is a portfolio of pictures in which the more serious labors of the mission are shadowed in the perspective, while gay groups of various kinds and colors are made to figure in the foreground. Father Hewit has given himself a great latitude, accommodating himself to the literary tastes of our day, and his readers will certainly thank him for it. When these missionary campaigns were actually going on, it was hard toil all the year round, and little play; but in retracing their course with us our author avoids the dry details, which would involve much repetition, and recalls in preference the sunshiny hours of relaxation, and the pleasing incidents which befel them on their way and relieved their labors. Turning away, therefore, boldly from the regular highway of biography, we are conducted hither and [{568}] thither in a professional ramble around the United States. "Follow my leader" is the word, and down the lanes we go, and over the fences, and into the green fields. Now we find ourselves in Savannah, chatting with the old negro preacher as he sits "in the sun, on a little stool, holding his cow by a rope around her horns, while she nibbles the grass that grows along the streets." Now we are gazing on the gentleman hermit of Edgefield, in rags, and bare-footed, fasting on bread and water, and reading the "Fathers of the Desert," "Brownson's Review," and other ascetical books good for hermits. Now, again, we mingle with a motley company on a coasting steamer, while the philosopher and the spiritualist are discussing the question, "Can God annihilate space?" The next moment we are at St. Augustine, in the casemates of the old fort or castle of St. Marco, and take a look at the narrow loop-hole through which, after a course of rigid fasting, the Seminole chief Wild Cat was enabled to escape to his home in the everglades. Presently we follow Father Baker and his comrades to Charleston, where, then, "all was peace, Sumter solitary and silent, untenanted by a single soldier." Soon, again, we are in New York, then in New Jersey, then among the coal mines of Pennsylvania, and then (seriously and not profanely be it said) we go to Halifax. Kalamazoo, Covington, Quebec, St. Louis, are visited in their turn, and a host of other places huddled together in that small area to which these wandering apostles restrict their labors. We like this seven-year trip with Father Baker and the Paulists, and we like the free, off-hand, and original way in which F. Hewit curries us through it, with all his digressions. These digressions may be sins against the rules of biographical composition, but if so they are "capital" ones.

The last fifteen pages of the memoirs contain the story of Father Baker's sickness and death; a sad story, indeed, but sadly sweet to those who knew him well. Their eyes will be watered with tears as they read it, but happy tears, such drops as form the rainbow when the sun smiles on the summer shower. There was a light from heaven on the death-bed of Father Baker that is stronger than our grief.

The volume contains twenty-nine sermons of Father Baker, chiefly parochial discourses, with a few others selected from those he was accustomed to preach on the missions. It is unnecessary for us to make any comment on these. His eloquence and his style are well known. He was a model preacher, as well as a model Christian and a model priest. The art of sacred eloquence is little understood among us, and therefore we hail this contribution to it with enthusiasm. It will show the young pulpit orator how the Word of God will admit of legitimate ornament, which is neither derived from the theatre, the lecture-room, nor the political rostrum. We never listened to a preacher of whom it can be more appropriately said: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth salvation."

This work is well printed on super-fine paper and handsomely bound. We have no doubt that the numerous friends of Father Baker will be glad to obtain this delightful memoir of his life and labors.

THE TEMPORAL MISSION OF THE HOLY GHOST.
By Henry Edward Manning, D.D., Archbishop of Westminster. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The Messrs. Appleton have again rendered a great service to the reading public, especially the Catholic portion of it, by republishing a standard work in English Catholic literature. The author of this work, Archbishop Manning, was formerly a dignified clergyman of the Established Church of England, and one of the leaders of the Oxford movement. He was the Archdeacon of Chichester, a position in the English Church next in rank to the episcopate, and conferring a quasi-episcopal dignity and jurisdiction. He is said to have possessed in the highest degree the confidence of the English government, and to have been the person most frequently consulted concerning political measures relating to the interests of the ecclesiastical establishment. The London Weekly Register states, on what it claims to be authentic information, that he was marked for promotion to the episcopal bench. But, far beyond the distinction conferred on him by hierarchical position, was the influence which he wielded by the simple force of his intellectual and moral superiority. His writings, especially a treatise [{569}] on "The Unity of the Church," raised him to the first rank as an advocate of the principles of the High-Church party. In the first stage of the Oxford movement, he was considered a more safe and judicious advocate of its principles than Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman, and his name and opinions had more weight with the bishops and the superior clergy on account of the calm, moderate, and thoroughly ecclesiastical spirit and tone of his character and writings. After Mr. Newman's conversion, Archdeacon Manning succeeded in a great measure to his vacant throne, and held it for about six years. He led the second great movement from Oxford to Rome, and his conversion, which occurred in 1851, made nearly as great a sensation, on both sides of the Atlantic, as that of Mr. Newman had done in 1845. Six months after his reception into the Catholic Church he was ordained priest. Some time after he joined the "Oblates of St. Charles," a religious congregation founded by St. Charles Borromeo, and established a house in London, of which he was appointed the superior. He received also the appointment of provost of the Cathedral of Westminster and was decorated by the Holy Father with the title of a Roman prelate. During the thirteen years of his priesthood he has been most actively and zealously employed in laboring for the advancement of the Catholic faith, chiefly by preaching, writing books, and privately instructing converts from the educated classes, in which latter work he has been remarkably successful. It is probably for this reason that, in spite of his remarkable amenity of mind and character, and the extreme courtesy and gentleness which characterize his controversial writings, he has been regarded and spoken of by the English in so hostile a manner, and that his appointment to the see of Westminster seemed to awaken a feeling of resentment. The mind and character of Archbishop Manning are sure, however, to command, in the long run, the respect of all classes of men, however widely they may differ from him in their theological opinions; and although certain English susceptibilities may have been unpleasantly irritated by his elevation, yet the general verdict will agree that the Holy Father has placed a most worthy successor in the vacant chair of the illustrious Cardinal Wiseman.

In the book before us the author treats of the office of the Holy Ghost, as sent by the Father and the Son in the temporal order; that is, in the order established in time, through which the principal operation ab extra of the Blessed Trinity is accomplished, viz., the redemption of the human race. In a very interesting introduction he takes occasion to explain in part the motives of his conversion, by pointing out the connection between the Catholic doctrines which he held as an Anglican and their complements in the full system of Catholicism. In the body of the work he discusses the office of the Holy Ghost in relation to the Church, to Reason, to Holy Scripture, and to the Divine Tradition of the Faith. This includes a very wide scope of doctrine, embracing revelation, the medium through which revealed truths are proposed, explicated, and defined; the formation of Christian theology and philosophy; the relation of faith to science, and the whole subject of the inspiration and interpretation of Scripture.

If we may be allowed to express a modest opinion on the subject, we should say, that the principal merit of Dr. Manning, as a theological writer, lies in his ability to unfold the analogy of faith, and expose the inter-communion, so to speak, of the great truths of natural and revealed religion with one another. He shows pre-eminently in his writings that gift which is denominated in theology "the gift of intelligence;" that is, the gift by which the mind penetrates the interior essence of the doctrines of faith, and their interior relations. His exposition is in the highest degree luminous, and his style corresponds in this regard to his thought, so that his treatment of the great doctrines declared by the Church appears like a statement of self-evident propositions, or a geometrical demonstration in which the problem is proved by simply describing the figure. We have never read anything which has given us more satisfaction than his statement of the four grand fundamental propositions on which the entire fabric of the Catholic doctrine rests. It appears to our mind that in his statement of the nature of the evidence by which reason apprehends the [{570}] being of God, and the credibility of revelation, and afterward the real meaning and contents of the revelation, he has marked out the outlines of a sound and correct philosophy of religion, which is so much needed, and without which the antagonists of revelation cannot be adequately refuted on rational principles. We desire to quote one sentence, short but pregnant, in illustration of our meaning. After stating that he always uses the word "rationalism" in an ill sense, he proceeds to say:

"By rationalism, I do not mean the use of the reason in testing the evidence of a revelation alleged to be divine.
"Again, by rationalism I do not mean the perception of the harmony of the divine revelation with the human reason. It is no part of reason to believe that which is contrary to reason, and it is not rationalism to reject it. As reason is a divine gift equally with revelation—the one in nature, the other in grace—discord between them is impossible, and harmony an intrinsic necessity. To recognize this harmony is a normal and vital operation of the reason under the guidance of faith; and the grace of faith elicits an eminent act of the reason, its highest and noblest exercise in the fullest expansion of its powers." (Introd., p. 4.)

The eliciting of this eminent act of the reason to the utmost possible extent is at present the great desideratum in theology. It involves the exhibition of the intrinsic harmony between faith and science; that is, of the conformity of revelation, not only as to its extrinsic motives of credibility, but also as to the intrinsic credibility of its doctrines to reason. It appears to us that Dr. Manning appreciates the first half of the desideratum more perfectly than the second; and that, in regard to the second, he appreciates more completely what is necessary to convince Anglicans and Orthodox Protestants than what is requisite for rationalists, with whom the chief contest has to be carried on. The main drift of his reasonings goes to establish, in an admirable manner, that Christianity is credible, and that Catholicism is identical with Christianity. Orthodox Protestants already believe the first, and whatever difficulties they may have on the subject are easily answered by a lucid statement of the grand external proofs of that which they have been educated to accept as a first principle. Of the second, they can be convinced by the exposition of the analogy and harmony of the special Catholic dogmas which they have not been taught with those they already believe. Difficulties raised on the side of human science against the intrinsic credibility of revelation, they can easily dismiss by reverting to their first principle of the well-established verity of divine revelation, as resting on extrinsic evidence. Establish in their minds the infallible authority of the Church, and they are content to receive a doctrinal exposition of all that she teaches which is made by way of deduction from revealed principles, without seeking for a reconciliation of this exposition with the deductions of purely rational principles. This is no doubt a very sound and Christian method, and it were to be wished that all would be willing to follow it. Experience has shown, however, that those who have been brought up in the more advanced and rationalistic Protestantism, are with difficulty induced to adopt it. They exact an answer to the difficulties and objections lying in their minds against the intrinsic reasonableness of revealed doctrines, before they will attend to their extrinsic evidence. The exposition of this intrinsic conformity between revealed and rational principles forms for them a part of the requisite moral demonstration of the credibility of the Christian revelation. Nor is it altogether without reason that they require this. They are obliged to learn a great deal which a High-Church Anglican has already received from his early education. They have the same incapacity of apprehending correctly the most fundamental Catholic verities which the Anglican has of apprehending certain specific dogmas. Both must have these misapprehensions removed in the same way, only it is a shorter and more restricted process for the one than for the other. The account given by our illustrious author of his own interior history shows that the extrinsic proof of the claims of the Roman Church to supremacy over all portions of the Christian fold did not convince him before they were illuminated by the discovery of the intrinsic relation between this supremacy and the essential spiritual unity of the Church in [{571}] Christ. His mind demanded an apprehension of the rationale of strict, external, organized unity of administration under one ecclesiastical head. It was enough for him that this rationale was made evident from revealed principles, because he already possessed these principles as a part of his intellectual life. Those who have lost in great measure the Christian tradition, or who have never had, must find the rationale further back in their reason.

A Jew, for instance, apprehends the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation as follows: "God is divided into three portions, one of which became inclosed in human flesh." A Unitarian will apprehend these doctrines, and others, such as original sin, atonement, etc., in some form almost equally repugnant to reason. Many Protestants apprehend the doctrine of the real presence to be that God is made a piece of bread, or that a piece of bread is made God. It is evident, according to the rule laid down by Dr. Manning in the passage above cited, that it is impossible for the human mind to assent to such irrational propositions on any extrinsic authority. Even supposing that a person admits the proofs of divine revelation and the authority of the Church to be irrefragable, he cannot submit to either while he believes that they require him to assent to such absurdities. Hence the necessity of exhibiting the Catholic dogmas in their analogy to the truths of reason, as a part of the evidence of their credibility. A large portion of nominal Christians are so completely imbued with rationalistic and sceptical notions, and so full of misconceptions of Catholic ideas, that they are persuaded of the validity of a thousand objections derived from reason, science, history, etc., against the Catholic religion. They cannot be reached by a line of argument which lays the principal stress on the extrinsic proof of the Christian revelation proposed by the Catholic Church, and rules out their objections and difficulties by the principle of the obedience due to legitimate authority. It seems to us, for this reason, requisite to make every effort to exhibit the interior conformity between faith and reason, theology and science, and to prove that faith is really "an eminent act of reason." All Catholics must agree in this general statement, for all the advocates of the Catholic religion have from the beginning of Christian literature aimed at this result. In regard to the method of doing it, however, there is some diversity of opinion. Dr. Newman, for instance, regards the progress of theological science as a movement from below upward, and from the circumference to the centre. That is, science is elaborated by the reflection of individual minds, especially the gifted and learned, on the dogmas of faith, under the supervision and subject to the judgment of authority. Dr. Manning, if we understand him correctly, regards the movement as one which proceeds in a reverse order; he represents the Church as proceeding in a more direct, positive, and magisterial manner; not by collecting the accumulated, elaborated, and clarified products of study, thought, reasoning, and meditation, and giving them her implied or express approbation, but by continually giving forth utterances of inspired wisdom received from a divine source. He apprehends that in adopting the other view, there is danger or subordinating the Ecclesia Docens to the Ecclesia Discens, and making reason a critic on divine revelation. Those who adopt the latter view have a tendency to elevate theological opinions and arguments which have gamed a wide acceptance to a species of authority binding on the mind and conscience, and limiting the freedom of investigation. They desire that all arguments on doctrine should follow the traditional track and merely emulate and elucidate what has been already taught by the great doctors of theology. They extend the sphere of authority and infallibility to the utmost possible limits, and many of them seek to extend the protecting aegis of the Church over philosophical systems. Those who adopt the other may often err in an opposite extreme. Yet, we think, they have a principle which is justified by sound reasons, and by the actual history of the formation of doctrine and theology in the Church. That principle is stated by Möhler in these words: "For a time even a conception of a dogma, or an opinion, may be tolerably general, without, however, becoming an integral portion of a dogma, or a dogma itself. There are here eternally changing individual forms of an universal principle which may serve . . . for mastering that universal principle by way of reflection [{572}] and speculation." (Symb. Introd., p. 11, London Edit.)

On this principle, they seek continually to scrutinize more deeply the inner essence of dogmatic truths, and to investigate its relation and conformity to the principles and deductions of philosophy and science. We think history shows that this is the way in which theology has actually advanced, and the Catholic Church herself attained more and more to that reflective consciousness of her own dogmas by which she is enabled to enunciate from time to time her solemn definitions. St. Thomas made an immense advance, beyond St. Augustine and the other fathers. The great Jesuit theologians, Bellarmine, Suarez, and Molina, struck out a new and bold path in theology. Take, for instance, the great doctrines of original sin, predestination, and efficacious grace. The conception of these dogmas, and the scientific explication of their contents, has been greatly modified in the process of time, and chiefly through the influence of a few original thinkers. These have generally met with a strong opposition from the established schools of theology, and the most strenuous efforts have been made to decry them as unorthodox and to procure their condemnation by authority. The names of Catharini, Sfondrati, and Molina will serve as a sufficient illustration. Yet, their method of stating Christian doctrine on important points has gained a great predominance in the Church, and the supreme authority has frequently intervened, not to enforce these opinions, but to protect those who hold and advocate them from censure. Not only theologians, but even teachers of natural science, have brought about great changes in current theological opinions. For instance, Galileo, and those who followed him, have, by the force of scientific demonstration, compelled theologians to modify their interpretation of Scripture where it speaks of natural phenomena. Geology has caused a similar general change of the method of interpreting the Scriptural accounts, of the creation and the deluge. The old Swiss proverb is verified in the perpetual effort to discover the harmony between faith and science: "God gives us plenty of nuts to crack, but does not crack them for us." One of these hard nuts, not yet cracked, is the question concerning the extent of the influence of inspiration in preserving the sacred writers from error in matters of purely human knowledge. The well-known opinion of Holden on this subject, it appears to us, is a little too summarily condemned by our learned author. The opinions of Bellarmine and Lessius were severely censured in their time, but nevertheless are now acknowledged to be tenable and probable. We think the opinion of Holden deserves at least a very thorough examination and discussion before it is put under the ban. Dr. Manning admits that "it is evident that Holy Scripture does not contain a revelation of what are called physical sciences," and that "no system of chronology is laid down in the sacred books" (p. 165, Eng. Ed.) Nevertheless the sacred writers speak of physical phenomena and of chronological dates. The Holy Spirit allowed them to speak of the former in accordance with their own and the common opinion even, when that was erroneous. He has allowed their statements respecting the latter to fall into such inextricable confusion, through accidental or intentional alterations either in the Hebrew or Greek text, that we cannot tell with certainty what they intended to record on the subject. Does not this show that revelation was not intended to teach chronology? And if it was not, how does it militate against the Catholic doctrine of inspiration to maintain that the sacred writers were originally left to follow the best human authority they could find in chronology as well as in science? If the end of revelation did not require that an infallible system of dates should be preserved in the sacred text, why should it have been given at first? Why are minor historical facts, relating to the numbers who fell in particular battles, etc., within the cope of infallibility any more than matters of science and chronology? It appears to us, that until some authoritative decision is made, this question is open to discussion, and the opinion of Holden tenable without prejudice to orthodoxy. Very probably the distinguished author meant to express simply his judgment as to what is the sounder view of inspiration, without denying that the other is within the limits of orthodoxy. However this may be, this is the only instance in which there is any appearance of [{573}] severity toward those whose theological opinions on matters extra fidem differ from his own. It were to be wished that some other writers, who are disposed to censure their brethren severely and throw suspicion upon their loyalty to the Church, on account of theological differences, would imitate the admirable model placed before them by the illustrious chief of the English hierarchy. We commend to their attention the following extract from the London Weekly Register, which is a portion of an excellent and well written review of' Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon. When severely pressed by an able antagonist, one frequently finds himself driven to defend the Catholic cause upon the common, certain ground where all Catholics stand together, and to sink domestic controversies. This is very well; but the same language ought to be used toward opponents in these domestic controversies, when they are discussed inter nos, which is used respecting them when we are fighting the exterior enemy. If one takes certain ground because it is available against non-Catholics, he ought to allow other Catholics to stand upon that ground at all times in peace without having his fidelity to the Church called in question. We give the quotations now, without further comment, and leave the intelligent reader to make his own reflections on them:

"The greater part of the remainder of the volume is taken up with proving what most Catholics would be ready to admit, that many exaggerated things have been said by Catholic writers of name concerning the Pope's personal infallibility, on the prerogatives of the Blessed Virgin, and on many other subjects. No doubt, viewed from without, there is much matter for perplexity in this whole subject. We know that many persons, now Catholics, have been kept back from seeing the Church's claims on their absolute allegiance, because of the hold these exaggerated statements had obtained on their imagination, and the repugnance they felt to the aspect of doctrine thus presented. This, we think, has arisen partly from their having attributed to such statements an authority which they did not possess, and from their not distinguishing between matters of faith and matters of pious opinion. . . . . Catholics, on the other hand, . . know that the Church, while requiring unitas in necesaariis, is most free in conceding libertas in dubiis; . . . does not aim at creating a dead and soulless level of uniformity, but tolerates great liberty of opinion in matters of opinion," etc.
"Even though we might ourselves hold that what are commonly called the Ultramontane opinions are the more logical, the legitimate deduction from Scripture, the true development of patristic teaching; and however much we might wish for a union of all Christians on this basis, we should nevertheless hold most strongly, until otherwise taught, that a reunion on the principles of Bossuet would be better than perpetuated schism."

Archbishop Manning's work will, of course, take its place in our standard Catholic literature, and we earnestly recommend it to all our readers.

THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. Vol lxxix.

We observe by a notice appended to its last number, for November, 1865, that this long-established periodical has been transferred from Boston to New York, and will hereafter be conducted under the editorship of the Rev. Henry W. Bellows, D.D. This is a significant fact, but precisely what it signifies time only can reveal to the uninitiated. So far as we can conjecture its significance, the change of location and editorship bodes a change in its prevailing tone and spirit. It is, however, announced that the former editors will co-operate with the new one in the conduct of the Review, which leads us to suppose that the different schools of Unitarians will be allowed fair scope for expressing their views in its pages. Those who are acquainted with the writings of Dr. Bellows may fairly expect that if he devotes his time and energies to the task of contributing articles on the great topics which are just now occupying the attention of Unitarians, there will be a great improvement in the general spirit and tendency of the Review. It will become less extreme in its rationalism, and more positively Christian. Dr. Bellows has come the nearest to Catholic doctrine in some of the fundamental points of religion of any rationalist with whose writings we have happened to meet. We shall look with [{574}] interest for the result of the movement which has placed this powerful medium for influencing minds and shaping the course of events in the sphere to which he belongs under his control. Meanwhile, we have some criticisms to make on certain portions of the number which closes the Boston series of "The Examiner."

The first article contains a critique upon Mill's "Examination of the Philosophy of Hamilton." We are delighted to have that overrated and inconsistent disseminator of sceptical principles, Sir William Hamilton, demolished, no matter who does it. One of his pupils, Mr. Calderwood, has attacked him on the side of positive philosophy, showing his sceptical tendencies. Mr. Mill has countermined him by a more subtle scepticism than his own, and has shown the baselessness of the positive and dogmatic portion of his philosophy. Very good! The most dangerous of all errors is semi-scepticism. It defends all that it retains of philosophical and theological truth in such an illogical manner that it brings it into doubt and discredit with logical thinkers. It covers up its scepticism so adroitly that the unwary are deceived and poisoned by it unawares. Let the contradiction between its two elements be shown, let both be pushed to their legitimate consequences, and a great advantage is gained. Those who push through the sceptical principle, like Mr. Mill, bring it to such a patent absurdity, that every right-thinking mind will reject it at once. Those who take the other side, are forced upon a better and more solid basis for both science and faith. The reviewer of Mr. Mill seems to have given himself up completely to his sway, and to be unable to do more than echo his thoughts. He gives up transcendentalism, the grand philosophy of Boston and Cambridge which was to supersede old-fashioned Christianity and inaugurate a new epoch, as an exploded and obsolete system. This formidable iron-clad has blown up and gone under, like the famous Merrimac; and it appears that Dr. Brownson need not have levelled his artillery against her, but might have waited patiently for her own magazine to be set fire to by her crew. We are no longer even sure that two and two do not make five, or that two parallel lines cannot inclose a space! The writer anxiously endeavors to show that in spite of this Mr. Mill will still allow him to believe in a God, and in the difference between right and wrong. Let him, however, if he will persist in believing something, do it with trembling. For, if two and two might, for anything we know, make five, one might possibly become equal to nothing, and then some day we may all find ourselves annihilated. Mr. Mill's mine can be countermined as easily as Sir William Hamilton's; for, when once the perception of absolute and necessary truth is questioned, there is no stopping short of nihilism.

The article on Dr. Newman's "Apologia" is well written, and shows a candid and respectful appreciation of the intellectual and moral greatness of the illustrious convert. The author, however, makes a sweeping, wholesale charge of having adopted a system of equivocation, chicanery, and sophistry upon the Jesuits, and the whole Catholic Church, which has nothing to sustain it but an on dit. The charge is false. But apart from that, in saying it the writer struck a foul blow, unworthy of an honorable critic. Here is a great question, on which men's minds are divided, and on which there are most weighty and important testimonies to be examined. The writer does not profess to enter the lists for the discussion of it, but merely to criticise the particular statements of Dr. Newman. If he had anything to say about it, he should have taken up Dr. Newman's statements and arguments, and made some rejoinder. It is always a sign that a man is either weak or disingenuous, when he throws a wholesale assertion of the general badness of your cause in your face, because you have successfully defended it in respect to one particular item. It is also very schoolboyish to repeat continually the stale generalities that one has read in his books or in the newspapers about the Jesuits. Cannot our antagonists "invint some other little bit of truth?" We are tired of hearing this one so often.

The writer fairly admits that if any other guide to truth is necessary, beside the individual reason, that guide must be the Catholic Church. There is no alternative except to follow your own light, or be a Roman Catholic. Every man, he thinks, has for himself a light, which is infallible for himself [{575}] alone, and only for the time being. We would like to ask him whether this is a certain, necessary, and universal truth, true for all times, and every individual? Is it so? Then by the same process which proves it to be so, you can establish a complete system of universal truths, and among them the universal or Catholic principles of the Catholic Church. We admit the infallible light of reason, excluding his limitations, which are ipso facto destroyed if he answers our question in the affirmative. If in the negative, the assertion he has made is true only for himself, as a kind of provisional arrangement—a sort of dark lantern borrowed for the evening. It is quite probable that by-and-bye the sun may rise, and the dim rays of his lantern blend with its brighter beams. The infallible light within may tell him that he needs the revelation of God, and the instruction of the Catholic Church.

Decidedly the most valuable article in the number is the one on "English Schools and Colleges." It is evidently written by one who is perfectly familiar with the English system of education, and contains many valuable hints and suggestions for the improvement of our own colleges. We recommend all those who are engaged in the higher branches of instruction to procure and read it; and, indeed, the author would do them a great service by publishing it separately as a pamphlet, with such additions as he might think suitable to enhance its value.

OUR FAITH, THE VICTORY; OR, A COMPREHENSIVE VIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
By Rt. Rev. John McGill, D.D., Bishop of Richmond. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1865.

This new edition of a work already noticed in our pages is well printed, and, if the paper were of somewhat finer quality and the binding a little better, would be a very handsome volume. The extravagant price of paper at present is a very fair excuse for the first defect, although we cannot help regretting that a work of such high merit and permanent value should not be brought out in a style completely worthy of it. If our copy is a fair specimen, however, there is no excuse for the binding, which, though handsome enough, is so loosely and carelessly executed as to endanger already some of the leaves falling out. We recommend our Catholic publishers to show a little more of the enterprise and thoroughness requisite in first-class houses. Mr. O'Shea has given them a good example in Dr. Brownson's "American Republic," which we trust will not be without a good effect. We again recommend this admirable work to our readers as one of the best in the English language on the great topics of which it treats.

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny.
By O. A. Brownson, LL.D. 8vo. New York: P. O'Shea. pp. 435. 1866.

This is a work brought out in a very superior style of typography which does great credit to the enterprise of the young publisher, Mr. O'Shea, and is worthy of its great subject and its equally great author. We have only had time to read the preface, which breathes the exalted philosophical wisdom, the noble, magnanimous spirit, and the pure Christian faith of the illustrious Catholic publicist and American patriot who wrote it. A more extended notice of the work itself will appear in our next number.

HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE FALL OF WOLSEY TO THE DEATH OP ELIZABETH.
By James Anthony Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Vols. III. and IV., 8vo. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.

The fourth volume of Mr. Froude's work ends with the death of his hero, Henry VIII. The portion of the history embraced in the instalment now before us includes, therefore, many picturesque incidents, which the author narrates with his most charming and brilliant pen, and with that quick eye for dramatic effect which lends such a fascination to his style. In a notice of the first and second volumes we expressed with sufficient clearness our judgment of Mr. Froude's faults and merits, and we see no reason to modify our previous statements. He professes to have originally approached his subject without prejudice or any purpose of running counter [{576}] to the commonly received opinions of the world; but he does not deny that he has come to take a very different view of Henry and his times from that accepted by the rest of mankind. He has this advantage over his critics—that, as he makes use of state papers and other manuscript records which are not accessible to the world at large, it is not always possible to test the correctness of his quotations or the justness of his inferences from official documents. We can only say that in the few instances in which it has been in our power to follow him in his researches, we have learned to distrust not only his accuracy but his honesty. We must wait until some other and dispassionate historian shall have explored the same fields before we can detect all his misrepresentations and rectify all his errors.

HUMOROUS POEMS.
By Oliver Wendell Holmes, with illustrations by Sol. Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865.

A cheap but neat edition, bound in pamphlet form, forming one of a series of "Companion Poets for the People, illustrated." Dr. Holmes is our Thomas Hood, in some respects more to our taste than his English compeer. His humorous poems, though steeped in the double distilled oil of wit, have no poison in them, and are wholesome and delicious, when taken laughing in small doses.

THE PRACTICAL DICTATION SPELLING-BOOK,
in which the spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and application of almost all the irregular words in the English language are taught in a manner adapted to the comprehension of youth. For the use of schools. By Edward Mulvany. New York: P. O'Shea.

The plan of this book is excellent, and will, we have no doubt, be generally adopted in our schools. It has evidently been compiled with much care and attention. The scholar that masters its various sections will not be apt to make those ridiculous mistakes in spelling and writing which are so prevalent m the community. In the next edition the typographical errors ought to be attended to. The present one contains too many such errors.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

Messrs. Murphy & Co., Baltimore, announce for publication at an early day the following works: A new improved and enlarged edition of Archbishop Spalding's "Miscellanea;" a new edition of "The Evidences of Catholicity," by the same author; "The Apostleship of Prayer," a translation from the French of the Rev. H. Ramière, S.J.; "The Manual of the Apostleship of Prayer;" new editions of "Ellen Middleton," "Lady Bird and Grantly Manor," by Lady Fullerton; and of "Pauline Seward."

P. O'Shea, New York, announces: "The Life of St. Anthony of Padua;" "The Life and Miracles of St. Philomena;" "The Christian's Daily Guide," a new prayer-book; the second volume of "Darras' History of the Church."

P. Donahoe, Boston, announces the publication of a new illustrated magazine for the young folk. It is to be called "Spare Hours," and is to appear early in December. There is room for such a publication, and we hope it will prove a success, and that Mr. Donahoe will make it equal to anything of the kind published in this country. A good magazine for the young has been a want long felt. The subscription price is two dollars per year.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, New York: "Aurora Floyd," by M. E. Braddon. 12mo., pp 372. "The Ordeal for Wives." A novel, by the author of "The Morals of Mayfair." 12mo., pp. 448. "Rebel Brag and British Bluster: A record of unfulfilled prophecies, baffled schemes, disappointed hopes, etc., etc. By Owls-Glass." Paper, pp. 111.

We have also received a neat little pamphlet, of twenty-four pages, entitled: "Notes on Willson's Readers," by S. S. Haldeman.

From the Hon. Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington: "Diplomatic Correspondence for 1864. Parts 3 and 4."

From CHARLES SCRIBNER, New York: "Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects," a series of popular lectures. By J. G. Holland. 12mo., pp. 835.

From P. O'SHEA, New York: Numbers 14, 15, and 16 of "Darras' History of the Church."

From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York: Parts 5, 6, and 7 of "D'Artaud's Lives of the Popes."

---

[{577}]

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. II., NO. 11.—FEBRUARY, 1866.

Translated from Etudes Religieuses, Historiques et Littéraires, par des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus.
CHARLES II. AND HIS SON, FATHER JAMES STUART.

Of all the Stuarts who reigned over Great Britain only one, if historians can be trusted, abandoned Anglicanism and became a child of the Catholic Church. It is true that to the name of James II. that of his elder brother, Charles II., has sometimes been added; but the general opinion is that Charles had no religion whatever, and scoffed at all creeds alike. Documents, however, which have lately been brought to light, enable us to prove that both the sons of Charles I. abandoned Protestantism, and that in their persons Catholicism occupied for more than an twenty years the throne of Henry VIII.

To understand how the religion of Charles II. could remain so long an historical enigma, we must recall to mind the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed. Surrounded by fanatical sectaries, who yielded him a kind of insubordinate obedience, and kept him in continual fear of the axe by which his unfortunate father had suffered, he felt constrained to observe in public the forms of worship which he had solemnly renounced before the altar. And to this we must add another reason. Far from reforming the disorders of a licentious youth, he prolonged his excesses to the very eve of death, and his unbridled passions tended to extinguish in his naturally weak and timid soul all the energy alike of the man and of the Christian. So, though a Catholic at heart, Charles never had the courage during his whole reign to avow his sentiments. Some thought him a zealous Presbyterian; others, a devoted Anglican. Those who knew him better declared he was nothing but a bad Protestant, and for that declaration they had more reason than they supposed.

There is no question that he died in the bosom of the Church; but that he had returned to it long before he died is a fact which has only lately [{578}] been established. After lying for two hundred years among the dusty archives of a religious order in Rome, a remarkable correspondence has been brought to light between the sixth successor of Henry VIII. and Father Paul Oliva, the general of the Jesuits. The occasion of this singular interchange of letters between Whitehall and Rome was the presence in the Jesuit house, in the last named city, of a young novice whom all the fathers, even the general himself, believed to be a French gentleman. Charles informed Father Oliva who this young man was. By the right of paternal authority he demanded that James Stuart, the eldest of his natural sons, should be sent back to him. He wished to keep him for some time about his person, and by his assistance to instruct himself more thoroughly in the Catholic faith, and so finish the work which he had long ago commenced. After reading these letters, and penetrating the hidden thoughts and mental tortures of the conscience-stricken king, who knows his duty, and fears, yet wishes, to fulfil it; a crowned slave, bearing beneath his royal robes a yoke of iron, and sighing in vain for liberty to believe and worship after the dictates of his heart, we cannot resist the conclusion that Charles II. was neither a deist nor a waverer; he was a Catholic—a timid and a bad one, if you will but firm in his convictions.

But, you may say, a conversion such as this is not much for the Church to brag of. Here you have a prince born a heretic, and becoming a Catholic so quietly that his people know nothing about it. The Church declares that faith without works is dead. Well, it is true that Charles's life was in perpetual discord with his faith. We certainly do not propose our neophyte as a model penitent; it is enough if the reasons which led to his conversion afford his countrymen another proof of the divine origin of Catholicism. It is surely a startling circumstance that this slave to voluptuousness should turn his back upon the easy-going Anglican Church, so complacent even to the monstrous passions of Henry VIII., and choose the most inflexible of all Christian communions, the one which preferred losing her hold upon the glorious and powerful Island of Saints to conniving at adultery; which defended the innocent Catharine of Aragon against her ferocious spouse, and might, one hundred and forty years later, have protected Catharine of Portugal also had a royal caprice again attempted to displace a virtuous queen in order to raise a vicious favorite to the throne of England. This monarch, timid by nature, and surrounded by sanguinary fanatics, knew that the bare accusation of "popery" would be enough to stir up his whole kingdom against him; yet he did not hesitate to become a "papist"—he upon whom the laws conferred the title, so much coveted by his predecessors, of supreme head of the Established Church. Do we not see in this a signal triumph of God over man, of truth over falsehood?

Should it be asked why this correspondence has remained so long unpublished, we answer that it was by its nature strictly confidential. So long, too, as the Stuarts maintained their pretensions to the English crown the publication of such letters would have seriously compromised them. Then came the suppression of the society, after which it would appear that all trace of the correspondence was lost, until it was recently brought to light by the learned Father Boero. [Footnote 87] The original letters form part of a collection of autograph manuscripts of Charles II., Father Paul Oliva, Christina of Sweden, James II., the queen-mother, Henrietta of France, Catharine of Braganza, and other celebrated persons of the time. The letters of Charles are impressed with the Royal seal.

[Footnote 87: Istoria della conversione alla Chi?? Cattolica di Carlo II., Re d'Inghilterra, caveta da ???trure autentiche ed originali. ]

[{579}]

II.

It is easy enough to mention circumstances which would naturally have prepossessed Charles in favor of the Church. In the first place, he was indebted for his life, after the defeat of Worcester, almost entirely to Catholics, who at great risk to themselves concealed him from the soldiers of Cromwell and enabled him to escape to France. In Paris he must have seen many things to influence his religious sentiments. The most profound impression, however, was made upon him by the venerable M. Olier, the founder of St. Sulpice. "God opened to him," says his biographer, the Abbé Faillon, "the English monarch's heart. In the new conferences which he had with this prince, he showed him the beauty and truth of the Catholic religion with so much grace, force, and energy that Charles II. was constrained to acknowledge afterward to one of his friends that although many distinguished persons had spoken to him about these matters, there was none of them who had enlightened him so much as M. Olier; that in his words he recognized and felt an extraordinary virtue; in fine, that he had fully satisfied him. There can be little doubt that M. Olier had persuaded the king to abjure his errors and to take the first step toward a return into the bosom of the Church; that is to say, by sending a secret abjuration to the Pope, who, as has been said above, required nothing more. For, in the first place, it was rumored all through France and England that Charles had sent to the Pope a secret abjuration; and beside, M. de Bretonvilliers, after mentioning that his majesty recognized and felt an extraordinary virtue in his conversations with M. Olier on the truth of the Catholic religion, adds these significant words: 'At present, I can say no more.' This reticence naturally leads us to infer that Charles had taken some step toward becoming a Catholic which it was not then prudent to make known."

III.

Two years after his restoration to the throne, and under the influence, probably, of the queen-mother and the queen-consort, he resolved to open with the Holy See a negotiation which he hoped might lead to the restoration of the English people to religious unity. It was necessary to proceed with the greatest caution. He chose for his envoy Sir Richard Bellings—the same to whom he afterward intrusted the most secret and delicate of his missions to the court of Louis XIV. Sir Richard set out for Italy under pretext of attending to affairs of his own; and as soon as he could do so safely, he quietly went to Rome. His first business was to ask for a cardinal's hat for Louis Stuart, duke of Richmond and Lennox, better known under the name of the Abbé d'Aubigny. He was a near relative of the king's, and had been summoned from Paris to fulfil the functions of grand almoner to Queen Catharine. Charles wished to place under his charge the affairs of the Church in Great Britain. A memoir on this subject was drawn up for Bellings by Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and copied by Clarendon's son. It is dated October 25, 1662. Each leaf is authenticated by the royal signature. A minute of the instructions given by Charles to his ambassador is preserved at Rome. It can only have been drawn up by Sir Richard himself:

"1. His majesty solicits this promotion for the advantage of his kingdom, and in order to give the Catholic party an authorized chief, intimately united with the sovereign by the ties of blood, and upon whom he can depend securely under all circumstances. The king, to quote his own words, sees in the elevation of the Abbé d'Aubigny to the cardinalship an essential condition to the good understanding which ought to exist between [{580}] the Pope and his majesty; he deems this a measure of the last importance for the welfare of his Roman Catholic subjects throughout his dominions.'

"2. The cardinal once appointed, his majesty engages to support him in the style which his dignity and his relationship to the sovereign demand."

The Holy Father summoned a secret congregation of cardinals to consider the matter, and also appointed a council of theologians, who were instructed to draw up their opinion in a careful report. In this document we find a careful resume of the "Benefits which the Catholics of England have received from his Britannic majesty."' They approved of the proposed appointment; but unfortunately the Abbé d'Aubigny was given to the errors of the Port Royalists, and the Pope felt compelled to refuse Charles's request. He refused, however, with so much delicacy, and gave such good reasons for the refusal, that the king, instead of breaking off intercourse with the Holy See, as he had threatened to do, ordered Bellings to proceed to the second object of his mission. This was nothing less than the conversion of the king and the reconciliation of his realms to the Roman Church.

IV.

Sir Richard was instructed to treat directly with the Holy Father, and the number of counsellors whom the Pope might call to his assistance was to be strictly limited. On the side of the English there is every reason to believe that nobody was in the secret except the king, the two queens, the envoy, and the person—whoever he may have been—who drew up the document which we shall presently have occasion to quote. Clarendon certainly knew nothing about it; he was ready to assist in the promotion of d'Aubigny; but he was a stern enemy of the Catholics, and even before Sir Richard's return we find him opposing in parliament a proposal of his sovereign's for granting liberty of conscience to dissenters.

There is no doubt that Charles II. himself made known to the Holy Father his intention of becoming a Catholic and re-establishing Catholicism as an authorized form of worship in his kingdom. There is, moreover, no doubt that Pope Alexander VII. replied to him. This is all that we can now affirm with certainty; and we should not have known even this if the king had not mentioned it incidentally in one of his letters to Father Paul Oliva.

The absence of these two letters is much to be regretted; but we have fortunately at hand a document of still greater value. This is the profession of faith presented in the name of the English monarch as the basis of a concordat:

"Proposition on the part of Charles II., king of Great Britain, for the much-to-be-desired reunion of his three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland with the apostolic and Roman see.
"His majesty, the king, and all who aspire to the unity of the Catholic Church, will accept the profession of faith drawn up by Pope Pius IV. after the decisions of the Council of Trent, and with it all the other decrees respecting faith or discipline enacted either by the aforesaid council or by any other general council, as well as the decisions of the last two pontiffs in the affair of Jansenius; reserving to himself, however, as is done in France and some other places, certain special rights and certain customs which usage has sanctioned in our own particular Church. These various decrees are to be understood with the restrictions which other oecumenical councils have, prudently no doubt and after mature consideration, imposed upon them, as the aforesaid profession of faith proves. Whence it follows that, except within these limits, nothing may henceforth be imposed upon or prescribed to either the king or any of his Catholic subjects; and [{581}] that it shall not be imputed to them as a crime or a favoring of heresy should they have occasion to declare their mind upon matters of this sort. Under these conditions his majesty is ready to break at once with all Protestant societies and all sects separated from the Roman Church, and to withdraw from their communion. He declares his detestation in particular of the schism and deplorable heresies originated by Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, Memnon, Socinus, Browin, and other equally perverse sectaries. Better than any one else, he knows by sad experience in his own kingdom what a deluge of calamities, what revolutions, what a Babel-confusion this pretended Reformation (which might better be called a deformation) has entailed in politics as well as in religion; so much so that these three kingdoms, and especially England, are, in both secular and sacred affairs, nothing but a theatre of frightful disturbances, which hold the entire world chained with attention and dismay."

This profession of faith is followed by twenty-four "notes" or "declarations," in which the king indicates more in detail the course which he proposes to follow in his difficult task of religious restoration. The reconciliation with Rome once effected, he would grant the Protestants complete toleration. The hierarchy should be re-established as it was in the time of Henry VIII., before the schism. Parishes should be established and seminaries founded. The king also described in what manner he would arrange for the introduction of the Roman liturgy, the preaching of the divine word, the teaching of the catechism, the administration of the sacraments, the celebration of provincial synods, and the admission of the religious orders of both sexes into Great Britain; he spoke of the festivals, beside Sunday, which it would be possible to make days of obligation, and of the precautions which ought to be adopted in bringing the people back to the veneration of the saints and their relics.

It may be suggested that Charles was not sincere; but it is difficult to understand what he could have hoped to gain by these representations, made in strictest confidence to the Pope, if he did not really intend to return to the bosom of the Church and hope to bring his people with him. Lingard says that he used to feign an inclination toward Catholicism, in view of the subsidies which he received from the king of France; but we must remember that at this time it was Louis who made all the overtures and evinced all the eagerness for an alliance between the two countries, and that Charles held back. Louis XIV. was ready to pay almost any price for his neighbor's friendship, and Charles was under no necessity of periling his crown and arousing all the fanaticism of his subjects in order to obtain what Louis was so ready to give him.

Just about the time of the departure of Sir Richard Bellings for Italy Charles made an attempt to obtain from parliament an act of indulgence in favor of the Presbyterians, Independents, and Roman Catholics. He met with the most violent resistance, even from his own ministers. Far from carrying this equitable measure, he soon found himself compelled, by the clamors of parliament, to issue a proclamation ordering all Catholic priests to leave the country under penalty of death. Disheartened by this ignominious defeat, he seems to have rushed more madly than ever into debaucheries, and stifled the voice of conscience until a providential incident, in 1668, aroused his better feelings.

V.

About the month of April, 1668, the king received a piece of news which awakened in his heart at once remorse and hope. A natural son whom he loved tenderly—a young man of great [{582}] intelligence and acquirements—had abjured Protestantism and consecrated himself to God's service in the Society of Jesus. This personage, who was destined to play a part in Charles's conversion as important as it was mysterious, is not unknown to our readers alone: no memoir of the time makes any mention of him. We must go back a little way to find out who he was.

The son of Lucy Walters, the intriguing and factious Duke of Monmouth, born in 1649, is generally regarded as the first fruit of Charles's illicit amours; but this is a mistake. It was not in the Netherlands, nor in Paris, but in the isle of Jersey, that the heir to the English crown began the career of licentiousness which ultimately proved so disastrous to his reign. This little island, rich and populous, had always remained faithful to the royal house; and it was probably with the hope of obtaining succor for the royal cause that Charles, while Prince of Wales, went there in 1647. But unfortunately he encountered, under the roof of one of the most illustrious, families of Great Britain, a temptation which extinguished all his warlike ardor. The young soldier reposed in the gardens of Armida, and gave not a thought to the terrible morrow which might follow his careless sleep. [Footnote 88]

[Footnote 88: In the multiplicity of more important events, English historians have lost site of this abortive Jersey expedition; but if they do not confirm, they at least do not contradict our statement. After the battle of Naseby, Prince Charles fled to the Scilly Isles and afterward to Jersey. The next three years he passed chiefly at the Hague. He does not reappear in history until 1648, when he made a fruitless demonstration with a royalist fleet at the mouth of the Thames. In the meanwhile he used to pay occasional visits to his mother at Paris, and what more likely than at her instigation he should have made a trip to Jersey in the hope of doing something for his father?]

The child born of this connection, who afterward was called James Stuart, was taken, in infancy, we know not by what name, to the continent. He was educated by the best masters in France and Holland, and as he grew up manifested great quickness of intellect, together with the most estimable qualities of the heart. Charles was proud of him and loved him; but when he came to the throne he durst not publicly recognize him. He was afraid of his parliament and afraid of the factions which encompassed him. Beside, the child's mother was still living, and no doubt had obtained from the monarch a promise not to compromise the honor of her noble family by acknowledging the son until there should no longer be any danger of her being suspected as the mother. So, when the young man, then about eighteen years of age, was summoned to London in 1665, he was commanded to present himself under the name of Jacques de la Cloche du Bourg de Jersey; and though he received from his father the most unequivocal marks of affection, he soon grew tired of his false position, and begged permission to return to the continent and resume his studies. Charles reluctantly consented. He gave his son at parting a document written in French with his own hand and impressed with the royal seal, which is still preserved at the Gesù in Rome. It runs thus:

"Charles, par la grâce de Dieu Roy d'Angleterre, de France, d'Ecosse et d'Hibernie, confessons et tenons pour nostre fils naturel le sieur Jacques Stuart qui, par nostre ordre et commandement a vescu en France et auttres pays jusques à mil six cent soixante cinq où nous avons daigné prendre soin de Luy. Depuis, la même année, s'étant treuvé à Londres de nostre volonté expresse et pour raison. Luy avons commandé de vivre sous auttre nom encore, sçavoir, de la Cloche du Bourg de Jarzais. [Footnote 89] Auquel, pour raisons importantes qui regardent la paix du Royaume que nous avons toujours recherchée, deffendons de parler qu' après nostre mort [i.e., of the secret of his birth]. En ce temps, Luy soit lors permis de présenter au parlement cette nostre [{583}] déclaration que, de plein gré et avec équité, nous Luy donnons à sa requeste, et en sa langue, pour lui oster occasion de la monstrer à qui que ce soit pour en avoir l'interpretation.—A Wthall, le 27 de septembre 1665. Escry et signé de nostre main, et cacheté du cachet ordinaire de nos lettres sans auttre façon.
L. S. CHARLES."

[Footnote 89: Charles wrote indifferently Jarzais, Jersais, or Jersé]

(TRANSLATION.)

We Charles, by the grace of God king of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, acknowledge and hold as our natural son Sir James Stuart, who by our order and commandment has lived up to the year 1665 in France and other countries, where we have seen fit to take care of him. Thence after, on the same year, he resided in London by our express will and for good reasons, we having commanded him to live under a new name, to wit, La Cloche du Bourg de Jarzais. Whom, however, for important reasons touching the peace of the realm, whereof we are ever regardful, we forbid to speak concerning the secret of does birth until after our death. At that time be it then permitted him to present to parliament this our declaration, which of our own free will and in justice we grant him at his request and in his language, in order to remove all occasion of his exhibiting it to any one whatsoever for its better interpretation. At Whitehall, the 27th of September, 1665. Written and signed by our hand and sealed with the ordinary seal of our letters, without other fashion.
L. S. CHARLES

With this acknowledgment of parentage, the young man returned to the Netherlands; but he soon reflected that in the event of his father's death the document was not likely to be of much service to him, for it mentioned no provision for his support. The English Parliament would be very apt, on one pretext or another, to refuse him any sum whatever. So he prevailed upon Charles to give him another paper, assigning to him £500 a year, "subject to the good pleasure of the next successor to the crown and of the Parliament." Coupled with this legacy were the conditions that James should live in London and remain faithful to the Anglican Church. This document, dated Feb. 7, 1667, is also preserved at the Gesù:

"Charles, by the grace of God king of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland. The Sieur James Stuart, whom we have heretofore recognized as our natural son, living under the name of La Cloche—having represented to us that, should he survive our death, he would be without means of support, if not recognized by parliament, beside other difficulties which might occur in this affair; for this reason, bending to his entreaties, we have seen good to assign him and to leave him from our domain, if such be the good pleasure of our successor to the crown and of our parliament, the sum of £500 sterling per annum. Which legacy it will not be lawful for him to enjoy, except in so far as he shall reside in London, living according to the religion of his fathers and the Anglican liturgy.
At Whitehall, the 7th Feb. 1667. Written and sealed by our proper hand.
L. S. CHARLES"

When the king imposed the second condition he little imagined that his son was already on the point of abandoning the Established Church; but so it was; and on the 29th of the next July he was received into the Catholic communion at Hamburg. Very soon afterward he determined to enter the Society of Jesus; but there was one great obstacle in the way. He could not be received without telling the secret of his birth, for illegitimacy was an impediment from which it was necessary to obtain a dispensation. And if he told it, with no other [{584}] proof to show than the two papers just cited, which it would be impossible for an Italian Jesuit to verify, who would believe him? In this perplexity he had recourse to the ex-queen Christina of Sweden, who was then at Hamburg. There was a dash of romance in the story which pleased the eccentric princess; she was well acquainted personally with Charles II., and having obtained from him a confirmation of all that James Stuart had told her, she gave the young man a letter which secured a ready belief for the account that he gave of himself at Rome. This letter, written in Latin, is also among the documents lately discovered at the Gesù:

"James Stuart, who was born in the isle of Jersey, and of his own free will assumed the name of La Cloche du Bourg, is the natural son of Charles II., king of England, and so much has been secretly confirmed to us by his Britannic majesty. Renouncing the sect of Calvin, to which his birth and education had up to this time attached him, he joined the Holy Roman Church at Hamburg July 29, 1667. In faith of which, contrary to our custom, we have written by our own hand this declaration, to the end that James Stuart can, in an extraordinary circumstance, open his conscience entirely to his confessor and receive from him the necessary counsels for the salvation of his soul.
L. S. CHRISTINA ALEXANDRA."

James Stuart was accordingly received into the Society in April, 1668, under the name of Jacques de la Cloche. The inventory of his personal effects, to which the novice, according to custom, affixed his signature on entering, gives us a curious idea of the wardrobe of a king's son. Here it is: "One hat; one ecclesiastical habit and mantle; one pair of breeches and a waistcoat of black cloth; one vest trimmed with yellow fur; a sword-belt of green leather; white silk stockings; two shirts and one undershirt; one pair of linen drawers," etc.

VI.

It was on the 11th day of April, 1668, that James Stuart commenced his religious life. On the 23d of April, 1668, the Marquis de Ravigny, the French ambassador at London, sent to the court of St. Germain an account of a conversation he had just had with Charles II. The King of England had said to him: "I am very desirous of effecting a strong union with France, but I must have help; for there are many people about me who are not of that way of thinking. As to myself, I have always been so disposed, as you know better than anybody..." Charles, after having repeated these words several times, had added more than once—"Leave it to me. I will speak with you about it before many days." M. de Ravigny, whose efforts toward the political unity of the two cabinets had, up to this time, been without result, received the overture with apparent coldness. Louis XIV. was equally incredulous, and M. de Lionne replied to the representative of France in England in these terms: "The king is of the opinion that your response was exceedingly judicious, when the King of Great Britain signified his desire of making a strong alliance with him, and hinted to you to make advances. His majesty has already made so many, and has been so poorly responded to, when requested to enter into the matter, that the prudence and dignity of his majesty forbid his committing himself further. . . ."

Charles waited to receive the propositions of the court of St. Germain; but the court of St. Germain was dumb. Driven to declare himself, therefore, he renewed the assurances he had already given, and the letter of the French ambassador, bearing date of May 21, 1668, describes the interview, and closes with these significant words: "It looks as though this will [{585}] come to something; for this reason I most humbly beg your majesty to send further instructions."

Thus, only a few days after the humble novice of the Quirinal had assumed the robes of his order, Charles and Louis were busily engaged in cementing that family pact which broke the Triple Alliance, and delayed, for many years, the formation of that formidable coalition under which France finally succumbed. Are we too bold in suspecting something more than a simple coincidence in the simultaneousness of these two events?

Hume, in his "History of the House of Stuart," attributes the action of the English monarch to his admiration for the gaiety, wit, and elegance of the French court. Let those who will, accept this frivolous explanation! The curious conjuncture of dates, together with a vast assemblage of other facts looking in the same direction, have convinced us that the true motive of this sudden change was the religions convictions of the king. The conscience of Charles had long been troubled. Even before assuming the crown, he had resolved to introduce larger religious liberty into the realm. Baffled in all his attempts, completely, disconcerted, he learns one day that his eldest son—a mind thoroughly serious and earnest—had separated himself utterly from the errors of Protestantism, and had deliberately devoted himself to a life of prayer, of silence, and of mortification. Then Charles took heart, and convinced that he could not attain his object without the help of France, he resolutely set aside all the obstacles of national sentiment, and entered at once upon the completion of the compact. While this was pending, the British sovereign was employed, for the three months which followed the entrance of his son upon the novitiate of the Jesuits, in strengthening himself against the insurrections and the civil war to which his conversion was certain to give rise. It is not, however, by political precautions alone that heresy is made to yield to the true faith. There must also be the discreet theologian, the wise master, the spiritual guide—assistance difficult to avail one's self of when Anglican intolerance watches menacingly at the gates of all the royal palaces! Such a guide, such an instrument of the divine pity, the prince felt that he possessed to-day in the novice of St. André. Resuming the dress of a gentleman, James Stuart, known by nobody at court, might readily obtain access to the king without exciting suspicion. To him Charles would joyfully become a disciple, joyfully become a penitent; from him he could receive the necessary religious instruction and absolution for his sins. In concert with the two queens, he therefore decided to write to the father-general of the Jesuits and request the immediate return of the novice to England. The prince wrote to Rome five autograph letters, all in French; four to P. Oliva, one to his son. The different envelopes have perfectly preserved the stamp of the royal seal. It is for the reader now to determine whether the author of these pages—so truthful, so ingenuous—was, as has been a thousand times asserted, only an accomplished cheat. It is for the reader to declare whether the brother of James II. merits those odious epithets of deist and atheist with which Protestantism has so freely bespattered him, doubtless in recompense for the scorn and aversion which Charles always felt in his deepest heart for the Establishment of Henry VIII.

Scarcely five months had elapsed since James Stuart began to practise the rules of St. Ignatius, when a stranger placed in the hands of Paul Oliva, father-general of the order, the following letter:

TO THE REVEREND FATHER-GENERAL OF THE JESUIT FATHERS:
REVEREND FATHER,—We write this to your reverence as to a person whom we believe to be most prudent and judicious, inasmuch as the [{586}] principal charge which you have of an institute so famous will not permit us to think otherwise. We address you in French, a language common to all persons of quality, wherewith we believe that your reverence is not unacquainted, preferring this language to bad Latin, in which we could with difficulty write so as to be understood; it being our principal aim in this that no Englishman may intrude himself as a translator—a thing which would otherwise be exceedingly prejudicial to us, for the reason that we wish this letter to be a secret between you and us.
And to commence, your reverence ought to know that for a long time, amid the embarrassments of the crown, we had prayed God to grant us the opportunity of finding at least one person in our realm in whom we could confide touching the affair of our salvation without giving our court grounds for suspecting that we are Catholic. And although there have been here a multitude of priests, both in the service of the queen (a portion of whom have dwelt in our palace of St. James and at Somerset House) and also scattered throughout our whole city of London; nevertheless we could not avail ourselves of any because of the suspicion we should give to our court by conversation with such people, who, whatever disguises of clothing they may assume, are always known for what they are. Yet despite so many difficulties, it seems as if the providence of God had provided for and seconded our desires, by causing to be born to us in the Catholic religion a son to whom alone we could confide ourselves in an affair so delicate. And although many persons, perhaps better versed than himself in the mysteries of the Catholic religion, might be found for our service in this exigency; nevertheless we could not make use of others as well as of him, who would be always capable of administering to us in secret the sacraments of the confession and of the communion which we desire to receive as soon as possible.
This our son is a young gentleman whom we know you have received with you at Rome under the name of the Sieur La Cloche de Jersay, for whom we have always had a peculiar tenderness, as much because he was born to us when we were scarcely sixteen or seventeen years old, of a young lady of the highest rank in our realm (rather from the frailty of our early youth than from a bad heart), as also because of the excellent nature we have ever remarked in him and of that eminence in learning wherein he has advanced through our means. For this makes us all the more esteem his conversion to the Catholic religion, since we know that he has been led to it through judgment, reason, and knowledge. Many important reasons touching the peace of our realm have prevented us, up to the present time, from publicly recognizing him as our son; but this will be for a brief time only, because we presently design to make a kind of public recognition of him ere many years, having, however, provided him, in 1665, with the necessary assurances, in case we should come to die, so that he may make use of them in due time and place. And as he is not known here in anywise, saving by the queens—this affair having been managed with great secresy—we could in all safety converse with him, and exercise in secret the mysteries of the Catholic religion, without exciting in any one of our court the suspicion that we are Catholic, which we could not do with any other missionary; in addition to the confidence that we should have in opening to him our conscience in all freedom and sincerity as to a part of ourselves. Thus we see that, although he was born in our tender youth against the ordinances of God, the same God has seen fit to preserve him for our salvation, since it pertains to himself alone to know how to bring good out of evil.
We believe that the need we have [{587}] of him has been sufficiently explained to your reverence, and if your reverence write us, you will intrust your letters to our son alone, when he comes to us. For although we do not doubt but that you would find secret ways enough to do it, nevertheless you would disoblige us excessively by intrusting your letters to anybody but to this our son, for many considerable reasons whereof your reverence can conjecture apart, but especially from the mischief which it would bring upon us, as we were subjected to great hazard on account of our receiving a letter which we had from Rome in reply to one we had written to the deceased Pope; and although it was presented to us with all necessary circumspection and by a Catholic person, nevertheless it could not be managed with sufficient prudence to prevent the suspicion of our most keen-sighted courtiers. But having found means to stifle the suspicion which was abroad respecting our being Catholic, we were obliged, through fear of renewing it in men's minds, to consent on several occasions to many things that turned to the disadvantage of numerous Catholics in our kingdom of Ireland. This is the reason why—although we had written with all possible secresy to His Holiness respecting our conversion to the Catholic Church at the same time that we besought His Holiness to make our very dear cousin, my Lord d'Aubigny, a cardinal, whereof we were refused for good reasons—we have not been able to pursue our point.
And although the Queen of Sweden is very wise and discreet, nevertheless it is enough that she is a woman to lead us to fear that she cannot keep a secret, and, as she believes that she alone knows the origin of our well-beloved son, we have written her again and have confirmed her in that opinion. This is done in order that your reverence shall manifest to her, upon occasion, that you have no knowledge of his birth, if she should inquire of you. As also, we pray your reverence not to make known to her or to anybody else, be it whom it may, the design we have of becoming Catholic, or that we send for our son for this object. If the Queen of Sweden asks where he is gone, your reverence will find some pretext, either that he is gone on a mission to our island of Jersey or to some other part of our realm, or still another pretext, until we make our desires and wishes in this matter again known to you.
We pray you, then, to send to us as soon as possible our very dear and well-beloved son—that is to say, at the first time that this season or the next permit. We believe that your reverence is too zealous for the salvation of souls, and has too much respect for crowned heads, not to accord to us a request so just. We had had some thought of writing to His Holiness and disclosing to him what we have in soul, and by the same means to pray him to send our son to us. But we have believed that it would be sufficient for us this time to make a declaration to your reverence, reserving for another occasion—which we shall bring to pass as soon as possible—the writing and declaring ourselves to the Pope by a very secret courier sent post by us.
If our dear and well-beloved son, is not a priest, and if he cannot become one without making publicly known his true name and origin, or from other circumstances (which we say because we do not know your mode of acting in these matters), in that case let him rather not be made a priest at Rome than that he communicate aught of what he is to the bishops or priests; but let him pass through Paris and present himself to our very dear cousin the King of France, or, if he prefer, to our very honored sister the Duchess d'Orleans, to whom he can make manifest on our part our good desire in all safety. They know well enough what is the wish of our soul, and will readily recognize our very dear and well-beloved son by the tokens which we gave to him in London in 1665, and, perceiving that he is Catholic, they would endeavor [{588}] and would be able to make him a priest without any one's knowing what he is, and with all possible secresy as we believe. If, however, without so many crooks and turns, he prefer to come to us without being a priest—which is, perhaps, the better course—then we would do the same thing by means of the queen our very honored mother, or of the queen-consort, who would have at their service bishops, missionaries, or others to perform the ceremony without any one's perceiving or knowing anything about it. We say this in the event of his encountering difficulties in effecting this at Rome.
And although we wish our very dear son to come to us, it is, nevertheless, not our design to draw him away from your society. On the contrary, we should rejoice if he remain in it all his life if God inspire him to that vocation, and, after having put our conscience in order by his means, we shall not prevent him from returning to Rome, to live according to the society to which he has attached himself; and even during the time that he shall be at our service we shall not prevent him, if he so will, from pursuing, with those of your body that are in our realm, the life commenced in conformity with the religious vocation which he has embraced, provided that it be not in London, but in some city or village not far off from our city of London, to the end that when we need him he can come with the greatest promptitude and facility. And the reason why we do not wish him to reside in London among your people is because of the danger of his being suspected as a Jesuit, from his being seen to enter those places which are the residences of your people, already too well known by many—a thing that would turn to our prejudice. Now we are well content, after being absolved by him of heresy, and after we are reconciled to God and to the Church, that he return to Rome to lead the religious life which he has begun, awaiting further orders from us—a scheme which seems to us quite to the point, and we believe that your reverence will be of our opinion and counsel in this last particular. Thus doing, when he shall have been here some weeks or months, we will send him back to Rome under the government of your reverence, to the end that, under your care, he may the better fit himself for our service. And during the short time that he shall be at London, when he speak to any one of yours let him guard himself well in discoursing upon the object of his coming. He can say that it is for some affair of importance in our court, of which only your reverence and himself should have cognizance.
In the meanwhile, though we cannot openly manifest to your illustrious society the affection and the good-will we have toward it, this does not prevent your reverence from making known to us, by our very dear and well-beloved son, if there be any way in which we can aid it, which we should do all the more willingly because we know that everything which we can contribute will be employed in the service of God for the remission of our offenses. For the rest, we recommend to your prayers our realm and ourselves.
CHARLES, King of England.
At Whitehall, the 3d of August, 1668.

Enclosed in the communication addressed to the father-general was a second letter of the king's, which reads as follows:

TO OUR VERY HONORED SON
THE PRINCE STUART,
RESIDENT WITH THE JESUIT FATHERS UNDER
THE NAME OF SIEUR DE LA CLOCHE, AT ROME:
MONSIEUR,—We have written very fully to your reverend father-general; he will tell you our pleasure. The Queen of Sweden has asked of us, as a loan, the sum of money that we had taken care to provide for your maintenance, which was sufficient for [{589}] many years. We have ordered what was necessary in the matter; and this is a reason why you need not put yourself to the trouble either of writing to her about it, or of speaking more thereof.
If the autumn season be too disagreeable to get out on your journey to us, and if you cannot venture upon it without putting yourself in imminent danger of falling ill, wait till the commencement of next spring, having especial care for the preservation of your health, and keeping yourself in all quiet, writing us nothing, for we are not a little suspected of being Catholic.
The queens are very eager to see you, as we have communicated to them privately the news of your conversion to the Roman religion. They have counselled us to tell you that we do not forbid your living in the institute to which you have attached yourself, and we should be rejoiced if you remain in it all your life; but desire you to measure well your powers and your constitution, which has appeared to us very feeble and delicate. One can be a good Catholic without being a religious, and you ought to consider that we design, before many years, to publicly recognize you as our son. But as neither parliament nor the state of affairs has permitted it up to the present moment, we have always been constrained to defer it. You ought, moreover, to consider that you can aspire to the same titles from us as the Duke of Monmouth, and perhaps to more ample ones. Beside, we are without children by the queen and those of the Duke of York are very feeble; while, for every reason and because of the rank of your mother, you can lay claim on ourselves and on parliament to be preferred to the Duke of Monmouth. In that case, being young, as you are, if liberty of conscience and if the Catholic religion be restored to this realm, you would have some hope of the crown. For we can assure you that if God permit that we and our very honored brother the Duke of York die without children, the crown will belong to yourself and parliament cannot legitimately oppose it, unless that the fact of your being a Catholic exclude you; as liberty of conscience is not yet established, and since, at present, only Protestant kings are eligible. This, then, we are advised by the queens to tell you. If, in the meantime, all things considered, you prefer to serve God in the Society of Jesus, we do not wish to offer any resistance to the will of God, whom we have already grieved too much by our offences. We do not, therefore, forbid your pursuing that vocation, if God inspire you to it; but we desire only that you think well of it.
We do not wish to write to the Pope until we have spoken to you by our own mouth. We had written to the late Pope, to the end that he should make our very dear and well-beloved cousin, my Lord d'Aubigny, a cardinal; whereof we have not had the satisfaction that we demanded. However, we are not offended in this. His Holiness having made known to us manifold reasons why he could not conscientiously create a cardinal in our realm, the affairs of religion and other things being as they are.
Not long since we wrote to the Queen of Sweden, and advised her not to write to you, and to treat you henceforth as simply a gentleman, without manifesting that she has any knowledge of your birth. This is a reason why you should not take it amiss if her majesty treat you after that manner. It is a no light burden to us to see you always constrained to live unknown, but have patience yet a little, for before many years we shall try to so conduct affairs and parliament that all the world will know who you are. You will no longer live in these hindrances and restraints, and it will depend only on yourself to live in the liberty and the pleasure of a person of your birth, unless that God strongly inspire you and that you should wish to continue absolutely the [{590}] religious life which you have commenced.
Although we cannot, and ought not, to openly show the good-will that we have for the Society of Jesus, who have received you, yet in the meanwhile if we cannot publicly favor them with our royal munificence, there may still be some place, room, or occasion wherein they might need our aid, and where we could contribute somewhat. We would do it all the more because we know that all will be employed for the service of God and the remission of our offences, and because, also, we could desire that no one of your lineage should remain with them without founding something as a memorial suitable to one of your extraction. We will talk about this matter in London, if you persist in your design of living with them.
In the meanwhile, believe that we have always had you in our peculiar affection, not only because you were born to us in our tenderest youth, when we were scarcely sixteen or seventeen, but particularly because of the excellent nature that we have always remarked in you, because of that eminence of knowledge in which you have been advanced through our means, because you have always borne yourself as a virtuous man, and because you have been especially obedient to our commands: the which, joined to the paternal love that we have felt toward you, strongly governs our desires in wishing all kinds of benefits for you, beside the pity that moves us in seeing you so unknown and disregarded—a thing which shall continue as brief a space as possible.
It is not easy for us to send privately to Rome a sum of money adequate for a person of your birth and sufficient to put you in the condition and estate of appearing before us, being, as we are, neither willing nor able to noise it abroad that we have any one at Rome with whom we have communication. It is not possible that you are not everywise modest enough to come to us, if not in the condition of one of your rank, at least as a simple gentleman when you put foot in England. Finally, pray God for ourselves, the queen, and our realm.
I am your affectionate father,
CHARLES
King of Eng., Fr., Scot, and Ire.
At Whitehall, 4th of Aug., 1668.

Charles II., in the letters we have just given, left his son at liberty to set out at the end of autumn or even at the winter season. Twenty-five days have not elapsed when his resolution changes. He wishes the novice at Rome to make haste to precipitate his departure. What was the cause of this serious disquietude? It was this: Queen Christina, repenting of her abdication and hating the north, resolved to seek an asylum for her remaining days in the shadow of the Vatican. Charles was informed of her intention, and at once took alarm. Christina would then witness the departure of James Stuart; entangling the inexperienced novice in a network of cunning questions, what secret could escape her? Everything would be discovered. Little by little the rumor would spread from Italy to England. Charles already saw his kingdom in revolution and himself reduced to the most grievous extremity. Such was the object of the second letter to the father-general:

TO THE REVEREND FATHER-GENERAL
OF THE JESUIT FATHERS AT ROME:
REVEREND FATHER,—We send, with the greatest diligence and with the greatest secresy, an express to Rome charge with two letters, one to your reverence to the end that our well-beloved son set out as soon as possible; the other to the Queen of Sweden—having commanded the messenger to await the arrival of her majesty in any Italian town through which she may pass, not wishing even that the aforesaid express should appear at your house, through fear of [{591}] being recognized by some of your order who are English. As he is a person of rank, we have in like manner forbidden his delaying more than one day at Rome, fearing lest he should be recognized by certain Englishmen who are at Rome.
We say, then, to your reverence that, since the first letter that we wrote you, we have received trustworthy news that the Queen of Sweden returns to Rome, contrary to the anticipations which we had formed—the which has not a little embarrassed us in the matter of our salvation. This is the reason that, upon this new accident, having taken counsel with the queens, we have determined to write in haste to the Queen of Sweden, feigning to her and persuading her that our very dear and well-beloved son has represented to us that he wishes assigned to him something fixed for life, to the end that in case he should not pursue the religious calling he has commenced, being now a Catholic, he may have something to fall back upon; and that even if he should pursue it, he prays us to settle a sum of money upon him which he may dispose of according to his devotion, which petition we have granted him; but since this cannot be effected at Rome, we have ordered him to go to Paris to find certain correspondents of ours, and after that to proceed to Jersey or to Hanton, [Footnote 90] where he will receive from us forty or fifty thousand crowns in total, which may be deposited in some bank; and that we have instructed him not to tell his superior of his birth; but that he shall simply feign to your reverence that he is the son of a rich preacher, who, being deceased some time since, his mother, moved with a desire of becoming a Catholic and to give him the goods which belong to him, has written to him, and that your reverence, desirous of the salvation of this person, and of making her a Catholic, and perceiving also that he can come by his estate, has readily permitted him to go. This we have arranged in order that she shall thus believe that she alone has the secret, and will therefore not break the matter to your reverence from the friendship she bears him. Thus we counteract any suspicion she might have of your letting him come to us and of our being Catholic. But above all it is necessary that our very dear son do not wait, but that he set out as soon as possible; for, as she needs money (and so needs it that she demanded at the last Swedish diet 35,000 crowns in advance), she would embarrass him in such a way that the drama which we wish to play would come off but illy. This we have arranged touching the Queen of Sweden.

[Footnote 90: Now Southhampton.—Ed. C. W.]

Your reverence will not be astonished then if this fear has led us to dread the evils by which we are besieged; a fear all the more lively in us, because these evils are greater and bear in their train consequences more dangerous. Now it is a truth received without dispute among our wisest statesmen, that of all the temporal evils which can befal us, the proof that we are Catholic is the greatest, since it would infallibly cause our death, and at the same time many convulsions in our realm. Your reverence ought not, therefore, to be astonished if we take so many precautions and if we have judged proper to write him this second letter also, as well in the matter of the Queen of Sweden as to supply omissions which we made in the first, and at the same time to retract some things contained therein—that our very dear and honored son do not present himself to our very dear cousin the King of France, nor to our very honored sister the Duchess of Orleans, as we advised before; but only that he come to us, be it through France or through Paris or by other ways, as it shall please your reverence to determine. He will abstain during the journey from writing to the Queen of Sweden, lest she see that those things are not carried out which, as we have heretofore said, have been pretended to her. This we have decided upon with the aid of the queens, fearing a discovery or some accident.

[{592}]

Moreover, we pray your reverence (who are secretly acquainted, as are her most christian majesty the queen, and our very dear sister, Madame the Duchess of Orleans, with the warm disposition for becoming a Catholic which we have for a long time shown),—we pray you, nevertheless, to abstain from writing to them in any fashion touching these matters, but to keep everything quite secret until the providence of God has otherwise disposed of affairs.
Now as we desire, with all requisite prudence in an affair of so great consequence to ourselves and the peace of our realm, that our very dear and well-beloved son find everything which is necessary in the business of our salvation made easy for him, and to avoid the inconveniences which might spring upon this side, we have taken counsel with the queen to this effect, that when he shall arrive alone in London—for such is our good will and pleasure—he take time to clothe himself, and dress himself as quickly as possible, if he be not sufficiently well-dressed—not having been willing to do so for fear of soiling his garments by the bad weather and muddy roads, which soil a carriage and also all who are in it; and having put himself in order and rendered himself presentable, let him take occasion to address himself to the reigning queen, either when she is dining at our palace of St. James or when her majesty shall go to visit the queen, our very dear and honored mother. To whom, without causing any suspicion, he will present a sealed letter in the form of a supplication, in which he will say in a few words who he is. Her majesty has directions from us to manage everything which is necessary for an introduction to ourselves, with all possible prudence, and we are assured that there shall arise no disorder nor suspicion. He has nothing else to do but to let himself be directed according to what shall be advised him, and we command him to observe punctually everything we have written to him, especially what we have put within the envelope.
In the meanwhile, we renew to your reverence the prayer which we made to you from the first, which is, not to write us, nor to make any response saving by the hands of our very dear and well-beloved son, whom we order to set out from Rome as soon as possible, not wishing that the Queen of Sweden speak to him for the aforesaid reasons. Having departed from Rome, he will take his ease in coming to us. We pray, however, your reverence, if this be necessary, to move him to come as soon as possible, representing to him the need we have of him. For we know that he has no little repugnance to England, which we attribute to the fact of his not having been educated there, and also of his finding himself compelled to live there alone, so that we have never been able to induce him to live there more than a year. And even before that year was finished, he presented us so many reasons that we were constrained to let him go to Holland, where he bore himself with great praise and to our great satisfaction in the belles lettres and other studies, in which he made admirable progress.
We believe he has too much judgment to wish to disobey us, and not come as we desire. As soon as he comes we shall endeavor, by means of the queens, to have him made a priest in all secresy. And if there be anything that the bishop ordinary cannot do without permission of His Holiness, let him not fail to provide for it, but very secretly, so that no one shall know who he is: which will be done if possible before he set out from Rome. Meanwhile we beseech you, reverend father, to pray God for the queens, our realm, and ourselves, who are
CHARLES, King of England.
At Whitehall, the 29th Aug., 1668.

Yet even these numerous and urgent recommendations did not quite pacify the timid monarch. One feature in the rule of St. Ignatius, of [{593}] which his queen's had just advised him, suddenly upset all his ideas. He snatches up the pen. He countermands the orders he has just given. He traces a new plan of campaign in which the clearness of exposition, the ability of conception, the facility of execution, are about on a level. This third letter, we must confess, does little credit to the geographical knowledge and above all to the courage of Charles II. In another point of view, however, it merits the attention of the reader. Precisely because of the trouble which reigns in his thoughts, we detect more than once the cry of the soul. More than at any time hitherto, the unhappy prince lets us discover the cruel anguishes which torture his conscience, and the incontestable sincerity of his desires.

TO THE REVEREND FATHER-GENERAL
OF THE JESUIT FATHERS AT ROME:
REVEREND FATHER,—We have never felt so many embarrassments, though we have had enough of them in our life, as at present, when we wish to think seriously of our salvation. We have but just sealed this other letter, which we pray you to read before the one which is open, that you may better learn our intention and the order in which we hold to the writing. The queens have advised us and counselled us not to press his [our son's] coming, because they wish to arrange and bring about certain very necessary and notable precautions, to render the arrival of our very dear and well-beloved son to England very prudent and secret.
For this end their majesties, having found means of learning accurately and with judgment the ways of your society regarding those who have but recently joined them, inform us that they have ascertained from a good source that the novices of your holy society, not less than with others, are never sent off without some member of the fraternity accompanying them, as much to be advised of their actions and deportment as to render an account to the superior—the which we admire as a very holy prudence and which can only spring from the divine spirit with which so holy a society is animated. But nevertheless in this matter we beseech your reverence to dispense with this companionship in the case of our very dear son; because we command him absolutely, in virtue of the power which God has given us over him, to come to us by himself, partly because this will properly accord with the letter which we have sent to the Queen of Sweden, who should believe that he has gone alone—that is to say, unaccompanied by any member of the fraternity; but principally because of the dangerous inconveniences whereof we should be constantly in fear if he came in the company of any of the fraternity. We have already, with great secresy, pretended to some very safe persons in a great number of the English ports, and by ways entirely concealed, that a foreign prince, of such a carriage, such a mien, alone by himself, is flying to us, and much more indeed which we could not explain to your reverence without going too far into detail. We do this, partly that if we come to be anywise suspected of being too familiar with him (Father James Stuart) we may have something to say to remove the suspicion.
Your reverence can see by this that if he should bring an Italian with him who was recognizable as an Italian, be it by his accent or otherwise, this might be the occasion of overthrowing all our designs and of interrupting the scheme which we wish to work out in order to come most surely to our just desires. Even in case he can have some one other than an Italian with him, we should forbid his bringing any one into England, of whatever nation he might be, for many very considerable reasons, which it would take too long to recount.
Your reverence ought not to be surprised if we are so cautious, because we learned in the time of Cromwell [{594}] what misery is, and what are the things of this world, what it is to be prudent and to hide one's self in order to succeed in our undertaking. We doubt not that, as our very dear and well-beloved son is young, he is far from eager for company and conversation, and that he does not desire to have intercourse with any one by letter or by discourse; for we know that he does not love the court any too well. But he must needs have patience, inasmuch as it is not reasonable that for a pleasure so brief and of so little consequence, he should put himself in danger of ruining all our designs. Beside, he ought to know that when he shall put foot in our palace, he is not to converse with any one saving with ourselves and the queen, who will give the necessary orders in the matter. Nor will he write any letters saving to you, reverend father, and these letters that he shall write to you we shall despatch by an express in great secresy to Rome, to the end that your reverence relieve us in the necessities which may arise touching our soul.
We have made inquiries respecting the seaports nearest to Rome. Among many which have been named to us, we recall Civita Vecchia and Gênes. We command him, then, to go to Gênes. We have ascertained, with all necessary prudence, that your society has at that place a house of your order. Being then at Gênes, we wish him to seek out some ship or English shallop, but in such wise that we do not wish any of the fraternity to recommend him to the master nor to those who manage the ship, not showing their acquaintanceship with him, for very considerable reasons; but especially because these seafaring men will repeat it all as soon as they come to port. Moreover, we desire that he put off and lay aside his religious robes in the house of his friends and brother Jesuits of Gênes. He will assume them again in the same place on his return to Rome, when we send him back to pursue there the religious life he has commenced.
He will land then in our realm solitary and in disguise. He will call himself everywhere he may go Henry de Rohan, which is the name of the family of a certain French prince, a Calvinist, and very well known and intimate with us. We are in such fear lest some accident occur, that in these different ports we at present take cognisance, both very secretly and with the requisite prudence, of ships which have arrived or are due, and even so far as we can of persons, under pretence of a zeal for the well-being of our realm, and under pretence of maintaining the Protestant religion, to which we pretend to be attached more than ever, although, before God, who knows the heart, we abhor it as very false and pernicious.
Moreover, we forbid our very dear and honored son to pass through France and by the other passages and ports which lie in that part, for he could not bring about our intentions with sufficient secresy sailing from that coast, and therefore we have found no place more proper than Gênes for his embarkation. And, in the meanwhile, awaiting his return to Rome, your reverence shall noise it abroad that he has gone to Jersey or Hanton to see his pretended mother, who desires to become a Catholic, as we have suggested and feigned in that other letter, and that, to make the greater haste, he went by sea.
This then we command him to observe, point by point, through the authority that God has given us over him, and we promise him, on the faith of a king, that we seek nothing else in his coming but the salvation of our souls, his good, and that of the society to which he has attached himself, which, sooner or later, we shall find means to notably favor with our royal magnificence. And so far from forbidding his pursuing his calling, both for the Catholic religion and your society, we and the queens will urge it upon him better than any director he [{595}] can have. It is very true that when the season and affairs permit us to write and make known to His Holiness the veneration we hold him in as the vicegerent of God, we hope that he will be too well disposed toward us to refuse him the cardinal's hat, inasmuch as the conditions which could forbid his having this dignity for the honor of our person and of our realm are not fulfilled in his case, viz., residence in England, since we can send him to dwell at Rome, as we promise, and with the royal magnificence requisite for his birth. Nevertheless, if in time he prefer to live according to the religious life he has commenced, we would readily abandon what would be to the honor of our crown and of our person, rather than to urge and procure such dignities against his will.
We have made discreet inquiries of our physician whether sea-sickness cause any dangerous accidents to those of a feeble constitution, who has answered us that sea-sickness never killed any one, but on the contrary has been the means of greater health. Nevertheless, if it be too painful for him to make one trip of it, he shall contrive that the bark or shallop in which he sails rest from time to time in some port. He might easily come at once to London; but we do not wish it for good reasons. Let him land at some other port of England, from whence he can come by land in a carriage to London.
We once again entreat your reverence not to write to us nor to make any reply, saving by the hand of our very dear and honored son, when he comes to us. And, if there be a need for anything which he does not possess in making the voyage to London, we beseech you, reverend father, to have particular care in the matter, furnishing him with whatever he requires, whereof he will keep account.
We firmly believe it is God who has inspired us to all these above-mentioned ways for bringing us in secret our very honored son, because of what he has said in his word—that when two or three are gathered together in his name, he will be in the midst of them. For it is exactly ourselves, and the queen, our very dear mother, and the reigning queen, who decree all these things, not without having invoked, first of all, the Holy Spirit. Beside that, the queens have commanded their priests to celebrate many masses in accordance with their intention, which is nothing other than that this affair succeed as well as all our other projects above mentioned, which tend not only to our good, but to that of the Roman Catholic Church and of our realm. We are,
CHARLES, King of England.

These last two letters were a sad revelation to Father Oliva, and no doubt very much diminished the hopes which he had before conceived. However, the order was given to the novice to set out without delay.

If James Stuart could easily obey his father by departing from Rome before the arrival of Queen Christina, it was certainly more difficult for him to conform to the frequently contradictory injunctions concerning the route to be taken and the precautions to be guarded against which had been successively transmitted to him. Everything which was rational and practicable the young man respected. He set sail from Leghorn about the middle of October, a fact which we learn from a brief letter of Father Oliva to the King of England. It is of course unnecessary to explain to the reader why the father-general has dated his note from a Tuscan port rather than from the city of the Roman pontiffs at which he wrote:

SIRE,—The French gentleman who is charged with the delivery of this letter will inform you of my utter carefulness in fulfilling the commands of your three letters and my unlimited devotion to your royal person. Your majesty will always see me execute with the same promptness and the [{596}] same zeal everything which he shall deign to impose on me. I shall endeavor to be such in reality as he deigns to believe that I am; such as the confidence with which he honors me obliges me to show myself.
I throw myself respectfully at the feet of your majesty.
Leghorn, Oct 14, 1668.

In one very important respect it was found necessary to abandon, or rather to violate, the royal programme. Charles, a perfect stranger to ecclesiastical laws, always supposed that, at his request, his son could be made priest either at Rome or in London. But James Stuart was only twenty-one years old, and was without theological studies. Even if these serious objections had not existed, it would not have been prudent to elevate to the sacred office a novice whose religious experience extended scarcely over a space of six months. Thus, despite the repugnance of the king, Henry de Rohan, as our young traveller must now be called, took as his companion a priest of the society, a Frenchman, as far as we can judge, who, disguised like himself, was presented to their Britannic majesties in the quality of a friend of the refugee prince. This wise measure, imposed by the timidity of Charles, was attended by so little inconvenience, that we shall find the monarch himself, on the occasion of his son's second voyage to England, earnestly requesting of the father-general the return of this same religious whose talents and virtues he had come to appreciate.

VII.

This is not the place to describe the warmth with which Charles opened his arms to his first-born, whom he had always peculiarly cherished, nor the joy of the two pious princesses, nor the tender emotions of the youth upon whom beamed, at length, the sympathy and affection he had never known before. In the isolation of his earlier life, James Stuart had sadly felt the void which the absence of that sweetest tie on earth, the family, creates. This grief had eaten into him like a cancer, till the day when he resolved to renounce the world. When the victim has immolated himself, when he has said to flesh and blood, I will know you nevermore! behold in a royal palace, by one of the first thrones on earth, the humble novice finds again a home—venerable queens are mothers to him. His father caresses him, and, emulating the example of his brother, the Duke of York, who was also preparing to embrace Catholicism, receives the child of St. Ignatius as an angel from heaven.

But it was not for such pleasures that the young Jesuit had quitted his solitude. Guided by the wise counsels of Father Oliva, and assisted by his own studies and the able co-operation of his companion, he engaged without delay in the religious instruction of the king. Of these conferences, surrounded with so much mystery, two fragments have come down to us. One word upon the nature and upon the history of this double document.

It consists of two divisions, and is a resumé of a great theological discussion which, at once, establishes the divine authority of the Roman, and saps the foundation of the Anglican, Church. The original piece is in the French language and in the handwriting of the king. He was not, however, the author. The primitive text has disappeared, probably through fear that a paper of this nature, if it should get abroad, would furnish material proof that a sovereign of Great Britain had held communication with a "papist" priest. These pages of religious controversy Charles carefully concealed. While he lived probably no one, save the Duke of York, had any knowledge of them. After the death of Charles, James II. found these writings again, one in the private chest, the other in the cabinet of the dead monarch, and in spite of the [{597}] storm which they were certain to produce, he did not fear to make them public. In 1700 he presented them solemnly, as a proof of the faith which animated his brother, to the general assembly of the clergy of France convened at St. Germain-en-Laye. Of the many thousand copies which, during the reign of the last of the crowned Stuarts, were circulated on both sides of the Channel, there exists at the present day only one. The Jesuit College at Rome still possess the edition of 1685, and in addition a manuscript copy of the two papers, both bearing, as a guarantee of their perfect authenticity, the autograph signature of King James. All the English historians speak of these two celebrated writings; but only to declare that the real convictions of Charles had nothing in common with these fragments of a controversy transcribed by him they know not why.

James II. in his "Memoirs" gives us a short anecdote, which from its connection with this subject we will reproduce. One day, finding himself alone in his cabinet with the Archbishop of Canterbury, he availed himself of the opportunity to place in his hands the two papers.

"He, the archbishop, appeared surprised, and remained for a quarter of an hour without making any reply. Then he said that he had not supposed the deceased king was so learned in the matter of controversy, but he nevertheless thought the arguments could be refuted. Upon which the king begged him to make the trial, telling him that if he accomplished it by means of reasons both solid and honestly expressed, he would probably succeed in converting him to his church. The archbishop replied that it would, perhaps, be evincing a want of respect for the deceased king, should he seek to contradict him; but his majesty relied by urging on him that the hope of converting himself ought to override every other consideration. He besought him then to occupy himself at once with a refutation of these papers, and to employ his pen if he thought proper. Whatever the reason may have been, neither this authorization nor the pressing instance of my Lord Dartmouth could engage him to write, and there appeared no reply during the four years that his majesty reigned in England." [Footnote 91]

[Footnote 91: "Vie de Jacques II., roi d'Angleterre, d'apres les Memoirs écrite de sa Main. T. iii., p. 12. Paris, 1819. ">[

Here then are these dogmatic pages, almost as unknown in our century as in the time when Charles concealed them in the most secret places in his palace. We publish them exactly as they saw the light.

FIRST WRITING.

The conversation that we had the other day will have satisfied you, as I hope, upon the principal point, which was that Jesus Christ can have, here upon the earth, but one church only, and I believe that it is as clear as it is that the Scripture is printed, that this church does not exist unless it be what is called the Roman Catholic Church.
I believe that there is no need of your troubling yourself with entering upon a sea of particular disputes, since the principal, and in truth the only and simple question, consists in ascertaining where this church is which, in the two creeds, we profess to believe in. We declare, in the two creeds, that we believe in only one catholic and apostolic church, and it does not belong to each individual member to believe everything that comes into his head according to his fancy; but it belongs to the church to whom on earth Jesus Christ has left the power of governing us in matters of faith, and has made these creeds to serve us as a rule.
It would be a most unreasonable thing to make laws for a country, and then to permit the inhabitants to be the interpreters and the judges. For then, [{598}] each individual would be a judge in his own cause, and consequently, there would be no standard whereby to distinguish justice from injustice. Can we then suppose that God has abandoned us to such uncertainties as to give us a rule for our conduct, and then to permit each individual to be his own judge? I demand of every honest man if this be not the same thing as following our own imaginations, or of making use thereof in the interpretation of Scripture?
I could wish that some one would show me in what passage the power of deciding upon matters of faith is given to each individual. Jesus Christ has left this power to his Church, even for the remission of sins, and he has left his spirit there. This power has been exercised since his resurrection, first by the apostles in their creed, and many years after by the Council of Nice, where the creed was made that bears its name.
By the power which has been received of Jesus Christ, the Holy Scripture itself was judged many years, after the apostles, in determining which were the canonical books and which were not. If we had the power then, I would like to know how it has come to be lost, and by what authority men can separate themselves from this Church. The only pretence I have ever heard advanced is because the Church has fallen into error, interpreting the Scripture after a forced manner and contrary to its true sense, and that it has imposed on us articles of faith which are not authorized by the word of God. I would like to know who is to be the judge of all this, whether it is the whole Church whose succession has continued up to to-day without any interruption, or is it to be the individuals who have excited schisms for their own interest?
This is the true copy of a paper which I have found in the private chest of the deceased king, my brother, written by his own hand.
JAMES R.

SECOND WRITING.

It is a most sad thing to see the infinite number of heresies which have spread themselves over this nation. Each one believes himself as competent a judge of the Scripture as the apostles themselves. And no wonder, for that part of the nation which has most resemblance to a church does not dare employ the true arguments against the other sects, through fear lest they should be turned against themselves, and they should thus find themselves confounded by their own proper arguments. Those of the Anglican Church, as it is called, are willing enough to be regarded as judges in matters spiritual. They dare not, however, positively assert that their judgment is without appeal. For it would be necessary for them to assert that they are infallible, which they dare not pretend, or to avow that while they decide upon in matters of conscience ought not to be followed further than as it accords with the judgment which each one may make in his own mind.
If Jesus Christ has left a church here on earth, and if we were all at one time in this church, how, and by what authority, are we separated from it? If the power of interpreting Scripture resides in the brain of each individual, what need have you of a church or of churchmen? Why did Jesus Christ—having given to his apostles power to bind and to unbind on earth and in heaven—add that he would be with them till the end of the world? These words were not spoken figuratively nor in the manner of a parable. Jesus Christ was ascending into glory, and he left his power to his church, until the end of the world.
For one hundred years we have known the sad effects of this doctrine, which takes away from the church the power of judging without appeal in matters spiritual. What country could remain at peace if there were not a supreme judge from whom there [{599}] could be no appeal? Can any justice be done where the culprits are their own judges and interpreters of the law, equally with those who are set on high to render justice?
It is to this condition that we are reduced in England in spiritual affairs. For the protestants are not of the Anglican Church because it is the true church from which there can be no appeal; but because the discipline of this church is conformable to their present imaginations. And as soon as it shall run counter or swerve from it, they will embrace almost the first congregation of those whose discipline and religion accord at that time with their opinions. Thus, accepting this doctrine, there is no other church nor any other interpretation of Scripture than that which each extravagant individual shall hit upon in his brain. I would then like exceedingly to know of all those who have seriously reflected on these things, if the great work of our salvation ought to rest on such a sandy foundation as this? Has Jesus Christ ever said to secular magistrates, still less to the people—that he will be with them till the end of the world?—or has he given them power of pardoning sins? St. Paul has said in Corinthians—We are God's husbandry, we are God's building, we are laborers in the house of God together with God. This shows us who they are who labor—which is the field, which the edifice. In the whole of this and in one of the preceding chapters, St. Paul takes great pains to establish the doctrine that they (that is to say, the clergy) have the spirit of God, without which no one can penetrate the profound mysteries of God; and he concludes the chapter with this verse, "For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." If then we consider merely in the light of probability and human reason the power that Jesus Christ left to his church in the gospel, and which St. Paul explains afterward so distinctly, we cannot believe that our Saviour has said all these things for nothing.
I entreat you to consider, on the other hand, that those who resist the truth, and who do not wish to submit to his church, draw their arguments from so-called contradictions and far-fetched interpretations, while at the same time they deny verities expressed in clear and positive words, a thing so contrary to good faith that it is difficult to think that they believe what they say.
Is there any other foundation of the Protestant Church if it be not this, that should the civil magistrate judge it fit, he can summon together such persons of the clergy, according as he believes it to be for his interest, for the time being; and can change the form of the church to Presbyterianism or to Independency, and finally make it just what he pleases? Such has been the method which they have pursued here in our so-called English Reformation, and by the same rule and by the same authority it can be still further diversified and changed into as many forms and figures as there are different imaginations in the heads of men.
This is a true copy of a paper written by the hand of the late king, my brother, which I found in his cabinet.
JAMES R.

But why, it may be asked, do we arbitrarily date from the epoch of Father James Stuart's, appearance in London these papers, otherwise without date, and which were not publicly known till seventeen years later, in 1685? Let us set forth, as briefly as possible, the arguments by which we support our position.

In the first place, we agree with the English historians that these two fragments of controversy are not from the pen of Charles II. A comparison of the rugged and often inaccurate French of his majesty with that of the present text, settles this question at once. To whom, then, must we look for the authorship? [{600}] They proceed from an ecclesiastic, from a theologian consulted by the King of England. The very for which they assume argues the teaching of a master. But are not these two papers the offspring of two authors, of two teachers? By no means. There is a perfect resemblance between them, a perfect consanguinity of thought and of argument. There is the same turn of mind, the same style, often the same expressions. Still further. The tenor of the two pieces, which present in an abridged and condensed form many points of doctrine, presupposes in our opinion a whole series of lessons given to the royal disciple. Observe that, at the beginning of the first resumé, we have the phrase "the principal point;" there were then secondary points. The peaceful and at the same time simple, almost familiar tone of the master on entering upon the subject, is exactly the tone of a man who is conversing neither for the first nor for the last time. "The conversation" of which he speaks had not been, you would say, the only conversation. Everything, in fact, shows that these two fragments made part of a very considerable series of religious conferences.

But could these conferences, which, as we have seen, Charles might have held in all secresy at the end of the year 1668 and at the commencement of the year 1669, have taken place at any other period of his reign? By no means. For the first eight years, the king himself is our witness, since we have only to study the terms in which he complains to Father Oliva of his lamentable state of spiritual destitution. After the departure of the two Jesuits and the conversion of the Duke of York, the Anglican hatred and bitterness did not cease to rage about the throne of the Catholic Stuarts. During this second period, the only name which stands in our way is that of Father Claude de la Colombière, who sojourned in England a little more than two years, from 1676 to 1679. Now in this unhappy time, so great was the terror which ruled Charles II. that, despite his sincere esteem for the preacher of the Duchess of York, he dared not accord him, by the very confession of Father de la Colombière, more than two or three audiences, and not one of them secret. Whence it follows that these two famous documents are very probably, we had almost said certainly, the work of Father James Stuart and of his learned companion. Beside, does not such an origin explain the almost religious care with which these arid pages of theology were guarded for nearly twenty years by a prince to whom history points as the perfect type of carelessness? They called back to him the day when, in the presence of his mother, who was no more, and who now prayed for him in heaven, under the direction of a saint whose father he was, he had made his most powerful effort to abjure odious errors; they remained in his hand as a consolation for the past, a light in the future, a pledge of pardon and of hope in the hour when, cited before him who judges kings, he should at last render a severe account for the scandals of his life and the deficiencies of his faith.

Had the difficulties which these two devout ecclesiastics were forced to encounter been merely spiritual, had it been a question of logic, history, and truth, their mission would have been a fruitful one. But in actual life events are seldom simple, and history becomes a problem of complex forces. The heart of Charles II. led him toward his God. The pleasures of court life, and a natural unwillingness to sacrifice his throne, made him hesitate, falter, invent subtleties. It happened, at this time, that a wide-spread opinion prevailed in England, which had not been without its influence on the king. A Catholic, it was claimed, could procure a dispensation from Rome, could disguise his faith without scruple, and conform himself externally, at least, to the rites of the Anglican Church. Nor was the British monarch destitute of a plausible [{601}] precedent. When sojourning at Paris, in the days of the Protectorate, he had promised the venerable Father Oiler to renounce Protestantism, and Alexander VII., at the urgent instance of the crownless prince, had authorized him to conceal his abjuration until his affairs took a more favorable turn. This concession was made in no absolute sense. It stopped at the limits which the divine law has fixed for kings as well as for the humblest of Christians. Unquestionably, a convert whose abrupt publication of a change of faith would subject him to grave perils ought to use prudence. But in no respect would this permission extend so far as that the disciple should be "ashamed of" his Master. In this latter case dissimulation would be a crime.

Yet, in the delicate situation in which Charles was placed, what was he to do? The French alliance remained at this moment a state secret, and was thus far without result. Much was anticipated from the war which Louis XIV. was about to wage with Holland. Amid the triumph of the confederate arms, and the glory which would redound to his own person, the English monarch hoped to discover some means of strengthening the royal power and of breaking at last the Anglican tyranny. Not one of these things, however, had reached the vantage point of a fait accompli; not a domestic difficulty which did not subsist in all its force. In his extremity, the unfortunate prince naturally returned to his dreams of an accommodation with the Pope, of a compromise with the law of God: and one might say that circumstances invited it. Had he not now, in the general of the Jesuits, a powerful advocate with the sovereign pontiff? His son, a novice of the fraternity of Jesus, his son, called from the bosom of Italy and so tenderly received—would he not serve in the Vatican as a guarantee for the integrity of the father? Recourse to the Holy See, so far as to ascertain the precautions which would be permitted to the King of Great Britain in order to avoid exposing himself, his family, all the Catholics of England, to the extremest dangers—such was, we think the final determination of Charles II. This conjecture, authorized by the well-known sentiments of the prince and the whole sequence of facts, is specially based on a letter which Father James Stuart will shortly bear to Rome, and which appears to us scarcely susceptible of any other interpretation. Beside, one very authentic feature in the conversion of the Duke of York, to which we shall presently allude, falls in so perfectly with our theory, that it will be exceedingly difficult, in our opinion, to find any other satisfactory explanation for the ambiguous denouement which the end of this recital affords.

There are no historical indications to guide us in ascertaining the attitude assumed by the two pious queens when the monarch arrived at this resolution. Probably the princesses partook of the illusion of the Duke of York and of most of the Catholics of the court: they placed an exaggerated hope on the powerful intervention of the King of France. Relying upon this, and on the probable complaisance of the Pope, they supported in his unhappy course the son, the husband, whose safety lay so closely to their heart.

It would do our two missionaries a cruel injustice to suppose that they saw no deeper or clearer. In so elementary a question of theology, these vigorous controversialists, whose learning and keen reasonings we have appreciated, could have had but one opinion—that of their confrère Father Symons, of whom we shall shortly speak. James Stuart, we may fearlessly affirm, fulfilled respectfully but firmly the duty of his ministry. He strove to convince his father that no pontifical letter would authorize either king or emperor to reconcile in his person what the Son of God by his divine lips had declared eternally irreconcilable, to be ashamed of him before men, and yet to find favor in his sight. Two things are certain. On [{602}] the one hand, the holy novice failed to convince the king; on the other, filial love, happily combined with apostolic prudence, preserved his zeal from all bitterness.

Charles persisted in seeking, through the intervention of Father Oliva, to draw from Clement IX. impossible concessions. Despite the recent fatigues of his late voyage, the young enthusiast offered to be himself the bearer of his father's despatches. The proposition was accepted, and Charles wrote these lines, upon which we have already commented, and which are unfortunately the only source from which the historian can draw a correct judgment upon the results of the secret mission completed in 1668 in the palace of the kings of England by Father J. Stuart.

TO THE REVEREND FATHER-GENERAL OF THE JESUIT FATHERS AT ROME (intrusted to the hand of Mons. de la Cloche, Jesuit at Rome):
REVEREND FATHER,—You are too necessary for us in the position where your merit has raised you, not to be frequently troubled by us, in that condition where the misfortune of our birth obliges us to be.
Our very dear and honored son will tell you, on our part, all our proceedings, and as we were perplexed in deciding upon some one who should be our messenger once again to your reverence touching our affairs, he represented to us the urgent desire he had of returning himself to Rome on a secret embassy from us to you, reverend father—which desire we have granted him, under the condition that he come back to London as soon as he shall have had an interview with your reverence, and obtained those things which we entreat of you, and which our aforesaid very dear and honored son will explain from us personally, bringing us, on his return through France, the reverend father whom he left there.
At the request of our very dear and honored son afore-mentioned, who has represented to us that the place where he has been received into your fellowship is burdened heavily with debts, and that there is need of some buildings and other things, we have arranged that your house, in which he has been received, shall obtain from us, as soon as possible, a notable sum for the expiation of our offences. Waiting, if it please you, till your reverence can advise us of the measures which you will take for its reception, which shall be within a year. If you write to us, it will be by our very dear and honored son, who will tell your reverence all our intentions not intrusted to this paper. We are
Charles, King of England.
At Whitehall, London, the 18th Nov., 1668.

If it happen that our very dear and honored son be in need of anything, whatever it may be, we beseech you, reverend father, to attend to it, and we will keep an account of all.

The sense of the fourth and last letter of Charles II. to Father Oliva does not appear to us doubtful. If the royal disciple of Father Stuart had shown himself unconditionally and generously disposed to every sacrifice, what could have been this business with the Holy See which he committed to the father-general? Had no difficulty existed, the abjuration ought to have taken place without delay. For the rest, the Duke of York helps us. His illusions, his doubts, avowed by himself in his memoirs, and which very probably he shared with his brother, confirm, point by point, our conjectures upon the nature of the obstacles opposed to the self-sacrifice of the two apostles of Whitehall.

In the closing months of the year 1668, the king renewed his intercourse with his brother, toward whom he had been momentarily estranged by the intrigues of Buckingham. The author of the Life of James II. recalls this fact, and immediately after he adds:

[{603}]

"It was about this time (toward the commencement of the year 1669) that his royal highness, convinced hitherto that the English was the only true church, experienced lively compunctions of conscience and began to reflect seriously upon his salvation. He therefore sent for a Jesuit named Symons, who was reputed a very wise man, to the end that he might converse with him upon this subject. When the Jesuit made his appearance, the duke set forth his intention of becoming a Catholic, and spoke with reference to his reconciliation with the Church. After a long conversation, the father told him frankly that he could not be received into the Catholic Church unless he entirely abandoned the Anglican communion. The duke replied that, according to the belief he had always held, this could be done by means of a papal dispensation. He alleged the singularity of his position, and the advantage which would inhere to the Catholic religion in general, and especially to the Catholics of England, if by a dispensation he could be permitted to follow externally the rites of the Anglican Church, until an occasion offered for declaring himself with greater safety both for his own person and for the Catholics. But the good father insisted, saying that even the Pope himself had no right to grant such a dispensation, seeing that it was the unalterable doctrine of the Catholic Church never to do evil that good might come. The duke having written upon this subject to the Pope, received from the Holy Father confirmation of what the good Jesuit had told him. Up to this time his royal highness had always thought, following the opinion or at least the expressed words of the Anglican theologians, that dispensations of this kind were readily accorded by the Pope; but the remarks of Fr. Symons and the letter of His Holiness caused the duke to conclude that it was high time to make every effort to obtain liberty to declare himself, that he might no longer live in the embarrassing and perilous situation in which he then was." [Footnote 92]

[Footnote 92: "The Life of James the Second, etc., vol. i., p. 440-441. London, 1816. Quarto." (After several attempts to find this work, the translator has been compelled to rely on the French version.—ED. C.W.)]

What relation does this historical passage bear to the sojourn of Father Stuart in London? Notice, in the first place, that the date, "at the commencement of the year 1669," cannot be taken literally. We shall find mention, a few lines further on, of a secret council held Jan. 25, in reference to "a declaration of their Catholicism;" the Duke of York being already converted, and the king almost decided to take, like his brother, the last step. Now let us suppose that, on the 1st of Jan., the duke, hitherto a staunch Anglican, "experienced lively compunctions of conscience." With his characteristic caution, he studies into the matter, and finally comes at the truth. Then occurs his interview with Fr. Symons; next he writes to the Pope. The Pope sends his decision. The prince is startled, makes an irrevocable resolution, and thus on the twenty-fifth day of the same month we find him deliberating with Charles II. and three of his ministers upon the political measures necessary to empower them both to practise freely the religion of their choice! A promptness certainly very strange and inexplicable even in this day of express trains and telegraph wires! Evidently the supposition is impossible, and the expressions of the writer must be interpreted very broadly. Glancing back, it will be observed that these events followed closely upon the reconciliation of the two brothers, which occurred, as the English historians inform us, toward the end of 1668, during the autumn when Henrietta of France, the queen-mother, came to England in order to bid her children a final adieu.

If now we confront the whole series of Father Stuart's proceedings in London with the circumstances attending the Duke of York's conversion, these [{604}] two categories of facts, separate in appearance, unite and coalesce so naturally that it will be almost impossible not to recognize their intimate correlation, or, so to speak, their perfect identity.

Setting out from Leghorn Oct 14, the son of Charles II. after a voyage of twenty-fire or twenty-six days, arrives in the Thames about Nov. 1, O.S. Henrietta of Bourbon, not less jealous for the salvation of her second son than for that of the king, hastens to put the Duke of York in communication with Father James Stuart and the eminent ecclesiastic who accompanied him. Our two apostles divide their days between Charles and his brother. It is in their school that the prince received those strong lessons which in the short space of twenty days overturned and created anew the entire structure of his belief. It was from them that he heard with surprise that the pretended papal permissions were only a ridiculous fable, and that the profession of the Catholic faith obliged him to sacrifice everything, to suffer everything, for the eternal life. Situated as James then was, this declaration was of startling import. It affected his hopes of the crown, his family, his entire future. At this juncture he consults with Fr. Symons; and, still dissatisfied, he resolves to appeal to the Pope. Our argument now takes form; it speaks to the eye. Suppose that the courier of the Duke of York spent twenty-six days each way in his journey to Rome, and remained only eight in that city; to have returned to London six or seven days before the council of Jan. 25, he would have had to quit England the 19th or 20th of Nov. And these are the very dates for the departure of the novice of St. Andrew, upon the close of the conferences, and for his return to the capital of Great Britain after his journey to Italy!

Consider the subject in another light. According to every English historian, the facts relative to the conversion of the Duke of York have their extreme limits in Nov. 1, 1668, and Jan. 25, 1669. They cannot be fixed earlier, nor later. But these are the precise points at which the apostolic mission of Father Stuart at the court of Whitehall commences and ends. Examine this in detail, measure the time necessary to instruct and convert a heretic, to carry a message to Rome, to confer with the Pope, to return to London—there is not a feature which does not present a coincidence almost mathematical.

The novice of St. Andrew left behind him in France the priest whose co-operation had been so useful, and on his return to Rome he made known to the father-general the results of his apostolic labors at the court of the Stuarts. What impression did the royal letter produce upon Father Oliva? It would not be surprising if he thought that he discovered, what many readers will perhaps have felt, in these brief lines, a reserve, a constraint, in perfect contrast with the joy of a soul that has found, after long and sad errors, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Charles II. also wrote on a matter completely apart from the religious question. In a former postscript, the king had engaged to recompense the Roman fraternity for all the extraordinary expenses to which they had been subjected on account of his son. Unfortunately, when the year expired, the funds of the civil list were found empty. It was one of those financial crises not unusual under a prince who never knew the worth of money until it was gone. Charles was therefore forced to subscribe to an obligation payable in six months for the sum of £800 sterling. This note will close the series of inedited pieces that Father J. Stuart has left for two centuries in the hands of Father Paul Oliva:

"We Charles, by the grace of God King of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, acknowledge ourselves debtors to the reverend father-general [{605}] of the Jesuit Fathers to the amount of £800 sterling, viz., 800 pistoles for the maintenance and journeyings of our very dear and honored son the Prince James Stuart, a Jesuit living under the name of La Cloche, the which 800 pistoles the said reverend father-general, Jean Paul Oliva, has furnished him with, and which sum we acknowledge ourselves indebted for, and promise to pay him at his pleasure after six months have passed from the day and date, of the said obligation.
In witness whereof, we have given both our sign-manual and our ordinary seal.
CHARLES, King of England,
L.S. France, Scotland, and Ireland.

Clement IX. was now, for the first time, informed of the secret movement which was drawing into the bosom of the Church the posterity of Mary Stuart. The pontiff received a letter from the Duke of York, and it does not appear improbable that the young traveller had also some words to communicate from the king himself: such at least was the intention of Charles three months previous. But whatever was the monarch's desire, there was only one course open to the Pope. The Master had said to the highest ecclesiastic as to the humblest disciple, "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall not pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." There was then no response to be made but a non possumus, tempered by all those considerations of a charity the most tender which were fitting upon so important an issue. And such, as we know from history, was the nature of the reply of Clement IX. to the Duke of York.

The general of the Jesuits, in his turn, owed thanks for the royal benefactions to the fraternity of Mont Quirinal. This letter, which the commonest dictates of courtesy would have enjoined, is not, however, to be found in the archives of the Jesuits at Rome. One loves to think that it was written, that the son of Charles II. bore it to Whitehall, but that the author, for weighty motives, destroyed it to the last syllable. Fr. Oliva was a man of note. He was the chief of a great apostolic order; he had grown old amid important services rendered to the Church. Italy could justly pride itself for its orators; but in Italy itself his rank for eloquence was high. He had been official "predicateur" to four sovereign pontiffs, and the sermons which he has left behind still attest the vigor, the fire, and the opulence of his rhetoric. It was not in such a nature to leave so significant an event as the conversion of a great monarch to the unaided efforts of a novice. Through all the previous conduct of the mission, he bore a vital part; and now when the supreme moment had come, the king hesitating, the eternal life of a nation in the balance, we cannot doubt that he was moved to write with all the energy and persuasiveness of his being. He must have seen that something more than an Anglican Church or a suspicious parliament stood in the way of the monarch's conversion; that, in the scandalous licentiousness of the English court, there was a stumbling-block equally as great. If the father-general had the courage to mingle with the language of gratitude a sincere but gentle reproof for these delinquencies, it is easy to understand why not a trace of his message remains to us.

Father Stuart was in haste to return to England, where at any moment the great interests which Providence had intrusted to him might unexpectedly be compromised. His stay at Rome was therefore brief. As soon as he had received the verbal or written replies of Fr. Oliva, and in addition (according to our opinion) those that the Pope sent to the court at Whitehall, he set out at once on his return. He quitted Rome never to return. Without doubt, in the course of the following years, he communicated by letter with his superior, who [{606}] did not die till 1681, four years before Charles II.; but the very nature of this correspondence precluded its being deposited in the archives of the society. From this moment, therefore, we must rely upon English history for our details. Fr. Stuart drops into obscurity; but the work for which he labored still gleams above the darkness.

It was on Jan. 18, 1669, if our previous calculation be accepted, that the pretended Prince Henry de Rohan appears again at the court of London, bringing with him his old companion in accordance with the wish expressed by the king in his last letter to Fr. Oliva. The pontifical letters, touching, energetic, full of the wisdom of God, have then been remitted; the emphatic opinions of the general of the society are known. James Stuart and the French Jesuit have had their interview with Charles; they have aroused anew in his heart those earnest and holy impressions which swayed him two months before; and the venerable Henrietta de Bourbon is waiting anxiously and in tears the moment when she may say, in the language of the gospel, "Now thou dost dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace." Such is the situation of affairs at Whitehall. Recurring to the "Life of James II." we find that the historian, after speaking of the Duke of York, his interview with Fr. Symons, and his letter to the Pope, continues as follows:

"This is why his royal highness, knowing that the king was of the same mind, and had already opened himself to Lord Arundel, to Lord Arlington, and to Sir Thomas Clifford, seized an opportunity to converse with his majesty on this subject. He found him fully decided to become a Catholic, and penetrated with the danger and the constraint of his position. The king added that he desired to have, in the cabinet of the duke, a secret interview with the persons we have just named, in order to consult with them upon the means which it would be necessary to employ in order to extend the Catholic religion in the state. This interview was fixed for Jan. 25, the day on which the Church celebrates the conversion of St Paul:
"When they had come together, the king declared his sentiments upon matters of religion; he repeated what he had said to the duke regarding the embarrassments which he had experienced in being prevented from the profession of the faith to which he was attached, and told them that he had summoned them to consult upon the measures necessary to be employed in the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in his realm, and upon the most favorable measure for declaring himself openly. He remarked that there was no time to lose; that he expected to find great difficulties in the execution of his project; and that for himself he preferred to enter upon it while, like his brother, he was in the prime of life, and capable of supporting the greatest fatigues, rather than put it off later, when he would no longer have the energy to successfully manage so great a design. His majesty spoke with much force; tears filled his eyes, and he besought the gentlemen to do all that was fitting wise men and good Catholics.
"The consultation was protracted, and the ultimate decision was to act in concert with France, and to demand the assistance of his very christian majesty: the house of Austria being no longer in a condition to co-operate."

The Duke of York at once abjured with great secresy; but did Charles II. also abjure? Our opinion is that the two brothers separated from the Anglican Church at the same time; and that on the same day, at the foot of the same altar, in the hands of the same priest, they made the same profession of faith. Only one remained unchangeable in his fidelity. The other, sincere but feeble, made an honest effort to give his country liberty of conscience, was defeated at every point by the united mass of the [{607}] English factions, and finally fell back upon dissimulations and hypocrisies. It was Fr. Stuart who presided at this abjuration—a fact which the following considerations prove.

On the 5th of Jan., 1685, Fr. Huddleston, an English Benedictine, and a chaplain to the queen, summoned, says Lingard, in the absence of a foreign ecclesiastic in London, administered at evening the last sacraments to the king without demanding from him that act which should have preceded all others—abjuration. Charles throughout the rest of the night had full consciousness, and it would be perfectly absurd to suppose that neither Fr. Huddleston, a priest for twenty-five or thirty years, nor any of the queen's almoners, nor the Duke of York, as well as the other Catholics present, nor the sick man himself, should have thought, for five hours, of satisfying this most necessary of all conditions for admitting one among the children of the true Church.

Clearly, then, Charles had made his abjuration before his last illness. Studying the sequence of his reign, we remark that the year 1669 closes the period of calm which the brother of James II. enjoyed. Immediately after the French alliance exasperated the nation; and the rage and fury of Anglicanism were excited by the known conversion of the Duke and the Duchess of York, by that of Sir Thomas Clifford, by the second marriage of the Duke with the princess of Modena, by all that movement of Catholic activity the signs of which multiplied around the palace of the Stuarts. Presently persecution began anew, and Charles, incapable of holding head against the storm, yielded in everything; he signed the decrees of proscription, he permitted the flow of innocent blood. What priest, in such a conjuncture, would have consented to receive his abjuration? But in Jan., 1669, the presence of Henrietta of Bourbon, the pious joy of all that royal family, the hope which might reasonably be founded on the probable influence of Fr. James Stuart, united in urging forward so desirable a consummation. Charles, whose good faith we cannot justly suspect without satisfactory proof,—Charles persuaded himself that, assisted by the French monarch, and supported by his brother the duke, there was no domestic coalition which could defeat him, and he brought over the rest to his opinion by that seductive eloquence which, with him, was almost irresistible. The priest doubtless had many fears; but the priest, when there was the appearance of security, inclined toward indulgence, and on the present occasion so many reiterated assurances, so many moving supplications, so many marvellous advantages in perspective, finally disarmed him. Nothing in the duke's account prejudices this conclusion. His delicate sense of family honor, the reproach which would have attached to Charles and ultimately to all the Stuarts if the act were known, the reticence necessary to maintain regarding the king's eldest son—each and all explain the silence of that prince. Beside the offer to take the sword in hand, and to run the chances of a long and perilous civil war, would indicate less a future step than a step in the past. In our opinion, therefore, the council of Jan. 25 followed the abjuration of Charles rather than preceded it.

---

[{608}]

From The Argosy.
THE INFIORATA OF GENZANO.

If you are ever in Rome at Corpus Christi (a thing not likely to happen, by the way, as it must fall in the months when northerners shun the Campagna) do not let anything induce you to miss the Infiorata of Genzano—the gem of village festivals. We were fortunate enough to witness it last year, the first time it has been celebrated since the troubles of 1848.

All Rome turned out to assist at it. Many days before every available vehicle and beast had been bespoken, and yet there was a demand.

Our mount, "Master Pietro," of half Italian, half English race, as his name symbolizes, came to fetch us punctually at the unearthly hour of seven—to get his work done ere the noontide heat. He had carried us through many lovely scenes before, and his hardy qualities adapted him well for the three days' excursion we intended to make of it, through a land where hay is scarce and oats almost unattainable. But we knew he had one idiosyncracy, of kicking violently at the approach of any mule—a frequent customer in the neighborhood of Rome—and as the crowded state of the road on that day would render it particularly unsuited for such pranks, we elected to travel along the solitary Appian Way. It was a brilliant morning of early June. A light trot soon brought us to the grand old Arch of Drusus. We could not help stopping to admire the play of light and shade on its time-worn stones, and through the fairy tracery with which nature loves to deck art. It could not have appeared more worthy of admiration the first day that—oldest of triumphal arches—its noble proportions were completed, and the imperial father saw immortalized in it the triumphs of his son. The "stern round tower of other days" demanded another pause. Often as we had passed it before, the romance with which "the Childe's" speculations have invested it make it ever an object of fresh interest. If it be the object of "huge tombs" to set all posterity wondering about their tenants, the tomb of Caecilia Metella certainly has fulfilled its mission. Who passes the massive structure and does not long to know something about the lady to whom, nearly two thousand years ago, this lasting memorial was raised? The ground-plan is a square of seventy feet, and the walls are twenty-five feet thick. In the small interior space thus formed, Caecilia's ashes reposed in a white marble sarcophagus. The inscription is of the simplest description—"Caeciliae Q. Cretici F. Metaelle Crassi;" in the neighborhood even her name is untold, and the tower is only called the "Capo di Bove," from the ornaments of the frieze.

We pushed on vigorously for a mile or two, and then came patches of the old Roman pavement, to stop Master Pietro's cantering, and give leisure to be again examining the tombs on either hand; little temples erected to house ashes—their own ruins now the subject of fostering care—and to set one wondering how mortal horses ever pranced, or ran, or drew weights over those stony blocks. "Let us hope" they were not left for an uncovered pavement, but that they served for the foundation of a coating of tufa, or something equally grateful to weary hoofs.

The lizards, bewildered with our clatter, shot madly across our path, and "the merry brown hares came leaping" from their retreat, defying [{609}] with their swiftness the vain attempts of our brave little lupino to run them to ground. We were thankful they all escaped with their lives, so blithe and gay among the tombs. Some ten miles of this, and then a mile through a newly-mown field, the fragrant hay most tantalizing to our probably breakfastless steeds. Some of our party knew a cut through Duke Torlonia's ground which was to save us a mile or two, but in anticipation of the festive crowd an iron chain had been made to bar the passage. It was an easy leap for Master Pietro, however, and for one or two of his companions; the others had to go round. The rise is steep, and, though in places rocky, generally good. We pass, on our rights the ancient town of Bovillae, and then on our left comes the lovely lake of Albano, and Castel Grandolfo with the Popes' modest summer palace. Another trot brings us to the "Galeria di Sopra," a delicious, gently ascending path, soft as Rotten Row, under the flickering shade of massive ilexes. It is just the place for a canter, and Master Pietro evidently thinks so as he sniffs the morning air. To our regret it comes to an end at last, and we wait behind the sheltering gateway of the Chigi palace while some of our party go in and secure beds at l'Ariccia. We have allowed little short of three hours to the seventeen miles, but still we are nearly the first to arrive, so we get the best rooms the Locanda can afford, and are well satisfied with them and with our collation of pastry and wine. Our own hunger satisfied, we determine to leave Master Pietro and his brethren to their oats (if they can get any), and we walk on to Genzano. Three noble bits of viaduct save us the terrible up and down hill through which our predecessors of a few years ago had to toil.

During the few minutes we were in the hotel, "all the world" has arrived, and we are soon in the midst of a vast train of people, all following the same object, all talking earnestly, and of course very loud. A gun sounds. There is a rush. We are just too late for the start of the first race. It is a' fantini. Gaily dressed but clownish jockeys bestride the contending chargers, without stirrups or saddles, guiding them only by a red woollen rope. The next is à vuoto. The rough but ready steeds career riderless along the way lined out for them by the living hedge of spectators; and it is hard to say whether they are first brought to a stand by the roar which—suppressed by the very intensity of excitement during the race—bursts into a deafening peal as they near the goal, or by the black curtain suspended across their path, which forms the legitimate "ripresa dei barberi. " The horse who has won the contest by his own unridden impetuosity is decked with flowers and streamers, and marched through the admiring crowds, giving a knowing and majestic nod to the plumes which form his crest. A file of soldiers escorts him, and the band agitates his triumphant "progress;" he has borne all his other honors meekly, but this one chafes him. As soon as he is marched off, the crowd, breaking up as Roman crowds do into couples, soon manoeuvres itself into picturesque groups round the various stalls of the village fair. How they enjoy themselves! How gladsome and light of heart they seem!—and on what mild conditions. Does it not do one good to see their easy contentment? What strange wares form the attractions of dark, glancing eyes and generous purses! Staple commodity of the fairs of all the Roman paesi is the unfailing pork, boned and rolled, and stuffed with rosemary: we did wrong not to taste it, for the eager thousands find it "very good." The Genzano wine—and the Cesarini and Jacobini cellars are open to-day—affords a more congenial temptation. It is a luscious wine, with more body and more delicate flavor than the generality of Roman wines, but lacks the sparkle of the surpassing Orvieto.

The gay scene is full of attractive interest, but, finding a couple of hours to spare, we trot back to l'Ariccia to [{610}] dine. Others have adopted the same course, and the Locanda is all astir. What to have is always a difficult question for the most unfastidious anywhere in the Papal States out of Rome. A provoking waiter, who thinks he can speak French, and on all occasions comes out with his one broken sentence, "Aspetti oon petti momenti," finds us impracticable, and sends us the chef de cuisine. The chef, with a profusion of issimos, assures us there is no cuisine in the world like his, and rings the changes on the well-known names we abominate. Minestra we refuse, it is always water bewitched; the lesso is sure to be tasteless and stringy; the pasta, the Roman rendering of maccaroni, underdone and indigestible; the arrosto, hard and tough—we will none of them. Well, a fritto? If the oil is good, we have nothing to say against that; we allow you excel there. If something else we must have, we will take you on your own ground; bring us an agro-dolce, that is a culinary curiosity with which, after the palate has been once annealed to its compound of wine, vinegar, bacon, butter, parsley, spices, sugar, oil, chocolate, and wild boar or porcupine, you may be always glad to renew acquaintance. The wind-up of pasticcieria and frutte we say nothing about; we know it is useless to argue against the inevitable.

While this repast is preparing, we are driven to occupy ourselves with a study of the room and the guests. The former presents a strange mixture of primitiveness and pretension: the build is clumsy, the window-shutters cover only the glass panes, the fittings are rude, the floor is bare. But the walls have been painted in (millions-of-miles-off) imitation of Raphael's much-sinned-against Loggie! And over the mantelpiece hangs a landscape, into which a piece of looking-glass is inserted to represent a lake. The principal piece of furniture is a large glass cupboard, in which is stowed away—we know not for what grand occasion, for it is not even brought into use to-day—a set of common English willow-pattern earthenware! We cannot but smile to see our humble friend in such grand plight; and we moralize to ourselves on the subjectivity of the human mind, to which its changed estimation testifies. The angularity of the fall of the table-cloth "accuses" a table composed of a literal "board," supported on tressels; and though there are a few chairs, the majority of the guests have to be content with backless benches. At one end of our board an English artist, not unknown to fame, and his party are going through the regular routine of an Italian hotel dinner with praiseworthy patience. At another board sits a large family of natives, and we forget all note of time as we watch with astonished eyes the masses of pasta they contrive to stow away, half-cooked as it is sure to be. The sight is not new to us, but every time we see it it has the same attraction, derived from the reminiscence of a delicious early surprise such as the performance of Punch and Judy always exercises on any number of Londoners. A vacant space near them is soon filled by another native, a young exquisite, who appears quite oppressed by the mild heat we northerners had been enjoying. Throwing himself at full length on the bench, he commences a violent fanning with his handkerchief; but after a minute or two his hand requires a cooler instrument, and he changes it for his hat, which in turn is exchanged for his dinner-napkin, and, finally, he completes the operation with his plate! At last the one-sentence-of-French waiter directs his steps toward our party, but, to the indignation of every individual of it, he bears the minestra we forbade him to name. This has been our universal experience. The Italian mind cannot take in the idea of the possibility of dining without broth; it is useless to countermand it, it is sure to be sent to table. We explode, nevertheless, and desire the dishes we ordered to be brought without further delay. "Aspetti oon petti momenti," says Nicolò; [{611}] and better than, his word this time, it is really only un petit moment before we are duly served.

Dinner despatched, we have still time to stroll over the neighborhood before we are wanted at Genzano. A walk of less than a mile, starting over the magnificent new viaduct, takes us to the straggling paese (we cannot bring ourselves to call it a town) of Albano. A good-natured old fellow, always recognizable by the extreme whiteness of his stockings, hails us as we pass, in memory of old acquaintance, and is sure we must want donkeys; we cannot refuse him, and hoping Master Pietro won't see us out of his stable window, we suffer the sure-footed but ignoble substitutes to take us down the difficult descent which the viaduct was built to spare us—so wayward is woman! But the viaduct itself has created a reason for making the descent, as the sight of its noble proportions amply repays the journey.

It was completed during the reign of the present Pope, from the designs of a local engineer—one of the Jacobini family. It is formed of "arches on arches" in three ranges, six on the lowest tier, twelve in the next, and eighteen in the highest; they are each forty-nine feet wide between the piers, and sixty feet in height; the whole length of roadway, including the approaches, is nearly a quarter of a mile, and the height to top of parapet just two hundred feet. It is built of massive blocks of peperino, cut to fit each other without mortar, and the appearance is solid and grand, worthy of the models of ancient masonry by which it is surrounded. There is no attempt at ornament. The entire cost was 140,000 scudi (£33,000), [Footnote 93] and the halfpenny toll has already gone far toward repaying it.

[Footnote 93: We drove, the other day, under the viaduct of the Brighton Railway for the sake of comparing it with our memory of l^Ariccia, and were disappointed to find it a slender brick affair, for which the meaningless display of stone at the top had not prepared us. It consists of thirty-seven arches, sixty feet high, and is a little over a quarter of a mile in length. We were informed its cost was £58,000.]

Close under it lies the old ruined tomb commonly called of the Horatii and Curiatii but now determined to be that of Aruns, son of Porsenna. It has all the appearance of being of Etruscan work, and the remains are very peculiar. It is a square structure, forty-six feet every way and twenty feet high; at the four corners are the remains of four small cones, one being nearly perfect; in the centre is a cylinder, twenty-three feet across, made to contain the urn.

Our donkeys carried us bravely up the rugged hill, and then we found, to our regret, we must leave the Chigi palace, Duke Sforza's infant schools, and other objects of interest for another visit; we had only time to get back to Genzano. A great deal of business had been done at the fair, and many hearts won by the fair. The booth-keepers, having sold off their stock, had shut up shop and gone away, and the merry couples were circulating freely. The rosemaried pork and Genzano wine had given them strength and vigor and gaiety—let it not be understood that we see any trace of excess; all is mirth and good humor and picturesqueness. At last six o'clock strikes, and, like an army marshalled by the word of command, the spontaneous and unanimous will of the thousands of sightseers brings them in serried procession up the broad street, where the Infiorata lies sparkling and rendering up its varied and gorgeous reflections to the sun's rays which bathe it.

Beautiful and delicate tribute of a poetical people! The occasion is the festival of the Blessed Sacrament; and as it is carried among them in solemn procession the custom of all Catholic countries is to strew flowers along the way; but here the idea has taken a development of a surpassing order, if not unique—as if no care could be too great: not only are the most brilliant flowers planted months before, and collected from distant contributors, but when the day arrives all these are made to form the most exquisite [{612}] mosaics. What is a Gobelins carpet to this weft of nature's own materials! A cord is drawn up both sides of the road to keep the flowered centre clear, and no one thinks of infringing the slight barrier. The rising ground is most favorable for displaying in two lines, ascending and descending, the endless variety of elaborate devices of tesselation. Costly marbles of different hues fitly pave the basilica; the glazed axulejos cooled the Moslem's feet at the same time that they pleased his eye; the velvet-pile tapestries of British looms carpet the bleak floors of our northern homes; and the stiff geometrical tiles, angular and uncomfortable as everything Gothic is, suit very well to our Gothic churches. Each and all have their fitness; and what is the Infiorata? It is the tribute of a simple and poor, but imaginative and loving, people "preparing to meet their God."

"O earth, grow flowers beneath his feet,
And thou, O sun, shine bright this day!
He comes, he comes,—O heaven on earth!
Our Jesus comes upon his way,"

sings one of their hymns for the occasion. And, poor tillers of the earth, the only offering they can make is of the flowers which "her children are." We looked on with an artist's and humanitarian's enjoyment. And delicious enjoyment it was! It was the fresh enjoyment of our childhood over again to trace the rich mosaic designs spread before us; and we pity him who does not know the enjoyment of the sensation of color. There were the arms of the Stato Pontificio, and of the paese, and of the Cesarini and Jacobini, with all their bearings and all their tinctures and then, as it were, the arms of the blessed sacrament—the symbols under which it is figured. The herald must find a new nomenclature; already he has a separate one for commonalty, nobility, and royalty, but now, for a "greater than Solomon," he must devise another. To his "sol, topaz, or," he must add the marigold; and to his "luna, pearl, argent," the lily. Then came arabesques in perplexing mazes of tracery; every line true, and every harmony or contrast of tint faultless. By a refinement least of all to be expected, in the centre of some of the compartments a tiny fountain had been introduced, "flinging delicious coolness round the air, and verdure o'er the ground." Nothing that poets have fabled of fairyland or paradise ever exceeded it in imaginative luxuriance.

"O what a wilderness of flowers!
It seemed as though from all the bowers
And fairest fields of all the year
The mingled spoils were scattered here.
The pathway like a garden breathes
With the rich buds that o'er it lie,
As if a shower of fairy wreaths
Had fallen upon it from the sky."

A crowd of Romans is not surrounded by a savory atmosphere. We are never in one without finding that the thing Cleopatra exceedingly feared had fallen upon us—

"In their thick breath.
Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded.
And forced to drink their vapor."

Their baths are things of the past; their picturesque costume looks as if it were never renewed during a whole life; their houses are dingy, and bare, and comfortless; yet we have before us the proof that they possess a delicacy of both feeling and taste which it would be impossible to find surpassed anywhere.

Meantime the procession from the church approaches, and a hush succeeds the merry din which has stunned us so long; the last pertinacious "Ecco! zigari!" and "Acqua fresca!" is sung out. And in their harsh nasal intonation the appropriated hymns are begun by the priests and taken up by the whole population, very much after the fashion of a horse running away; without any regard for time and very little for tune, but with a heartiness and earnestness which we try to persuade ourselves ought to compensate for the "skinning" of our ears. The untidy choristers precede and follow in due numbers, and the quaint confraternities, in various dresses, bearing unwieldy, misshapen [{613}] banners, waddle and hobble behind. Slovenly men with unwashed hands carry great yellow tapers, and a ragged urchin runs by the side of each catching the droppings into a piece of stiff paper. The whole thing is disenchanting and disedifying; but we see so plainly the impression that they think they are doing their best reflected from so many hundred beaming countenances, that we end by exhausting our squeamishness, and learn to look on the Genzanese modes of devotion from their own standing-point. By the time it has taken to effect this, however, the procession has regained the church, where we find it impossible to penetrate, and so we turn to take a last look at the Infiorata. Alas! it has all vanished, as completely as if it had been the emanation of fairyland it appeared to be. As soon as the procession had passed the people broke in, eager to possess themselves of the flowers as a sort of relic. From what we saw of the process of undoing, it appeared that the mosaics were not composed of whole flowers, except in some instances where their form adapted them to form special designs, but the generality were made with shred petals, by which means masses of color were obtained in the most manageable quantities. There was, in most cases, a board or oil-cloth for a foundation, with the patterns marked out in chalk; but the blending of colors seemed to have been left to the individual taste of the workers.

We get back to our narrow rooms at l'Ariccia in time to escape the firing of the mortaletti and botti (small guns and crackers) without which an Italian festa is seldom considered complete.

Nicolò is much disappointed that we will not again trust to the resources of his cuisine, and exclaims "Aspetti con petti momenti," as he goes in quest of our bed-lamps. While we wait, we hear our Italian fellow-diners angrily complaining that mine host had taken advantage of the throng of visitors to cheat them of their due proportion of pasta! The quantity sent up for four was only the due mess of one, selon them. What a spectacle we should have had if it had been dealt out to them according to their own measure!

---

From Chamber's Journal.
BROADCAST THY SEED.

Broadcast thy seed!
Although some portion may be found
To fall on uncongenial ground,
Where sand, or shard, or stone may stay
Its coming into light of day;
Or when it comes, some pestilent air
May make it droop or wither there—
Be not discouraged; some will find
Congenial soil and gentle wind,
Refreshing dew and ripening shower,
To bring it into beauteous flower,
From flower to fruit, to glad thine eyes,
And fill thy soul with sweet surprise.
Do good, and God will bless thy deed—
Broadcast thy seed!

---

[{614}]

From The Month.
CONSTANCE SHERWOOD:
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.
CHAPTER XXII.

"Ah, ladies," exclaimed Mr. Cobham—pleased, I ween, to see how eagerly we looked for his news—"I promise you the eastern counties do exhibit their loyalty in a very commendable fashion, and so report saith her majesty doth think. The gallant appearance and brave array of the Suffolk esquires hath drawn from her highness sundry marks of her approval. What think you, my Lady Tregony, of two hundred bachelors, all gaily clad in white-velvet coats, and those of graver years in black-velvet coats and fair gold chains, with fifteen hundred men all mounted on horseback, and Sir William le Spring of Lavenham at their head. I warrant you a more comely troop and a nobler sight should not often be seen. Then, in Norfolk, what great sums of money have been spent! Notably at Kenninghall, where for divers days not only the queen herself was lodged and feasted, with all her household, council, courtiers, and all their company, but all the gentlemen also, and people of the country who came thither upon the occasion, in such plentiful, bountiful, and splendid manner, as the like had never been seen before in these counties. Every night she hath slept at some gentleman's seat. At Holdstead Hall I had the honor to be presented to her highness, and to see her dance a minuet. But an unlucky accident did occur that evening."

"No lives were lost, I hope?" Lady Tregony said.

"No lives," Master Cobham answered; "but a very precious fan which her majesty let drop into the moat—one of white and red feathers, which Sir Francis Drake had gifted her with on New Year's day. It was enamelled with a half-moon of mother-o'-pearl and had her majesty's picture within it."

"And at Norwich, sir?" I asked. "Methinks, by some reports we heard, the pageants there must have proved exceeding grand."

"Rare indeed," he replied. "On the 16th she did enter the town at Harford Bridge. The mayor received her with a long Latin oration, very tedious; and, moreover, presented her with a fair cup of silver, saying, 'Here is one hundred pounds pure gold.' To my thinking, the cup was to her liking more than the speech, and the gold most of all; for when one of her footmen advanced for to take the cup, she said sharply, 'Look to it: there is one hundred pounds.' Lord! what a number of pageants were enacted that day and those which followed! Deborah, Judith, Esther at one gate; Queen Martia at another; on the heights near Blanche-flower Castle, King Gurgunt and his men. Then all the heathen deities in turn: Mercury driving full speed through the city in a fantastic car; Jupiter presenting her with a riding-rod, and Venus with a white dove. [{615}] But the rarest of all had been designed by Master Churchyard. Where her majesty was to take her barge, at the back-door of my Lord Arundel's town-house, he had prepared a goodly masque of water-nymphs concealed in a deep hole, and covered with green canvas, which suddenly opening as if the ground gaped, first one nymph was intended to pop up and make a speech to the queen, and then another; and a very complete concert to sound secretly and strangely out of the earth. But when the queen passed in her coach, a thunder-shower came down like a water-spout, and great claps of thunder silenced the concert; which some did presage to be an evil omen of the young lord's fortunes."

"I' faith," cried Basil, "I be sorry for the young nobleman, and yet more for the poor artificer of this ingenious pageant, to whom his nymphs turned into drowned rats must needs have been a distressing sight."

"He was heard to lament over it," Master Cobham said, "in very pathetic terms: 'What shall I say' (were his words) 'of the loss of velvets, silks, and cloths of gold? Well, nothing but the old adage—Man doth purpose, but God dispose.' Well, the mayor hath been knighted; and her majesty said she should never forget his city. On her journey she looked back, and, with water in her eyes, shaked her riding whip, and cried, 'Farewell Norwich!' Yesterday she was to sleep at Sir Henry Jerningham's at Cottessy, and hunt in his park to-day."

"Oh, poor Sir Henry!" I said laughing. "Then he hath not escaped this dear honor?"

"Notice of it was sent to him but two days before, from Norwich," Master Cobham rejoined; "and I ween he should have been glad for to be excused."

Lady Tregony then reminded us that supper was ready, and we removed to the dining-hall; but neither did this good gentleman weary of relating nor we of listening to the various haps of the royal progress, which he continued to describe whilst we sat at meat.

He was yet talking when the sound of a horse gallopping under the windows surprised us, and we had scarce time to turn our heads before Basil's steward came tumbling into the room head foremost, like one demented.

"Sir, sir!" he cried, almost beside himself; "in God's name, what do you here, and the queen coming for to sleep at your house to-morrow?"

Methinks a thunder-clap in the midst of the stilly clear evening should not have startled us so much. Basil's face flushed very deeply; Lady Tregony looked ready to faint; my heart beat as if it should burst; Master Cobham threw his hat into the air, and cried, "Long live Queen Elizabeth, and the old house of Rookwood!"

"Who hath brought these tidings?" Basil asked of the steward.

"Marry," replied the man, "one of her majesty's gentlemen and two footmen have arrived from Cottessy, and brought this letter from Lord Burleigh for your honor."

Basil broke the seal, read the missive, and then quietly looking up, said, "It is true; and I must lose no time to prepare my poor house for her majesty's abode in it."

He looked not now red, but somewhat pale. Methinks he was thinking of the chapel, and what it held; and the queen's servants now in the house. I would not stay him; but, taking my hand whilst he spoke, he said to Lady Tregony,

"Dear lady, I shall lack yours and Constance's aid to-morrow. Will you do me so much good as to come with her to Euston as early before dinner as you can?"

"Yea, we will be with you, my good Basil," she answered, "before ten of the clock."

"'Tis not," he said, "that I intend to cast about for fine silks and cloths of gold, or contrive pageants—God [{616}] defend it!—or ransack the country for rare and costly meats; but such honorable cheer and so much of comfort as a plain gentleman's house can afford, I be bound to provide for my sovereign when she deigneth to use mine house."

"Master Cobham, I do crave the honor of your company also," he added, turning to that gentleman, who, with many acknowledgments of his courtesy, excused himself on the plea that he must needs be at his own seat the next day.

Then Basil, mounting his horse which the steward had brought with him, rode away so fast that the old man could scarce keep up with him.

Not once that night did mine eyes close themselves. Either I sat bolt upright in my bed counting each time the clock struck the number of chimes, or else, unable to lie still, paced up and down my chamber. The hours seemed to pass so slowly, more than in times of deep grief. It seemed so strange a hap that the queen should come to Euston, I almost fancied at moments the whole thing to be a dream, so fantastic did it appear. Then a fear would seize me lest the chapel should have been discovered before Basil could arrive. Minor cares likewise troubled me; such as the scantiness and bad state of the furniture, the lack of household conveniences, the difficulty that might arise to procure sufficient food at a brief notice for so great a number of persons. Oh, how my head did work all night with these various thinkings! and it seemed as if the morning would never come, and when it did that Lady Tregony would never ring her bell. Then I bethought myself of the want of proper dresses for her and myself to appear in before her majesty, if so be we were admitted to her presence. Howsoever, I found she was indifferently well provided in that respect, for her old good gowns stood in a closet where dust could not reach them, and she bethought herself I could wear my wedding-dress, which had come from the seamstress a few days before; and so we should not be ashamed to be seen. I must needs confess that, though many doubts and apprehensions filled me touching this day, I did feel some contentment in the thought of the honor conferred on Basil. If there was pride in this, I do cry God mercy for it. As we rode to Euston, the fresh air, the eager looks of the people on the road—for now the report had spread of the queen's coming—the stir which it caused, the puttings up of flags, and buildings of green arches, strengthened this gladness. Basil was awaiting us with much impatience, and immediately drew me aside.

"I have locked," he said, "all the books and church furniture, and our Blessed Lady's image, in Owen's hiding place; so methinks we be quite secure. Beds and food I have sent for, and they keep coming in. Prithee, dear love, look well thyself to her majesty's chamber, for to make it as handsome and befitting as is possible with such poor means thereunto. I pray God the lodging may be to her contentation for one night."

So I hasted to the state-chamber—for so it was called, albeit except for size it had but small signs of state about it. Howsoever, with the maids' help, I gathered into it whatsoever furniture in the house was most handsome, and the wenches made wreaths of ivy and laurel, which we hung round the bare walls. Thence I went to the kitchen, and found her majesty's cook was arrived, with as many scullions as should have served a whole army; so, except speaking to him civilly, and inquiring what provisions he wanted, I had not much to do there. Then we went round the house with Mr. Bowyer, the gentleman-usher, for to assign the chambers to the queen's ladies, and the lords and gentlemen and the waiting-women. There was no lack of room, but much of proper furniture; albeit chairs and tables were borrowed on all sides from the neighboring cottages, and Lady [{617}] Tregony sent for a store from her house. Mr. Bowyer held in his hand a list of the persons of the court now journeying with the queen; Lord Burleigh, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many other famous courtiers were foremost in it. When their lodgings were fixed, he glanced down the paper, and, mine eyes following his, I perceived among the minor gentlemen there set down Hubert's name, which moved me very much; for we did not of a surety know at that time he did belong to the court, and I would fain he had not been present on this occasion, and new uneasy thoughts touching what had passed at Sir Francis Walsingham's house, and the words the queen had let fall concerning him and me, crossed my mind in consequence. But in that same list I soon saw another name which caused me so vehement an emotion that Basil, noticing it, pulled me by the hand into another room for to ask me the cause of that sudden passion.

"Basil," I whispered, "mine heart will break if that murthering Richard Topcliffe must sleep under your roof."

"God defend it!" he exclaimed. But pausing in his speech leant his arm against the chimney and his head on it for a brief space. Then raising it, said, in an altered tone, "Mine own love, be patient. We must needs drink this chalice to the dregs" (which showed me his thoughts touching this visit had been from the first less hopeful than mine). Taking my pencil out of mine hand, he walked straight to the door before which Mr. Bowyer was standing, awaiting us, and wrote thereon Master Topcliffe's name. Methought his hand shook a little in the doing of it. I then whispered again in his ear:

"Know you that Hubert is in the queen's retinue?"

"No, indeed!" he exclaimed; and then with his bright winning smile, "Prithee now, show him kindness for my sake. He had best sleep in my chamber to-night. It will make room, and mind us of our boyish days."

The day was waning and long shadows falling on the grass when tidings came that her majesty had been hunting that morning, and would not arrive till late. About dusk warning was given of her approach. She rode up on horseback to the house amidst the loud cheering of the crowd, with all her train very richly attired. But it had waxed so dark their countenances could not be seen. Her master of the horse lifted her from the saddle, and she went straight to her own apartments, being exceeding tired, it was said, with her day's sport and long riding. Notice was given that her highness would admit none to her presence that evening. Howsoever, she sent for Basil, and, giving him her hand to kiss, thanked him in the customary manner for the use of his house. It had not been intended that Lady Tregony and I should sleep at Euston, where the room did scarcely suffice for the queen's suite. So when it was signified her majesty should not leave her chamber that night, but, after a slight refection, immediately retire to rest, and her ladies likewise, who were almost dead with fatigue, she ordered our horses to be brought to the back-door. Basil stole away from the hall where the lords and gentlemen were assembled for to bid us good-night. After he had lifted me on the saddle, he threw his arm round the horse's neck as if for to detain him, and addressing me very fondly, called me his own love, his sole comfort, his best treasure, with many other endearing expressions.

Then I, loth to leave him alone amidst false friends and secret enemies, felt tenderness overcome me, and I gave him in return some very tender and passionate assurances of affection; upon which he kissed mine hands over and over again, and our hearts, overcharged with various emotions, found relief in this interchange of loving looks and words. But, alas! this brief interview had an unthought [{618}] of witness more than good Lady Tregony, who said once or twice, "Come, children, bestir yourselves," or "Tut, tut, we should be off;'" but still lingered herself for to pleasure us. I chanced to look up, whilst Basil was fastening my horse's bit, and by the light of a lamp projecting from the wall, I saw Hubert at an open window right over above our heads. I doubt not but that he had seen the manner of our parting, and heard the significant expressions therein used; for a livid hue, and the old terrible look which I had noticed in him before, disfigured his countenance. I am of opinion that until that time he had not believed with certainty that my natural, unbiassed inclination did prompt me to marry Basil, or that I loved him with other than a convenient and moderate regard, which, if circumstances reversed their positions, should not be a hindrance to his own suit. Basil having finished his management with my bridle stepped back with a smile and last good-night, all unconscious of that menacing visage which my terrified eyes were now averted from, but which I still seemed pursued by. It made me weep to think that these two brothers should lie in the same chamber that coming night; the one so confiding and guileless of heart, the other so full of envy and enmity.

I was so tired when I reached home that I fell heavily asleep for some hours. But, awaking between five and six of the clock, and not able to rest in my chamber, dressed myself and went into the garden. Not far from the house there was an arbor, with a seat in it. Passing alongside of it, I perceived, with no small terror, a man lying asleep on this bench. And then, with increased affright, but not believing mine own eyes, but rather thinking it to be a vision, saw Basil, as it seemed to me, in the same dress he wore the day before, but with his face much paler. A cry burst from me, for methought perhaps he should be dead. But he awoke at my scream, looked somewhat wildly about him for a minute, rubbed his eyes, and then with a kind of smile, albeit an exceeding sad one, said,

"Is it you, my good angel?"

"O Basil," I cried, sitting down by his side, and taking hold of his chilled hand, "what hath happened? Why are you here?"

He covered his face with his hands. Methinks he was praying. Then he raised his pale, noble visage and said:

"About one hour after your departure, supper being just ended, I was talking with Sir Walter Raleigh and some other gentlemen, when a message was brought unto me from Lord Burleigh, who had retired to his chamber, desiring for to speak with me. I thought it should be somewhat anent the queen's pleasure for the ordering of the next day, and waited at once on his lordship. When I came in, he looked at me with a very severe and harsh countenance. 'Sir,' he said in an abrupt manner, 'I am informed that you are excommunicated for papistry. How durst you then attempt the royal presence, and to kiss her majesty's hand? You—unfit to company with any Christian person—you are fitter for a pair of stocks, and are forthwith commanded not to appear again in her sight, but to hold yourself ready to attend her council's pleasure.' Constance, God only knoweth what I felt; and oh, may he forgive me that for one moment I did yield to a burning resentment, and forgot the prayers I have so often put up, that when persecution fell on me I might meet it, as the early Christians did, with blessings, not with curses. But look you, love, a judicial sentence, torture, death methinks, should be easier to bear than this insulting, crushing, brutal tone, which is now used toward Catholics. Yet if Christ was for us struck by a slave and bore it, we should also be able for to endure their insolent scorn. Bitter words escaped me, I think, albeit I know not very well what I said; but [{619}] his lordship turned his back on the man he had insulted, and left the room without listening to me. I be glad of it now. What doth it avail to remonstrate against injuries done under pretence of law, or bandy words with a judge which can compel you to silence?"

"Basil," I cried, "you may forgive that man; I cannot'.'

"Yea, but if you love me, you shall forgive him," he cried. "God defend mine injuries should work in thee an unchristian resentment! Nay, nay, love, weep not; think for what cause I am ill-used, and thou wilt presently rejoice thereat rather than grieve."

"But what happened when that lord had left you?" I asked, not yet able to speak composedly.

Then he: "I stood stock-still for a while in a kind of bewilderment, hearing loud laughter in the hall below, and seeing, as it did happen, a man the worse for liquor staggering about the court. To my heated brain it did seem as if hell had been turned loose in my house, where some hours before—" Then he stopped, and again sinking his head on his hands, paused a little, and then continued without looking up: "Well, I came down the stairs and walked straight out at the front door. As I passed the hall I heard some one ask, 'Which is the master of this huge house?' and another, whom by his voice I knew to be Topcliffe, answered, 'Rookwood, a papist, newly crept out of his wardship. As to his house, 'tis most fit for the blackguard, but not for her gracious majesty to lodge in. But I hope she will serve God with great and comfortable examples, and have all such notorious papists presently committed to prison.' This man's speech seemed to restore me to myself, and a firmer spirit came over me. I resolved not to sleep under mine own roof, where, in the queen's name, such ignominious treatment had been awarded me,' and went out of my house, reciting those verses of the Psalms, 'O God, save me in thy name, and in thy strength judge me. Because strangers have risen up against me, and the strong have sought my soul.' I came here almost unwittingly, and not choosing to disturb any one in the midst of the night, lay down in this place, and, I thank God, soon fell asleep."

"You did not see Hubert?" I timidly inquired.

"No," he said, "neither before nor after my interview with Lord Burleigh. I hope no one hath accused him of papistry, and so this time he may escape."

"And who did accuse you?" I asked.

"I know not," he answered; "we are never safe for one hour. A discontented groom or covetous neighbor may ruin us when they list."

"But are you not in danger of being called before the council?" I said.

"Yea, more than in danger," he answered. "But I should hope a heavy fine shall this time satisfy the judges; which, albeit we can ill afford it, may yet be endured."

Then I drew him into the house, and we continued to converse till good Lady Tregony joined us. When I briefly related to her what Basil had told me, the color rose in her pale, aged cheek; but she only clasped her hands and said,

"God's holy will be done."

"Constance," Basil exclaimed, whilst he was eating some breakfast we had set before him, "prithee get me paper and ink for to write to Hubert."

I looked at him inquiringly as I gave him what he asked for.

"I am banished from mine own house," he said; "but as long as it is mine the queen should not lack anything I can supply for her comfort. She is my guest, albeit I am deemed unworthy to come into her presence; I must needs charge Hubert to act the host in my place, and see to all hospitable duties."

My heart swelled at this speech. Methought, though I dared not utter [{620}] my thinking for more reasons than one, that Hubert had most like not waited for his brother's licence to assume the mastership of his house. The messenger was despatched, and then a long silence ensued, Basil walking to and fro before the house, and I embroidering, with mine eyes often raised from my work to look toward him. When nine o'clock struck I joined him, and we strolled outside the gate, and without forecasting to do so walked along the well-known path leading to Euston. When we reached a turn of the road whence the house is to be seen, we stopped and sat down on a bank under a sycamore tree. We could discern from thence persons going in and out of the doors, and the country-folk crowding about the windows for to catch a glimpse of the queen, the guard ever and anon pushing them back with their halberds. The numbers of them continually increased, and deputations began to arrive with processions and flags. It was passing strange for to be sitting there gazing as strangers on this turmoil, and folks crowding about that house the master of which was banished from it. At last we noticed an increased agitation amongst the people which seemed to presage the queen's coming out. Sounds of shouting proceeded from inside the building, and then a number of men issued from the front door, and pushing back the crowd advanced to the centre of the green plot in front and made a circle there with ropes.

"What sport are they making ready for?" I said, turning to Basil.

"God knoweth," he answered in a despondent tone. Then came others carrying a great armed-chair, which they placed on one side of the circle and other chairs beside it, and some country people brought in their arms loads of fagots, which they piled up in the midst of the green space. A painful suspicion crossed my mind, and I stole a glance at Basil for to see if the same thought had come to him. He was looking another way. I cast about if it should be possible on some pretence to draw him off from that spot, whence it misgave me a sorrowful sight should meet his eyes. But at that moment both of us were aroused by loud cries of "God save the queen!" "Long live Queen Elizabeth!" and we beheld her issue from the house bowing to the crowd, which filled the air with their cries and vociferous cheering. She seated herself in the armed-chair, her ladies and the chief persons of her train on each side of her. On the edge of this half-circle I discerned Hubert. The straining of mine eyes was very painful; they seemed to burn in their sockets. Basil had been watching the forth-coming of the queen, but his sight was not so quick as mine, and as yet no fear such as I entertained had struck him.

"What be they about?" he said to me with a good-natured smile. Before I could answer—"Good God!" he exclaimed in an altered voice; "what sound is that?" for suddenly yells and hooting noises arose, such as a mob do salute criminals with, and a kind of procession issued from the front door. "What, what is it?" cried Basil, seizing my hand with a convulsive grasp; "what do they carry?—not Blessed Mary's image?"

"Yea," I said, "I see Topcliffe walking in front of them. They will burn it. There, there—they do lift it in the air in mockery. Oh, some people do avoid and turn away; now they lay it down and light the fagots." Then I put my hand over his eyes for that he should not see a sort of dance which was performed around the fire, mixed with yells and insulting gestures, and the queen sitting and looking on. He forced my hand away; and when I said, "Oh, prithee, Basil, stay not here—come with me," he exclaimed.

"Let me go, Constance! let me go! Shall I stand aloof when at mine own door the Blessed Mother of God is outraged? Am I a Jew or a heretic that I should endure this sight and not smite this queen of earth, which dareth [{621}] to insult the Queen of Saints? Yea, if I should be torn to pieces, I will not suffer them to proceed."

I clung to him affrighted, and cried out, "Basil, you shall not go. Our Blessed Lady forbids it; your passion doth blind you. You will offend God and lose your soul if you do. Basil, dearest Basil, 'tis human anger, not godly sorrow only, moves you now." Then he cast himself down with his face on the ground and wept bitterly; which did comfort me, for his inflamed countenance had been terrible, and these tears came as a relief.

Meantime this disgusting scene ended, and the queen withdrew; after which the crowd slowly dispersed, smouldering ashes alone remaining in the midst of the burnt-up grass. Then Basil rose, folded his arms, and gazed on the scene in silence. At last he said:

"Constance, this house shall no longer be mine. God knoweth I have loved it well since my infancy. More dearly still since we forecasted together to serve God in it. But this scene would never pass away from my mind. This outrage hath stained the home of my fathers. This people, whose yells do yet ring in mine ears, can no longer be to me neighbors as heretofore, or this queen my queen. God forgive me if I do m in this. I do not curse her. No, God defend it! I pray that on her sad deathbed—for surely a sad one it must be—she shall cry for mercy and obtain it; but her subject I will not remain. I will compound my estate for a sum of money, and will go beyond seas, where God is served in a Catholic manner and his Holy Mother not dishonored. Wilt thou follow me there, Constance?"

I leant my head on his shoulder, weeping. "O, Basil," I cried, "I can answer only in the words of Ruth: 'Whithersoever thou shalt go, I will go; and where thou shalt dwell, I also will dwell. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.'"

He drew my arm in his, and we walked slowly away toward Fakenham. Wishing to prepare his mind for a possible misfortune, I said: "We be a thousand times happier than those which shall possess thy lands."

"What say you?" he quickly answered; "who shall possess them?"

"God knoweth," I replied, afraid to speak further.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed: "a dreadful thought cometh to me; where was Hubert this morning?"

I remained silent.

"Speak, speak! O Constance, God defend he was there!"

His grief and horror were so great I durst not reveal the truth, but made some kind of evasive answer. To this day methinks he is ignorant on that point.

The queen and the court departed from Euston soon after two of the clock; not before, as I since heard, the church furniture and books had been all destroyed, and a malicious report set about that a piece of her majesty's plate was missing, as an excuse for to misuse the poor servants which had showed grief at the destruction carried on before their eyes. When notice of their departure reached Banham Hall, whither we had returned, Basil immediately went back to Euston. I much lamented he should be alone that evening, in the midst of so many sad sights and thoughts as his house now should afford him, little forecasting the event which, by a greater mishap, surmounted minor subjects of grief.

About six of the clock, Sir Francis Walsingham, attended by an esquire and two grooms, arrived at Lady Tregony's seat, and was received by her with the courtesy she was wont to observe with every one. After some brief discoursing with her on indifferent matters, he said his business was with young Mistress Sherwood, and he desired to see her alone. Thereupon I was fetched to him, and straightway he began to speak of the queen's good opinion of me, and that her highness had been well contented [{622}] with my behavior when I had been admitted into her presence at his house; and that it should well please her majesty I should marry a faithful subject of her majesty's, whom she had taken into her favor, and then she would do us both good.

I looked in a doubtful manner at Sir Francis, feigning to misapprehend his meaning, albeit too clear did it appear to me. Seeing I did not speak, he went on:

"It is her majesty's gracious desire, Mistress Sherwood, that you should marry young Rookwood, her newly appointed servant, and from this time possessor of Euston House, and all lands appertaining unto it, which have devolved upon him in virtue of his brother's recusancy and his own recent conformity."

"Sir," I answered, "my troth is plighted to his brother, a good man and an honorable gentleman, up to this time master of Euston and its lands; and whatever shall betide him or his possessions, none but him shall be my husband, if ten thousand queens as great as this one should proffer me another."

"Madam," said Sir Francis, "be not too rash in your pledges. I should be loth to think one so well trained in virtue and loyalty should persist in maintaining a troth-plight with a convicted recusant, an exceeding malignant papist, who is at this moment in the hands of the pursuivants, and by order of her majesty's council committed to Norwich gaol. If he should (which is doubtful) escape such a sentence as should ordain him to a lasting imprisonment or perpetual banishment from this realm, his poverty must needs constrain him to relinquish all pretensions to your hand: for his brother, a most learned, well-disposed, commendable young gentleman, with such good parts as fit him to aspire to some high advancement in the state and at court, having conformed some days ago to the established religion and given many proofs of his zeal and sincerity therein, his brother's estates, as is most just, have devolved on him, and a more worthy and, I may add, from long and constant devotion and fervent humble passion long since entertained for yourself, more desirable candidate for your hand could not easily be found."

I looked fixedly at Sir Francis, and then said, subduing my voice as much as possible, and restraining all gestures:

"Sir, you have, I ween, a more deep knowledge of men's hearts and a more piercing insight into their thoughts than any other person in the world. You are wiser than any other statesman, and your wit and sagacity are spoken of all over Christendom. But methinketh, sir, there are two things which, wise and learned as you are, you are yet ignorant of, and these are a woman's heart and a Catholic's faith. I would as soon wed the meanest clown which yelled this day at Blessed Mary's image, as the future possessor of Euston, the apostate Hubert Rookwood. Now, sir, I pray you, send for the pursuivants, and let me be committed to gaol for the same crime as my betrothed husband, God knoweth I will bless you for it."

"Madam," Sir Francis coldly answered, "the law taketh no heed of persons out of their senses. A frantic passion and an immoderate fanaticism have distracted your reason. Time and reflection will, I doubt not, recall you to better and more comfortable sentiments; in which case I pray you to have recourse to my good offices, which shall ever be at your service."

Then bowing, he left me; and when he was gone, and the tumult of my soul had subsided, I lamented my vehemency, for methought if I had been more cunning in my speech, I could have done Basil some good; but now it was too late, and verily, if again exposed to the same temptation, I doubt if I could have dissembled the indignant feelings which Sir Francis's advocacy of Hubert's suit worked in me.

Lady Tregony, pitying my unhappy plight, proposed to travel with me to [{623}] London, where I was now desirous to return, for there I thought some steps might be taken to procure Basil's release, with more hope of success than if I tarried in the scene of our late happiness. She did me also the good to go with me in the first place to Norwich, where, by means of that same governor to whom Sir Hammond l'Estrange had once written in my father's behalf, we obtained for to see Basil for a few minutes. His brother's apostasy, and the painful suspicion that it was by his means the secret of Owen's cell at Euston had been betrayed, gave him infinite concern; but his own imprisonment and losses he bore with very great cheerfulness; and we entertained ourselves with the thought of a small cottage beyond seas, which henceforward became the theme of such imaginings as lovers must needs cherish to keep alive the flame of hope. Two days afterward I reached London, having travelled very fast, and only slept one night on the road.

It sometimes happens that certain misfortunes do overtake us which, had we foreseen, we should well-nigh have despaired, and misdoubted with what strength we should meet them; but God is very merciful, and fitteth the back to the burthen. If at the time that Basil left me at four of the clock to return to Euston, without any doubt on our minds to meet the next day, I should have known how long a parting was at hand, methinks all courage would have failed me. But hope worketh patience, and patience in return breedeth hope, and the while the soul is learning lessons of resignation, which at first would have seemed too hard. At the outset of this trouble, I expected he should have soon been set at liberty on the payment of a fine; but I had forgot he was now a poor man, well-nigh beggared by the loss of his inheritance. Mr. Swithin Wells, one of the best friends he and myself had—for, alas! good Mr. Roper had died during my absence—told me that, when Hubert heard of his brother's arrest, he fell into a great anguish of mind, and dealt earnestly with his new patrons to procure his release, but with no effect. Then, in a letter which he sent him, he offered to remit unto him whatever moneys he desired out of his estates; but Basil steadfastly refused to receive from him so much as one penny, and to this day has persisted in this resolve. I have since seen the letter which he wrote to him on this occasion, in which this resolution was expressed, but in no angry or contumelious terms, freely yielding him his entire forgiveness for his offence against him, if indeed any did exist, but such as was next to nothing in comparison of the offence toward God committed in the abandonment of his faith; and with all earnestness beseeching him to think seriously upon his present state, and to consider if the course he had taken, contrary to the breeding and education he had received, should tend to his true honor, reputation, contentment of mind, and eternal salvation. This he said he did plainly, for the discharge of his own conscience, and the declaration of an abiding love for him.

For the space of a year and two months he remained in prison at Norwich, Mr. Wells and Mr. Lacy furnishing him with assistance, without which he should have lacked the necessaries of life; leastways such conveniences as made his sufferings tolerable. At the end of that time, it may be by Hubert's or some other friend's efforts, a sentence of banishment was passed upon him, and he went beyond seas. I would fain have then joined him, but it pleased not God it should be at that time possible. Some moneys which were owing to him by a well-disposed debtor he looked for to recover, but till that happened he had not means for his own subsistence, much less wherewith to support a wife in howsoever humble a fashion. Dr. Allen (now cardinal) invited him to Rheims, and received him there with open arms. My father, during the last years of his life, found in him a most dutiful and affectionate son, [{624}] who closed his eyes with a true filial reverence. Our love waxed not for this long separation less ardent or less tender; only more patient, more exalted, more inwardly binding, now so much the more outwardly impeded. The greatest excellency I found in myself was the power of apprehending and the virtue of loving his. If his name appear not so frequently in this my writing as it hath hitherto done, even as his visible presence was lacking in that portion of my life which followed his departure, the thought of him never leaves me. If I speak of virtue in any one else, my mind turns to him, the most perfect exemplar I have met with of self-forgetting goodness; if of love, my heart recalls the perfect exchange of affection which doth link his soul with mine; if of joy, the memory of that pure happiness I found in his society; if of sorrow, of the perpetual grief his absence did cause me; if of hope, the abiding anchor whereon I rested mine during the weary years of separation. Yea, when I do write the words faith, honor, nobility, firmness, tenderness, then I think I am writing my dear Basil's name.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The year which followed Basil's arrest, and during which he was in the prison at Norwich, I wholly spent in London; not with any success touching the procuring of his release, as I had expected, but with a constant hope thereof which had its fulfilment later, albeit not by any of the means I had looked to. I shared the while with Muriel the care of her now aged and very infirm parents, taking her place at home when she went abroad on her charitable errands, or employed by her in the like good works when my ability would serve. A time cometh in most persons' lives, when maturity doth supplant youthfulness. I say most persons, because I have noticed that there are some who never do seem to attain unto any maturity of mind, and do live and die with the same childish spirit they had in youth. To others this change, albeit real, is scarcely perceptible, so gradual are its effects; but some again, either from a natural thoughtfulness, or by the influence of circumstances tending to sober in them the exuberance of spirits which appertaineth to early age, do wax mature in disposition before they grow old in years; and this befel me at that time. The eager temper, the intent desire and pursuit of enjoyment (of a good and innocent sort, I thank God) which had belonged to me till then, did so much and visibly abate, that it caused me some astonishment to see myself so changed. Joyful hours I have since known, happy days wherein mine heart hath been raised in adoring thankfulness to the Giver of all good; but the color of my mind hath no more resembled that of former years, than the hues of the evening sky can be likened to the roseate flush of early morning. The joys have been tasted, the happiness relished, but not with the same keenness as heretofore. Mine own troubles, the crowning one of Basil's misfortune, and what I continued then to witness in others of mine own faith, wrought in me these effects. The life of a Catholic in England in these days must needs, I think, produce one of two frames of mind. Either he will harbor angry passions, which religion reproves, which change a natural indignation into an unchristian temper of hatred, and lead him into plots and treasons; or else he becomes detached from the world, very quiet, given to prayer, ready to take at God's hands, and as from him at men's also, sufferings of all kinds; and even those as yet removed from so great perfection learn to be still, and to bethink themselves rather of the next world than of the present one, more than even good people did in old tunes.

The only friends I haunted at that time were Mr. and Mrs. Swithin Wells. [{625}] In the summer of that year I heard one day, when in their company, that Father Edmund Campion was soon to arrive in London. Father Parsons was then lodging at Master George Gilbert's house, and much talk was ministered touching this other priest's landing, and how he should be conducted thither in safety. Bryan Lacy, Thomas James, and many others, took it by turns to watch at the landing-place where he was expected to disembark. Each evening Mr. Wells's friends came for to hear news thereof. One day, when no tidings of it had yet transpired, and the company was leaving, Mr. James comes in, and having shut the door, and glanced round the room before speaking, says, with a smile,

"What think you, sirs and ladies?"

"Master Campion is arrived," cries Mistress Wells.

"God be praised!" cries her husband, and all giving signs of joy do gather round Mr. James for to hear the manner of his landing.

"Well," quoth he, "I had been pacing up and down the quay for well-nigh five hours, when I discerned a boat, which (God only knoweth wherefore) I straightway apprehended to be the one should bring Master Campion. And when it reached the landing-place, beshrew me if I did not at once see a man dressed in some kind of a merchant suit, which, from the marks I had of his features from Master Parsons, I made sure was the reverend father. So when he steps out of the boat I stand close to him, and in an audible voice, 'Good morrow, Edmund,' says I, which he hearing, turns round and looks me in the face. We both smile and shake hands, and I lead him at once to Master Gilbert's house. Oh, I promise you, it was with no small comfort to myself I brought that work to a safe ending. But now, sir," he continued, turning to Mr. Wells, "what think you of this? Nothing will serve Master Campion but a place must be immediately hired, and a spacious one also, for him to begin at once to preach, for he saith he is here but for that purpose, and that he would not the pursuivants should catch him before he hath opened his lips in England; albeit, if God will grant him for the space of one year to exercise his ministry in this realm, he is most content to lay down his life afterward. And methinks he considers Almighty God doth accept this bargain, and is in haste for to begin."

"Hath Master Gilbert called his friends together for to consider of it?" asked Mr. Wells.

"Yea," answered Mr. James. "Tomorrow, at ten of the clock, a meeting will be held, not at his house, for greater security, but at Master Brown's shop in Southwark, for this purpose, and he prayeth you to attend it, sir, and you, and you, and you," he continued, turning to Bryan Lacy, William Gresham, Godfrey Fuljambe, Gervase Pierpoint, and Philip and Charles Bassett, which were all present.

The next day I heard from Mrs. Wells that my Lord Paget, at the instigation of his friends which met at Mr. Brown's, had hired, in his own name, Noel House, in the which one very large chamber should serve as a chapel, and that on the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, which fell on the coming Sunday, Father Campion would say mass there, and for the first time preach. She said the chief Catholics in London had combined for to send there, in the night, some vestments, some ornaments for the altar, books, and all that should be needful for divine worship. And the young noblemen and gentlemen which had been at her house the night before, and many others also, such as Lord Vaux, William and Richard Griffith, Arthur Cresswell, Charles Tilvey, Stephen Berkeley, James Hill, Thomas de Salisbury, Thomas Fitzherbert, Jerom Bellamy, Thomas Pound, Richard Stanyhurst, Thomas Abington, and Charles Arundel (this was one of the Queen's pages, but withal a zealous Catholic), had joined themselves in a [{626}] company, for to act, some as sacristans of this secret chapel, some as messengers, to go round and give notice of the preachments, and some as porters, which would be a very weighty office, for one unreliable person admitted into that oratory should be the ruin of all concerned.

Muriel and I, with Mr. Wells, went at an early hour on the Sunday to Noel House. Master Philip Bassett was at the door. He smiled when he saw us, and said he supposed he needed not to ask us for the password. The chamber into which we went was so large, and the altar so richly adorned, that the like, I ween, had not been seen since the queen had changed the religion of the country.

Mass was said by Father Campion, and that noble company of devout gentlemen aforementioned almost all communicated thereat, and many others beside, an ladies not a few. When mass was ended, and Father Campion stood up for to begin his sermon, so deep a silence reigned in that crowded assembly—for the chamber was more full than it could well hold—that a pin should have been heard to drop. Some thirsting for to hear Catholic preaching, so rare in these days, some eager to listen to the words of a man famous for his learning and parts, both before and after his conversion, beyond any other in this country. For mine own part, methought his very countenance was a preachment. When his eyes addressed themselves to heaven, it seemed as if they did verily see God, so piercing, so awed, so reverent was their gaze. He took for his text the words, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." My whole soul was fastened on his words; and albeit I have had but scant occasion to compare one preacher with another, I do not think it should be possible for a more pathetic and stirring eloquence to flow from human lips than his who that day gave God's message to a suffering and persecuted people. I had not taken mine eyes off his pale and glowing face not for so much as one instant, until, near the close of his discourse, I chanced to turn them to a place almost hidden by the curtain of an altar, where some gentlemen were standing, concealing themselves from sight. Alas! in one instant the fervent glowing of my heart, the staid, rapt intentness with which I had listened, the heavenward lifting up of my soul, vanished as if a vision of death had risen before me. I had seen Hubert Rookwood's face, that face so like—oh, what anguish was that likeness to me then!—to my Basil's. No one but me could perceive him, he was so hid by the curtain; but where I sat it opened a little, and disclosed the stern, melancholy, beautiful visage of the apostate, the betrayer of his own brother, the author of our ruin, the destroyer of our happiness. I thank God that I first beheld him again in that holy place, by the side of the altar whereon Jesus had lately descended, whilst the words of his servant were in mine ears, speaking of love and patience. It was not hatred, God knoweth it, I then felt for Basil's brother, but only terror for all present, and for him also, if peradventure he was there with an evil intent. Mine eyes were fixed as by a spell on his pale face, the while Father Campion's closing words were uttered, which spoke of St. Peter, of his crime and of his penance, of his bitter tears and his burning love. "If," he cried, "there be one here present on whose soul doth lie the guilt of a like sin; one peradventure yet more guilty than Peter; one like Judas in his crime; one like Judas in his despair—to him I say, There is mercy for thee; there is hope for thee, there is heaven for thee, if thou wilt have it. Doom not thyself, and God will never doom thee." These or the like words (for memory doth ill serve me to recall the fervent adjurations of that apostolical man) he used; and, lo, I beheld tears running down like rain from Hubert's eyes—an unchecked, [{627}] vehement torrent which seemed to defy all restraint. How I blessed those tears! what a yearning pity seized me for him who did shed them! How I longed to clasp his hand and to weep with him! I lost sight of him when the sermon was finished; but in the street, when we departed—which was done slowly and by degrees, for to avoid notice, four or five only going out at a time—I saw him on the other side of the pavement. Our eyes met; he stopped in a hesitating manner, and I also doubted what to do, for I thought Mistress Wells and Muriel would be averse to speak to him. Then he rapidly crossed over, and said, in a whisper:

"Will you see me, Constance, if I come to you this evening?"

I pondered; I feared to quench, it might be, a good resolve, or precipitate an evil one by a refusal; and building hopes of the former on the tears I had seen him shed, I said:

"Yea, if you come as Basil's brother and mine."

He turned and walked hastily away.

Mistress Wells and Muriel asked me with some affright if it was Hubert who had spoken to me, for they had scarce seen his face, although from his figure they had judged it was him; and when I told them he had been at Noel House, "Then we are undone!" the one exclaimed; and Muriel said, "We must straightway apprise Mr. Wells thereof; but there should be hopes, I think, he came there in some good disposition."

"I think so too," I answered, and told them of the emotion which I had noticed in him at the close of the sermon, which comforted them not a little. But he came not that evening; and Mr. Wells discovered the next day that it was Thomas Fitzherbert, who had lately arrived in London, and was not privy to his late conformity, which had invited him to come to Noel House. Father Campion continued to preach once a day at the least, often twice, and sometimes thrice, and very marvellous effects ensued. Each day greater crowds did seek admittance for to hear him, and Noel House was as openly frequented as if it had been a public church. Numbers of well-disposed Protestants came for to hear him, and it was bruited at the time that Lord Arundel had been amongst them. He converted many of the best sort, beside young gentlemen students, and others of all conditions, which by day, and some by night, sought to confer with him. I went to the preachments as often as possible. We could scarce credit our eyes and ears, so singular did it appear that one should dare to preach, and so many to listen to Catholic doctrine, and to seek to be reconciled in the midst of so great dangers, and under the pressure of tyrannic laws. Every day some newcomer was to be seen at Noel House, sometimes their faces concealed under great hats, sometimes stationed behind curtains or open doors for to escape observation.

After some weeks had thus passed, when I ceased to expect Hubert should come, he one day asked to see me, and having sent for Kate, who was then in the house, I did receive him. Her presence appeared greatly to displease him, but he began to speak to me in Italian; and first he complained of Basil's pride, which would not suffer him to receive any assistance from him who should be so willing to give it.

"Would you—" I said, and was about to add some cutting speech, but I resolved to restrain myself and by no indiscreet words to harden his soul against remorse, or perhaps endanger others. Then, after some other talking, he told me in a cunning manner, making his meaning clear, but not couching it in direct terms, that if I would conform to the Protestant religion and marry him, Basil should be, he could warrant it, set at liberty, and he would make over to him more than one-half of the income of his estates yearly, which, being done in secret, the law could not then touch him. I made no answer thereunto, but fixing mine eyes on him, said, in English:

[{628}]

"Hubert, what should be your opinion of the sermon on St. Peter and St. Paul's Day?" He changed color. "Was it not," I said, "a moving one?" Biting his lip, he replied:

"I deny not the preacher's talent."

"O Hubert," I exclaimed, "fence not yourself with evasive answers. I know you believe as a Catholic."

"The devils believe," he answered.

"Hubert," I then said, with all the energy of my soul, "if you would not miserably perish—if you would not lose your soul—promise me this night to retrace your steps; to seek Father Campion and be reconciled." His lip quivered; methought I could almost see his good angel on one side of him and a tempting fiend on the other. But the last prevailed, for with a bitter sneer he said:

"Yea, willingly, fair saint, if you will marry me."

Kate, who till then had not much understood what had passed, cried out, "Fie, Hubert, fie on thee to tempt her to abandon Basil, and he a prisoner."

"Madam," he said, turning to her, "recusants should not be so bold in their language. The laws of the land are transgressed in a very daring manner now-a-days, and those who obey them taunted for the performance of their duty to the queen and the country."

Oh, what a hard struggle it proved to be patient; to repress the vehement reproaches which hovered on my lips. Kate looked at me affrighted. I trembled from head to foot. Father Campion's life and the fate of many others, it might be, were in the hands of this man, this traitor, this spy. To upbraid him I dared not, but wringing my hands, exclaimed:

"O Hubert, Hubert! for thy mother's sake, who looks down on us from heaven, listen to me. There be no crimes which may not be forgiven; but some there be which if one doth commit them he forgiveth not himself, and is likely to perish miserably."

"Think you I know this not?" he fiercely cried; "think you not that I suffer even now the torment you speak of, and envy the beggar in the street his stupid apathy?" He drew a paper from his bosom and unfolded it. A terrible gleam shot through his eyes. "I could compel you to be my wife."

"No," I said, looking him in the face, "neither man nor fiends can give you that power. God alone can do it, and he will not."

"Do you see this paper?" he asked. "Here are the names of all the recusants who have been reconciled by the Pope's champion. I have but to speak the word, and to-morrow they are lodged in the Marshalsea or the Tower, and the priest first and foremost."

"But you will not do it," I said, with a singular calmness. "No, Hubert; as God Almighty liveth, you will not. You cannot commit this crime, this foul murther."

"If it should come to that," he fiercely cried, "if blood should be shed, on your head it will fall. You can save them if you list."

"Would you compel me by a bloody threat to utter a false vow?" I said. "O Hubert, Hubert! that you, you should threaten to betray a priest, to denounce Catholics! There was a day—have you forgot it?—when at the chapel at Euston, your father at your side, you knelt, an innocent child, at the altar's rail, and a priest came to you and said, 'Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam ad vitam aeternam. ' If any one had then told you"—

"Oh, for God's sake speak not of it!" he wildly cried; "that way madness doth lie."

"No, no," I cried; "not madness, but hope and return."

A change came over his face; he thrust the paper in my hand. "Destroy it," he cried; "destroy it, Constance!" And then bursting into tears, "God knoweth I never meant to do it."

"O Hubert, you have been mad, dear brother, more mad than guilty. Pray, and God will bless you."

"Call me not brother, Constance Would to God I had been only mad! But it is too late now to think on it."

[{629}]

"Nay, nay," I cried, "it never is too late."

"Pray for me then," he said, and went to the door: but, turning suddenly, whispered in a scarce audible manner, "Ask Father Campion to pray for me," and then rushed out.

Kate had now half-fainted, and would have it we were all going to be killed. I pacified and sent her home, lest she should fright her parents with her rambling speeches.

Albeit Hubert's last words had seemed to be sincere, I could not but call to mind how, after he had been apparently cut to the heart and moved even to tears by Father Campion's preaching, he had soon uttered threats which, howsoever recalled, left me in doubt if it should be safe to rely on his silence; so I privately informed Mr. Wells, and he Master George Gilbert and Father Parsons, of what had passed between us. At the same time, I have never known whether by Hubert's means, or in any other way, her majesty's council got wind of the matter, and gave out that great confederacies were made by the Pope and foreign princes for the invasion of this country, and that Jesuits and seminary priests were sent to prepare their ways. Exquisite diligence was used for the apprehension of all such, but more particularly the Pope's champion, as Master Campion was called. So in the certainty that Hubert was privy to the existence of the chapel at Noel House, and that many Protestants were also acquainted with it, and likewise with his lodging at Master Elliot's, where not a few resorted to him in the night, he was constrained by Father Parsons to leave London, to the no small regret of Catholics and others also which greatly admired his learning and eloquence, the like of which was not to be found in any other person at that time. None of those which had attended the preachments at Noel House were accused, nor the place wherein they had met disclosed, which inclineth me to think Hubert did not reveal to her majesty's government his knowledge thereof.

About two months afterward Basil's release and banishment happened. I would fain have seen him on his way to the coast; but the order for his departure was so sudden and peremptory, the queen's officers not losing sight of him until he was embarked on a vessel going to France, that I was deprived of that happiness. That he was no longer a prisoner I rejoiced; but it seemed as if a second and more grievous separation had ensued, now that the sea did divide me from the dear object of my love.

Lady Arundel, whose affectionate heart resented with the most tender pity the abrupt interruption of our happiness, had often written to me during this year to urge my coming to Arundel Castle; "for," said she, "methinks, my dear Constance, a third turtle-dove might now be added to the two on the Queen of Scotland's design; and on thy tree, sweet one, the leaves are, I warrant thee, very green yet, and future joys shall blossom on its wholesome branches, which are pruned but not destroyed, injured but not withered." She spoke with no small contentment of her then residence, that noble castle, her husband's worthiest possession (as she styled it), and the grandest jewel of his earldom. For albeit (thus she wrote) "Kenninghall is larger in the extent it doth cover and embrace, and far more rich in its decorations and adornments, I hold it not to be comparable in true dignity to this castle, which, for the strength of its walls, the massive grandeur of its keep, the vast forests which do encircle it, the river which bathes its feet, the sea in its vicinity and to be seen from its tower, the stately trees about it, and the clinging ivy which softens with abundant verdure the stern, frowning walls, hath not its like in all England." But a letter I had from this dear lady a few months after this one contained the most joyful news I could receive, as will be seen by those who read it:

"My good Constance" (her ladyship wrote), "I would I had you a prisoner in this fortress, to hold and detain at [{630}] my pleasure. Methinks I will present thee as a recusant, and sue for the privilege of thy custody. Verily, I should keep good watch over thee. There be dungeons enough, I warrant you, in the keep, wherein to imprison runaway friends. Master Bayley doth take great pains to explain to me the names and old uses of the towers, chapels, and buildings within and without the castle, which do testify to the zeal and piety of past generations: the Chapel of St. Martin, in the keep, which was the oratory of the garrison; the old collegiate buildings of the College of the Holy Trinity; the b Maison-Dieu, designed by Richard, Earl of Arundel, and built by his son on the right bank of the river, for the harboring of twenty aged and poor men, either unmarried or widowers, which, from infirmity, were unable to provide for their own support; the Priory of the Friars Preachers, with the rising gardens behind it; the Chapel of Blessed Mary, over the gate; that of St. James ad Leprosos, which was attached to the Leper's Hospital; and St. Lawrence's, which standeth on the hill above the tower; and in the valley below, the Priory of St. Bartholomew, built by Queen Adeliza for the monks of St. Austin. Verily the poor were well cared for when all these monasteries and hospitals did exist; and it doth grieve me to think that the moneys which were designed by so many pious men of past ages for the good of religion should now be paid to my lord, and spent in worldly and profane uses. Howsoever, I have better hopes than heretofore that he will one day serve God in a Christian manner. And now, methinks, after much doubting if I should dare for to commit so weighty a secret unto paper, that I must needs tell thee, as this time I send my letter by a trusty messenger, what, if I judge rightly, will prove so great a comfort to thee, my dear Constance, that thine own griefs shall seem the lighter for it. Thou dost well know how long I have been well-affected to Catholic religion, increasing therein daily more and more, but yet not wholly resolved to embrace and profess it. But by reading a book treating of the danger of schism, soon after my coming here, I was so efficaciously moved, that I made a firm purpose to become a member of the Catholic and only true Church of God. I charged Mr. Bayley to seek out a grave and ancient priest, and to bring him here privately; for I desired very much that my reconciliation, and meeting with this priest to that intent, should be kept as secret as was possible, for the times are more troublesome than ever, and I would fain have none to know of it until I can disclose it myself to my lord in a prudent manner. I have, as thou knoweth, no Catholic women about me, nor any one whom I durst acquaint with this business; so I was forced to go alone at an unseasonable hour from mine own lodging in the castle, by certain dark ways and obscure passages, to the chamber where this priest (whose name, for greater prudence, I mention not here) was lodged, there to make my confession—it being thought, both by Mr. Bayley and myself, that otherwise it could not possibly be done without discovery, or at least great danger thereof. Oh, mine own dear Constance, when I returned by the same way I had gone, lightened of a burthen so many years endured, cheered by the thought of a reconcilement so long desired, strengthened and raised, leasts ways for a while, above all worldly fears, darkness appeared light, rough paths smooth; the moon, shining through the chinks of the secret passage, which I thought had shed before a ghastly light on the uneven walls, now seemed to yield a mild and pleasant brightness, like unto that of God's grace in a heart at peace. And this exceeding contentment and steadfastness of spirit have not—praise him for it—since left me; albeit I have much cause for apprehension in more ways than one; for what in these days is so secret it becometh not known? But whatever now shall befal me—public dangers or private sorrows—my [{631}] feet do rest on a rock, not on the shifting sands of human thinkings, and I am not afraid of what man can do unto me. Yea, Philip's displeasure I can now endure, which of all things in the world I have heretofore most apprehended."

The infinite contentment this letter gave me distracted me somewhat from the anxious thoughts that filled my mind at the time it reached me, which was soon after Hubert's visit. A few days afterward Lady Arundel wrote again:

"My lord has been here, but stayed only a brief time. I found him very affectionate in his behavior, but his spirits so much depressed that I feared something had disordered him. Conversation seemed a burthen to him, and he often shut himself up in his own chamber or walked into the park with only his dog. When I spoke to him he would smile with much kindness, uttering such words as 'sweet wife,' or 'dearest Nan,' and then fall to musing again, as if his mind had been too oppressed with thinking to allow of speech. The day before he left I was sorting flowers at one end of the gallery in a place which the wall projecting doth partly conceal. I saw him come from the hall up the stairs into it, and walk to and fro in an agitated manner, his countenance very much troubled, and his gestures like unto those of a person in great perplexity of mind. I did not dare so much as to stir from where I stood, but watched him for a long space of time with incredible anxiety. Sometimes he stopped and raised his hand to his forehead. Another while he went to the window and looked intently, now at the tower and the valley beyond it, now up to the sky, on which the last rays of the setting sun were throwing a deep red hue, as if the world had been on fire. Then turning back, he joined his hands together and anon sundered them again, pacing up and down the while more rapidly than before, as if an inward conflict urged this unwitting speed. At last I saw him stand still, lift up his hands and eyes to heaven, and move his lips as if in prayer. What passed in his mind then, God only knowcth. He is the most reluctant person in the world to disclose his thoughts.

"When an hour afterward we met in the library his spirits seemed somewhat improved. He spoke of his dear sister Meg with much affection, and asked me if I had heard from Bess. Lord William, he said, was the best brother a man ever had; and that it should like him well to spend his life in any corner of the world God should appoint for him, so that he had to keep him company Will and Meg and his dear Nan, 'which I have so long ill-treated,' he added, 'that as long as I live I shall not cease to repent of it; and God he knoweth I deserve not so good a wife;' with many other like speeches which I wish he would not use, for it grieveth me he should disquiet himself for what is past, when his present kindness doth so amply recompense former neglect. Mine own Constance, I pray you keep your courage alive in your afflictions. There be no lane so long but it hath a turning, the proverb saith. My sorrows seemed at one time without an issue. Now light breaketh through the yet darksome clouds which do environ us. So will it be with thee. Burn this letter, seeing it doth contain what may endanger the lives of more persons than one.—Thy loving, faithful friend,
"ANN, ARUNDEL AND SURREY."

A more agitated letter followed this one, written at different times, and detained for some days for lack of a safe messenger to convey it.

"What I much fear," so it began, "is the displeasure of my lord when he comes to know of my reconcilement, for it cannot, I think, be long concealed from him. This my fear, dear Constance, hath been much increased by the coming down from London of one of his chaplains, who affirms he was sent on purpose by the earl to read prayers and to preach to me and my family; and on last [{632}] Sunday he came into the great chamber of the castle, expecting and desiring to know my pleasure therein. I thought best for to send for him to my chamber, and I desired him not to trouble himself nor me in that matter, for I would satisfy the earl therein. But oh, albeit I spoke very composedly, my apprehensions are very great. For see, my dear friend, Philip hath been but lately reconciled to me, and his fortunes are in a very desperate condition, so that he may think I have given the last blow to them by this act, which his enemies will surely brave at. Think not I do repent of it. God knoweth I should as soon repent of my baptism as of my return to his true Church; but though the spirit is steadfast, the flesh is weak, and the heart also. What will he say to me when he cometh? He did once repulse me, but hath never upbraided me. How shall I bear new frowns after recent caresses?—peradventure an eternal parting after a late reunion? O Constance, pray for me. But I remember I have no means for to send this letter. But God be praised, I have now friends in heaven which I may adjure to pray for me who have at hand no earthly ones."

Four or live days later, her ladyship thus finished her letter:

"God is very merciful; oh, let his holy name be praised and magnified for ever! Now the weight of a mountain is off my heart. Now I care not for what man may do unto me. Phil has been here, and I promise thee, dear Constance, when his horse stopped at the castle-door, my heart almost stopped its beating, so great was my apprehension of his anger. But, to my great joy and admiration, he kissed me very tenderly, and did not speak the least word of the chaplain's errand. And when we did walk out in the evening, and, mounting to the top of the keep, stood there looking on the fine trees and the sun sinking into the sea, my dear lord, who had been some time silent, turned to me and said, 'Meg has become Catholic.' Joy and surprise almost robbed me of my breath; for next to his reconcilement his sister's was what I most desired in the world, and also I knew what a particular love he had ever shown for her, as being his only sister, by reason whereof he would not seem to be displeased with her change, and consequently he could not in reason be much offended with myself for being what she was; so when he said, 'Meg has become Catholic,' I leant my face against his shoulder, and whispered, 'So hath Nan.' He spoke not nor moved for some minutes. Methinks he could have heard the beatings of my heart. I was comforted that, albeit he uttered not so much as one word, he made no motion for to withdraw himself from me, whose head still rested against his bosom. Suddenly he threw his arms about me, and strained me to his breast. So tender an embrace I had never before had from him, and I felt his tears falling on my head. But speech there was none touching my change. Howsoever, before he left me I said to him 'My dear Phil, Holy Scripture doth advise those who enter into the service of Almighty God to prepare themselves for temptation. As soon as I resolved to become Catholic, I did deeply imprint this in my mind; for the times are such that I must expect to suffer for that cause.' 'Yea, dearest Nan,' he answered, with great kindness, 'I doubt not thou hast taken the course which will save thy soul from the danger of shipwreck, although it doth subject thy body to the peril of misfortune.' Then waxing bolder, I said, 'And thou, Phil—' and there stopped short, looking what I would speak. He seemed to struggle for a while with some inward difficulty of speaking his mind, but at last he began, 'Nan, I will not become Catholic before I can resolve to live as a Catholic, and I defer the former until I have an intent and resolute purpose to perform the latter. O Nan, when I [{633}] think of my vile usage of thee, whom I should have so much loved and esteemed for thy virtue and discretion; of my wholly neglecting, in a manner, my duty to the earl my grandfather, and my aunt Lady Lumley; of my wasting, by profuse expenses, of great sums of money in the following of the courts, the estate which was left me, and a good quantity of thine own lands also; but far more than all, my total forgetting of my duty to Almighty God—for, carried away with company, youthful entertainments, pleasures, and delights, my mind being wholly possessed with them, I did scarce so much as think of God, or of anything concerning religion or the salvation of my soul—I do feel myself unworthy of pardon, and utterly to be contemned.'

"So much goodness, humility, and virtuous intent was apparent in this speech, and such comfortable hopes of future excellence, that I could not forbear from exclaiming, 'My dear Phil, I ween thou wilt be one of those who shall love God much, forasmuch as he will have forgiven thee much.' And then I asked him how long it was since this change in his thinking, albeit not yet acted upon, had come to him? He said, it so happened that he was present, the year before, at a disputation held in the Tower of London, between Mr. Sherwin and some other priests on the one part, Charles Fulk, Whittakers, and some other Protestant ministers on the other; and, by what he heard and saw there, he had perceived, he thought, on which side the truth and true religion was, though at the time he neither did intend to embrace or follow it. But, he added, what had moved him of late most powerfully thereunto was a sermon of Father Campion's, which he had heard at Noel House, whither Charles Arundel had carried him, some days before his last visit to me. 'The whole of those days,' he said, 'my mind was so oppressed with remorse and doubt, that I knew no peace, until one evening, by a special grace of God, when I was walking alone in the gallery, I firmly resolved—albeit I knew not how or when to accomplish this purpose—to become a member of his Church, and to frame my life according to it; but I would not acquaint thee, or any other person living, with this intention, until I had conferred thereof with my brother William. Thou knowest, Nan, the very special love I bear him, and which he hath ever shown to me. Well, a few days after I returned to London, I met him accidentally in the street, he having come from Cumberland touching some matter of Bess's lands; and taking him home with me, I discovered to him my determination, somewhat covertly at first; and after I lent him a book to read, which was written not long ago by Dr. Allen, and have dealt with him so efficaciously that he has also resolved to become Catholic. He is to meet me again next week, for further conference touching the means of putting this intent into execution, which verily I see not how to effect, being so watched by servants and so-called friends, which besiege my doors and haunt mine house in London on all occasions.'

"This difficulty, dear Constance, I sought to remedy by acquainting my lord that his secretary, Mr. Mumford, was Catholic, and he could, therefore, disclose his thought with safety to him. And I also advised him to seek occasion to know Mr. Wells and some other zealous persons, which would confirm him in his present resolution and aid him in the execution thereof. It may be, therefore, you will soon see him, and fervently do I commend him to thy prayers and whatever service in the one thing needful should be in thy power to procure for him. My heart is so transported with joy that I never remember the like emotions to have filled it. My most hope for this present time at least had been he should show no dislike to my being Catholic; and lo, I find him to be one in heart, and soon to be so in effect; [{634}] and the great gap between us, which so long hath been a yawing chasm of despair, now filled up with a renewed love, and yet more by a parity of thinking touching what it most behoveth us to be united in. Deo gratias!"

Here this portion of my lady's manuscript ended, but these few hasty lines were written below, visibly by a trembling hand, and the whole closed, I ween, abruptly. Methinks it was left for me at Mr. Wells's, where I found it, by Mr. Mumford, or some other Catholic in the earl's household:

"The inhabitants of Arundel have presented me for a recusant, and Mr. Bayley has been committed and accused before the Bishop of Chichester as a seminary priest. He hath, of course, easily cleared himself of this; but because he will not take the oath of supremacy, he is forced to quit the country. He hath passed into Flanders."

And then for many weeks I had no tidings of the dear writer, until one day it was told us that when the queen had notice of her reconcilement she disliked of it to such a degree that presently she ordered her, being then with child, to be taken from her own house and carried to Wiston, Sir Thomas Shirley's dwelling-place, there to be kept prisoner till further orders. Alas! all the time she remained there I received not so much as one line from her ladyship, nor did her husband either, as I afterward found. So straitly was she confined and watched that none could serve or have access to her but the knight and his lady, and such as were approved by them. Truly, as she since told me, they courteously used her; but special care was taken that none that was suspected for a priest should come within sight of the house, which was no small addition to her sufferings. Lady Margaret Sackville was at that time also thrown into prison.

CHAPTER XXIV.

During the whole year of Lady Arundel's imprisonment, neither her husband, nor her sister, nor her most close friends, such as my poor unworthy self, had tidings from her, in the shape of any letter or even message, so sharply was she watched and hindered from communicating with any one. Only Sir Thomas Shirley wrote to the earl her husband to inform him of his lady's safe delivery, and the birth of a daughter, which, much against her will, was baptized according to the Protestant manner. My Lord Arundel, mindful of her words in the last interview he had with her before her arrest, began to haunt Mr. Wells's house in a private way, and there I did often meet with him, who being resolved, I ween, to follow his lady's example in all things, began to honor me with so much of his confidence that I had occasion to discern how true had been Sir Henry Jerningham's forecasting, that this young nobleman, when once turned to the ways of virtue and piety, should prove himself by so much the more eminent in goodness as he had heretofore been distinguished for his reckless conduct. One day that he came to Holborn, none others being present but Mr. and Mrs. Wells and myself, he told us that he and his brother Lord William, having determined to become Catholics, and apprehending great danger in declaring themselves as such within the kingdom, had resolved secretly to leave the land, to pass into Flanders, and there to remain till more quiet times.

"What steps," Mr. Wells asked, "hath your lordship disposed for to effect this departure?"

"In all my present doings," quoth the earl, "the mind of my dear wife doth seem to guide me. The last time I was with her she informed me that my secretary, John Mumford, is a Catholic, and I have since greatly benefited by this knowledge. He is gone to Hull, in Yorkshire, for to take [{635}] order for our passage to Flanders, and I do wait tidings from him before I leave London."

Then, turning to me, he inquired in a very earnest manner if my thinking agreed with his, that his sweet lady should be contented he should forsake the realm, for the sake of the religious interests which moved him thereunto, joined with the hope that when he should be abroad and his lands confiscated, which he doubted not would follow, she would be presently set at liberty, and with her little wench join him in Flanders. I assented thereunto, and made a promise to him that as soon as her ladyship should be released I would hasten to her, and feast her ears with the many assurances of tender affection he had uttered in her regard, and aid her departure; which did also Mr. Wells. Then, drawing me aside, he spoke for some time, with tears in his eyes, of his own good wife, as he called her.

"Mistress Sherwood," he said, "I do trust in God that she shall find me henceforward as good a husband, to my poor ability, by his grace, as she has found me bad heretofore. No sin grieves me anything so much as my offences against her. What is past is a nail in my conscience. My will is to make satisfaction; but though I should live never so long, I can never do so further than by a good desire to do it, which, while I have any spark of breath, shall never be wanting."

And many words like these, which he uttered in so heartfelt a manner that I could scarce refrain from weeping at the hearing of them. And so we parted that day; he with a confident hope soon to leave the realm; I with some misgivings thereon, which were soon justified by the event. For a few days afterward Mr. Lacy brought us tidings he had met Mr. Mumford in the street, who had told him—when he expressed surprise at his return—that before he could reach Hull he had been apprehended and carried before the Earl of Huntingdon, president of York, and examined by him, without any evil result at that time, having no papers or auspicious things about him; but being now watched, he ventured not to proceed to the coast, but straightway came to London, greatly fearing Lord Arundel should have left it.

"He hath not done so?" I anxiously inquired.

"Nay," answered Mr. Lacy, "so far from it, that I pray you to guess how the noble earl—much against his will, I ween—is presently employed."

"He is not in prison?" I cried.

"God defend it!" he replied. "No; he is preparing for to receive the queen at Arundel House; upon notice given him that her majesty doth intend on Thursday next to come hither for her recreation."

"Alack!" I cried, "her visits to such as be of his way of thinking bode no good to them. She visited him and his wife at the Charterhouse at the time when his father was doomed to death, and now when she is a prisoner her highness doth come to Arundel House. When she set her foot in Euston, the whole fabric of my happiness fell to the ground. Heaven shield the like doth not happen in this instance; but I do greatly apprehend the issue of this sudden honor conferred on him."

On the day fixed for the great and sumptuous banquet which was prepared for the queen at Arundel House, I went thither, having been invited by Mrs. Fawcett to spend the day with her on this occasion, which minded me of the time when I went with my cousins and mine own good Mistress Ward for to see her majesty's entertainment at the Charterhouse, wherein had been sowed the seeds of a bitter harvest, since reaped by his sweet lady and himself. Then pageants had charms in mine eyes; now, none—but rather the contrary. Howsoever, I was glad to be near at hand on that day, so as to hear such reports as reached us from time to time of her majesty's behavior to the earl. From all I could find, she seemed very well [{636}] contented; and Mr. Mumford, with whom I was acquainted, came to Mrs. Fawcett's chamber, hearing I was there, and reported that her highness had given his lordship many thanks for her entertainment, and showed herself exceeding merry all the time she was at table, asking him many questions, and relating anecdotes which she had learnt from Sir Fulke Greville, whom the maids-of-honor were wont to say brought her all the tales she heard; at which Mrs. Fawcett said that gentleman had once declared that he was like Robin Goodfellow; for that when the dairy-maids upset the milk-pans, or made a romping and racket, they laid it all on Robin, and so, whatever gossip-tales the queen's ladies told her, they laid it all upon him, if he was ever so innocent of it.

"Sir," I said to Mr. Mumford, "think you her majesty hath said aught to my lord touching his lady or his lately-born little daughter?"

"Once," he answered, "when she told of the noble trick she hath played Sir John Spencer touching his grandson, whom he would not see because his daughter did decamp from his house in a baker's basket for to marry Sir Henry Compton, and her majesty invited him to be her gossip at the christening of a fair boy to whom she did intend to stand godmother, for that he was the first-born child of a young couple who had married for love and lived happily; and so the old knight said, as he had no heir, he should adopt this boy, for he had disinherited his daughter. So then, at the font, the queen names him Spencer, and when she leaves the church, straightway reveals to Sir John that his godson is his grandson, and deals so cunningly with him that a reconciliation doth ensue. Well, when she related this event, my lord said in a low voice, 'Oh madame, would it might please your majesty for to place another child, now at its mother's breast, a first-born one also, in its father's arms! and as by your gracious dealing your highness wrought a reconciliation between a father and a daughter, so likewise now to reunite a parted husband from a wife which hath too long languished under your royal displeasure.'"

"What answered her grace?" I asked.

"A few words, the sense of which I could not catch," Mr. Mumford answered; "being placed so as to hear my lord's speaking more conveniently than her replies. He said again, 'The displeasure of a prince is a heavy burden to bear.' And then, methinks, some other talk was ministered of a lighter sort. But be of good heart. Mistress Sherwood; I cannot but think our dear lady shall soon be set at liberty."

Mr. Mumford's words were justified in a few days; for, to my unspeakable joy, I heard Lady Arundel had been released by order of the queen, and had returned to Arundel Castle. It was her lord himself who brought me the good tidings, and said he should travel thither in three days, when his absence from court should be less noted, as then her majesty would be at Richmond. He showed me a letter he had received from his lady, the first she had been able to write to him for a whole year. She did therein express her contentment, greater, she said, than her pen could describe, at the sight of the gray ivied walls, the noble keep, her own chamber and its familiar furniture, and mostly at the thought of his soon coming; and that little Bess had so much sense already, that when she heard his name, nothing would serve her but to be carried to the window, "whence, methinks," the sweet lady said, "she doth see me always looking toward the entrance-gate, through which all my joy will speedily come to me. When, for to cheat myself and her, I cry, 'Hark to my lord's horse crossing the bridge,' she coos, so much as to say she is glad also, and stretcheth her arms out, the pretty fool, as if to welcome her unseen father, who, methinks, [{637}] when he doth come, will be no stranger to her, so often doth she kiss the picture which hangeth about her mother's neck."

But, alas! before the queen went to Richmond, she sent a command that my Lord Arundel should not go anywhither out of his house (so Mr. Mumford informed me), but remain there a prisoner; and my Lord Hunsdon, who had been in former times his father's page, and now was his great enemy, was given commission to examine him about his religion, and also touching Dr. Allen and the Queen of Scots. Now was all the joy of Lady Arundel's release at an end. Now the sweet cooings of her babe moved her to bitter tears. "In vain," she wrote to me then, "do we now look for him to come! in vain listen for the sound of his horse's tread, or watch the gateway which shall not open to admit him! I sigh for to be once more a prisoner, and he, my sweet life, at liberty. Alas! what kind of a destiny does this prove, if one is free only when the other is shut up, and the word 'parting' is written on each page of our lives?"

About a month afterward, Mr. Mumford was sent for by Sir Christopher Hatton, who asked him divers dangerous questions concerning the earl, the countess, and Lord William Howard, and also himself—such as, if he was a priest or no; which indeed I did not wonder at, so staid and reverend was his appearance. But he answered he never knew or ever heard any harm of these honorable persons, and that he himself was not a priest, nor worthy of so great a dignity. He hath since told me that on the third day of his examination the queen, the Earl of Leicester, and divers others of the council came into the house for to understand what he had confessed. Sir Christopher told them what answers he had made; but they, not resting satisfied therewith, caused him, after many threats of racking and other tortures, to be sent prisoner to the Gate-house, where he was kept for some months so close that none might speak or come to him. But by the steadfastness of his answers he at last so cleared himself, and declared the innocency of the earl, and his wife and brother, that they were set at liberty.

Soon after her lord's release, I received this brief letter from Lady Arundel:

"MINE OWN GOOD CONSTANCE,—I have seen my lord, who came here the day after he was set free. He very earnestly desires to put into execution his reconciliation to the Church now that his troubles are a little overpast. I have bethought myself that, since Father Campion hath left London, diligence might be used for to procure him a meeting with Father Edmonds, whom I have heard commended for a very virtuous and religious priest, much esteemed both in this and other countries. Prithee, ask Mr. Wells if in his thinking this should be possible, and let my lord know of the means and opportunities thereunto. I shall never be so much indebted, nor he either, to any one in this world, my dear Constance, as to thee and thy good friends, if this interview shall be brought to pass, and the desired effect ensue.

"My Bess doth begin to walk alone, and hath learned to make the sign of the cross; but I warrant thee I am sometimes frightened that I did teach her to bless herself, until such time as she can understand not to display her piety so openly as she now doeth. For when many lords and gentlemen were here last week for to consider the course her majesty's progress should take through Kent and Sussex, and she, sitting on my knee, was noticed by some of them for her pretty ways, the clock did strike twelve; upon which, what doth she do but straightway makes the sign of the cross before I could catch her little hand? Lord Cobham frowned, and my Lord Burleigh shook his head; but the Bishop of Chichester stroked [{638}] her head, and said, with a smile, 'Honi soit qui mal y pense;' for which I pray God to bless him. Oh, but what fears we do daily live in! I would sometimes we were beyond seas. But if my lord is once reconciled, methinks I can endure all that may befal us. Thy true and loving friend,
"ANN, ARUNDEL AND SURREY."

I straightway repaired to Mr. Wells, and found him to be privy to Father Edmonds's abode. At my request, he acquainted Lord Arundel with this secret, who speedily availed himself thereof, and after a few visits to this good man's garret, wherein he was concealed, was by him reconciled, as I soon learnt by a letter from his lady. She wrote in such perfect contentment and joy thereunto, that nothing could exceed it. She said her dear lord had received so much comfort in his soul as he had never felt before in all his life, and such directions from Father Edmonds for the amending and ordering of it as did greatly help and further him therein. Ever after that time, from mine own hearing and observation, his lady's letters, and the report of such as haunted him, I learnt that he lived in such a manner that he seemed to be changed into another man, having great care and vigilance over all his actions, and addicting himself much to piety and devotion. He procured to have a priest ever with him in his own house, by whom he might frequently receive the holy sacrament, and daily have the comfort to be present at the holy sacrifice, whereto, with great humility and reverence, he himself in person many times would serve. His visits to his wife were, during the next years, as frequent as he could make them and as his duties at the court and the queen's emergencies would allow of; who, albeit she looked not on him with favor as heretofore, did nevertheless exact an unremitting attendance on his part on all public occasions, and jealously noted every absence he made from London. Each interview between this now loving husband and wife was a brief space of perfect contentment to both, and a respite from the many cares and troubles which did continually increase upon him; for the great change in his manner of life had bred suspicion in the minds of some courtiers and potent men, who therefore began to think him what he was indeed, but of which no proof could be alleged.

During the year which followed these haps mine aunt died, and Mr. Congleton sold his house in Ely Place, and took a small one in Gray's Inn Lane, near to Mr. Wells's and Mr. Lacy's. It had no garden, nor the many conveniences the other did afford; but neither Muriel nor myself did lament the change, for the vicinity of these good friends did supply the place of other advantages; and it also liked me more, whilst Basil lived in poverty abroad, to inhabit a less sumptuous abode than heretofore, and dispense with accustomed luxuries. Of Hubert I could hear but scanty tidings at that time—only that he had either lost or resigned his place at court? Mr. Hodgson was told by one who had been his servant that he had been reconciled; others said he did lead a very disordered life, and haunted bad persons. The truth or falsity of these statements I could not then discern; but methinks, from what I have since learnt, both might be partly true; for he became subject to fits of gloom, and so discomfortable a remorse as almost unsettled his reason; and then, at other times, plunged into worldly excesses for to drown thoughts of the past. He was frightened, I ween, or leastways distrustful of the society of good men, but consorted with Catholics of somewhat desperate character and fortunes, and such as dealt in plots and treasonable schemes.

Father Campion's arrest for a very different cause—albeit his enemies did seek to attach to him the name traitor—occurred this year at Mrs. Yates's house in Worcestershire, and [{639}] consternated the hearts of all recusants; but when he came to London, and speech was had of him by many amongst them which gained access to him in prison, and reported to others his great courage and joyfulness in the midst of suffering, then, methinks, a contagious spirit spread amongst Catholics, and conversions followed which changed despondency into rejoicing. But I will not here set down the manner of his trial, nor the wonderful marks of patience and constancy which he showed under torments and rackings, nor his interview with her majesty at my lord Leicester's house, nor the heroic patience of his death; for others with better knowledge thereof, and pens more able for to do it, have written this martyr's life and glorious end. But I will rather relate such events as took place, as it were, under mine own eye, and which are not, I ween, so extensively known. And first, I will speak of a conversation I held at that time with a person then a stranger, and therefore of no great significancy when it occurred, but which later did assume a sudden importance, when it became linked with succeeding events.

One day that I was visiting at Lady Ingoldsby's, where Polly and her husband had come for to spend a few weeks, and much company was going in and out, the faces and names of which were new to me, some gentlemen came there whose dress attracted notice from the French fashion thereof. One of them was a young man of very comely appearance and pleasant manners, albeit critical persons might have judged somewhat of' the bravado belonged to his attitudes and speeches, but withal tempered with so much gentleness and courtesy, that no sooner had the eye and mind taken note of the defect than the judgment was repented of. What in one of less attractive face and behavior should have displeased, in this youth did not offend. It was my hap to sit beside him at supper, which lasted a long time; and as his behavior was very polite, I freely conversed with him, and found him to be English, though from long residence abroad his tongue had acquired a foreign trick. When I told him I had thought he was a Frenchman, he laughed, and said if the French did ever try to land in England, they should find him to be a very Englishman for to fight against them; but in the matter of dinners and beds, and the liking of a dear sunny sky over above a dim cloudy one, he did confess himself to be so much of a traitor as to prefer France to England, and he could not abide the smoke of coal fires which are used in this country.

"And what say you, sir," I answered, "to the new form of smoke which Sir Walter Raleigh hath introduced since his return from the late discovered land of Virginia?"

He said he had learnt the use of it in France, and must needs confess he found it to be very pleasant. Monsieur Nicot had brought some seeds of tobacco into France, and so much liking did her majesty Queen Catharine conceive for this practice of smoking, that the new plant went by the name of the queen's herb. "It is not gentlemen alone who do use a pipe in France," he said, "but ladies also. What doth the fair sex in England think on it?"

"I have heard," I answered, "that her majesty herself did try for to smoke, but presently gave it up, for that it made her sick. Her highness is also reported to have lost a wager concerning that same smoking of tobacco."

"What did her grace bet?" the gentleman asked.

"Why, she was one day," I replied, "inquiring very exactly of the various virtues of this herb, and Sir Walter did assure her that no one understood them better than himself, for he was so well acquainted with all its qualities, that he could even tell her majesty the weight of the smoke of every pipeful he consumed. Her highness upon this said, 'Monsieur [{640}] Traveller, you do go too far in putting on me the license which is allowed to such as return from foreign parts;' and she laid a wager of many pieces of gold he should not be able to prove his words. So he weighed in her presence the tobacco before he put it into his pipe, and the ashes after he had consumed it, and convinced her majesty that the deficiency did proceed from the evaporation thereof. So then she paid the bet, and merrily told him 'that she knew of many persons who had turned their gold into smoke, but he was the first who had turned smoke into gold.'"

The young gentleman being amused at this story, I likewise told him of Sir Walter's hap when he first returned to England, and was staying in a friend's house: how a servant coming into his chamber with a tankard of ale and nutmeg toast, and seeing him for the first time with a lighted pipe in his mouth puffing forth clouds of smoke, flung the ale in his face for to extinguish the internal conflagration, and then running down the stairs alarmed the family with dismal cries that the good knight was on fire, and would be burnt into ashes before they could come to his aid.

My unknown companion laughed, and said he had once on his travels been taken for a sorcerer, so readily doth ignorance imagine wonders. "Near unto Metz, in France," quoth he, "I fell among thieves. My money I had quilted within my doublet, which they took from me, howsoever leaving me the rest of my apparel, wherein I do acknowledge their courtesy, since thieves give all they take not; but twenty-five French crowns, for the worst event, I had lapped in cloth, and whereupon did wind divers-colored threads, wherein I sticked needles, as if I had been so good a husband as to mend mine own clothes. Messieurs the thieves were not so frugal to take my ball to mend their hose, but did tread it under their feet. I picked it up with some spark of joy, and I and my guide (he very sad, because he despaired of my ability to pay him his hire) went forward to Chalons, where he brought me to a poor ale-house, and when I expostulated, he replied that stately inns were not for men who had never a penny in their purses; but I told him that I looked for comfort in that case more from gentlemen than clowns; whereupon he, sighing, obeyed me, and with a dejected and fearful countenance brought me to the chief inn, where he ceased not to bewail my misery as if it had been the burning of Troy; till the host, despairing of my ability to pay him, began to look disdainfully on me. The next morning, when, he being to return home, I paid him his hire, which he neither asked nor expected, and likewise mine host for lodgings and supper, he began to talk like one mad for joy, and professed I could not have had one penny except I were an alchemist or had a familiar spirit."

I thanked the young gentleman for this entertaining anecdote, and asked him if France was not a very disquieted country, and nothing in it but wars and fighting.

"Yea," he answered; "but men fight there so merrily, that it appears more a pastime than aught else. Not always so, howsoever. When Frenchman meets Frenchman in the fair fields of Provence, and those of the League and those of the Religion—God confound the first and bless the last!—engage in battle, such encounters ensue as have not their match for fierceness in the world. By my troth, the sight of dead bodies doth not ordinarily move me; but the valley of Allemagne on the day of the great Huguenot victory was a sight the like of which I would not choose to look on again, an I could help it."

"Were you, then, present at that combat, sir?" I asked.

"Yea," he replied; "I was at that time with Lesdiguières, the Protestant general, whom I had known at La Rochelle, and beshrew me if a more valiant soldier doth live, or a worthier [{641}] soul in a stalwart frame. I was standing by his side when Tourves the butcher came for to urge him, with his three hundred men, to ride over the field and slay the wounded papists. 'No, sir,' quoth the general, 'I fight men, but hunt them not down.' The dead were heaped many feet thick on the plain, and the horses of the Huguenots waded to their haunches in blood. Those of the Religion were mad at the death of the Baron of Allemagne, the general of their southern churches, brave castellane, who, when the fight was done, took off his helmet for to cool his burning forehead; and lo, a shot sent him straight into eternity."

"The Catholics were then wholly routed?" I asked.

"Yea," he answered; "mowed down like grass in the hay-harvest. De Vins, however, escaped. He thought to have had a cheap victory over those of the Religion; but the saints in heaven, to whom he trusted, never told him that Lesdiguières on the one side and d'Allemagne on the other were hastening to the rescue, nor that his Italian horsemen should fail him in his need. So, albeit the papists fought like devils, as they are, his pride got a fall, which well-nigh killed him. He was riding frantically back into the fray for to get himself slain, when St. Cannat seized his bridle, and called him a coward, so I have heard, to dare for to die when his scattered troops had need of him; and so carried him off the field. D'Oraison, Janson, Pontmez, hotly pursued them, but in vain; and all the Protestant leaders, except Lesdiguières, returned that night to the castle of Allemagne for to bury the baron."

A sort of shiver passed through the young gentleman's frame as he uttered these last words.

"A sad burial you then witnessed?" I said.

"I pray God," he answered, "never to witness another such."

"What was the horror of it?" I asked.

"Would you hear it?" he inquired.

"Yea," I said, "most willingly; for methinks I see what you describe."

Then he: "If it be so, peradventure you may not thank me for this describing; for I warrant you it was a fearful sight. I had lost mine horse, and so was forced to spend the night at the castle. When it grew dark I followed the officers, which, with a great store of the men, also descended into the vault, which was garnished all round with white and warlike sculptured forms on tombstones, most grim in their aspect; and amidst those stone imager, grim and motionless, the soldiers ranged themselves, still covered with blood and dust, and leaning on their halberds. In the midst was the uncovered coffin of the baron, his livid visage exposed to view—menacing even in death. Torches threw a fitful, red-colored light over the scene. A minister which accompanied the army stood and preached at the coffin's head, and when he had ended his sermon, sang in a loud voice, in French verse, the psalm which doth begin,

'Du fond de ma pensée,
Du fond de tous enuuis,
A tol s'est adressé
Ma clamear jour et nult.'

When this singing began two soldiers led up to the tomb a man with bound hands and ghastly pale face, and, when the verse ended, shot him through the head. The corpse fell upon the ground, and the singing began anew. Twelve times this did happen, till my head waxed giddy and I became faint. I was led out of that vault with the horrible singing pursuing me, as if I should never cease to hear it."

"Oh, 'tis fearful," I exclaimed, "that men can do such deeds, and the while have God's name on their lips."

"The massacre of St. Bartholomew," he answered, "hath driven those of the Religion mad against the papists."

"But, sir," I asked, "is it not true that six thousand Catholics in Languedoc had been murthered in cold blood, [{642}] and a store of them in other places, before that massacre?"

"May I be so," he answered in a careless tone. "The shedding of blood, except in a battle or lawful duel, I abhor; but verily I do hate papists with as great a hate as any Huguenot in France, and most of all those in this country—a set of knavish traitors, which would dethrone the queen and sell the realm to the Spaniards."

I could not but sigh at these words, for in this young man's countenance a quality of goodness did appear which made me grieve that he should utter these unkind words touching Catholics. But I dared not for to utter my thinking or disprove his accusations, for, being ignorant of his name, I had a reasonable fear of being ensnared into some talk which should show me to be a papist, and he should prove to be a spy. But patience failed me when, after speaking of the clear light of the gospel which England enjoyed, and to lament that in Ireland none are found of the natives to have cast off the Roman religion, he said:

"I ween this doth not proceed from their constancy in religion, but rather from the lenity of Protestants, which think that the conscience must not be forced, and seek rather to touch and persuade than to oblige by fire and sword, like those of the south, who persecute their own subjects differing from them in religion."

"Sir," I exclaimed, "this is a strange thing indeed, that Protestants do lay a claim to so great mildness in their dealings with recusants, and yet such strenuous laws against such are framed that they do live in fear of their lives, and are daily fined and tormented for their profession."

"How so?" he said, quickly. "No papist hath been burnt in this country."

"No, sir," I answered; "but a store of them have been hanged and cut to pieces whilst yet alive."

"Nay, nay," he cried, "not for their religion, but for their many treason."

"Sir," I answered, "their religion is made treason by unjust laws, and then punished with the penalties of treason; and they die for no other cause than their faith, by the same token that each of those which have perished on the scaffold had his life offered to him if so he would torn Protestant."

In the heat of this argument I had forgot prudence; and some unkindly ears and eyes were attending to my speech, which this young stranger perceiving, he changed the subject of discourse—I ween with a charitable intent—and merrily exclaimed, "Now I have this day transgressed a wise resolve."

"What resolve?" I said, glad also to retreat from dangerous subjects.

'"This," he answered: "that after my return I would sparingly, and not without entreaty, relate my journeys and observations."

"Then, sir," I replied, "methinks you have contrariwise observed it, for your observations have been short and pithy, and withal uttered at mine entreaty."

"Nothing," he said, "I so much fear as to resemble men—and many such I have myself known—who have scarce seen the lions of the Tower and the bears of Parish Garden, but they must engross all a table in talking of their adventures, as if they had passed the Pillars of Hercules. Nothing could be asked which they could not resolve of their own knowledge."

"Find you, sir," I said, "much variety in the manners of French people and those you see in this country?"

He smiled, and answered, "We must not be too nice observers of men and manners, and too easily praise foreign customs and despise our own —not so much that we may not offend others, as that we may not be ourselves offended by others. I will yield you an example. A Frenchman, being a curious observer of ceremonious compliments, when he hath saluted one, and began to entertain him with speech, if he chance to espy another [{643}] man, with whom he hath very great business, yet will he not leave the first man without a solemn excuse. But an Englishman discoursing with any man—I mean in a house or chamber of presence, not merely in the street—if he spy another man with whom he hath occasion to speak, will suddenly, without any excuse, turn from the first man and go and converse with the other, and with like negligence will leave and take new men for discourse; which a Frenchman would take in ill part, as an argument of disrespect. This fashion, and many other like niceties and curiosities in use in one country, we must forget when we do pass into another. For lack of this prudence I have seen men on their return home tied to these foreign manners themselves, and finding that others observe not the like toward them, take everything for an injury, as if they were disrespected, and so are often enraged."

"What think you of the dress our ladies do wear?" I inquired of this young traveller.

He smiled, and answered:

"I like our young gentlewomen's gowns, and their aprons of fine linen, and their little hats of beaver; but why have they left wearing the French sleeves, borne out with hoops of whalebone, and the French hood of velvet, set with a border of gold buttons and pearls? Methinks English ladies are too fond of jewels and diamond rings. They scorn plain gold rings, I find, and chains of gold."

"Yea," I said, "ladies of rank wear only rich chains of pearl, and all their jewels must needs be oriental and precious. If any one doth choose to use a simple chain or a plain-set brooch, she is marked for wearing old-fashioned gear."

"This remindeth me," he said, "of a pleasant fable, that Jupiter sent a shower, wherein whosoever was wet became a fool, and that all the people were wet in this shower, excepting one philosopher, who kept his study; but in the evening coming forth into the market-place, and finding that all the people marked him as a fool, who was only wise, he was forced to pray for another shower, that he might become a fool, and so live quietly among fools rather than bear the envy of his wisdom."

With this pleasant story our conversation ended, for supper was over, and the young gentleman soon went away. I asked of many persons who he should be, but none could tell me. Polly, the next day, said he was a youth lately returned from France (which was only what I knew before), and that Sir Nicholas Throckmorton had written a letter to Lady Ingoldsby concerning him, but his name she had forgot. O what strange haps, more strange than any in books, do at times form the thread of a true history! what presentiments in some cases, what ignorance in others, beset us touching coming events!

The next pages will show the ground of these reflections.

CHAPTER XXV.

One day that Mrs. Wells was somewhat disordered, and keeping her room, and I was sitting with her, her husband came to fetch me into the parlor to an old acquaintance, he said, who was very desirous for to see me. "Who is it?" I asked; but he would not tell me, only smiled; my foolish thinking supposed for one instant that it might be Basil he spoke of, but the first glance showed me a slight figure and pale countenance, very different to his whom my witless hopes had expected for to see, albeit without the least shadow of reason. I stood looking at this stranger in a hesitating manner, who perceiving I did not know him, held out his hand, and said,

"Has Mistress Constance forgotten her old playfellow?"

"Edmund Genings!" I exclaimed, suddenly guessing it to be him.

[{644}]

"Yea," he said, "your old friend Edmund."

"Mr. Ironmonger is this reverend gentleman's name now-a-days," Mr. Wells said; and then we all three sat down, and by degrees in Edmund's present face I discerned the one I remembered in former years. The same kind and reflective aspect, the pallid hue, the upward-raised eye, now with less of searching in its gaze, but more, I ween, of yearning for an unearthly home.

"O dear and reverend sir," I said, "strange it doth seem indeed thus to address you, but God knoweth I thank him for the honor he hath done my old playmate in the calling of him unto his service in these perilous times."

"Yea," he answered, with emotion, "I do owe him much, which life itself should not be sufficient to repay."

"My good father," I said, "some time before his death gave me a token in a letter that you were in England. Where have you been all this time?"

"Tell us the manner of your landing," quoth Mr. Wells; "for this is the great ordeal which, once overpassed, lets you into the vineyard, for to work for one hour only sometimes, or else to bear many years the noontide heat and nipping frosts which laborers like unto yourself have to endure."

"Well," said Edmund, "ten months ago we took shipping at Honfleur, and, wind and weather being propitious, sailed along the coast of England, meaning to have landed in Essex; but for our sakes the master of the bark lingered, when we came in sight of land, until two hours within night, and being come near unto Scarborough, what should happen but that a boat with pirates or rovers in it comes out to surprise us, and shoots at us divers times with muskets! But we came by no harm; for the wind being then contrary, the master turned his ship and sailed back into the main sea, where in very foul weather we remained three days, and verily I thought to have then died of sea-sickness; which ailment should teach a man humility, if anything in this world can do it, stripping him as it does of all boastfulness of his own courage and strength, so that he would cry mercy if any should offer only to move him."

"Ah!" cried Mr. Wells, laughing, "Topcliffe should bethink himself of this new torment for papists, for to leave a man in this plight until he acknowledged the queen's supremacy should be an artful device of the devil."

"At last," quoth Mr. Genings, "we landed, with great peril to our lives, on the side of a high cliff near Whitby, in Yorkshire, and reached that town in the evening. Going into an inn to refresh ourselves, which I promise you we sorely needed, who should we meet with there but one Radcliff?"

"Ah! a noted pursuivant," cried Mr. Wells, "albeit not so topping a one as his chief."

"Ah!" I cried, "good Mr. Wells, that is but a poor pun, I promise you. A better one you must frame before night, or you will lose your reputation. The queen's last effort hath more merit in it than yours, who, when she was angry with her envoy to Spain, said, 'If her royal brother had sent her a goose-man, [Footnote 94] she had sent him in return a man-goose.'"

[Footnote 94: Guzman.]

Mr. Genings smiled, and said:

"Well, this same Radcliff took an exact survey of us all, questioned us about our arrival in that place, whence we came, and whither we were going. We told him we were driven thither by the tempest, and at last, by evasive answers, satisfied him. Then we all went to the house of a Catholic gentleman in the neighborhood, which was within two or three miles of Whitby, and by him were directed some to one place, some to another, according to our own desires. Mr. Plasden and I kept together; but, for fear of suspicion, we determined at last to separate also, and singly to commit ourselves to the protection of God and his good angels. Soon after we had thus [{645}] resolved, we came to two fair beaten was, the one leading north-east, the other south-east, and even then and there, it being in the night, we stopped and both fell down on our knees and made a short prayer together that God of his infinite mercy would vouchsafe to direct us, and send us both a peaceable passage into the thickest of his vineyard."

Here Mr. Genings paused, a little moved by the remembrance of that parting, but in a few minutes exclaimed:

"I have not seen that dear friend since, rising from our knees, we embraced each other with tears trickling down our cheeks; but the words he said to me then I shall never, methinks, forget. 'Seeing,' quoth, he, 'we must now part through fear of our enemies, and for greater security, farewell, sweet brother in Christ and most loving companion. God grant that, as we have been friends in one college and companions in one wearisome and dangerous journey, so we may have one merry meeting once again in this world, to our great comfort, if it shall please him, even amongst our greatest adversaries; and that as we undertake, for his love and holy name's sake, this course of life together, so he will of his infinite goodness and clemency make us partakers of one hope, one sentence, one death, and one reward. And also as we began, so may we end together in Christ Jesus.' So he; and then not being able to speak one word more for grief and tears, we departed in mutual silence; he directing his journey to London, where he was born, and I northward."

"Then you have not been into Staffordshire?" I said.

"Yea," he answered, "later I went to Lichfield, in order to try if I should peradventure find there any of mine old friends and kinsfolks."

"And did you succeed therein?" I inquired.

"The only friends I found," he answered, with a melancholy smile, "were the gray cloisters, the old cathedral walls, the trees of the close; the only familiar voices which did greet me were the chimes of the tower, the cawing of the rooks over mine head as I sat in the shade of the tall elms near unto the wall where our garden once stood."

"Oh, doth that house and that garden no more exist?" I cried.

"No, it hath been pulled down, and the lawn thereof thrown into the close."

"Then," I said, "the poor bees and butterflies must needs fare badly. The bold rooks, I ween, are too exalted to suffer from these changes. Of Sherwood Hall did you hear aught, Mr. Genings?"

"Mr. Ironmonger," Mr. Wells said, correcting me.

"Alas!" Edmund replied, "I dared not so much as to approach unto it, albeit I passed along the high road not very far from the gate thereof. But the present inhabitants are famed for their hatred unto recusants, and like to deal rigorously with any which should come in their way."

I sighed, and then asked him how long he had been in London.

"About one month," he replied. "As I have told you. Mistress Constance, all my kinsfolk that I wot of are now dead, except my young brother John, whom I doubt not you yet do bear in mind—that fair, winsome, mischievous urchin, who was carried to La Rochelle about one year before your sweet mother died."

"Yea," I said, "I can see him yet gallopping on a stick round the parlor at Lichfield."

"'Tis to look for him," Edmund said, "I am come to London. Albeit I fear much inquiry on my part touching this youth should breed suspicion, I cannot refrain, brotherly love soliciting me thereunto, from seeking him whom report saith careth but little for his soul, and who hath no other relative in the world than myself. I have warrant for to suppose he should be in London; but these four weeks, [{646}] with useless diligence, I have made search for him, leaving no place unsought where I could suspect him to abide; and as I see no hopes of success, I am resolved to leave the city for a season."

Then Mr. Wells proposed to carry Edmund to Kate's house, where some friends were awaiting him; and for some days I saw him not again. But on the next Sunday evening he came to our house, and I noticed a paleness in him I had not before perceived. I asked him if anything had disordered him.

"Nothing," he answered; "only methinks my old shaking malady doth again threaten me; for this morning, walking forth of mine inn to visit a friend on the other side of the city, and passing by St. Paul's church, when I was on the east side thereof, I felt suddenly a strange sensation in my body, so much that my face glowed, and it seemed to me as if mine hair stood on end; all my joints trembled, and my whole body was bathed in a cold sweat. I feared some evil was threatening me, or danger of being taken up, and I looked back to see if I could perceive any one to be pursuing me; but I saw nobody near, only a youth in a brown-colored cloak; and so, concluding that some affection of my head or liver had seized me, I thought no more on it, but went forward to my intended place to say mass."

A strange thinking came into mine head at that moment, and I doubted if I should impart to him my sudden fancy.

"Mr. Edmund," I said, unable to refrain myself, "suppose that youth in the brown cloak should have been your brother!"

He started, but shaking of his head said:

"Nay, nay, why should it have been him rather than a thousand others I do see every day?"

"Might not that strange effect in yourself betoken the presence of a kinsman?"

"Tut, tut, Mistress Constance," he cried, half kindly, half reprovingly; "this should be a wild fancy lacking ground in reason."

Thus checked, I held my peace, but could not wholly discard this thought. Not long after—on the very morning before Mr. Genings proposed to depart out of town—I chanced to be walking homeward with him and some others from a house whither we had gone to hear his mass. As we were returning along Ludgate Hill, what should he feel but the same sensations he had done before, and which were indeed visible in him, for his limbs trembled and his face turned as white as ashes!

"You are sick," I said, for I was walking alongside of him.

"Only affected as that other day," he answered, leaning against a post for to recover himself.

I had hastily looked back, and, lo and behold I a youth in a brown cloak was walking some paces behind us. I whispered in Mr. Genings's ear:

"Look, Edmund; is this the youth you saw before?"

"O my good Lord!" he cried, turning yet more pale, "this is strange indeed! After all, it may be my brother. Go on," he said quickly; "I must get speech with him alone to discover if it should be so."

We all walked on, and he tarried behind. Looking back, I saw him accost the stranger in the brown cloak. And in the afternoon he came to tell us that this was verily John Genings, as I had with so little show of reason guessed.

"What passed between you?" I asked.

He said:

"I courteously saluted the young man, and inquired what countryman he was; and hearing that he was a Staffordshireman, I began to conceive hopes it should be my brother; so I civilly demanded his name. Methought I should have betrayed myself at once when he answered Genings; but as quietly as I could, I told him I was [{647}] his kinsman, and was called Ironmonger, and asked him what had become of his brother Edmund. He then, not suspecting aught, told me he had heard that he was gone to Rome to the Pope, and was become a notable papist and a traitor both to God and his country, and that if he did return he should infallibly be hanged. I smiled, and told him I knew his brother, and that he was an honest man, and loved both the queen and his country, and God above all. 'But tell me,' I added, 'good cousin John, should you not know him if you saw him?' He then looked hard at me, and led the way into a tavern not far off, and when we were seated at a table, with no one nigh enough to overhear us, he said: 'I greatly fear I have a brother that is a priest, and that you are the man,' and then began to swear that if it was so, I should discredit myself and all my friends, and protested that in this he would never follow me; albeit in other matters he might respect me. I promise you that whilst these harsh words passed his lips I longed to throw my arms round his neck. I saw my mother's face in his, and his once childish loveliness only changed into manly beauty. His young years and mine rose before me, and I could have wept over this new-found brother as Joseph over his dear Benjamin. I could no longer conceal myself, but told him truly I was his brother indeed, and for his love had taken great pains to seek him, and begged of him to keep secret the knowledge of my arrival; to which he answered: 'He would not for the world disclose my return, but that he desired me to come no more unto him, for that he feared greatly the danger of the law, and to incur the penalty of the statute for concealing of it.' I saw this was no place or time convenient to talk of religion; but we had much conversation about divers things, by which I perceived him to be far from any good affection toward Catholic religion, and persistent in Protestantism, without any hope of a present recovery. Therefore I declared unto him my intended departure out of town, and took my leave, assuring him that within a month or little more I should return and see him again, and confer with him more at large touching some necessary affairs which concerned him very much. I inquired of him where a letter should find him. He showed some reluctance for to give me any address, but at last said if one was left for him at Lady Ingoldsby's, in Queen street, Holborn, he should be like to get it."

After Mr. Genings had left, I considered of this direction his brother had given him, which showed him to be acquainted with Polly's mother-in-law, and then remembering the young gentleman I had met at her house, I suspected him to be no other than John Genings. And called back to mind all his speeches for to compare them with this suspicion, wherein they did all tally; and some days afterward, when I was walking on the Mall with Sir Ralph and Polly, who should accost them but this youth, which they presently introduced to me, and Polly added, she believed we had played at hide-and-seek together when we were young. He looked somewhat surprised, and as if casting about for to call to mind old recollections; then spoke of our meeting at Lady Ingoldsby's; and she cried out,

"Oh, then, you do know one another?"

"By sight," I said, "not by name."

Some other company joining us, he came alongside of me, and began for to pay me compliments in the French manner.

"Mr. John Genings," I said, "do you remember Lichfield and the close, and a little; girl, Constance Sherwood, who used to play with you, before you went to La Rochelle?"

"Like in a dream," he answered, his comely face lighting up with a smile.

"But your brother," I said, "was my chiefest companion then; for at that age we do always aspire to the notice of such as be older than [{648}] condescend to such as be younger than ourselves."

When I named his brother a cloud darkened his face, and he abruptly turned away. He talked to Polly and some other ladies in a gay, jesting manner, but I could see that ever and anon he glanced toward me, as if to scan my features, and, I ween, compare them with what memory depicted; but he kept aloof from me, as if fearing I should speak again of one he would fain forget.

On the 7th of November, Edmund returned to London, and came in the evening to Kate's house. He had been laboring in the country, exhorting, instructing, and exercising his priestly functions amongst Catholics with all diligence. It so happened that his friend, Mr. Plasden, a very virtuous priest, which had landed with him at Whitby, and parted with him soon afterward, was there also; and several other persons likewise which did usually meet at Mr. Wells's house; but, owing to that gentleman's absence, who had gone into the country for some business, and his wife's indisposition, had agreed for to spend the evening at Mr. Lacy's. Before the company there assembled parted, the two priests treated with him where they should say mass the following day, which was the Octave of All Saints. They agreed to say their matins together, and, by Bryan's advice, to celebrate it at the house of Mr. Wells, notwithstanding his absence; for that Mistress Wells, who could not conveniently go abroad, would be exceeding glad for to hear mass in her own lodging. I told Edmund of my meeting with his brother on the Mall, and the long talk ministered between us some weeks ago, when neither did know the other's name. Methought in his countenance and conversation that night there appeared an unwonted consolation, a sober joy, which filled me almost with awe. When he wished me good-night, he added, "I pray you, my dear child, to lift up your soul to heaven ere yon sleep and when you wake, and recommend to heaven our good purpose, and then come and attend at the holy sacrifice with the crowd of angels and saints which do always assist thereat." When the light faintly dawned in the dull sky, Muriel and I stole from our beds, quietly dressed ourselves, and slipping out unseen, repaired as fast as we could, for the ground was wet and slippery, to Mr. Wells's house. We found assembled in one room Mr. Genings, Mr. Plasden, another priest, Mr. White, Mr. Lacy, Mistress Wells, Sydney Hodgson, Mr. Mason, and many others. Edmund Genings proceeded to say mass. There was so great a stillness in the room a pin should have been heard to drop. Albeit he said the prayers in a very low voice, each word was audible. Mine ears, which are very quick were stretched to the utmost. Each sound in the street caused me an inward flutter. Methought, when he was reading the gospel I discerned a sound as of the hall-door opening, and of steps. Then nothing more for a little while; but just at the moment of the consecration there was a loud rush up the stairs, and the door of the chamber burst open. The gentlemen present rose from their knees. Mistress Wells and I contrariwise sunk on the ground. I dared not for to look, or move, or breathe, but kept inwardly calling on God, then present, for to save us. I heard the words behind me: "Topcliffe! keep him back!" "Hurl him down the stairs!" and then a sound of scuffling, falling, and rolling, followed by a moment's silence.

The while the mass went forward, ever and anon noises rose without; but the gentlemen held the door shut by main force all the time. They kept the foe at bay, these brave men, each word uttered at the altar resounding, I ween, in their breasts. O my God, what a store of suffering was heaped into a brief space of time! What a viaticum was that communion then received by thy doomed priest! [{649}] "Domine, non sum dignus," he thrice said, and then his Lord rested in his soul. "Deo gratias" None could now profane the sacred mysteries; none could snatch his Lord from him. "Ite missa est. " The mass was said, the hour come, death at hand. All resistance then ceased. I saw Topcliffe hastening in with a broken head, and threatening to raise the whole street. Mr. Plasden told him that, now the mass was ended, we would all yield ourselves prisoners, which we did; upon which he took Mr. Genings as he was, in his vestments, and all of us, men and women, in coaches he called for, to Newgate. Muriel and I kept close together, and, with Mistress Wells, were thrust into one cell. Methinks we should all have borne with courage this misfortune but for the thinking of those without—Muriel of her aged and infirm father; Mistress Wells of her husband's return that day to his sacked house, robbed of all its church furniture, books, and her the partner of his whole life. And I thought of Basil, and what he should feel if he knew of me in this fearful Newgate, near to so many thieves and wicked persons; and a trembling came over me lest I should be parted from my companions. I had much to do to recall the courageous spirit I had heretofore nurtured in foreseeing such a hap as this. If I had had to die at once, I think I should have been more brave; but terrible forebodings of examinations—perchance tortures, long solitary hours in a loathsome place—caused me inward shudderings; and albeit I said with my lips over and over again, "Thy will be done, my God," I passionately prayed this chalice might pass from me which often before in my presumption—I cry mercy for it—I had almost desired to drink. Oh, often have I thought since of what is said in David's Psalms, "It is good for me that thou hast humbled me." From my young years a hot glowing feeling had inflamed my breast at the mention of suffering for conscience' sake, and the words "to die" had been very familiar ones to my lips; "rather to die," "gladly to die," "proudly to die;" alas, how often had I uttered them! O my God, when the foul smells, the faint light of that dreadful place, struck on my senses, I waxed very weak. The coarse looks of the jailers, the disgusting food set before us, the filthy pallets, awoke in me a loathing I could not repress. And then a fear also, which the sense of my former presumption did awaken. "Let he that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," kept running in mine head. I had said, like St. Peter, that I was ready for to go to prison and to death; and now, peradventure, I should betray my Lord if too great pain overtook me. Muriel saw me wringing mine hands; and, sitting down by my side on the rude mattress, she tried for to comfort me. Then, in that hour of bitter anguish, I learnt that creature's full worth. Who should have thought, who did not then hear her, what stores of superhuman strength, of heavenly knowledge, of divine comfort, should have flowed from her lips? Then I perceived the value of a wholly detached heart, surrendered to God alone. Young as she was, her soul was as calm in this trial as that of the aged resigned woman which shared it with us. Mine was tempest-tossed for a while. I could but lie mine head on Muriel's knee and murmur, "Basil, O Basil!" or else, "If, after all, I should prove an apostate, which hath so despised others for it!"

"'Tis good to fear," she whispered, "but withal to trust. Is it not written, mine own Constance, 'My strength is sufficient for thee?' and who saith this but the Author of all strength—he on whom the whole world doth rest? He permitteth this fear in thee for humility's sake, which lesson thou hast need to learn. When that of courage is needed, be not affrighted; he will give it thee. He bestoweth not graces before they be needed."

[{650}]

Then she minded me of little St. Agnes, and related passages of her life; but mostly spoke of the cross and the passion of Christ, in such piercing and moving tones, as if visibly beholding the scene on Calvary, that the storm seemed to subside in my breast as she went on.

"Pray," she gently said, "that, if it be God's will, the extremity of human suffering should fall on thee, so that thy love for him should increase. Pray that no human joy may visit thee again, so that heaven may open its gates to thee and thy loved ones. Pray for Hubert, for the queen, for Topcliffe, for every human soul which thou hast ever been tempted to hate; and I promise thee that a great peace shall steal over thy soul, and a great strength shall lift thee up."

I did what she desired, and her words were prophetic. Peace came before long, and joy too, of a strange unearthly sort. A brief foretaste of heaven was showed forth in the consolations then poured into mine heart. When since I have desired for to rekindle fervor and awaken devotion, I recall the hours which followed that great anguish in the cell at Newgate.

Late in the evening an order came for to release Muriel and me, but not Mrs. Wells. When this dear friend understood what had occurred, she raised her hands in fervent gratitude to God, and dismissed us with many blessings.

The events which, followed I will briefly relate. When we reached home Mr. Congleton was very sick; and then began the illness which ended his life. Kate was almost wild with grief at her husband's danger, and we fetched her and her children to her father's house for to watch over them. On the next day all the prisoners which had been taken at Mr. Wells's house (we only having been released by the dealings of friends with the chief secretary) were examined by Justice Young, and returned to prison to take their trials the next session. Mr. Wells, at his return finding his house ransacked and his wife carried away to prison, had been forthwith to Mr. Justice Young for to expostulate with him, and to demand his wife and the key of his lodgings; but the justice sent him to bear the rest company, with a pair of iron bolts on his legs. The next day he examined him in Newgate; and upon Mr. Wells saying he was not privy to the mass being said that day in his house, but wished he had been present, thinking his name highly honored by having so divine a sacrifice offered in it, the justice told him "that though he was not at the feast, he should taste of the same."

The evening I returned home from the prison a great lassitude overcame me, and for a few days increased so much, joined with pains in the head and in the limbs, that I could scarcely think, or so much as stand. At last it was discerned that I was sickening with the small-pox, caught, methinks, in the prison; and this was no small increase to Muriel's trouble, who had to go to and fro from my chamber to her father's, and was forced to send Kate and her children to the country to Sir Ralph Ingoldsby's house; but methinks in the end this proved for the best, for when Mr. Lacy was, with the other prisoners, found guilty, and condemned to death on the 4th of December, some for having said, and the others for having heard, mass at Mr. Wells's house, Kate came to London but for a few hours, to take leave of him, and Polly's care of her afterward cheered the one sister in her great but not very lasting affliction, and sobered the other's spirits in a beneficial manner, for since she hath been a stayer at home, and very careful of her children and Kate's also, and, albeit very secretly, doth I hear practise her religion. Mr. Congleton never heard of his son-in-law and his friend Mr. Wells's danger, the palsy which affected him having numbed his senses so that he slowly sunk in his grave without suffering of body or mind. From Muriel I heard the course of the trial. How many bitter words and scoffs were used by the [{651}] judges and others upon the bench, particularly to Edmund Genings, because of his youth, and that he angered them with his arguments! The more to make him a scoff to the people, they vested him in a ridiculous fool's coat which they had found in Mr. Wells's house, and would have it to be a vestment. It was appointed they should all die at Tyburn, except Mr. Genings and Mr. Wells, who were to be executed before Mr. Wells's own door in Gray's Inn Fields, within three doors of our own lodging. The judges, we were told, after pronouncing sentence, began to persuade them to conform to the Protestant religion, assuring them that by so doing they should obtain mercy, but otherwise they must certainly expect to die. But they all answered "that they would live and die in the true Roman and Catholic faith, which they and all antiquity had ever professed, and that they would by no means go to the Protestant churches, or for one moment think that the queen could be head of the Church in spirituals." They dealt most urgently with Edmund Genings in this matter of conformity, giving him hopes not only of his life, but also of a good living, it he would renounce his faith; but he remained, God be praised, constant and resolute; upon which he was thrust into a dark hole within the prison, where he remained in prayer, without food or sustenance, till the hour of his death. Some letters we received from him and Mr. Wells, which have become revered treasures and almost relics in our eyes. One did write (this was Edmund): "The comforts which captivity bringeth are so manifold that I have rather cause to thank God highly for his fatherly dealings with me than to complain of any worldly misery whatsoever. Custom hath caused that it is no grief to me to be debarred from company, desiring nothing more than solitude. When I pray, I talk with God—when I read, he talketh with me; so that I am never alone." And much more in that strain. Mr. Wells ended his letter thus: "I am bound with gyves, yet I am unbound toward God, and far better I account it to have the body bound than the soul to be in bondage. I am threatened hard with danger of death; but if it be no worse, I will not wish it to be better. God send me his grace, and then I weigh not what flesh and blood can do unto me. I have answered to many curious and dangerous questions, but I trust with good advisements, not offending my conscience. What will come of it God only knoweth. Through prison and chains to glory. Thine till death." This letter was addressed to Basil, with a desire expressed we should read it before it was sent to him.

On the day before the one of the execution, Kate came to take leave of her husband. She could not speak for her tears; but he, with his usual composure, bade her be of good comfort, and that death was no more to him than to drink off the caudle which stood there ready on his table. And methinks this indifferency was a joint effect of nature and of grace, for none had ever seen him hurried or agitated in his life with any matter whatsoever. And when he rolled Topcliffe down the stairs and fell with him—for it was he which did this desperate action—his face was as composed when he rose up again, one of the servants who had seen the scuffle said, as if he had never so much as stirred from his study; and in his last speeches before his death it was noticed that his utterance was as slow and deliberate, and his words as carefully picked, as at any other time of his life. Ah me! what days were those when, hardly recovered from my sickness, only enough for to sit up in an armed-chair and be carried from one chamber to another, all the talk ministered about me was of the danger and coming death of these dear friends. I had a trouble of mine own, which I be truly ashamed to speak of; but in this narrative I have resolved above all things to be truthful; and if I have ever had [{652}] occasion, on the one hand, to relate what should seem to be to mine own credit, on the other also I desire to acknowledge my weaknesses and imperfections, of which what I am about to relate is a notable instance. The small-pox made me at that time the most deformed person that could be seen, even after I was recovered; and the first time I beheld my face in a glass, the horror which it gave me was so great that I resolved Basil should never be the husband of one whom every person which saw her must needs be affrighted to look on; but, forecasting he would never give me up for this reason, howsoever his inclination should rebel against the kindness of his heart and his true affection for me, I hastily sent him a letter, in which I said I could give him no cause for the change which had happened in me, but that I was resolved not to marry him, acting in my old hasty manner, without thought or prudence. No sooner had I done so than I grew very uneasy thereat, too late reflecting on what his suspicions should be of my inconstancy, and what should to him appear faithless breach of promise.

It grieved me, in the midst of such grave events and noble sufferings, to be so concerned for mine own trouble; and on the day before the execution I was sitting musing painfully on the tragedy which was to be enacted at our own doors as it were, weeping for the dear friends which were to suffer, and ever and anon chewing the cud of my wilful undoing of mine own, and it might prove of Basil's, future peace by my rash letter to him, and yet more rash concealment of my motives. Whilst I was thus plunged in grief and uneasiness, the door of my chamber of a sudden opened, and the servant announced Mr. Hubert Rookwood. I hid my face hastily with a veil, which I now did generally use, except when alone with Muriel. He came in, and methought a change had happened in his appearance. He looked somewhat wild and disordered, and his face flushed as one used to drinking.

"Constance," he said abruptly, "tidings have reached me which would not suffer me to put off this visit. A man coming from France hath brought me a letter from Basil, and one directed to you, which he charged me to deliver into your hands. If it tallies with that which he doth write to me—and I doubt not it must be so, for his dealings are always open and honorable, albeit often rash—I must needs hope for so much happiness from it as I can scarce credit to be possible after so much suffering."

I stretched out mine hand for Basil's letter. Oh, how the tears gushed from mine eyes on the reading of it! He had received mine, and having heard some time before from a friend he did not name of his brother's passion for me, he never misdoubted but that I had at last yielded to his solicitations, and given him the love which I withdrew from him.

Never was the nobleness of his nature more evinced than in this letter; never grief more heartfelt, combined with a more patient endurance of the overthrow of his sole earthly happiness; never a greater or more forgiving kindness toward a faithless creature, as he deemed her, with a lingering care for her weal, whom he must needs have thought so ill deserving of his love. So much sorrow without repining, such strict charges not to marry Hubert if he was not a good Catholic and truly reconciled to the Church. But if he was indeed changed in this respect, an assent given to this marriage which had cost him, he said, many tears and many prayers for to write, more than if with his own heart's blood he had traced the words; but which, nevertheless, he freely gave, and prayed God to bless us both, if with a good conscience we could be wedded; and God forbid he should hinder it, if I had ceased for to love him, and had given to Hubert—who had already got his birthright—also a more precious treasure, the heart once his own.

[{653}]

"What doth your brother write to you?" I coldly said; and then Hubert gave me his letter to read.

Methinks he imagined I concealed my face from some sort of shame; and God knoweth, had I acted the part he supposed, I might well have blushed deeper than can be thought of.

This letter was like unto the other—the most touching proof of love a man could give for a woman. Forgetting himself, my dearest Basil's only care was my happiness; and firm remonstrances were blended with touching injunctions to his brother to treasure every hair of the head of one who was dearer to him than all the world beside, and to do his duty to God and to her, which if he observed, he should, mindless of all else, for ever bless him.

When I returned the missive to him, Hubert said, in a faltering voice, "Now you are free—free to be mine—free before God and man."

"Yea," I answered; "free as the dead, for I am henceforward dead to all earthly things."

"What!" he cried, startled; "your thinking is not, God shield it, to be a nun abroad?"

"Nay," I answered; and then, laying my hand on Basil's letter, I said, "If I had thought to marry you, Hubert; if at this hour I should say I could love you, I ween you would leave the house affrighted, and never return to it again."

"Is your brain turned?" he impatiently cried.

"No," I answered quietly, lifting my veil, "my face only is changed."

I had a sort of bitter pleasure in the sight of his surprise. He turned as pale as any smock.

"Oh, fear not," I said; "my heart hath not changed with my face. I am not in so merry a mood, God knoweth, as to torment you with any such apprehensions. My love for Basil is the same; yea, rather at this hour, after these noble proofs of his love, more great than ever. Now you can discern why I should write to him I would never marry him."

Hiding his face in his hands, Hubert said, "Would I had not come here to embitter your pain?"

"You have not added to my sorrow," I answered; "the chalice is indeed full, but these letters have rather lightened than increased my sufferings."

Then concealing again my face, I went on, "O Hubert, will you come here to-morrow morning? Know you the sight which from that window shall be seen? Hark to that noise! Look out, I pray you, and tell me what it is."

He did as I bade him, and I marked the shudder he gave. His face, pale before, had now turned of an ashy hue.

"Is it possible?" he said; "a scaffold in front of that house where we were wont to meet those old friends! O Constance, are they there to die?—that brave joyous old man, that kind pious soul his wife?"

"Yea," I answered; "and likewise the friend of my young years, good holy Edmund Genings, who never did hurt a fly, much less a human creature. And at Tyburn, Bryan Lacy, my cousin, once your friend, and Sydney Hodgson, and good Mr. Mason, are to suffer."

Hubert clenched his hands, ground his teeth, and a terrible look shot through his eyes. I felt affrighted at the passion my words had awakened.

"Cursed," he cried, in a hoarse voice,—"cursed be the bloody queen which reigneth in this land! Thrice accursed be the tyrants which hunt us to death! Tenfold accursed such as lure us to damnation by the foul baits they do offer to tempt a man to lie to God and to others, to ruin those he loves, to become loathsome to himself by his mean crimes! But if one hath been cheated of his soul, robbed of the hope of heaven, debarred from his religion, thrust into the company of devils, let them fear him, yea, let them fear him, I say. Revenge is not impossible. What shall stay the [{654}] hand of such a man? What shall guard those impious tempters if many such should one day league for to sweep them from earth's face? If one be desperate of this world's life, he becomes terrible. How should he be to be dreaded who doth despair of heaven!"

With these wild words, he left me. He was gone ere I could speak.

TO BE CONTINUED. [Page 759]

---

From Chambers's Journal.
RESIGNED.

When my weary spinning's done,
And the shades of eve grow deep,
And by the bright hearthstone
The old folk sit asleep;
My heart and I in secret talk, when none can see me weep.
Ofttimes the driving rain,
And sometimes the silent snow,
Beat on the window-pane,
And mingle sad and low
With the hopes and fears, the smiles and tears, of a time long, long ago;
Till they act the tales they tell,
And a step is on the floor,
And a voice I once loved well
Says: "Open me the door."
Then I turn with a chill from the mocking wind, which whispers "Nevermore!"—-
To the little whitewashed room
In which my days are spent;
And, journeying toward the tomb,
My companions gray and bent.
Who haply deem their grandchild's life not joyous, but content.
Ah me! for the suns not set,
For the years not yet begun,
For the days not numbered yet,
And the work that must be done,
Before the desert path is crossed, and the weary web is spun!
Like a beacon in the night,
I see my first grey hair;
And I scarce can tell aright
If it is from age or care,
For time glides silent o'er my life, and leaves no landmark there.
But perchance 'tis for the best.
And I must harder strive,
If life is little blest.
Then not for life to live.
For though a heart has nought to take, it may have much to give.
[{655}]
And they are old and poor.
And bread is hard to win.
And a guest is at the door
Who soon must enter in,
And to keep his shadow from their hearth, I daily toil and spin.
My sorrow is their gain,
And I show not by a tear
How my solitude and pain
Have bought their comfort dear.
For the storm which wrecked my life's best hope has left me stranded here.
But I hear the neighbors say,
That the hour-glass runs too fast,
And I know that in that glad day,
When toil and sorrow are past,
The false and true shall receive their due, and hearts cease aching at last.

---

From The Month.
SAINTS OF THE DESERT.
BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN. D.D.

1. A sportsman fell in with Abbot Antony, when pleasantly conversing with his brethren, and was scandalized.

The old man said: "Put an arrow on the string, and bend your bow." He did so.

Then Antony said: "Bend it more;" and he bent it more.

Antony said: "More still." He answered: "I shall break it."

Then said Antony: "This will befal the brethren, if their minds are always on the stretch."

2. It is told of Abbot Arsenius, how he was used to remain all night without sleep.

Then, when morning broke, and he needed rest, he used to say to sleep: Come, you good-for-nothing.

Then he took a nap, as he sat; and soon woke up again.

3. A brother said to Abbot Theodore, "Say some good word to me, for I am perishing."

He answered: I am in jeopardy myself, and what can I say to thee?

4. A brother said to Abbot Pastor: "I have done a great sin; give me a three years' penance." The abbot answered; "It is too much."

The brother said, "Give me a year." The old man said again, "It is too much."

The brothers round him asked, "Should it be forty days?" Still he answered, "It is too much."

For, said he, whoso doth penance with his whole heart, and never does the sin again, is received by God even on the penance of three days.

5. A brother had sinned, and the priest bade him leave the church.

Bessarion rose, and went out with him, saying: And I too am a sinner.

6. Abbott Macarius said: Never chide an erring brother angrily; for you are not bid save another's soul at the loss of your own.

7. Abbot Nilus said: If you would pray as you ought, beware of sadness; else you will run in vain.

CONTINUED

[Page 835]

---

[{656}]

From All The Year Round.
UP AND DOWN CANTON.

Canton is a genuine Chinese city, and one of the most extraordinary places in the world. There are four American steamers which ply between Hong-Kong and Canton. They are fast commodious vessels, in fact floating hotels, such as ply on the large American rivers. The voyage occupies about eight or nine hours. Of these, five or six are on the open sea, sheltered mostly under the lee of precipitous bluffs and lofty rocky islets; and the rest, from the "Bocca Tigris," up the Canton river. The fog in the winter season lies so dense over the flats and extensive swamps bordering the river that steamers have to proceed with great caution, going "dead slow," and sounding the steam-whistle, while the little fishing-junks, which are sure to be scattered by dozens in the way, eagerly beat their gongs, to make known their whereabout. As the steamer ascends the river, a noble stream, some five or six miles broad near the mouth, she gets gradually clear of the fog. The wide marshy flats, and the bold rocks on the left bank, crowned with odd-looking Chinese stone batteries, come into view, to be succeeded by paddy-fields, sugar-cane cultivation, orchards, gardens, roads, and villages, that become, on both banks, more and more numerous, until they blend with the vast suburbs of Canton. Charming little pagodas, and fanciful buildings, painted and carved, the residences of mandarins, peep from the shades of groves, and every village is surmounted by two or more lofty square towers, the nature of which puzzles a stranger, until he is told they are pawnbrokers shops. These shops are so fashioned for the greater security of the articles pledged, because the broker is made heavily responsible for their safe-keeping. The security is meant to be not only against thieves, but also against fire. Half-way to Canton, on the right, or west bank, is a little English settlement at the town of Whampo. It consists of some ship-chandlers' stores, warehouses, and a dock for repairing vessels which discharge their cargoes here, being unable to proceed higher up the stream. Whampo is, in fact, the seaport of Canton, and was a flourishing place as such till Hong-Kong diverted the trade. From Whampo upward, the river becomes more and more crowded with junks and Chinese boats. Some of the junks, men-of-war, differ from the rest only in being larger, and in having several unwieldy guns on their decks, mounted on uncouth carriages: in many instances with their muzzles not pointed through portholes, but grinning over the bulwarks at an angle of forty-five degrees, like huge empty bottles.

When the steamer has slowly and cautiously threaded her way among these numerous vessels, and dropped anchor, the rush of "tanka-boats" round her is astonishing. These are broad bluff crafts, something of the size and shape of the sampans, but impelled chiefly by women; one sweeping, the other sculling with a large steering oar. They close round the ship in hundreds, yelling, screaming, struggling, and fighting for the gangways, till every passenger or article of light freight has left. The women are warmly and comfortably dressed in dark-blue linen shirts and wide drawers, with red and yellow bandanas round their heads and faces. They are often young and good-looking, with bright laughing eyes, white [{657}] teeth, and jolly red cheeks. They are, unlike the "flower-boat" girls, honest and well conducted. Their boats are roofed over, with snug neat cabins nicely painted, and bedizened with flowers, old-fashioned pictures, and looking-glasses. A low cushioned bench runs round three sides, and the passenger sits down pleasantly enough, looking through the entrance, and face to face with the sturdy nymph, who, with a "stamp and go," is rowing him along, while at the stern, behind his back, another lusty Naiad steers him on his way.

The river divides the great city into two parts; that on the left bank, which is by far the larger, being Canton, and the opposite smaller town "Honan." On the Honan side, a few European gentlemen still live and carry on business, as branches of several firms in Hong-Kong; but the principal European quarter is a fine level plain on the Canton side, presenting to the river a revetted wall. A pretty church and some handsome houses, including the British consulate, have been already completed within the land, which is called the "Shámeen." It adjoins the portion formerly allotted for the Hongs, or warehouses and offices of foreign (European) merchants, which were burnt down by the Chinese mob before the last war.

At ten in the morning, one day in the month of February, I started from the Honan side, under the guidance of a Chinese cicerone, who spoke a language somewhat better than the gibberish known by the name of "pigeon" (business) English, to explore the city of Canton. We crossed the river in a tanka-boat, and after threading, jostling, and pushing our way through swarms of small craft in every variety, landed at the custom-house stairs, close to a small office in which presides an English functionary, in the pay of the Chinese government. The strand is crowded with mean dirty hovels, in which, and about the muddy road, and on board innumerable boats, packed closely along the bank, men, women, and children, filthy and ragged, were crowding in swarms. We passed a short way up the strand, by some large shops, crammed with clothing and ship chandlery, and, striking inland, traversed an open space, scattered with the relics of the European Hongs burnt before the last war (a space, by-the-by, which Europeans have altogether deserted, preferring the "Shámeen" land, and which the Chinese government appear unwilling to resume, so that it remains altogether untenanted). We then entered the bazaar, or strictly commercial portions of the town.

The day was unusually sultry for the time of year; the streets (so to call passages of six or seven feet width), entirely paved with flag-stones, were muddy and greasy from rain that had fallen the day before. The air was stagnant from the confinement of closely packed and overhanging houses, and heated by swarms of people hurrying to and fro, while an insupportable stench from sewers, neglected drains, and putrid fish and flesh, with a horrible odor of stale cabbage water, pervaded the suffocating atmosphere. I became faint at times, fatigued and heated beyond endurance, so that my estimate of the extent of this enormous labyrinth through which I plodded for four hours before I could get a sedan-chair, is one rather, of the feelings than of the judgment I walked—stepping now and then into shops, to examine them more closely—and rode in a sedan-chair up one street and down another, from about half-past ten in the morning until four in the afternoon, and had to leave unvisited about half the bazaar, to get a hasty glimpse of a few temples, gardens, and mandarin-houses before dusk.

The streets are flagged, and about six or seven feet broad. They appear to be innumerable, crossing each other at right angles at every two or three hundred yards. The houses [{658}] on each side are narrow-fronted, but extending considerably to the rear. There are no windows, for the centre of each front is, open, merely consisting of carved and painted framework, like the proscenium of a theatre, and displaying the contents of the shop on each hand, like side scenes. The back is closed by a large panelling, in which figures of gods, men, animals, and flowers are painted, with a vast deal of gilding and finery. In short, each shop looks like a little theatre. A few houses have upper stories, reached by pretty carved and balustraded stairs. And as every article for which space can be found is hung up for display, both inside the shop and around its front, the spectator, as he enters the bazaar, feels as if he were diving into an ocean of cloths, silks, flags, and flutters.

My guide was a sharp fellow, who thoroughly knew all the sights of Canton. As he had been often employed as cicerone by the ship captains, he immediately put me down as one of that jolly fraternity, frequent intercourse with whom had given a slightly nautical twang to his discourse. We had not gone far before he addressed me, "I say, cappen: you come along o' me and see jewelers' shops. Here's first-rate shop—number one jeweler this chap—cappen want to buy anything? Heave along!" The jewelers' shops were numerous, and I saw many very beautiful specimens of carving and filigree-work. Some of the shops sold articles of European design, others ministered only to the native beauty and fashion of Canton. These contained many articles of considerable beauty and real taste. The most notable were the "bird's feather ornaments," which consist of gold or gilt head combs, brooches, ear-rings, and the like, on which are firmly fixed, with glue, strips of the bright blue feathers of the kingfisher (Halcyon Smyrnensis), cut into small patterns, through which the gold ground appears; the whole effect being exactly like that of enamel work. The kingfisher is not, I think, found in China, but is imported in great numbers from Burmah and India. I asked the price of one skin lying on the counter, and was told half a dollar (two shillings and threepence). The bird was probably procured in India for three-halfpence. Ivory shops are in great number, but the Chinese ivory yields, in my opinion, to that of the Japanese. I went into several porcelain shops, and saw in each ten or a dozen languid-looking youths painting away, slowly and laboriously, at leaves, flowers, insects, and so forth, on plates. Each lad had a small bowl of one color, and when he had painted in all the parts of the design intended to be of that color, he passed the plate on to his neighbor, who added his color, and so on all round the room till the pattern was completely colored. The result is stiff and mechanical. There is no attempt at artistic effect, nothing like the beautiful pictures painted in the factories at Worcester or Dresden. Dyers and weavers are numerous. The silk shops are the finest in the bazaar, but their contents are excessively dear, and are not very good. Indeed, the Canton silks are considered by the Chinese themselves to be, inferior to those made in the northern provinces of the empire. I have seen silk dresses and pieces from Pekin brought into India via Nepaul, of a quality which I was assured by a competent judge could not be procured at Canton. This was five-and-twenty years ago, and it is possible that our present widely different connection with China may have introduced a better article into Shanghae, which is so near Pekin. But the Chinese were very jealous formerly about exporting their finest silks, and those I allude to were brought by the members of a mission, sent every three years with a tribute from Kathmandoo to the Emperor of China, as a friendly return present from the emperor to the Rajah of Nepaul.

[{659}]

The Chinese shopkeepers are fat comfortable-looking fellows, with pleasant, good-humored faces. They showed me their curiosities very willingly, and none the less courteously exchanged a smiling "chin-chin" with me if I left the shop without purchasing anything.

Tea-shops are numberless. They are piled up with chests such as we see in England, and with open baskets of coarse and inferior tea for the poor. The cheapest kind is made in thin round cakes or large wafers, strung upon slips of bamboo. It partially dissolves in hot water, and is flavored with salt by those who drink it. Of this form of brick tea I have never seen any mention in the books published by travellers.

There are poulterers' shops, with fowls roasted and raw; and there are vegetable sellers' stalls, and fish in baskets, dead and not over-fresh, or alive in large tubs of water. They were all of the carp family, including réhos, mïrgals, and kutlas, so familiarly known in India, also several species of the siluroids, called vulgarly "catfish." The fish brought from the sea are salted and sun-dried, and, with strong aid from immense festoons of sharks' fins, set up a stench that it is not easy to walk through.

After inspecting shops and elbowing and being elbowed in the crowd till afternoon, when I was ready to drop with heat and fatigue, my pilot steered me to a small square, flagged with stone, on which the sun shone fiercely. He called it "Beggars' square," and told me that all the destitute and abandoned sick in the city crawled, if they could, to this spot, because those who died there received burial at the expense of government. While he spoke, my eyes were fixed upon some heaps of dirty tattered clothes on the ground, which presently began to move, and I discovered to my horror three miserable creatures, lean and covered with odious filth, lying in different stages of their last agony on the bare stones, exposed to the burning rays of the sun. They came here to die, and no one heeded them, or gave them a drop of water, or a morsel of food, or even a little shelter from the noontide glare. I had seen shocking things of this sort in India, but nothing so horrible. To insure a climax of disgusts, my guide led me straight to a dog butcher's shop, where several of the nasty fat oily carcases of those animals were hanging for sale. They had not been flayed, but dangled there with their smooth shining skins, which had been scalded and scraped clean of hair, so that at first I took them for sucking-pigs. There were joints of dog, ready roasted, on the counter, and in the back of the shop were several cages in which live dogs were quietly sitting, lolling their tongues out, and appearing very unconcerned. I saw several cats also, in cages, looking very demure; and moreover I saw customers, decorous and substantial-looking householders, inspect and feel the dogs and cats, and buy those which they deemed fittest for the table. The cats did not like being handled, and mewed loudly. "What cappen think o' that?" said my guide. "Cappen s'pose never eat dog?—dog very good, very fat, very soft. Oh, number one dinner is dog!" "And are cats as good?" I asked. "Oh, Chinaman chowchow everything. Chowchow plenty cat. Chinaman nasty beast, I think, cappen, eh?" My cicerone had been so long mixed up with European and American ship captains and missionaries, that he had learnt to suit his ideas to his company, if his ideas had not actually undergone great modification, as is the case in India with those educated natives of the present day known to us as specimens of "Young Bengal."

Before quitting the bazaar, I was ushered into two gambling-shops. These are licensed by the Chinese government, the owners paying a considerable tax. Both were tolerably full of players, and in both the same kind of game was being played—a simple one enough, if I understood it. [{660}] A player staked a pile of cash or dollars; the croupier staked a similar one; and then another member of the establishment dipped his hand into a bag and drew out a handful of counters; if they were in even fours, the bank won; if they were uneven, the player won, and the croupier's stake was duly handed over to him—rather ruefully, it struck me, by the banker, who sat on the counter raised above the rest. This game appears about as intrinsically entertaining as pulling straws; but I may have overlooked or misunderstood parts of it of a more intellectual nature. In the first house I visited, the players were of the lower class, and the stakes were copper cash. One man, quite a youth, left the room evidently cleaned out; his look revealed it, and I suppose he went away to the opium shop, the usual consolation of a Chinaman under the circumstances. As we entered the second gambling-house, my guide informed me, "This rich house. Number one fellow play here—mandarin chap." And truly I saw in the room goodly piles of dollars heaped up before a better-dressed assembly. The game appeared to be the same, and money changed hands rapidly. I "chin-chinned" to the banker and to the company, and was civilly allowed to look on. The room led through a filigreed doorway to another apartment, where cakes, loaves, tea, and pipes were spread out, and where long-tailed gentlemen were lounging and discussing the news of the day.

Being in want of cash, and having only dollar notes with me, I asked my guide what I should do? He straightway led me to a money-changer's, where I was at once furnished with change for my notes at par. As this was an unusual accommodation, I asked the reason of such generosity, and was informed that the dollars given me were all light, and that the changer would obtain full-weight dollars for the notes by-and-by. I was assured, however, that in all the shops the dollars I had received would be received at the full value; and this I found to be the case. All the time I was in the money-changer's, I saw three or four people telling, examining, and stamping dollars. So defaced and mutilated does the coin become by bearing the "chop" or mark of every banker or dealer into whose possession it passes, that it as nearly as possible returns to that state of bullion which the Chinaman prefers to minted coin. As it was, the only small change I could procure for a dollar was in fragments of silver; in the weighing out of which I was of course at the mercy of the shopman.

A chair having been with great difficulty procured for me, and another for my guide, we were about emerging from the bazaar when I had the honor of meeting a mandarin and suite. My bearers had just time to squeeze into the entrance of a side-alley, when the cavalcade was down upon us. Funny-looking soldiers with spears and muskets indiscriminately, musicians and drummers or tom-tom beaters, and an amazing figure in red and gold apparel of a loose flapping cut, with a sword in his hand, mounted upon an inexcusable pony—a Chinese Rosinante. In the centre of this cortege the mandarin was borne along, a placid fat dignitary, in a richly embroidered purple velvet and golden dress, seated in a gaudy sedan.

It was a great relief to emerge from the crowded bazaar, pass through the gateway in the massive city wall, and proceed through comparatively airy lanes to one or two Chinese gentlemen's houses and gardens, which my guide most unceremoniously entered, marshalling me in without a word of introduction or apology, and making me feel rather ashamed of myself. These dwellings, as well as the joss-houses or temples, have been so often described, that I will not inflict them again on the reader. Not the slightest objection was raised by the priests to my exploring every part of the temples, the vergers showing the altars, the various images, the cloisters [{661}] and refectories, with great alacrity, and extending their hands afterward for a fee. The only undescribed fact connected with these worthies which I was informed of is, that they sell their finger-nails to any foreigner desirous of purchasing such curiosities. These nails are suffered to grow uncut, and attain a length of three or four inches, looking remarkably unlike finger-nails, and forming curiosities much coveted, said my guide, by foreign gentlemen and "cappens." Among other religious edifices I visited a Mohammedan temple, a singular jumble of Islamism and Buddhism. Extracts from the Koran wore an odd appearance emblazoned on Chinese architecture. There were no priests visible here; only children and begging old women.

Want of time prevented my visiting the camp or barracks of the Chinese soldiers, on the heights outside the eastern suburbs of the town. A large garden, attached to a temple on the Honan side, was the only other object I had time that day to inspect. The garden was principally stocked with orange-trees, also loquats and lychees, hundreds of which were on sale for the benefit of the good fathers, who are supported by the produce of the garden and the contributions of the piously disposed. On each side of the centre walk, beyond a little dirty pond, was a shed, with shelves, on which were ranged pots containing the ashes of the priests ("priests' bones," my guide irreverently called them); their bodies, after decease, undergoing incremation in an adjoining pit. Names, ages, and dates of decease are duly preserved, cut into slabs of stone on the concave face of a semicircular screen of masonry in the garden. Before leaving the garden I was not a little surprised by the appearance of a veritable magpie, identical, as it seemed to me, with our British bird, that I had not seen for many years.

After guiding me safely to my quarters—for so labyrinthine is every part of Canton and Honan that it would be hopeless to attempt to find one's way alone—my pilot left me and departed to his own home, which was, he told me, on the Canton side. The language he spoke is, as may be gathered from the specimens here given, not the ordinary "pigeon English" of Chinese servants; a style of gibberish which it is lamentable to think has become the ordinary channel of communication with all Chinamen. These sharp and intelligent people would soon learn to speak and understand better English than such sentences has "You go top-side and catchee one piecee book"—"You tell those two piecee cooly go chow-chow, and come back chop-chop." (Go up-stairs and fetch a book—Tell those two coolies to go to their dinner, and return quickly.) The good effects of the tuition afforded by schoolmasters and missionaries in China are much marred by the jargon used conventionally, with irrational adherence to defect, in all ordinary transactions of business, by masters and mistresses in intercourse with their servants, and by commercial men with their native assistants.

About seven hours' run, in one of the American steamers before mentioned, carries the passenger from Canton to Macao. The mouth of the river is cleared in four hours, and the rest of the voyage is over an open sea, which, with a fresh southerly breeze, is rather rough for a flat-bottomed steamer: the islands to eastward, though numerous, being too remote to check the swell of the Chinese ocean. After running for about an hour along the bold rocky peninsula at the point of which Macao is built, the steamer rounds in, and, entering a partially land-locked harbor between the town and some rocky islets to its south, anchors in smooth water. The town has a quaint picturesque look. Its old-fashioned houses extend to the water's edge. They are all of stone or brick, covering the face of the bold coast: the heights of which are crowned by castles, forts, batteries, and convents, and from whose ancient walls the last rays of a setting sun were fading as we entered the harbor. The [{662}] inhabitants are entirely Portuguese, Chinese, and a breed between the two. The jealousy of the Portuguese government effectually excludes foreigners from settling; a miserable policy, by which trade is almost extinct, the revenue being derived chiefly from licensing of gambling-houses. In front of the house of the governor I saw a guard of soldiers. They wore able-bodied, smart-looking young fellows in neat blue uniforms, detailed from a regiment in the fort. These soldiers, and a few half-castes, looking like our office keranies in India, together with some strangely dressed females, in appearance half aya, half sister of charity, were all that I saw of the Portuguese community. The non-military Portuguese looked jaded and lazy, almost every man with a cheroot in his mouth. The town, indeed, struck me as a very "Castle of Indolence."

---

Abridged from The Dublin University Magazine.
GLASTONBURY ABBEY, PAST AND PRESENT.

One of the most subtle operations of time is the tendency it has to transform the facts of one age into the phantasies of another, and to cause the dreams of the past to become the realities of the present. Far away in the remote distance of history, when a lonely monk in his cell mused of vessels going without sails and carriages without horses, it was a dream—a mere dream, produced probably by a brain disordered by over study, long vigils, and frequent fasts, but that dream of the thirteenth century has become the most incontrovertible fact of the nineteenth, a fact to whose influence all other hitherto immovable facts are giving way, even the great one, the impregnability of the Englishman's castle; for we find that before the obstinate march of one of these railway facts a thousand Englishmen's castles fall prostrate, and a thousand Englishmen are evicted, their avocations broken up, and themselves turned out upon the world as a new order of beings—outcasts with compensation.

The monastic life, so commonly regarded in these later times as a phantasy, was once a fact, a great universal fact; it was a fact for twelve or thirteen centuries; and when we remember that it extended its influence from the sunny heights of Palestine, across Europe, to the wild, bleak shores of western Ireland; that it did more in the world for the formation and embellishment of modern civilization than all the governments and systems of life the accompanied it in its course; that the best portions of ancient literature, the materials of history, the secrets of art, are the pearls torn from its treasure-house, we may form some idea of what a fact the monastic life must have been at one time, and may venture to assert that the history of that phase of existence, as in frock and cowl it prayed, and watched, and fasted; as in its quiet cloisters it studied, and copied, and labored; as outside its walls it mingled its influence with the web of human destiny, and as in process of time, becoming wealthy and powerful, it degenerated, and went the way of all human things—we say that the history of the development of this extinct world, however defective the execution of that history may be, will include in its review some of the most interesting portions of our national career, will furnish a clue to many of the mazes of historical speculation, or at least may be suggestive [{663}] to some more able intellect of a course of investigation which has been very little followed, and a mine of truth which to a great extent still remains intact.

At a time when laws were badly administered, and the country often torn by internal contentions, and always subject to the violence of marauders, it was absolutely necessary that there should be some asylum for those thoughtful, retiring spirits who, unable or unwilling to take part in the turmoil of the times, were exposed to all its dangerous vicissitudes. In an age, too, when the country possessed no literature, the contemplative and the learned had no other means of existence than by retiring to the cloister, safe out of the reach of the jealous superstition of ignorance and the wanton barbarity of uncouth violence. The monastery then was the natural home of these beings—the deserted, the oppressed, the meek spirit who had been beaten in the world's conflict, the untimely born son of genius, the scholar, the devotee, all found a safe shelter and a genial abode behind the friendly walls of these cities of refuge. There, too, lay garnered up, as a priceless hoarding for future ages, the sacred oracles of Christianity, and the rescued treasures of ancient lore; there science labored at her mystic problems; and there poetry, painting, and music were developed and perpetuated; in fine, all that the world holds as most excellent, all that goes toward the foundation and adornment of modern society, treasured up in the monastery as in an ark, rode in safety over the dark flood of that mediaeval deluge until the waters subsided, and a new world appearing from its depths, violent hands were laid upon those costly treasures, which were torn from their hiding-places and freely scattered abroad, whilst the representatives of those men who, in silence and with prayer, had amassed and cherished them, were branded as useless idlers, their homes broken up, and themselves dispersed, with no mercy for their errors and no gratitude for their labors, to seek the scanty charities of a hostile world. Beside being the cradle of art and science, the monastery was a great and most efficient engine for the dispensation of public charity. At its refectory kitchen the poor were always cheerfully welcomed, generously treated, and periodically relieved; in fine, the care of the poor was not only regarded as a solemn duty, but was undertaken with the most cheerful devotion and the most unremitting zeal. They were not treated like an unsightly social disease, which was to be cured if possible, but at any rate kept out of sight; they were not handed over to the tender sympathies of paid relieving officers, nor dealt with by the merciless laws of statistics, but they were treated gently and kindly in the spirit of the Great Master, who when on earth bestowed upon them the larger share of his sympathy, who, in the tenderness of his pity, dignified poverty and sanctified charity when he declared that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Whatever may have been the vices of the monastic system or the errors of its ritual, its untiring charity was its great redeeming virtue.

It will not perhaps be an unfitting introduction to our investigation into the rise and influence of this system upon our national life if we resuscitate from the grave of the past one of these great monasteries, the oldest and most powerful which sprang up in our country, and which, compared with others at the time when they fell before the great religious convulsion of the sixteenth century, had, in the midst of general corruption, maintained its purity, and suffered less from its own vices than from the degeneracy of the system to which it belonged, and of which it was the most distinguished ornament. We shall endeavor to portray the monastery as it was in all its glory, to pass through its portals, to enter reverently [{664}] into its magnificent church, to listen to its gorgeous music, to watch its processions, to wander through its cloisters, to visit its domestic domains, to penetrate into the mysteries of its refectory, the ascetic simplicity of its dormitory, the industry of its schoolhouse and fratery, the stores of its treasury, the still richer stores of its library, the immortal labors of its Scriptorium, where they worked for so many centuries, uncheered and unrewarded, for a thankless posterity, who shrink even now from doing them justice; we shall visit the gloomy splendors of its crypt, wander through its grounds, and marvel at its strange magnificence. After having thus gazed, as it were, upon the machine itself in motion, we shall perhaps be the better enabled subsequently to comprehend the nature and value of its work.

In the early part of the sixteenth century the ancient abbey of Glastonbury was in the plenitude of its magnificence and power. It had been the cynosure for the devotees of all nations, who, for nearly eleven centuries, flocked in crowds to its fane—to worship at its altars, to venerate its relics, to drink in health at its sacred well, and to gaze in rapt wonder at its holy thorn. And even now, in these later days, though time has wasted it, though fierce fanaticism has played its cannon upon it, though ruthless vandalism in blind ignorance has despoiled many of its beauties, it still stands proud in its ruined grandeur, defiant alike of the ravages of decay, the devastation of the iconoclast, and the wantonness of the ignorant. Although not a single picture, but only an inventorial description, is extant of this largest abbey in the kingdom, yet, standing amidst its silent ruins, the imagination can form some faint idea of what it must have been when its aisles were vocal with the chant of its many-voiced choir, when gorgeous processions moved grandly through its cloisters, and when its altars, its chapels, its windows, its pillars, were all decorated with the myriad splendors of monastic art. Passing in at the great western entrance, through a lodge kept by a grave lay-brother, we find ourselves in a little world, shut up by a high wall which swept round its domains, inclosing an area of more than sixty acres. The eye is arrested at once by a majestic pile of building, stretching itself out in the shape of an immense cross, from the centre of whose transept there rises a high tower. The exterior of this building is profusely decorated with all the weird embellishments of medieval art. There, in sculptured niche, stands the devout monarch, sceptred and crowned; the templar knight, who had fallen under an oriental sun fighting for the cross; the mitred abbot, with his crosier; the saint with his emblem; the martyr with his palm; scenes from Sacred Writ; the apostles, the evangelists; petrified allegories and sculptured story; and then, clustering around and intertwining itself with all these scenes and representations of the world of man, were ornamental devices culled from the world of nature. A splendid monument of the genius of those mediaeval times whose mighty cathedrals stand before us now like massive poems or graven history, where men may read, as it were from a sculptured page, the chivalrous doings of departed heroes, the long tale of the history of the Church—of her woes, her triumphs, her martyrs, and her saints—a deathless picture of actual existence, as though some heaven-sent spirit had come upon the earth, and with a magic stroke petrified into the graphic stillness of stone a whole world of life and living things. The length of the nave of this church, beginning from St. Joseph's chapel (which we shall presently notice, and which was an additional building) up to the cross, was 220 feet, the great tower was 40 feet in breadth, and the transepts on either side of it each 45 feet in length, the choir was 150 feet; its entire length from east to west was [{665}] 420 feet; and if we add the appended St. Joseph's chapel, we have a range of building 530 feet in length.

Turning from the contemplation of this external grandeur, we come to a structure which forms the extreme west of the abbey—a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph of Arimathea. The entrance on the north side is a masterpiece of art, being a portal consisting of four semicircular arches, receding and diminishing as they recede into the body of the wall, the four fasciae profusely decorated with sculptured representations of personages and scenes, varied by running patterns of tendrils, leaves, and other natural objects. The first thing that strikes the attention upon entering is the beautiful triarial-mullioned window at the western extremity, with its semicircular head; opposite, at the eastern end, another, corresponding in size and decoration, throws its light upon the altar. On both the north and south sides of the church are four uniform windows, rising loftily till their summits nearly touch the vaulting; underneath these are four sculptured arches, the panelling between them adorned with painted representations of the sun, moon, stars, and all the host of heaven; the flooring was a tesselated pavement of encaustic tiles, each bearing an heraldic device, or some allegorical or historical subject. Beneath this tesselated pavement is a spacious crypt, eighty-nine feet in length, twenty feet in width, and ten feet high, provided with an altar, and when used for service illuminated by lamps suspended from the ceiling. St. Joseph's chapel, however, with its softly-colored light, its glittering panels, its resplendent altars, and its elegant proportions, is a beautiful creation; but only a foretaste or a prelude of that full glare of splendor which bursts upon the view on ascending the flight of steps leading from its lower level up to the nave of the great abbey church itself, which was dedicated to St. Mary. Arrived at that point, the spectator gazes upon a long vista of some four hundred feet, including the nave and choir; passing up through the nave, which has a double line of arches, whose pillars are profusely sculptured, we come to the central point in the transept, where there are four magnificent Gothic arches, which for imposing grandeur could scarcely be equalled in the world, mounting up to the height of one hundred feet, upon which rested the great tower of the church. A portion of one of these arches still exists, and though broken retains its original grandeur. In the transept running north and south from this point are four beautifully decorated chapels, St. Mary's, in the north aisle; St. Andrew's, in the south; Our Lady of Loretto's, on the north side of the nave; and at the south angle that of the Holy Sepulchre; another stood just behind the tower, dedicated to St. Edgar: in each of these are altars richly adorned with glittering appointments, and beautiful glass windows, stained with the figures of their patron saints, the apostles, scriptural scenes or episodes from the hagiology of the Church; then, running in a straight line with the nave, completing the gigantic parallelogram, is the choir, where the divine office is daily performed. The body is divided into stalls and seats for the abbot, the officers, and monks. At the eastern extremity stands the high altar, with its profusion of decorative splendor, whilst over it is an immense stained-glass window, with semicircular top, which pours down upon the altar, and in fact bathes the whole choir, when viewed from a distance, in a sea of softened many-colored light. The flooring of the great church, like that of St. Joseph's, is composed of encaustic Norman tiles, inscribed with Scripture sentences, heraldic devices, and names of kings and benefactors. Underneath the great church is the crypt—a dark vault divided into three compartments by two rows of strong massive pillars, into which, having descended from the church, the spectator [{666}] enters; the light of his torch is thrown back from a hundred different points, like the eyes of serpents glittering through the darkness, reflected from the bright gold and silver nails and decorations of the coffins that lie piled on all sides, and whose ominous shapes can be just faintly distinguished. This is the weird world, which exerts a mysterious influence over the hearts of the most thoughtless—the silent world of death in life; and piled up around are the remains of whole generations long extinct of races of canonized saints, pious kings, devout queens, mitred abbots, bishops, nobles who gave all their wealth to lie here, knights who braved the dangers of foreign climes, the power of the stealthy pestilence, and the scimitar of the wild Saracen, that they might one day come back and lay their bones in this holy spot. There were the gilded coffins of renowned abbots, whose names were a mighty power in the world when they lived, and whose thoughts are still read with delight by the votaries of another creed—the silver crosiers of bishops, the purple cloth of royalty, and the crimson of the noble—all slumbering and smoldering in the dense obscurity of the tomb, but flashing up to the light once more in a temporary brilliancy, like the last ball-room effort of some aged beauty—the aristocracy of death, the coquetry of human vanity, strong even in human corruption. Amongst the denizens of this dark region are—King Arthur and his queen Guinever, Coel II., grandfather of Constantine the Great, Kentwyn, king of the West Saxons, Edmund I., Edgar and Ironsides, St. David of Wales, and St. Gildas, beside nine bishops, fifteen abbots, and many others of note. Reascending from this gloomy cavern to the glories of the great church, we wander amongst its aisles, and as we gaze upon the splendors of its choir, we reflect that in this gorgeous temple, embellished by everything that art and science could contribute, and sanctified by the presence of its holy altar, with its consecrated host, its cherished receptacle of saintly relics, and its sublime mysteries, did these devout men, seven times a day, for centuries, assemble for prayer and worship. As soon as the clock had tolled out the hour of midnight, when all the rest of the world was rocked in slumber, they arose, and flocked in silence to the church, where they remain in prayer and praise until the first faint streaks of dawn began to chase away the constellations of the night, and then, at stated intervals through the rest of the day, the appointed services were carried on, so that the greater portion of their lives was spent m this choir, whose very walls were vocal with psalmody and prayer. It was a grand offering to the Almighty of human work and human life. In that temple was gathered as a rich oblation everything that the united labor of ages could create and collect; strong hands had dug out its foundations in the bowels of the earth, had hewn stubborn rocks into huge blocks, and piled them up high in the heavens, had fashioned them into pillars and arches, myriads of busy fingers had labored for ages at its decoration until every column, every cornice, and every angle bore traces of patient toil; the painter, the sculptor, the poet, had all contributed to its embellishment, strength created it, genius beautified it, and the ever-ascending incense of human contrition, human adoration, and human prayer completed the gorgeous sacrifice which those devotees of mediaeval times offered up in honor of him whose mysterious presence they venerated as the actual and real inhabitant of their holy of holies.

Retracing our steps once more to the nave, we turn to take one lingering glance at the scene: and here the full beauty and magnificence of the edifice bursts upon the view, the eye wanders through a perfect stony forest whose stately trees, taken at some moment when their tops, bending toward each other and interlacing [{667}] themselves, had been petrified into the natural beauty of the Gothic arch; here and there were secluded spots where the prismatic light from painted windows danced about the pillars like straggling sunbeams through the thick foliage of a forest glade. The clusters of pillars resembled the gnarled bark of old forest trees, and the grouped ornaments of their capitols were the points where the trunk itself spread off into limbs and branches; there were groves and labyrinths running far away into the interior of this sculptured wood, and towering high in the centre were those four kings of the forest, whose tops met far up in the heavens—the true heart of the scene, from which everything diverged, and, with which everything was in keeping. Then, as the spectator stands, lost in the grandeur of the spectacle, gazing in rapt wonder at the sky-painted ceiling, or at some fantastic gnarled head grinning at him from a shady nook, the passing whim of some mediaeval brain—a faint sigh, as of a distant wind, steals along those stony glades, gradually increasing in volume, until presently the full, rich tones of the choir burst forth, the organ peals out its melodious thunder, add every arch and every pillar vibrates with undulations of harmonious sound, just as in the storm-shaken forest every mighty denizen bends his massive branches to the fierce tempest-wind, and intones his deep response to the wild music of the storm. Before the power of that music-tempest everything bowed, and as the strains of some Gregorian chant or the dirge-like melody of some penitential psalm filled the whole building with its pathos, every figure seemed to be invested with life, the mysterious harmony between the building and its uses was manifested, the painted figures on the windows appeared to join in the strain, a celestial chorus of apostles, martyrs, and saints; the statues in their niches threw back the melody; the figures reclining on the tombs seemed to raise their clasped hands in silent response to its power, as though moved in their stony slumber by a dream of solemn sounds; the grotesque figures on the pillars and in nooks and corners chanted the dissonant chords, which brought out more boldly the general harmony; every arch, with its entwined branches and sculptured foliage, shook with the stormy melody: all was instinct with sympathetic life, until, the fury of the tempest dying away in fitful gusts, the last breeze was wafted, the painted forms became dumb, the statues and images grew rigid, the foliage was still, all the sympathetic vitality faded away, and the sacred grove fell into its silent magnificence.

Attached to the great church were two offices—the sacristy and church treasury. In the former were kept the sacred vestments, chalices, etc., in use daily; and in the latter were kept all the valuables, such as sacred relics, jewels and plate not in use, with mitres, crosiers, cruces, and pectorals; there was also a confessional for those who wished to use it before going to the altar. The care of these two offices was committed to a monk elected by the abbot, who was called the sacrist. Coming out of the church we arrive at the cloisters, a square place, surrounded by a corridor of pillars, and in the centre of the enclosure was a flower-garden—this was the place where the monks were accustomed to assemble at certain hours to walk up and down. In one of the alleys of the cloister stood the chapter-house, which, as it was the scene of the most important events in their monotonous lives, deserves a description. In this spot the abbots and officers of the monastery were elected, all the business of the house as a body was discussed, faults were openly confessed, openly reproved, and in some cases corporal punishment was awarded in the presence of the abbot and whole convent upon some incorrigible offender, so that, beside being an assembling room, it was a court of complaint and correction. One [{668}] brother could accuse another openly, when the matter was gone into, and justice done. In all conventual institutions it was a weekly custom, and in some a daily one, to assemble in the chapter-house after one of the morning services (generally after primes), when a sentence from the rule was read, a psalm sung, and business attended to. It was also an envied burying-place; and the reader, as he stood at his desk in the chapter-house of Glastonbury Abbey, stood over the body of Abbot Chinnock, who himself perfected its building, which was commenced in 1303 by Abbot Fromont. In the interior, which was lit up by a magnificent stained-glass window, there were three rows of stone benches one above another. On the floor there was a reading-desk and bench apart; in a platform raised above the other seats was the abbot's renowned elbow-chair, which extraordinary piece of monastic workmanship excited so much curiosity at the great Exhibition of 1851. In the middle of the hall was a platform called the Judgment, being the spot where corporal punishment, when necessary, was inflicted; and towering above all was a crucifix, to remind the brethren of the sufferings of Christ. In another alley of the cloisters stood the fratery, or apartment for the novices, which had its own refectory, common room, lavatory, and dormitory, and was governed by one of the priors. Ascending the staircase, we come to a gallery in which are the library, the wardrobe, the common house, and the common treasury. The library was the first in England, filled with choice and valuable books, which had been given to the monastery from time to time in its history by kings, scholars, and devotees of all classes; many also were transcribed by the monks. During the twelfth century, although even then of great renown in the world, it was considerably augmented by Henricus Blessensis, or Henry of Blois (nephew of Henry I. and brother of Stephen), who was abbot. This royal scholar had more books transcribed during his abbacy than any of his predecessors. A list is still extant—"De libris quos Henricus fecit transcribere," in which are to be found such works as Pliny "De Naturali Historia," a book in great favor at that time; "Originem super Epistolas Pauli ad Romanos," "Vitas Caesarum," "Augustinum de Trinitate," etc.

Here, too, as in every monastic library in the kingdom, was that old favorite of conventual life, and still favorite with many a lonely student, "Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae," and many a great work from the grim solitude of a prison cell, cherished, too, as the link which connected the modern Latinists with those of the classic age. Housed up in that lonely corner of the island, the Glastonbury library was the storehouse of all the learning of the times; and as devotees bent their steps from all climes toward the Glastonbury relics and the Glastonbury shrine, so did the devotees of genius lovingly wander to the Glastonbury library. Leland, the old gossipping antiquarian, has testified to its glory, and given us an amusing account of the reverential awe with which he visited it not long before the fatal dissolution of the monastery. In the preliminary observations to his "Collectanea de Rebus Britannicis," [Footnote 95] he has put the following upon record:—"Eram aliquot ab hinc annis Glessoburgi Somurotrigum ubi antiquissimum simul et famosissimum est totius insulaes nostrae caenobium, animumque longo studioram labore fessum, favente Ricardo Whitingo, [Footnote 96] ejusdem loci abbate, recreabam donee novus quidam cum legendi tum discendi ardor me inflammaret. Supervenit autem ardor ille citius opinione; itaque statim me contuli ad bibliothecam non omnibus perviam at sacras sanctae vetustatis reliquias quarum tantus ibi numerus quantus nollo [{669}] alio facile Britanniae loco diligentissime evolverem. Vix certo limen intraveram cum antiquissimorum librorum vel solus conspectus, religionem nescio an stuporem, animo incuteret meo, eaqae de causa pedem paululum sistebam. Deinde salutato loci numine per dies aliquot onmes forulos curiosissime excussi."

[Footnote 95: "Collect Reb. Brit." vi., page 87, Hearne's edition.]

[Footnote 96: Richard Whiting, the last Abbot.]

But attached to the library was a department common to all the Benedictine monasteries, where, during long centuries of ignorance, the materials of modern education were preserved and perpetuated; this office was called the scriptorium, or domus antiquariorum. Here were assembled for daily labor a class of monks selected for their superior scholarship and writing ability; they were divided into two classes, the antiquarii and the librarii: the former were occupied in making copies of valuable old books, and the latter were engaged in transcribing new ones, and works of an inferior order. The books they copied were the Scriptures, always in process of copying; missals, books for the service of the Church, works on theology, and any of the classics that fell into their hands. St. David, the patron saint of Wales, is said to have devoted much time to this work, and at the period of his death had begun to transcribe the gospel of St. John in letters of gold with his own hand. [Footnote 97]

[Footnote 97: Giraldus Cambren, vitâ Davidis Angl. Sac, ii., 635.]

The instruments used in the work of the scriptorium were pens, chalk, pumice-stone for rubbing the parchment smooth; penknives, and knives for making erasures, an awl to make dots, a ruler and inkstand. The greatest care was taken by the transcriber, the writing was always beautifully clear, omissions were most scrupulously noted in the margins, and all interlineations were mentioned and acknowledged. In an old manuscript belonging to the Carmelites, the scribe adds, "I have signed it with the sign following, and made a certain interlineation which says 'redis' and another which says 'ordinis,' and another which says 'ordini,' and another which says 'circa. '" So great was the care they took to preserve the text accurately, and free from interpolations. In these secluded studies sprang up that art, the most charming which the middle ages have handed down to us, the art of illumination, so vainly imitated by the artists of the present day, not from want of genius, but from want of something almost indescribable in the conception and execution, a tone and preservation of color, and especially of the gilding, which was essentially peculiar to the old monks, who must have possessed some secret both of combination and fixing of colors which has been lost with them. This elaborate illumination was devoted to religious books, psalms, missals, and prayer-books; in other works the first letters of chapters were beautifully illuminated, and other leading letters in a lesser degree. The scribe generally left spaces for these, as that was the duty of another; in the spaces were what were called "leading letters," written small to guide the illuminator; these guide-letters may still be detected in some books. So great was the love of this art, that when printing displaced the labors of the scribe, it was customary for a long time to have the leading letters left blank for illumination. Such were the peculiar labors of the scriptorium, and to encourage those who dedicated their time to it, a special benediction was attached to the office, and posterity, when satirizing the monastic life, would do well to remember that the elegance of the satire may be traced back again to these labors, which are the materials for the education and refinement of modern thought; we got our Bible from them, we got our classics from them, and had not such ruthless vandalism been exercised by those over-zealous men who effected their dispersion, it is more than probable that the learned world would not have had to lament over, the lost Decades of Livy. It is the peculiarity of ignorance to be barbarous. There [{670}] is very little difference between the feeling which prompted a Caliph Omar to burn the Alexandrian Library or a Totila to destroy the achievements of Roman art; and the feeling had only degenerated into the barbarity, without the bravery, when it revived again in the person of our arch-iconoclast, Cromwell, of church-devastating memory, who, however great his love of piety many have been, must have had a thorough hatred of architecture. The care of the library and the scriptorium was intrusted to the librarian. The next department in the gallery was the lavatory, fitted up with all the appliances for washing; and adjoining this room was one arranged for shaving, a duty to which the monks paid strict attention, more especially to preserve the tonsure. The next room was the wardrobe, where their articles of clothing and bedding were stored, and in an inner chamber was the tailory, where a number of lay brethren, with a vocation for that useful craft, were continually at work, making and repairing the clothes of the community. These two rooms and the lavatory were in charge of the camerarius, or chamberlain. The last abbot who sat in the chair of Glastonbury was, as we shall see, elevated from this humble position to that princely dignity. The common room was the next office, and this was fitted up with benches and tables for the general use of the monks; a fire was also kept burning in the winter, the only one allowed for general purposes. The last chamber in the corridor was the common treasury, a strong receptacle for ready money belonging to the monastery, charters, registers, books, and accounts of the abbey, all stored up in iron chests. In addition to being the strong room of the abbey, it had another important use. In those uncertain times it was the custom for both nobles and gentry to send their deeds, family papers, and sometimes their plate and money, to the nearest monastery, where, by permission of the abbot, they were intrusted to the care of the treasurer for greater security; in the wildest hour, when the castle was given up to fire and sword, the abbey was always held in reverence; for, independently of its sacred character, it was endeared to the people by the free-handed charity of its almonry and refectory kitchen. Retracing our steps along the corridor, and ascending another flight of stairs, we come to the dormitory, or dortoir, a large passage with cells on either side; each monk had a separate chamber, very small, in which there was a window, but no chimney, a narrow bedstead, furnished with a straw bed, a mattress, a bolster of straw, a coarse blanket, and a rug; by the bedstead was a prie-Dieu, or desk, with a crucifix upon it, to kneel at for the last and private devotions; another desk and table, with shelves and drawers for books and papers; in the middle was a cresset, or stone-lantern, with a lamp in it to give them light when they arose in the middle of the night to go to matins; this department also was under the care of the chamberlain. One more chamber was called the infirmary, where the sick were immediately removed, and treated with the greatest attention; this was in the charge of an officer called the infirmarius. We now descend these two flights of stairs, issue from the cloisters, and, bending our steps to the south-west, we come to the great hall, or refectory, where the whole convent assembled at meals. At Glastonbury there were seven long tables, around which, and adjoining the walls, were benches for the monks. The table at the upper end was for the abbot, the priors, and other heads, the two next for the priests, the two next for such as were in orders, but not priests, and such as intended to enter into orders; the lower table on the right hand of the abbot was for such as were to take orders whom the other two middle tables could not hold, and the lower table on the left of the abbot was reserved for the lay brethren. In a convenient place was a pulpit, where one of the monks, at the [{671}] appointment of the abbot, read portions of the Old and New Testament in Latin every day during dinner and supper. The routine of dinner, as indeed the routine of all their meals, was ordered by a system of etiquette as stringent as that which prevails in the poorest and smallest German court of the present day. The sub-prior, who generally presided at the table, or some one appointed by him, rang the bell; the monks, having previously performed their ablutions in the lavatory, then came into the great hall, and bowing to the high table, stood in their places till the sub-prior came, when they resumed their seats; a psalm was sung, and a short service followed by way of grace. The sub-prior then gave the benediction, and at the end they uncovered the food, the sub-prior beginning; the soup was then handed round, and the dinner proceeded; if anything was wanted it was brought by the cellarer, or one of his assistants, who attended, when both the bringer and receiver bowed. As soon as the meal was finished the cellarer collected the spoons; and so stringent was the etiquette, that if the abbot dined with the household (which he did occasionally) he was compelled to carry the abbot's spoon in his right hand and the others in his left; when all was removed the sub-prior ordered the reading to conclude by a "Tu antem," and the reply of "Dei gratias;" the reader then bowed, the remaining food was covered, the bell was rung, the monks arose, a verse of a psalm was sung, when they bowed and retired two by two, singing the "Miserere."

A little further toward the south stood the guest-house, where all visitors, from prince to peasant, were received by the hospitaller with a kiss of peace, and entertained. They were allowed to stay two days and two nights; on the third day after dinner they were expected to depart, but if not convenient they could procure an extension of their stay by application to the abbot. This hospitality, so generously accorded, was often abused by sons of donors and descendants of benefactors, who saddled themselves and their retinues upon the monasteries frequently, and for a period commensurate with the patience of the abbot; and to so great an extent did this evil grow that statutes were enacted to relieve the abbeys so oppressed. Not far from the refectory, toward the west, stood the abbot's private apartments, and still further to the west the great kitchen, which was one of the wonders of the day; its capacity may be imagined when we reflect that it had frequently to provide dinner for four or five hundred guests; but the arrangements and service of the kitchen deserve notice. Every monk had to serve as hebdomadary, or dispenser, whose duty it was to appoint what food was to be dressed and to keep the accounts for the week. Upon taking office he was compelled to wash the feet of the brethren, and upon yielding it up to the new hebdomadary he was obliged to see that all the utensils were clean. St. Benedict strictly enjoined this rule upon them, in order that, as Christ their Lord washed the feet of his disciples, they might wash each others' feet, and wait upon each others' wants. The Glastonbury kitchen is the only building which still remains entire; it was built wholly of stone, for the better security from fire; on the outside it is a four-square, and on the inside an eight-square figure; it had four hearths, was twenty feet in height to the roof, which ran up in a figure of eight triangles; from the top hung suspended a huge lantern. [Footnote 98]

[Footnote 98: Strange vicissitudes of kitchens—in 1667 this Glastonbury Abbey kitchen was hired by the Quakers as a meeting-house; in the fulness of time, where monasticism cooked its mutton Quakerdom sat in triumph.]

Attached to the kitchen was the almonry, or eleemosynarium, where on Wednesdays and Fridays the poor people of Glastonbury and its neighborhood were liberally relieved. This duty was committed to a grave monk, who [{672}] was called the almoner, or eleemosynarius, and who had to inquire after the poor and sick. No abbots in the kingdom were more liberal in the discharge of these two duties of their office, hospitality and almsgiving, than the abbots of Glastonbury. It was not an unusual thing for them to entertain 500 guests at a sitting, some of whom were of the first rank in the country, and the loose charge of riotous feasting which has been thoughtlessly made against the monastic life by hostile historians becomes modified when we recollect that in that age there were scarcely any wayside inns in the country, and all men, when travelling, halted at the monastery and looked for refreshment and shelter as a matter of right; neither had that glorious system of union work-houses been thought of, and therefore the sick and the poor fell at once to the care of the monastery, where they were cheerfully relieved and tenderly treated. Last, but not least, was the department for boys—another little detached community, with its own school-room, dormitory, refectory, hall, etc. One of the monks presided over them. They were taught Christian doctrine, music, grammar, and, if any showed capacity, the subjects necessary for the university. They were maintained free, and had to officiate in the church as choristers; a system maintained almost to the letter up to the very present moment. William of Malmesbury records that in the churchyard of Glastonbury Abbey stood some very ancient pyramids close to the sarcophagus of King Arthur. The tallest was nearest the church, twenty-six feet in height, consisting of five stories, or courses; in the upper course was the figure of a bishop, in the second of a king, with this inscription—HER. SEXI. and BLISVVERH. In the third the names WEMCRESTE, BANTOMP, WENETHEGN. In the fourth—HATE, WVLFREDE, and EANFLEDE. In the fifth, and last, the figure of an abbot, with the following inscription—LOGVVOR, WESLIELAS and BREGDENE, SVVELVVES HVVINGENDES, and BERNE. The other pyramid was eighteen feet in height, and consisted of four stories, whereon were inscribed in large letters HEDDE Episcopus BREGORRED and BEORVVALDE. William of Malmesbury could give no satisfactory solution to the meaning of these inscriptions beyond the suggestion that the word BREGDENE must have meant a place then called "Brentacnolle," which now exists under the name of Brent Knowle, and that BEORWALDE was Beorwald, the abbot after Hemigselus. He concludes his speculation, however, with the sentence—"Quid haec significent non temere diffinio sed ex suspicione colligo eorum interius in cavatis lapidibus contineri ossa quorum exterius leguntur nomina." [Footnote 99]

[Footnote 99: Guliel. Malms. Hist. Glaston.]

The man who ruled over this miniature world, with a state little short of royalty, was endowed with proportionate dignities; being a member of the upper house of convocation and a parliamentary baron, he sat robed and mitred amongst the peers of the country; in addition to his residence at the abbey he had four or five rural retreats at easy distances from it, with parks, gardens, fisheries, and every luxury; his household was a sort of court, where the sons of noblemen and gentlemen were sent to be trained and educated. When at home he royally entertained his 300 guests, and when he went abroad he was attended by a guard of 100 men. The rent-roll of the monastery has been computed to amount to more than £300,000 per annum, which in these days would be equal to nearly half a million. Up to the year 1154 he ranked also as First Abbot of England, and took precedence of all others; but Adrian the Fourth, the only Englishman who ever ascended the papal chair, bestowed that honor upon the Abbot of St. Albans, where he had received his education. The church, and different offices which clustered round it, formed a kingdom, [{673}] over which he ruled with absolute power. This description of the buildings and adjuncts of the abbey may not be inaptly closed by giving a sketch of the outline of a monastic day, which will assist the reader to form a clearer idea of the monastic life. At two in the morning the bell tolled for matins, when every monk arose, and after performing his private devotions hastened to the church, and took his seat. When all were assembled fifteen psalms were sung, then came the nocturn, and more psalms; a short interval ensued, during which the chanter choir and those who needed it had permission to retire for a short time if they wished; then followed lauds, which were generally finished by six A.M., when the bell rang for prime; when this was finished the monks continued reading till seven o'clock, when the bell was rung and they returned to put on their day clothes. Afterward, the whole convent having performed their ablutions and broken their fast, proceeded again to the church, and the bell was rung for tierce at nine o'clock. After tierce came the morning mass, and as soon as that was over they marched in procession to the chapter-house for business and correction of faults. This ceremony over, the monks worked or read till sext, twelve A.M., which service concluded, they dined; then followed the hour's sleep in their clothes in the dormitory, unless any of them preferred reading. Nones commenced at three P.M., first vespers at four, then work or reading till second vespers at seven, afterward reading till collation; then came the service of complin, confession of sins, evening prayers, and retirement to rest about nine P.M.

That was the life pursued at Glastonbury Abbey, according to the Benedictine rule, from the time of its establishment there until the dissolution of the monastery, nearly ten centuries. With our modern training and predilections, it is a marvel to us that men could be found willing to submit to such a monotonous career—ten hours a day spent in the church, beginning in the middle of the night, winter and summer. And yet the monastery was always full. We read of no breaking up of institutions for want of devotees, and we are driven to the conclusion that in the age when the monastic life was in its power and purity these men could have been actuated by none other than the motive of strong religious fervor—a fervor of which we in modern times have neither conception nor example. The operation of the influence of that life upon the history of these islands can only be contemplated by watching it in the various phases of its action upon the politics, literature, and art by which it was surrounded, and for that purpose we have selected this oldest and grandest specimen of English monasticism, so faintly described, the mother Church of our country, in whose career so brilliant, so varied, and so tragically ended, we hope to be able to show wherein was the glory, the weakness, and the ruin of the system, as it rose, flourished, and fell in England.

We have endeavored to conjure up from the shadowy realms of the past some faint representation of what Glastonbury Abbey was in the days of its glory; let us now transfer ourselves from the age of towered abbeys, wandering pilgrims, monks, cloisters, and convent bells to this noisy, riotous, busy time in the year of grace 1865—from the Glastonbury Abbey of the sixteenth century to the Glastonbury Abbey of to-day.

It is only within the last ten years that the deep slumber of that quiet neighborhood has been disturbed by the noise and bustle of this busy life—that a railroad has gone out of its way to upset the sedate propriety of ecclesiastical Wells, or the peaceful repose of monasterial Glastonbury; hitherto the stillness and quiet of that lovely country was the same as when mass was sung in the superb cathedral of the one place, and the palmer or the [{674}] penitent bent his steps to the holy well of the other. But alas! the life of the nineteenth century has broken in upon it; the railway has dashed through that beautiful valley with its sacrilegious march; and at Wells, the cathedral of Ina, with its matchless front, studded with apostles and martyrs, kings, bishops, knights, and mystic emblems, vocal as it were with history, now frowns upon the contentions of two rival companies; whilst at Glastonbury there is a railway station erected almost over the very bones of the saints. Alighting from this, we make our way to the ruins; but as we go, will just view their past history. After the dissolution of the abbey there was an effort made to restore it in the time of Mary, but unavailingly; from that period it was allowed to fall into decay. It is difficult to estimate whether the hand of man or the hand of time has been busier about its spoliation. At the period of Cromwell, who loved to worship God in the "ugliness of holiness," it must have been nearly entire, but that hero could not pass the town without putting a shot through those unoffending ruins in the name of the Lord, which act, however appropriate as an expression of Puritan feeling, was sadly detrimental to the architecture of Glastonbury Abbey. Then in 1667, as we have already alluded to, the Quakers got possession of the kitchen, hired at a nominal rent, paid in hard Quaker money—that glorious kitchen, sanctified by so much saintly cookery—for their grim assemblies. There is a great deal of what is aptly called the "romance" of history in this fact if we only had time to think about it—that it should come to this, monasticism with its princely head, its grand religions life and ceremonies, its painting and staining, its chanting and intoning, itself in all its glory, driven from the face of the country, and modern Quakerdom sitting silent in its ruined kitchen waiting to be "moved." It has suffered much, also, from the gross vandalism of the people themselves. Naturally a simple people, they of course knew nothing of antiquarianism, although that science is irreverently said to master many simples among its votaries. For years then it was their practice to use the materials of the abbey for building purposes, and it is not difficult to find scattered for miles around the country, in farmhouses and even in hovels, portions of sculpture over doorways and fireplaces which speak of mediaeval workmanship. But a worse degradation still befel the place, and the walls which at one time would have been regarded as invested with the odor of sanctity, and even now are sacred to us as a priceless historical monument, were actually sold as materials for mending the roads, to the lasting shame of overseerdom and the powers that were at Glastonbury. But the day for building huts or mending roads with ecclesiastical sculpture is gone, and the little that remains of Glastonbury Abbey has found its way into the hands of those who appear to know how to preserve it, and have the intention to do so. After all this decay and vandalism very little is left of the old abbey—some portions of St. Joseph's church with the crypt—some walls of the choir of the great church; the two east pillars of the tower, forming a grand broken arch, a lasting memento of the original splendor; there are portions, also, of some of the chapels and the abbot's kitchen, the most complete of all. The eye is at once arrested by the portals of St. Joseph's church, which still remain in a tolerable state of preservation, sufficient to enable one to form an idea of what a triumph of decorative art they were. Nothing could be more profusely ornamented than the northern portal; it was composed of semi-circular arches, receding in succession and diminishing in size as they recede into the body of the building; the exterior arch being about twelve feet by eleven, and the interior nine feet by six. The four fasciae are covered with sculptured representations supposed to be [{675}] commemorations of royal and noble people connected with the monastery—saints, pilgrims, and knights. The forms graven on these fasciae are interpreted in Warner's History of Glastonbury to represent the following subjects. The uppermost fascia is almost obliterated, though still showing a running pattern of tendrils and leaves interspersed with figures of men and animals; toward the centre the sculpture is much mutilated, though something can be traced like the effigy of a person in long robes seized on the shoulder by a furious animal. Beyond him are indistinct remains of three or four upright figures, and the rest is filled up by foliage. The second fascia is made up of eighteen separate ovals, each of which contained a distinct subject; the two first are defaced; the third contains a person apparently kneeling; the fourth, a female with a head-dress sitting on a conch; the fifth, a female on horseback; the sixth, a man on horseback; the seventh, a crowned personage on horseback; the eighth, the body of a deceased person stretched on a couch, with a canopy over it, the corpse covered, and the head resting on a pillow; nine and ten the same; eleven, a knight in a coat of chain armor, with a pointed shield charged with the cross, indicative of a crusader; twelve, a regal personage with a flowing beard and in long robes, crowned, and sitting on a throne; thirteen, a knight in chain armor falling from his horse as if wounded; fourteen, a figure like the former, the right arm stretched out and holding a sword which impales an infant; fifteen, the upright figure of a female with a veil, apparently in male costume; sixteenth, another body stretched out on a couch; seventeen, unintelligible; eighteen, a figure of a pilgrim. The intervals between all these ovals are sculptured into foliage. There can be very little doubt that the subjects contained in these ovals were the representations of monarchs, knights, persons, and events connected with the history of the abbey. The fourth fascia is much mutilated; but Warner thinks it referred to some act of munificence, from the canopied couch it displays, with a figure recumbent upon it and representations of angels guarding it. The portal toward the south was on a similar plan to the northern, but with five instead of four fasciae. One, two, and five are covered with finely chiseled foliage; the third is plain; the fourth only partially worked. According to the authority already mentioned, the only two ovals which are complete represent in the first the creation of man, and in the second the eating of the fruit. In the former is to be seen an upright figure with a nimbus or glory round its head, designating the Almighty in the act of calling man into being, and at his feet is man himself. In the latter there is the tree with Satan behind it, and Adam and Eve sitting with the apples. The appearance of these two portals, independent of the interest lent them by Warner's speculations as to their import, is very striking. In their perfection they must have been masterpieces of that exquisite taste and minute labor which the men of that age devoted to the embellishment of the church. Taking the ruins in a mass, it would be difficult to find anywhere such a specimen of broken grandeur. Standing upon the spot at the extreme east, where was the high altar of the church, the eye wanders down a grand vista of some five hundred feet, relieved in the midst by that solitary, magnificent, broken arch towering up high in the air, with rich festoons of ivy hanging about it in lavish luxuriance like the tresses of some gigantic beauty, and far down in the distance are the crumbling remains of St. Joseph's chapel, the gem of the whole, with its arched windows and profuse decoration, the tops of its walls covered over with straggling parasites, which curl over its brow like the scanty locks of sere old age. And as we reflect that this sacred spot was the cradle of our [{676}] Christianity; that this building was the mother of our Church; that far back in the bygone ages of barbarism vagrant missionaries wandered foot-sore and worn to this very spot; planted with their own hands the cross of Christ; built up with those hands the rude rush-covered shed which served as the first temple raised to God in these islands; spent their lives here in preaching that good tidings to a benighted pagan people, laid their bones down by the side of the work of their hands, and left their mission to their successors; that in process of time this little community became a mighty power, and that rush-covered shed a splendid temple, whose history is collateral with that of the country for nearly twelve centuries, and now it lies all battered and broken, crumbling away and wasting like human life itself—the mind shrinks appalled at the thought of the vicissitude which brought about so complete a ruin.

"O who thy ruine sees, whom wonder doth not fill
With our great father's pompe, devotion, and their skill?
Thou more than mortall power (this judgment rightly waid)
Then present to assist at that foundation laid;
On whom for this sad waste, should justice lay the crime?
Is there a power in fate? or doth it yield to time?
Or was this error such that thou could'st not protect
Those buildings which thy hands did with their zeal erect?
To whom did'st thou commit that monument to keepe?
That suffereth with the dead their memory to sleepe.
When not great Arthur's tombe, nor Holy Joseph's grave,
From sacrilege had power their sacred bones to save;
He who that God-in-Man to his sepulchre brought,
Or he which for the faith twelve famous battles fought;
What? did so many Kings do honour to that place
For avarice at last so vilely to deface?" [Footnote 100]

[Footnote 100: Drayton's Polyolbion]

In the neighborhood of the town is a hill known all over the world by the name of Wearyall Hill, so called (according to the chronicles) because St. Joseph and his companions sat down here to rest themselves, weary with their journey. As the legend goes St. Joseph is said to have stuck his staff in the earth and left it there, when lo! it took root, grew, and constantly budded on Christmas Day! This was the legendary origin of the far-famed holy thorn. Up to the time of Queen Elizabeth it had two trunks or bodies, and so continued until some nasal psalm-spoiler of Cromwell's "crew" exterminated one, leaving the other to become the wonder of all strangers, who even then began to flock to the place. The blossoms of this remaining branch of the holy thorn became such a curiosity that there was a general demand for them from all parts of the world, and the Bristol merchants, then very great people in their "line," turned this relic of the saint into a matter of commercial speculation, and made goodly sums of money by exporting the blossoms to foreign countries. There are trees from the branches of this thorn growing at the present moment in many of the gardens and nurseries round about Glastonbury, nay, all over England, and in various parts of the Continent. The probability is, as suggested by Collinson in his "History of Somerset," that the monks procured the tree from Palestine, where many of the same sort flourish.

In the abbey church-yard, on the north side of St Joseph's chapel, there was also a walnut tree which, it was said, never blossomed before the feast of St. Barnabas (the 11th June). This is gone. These two trees, the holy thorn and the sacred walnut, were held in high estimation even long after the monasteries had disappeared from the land. Queen Anne, King James, and many of the nobility of the realm are said to have given large sums of money for cuttings from them; so that the "odor of sanctity" clung about the old walls of Glastonbury long after its glory had departed; nay, even the belief in its miraculous waters lingered in the popular mind, and was even revived by a singular [{677}] incident so late as the year 1751. The circumstances are somewhat as follows:—One Matthew Chancellor, of North Wootton, had been suffering from an asthma of thirty years' standing, and on a certain night in the autumn of 1750, having had an usually violent fit of coughing, he fell asleep, and, according to the depositions taken upon his oath, dreamed that he was at Glastonbury, somewhere above the chain gate, in a horse track, and there found some of the clearest water he ever saw in his life; that he knelt down and drank of it and upon getting up, fancied he saw some one standing before him, who, pointing with his finger to the stream, thus addressed him: "If you will go to the freestone shoot, and take a clean glass, and drink a glassful fasting seven Sunday mornings following, and let no person see you, you will find a perfect cure of your disorder, and then make it public to the world." He asked him why he should drink it only on Sunday mornings, and the person replied that "the world was made in six days, and on the seventh day God rested from his labor, and blessed it: beside, this water comes out of the holy ground where a great many saints and martyrs have been buried." The person also told him something about Christ himself being baptized, but this he could not distinctly remember when he awoke. Impelled by this dream, the man kept the secret to himself, and went on the Sunday morning following to Glastonbury, which was three miles from the place where he lived, and found it exactly according to his dream; but being a dry time of the year, the water did not run very plentifully; however, dripping his glass three times in the pool beneath the shoot, he managed to drink a quantity equal to a glassful, giving God thanks at the same time. This he continued to do for seven times, according to the injunction of the dream, at the end of which period he had entirely lost his complaint. The effect of this story is remarkable. As soon as it was noised abroad, thousands of people of all sects came flocking to Glastonbury from every quarter of the kingdom to partake of the waters of this stream. Every inn and house in the town, and for some distance round, was filled with lodgers and guests; and it is stated upon reliable authority that during the month of May, 1751, the town contained upward of ten thousand strangers. Even to this day, there is a notion amongst the peasantry, more especially the old women of both sexes, that the water is good for the "rheumatiz."

After the scenes of violence, the ruthless vandalism, which this old abbey has gone through, it cannot be a matter of surprise that so little remains of all its grandeur; but it is a fact much to be lamented, because, as it was in its time one of the grandest ecclesiastical edifices in the country, so, if it had been preserved intact like its old rival, the cathedral at Wells, it would have been one of the most important and valuable items in the monumental history of England; that broad page where every nation writes its own autobiography; how valuable we find it in our researches as to the life of bygone times; and yet how little do we appear to do in this way as regards our own fame; how little do we cultivate our monumental history. One of the most lasting evidences of greatness which a country can leave behind it for the admiration and instruction of posterity, is the evidence of its national architecture—its architecture in the fullest sense of the term, not its mere roofs and walls, but the acts which it writes upon those walls, its statues and monuments. There are only two agencies by which national fame can be perpetuated—literature and art. The pen of the historian or the poet may give the outline of national manners and the description of national achievements, but art, as it exists in the extant monuments of the architecture of that nation, gives the [{678}] representation of the actual life as it was, fills up the outline, and presents us with something like the substance: it does not describe, but illustrate; it is, in fact, the petrified manifestation of the very life itself. We have read much about the splendor of those extinct civilizations of the Pharaohs, and of the marvels of Babylonish grandeur, but what a flood of light was thrown upon our dim conceptions by the resuscitated relics of a buried Nineveh! In Grecian poets and Grecian historians we make the acquaintance of the heroes and the heroism of that heroic existence; but in the Elgin marbles we see the men and the deeds in all their natural grandeur, petrified before us in the graphic sublimity of motionless life. To come a little nearer our own times and to the mother of our civilization, what a confirmation of the historic tradition of the Rome of our studies have we found under that hardened lava which for centuries has formed the tombstone of Herculaneum and Pompeii. What vivid illustrations of Roman life and Roman manners are continually being discovered in those buried cities; and so of every nation and time it is its history which narrates its glory, but it is its architecture alone which must illustrate and confirm it. There is no fear of the present age of our country leaving no evidence of its power behind it. That evidence is written in indelible characters deep even to the very bowels of the earth itself, through the heart of mountains, over broad rivers, across plains, its scroll has been the broad bosom of the country, upon which it has engraven its character truly with a pen of iron; but there is a danger that we shall leave very little monumental history behind us in our architecture. . . . .

Protestantism, too, was an iconoclast as regards Catholicism, but it contented itself with desecrating temples, pulling down altars, tearing away paintings, but it substituted nothing in their place; it would admit of no allurements in the Church but that of genuine piety, and supplied no attractions for the thoughtless, the careless, the unbelieving, but its bare walls and cold ministrations. This feeling is now undergoing a marked change; we are beginning to see that plainness in externals may conceal a considerable amount of pride and worldliness, and thus Quakers are leaving off their curious garb, and Methodists are building temples; it is beginning to dawn upon men's minds, at last, that ugliness is one of the most inappropriate sacrifices man can offer to his God, that as in the olden times the patriarchs used to offer up the first-fruits of the field, so in these later times we should offer up the first-fruits of our achievements; the choicest productions of art, science, and every form of human genius should be presented to him who is the God of all humanity. As we raise up temples to his honor and glory, where we may come with our supplications for his mercy, our adoration of his power, where we may bring our purest thoughts, our noblest hopes, our highest aspirations, and our best emotions; so let us decorate that temple with the best works of our hands as we hallow it with the best feelings of our hearts. The reason given by Solomon for exerting all the power and wealth of his kingdom to decorate the temple was simply, "This house which I build is great, for great is our God above all gods;" [Footnote 101] and the approval and acceptance of it by him for whom it was built is recorded in his own words: "Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place, for now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever, and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually."

[Footnote 101: 2 Chron. ii. 5.]

And that we may not go to the other extreme, as some churches have done and do in our day, and imagine that if we decorate our temple with all the choicest offerings we can bring it is enough, and God will be satisfied with the mere offering, there is, following [{679}] immediately upon his gracious acceptance and approval of Solomon's temple, the solemn warning in his own words: "But if ye turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them, then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for my name will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations. And this house which is high shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it, so that he shall say, 'Why hath the Lord done this unto this land and unto this house?' And it shall be answered, 'Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them and served them; therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.'" [Footnote 102 ]

[Footnote 102: 2 Chron. vii. 15, seq. ]

That is the canon of church building as ordained by God himself—make the church as grand an offering as you can, but keep the ritual pure—fill the temple with all the emblems of his glory, but remember that it is he only who is to be worshipped. Such is the teaching of revelation; and now we turn to nature, that boundless temple which God has built up to himself with his own hands. Had he been a God of mere utility instead of a God of beauty and glory; had he only considered the bare convenience and accommodation of the human race, a proportionate amount of dry land in one place, and a proportionate amount of water in another, would have sufficed to meet all human wants; there was no practical need for the variegated aspect, of natural scenery, of hill and dale, mountain and valley, of rippling stream and sweet-smelling flowers; but the world of nature was built for something higher than the mere dwelling place of man. It was built as a temple in which he should honor his God, and which was therefore filled with a myriad of beauties to excite his admiration, to please his eye, to fill his soul with gratitude and joy, and to raise his heart to that God who has given him such a beautiful home, furnished not only with the means of supplying his necessities, but embellished with the choicest beauties of creative power. What is nature but a gorgeous temple, laid out and decorated by the hand of God himself, with its broad pavement tesselated with endless varieties of verdure, with mountain altars which Christ himself loved to frequent and hallow with his prayers, its long aisles fretted with luxurious foliage pillared with tall trees, which bend their tops together in the matchless symmetry of nature's arch, all vocal with the deep-toned music of rushing waters, and melodies warbled by the unseen songsters of the air, spanned over with the boundless blue ceiling of heaven itself, lit up by day with the sunshine of his majesty, and at night by the stars placed there with his own hands?

Let us, whilst we endeavor to get at the truth of history, appeal also to revelation and nature.

---

[{680}]

From The St. James Magazine.
CITY ASPIRATIONS.

Oh, not in the town to die!
With its restless trampling to and fro,
And its traffic-hubbub above, below,
And the whirling wheels that hurry by.
And the chimney forests, blacken'd and high—
Oh, mercy! not in a town to die!
In a town I may live, and strive, and toil,
And grow a part of the living turmoil;
A cog-wheel in a machine of men.
Turning to labor again and again,
Doing my work with the multitude,
With a spirit wean'd, and a heart subdued,
Pausing sometimes, in a moment of ease,
To yearn and sigh for a meadow breeze,
For the whispering rustle of summer trees,
And the dreamy murmur of golden bees,
And the field-path margined by many a flower.
And the village church with its grey old tower;
Yet still, for sake of my babes and thee.
Sweet wife, I may work courageously;
May bide in a town, and with iron will
Go laboring on in the hubbub still.
Where the wheels of the man-machine ever spin,
Money, and money, and money, to win.
But to die in a town, in turmoil and smoke,
'Mongst houses, and chimneys gaunt and high.
When the silken cord of the soul is broke,
Methinks the vapors so heavy would lie.
It scarce could soar, as it should, to the sky.
Oh, live as I may, to brook it I'll try—
But, mercy! not in a town to die!

---

[{681}]

From The Month.
THE FACULTY OF PARIS IN THE TIME OF MOLIÈRE.

In a former number we gave a slight sketch of the laws and etiquettes of the old French Medical Faculty. The state of things there described was already on the wane when Molière dealt it a blow, from the effects of which it never recovered. But there is one characteristic of the position of the medical body which is inherent in its very nature, and is likely to be as enduring as the world itself, allowing for the modifications of varying times and changing manners. So long as our poor humanity shall be subject to disease and death, so long will medicine and its scientific administration be esteemed a necessity. Some, indeed, judge both to be well-nigh unmitigated evils; but at any rate, if evils, they are necessary evils; and even the greatest railers at the doctor and his drugs are pretty sure to send for him in the hour of danger, lean on him for hope, and swallow his potions. The medical man thus obtains an exceptional position. He is introduced into the sanctuary of the family, sees us in our unguarded moments, receives our confidence, and often wins our friendship. He never comes as a judge or a censor. We feel at our ease with him. Our esteem for him is personal, and independent of all considerations of rank or fortune. He is a stranger to all the conflicting interests which divide parties from each other, and can visit persons of all shades of opinion and of views the most opposite, whether of religion or politics, without causing the shadow of an offense. From all this it results that the doctor is often admitted to the closest intimacy by men occupying the highest positions. Hence the footing of quasi-equality accorded, often to the obscure son of AEsculapius, raised by his profession to a post of dignity and benevolent authority, which, while it obtains for him consideration and respect, clashes in nothing with the social importance of the patient. It was so, in a certain degree, in the seventeenth century, when classes were divided much more widely than at present, and reverence for birth and rank much stronger; and we have numerous instances of the friendship subsisting between doctors and the highest in the land.

It is true that the medical faculty did actually number amongst its members men who had undoubted claims to nobility; and we find from Larroque's Traité de la Noblesse that doctors, as distinguished from apothecaries and surgeons, were held not to derogate from their rank by the practice of medicine. But further, the medical profession was held to confer a species of nobility; for of nobility there were reckoned to be three sorts—nobility of race, nobility of royal concession, and personal nobility, such as in peculiar cases we find conferred on the whole bourgeoisie of certain towns. This distinction offended no one, as it expired with its recipient, on whom while living it conferred many practical advantages, such as exemption from taxation. In Paris this circumstance was of small moment, because, as members of the university, the doctors enjoyed all manner of immunities. But in the provinces it was different. In the south of France, in particular, these privileges were energetically claimed on the ground of the honor of the profession, and they were traditionally referred to Roman times. Montpellier [{682}] was full of these reminiscences of the past, and in Dauphiné the nobility of the doctors was even transmitted from father to son. At Lyons it was remembered that Antonius Musa had cured the Emperor Augustus, and had received a gold ring for himself and his successors in the art. "Accipe annulum aureum, in signum nobilitatis ab Augusto et Senatu Romano medicis concessae," were the words used in the aggregation of a doctor by the college of that city.

The misfortune was that there must of necessity be some contrast between this theoretical nobility and the practical life of the physician. He must, if he would gain his living, go from house to house indiscriminately, and receive his pay from all classes, like the butcher or the baker. The doctors endeavored to smooth over this anomaly by affecting considerable state. They might be seen threading the streets of Paris mounted on mules, in large wigs and with ample beards. The mule gave an almost episcopal air. "The beard is more than half the doctor," says Toinette, in the Malade Imaginaire, When the fashionable Guénaut took to a horse, it raised quite a scandal, which Boileau has commemorated:

"Guénaut, sur son cheval, en passant m'éclabousse."

Many, not satisfied with this degree of state, paid their visits in the long magisterial robe, with scarlet hose and band, the famous rabat, to which Pascal wittily alludes when he says, "Who could place any confidence in a doctor without a rabat?" Not only were the doctors careful to uphold their dignity by these forms, but the Paris Faculty was extremely jealous in maintaining its exclusive position. Its members not merely refused, as was natural, to meet in consultation any of the host of quacks with which the capital swarmed, and who found frequent access to the houses of the great lords and ladies, often as sceptical in regard to orthodox practitioners as they were credulous in the extreme of the pretensions of these heretical interlopers, but they likewise stood aloof from men as respectable as themselves—the honorable doctors of Montpellier, of whom perhaps a few words anon. In the meantime we will take a hasty glance at the members of the Paris Faculty apart from their official life; for they were men after all, and did not always figure in wig and gown. They must have had their private as well as public existence; but it is a more difficult task to obtain a sight of them en déshabille.

In history, of course, it were vain to seek anything beyond the record of public events; and even the contemporary memoirs of the age of the Grand Monarque tell us more about the court and its festivities, the réunions of the wits of the day, and the current gossip and scandal of the hour, than about the ordinary domestic life of any class, particularly of such as ranged below the aristocratic level. We are too apt to believe, from the revelations that are made in the light literature of the time, that the brilliant surface of the Augustan age of France concealed a general mass of corruption in the higher classes, and of misery in the lower. But this would be a false conclusion. The bourgeoisie, as a body, were complete strangers to the ferment of ambition and intrigue so rife in the upper strata of society. They had their own interests, their own pursuits, and were in the main an industrious and worthy class, sufficiently independent to be able often to regard those above them with a secret, and not always undeserved, contempt. To confine ourselves, however, to the doctors. Two courses were open to them. They might shut themselves up within the round of their own immediate occupations and studies, and limit themselves to the social circle of their colleagues and compeers. The faculty, as we have seen, was a little community in itself, with its own traditions, laws, distinctions, glories. Here, satisfied with their moderate gains, the doctors might preserve their independence [{683}] and live in all security and honor; or, on the other hand, they might try their fortune in the world and seek the favor of the great. The enterprise involved a certain loss of liberty and a corresponding detriment to that nice delicacy of feeling which is the guardian of severe probity. There were doctors of both kinds; those of the first class were by far the most numerous. The others were the richest; but the esteem in which they were held by their brethren was in the inverse ratio to the wealth acquired by this compromise of dignified independence.

The illustrious dean, Guy Patin, who enjoyed an immense reputation in his day, furnishes an example of the life of voluntary isolation and of practical activity systematically confined to professional or scientific subjects. He is now remembered chiefly for that on which he probably least valued himself—his epistolary correspondence, never designed for publication, but which is extremely interesting, not only as a record of events great and small, the memory of which has long passed away, but for the freshness both of ideas and style for which it is remarkable. These letters exhibit Guy Patin as an apparent compendium of contradictions—a believer in medicine, a sceptic in almost all else; obstinately tenacious of the privileges of the faculty, but full of liberal, and even republican, aspirations; confident in the steady advance of science, but always railing at modern times and extolling the past. Yet there is a clue to many of these seeming contradictions; Guy Patin was a dean. Before he was dean, you felt that he would be dean; later, he has been dean. He has studied minutely all the details of the organized institution to which he is indebted for all that he is—he has made its spirit and doctrine his own; for the faculty has a doctrine. The experimental method is newer in medicine than in the other sciences. In the seventeenth century we find in its place simple observation guided by theory; which theory was no other than that of the father of medicine, Hippocrates—viz., that nature tends to a cure, and that disease is but an outward manifestation of a salutary effort of the vital organization to counteract the destructive causes at work. The physician's part was to aid this process rather than to interfere with it. This view, we may observe, is finding favor anew in certain quarters in our own day; and we may perhaps be allowed humbly to express an instinctive leaning toward any theory of which the practical result might be a system of comparative non-intervention. But this by the way. Certainly Hippocrates's fundamental principle did not deter medical practitioners of the olden time from much painful interference with the workings of nature under the plea of assistance; a course to which their elaborate doctrine concerning the humors of the body—which, however, they did not derive from Hippocrates, but of which the germ exists in the other great authority, Galen—much contributed.

The period we are considering was one of transition. Men felt the need of progress; and this feeling evoked a number of medical adventurers—the revolutionists, as we may call them, of medicine. Placed between two opposite systems—the one resting on tradition and on principles, at any rate, in great measure sound; the other calling itself progress, but having nothing to allege save a number of vague aspirations and anticipations, some genuine discoveries mingled with much baser metal, and half-truths obscured by palpable error—can we wonder that the faculty should be tempted to confound all novelties in one sweeping act of reprobation, and intrench itself in a state of obstinate opposition? Guy Patin shared this feeling, though not to excess. He was no enemy, as we have said, to a wise and safe progress; but he had the shallowness and narrowness which belongs to a certain range of cleverness. He was not the man to accept anything new which it required [{684}] breadth, elevation, and comprehensiveness of mind to discern. He had also his favorite theory of simplicity; and this made him suspicious of aught which seemed at variance therewith. He looked askance, for instance, at Harvey and the circulation of the blood. We have said that Guy Patin was a sceptic, yet he was not an unbeliever. His language certainly is often extremely irreverent; but just as he sometimes speaks in terms bordering on modern liberalism, while all the time, by his attachment to medical traditions, to the faculty, and to monarchy, he is securely anchored in respect for antiquity and authority, so is it as regards religion, and we must not conclude from his free expressions that he is a decided freethinker. Nevertheless it must be confessed that he betrays a very uncatholic mind and temper; and as we cannot believe that he stood alone in this respect, it may serve as an indication of the spirit of many of his order, and of the prevalence of opinions which were later to bear such bitter fruit.

Guy Patin was content with his sphere; he had no desire to overstep it. His friends and intimates were from amongst his own medical brethren, or they were members of the legal and magisterial body. By marriage he was connected with the latter class; and moreover there was always a close analogy of manners and sentiments betwixt the medical body and the noblesse de robe. To his friendship with the President de Thou, brother to Cinq Mars' unfortunate accomplice, we may attribute much of his animosity to the minister Richelieu. Guy Patin is, in short, a systematic grumbler, a regular frondeur; but it is chiefly in talk and speculation. He is in reality no revolutionist. Speaking of his frequent social meetings with two lawyer friends, he observes: "Our conversation is always gay. If we talk of religion or of state affairs, it is always historically, without dreaming of either reformation or sedition. We converse chiefly on literary subjects. With a mind thus recreated, I return home, where, after some little converse with my books, or with the record of some past consultation, I retire to rest."

Such was the honorable position of an independent member of the faculty. But what was the condition and social estimate of those who sought the favor of the nobility? Undoubtedly their standing was much inferior to that which they came to occupy a hundred years later—thanks to the spread of the utilitarian spirit, which raised all the positive sciences into high esteem. In the eighteenth century fine ladies had their pet physician, as they had their philosophic or poetic protégé; but in the seventeenth a great personage thought he conferred much honor on a doctor by seeking a cure at his hands. The nobles were glad, it is true, to have their familiar physician; though the physician, if he had any self-respect, must have felt that he paid rather dear for admission to this familiarity, not to speak of the actual large sums by which, in the case at least of princes of the blood-royal, they had to buy their offices. But we are here chiefly speaking of a less aspiring class, who angled for the casual good graces of the aristocratic order. See how Madame de Sevigné speaks of the doctors, whom she is always consulting and always unmercifully quizzing. See her malicious pleasure when she can get four or five together to discuss her bile, her spleen, her humors, when she would ply them with questions and contrive to make them contradict each other. She talks of the profession as a humbug, yet she never passes through a town without consulting what she calls "the chief ignoramuses of the place." She consults them, and then turns them into ridicule. They know this, and take their legitimate revenge in high charges. But strange to say, although so contemptuous toward the privileged doctors, Madame de Sevigné has quite a weakness for all quacks or unlicensed dabblers in the [{685}] art, and is even credulous in their regard. However, it would seem that science with this lively lady is not the sole requirement. "My dear," she says, speaking of a certain elegant Signor Antonio, an Italian son of AEsculapius, "he is twenty-eight years old, with the most beautiful and charming face I ever saw. He has Madame de Mazarin's eyes, and his teeth are perfection. The rest of his face is what you might conceive Rinaldo's to have been, with large black curls, altogether making the prettiest head in the world. He is dressed like a prince, and is a thorough bon garçon. " We are a long way off the wigs and rabats, it will be seen; but we have got a clue to the secret. It is the médecin bon garçon Madame de Sevigné is in search of. She finds him at the baths—les eaux. He has none of the pedantry, possibly little of the science, of his Paris brethren of the faculty. He is a man of the world, and can sacrifice to the graces. Medically, his part seems restricted to drenching and dosing his patients with hot water. Tired of court amusements, they fly to the douche and the vapor-bath to expel those inward vapors of which Frenchwomen, and indeed our own great-grandmothers, complained so much. Madame de Sevigné goes through this ordeal perseveringly; but she has her alleviations. "My doctor"—this is another pet bon garçon—"is very good. Instead of resigning myself to two hours' ennui, inseparable from la suerie(the sweating process) I make him read to me. He knows what life is; he has no trickery about him; he deals with medicine like a gentleman (en galant homme); in short, he amuses me."

At court the doctors had more serious trials. Beside the task of pleasing this or that capricious and exacting patron, they had to beware of displeasing twenty others. The princes of the blood shared with the sovereign the right to choose their own physician from any quarter they pleased, who became forthwith invested ipso facto with all the privileges of the Paris faculty. Possibly, to make a little display of authority, they would often decline selecting him from the honored precincts of the Rue de la Bûcherie, and perhaps take a doctor of Montpellier. Hence interminable jealousies. Then the doctors would sometimes be drawn into mixing themselves with party politics, and get into the Bastille; but this was their own fault. To escape the shaft of ridicule was more difficult. It appears certain that in L'Amour Médecin Molière ventured upon satirizing four of the court physicians under assumed names; and this in the presence of the king himself, before whom the piece was played. Possibly Louis, whose docility to his physicians stands in remarkable contrast with his lofty distance toward others, might not be sorry to indulge occasionally in a laugh at his masters, or have a brief fling of independence, like a truant schoolboy. Of his habitual bondage to their authority we have the record in a journal of the royal health, magnificently bound in folio and besprinkled fleurs-de-lis, which has been preserved. It was begun in 1652 at the desire of the boy-sovereign himself—who thus gave early tokens of his methodical tastes—and it was kept up till four years previous to his death, when it suddenly ceases, possibly because even the pen of flattery became unable to disguise the approaches of inevitable death. The whole is in the handwriting of Louis' three successive physicians, Valot, Daquin, and Fagon. No man, it is said, is a hero to his valet de chambre; still less, we may imagine, to his apothecary. That the king should have to submit to all those medical appliances which in Molière's pages are recorded in such plain terms was perhaps a necessity—judged at least to be so; but that etiquette should require that the whole court should be regularly apprised of all these details, is a little surprising. [{686}] The diary is, however, interlarded with no small amount of flattery. Valot inaugurates his office, for instance, by a memoir on the king's temperament, which was that of which "heroes are made;" and all is in the same adulatory and stilted style. But the writer is by no means unsparing of self-laudation. It is with much evident self-complacency that he registers for the benefit of posterity the different remedies with which "heaven inspired him" to prescribe for the preservation of a health so precious. "Plaster for the king," "potion for the king," and so on, figure in large characters. He can also play the prophet, and announce coming measles, dysenteries, etc., from which the king is to be exempt. There are temporary interruptions to Valot's absolute rule; these were the seasons when Louis was campaigning; the monarch on these occasions despised the care of his health, and threw physic to the dogs. The doctor groaned and remonstrated, but was fain to await the close of the campaign to resume his authority and make up for lost time. He died in his office. His nephew and successor, Daquin, was a Montpellier doctor and a converted Jew. He was a clever man of moderate science. But he entered on his charge in difficult days. A gouty prince, subject to melancholy, and desirous to abate nothing of his customary attention either to business or amusement, is not an easy patient to manage. Beside, the royal valetudinarian met with sundry accidents while under this physician's care. Daquin was an accomplished courtier, and even improved upon Valot in the art of flattery. From him we learn the remarkable fact that "the king is subject, like other men, to catch cold." With all his tact, Daquin did not escape disgrace. Perhaps he made too undisguised a display of his acquisitive disposition; indeed, he was a notorious beggar. It is related that one day Louis, being informed of the death of an old officer, expressed regret, saying that the man had been to him a faithful servant, with the merit, rare in a courtier, of never having asked for anything. While making this observation, he fixed his eyes pointedly on Daquin. The physician, no way disconcerted, naively said, "May one venture to inquire, sire, what your majesty gave him?" The king was silenced, for the bashful courtier in question had never received any royal favor whatsoever. Daquin was dismissed in 1693. He had asked for the archbishopric of Tours for his son. He had so often offended, if offence it were considered, in making bold requests, that it is hardly likely that this application was the real cause of his disgrace. It was probably rather the consequence of the king's rupture with Mme. de Montespen, to whom Daquin owed his elevation. It appears that ever since the king's marriage he had found some difficulty in maintaining his position, from which it is natural to infer that adverse influences were at work; indeed, it was a protégé, or rather a friend, of Mme. de Maintenon who was promoted to fill his place—a circumstance corroborative of this supposition. Fagon appears to have been a very estimable man, and the attachment and mutual esteem subsisting between him and his patroness, with whom he had first become acquainted in his capacity of physician to the Duc de Maine, never abated. [Footnote 103] He won the confidence also of Louis, and the favor he enjoyed while still in his position of secondary physician was much increased at the period of the king's great illness by a trifling circumstance which made a strong impression on the monarch's mind. One night all the surgeons and doctors, [{687}] Daquin included, had ventured to go to bed. The king had taken a bouillon, and the fever seemed to be subdued. But Fagon, unobserved by the rest, slipped back and took his post in an arm-chair in the ante-room. He was thus at hand to comfort and administer a tisane to the sick monarch, whose fever shortly returned, and who, albeit with the fear of Daquin greatly before his eyes, ventured to accept the services of the attentive subaltern. The tisane sent Louis to sleep, and made Fagon's fortune. Three months afterward he was first in command. He deserved his elevation to an office which was a post of no slight honor and profit. [Footnote 104] He bore his honors meekly, and was remarkable for a spirit of disinterestedness as rare as it was creditable to him. Fagon closes the list of the court physicians of the seventeenth century, and indeed carries us on into the eighteenth. All reserve being made in his favor, it must be confessed that the great dramatist's satire was richly deserved by those doctors of royalty, whose ambitious manoeuvres, intrigues, and paltry rivalries were enough to excite the indignation of any honest man.

[Footnote 103: Fagon was the nephew of Guy de la Brosse, the founder of the Jardin du Roi, now developed into the magnificent Museum of Natural Science and himself also an eminent botanist. He was named professor of botany at this establishment by Valot, who, as first physician to the king, was its superintendent.]

[Footnote 104: The king's physician ranked with the great officers of the crown, and received orders from the sovereign alone, to whom he took an oath of fidelity; and he became a count in virtue of his office, and transmitted his nobility to his children. He was entitled to the same honors and privileges as the high chamberlain. He was a councillor of state, and received the usual emoluments. When he visited the faculty, he was met at the door by the dean, bachelors, and beadles, although he himself might not be a Paris doctor. He had, beside, very extensive authority, enjoying a species of medical jurisdiction throughout the kingdom.]

We have seen that the independent physician, who stood aloof from courting the great, could lead an honorable and tranquil life; but it would be a mistake to conclude that profound peace reigned within the medical corporation itself. On the contrary, it was the scene of a bitter internecine war between the men of the new ideas, the men of progress, and the adherents to tradition and the received system. But to excite men's passions ideas must assume a concrete form, which then becomes at once a rallying-point and a watchword. Such in the seventeenth century were the circulation of the blood and antimony. Ever since the days of Galen the liver had been held to be the origin of the veins, and of those organs by which blood is transmitted to the whole body. Harvey's announcement accordingly raised a universal commotion in the medical world: perhaps his doctrine would have met with less opposition but for the discovery of the lacteal veins by an Italian anatomist, Gasparo Aselli, in the year 1622. These veins, as most of our readers probably know, originating in the intestines, receive and convey thence the products of digestion—the chyle. Imbued with the doctrine of Galen, and deceived by appearances, Aselli, it is true, believed the liver to be their ultimate destination. Immediately there was one general outcry against these intrusive vessels: their non-necessity was put forward as a conclusive objection—a very common argument, it may be noted, with the old doctors. Really it was not worth upsetting received notions on their account—the lacteal vessels were superfluous. Even Harvey, who was among Aselli's opponents, joined in insisting on this unsatisfactory reason. "It is not necessary," he says, "to seek a fresh channel for the transport of the chyle in the lacteal veins." It was evident, he said, that the chyle was carried from the intestines by the mesenteric veins.

But in 1649 Pecquet, a Frenchman, completed the demonstration, by showing that the lacteal veins do not terminate in the liver, but in a reservoir, to which his name was given. Now indeed the liver, and Galen, and the whole edifice of medicine, were threatened; nothing could be deemed sacred any longer. The liver was not the origin of the veins, if the blood careered in a circle, having neither beginning nor end; and the chyle did not go to the liver. [{688}] "Quid de nostra fiet medicina?" was the sorrowful exclamation of one of the doctors of the Montpellier faculty when Pecquet had triumphantly expounded his discovery before them. Ah, there was the difficulty! Quid de nostra fiet medicina? We are condemning our past—an argument which weighs powerfully against all conversions. Nothing can afford stronger evidence of the deep conviction entertained that the whole existing system was at stake, than the opposition of a physician of so much eminence, intellectual and scientific, as Riolan, whom alone of all his adversaries Harvey judged worthy of a rejoinder. It is astonishing, indeed, to see a man of his stamp reduced to throw himself on such arguments as the uselessness and degradation of the liver if the new hypothesis be admitted; to find him urging the impropriety of allowing impure unelaborated chyle to go straight to the heart, which under these circumstances it must do—thus converting that noble seat of vital heat into an ignoble kitchen. And then, once there, how was the chyle to be got rid of? An absurd list of suppositions follows, intended to prove, by an exhaustive process, the sheer impossibility of disposing of the chyle after having arrived at such an impasso. Ergo, the chyle must go to the liver. In fact, it cannot go anywhere else with either reason or propriety. Such are the contemptible arguments to which even superior minds will stoop when they battle against evidence. Harvey, however, found many partisans amongst the Paris faculty. Guy Patin, as we have said, was not of the number: he was not a deep thinker, and trusted his friend Riolan. Harvey's followers were called "circulators." Now "circulator" in Latin means a charlatan—that is enough for Guy Patin. The debate ceased with Riolan's death: the doctrine had been gradually gaining ground. In 1678 its victory had been achieved when Louis instituted at the Jardin des Plantes a special chair of anatomy for propagating the new discoveries.

The battle about antimony raged still more fiercely, inasmuch as the question admitted of less tangible proof. There is a legend that this mineral was first exhibited in a pure state and applied to medical purposes by Basil Valentine, a Benedictine monk of Erfurt, in the beginning of the sixteenth century; he gave it to his hogs, who throve marvellously. This is to be attributed to the arsenic contained in the drug, which fattens when taken in small quantities—a fact well known to the peasants of Styria and Lower Austria. Basil next gave it to his monks, who fell sick; from which he drew the following conclusion: "This metal suits hogs; it does not suit monks." Hence its name of antimony. Thirty years later Paracelsus took up the study of antimony, and endeavored to introduce its use, with that of other minerals, in medicine. This would have been to break completely with tradition; but Paracelsus was half-cracked, and not very intelligible. The sixteenth century was the age of alchemy, especially in Germany, where it was ardently pursued, in connection with the occult sciences, by men who rivalled Paracelsus in obscurity. In France transcendental chemistry found less favor, and there was early a split between the pseudo-mystics and the chemists. The former cultivated astrology; but astrology, as an aid to medicine, had quite fallen into disrepute in the seventeenth century, being abandoned to low vagabond quacks. Chemistry, however, was making gradual progress and striving to establish its place in medicine. The sympathy manifested for this science at Montpellier was quite enough to indispose toward it the faculty of Paris. The absurd blunders into which its association with alchemy had betrayed it in times past weighed also on its reputation; but, above all, the contempt for antiquity manifested by its adepts was calculated to condemn it in the eyes [{689}] of the majority of the physicians, brought up as they were in reverence for all that chemistry pretended to reform or destroy.

There were not wanting, however, conciliatory spirits, who strove to effect a compromise between the past and the present, and make room for the new chemical theories in the received system. It has already been observed how Galen's theory of the humors of the body had been elaborated: all medical language was grounded upon it. [Footnote 105] Disease was the result of the vitiation of these humors, each humor having its special morbid product. To expel this vitiated humor was the task of the doctor; but why might not minerals be added to his pharmacopoeia, without interfering with his principles? This seemed reasonable; and as a matter of theory the faculty were not unwilling to let it pass. The difference arose on the practical question. All were agreed that the peccant humor was to be expelled; but the faithful followers of Hippocrates attached great importance to awaiting what was called the coction of the humors. This was the work of nature, which was employed in making an effort which the physician was called only to second,—an effort of which fever was but the symptom. It was esteemed a very nice point to hit off the proper moment, and not prevent or disturb the crisis which was thus preparing: hence the need of mild measures. Whoever will refer to the apothecary's bill in the first scene of Molière's Malade Imaginaire will see that lenifying, softening, tempering, and refreshing, were the avowed objects of the drugs administered. Such was Hippocratic medicine; mild, at least, in theory. We must make one exception as respects bleeding: these enemies of violent measures bled with a vengeance; they shed torrents of blood. They bled old men of eighty, and babies two months, nay, even two days old; and this "without inconvenience,"—so they said. We presume some of the sufferers survived,—thanks to a strong constitution. Riolan says that there are twenty-four pounds of blood in the human body, and that twenty can be lost without causing death; ergo, it is keeping within very reasonable bounds to deprive a man of only the half of his blood. [Footnote 106]

[Footnote 105: M. Raynaud, to whose amusing work we are again largely indebted, notices that much of this language still survives in the diction of the common people. Many of their ideas and forms of expression still reflect the old doctrine of humorism; just as they have retained many words and idioms now become obsolete in the upper and more shifting strata of society.]

[Footnote 106: The famous Guy de la Brosse refused to be bled. He called bleeding the remedy of sanguinary pedants, and said he would rather die then submit to the operation. "And he did die," says M. Basalis, a brother doctor; adding, "The devil will bleed him in the next world, has such a rascal and unbeliever deserves." Such are the imprecations hurled at the man who ventured on refusing to die in proper form. Could Molière have written anything more sublimely comic?]

The object of bleeding, of course, was the expulsion of the vitiated humors supposed to be contained in it; but it is hardly reconcilable with the doctrine of waiting for their coction to commence operations by attacking a disease at once with a lancet. But this is one of Guy Patin's primary convictions, as well as of numbers of his brethren, and they conscientiously acted on the same. It was otherwise as respected emetics. Antimony administered in the potent quantities then used was a most frightful emetic. No one in those days thought of giving infinitesimal doses, or suspected that what was poisonous in large, might be salutary in fractional, proportions. It was reserved for Rasoni to discover that antimony could be thus beneficially administered. And so the whole question lay between those who held as a principle that the peccant humor was not to be expelled till after coction, and those who maintained that the sooner the morbific matter was ejected from the system the better.

It is true that the horrible prostration of strength consequent on this summary process was sufficient to alarm men's minds, and furnish a reasonable topic to the opponents of [{690}] antimony. The quarrel occupied a whole century; of course we cannot attempt to go into even its most elementary details. In 1566, the parliament prohibited the use of this drug. The year 1666 saw it rehabilitated by the same body. The motive of the first decree was the report of the faculty that antimony was an incorrigible poison. The idea, as we just now observed, that diminution of quantity might effect what was unattainable by correctives, did not occur to the medical mind of that day. In 1615 there was a fresh unanimous decree against antimony, also indorsed by parliament; but the scientific world was still on the search for a corrective, and converts, or perverts, were being secretly made within the very sanctuary of the faculty. In 1638, the dean, Hardoun de Saint-Jacques, suddenly published an incomplete pharmaceutic codex, which had been in course of preparation for twelve years. In this dictionary antimonial wine actually figured in its alphabetical place. How had the enemy contrived to creep into the citadel? No one could say. This incident was the occasion of a deluge of pamphlets, of which the very form and language are, for the most part, like a dead letter to us. Hippocrates, Holy Scripture, history, and the fathers, are all called into court. Even the definition of antimony gives rise to much discussion; and it is gravely argued whether Adam, when conferring names in Paradise, named this drug, and if so, what he called it. Even the troubles of the Fronde did not check this medical civil war. Antimony had quite a literature of its own. Guy Patin, of course, was inimical, but a little cautious while the question of his deanship was impending. Afterward he launches out; he hates chemistry, he hates antimony, he hates Guénaut, who is its warm advocate, and is beside Cardinal Mazarin's physician (Guy Patin is always in political opposition). Guénaut, he says, has poisoned his wife, daughter, and two sons-in-law with this drug; at last he poisons himself, and dies a martyr to his infatuation. And then the faculty have twice condemned antimony. That is more than enough for Guy Patin. However, a great event turned the balance in his favor. During the campaign of 1658, the king, then twenty years of age, was attacked by typhus. Valot had been absent a few days, sent by Louis, as the journal tells us, to settle a quarrel between the physicians and surgeons who were treating the Maréchal de Castelnau for a mortal wound—poor marshal! He hastened back to his master, and fell to work vigorously, sparing neither bleeding nor dosing; but the king got worse, and Guénaut was sent for. The court-physicians—Valot, Esprit, Daquin, Yvelin, beside a local doctor—were all there disputing over the monarch's sinking body. A great consultation is now held, presided over by the cardinal; and he votes for antimony. It was given. The king took an ounce, and marvellous are the recorded effects. However, whether in consequence or in spite of the dose, he recovered. Louis was at that time his people's darling and idol; they adored their young monarch, and he had been saved by Guénaut and antimony! Guy Patin's embarrassment at this crisis is a little ludicrous. The dose, he urges in extenuation, was small; but he concludes that, after all, what saved the king "was his innocence, his youth and strength, nine good bleedings, and the prayers of good people like himself and others." Defections now became numerous, and the faculty was in a false position. In fact, most of the doctors gave antimony in spite of the two decrees, the last of which interdicted the mention of it. In 1666 the embargo was finally removed, after a tedious and ponderous process, as were all processes in those days, before the parliament; and the doctors were henceforth permitted "to give the said emetic wine for the cure of maladies, to write and dispute about it,"' etc., but it was not lawful for persons to take it [{691}] without their advice. The question had been decided in the faculty by ninety-two doctors against ten. The decree came to sadden the last days of Guy Patin, and of a few more respectable old stagers, who were unable to advance with their age.

But this internal conflict was not the only one which the faculty had to sustain. There was the perennial dispute with the surgeons. Surgery and medicine are twin sciences, if they be not rather branches of one and the same. Hippocrates, Galen, Celsus, made no practical distinction between them; nevertheless, they came to be entirely separated in mediaeval practice. Two causes may be assigned for this: the first was the quasi-ecclesiastical character of the medical profession in early days, which rendered the shedding of blood and other operations incompatible with the position of men who were either clerics or bound by clerical rules. Still, though they could not themselves draw blood, they could prescribe blood-letting and other sanguinary operations; and this led, of course, to the existence of another class, paid to carry out their orders. But a second and far more enduring cause was the strong prejudice existing in feudal times against manual labor as degrading. In vain might the surgeons urge that it was absurd to regard as merely mechanical an occupation which necessitated much scientific knowledge. The university shared the feelings of the faculty on this point; and while admitting the doctors into its fellowship, rejected the surgeons. Excluded from this fraternity of liberal science, the surgeons gave themselves diligently to professional study. As early as the fourteenth century we meet with their celebrated confraternity, placed under the patronage of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, which boasted of its foundation by St. Louis, and which maintained its existence for five centuries. The quarrel with the doctors began in the middle of the fifteenth century, and terminated only on the eve of the Revolution, when St. Cosmas's College and the faculty were both alike to share the universal shipwreck of all the ancient institutions.

The surgeons had long been in the habit of availing themselves of the aid of the barbers in certain ordinary operations, and bleeding was at last entirely abandoned to their hands. Just, however, as the faculty wished to depress the surgeons, and the latter were desirous to raise themselves to an equality with the faculty, so also the surgeons were resolved to keep down their servants the barbers, who, on their part, aspired to rise in the professional scale. The policy of the faculty was to foster their rivalry, and thus keep a check upon both; but as the nearest enemy is always the most dreaded, the time came when it was judged prudent to elevate the barbers, whose very inferiority rendered them less obnoxious, in order the better to make head against the surgeons; and so the faculty adopted the barbers, in whom it hoped to find docile clients, in order to mortify its unsubmissive children. It magnificently compared this measure to the call of the Gentiles and rejection of ungrateful Israel. But the barbers held their heads up now, and requested to study anatomy. Here was a difficulty. University regulations strictly enjoined that all public lessons should be in Latin; but what was the use of talking Latin to barbers? So the lecture was to be in Latin, and the explanation in French. Apparently to facilitate the comprehension of the classic tongue by the unlearned, the use of that whimsical Latin which Molière has so happily caricatured then first began. A clever compromise was now supposed to have been effected. A doctor was to teach in the amphitheatre of the faculty without touching the body; a surgeon was to dissect; the barbers were to be present, and try to understand. This was in 1498.

Further concessions followed; and in 1505 the faculty allowed the barbers to be inscribed on the dean's [{692}] register, and, after passing through an examination, to be formally received as scholars. They paid, however, for their lessons, and took an oath never to prescribe an internal remedy, but to have recourse to the doctors for the medical treatment of their patients. On these conditions the proudest of scientific corporations extended its protection to, and even took into a certain fellowship, a profession not only humble, but so much despised, that in Germany at that period barbers were not admitted into any trade corporation. The credit of the king's barber—an important personage, who enjoyed familiar opportunities for asking favors—had something perhaps to say to the prosperity of this trade in France. And the barbers continued to prosper; it was their interest, indeed, to keep well with the faculty, whose protecting hand once withdrawn, they would helplessly fall back under the cruel bondage of their old masters. But as time went on, they grew confident. The troubles of the League unhinged society, and for some years we find them neglecting to take the oath of fidelity. Meanwhile surgery had attained a proud position, and at the end of the sixteenth century was much in advance of the other sciences, both in its spirit of independent inquiry and in experimental practice.

Many eminent names illustrate its annals at this period. At the head of the corporation was Ambroise Paré, the restorer—we might almost say the creator—of modern surgery. He had been a barber's boy in his youth, and still treated his old associates with much consideration. Perhaps this honorable notice helped to turn their heads a little, for they actually began to set up school for themselves, and to maintain theses. This got them a snub from the faculty, and a prohibition from parliament, which recalled to their recollection the ancient statute which permitted their intervention only "pro furunculis, bocchiis, et apostumatibus. " But the time was past for enforcing such laws; every day the barbers more and more emancipated themselves from thraldom; and in 1629 they obtained the right of having their receptions presided over by the king's barber or by his lieutenant.

The surgeons meanwhile had left no stone unturned to get admission into the university, to have a recognized right to lecture publicly, and to receive the chancellor's benediction. They were several times granted the king's license to this effect; but the university disregarded the royal injunction, and even set at naught a Papal bull which, in 1579, recognized the surgeon's title to the chancellor's benediction. There was a consequent appel comme d'abus from that Gallican body to the parliament. Nevertheless, more than one chancellor was found to comply with the Pope's rescript.

Such, then, was the situation of parties in the beginning of Louie XIV.'s reign. Three rival corporations existed; in principle united, but mutually independent. There was the faculty, petrified as it were, in its immobility, demanding from the others a submission it could not obtain; there was the corporation of surgeons, intermediary between the learned bodies and the trading bourgeoisie, wearing the gown on days of ceremony, holding examinations, conferring degrees, but keeping shop; [Footnote 107] and there were the barbers, with neither gown nor school, but living at the expense of the two former classes, and, by long prescription, freely practising surgery, and even medicine to a certain extent. The reasons for old distinctions had passed away—nothing remained but inveterate rivalries. Anatomy was the perpetual theatre for dissension. The surgeons never had resigned themselves to the secondary part allotted to them. They claimed [{693}] to teach what they understood at least as well as their superiors. But how to get bodies? The dean of the faculty had an exclusive claim to those of all executed criminals, and none other were procurable. Accordingly, whenever an execution occurred there was a regular scramble for the poor wretch's body. The students of surgery and the barber-apprentices assembled on the Place de Grève, where they had no difficulty in finding recruits amongst the rabble. Scarcely had the executioner done his work, when these bands, armed with swords and sticks, rushed on the yet warm corpse, which was carried off by the victors to some shop, in which they barricaded themselves against the maréchaussée. Many of these disgraceful acts went unpunished. Sometimes the faculty would despatch an official to claim the body; he was always sent about his business; and then recourse was had to law. The report of an unfortunate huissier, who was actor and victim in one of these scenes, may be seen in a procès-verbal of the time. He was sent to seize a body which had been taken to St. Cosmas's. There he found three professors (in cap and gown!) giving an anatomical demonstration to a large audience. He was received with yells, and cruelly beaten. A force coming to his rescue, the students cut up the corpse into bits rather than let the faculty get it.

[Footnote 107: They hang up at their windows as a sign three emblematic boxes, surmounted with a banner bearing the figures of Sts. Cosmas and Damian.]

A common interest and a common hatred of their domineering antagonist ended by drawing together the two inferior orders, and finally led to their reunion. The increasing number of the barbers, unrestrained by any rule, and unrestrainable by any law, threatened to swamp surgery altogether; and so the men of letters made up their minds to extend the hand of fellowship to the artisans, and receive them back, not as slaves any longer, but as brethren. In 1655 the surgeons swallowed this bitter pill; they took upon themselves the shame of uniting with the barbers, and the barbers entered on the privileges of the surgeons. Parliament ratified the contract, and the faculty was scarcely named in the affair. It was left stranded. Its servants, whom it had raised from the dust to do its work and fight its battles, had betrayed it and gone off with arms and baggage to the enemy's camp. But it was not long without perceiving that it might draw profit from what seemed a discomfiture. The surgeons had conferred their privileges on the barbers; in return they had, of course, accepted the liabilities of their new associates. Now the barbers were bound by contract to an oath of fidelity, and other obligations of a pecuniary nature, to the faculty. This body accordingly claimed either that the union effected should be dissolved, or that both companies should be subject to the engagements by which the barbers had bound themselves. It renewed at the same time all its former claims of supremacy, and its old prohibitions against teaching and conferring degrees, but, above all, against the assumption of the cap and gown.

Three years did this process last, which occupies a voluminous place in the parliamentary registers. The surgeons eventually lost their cause; and that which did not a little contribute thereto was the manifestation of their own miserable internal dissensions. "St. Luke has been stronger than St. Cosmas!" exclaimed the triumphant Guy Patin at the news of this great victory. Seventy-two doctors went in procession, in grand costume, to thank the president, Lamoignon, and the avocat-général, Talon; and in order to testify their special gratitude to the latter, it was decreed that, having well merited of the faculty, he and his family should be attended gratis in perpetuity. A magnificent edition of Hippocrates in five folio volumes was presented along with this decree, inclosed in a silver box. For several days not one of the crest-fallen [{694}] surgeons was to be seen in the streets, and six of their number, it is said, fell sick. Gladly would they now have dissolved the unhappy mésalliance they had contracted, but it was too late. Both barbers and surgeons, indeed, alike felt that the defeat was final; but on the latter it must have fallen with the most crushing severity. Before the close of the year the chair in which Ambroise Paré had sat—the symbol of departed greatness—was removed. They had to pay the impost, take the oath of fidelity—no humiliation was spared them. Thus forced into a preposterous alliance, which was made the pretext for its degradation, the surgical profession languished for many years. The faculty on this occasion certainly committed its worst fault. For paltry questions of precedence it retarded for a century the progress of surgery, which did not emerge from the inferior position to which the decree of 1660 had reduced it until time and necessity led to a reconstitution of surgery and shaving as two distinct professions. It was then that Louis XV., at the instance of La Peyronie, created the Royal Academy of Surgery, which furnished so many illustrious names to science in the eighteenth century, and which would doubtless have extinguished the old faculty if the Revolution had not saved it the trouble by destroying them both.

Our space forbids us to notice the other great battle of the faculty during the period which has immediately fallen under our consideration—that which it waged and won against the Montpellier doctors. But the Montpellier school would deserve a notice by itself; and the interest which gathers round it has been heightened by the important questions, physiological and philosophical, connected with its name in the present day.

A word or two more, and we have done. When Molière was about to deal the faculty its most grievous wound, it was triumphant on all sides. Yet, as a system, it was already doomed to that destruction which had fallen on the whole scholastic method in science prevailing in the middle ages. Hippocrates, it is true, furnished the text-book of medicine, but it was Hippocrates virtually commented by Aristotle, as all the old medical phraseology and medical argumentations abundantly prove. Much of the ridicule attached to that venerable body against which Molière has raised an inextinguishable laugh had its origin in the retention of this language, with all the quiddities of the schools, and of those curious dialectic exercises which formed the approved method of mental gymnastics in the middle ages long after they had been discarded everywhere else. The rest of the ridicule which falls to the due share of the faculty must be laid to the account of the selfishness, pride, and egotism inherent in human nature, but which always strike us more forcibly when exhibited in a state of things foreign to current ideas and manners.

In conclusion, we would point out what we conceive may be esteemed as a sound point in the system of that day—its treatment of man as a whole. There is no divorce with these old doctors between body and soul. Modern medical science has affected to treat the body apart from any regard to the spiritual portion of man's nature. While allowing the immense progress made in medicine and surgery in modern times, we cannot but feel that a serious error was committed in dividing what our fathers deemed inseparable. The materialistic errors of the eighteenth century, and, in particular, the materialism so prevalent in the learned medical body, are a standing comment on the systems which made clear decks of those fundamental principles which had come down to us from the earliest antiquity, and which had received the sanction of the Christian schools, in whose teaching physiology and psychology were always closely united; the study of the soul crowning [{695}] that of physiology. We witness with satisfaction a strong reaction amongst many members of the French medical body toward views which harmonize thoroughly with the old doctrine of the Angel of the School, laid down long before those modern discoveries which are beginning slowly to lead men back, not to the pedantry of the olden time, but to those ancient paths from which our fathers would have deemed it heresy to wander.

---

From The Sixpenny Magazine.
HANDWRITING.

Men, like trees, have a curved line which, touching at the extremities, forms a figure which is the general estimate of their characters. Individual traits are lost in the harmony of them all. The hand may be delicate; the face coarse; there may be contradiction between the eye and the brow, between the motive power and the object desired; but still the man is a unity unlike any other man, and yet similar in original traits.

To tell character by confining one's self to one exhibition of a faculty, would be like trying to tell the climate of a place by staying there one day. But in the other extreme, the collecting of facts proves nothing unless there have been opportunities for the display of other qualities than the ones in which the person is not interested. I, for instance, always dislike making new acquaintances; I get sulky whenever it is forced upon me; that does not prove that I may not be pleasant enough when allowed to act as I please.

One man, with no taste for a certain pursuit, is forced into it, kept at it, and, as he gives evidence of dislike, is accused of being almost a fool. Wonderful that in something else he should be a proficient at the first attempt. Yet it is not the doing a thing, but the getting pay for it, that is difficult; not the reading of character, but the applying it. What value is the being able to understand why men's handwritings vary, save as interesting?

Yet, perhaps, many a reader will glance over this and be inclined to acquire the skill.

First, does the man write often moderately, or very nicely? Did he write in a hurry, or not? Lastly, is his temperament nervous or inclined to be heavy?

Bad writing may arise from haste, nervousness, and want of practice; but the handwriting of the illiterate is intrinsically different from that of a nervous scholar. A man who writes badly when in haste must be a nervous man; so scrawly writing may be reduced to want of self-command. The man of business asks of the scholar, "Why can't you sell your labor and become rich?" The scholar may ask, "Why don't you give your money and write a book?" It is as impossible for one to change as the other. Poverty of brains can be no more overcome than poverty of purse. The right plan is for the two to divide. Money for talent. Ridiculous for money to wait for brains, or brains to be contemptuous of money. There must be help. Look at the writing! That nervous sweep of the pen is not the characteristic of a man to sway material matters; he is not thick-headed enough; the blows crush him.

On the other hand, that round, manly, firm chirography, regular as a troop of horses, indicates outward show, but there is no brain, sentiment, intense sensibility behind. [{696}] A bird is in a quiver of excitement at the least noise, but a cow stands looking on without the least alarm. Women write small. Indolence, affectation, and weakness are indicated, and indolence is nature's guard for nervous persons.

Take particular instances. A is a man of medium size, high forehead, hair of the Yankee brownish hue, eyes deep-set and rather small, nose small, mouth firm, chin rather weak. Physically, he is inclined to be of a nervous, sanguine temperament; hope large, caution large; animal propensities strong. He is a man of business, writes considerably, generally about business. His habit of mind exact. Now, what will be his characteristic handwriting? Ask half a dozen different men who are interested in judging of character, and compare their answers. His habits of business will have made his writing to a certain extent formal. He will have tried to make it a plain hand. His long practice in keeping books will have taught him to be able to write large or small; his nervousness will have taught him to use abbreviations; his solidity and preference for mercantile pursuits will have made him always more or less subject to self-command. He writes, then, not like the man of mere intellect, to get his thoughts upon paper for preservation, but for others to read. He thinks constantly how he will affect others; how they will understand him. He employs formal expressions because they are better understood. He says, "Rec'd three bales goods," instead of telling in many words the same fact, but writes not obscurely, but with particular care that they shall be read.

A lawyer will fill out a writ, and, save an undulating line, no one but the initiated would understand that a legal phrase was implied. The man of business deals with facts. The facts may be expressed briefly, in a formal way, hurriedly, but always with the intention of being read. That some business men do write badly is nothing to this purpose. I am speaking of the desire in you to write plainly.

Now my man, described, sits down to tell his correspondent that a certain lot of goods has arrived, all save one package. He writes rapidly, exactly, and with the wish that the others shall read what he says at once and without mistake. His nervous power would urge him to haste and carelessness, but his business education will restrain him. How will his writing show it? His mind is not particularly active. He is not thinking what to say, but to explain an understood fact. I think, all these circumstances taken into consideration, his letters will be open, frank regular, round, and well-looking, but at the ends of the longest wider, and at the tops and bottoms of long letters will be a perceptible twitch as if he grew there first a little impatient at the delay.

Boldness and delicacy of handwriting may not indicate more than straight-forwardness or caution. A prudent, secretive man generally writes fine, generally also boldly. A passionate nature is confined, and, unless great ability of pencraft is acquired, will rather betray his interest by weakness and indecision in his letters than by excess of power. A fine writer is either one who holds himself in control or a thick-headed nobody, a calm, passionless man, or a mere copyist, for to pay attention to the mere form, augurs that the man's mind is not very much excited by his theme.

Writing full of unnecessary thrusts and turns betokens a man undecided and wavering. A direct up and down style is his who cares nothing for ornament—prefers comfort with regularity to luxury without. A slovenly man scrawls his own nature. A timid man writes commandingly, with unequal heaviness of line. Indolent men avoid trouble and write small. A bold, careless, obstinate man writes variably, at one time well, at another ill. Nothing can charm a man, especially if careless himself, like neatness in the letters of a lady.

---

[{697}]

From The Lamp.
ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.
BY ROBERT CURTIS.
CHAPTER XXIII.

The long-wished-for day appointed for this great match had now arrived, and there was not a man of a hundred in each parish beside the two leading men who had not on that morning taken his hurl from the rack before he went to prayers, inspected it, weighed it in his hand, to ascertain if the set lay fair to the swipe, as he placed it on the ground.

Two o'clock in the afternoon had been appointed for the men to be on the ground, and punctual to the moment they were seen in two compact masses beyond opposite ends of the common. They had assembled outside, and were not permitted to straggle in, in order that their approach toward each other, in two distinct bodies, amidst the inspiring cheers of their respective parties, might have the better effect. This great occasion had been talked of for weeks, and was looked upon, not only by the players themselves, and the two great men at their heads, but it might be said by the "public at large," as the most important hurling-match which had been projected for years in that or perhaps any other district. The friends of each party, beside hundreds of neutral spectators, had already occupied the hills round what might be called the arena.

Conspicuous at the head of the Rathcash men as they advanced with their green sleeves amidst the cheers of their friends, Tom Murdock could be seen walking with his head erect, and his hurl sloping over his shoulder. He kept his right hand disengaged that he might fulfil the usual custom of giving it to his opponent, in token of goodwill, ere the game began.

He was undoubtedly a splendid handsome-looking fellow "that day." Upwards of six feet high, made in full proportion. His shirt tied at the throat with a broad green ribbon, having the collar turned down nearly to the shoulders, showed a neck of unsullied whiteness, which contrasted remarkably with the dark curled whiskers above it. His men, too, were a splendid set of fellows. Most of them were as tall and as well made as himself, and none were under five feet ten; there was not a small man among them—the picked unmarried men of the parish. Their green sleeves and bare necks, with their hurls across their left shoulders, as in the case of their leader, elicited thunders of applause from the whole population of Rathcash upon the hill to their right.

A deep ditch with a high grass bank lay between the common and the spot where Emon-a-knock and his men had assembled.

Phil M'Dermott was silent. He was not yet reconciled to the color which their leader had chosen. Of course he could not account for it, but he did not half like it. To him it looked sombre, melancholy, and prophetic. But Phil had sense enough to assume a cheerfulness, if he did not feel it.

Emon himself, though five feet ten and a half inches high, was about the smallest man of his party. In every respect they equalled, if they did not exceed, the Rathcash men.

[{698}]

"Come, boys," said Emon; "Tom Murdock is bringing on his men; we'll have to jump the bank. Shall I lead the way?"

"Of course, Emon; an' bad luck to the man of the hundred will lave a toe on it."

"No, nor a heel, Phil," said the wit.

"Stand back, boys, about fifteen yards," said Emon. "Let me at it first; and when I am clean over, go at it as much in a line as you can. Give yourselves plenty of room and don't crowd."

"Take your time, boys," whispered the prophet, "an' let none of us trip or fall."

"Never fear, Phil," ran through them all in reply.

Emon then drew back a few yards; and with a light quick run he cleared the bank, giving a slight little steadying-jump on the other side, like a man who had made a somersault from a spring-board.

The Shanvilla population—the whole of which, I may say, was on the surrounding hills—rent the air with their cheers, amidst which the red sleeves were seen clearing the bank like so many young deer. Not a mistake was made; not a man jumped low or short; not a toe was left upon it, as the prophet had said—nor a heel, as the wit had added. It was an enlivening sight to see the red sleeves rising by turns about eight feet into the air, and landing steadily on the level sward beyond the bank.

The cheers from Shanvilla were redoubled, and even some of the Rathcash men joined.

The two parties were now closing each other in friendly approach toward the centre of the field, where they halted within about six yards of each other; Tom Murdock and Emon-a-knock a tittle in advance. They stepped forward, with their right hands a little extended.

"Hallo, Lennon!" said Murdock; "why, you are dressed in silk, man, and have a cap to match; I heard nothing of that. I could not afford silk, and our sleeves are plain calico."

"So are ours, and I could afford silk still less than you could; but my men presented me with these sleeves and this cap, and I shall wear them."

"Of course, of course, Lennon. But I cannot say much for the color; blue would have looked much better; and, perhaps, have been more appropriate."

"I left that for the girls to wear in their bonnets," replied Lennon, sarcastically. He knew that Winny Cavana's holiday bonnet was trimmed with blue, and thought it not unlikely that Murdock knew it also.

They then shook hands, but it was more formal than cordial; and Murdock took a half-crown from his pocket. He was determined to be down on Emon-a-knock's poverty, for a penny would have done as well; and he said, "Shall I call, or will you?"

"The challenger generally 'skies,' and the other calls," he replied.

"Here then!" said Murdock, standing out into a clear spot, and curling the half-crown into the air, eighteen or twenty feet above their heads.

"Head," cried Lennon; and head it was.

It was the usual method on such occasions for the leader who won the toss to throw the ball with all his force as high into the air as possible, and, as a matter of course, as far toward his opponent's goal as he could. The height into the air was as a token to his friends to cheer, and the direction toward his opponent's goal was considered the great advantage of having won the toss.

This was, however, the first occasion in the annals of hurling where this latter point had been questioned. Emon-a-knock and Phil M'Dermott were both experienced hurlers; and previous to their having taken the high bank in such style, from the field outside the common, they had stepped aside from their men, and discussed the matter thus:

"Phil, I hope we'll win the toss," said Emon.

"That we may, I pray. You'll put the ball a trifle on its way if we do, Emon."

[{699}]

"No, Phil, that is the very point I want to settle with you. I have always remarked that when the winner of the toss throws the ball toward the other goal, it is always met by some good man who is on the watch for it; and as none of the opposite party are allowed into their ground until 'the game is on,' he has it all to himself, and generally deals it such a swipe as puts it half-way back over the others' heads. Now my plan is this. If I win 'the toss,' I'll throw the ball more toward our own goal than toward theirs. Let you be there, Phil, to meet it; and I have little fear that the first puck you give it will send it double as far into our opponent's ground as I could throw it with my hand. Beside, the moment the ball is up, our men can advance all over the ground, and another good man of ours may help it on. What say you, Phil?"

"Well, Emon, there's a grate dale of raison in what you say, now that I think of it; but I never seen it done that way afore."

It had been thus settled between these two best men of Shanvilla; and Emon, having won the toss, cast his eye over his shoulder and caught a side glance of Phil M'Dermott in position, with his hurl poised for action.

Contrary to all experience and all expectation, Emon-a-knock, instead of casting the ball from him, toward the other goal, threw it as high as possible, but unmistakably inclining toward his own. Here there was a murmur of disappointed surprise from Shanvilla on the hill. But it was soon explained. Phil M'Dermott had it all his own way for the first puck, which was considered a great object. Never had such an expedient (nunc dodge) to secure it been thought of before. M'Dermott had full room to deal with it. There was no one near him but his own men, who stood exulting at what they knew was about to come. M'Dermott with the under side of his hurl rolled the ball toward him, and curling it up into the air about a foot above his head, met it as it came down with a puck that was heard all over the hills, and drove it three distances beyond where Emon could have thrown it from his hand. The object of the backward cast by the leader had now been explained to the satisfaction of Shanvilla, whose cheers of approbation loudly succeeded to their previous murmurs of surprise.

"Be gorra, they're a knowing pair," said one of the spectators on the hill.

But I cannot attend to the game, which is now well "on,"' and tell you what each party said during the struggle.

Of course the ball was met by Rathcash, and put back; but every man was now at work as best he might, where and when he could, but not altogether from under a certain sort of discipline and eye to their leaders. Now some fortunate young fellow got an open at the ball, and gave it a puck which sent it spinning through the crowd until stopped by the other party. Then a close struggle and clashing of hurls, as if life and death depended on the result. Now, again, some fellow gets an open swipe at it, and puck it goes over their heads, while a rush of both parties takes place toward the probable spot it must arrive at; then another crowded struggle, and ultimately another puck, and it is seen like a cannon-ball on the strand at Sandymount. Another rush, another close struggle and clashing of hurls, and puck, puck; now at the jaws of this goal, now at the jaws of that, while the cheers and counter-cheers re-echo through the surrounding hills.

It is needless to say that Tom Murdock and Emon-a-knock were conspicuous in all these vicissitudes of the game. No man took the ball from either of them if he was likely to get a puck at it in time; but no risk of a counter-puck would be run if an opponent was at hand to give it. This was the use of the distinguishing colors, and right curious it was to see the green and red sleeves twisting through each other and rushing in groups to one spot.

[{700}]

After all, Emon's color "did not look so bad;" and Shanvilla held their own so gallantly as the game went on, that betting—for it was a sort of Derby-day with the parish gamblers—which was six, and even seven, to four on Rathcash at the commencement, was now even for choice. Ay, there is one red-haired fellow, with a small eye and a big one, who shoves three thimbles upon a board at races, has offered five fippenny-bits to four upon Shanvilla; and well he may, for Emon and his men had got the ball amongst them, and Emon's orders were to keep it close—not to puck it at all, now that they had it, but to tip it along and keep round it in a body. This was quite fair, and would have been adopted by the other party had they got the chance.

They were thus advancing steadily but slowly. The Rathcash men were on the outside, but found it difficult, if not impossible, to enter the solid body of Shanvilla men, who were advancing with the ball in the middle of them toward Rathcash goal.

"To the front, to the front, boys, or the game is lost!" roared Tom Murdock, who was himself then watching for an open to get in at the ball.

Forthwith there was a body of the green-sleeves right before Shanvilla, who came on with their ball, tip by tip, undaunted.

Still Rathcash was on the outside, and could not put a hurl on the ball. It was a piece of generalship upon the part of the Shanvilla leader not often before thought of, and likely to be crowned with success. The cheers from Shanvilla on the hills were now deafening—the final struggle was evidently at hand. Rathcash on the hills was silent, except a few murmurs of apprehension.

"This will never do, boys!" said Tom Murdock, rushing into the center of Shanvilla and endeavoring to hook the ball from amongst them; but they were too solid for that, although he had now made his way within a hurl's length of Emon.

Emon called to his men to stoop in front that he might see the goal and judge his distance.

"A few yards further, boys," he cried, "and then open out for me to swipe: I will not miss either the ball or the goal."

"Steady, Emon, steady a bit!" said Phil M'Dermott; "don't you see who is, I may say, alongside of you? Keep it close another bit."

"In with you, men! what are you about?" roared Tom Murdock; and half a score of the green-sleeves rushed in amongst the red. Here the clashing of hurls was at its height, and the shouts from both sides on the hill were tremendous. Shanvilla kept and defended their ball in spite of every attempt of Rathcash to pick it from amongst them; but nothing like violence was thought of by either side.

Shanvilla seemed assured of victory, and such of them as were on the outside, and could not get a tip at the ball, kept brandishing their hurls in the air, roaring at the top of their voices, "Good boys, Shanvilla, good boys!" "Through with it—through with it!" "Good boys!"

Emon looked out. Though he did not see the stones, he saw the goal-masters—one red, the other green—ready expecting the final puck, and he knew the spot.

"Give me room now, Phil," he whispered, and his men drew back.

Emon curled the ball into the air about the height of his head, and struck it sure and home. As if from a cannon's mouth it went over the heads of Rathcash, Shanvilla, and all, and sped right through the center of the stones—hop—hop—hop—until it was finally lost sight of in some rushes. But another blow had been struck at the same moment, and Emon-a-knock lay senseless on the ground, his face and neck, shirt and sleeves, all the same color, and that color was—blood.

Tom Murdock's hurl had been poised ready to strike the all the moment Lennon had curled it into the air. Upon this one blow the whole [{701}] game depended. Emon was rather sideways to Tom, who was on his left. Both their blows were aimed almost simultaneously at the ball, but Tom's being a second or two late, had no ball to hit; and not being able to restrain the impetus of the blow, his hurl passed on and took Emon's head above the top of the left ear, raising a scalp of flesh to the skull-bone, about three inches in length, and more than half that breadth.

The cheers of Shanvilla were speedily quashed, and there was a rush of the red-sleeves round their leader. Phil M'Dermott had taken him in his arms, and replaced the loose piece of flesh upon Emon's skull in the most artistic manner, and bound it down with a handkerchief tied under the chin. He could see that no injury had been done to the bone. It was a mere sloping stroke, which had lifted the piece of flesh clean from the skull. But poor Emon still lay insensible, his whole face, neck, and breast covered with blood.

There was some growling amongst the Shanvilla boys, and those from the hill ran down with their sticks to join their comrades with their hurls; while the Rathcash men closed into a compact body, beckoning to their friends on the hill, who also ran down to defend them in case of need.

This was indeed a critical moment, and one that, if not properly managed, might have led to bloodshed of a more extended kind. But Tom Murdock was equal to the occasion. He gave his hurl to one of his men the moment he had struck the blow, and went forward.

"Good heaven, boys, I hope he is not much hurt!" he exclaimed. "Rathcash should lose a hundred games before Shanvilla should be hurt."

As he spoke he perceived a scowl of doubt and rising anger in the faces of many of the Shanvilla men, some of whom ground their teeth, and grasped their hurls tighter in their hands. Tom did not lose his presence of mind at even this, although he almost feared the result. He took Emon by the hand and bid him speak to him. Phil M'Dermott had ordered his men to keep back the crowd to give the sufferer air. Poor Emon's own remedy in another cause had been resorted to. Phil had rubbed his lips and gums with whiskey—on this occasion it was near at hand—and poured a few thimblefuls down his throat. He soon opened his eyes, and looked round him.

"Thank God!" cried Tom Murdock. "Are you much hurt, Lennon?"

The very return to life had already quashed any cordiality toward Emon in Tom's heart.

"Not much, I hope, Tom. I was stunned; that was all. But what about the game? I thought my ear caught the cheers of victory as I fell."

"So they did, Emon," said M'Dermott; "but stop talking, I tell you. The game is ours, and it was you who won it with that last puck."

"Ay, and it was that last puck that nearly lost him his life," continued Tom, knowingly enough. "We both struck at the ball nearly at the same moment; he took it first, and my hurl had nothing to hit until it met the top of his head. I protest before heaven, Lennon, it was entirely accidental."

"I have not accused you of it's being anything else, Murdock; don't seem to doubt yourself," said Emon in a very low weak voice. But it was evident he was "coming-to."

Still the Shanvilla men were grumbling and whispering. One of them, a big black-haired fellow named Ned Murrican, burst out at last, and brandishing his hurl over his head, cried out:

"Arrah, now, what are we about; boys? Are we going to see our best man murdered before our eyes, an' be satisfied wid a piper an' a dance? I say we must have blood for blood!"

"An' why not?" said another. "It was no accident; I'm sure of that."

"What baldherdash!" cried a [{702}] third; "didn't I see him aim the blow?" And the whole of Shanvilla flourished their hurls and their sticks in the air, clashing them together with a terrific noise of an onslaught.

Tom Murdock's cheeks blanched. He feared that he had opened a floodgate which he could not stop, and that if there had not been, there would soon be, murder. His men stood firm in a close body, and not a word was heard to pass amongst them.

"Don't strike a blow, for the life of you, boys!" he cried, at the same time he took back his hurl from the man to whom he had given it to hold, who handed it to him, saying, "Here, Tom, you'll be apt to want this."

The Shanvilla men saw him take the hurl, and thought it an acceptance of a challenge to fight. They now began to jump off the ground, crying, "Whoop, whoop!" a sure sign of prompt action in an Irish row.

At this still more critical moment, Father Farrell, the parish priest of Shanvilla, who had been sent for in all haste "for the man who was killed," was seen cantering across the common toward the crowd; and more fortunately still he was accompanied by Father Roche, the parish-priest of Rathcash. They were both known at a glance; Shanvilla on his "strawberry cob," and Rathcash on his "tight little black mare."

It is needless to say that the approach of these two good men calmed to all appearance, if not in reality, the exhibition of angry feeling amongst the two parties.

"Here, your reverence," said one of the Shanvilla men to Father Farrell,—"here's where the man that was hurt is lying; poor Emon-a-knock, your reverence."

Father Farrell turned for a moment and whispered to his companion, "I'll see about the hurt man, and do you try and keep the boys quiet. I can see that Shanvilla is ready for a fight. Tell them that I'll be with them in a very few minutes, if the man is not badly hurt. If he is, my friend, I'm afraid we shall have a hard task to keep Shanvilla quiet. Could you not send your men home at once?"

"I'll do what I can; but you can do more with your own men than I can. Rathcash will not strike a blow, I know, until the very last moment."

They then separated, Father Farrell dismounting and going over to where Emon-a-knock still lay in M'Dermott's arms; and Father Roche up toward the Rathcash men.

"Boys," said he, addressing them, "this is a sad ending to the day's sport; but, thank God, from what I hear, the man is not much hurt. Be steady, at all events. Indeed, you had better go home at once, every man of you. Won't you take your priest's advice?"

"An' why not, your reverence? to be sure we will, if it comes to that; but, plaise God, it won't. At worst it was only an accident, an' we're tould it won't signify. We'll stan' our ground another while, your reverence, until we hear how the boy is. Sure, there's two barrels of beer an' a dance to the fore, by-an'-by."

"Well, lads, be very steady, and keep yourselves quiet. I'll visit the first man of you that strikes a blow with condign—"

"We'll strike no blow, your reverence, if we bant struck first. Let Father Farrell look to that."

"And so he will, you may depend upon it," said Father Roche.

The Shanvilla men had great confidence in Father Farrell in every respect, and there was not a man in the parish who would not almost die at his bidding from pure love of the man, apart from his religious influence. They knew him to be a good physician in a literal, as well as a moral, point of view; and he had been proving himself the good Samaritan for the last seventeen years to every one in the parish, whether they fell among thieves or not. He had commenced life as a medical student, but had (prudently, perhaps) preferred the Church. [{703}] In memory, however, of his early predilections, he kept a sort of little private dispensary behind his kitchen; and so numerous were the cures which nature had effected under his mild advice and harmless prescriptions, that he had established a reputation for infallibility almost equal to that subsequently attained by Holloway or Morrison. Never, however, was his medical knowledge of more use as well as value than on the present occasion.

Shanvilla grounded their weapons at his approach, and waited for his report. Father Farrell of course first felt the young man's pulse. He was not pedantic or affected enough to hold his watch in his other hand while he did so; but, like all good physicians, he held his tongue. He then untied the handkerchief, and gently examined the wound so far as possible without disturbing the work which Phil M'Dermott had so promptly and judiciously performed. His last test of the state of his patient was his voice; and upon this, in his own mind, he laid no inconsiderable stress. In reply to his questions as to whether he felt sick or giddy, Emon replied, much more stoutly than was expected, that he felt neither the one nor the other. Father Farrell was now fully satisfied that there was nothing seriously wrong with him, and that giving him the rites of the Church, or even remaining longer with him then, might have an unfavorable effect upon the already excited minds of the Shanvilla men. He therefore said, smiling, "Thank God, Emon, you want no further doctoring just now; and I'll leave you for a few minutes while I tell Shanvilla that nothing serious has befallen you."

He then left him, and hastened over toward his parishoners, who eagerly met him half-way as he approached.

"Well, your reverence?" "Well, your reverence?" ran through the foremost of them.

"It is well, and very well, boys," he replied; "I bless God it is nothing but a scalp wound, which will not signify. Put by your hurls, and go and ask the Rathcash girls to dance."

"Three cheers for Father Farrell!" shouted Ned Murrican of the black curly head. They were given heartily, and peace was restored.

Father Farrell then remounted his strawberry cob, and rode over toward where Father Roche was with the Rathcash men. They were, "in a manner," as anxious to hear his opinion of Emon-a-knock as his own men had been. They knew nothing, or, if they did, they cared nothing, for any private cause of ill-will on their leader's part toward Emon-a-knock. They were not about to espouse his quarrel, if he had one; and, as they had said, they would not have struck a blow unless in self-defence.

Father Farrell now assured them there was nothing of any consequence "upon" Emon; it was a mere tip of the flesh, and would be quite well in a few days. "But, Tom a-wochal," he added, laughing, "you don't often aim at a crow and hit a pigeon."

"I was awkward and unfortunate enough to do so this time, Father Farrell," he replied. And he then entered into a full, and apparently a candid, detail of how it had happened.

Father Farrell listened with much attention, bowing at him now and then, like the foreman of a jury to a judge's charge, to show that he understood him. When he had ended. Father Farrell placed his hand upon his shoulder, and, bending down toward him, whispered in his ear, "Oh, Tom Murdock, but you are the fortunate man this day! for if the blow had been one inch and a half lower, all the priests and doctors in Connaught would not save you from being tried for manslaughter."

"Or murder," whispered Tom's heart to himself.

By this time Emon-a-knock, with M'Dermott's help, had risen to his feet; and leaning on him and big Ned Murrican, crept feebly along toward the boreen which formed the entrance to the common.

[{704}]

Father Farrell, perceiving the move, rode after him, and said, as he passed, that he would trot on and send for a horse and cart to fetch him home, as he would not allow him to walk any further than the end of the lane. Indeed, it was not his intention to do so; for he was still scarcely able to stand, and that not without help.

Before he and his assistants, however, had reached the end of the lane, Father Farrell came entering back, saying, "All right, my good lads; there is a jennet and cart coming up the lane for him."

Emon cocked his ear at the word jennet; he knew who owned the only one for miles around. And there indeed it was; and the sight of it went well-nigh to cure Emon, better than any doctoring he could get.

TO BE CONTINUED. [Page 816]

---

From The Month.
INQUIETUS.

We put him in a golden cage
With crystal troughs; but still he pined
For tracts of royal foliage.
And broad blue skies and merry wind.
We gave him water cool and dear;
All round his golden wires we twined
Fresh leaves and blossoms bright, to cheer
His restless heart: but still he pined.
We whistled and we chirped; but he
Trilled never more his liquid falls,
But ever yearned for liberty,
And dashed against his golden walls.
Again, again, in wild despair,
He strove to burst his bars aside;
At last, beneath his pinion fair,
He hid his drooping head and died!
And so against the golden bars—
Life's golden bars—our poor souls smite.
Pining for tracts beyond the stars.
Freedom and beauty, truth and light
Those bars a Father's hands adorn
With leaves and flowers—earth's loveliest things—
With crystal draughts; but still we mourn
With thirsting for the "living springs."
Nor crystal draughts, nor leaves and flowers,
The exiled heart can satisfy:
We shake the bars; and some few hours
We droop and pine, and then we die,
We die! But, oh, the prison-bars
Are shatter'd then: then far away,
We pass beyond the sky, the stars—
Beyond the change of night and day.

---

[{705}]

From Chambers's Journal.
A KINGDOM WITHOUT A KING.

Lichtenstein is the name of the smallest principality in the great German "Vaterland," and this has hitherto been the most remarkable thing that could be said about it, for in the great political world it has as yet played no part. It appears, however, that its time has now arrived; and for the benefit of those who might receive this bit of intelligence with a sceptical smile, I subjoin a few words of explanation.

In order fully to appreciate this important question, it will be necessary to commence by going back into the past—if not so far as to the Flood, at least to some part of the twelfth century.

It will not do to believe that the Lichtensteiners are people of vulgar extraction. True, their ancestors hardly anticipated that the house of Lichtenstein would ever be reckoned among the reigning families of Europe; but this did not affect the nobleness of their quarterings. The founder of the house was a lively and enterprising Lombard, and related to the Este family. He went to Germany with the object of making his fortune, and there he married, 1145 A.D., a little princess of the house of Schwaben. They had not the slightest fraction of a principality, but they had plenty of children to educate and provide for. Their fortune was not very large, but, in his quality of Lombard, the father exercised the lucrative business of an usurer, whenever the occasion presented itself. The sovereigns of those times were often in want of money, and our Lombard supplied them with this article, proper security being forthcoming. When the time of restitution arrived, it was not always convenient to the debtors to pay in cash, and the affair was therefore generally settled by means of small pieces of land, titles, or privileges. The Lichtensteiners soon became allied to the greatest German families. In the year 1614, the Emperor Matthias ceded to them, in settlement of their pecuniary claims, the principality of Troppau, in Schlesien. Ten years later, the Emperor Ferdinand II. added to their possessions the principality of Jagendorff. Then they obtained the title of "Prince of the Holy Roman Empire;" and by this time they had purchased the districts of Vadutz and Schnellenberg, on the borders of the Rhine, and close to the Swiss frontier. These possessions form the actual principality of Lichtenstein, which has the small town of Vadutz for its capital.

The Congress of Vienna—contrary to its principles of mediatization—resolved, for reasons which we abstain from investigating, to maintain Lichtenstein as a sovereign and independent state, and gave it an entire vote in the German Confederation.

In return for these advantages, Lichtenstein had to provide a contingent of ninety men and one drummer to the federal army. It is important not to lose sight of these ninety men and one drummer, for they play a principal part in the impending question. The subjects of the principality of Lichtenstein, according to the last census, numbered 7,150; they are clever people, of a peaceable disposition, but impressed with no particular awe for authorities. They even have a slight taint of independence, undoubtedly owing to the close vicinity of Switzerland.

[{706}]

A year had scarcely elapsed after the remodelling of the map of Europe by the Congress of Vienna, when the inhabitants of Lichtenstein addressed themselves to their sovereign, John I., and declared with rustic frankness that they had no objection to being ruled by him, since the Congress had decided it so; but that they found it entirely superfluous to pay any civil list; beside, they were too few in number to contribute every year ninety men and one drummer to the federal army. Prince John was an excellent man, and, moreover, he was immensely rich. He informed his subjects that he could do very well without any civil list; and as for the federal contingent, he concluded a convention with the Austrian government, by which the latter undertook to furnish it together with its own. With this the loyal subjects declared themselves satisfied; and everything went on well until the year 1836, when Prince Aloysius I. ascended the throne. In the meantime, the natives of Lichtenstein had made various reflections. The conclusions arrived at were: that a prince, even if paid nothing, entails sundry expenses on the country where he is reigning; festivals have to be given, as well as solemn audiences, illuminations, fire-works, etc.

Accordingly, they sent a deputation to their new lord and master, and made it obvious, to him that he must indemnify the country for all expenses of the description alluded to. Aloysius I. was as excellent a monarch as his predecessor; he admitted the claims of his subjects, and made an agreement with them concerning an annual indemnity, which he paid with exemplary regularity.

The Lichtensteiners had now attained the object of their wishes; they led an existence entirely ideal. They occupied a position unique in Europe, nay, in the whole world; for, instead of paying for government, they actually were paid for submission to it. It would now be supposed that nothing in future could disturb the good understanding existing between prince and people. But alas! that the old saying should here find its application—namely, that he who has got yellow hair, wants it also to be curled.

John II. became Prince of Lichtenstein. One fine morning he said to himself: "Since I have no civil list, nay, since I—contrary to all established usages—pay a tribute to my subjects, I ought at least to have full liberty to live according to my tastes. This small capital is a bore. I have plenty of money; I will set out for Vienna!" No sooner said than done. John II. built a magnificent palace in the capital of Austria, and there he lived in a luxurious style. The government of the principality he intrusted to a minister, with whom he corresponded. But when were those stupid Lichtensteiners to be satisfied? They put their heads together and resolved to send a deputation to their supreme master in Vienna; and one particular morning, just as the prince had got out of bed, a dozen of the most distinguished among his subjects made their appearance. After the customary reverences and ceremonies, the deputation put forth its request with becoming solemnity, expressing itself somewhat to the following effect: "We don't pay your serene highness any civil list; on the contrary, your serene highness pays an annual indemnity to us. But your serene highness is in possession of a large fortune, and spends it in a royal manner, by the which formerly your principality benefited. If, now, your serene highness continues to reside in Vienna, you inflict a serious loss upon your subjects; and it appears therefore to us but just that you should in future inhabit at least six months of the year your own capital." Several demands of a political nature were appended to this petition. John II. granted their request, and issued, moreover, a brand-new constitution, with a parliament of fifteen members, whom he promised to pay out of his own pocket.

[{707}]

But what about the ninety men and the drummer? Well, now the difficulty arises, for they are exactly the cause of the present dispute.

Austria having long furnished this contingent, sent, some time ago, a bill of the resulting expenses to the prince. But the prince thought that, as he had renounced his claims to a civil list, and even paid his subjects a round sum every year, it could be no very heavy burden for the said subjects to pay their own federal contingent. This the Lichtensteiners obstinately refuse to do; the prince, on the other side, tired of so much trouble, has expressed his intention to abdicate, and to cede his dominions to Austria. But against this scheme his people protest most energetically—they would rather belong to Switzerland. Beside, if Austria annexes Lichtenstein, then Prussia will regard the transaction with an envious eye. The prince will neither pay nor govern. Such is the present state of things, of which nobody can predict the end.

---

From The St. James Magazine.
A NOVEL TICKET-OF-LEAVE; OR, MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

"No two things are alike." Such is the dictum of science. "Nature," say the wise men, "resembles the charms of Cleopatra, which custom cannot stale, so infinite is their variety." Even in so humble a thing as a flock of sheep there is a personal identity, and the shepherd of Salisbury Plain will vow to you that he can discriminate between the countenances of each member of his woolly family, and particularize their features. So with the herdsman and his drove, the trainer and his stud. But why pursue the theme? Why dwell upon these flocks qui passent et ne se resemblent pas? Is it to prove that these resemblances are mere fallacies, and have no real existence; that they ought to be classed with Sir Thomas Browne's "vulgar errors?" No; but to lament that whereas each member of a flock of sheep, of a herd of oxen, or a stud of horses, carries his individuality so markedly, the privilege is not more extended in the genus homo. I solemnly aver that the number of cases of mistaken identity which have lately come to my knowledge is not only astounding, but exceedingly embarrassing; I may add, too, quorum magna pars fui; which, being translated, means, in which I have formed a no inconsiderable portion of the quorum. It is no pleasant sensation to know that your "counterfeit presentment" is walking the earth; in fact, it is monstrously unpleasant. The other day I felt a heavy hand placed rapidly upon my shoulder, in the most unceremonious and familiar of ways, accompanied with an equally unceremonious and familiar exclamation: "Why, Perkins, old boy, how are ye? Haven't seen ye for an age! Glad to see you again in London! How are all the folks at Nottingham?"

How far this familiar stranger would have gone on in this fluent strain of amity I know not. It was time to stop his exuberance of friendship, and acquaint him with the fact that my name was not Perkins; that I had not come from Nottingham; and, I fear, added, in the bitterness and irritation of the moment, that I had never been to Nottingham, and never wished to go there. "Oh, nonsense, Perkins! I'm not going to be knocked off in that style. How are Mrs. Perkins and the chicks?" "I tell you again, sir, you are mistaken in your man; my name [{708}] is not Perkins." "It may not be Perkins now, but it was three months ago; and whatever your new name may be, I am not going to be turned off in this way. Not Perkins! Why, you can't get rid of that mole on your cheek with your new name; and as to your wig, old fellow, there never was but that shade of red I ever saw. Come, where shall we dine?" "I must plainly tell you, sir," I replied to my would-be friend, "you are carrying your pleasantry too far; and if you do not leave me at once, I will give you in charge of the police." The fellow, evidently chagrined, left me to chew the cud of bitter reflection. "Well, well," were his parting words, "it can't be Perkins after all; Perkins was a jolly good fellow, and this chap is———" He had by this time got out of hearing. What an unpleasant rencontre this! I thought to myself. Then again the subject took another aspect. What if the real, the true Perkins, should ever be persecuted by my friends as I have been by one of his?

And this leads me on to another incident in the same category, which occurred still more recently, and might have led to very deplorable results. In fact, I am not sure that the end is yet. I had business out of town for a day or two, and returned punctually at the appointed hour. Whom should I meet on the platform of the terminus but Tom Cridlins! Now Tom is a great gossip, and an immense favorite with the ladies. He frequents the theatres and the operas, conversaziones and balls, and retails all the news and scandal of the day to his fair friends. Well, I met him accidentally at the terminus; in an instant he was full of apologies and excuses. "Hope, Sam, done no mischief; didn't mean it, didn't mean it, 'pon honor; deuced sorry, hope it's all over." "Why, what's the matter?" "Didn't know you'd gone out of town, you sly dog. I understand it all. Called at Mrs. Sam's yesterday; told her—didn't do it intentionally—saw you at the opera Monday night with Countess Tarascona; magnificent woman; saw at once made mistake. Why didn't she tell me you'd gone out of town? wouldn't have breathed a word. 'Pon honor, accidental." "Opera, Tom! I wasn't at the opera; I have been out of town since Monday morning; you're mistaken." "Capital joke, that. Why, Sam, think I'm 'flicted with color-blindness? No, my boy, nothing blinds me but friendship; wouldn't have said a word had known you didn't want it." Need I say what a miserable vista was opened up before me? A jealous wife's jealousy accidentally inflamed in this innocent manner, and even Tom Cridlins incredulous. These men of the world won't believe in—in anything.

"Tom," I said, seriously, "this is very unfortunate; but you were never more mistaken in your life. I have not been at the opera for weeks." Oh that wicked twinkle of his eye! "Well, my boy, I don't want to believe you were there; disbelieve anything you like; only——" "Tom, I can stand this no longer; I must not be played with; you must admit that I was not at the opera. I can bring the whole village of Cudgleton to prove an alibi. " "Glad to hear it, for peace of home's sake. Mrs. Sam took it very ill, can assure you; sorry, 'ceedingly sorry; but really the countess is a magnificent woman." "Who the devil cares now about the countess? I affirm that I have been at Cudgleton from Monday 4 P.M. till this morning 10 A.M. Left by express, and just arrived." "There's the bell, Sam; must say good-bye; remember me to your wife; purely accidental; 'ceedingly regret it; believe every word you say—will back it 'gainst all odds; remember me to your wife, and tell her I believe you, my boy. "

"Believe me, my boy!" and that's how Tom Cridlins left me,—light-hearted and gay-spirited, after having kindled a torch which Acheron itself could not quench.

[{709}]

I returned home. Of course Mrs. Sam was prepared to receive me. In vain I protested; in vain I insisted that Tom Cridlins was laboring under an illusion; I had brought him to confess as much. "Oh, then, you have seen him to-day; planning and scheming, I suppose, to get up a pack of contradictions. I understand; but you are not going to deceive me. Natural evidence is better than got-up evidence, and I shall prefer to take Mr. Thomas Cridlins's first statement to his second. There are some things better fresh, and testimony I take to be one of those things. Whatever you and Mr. Cridlins may choose to concoct, for the future I shall believe what I please to believe."

And so on till bedtime. Would that I could say we had had it out even then! At midnight we were only in the thick of it; and to acquire renewed vigor for future assaults, Mrs. Sam prudently fell asleep.

But what a time for me! Oh that I could reverse the hand of the clock eight-and-forty hours, or push it on until this trouble had blown over! Plague on that man, whoever he is, that looked so like me! Why was he at the opera? why was he there with a fine woman? Cridlins saw nothing of the Countess Tarascona—only seen her once—and his foolish head jumps to the conclusion it must be the countess. Ass that he is! Why isn't he honestly employed, like other people, instead of idling about on his five thousand a year, philandering and making mischief? He can scarcely count the fingers on his hand, yet he can create a devil of a row between man and wife!

Two o'clock struck. I had fallen into a distempered doze; still it was somewhat soothing. With the waking reflection came back, not quite so excited. After all it might have been worse. I remember reading of a Bishop of Siena who had a sovereign antidote against every attack of despondency.

"When I am disappointed or vexed, or embarrassed or dissatisfied," he said, "I look round upon the world and notice how many hundreds and thousands are worse off than myself, and the result invariably is, that grumbling and vexation take wings and fly away, and contentment and cheerfulness return and nestle in my bosom."

What, thought I, as I lay awake,—what if, instead of this conjugal contretemps, I had been wrongly seized for theft and murder, and unable to prove an alibi? Such cases have been. Such cases have been! Why, they have taken place by scores—are taking place, and will to the end of the chapter. And my imagination vividly portrayed the mental agonies of the innocent convict. Memory ransacked the dusty tomes of history to supply fresh food for meditation, fresh fuel to feed my horror. Does not Pliny cite innumerable instances? Had not the twin brothers of Ephesus just cause to exclaim, each to his unknown counterpart, in the anguish and bitterness of his spirit, "Oh, Dromio, Dromio, wherefore art thou, Dromio?" Does not the "Newgate Calendar" teem with cases of men's lives perjured by false witnesses, or sacrificed to a false tissue of circumstances? Did not Richard Coleman and Clinch and Mackley suffer death for crimes of which they were subsequently proved to be guiltless, simply because each was mistaken for the "right man," who was not, and never is, in the "right place." Was not Hoag tried at New York, in 1804, for bigamy, through a similar misconception? And did not Redman in 1822, and Robinson in 1824, just escape the gallows by a hair's-breadth? And were not these instances enough to scarify any man's imagination, and shiver his every nerve? My "counterfeit presentment" was evidently wandering about somewhere. What sort of a character was he? Did ho belong to the dangerous classes? was he a respectable member of society or an impostor? was he cunning and clever, and capable of swindling? was he cold-blooded and resolute, capable [{710}] of murder? was he passionate and revengeful? was he anything and everything that could lead a man into a violent scrape?

No wonder the perspiration ran off my brow as my brain scudded through the chapter of probabilities and revealed a long gloomy vista of perils. I bethought me of the police. Should I make known that my "counterfeit" was abroad "stalking the world around?" Should I seek the protection of Scotland Yard, and warn them if they heard of a robbery or a murder, or some other villainy or felony committed by a man answering to my description, that I was not the culprit? To be forewarned is to be forearmed; to tell them this might save loss of time, and spare a world of trouble, inconvenience, and annoyance. Beside, was it not exactly what my late friend Richter had done? Ah! by-the-bye, you didn't know Richter—thereby hangs a tale. Richter, poor fellow, is dead now; but there is a moral attached to his life, and we, whose eidola are walking the earth, may as well extract it.

Richter was a wealthy rentier, living in Vienna; and a thorough Austrian by birth, education, and nature. Quiet, inoffensive, kindly; there was nothing striking about him in person or position. He never meddled with that firebrand—politics; he had never troubled the most immaculate government of the imperial and royal apostolic Kaiser with unseasonable and unreasonable comments on its virtues or defects; he had never violated that most sacred thing, the concordat; had never offended lord or prince; had hated Hungary, and had always wished Venice at the bottom instead of on the surface of the sea. He was a peaceable citizen, obedient to the decrees of his sovereign, and pursued the even tenor of his life with well-balanced footstep, inclining to nothing that was likely to lead him or his neighbor into the dark and dreary desert of trouble and vexation. Nevertheless the Nemesis of envy marked him for her own; and he was pointed at during the latter part of his life as one who could set the vast army of spies and detectives formed and disciplined by that arch-policeman, Metternich, at absolute defiance.

It was the custom of Herr Richter of an afternoon or morning—as any one might who had nothing better to do—to stroll up and down the principal thoroughfares of Vienna, gaze into its splendid shops, and admire the beauty and the becrinolined silks and satins, muslins and grenadines, of the stately dames of that ancient and quaint city. One day—it was in the summer of 1849—Herr Richter was flâning along the Kätner Strasse, and, impelled neither by curiosity nor covetousness, but that indefinable something which of directs our course and shapes our conduct without our consciousness, stopped before the "Storr and Mortimer" of the Hapsburg capital. Why did he thrust himself in amongst that band of ragged gamins, who, with gaping mouth and burning eyes, were devouring the splendors of the plate-glass window, and wistfully wishing that that glittering heap of rings and chains, brooches and necklaces, cassolettes and lockets, bracelets and eardrops, emeralds, diamonds, pearls, rubies, turquoises, etc., were theirs? Why did he mingle with them? He could not have told you, nor can I. Only he was there, and it was evident his heart, too, was overflowing, like Mr. Pickwick's, with the milk of human kindness. "Poor fellows!" such was his train of thought, "you can never get any of these treasures, though you should toil for a century;" and then turning away, he muttered aloud, still continuing his train of thought, "Any of them might be mine in a moment if I chose." Was he speculating on the iniquitous force of the Austrian guild laws, or the false system of political economy in vogue in Austria? was he pondering over the mysteries of meum et tuum, or endeavoring to solve that profound problem, "La proprieté c'est le vol?"

[{711}]

Possibly yes, possibly no; but just at that moment a strong hand was laid on his shoulder. "One word with you, if you please," said a low musical voice, imperative yet polite.

The invitation was irresistible. With the utmost complacency Herr Richter retired with the gentleman who accosted him underneath one of those huge gateways, porte-cochères, which form the entrance of the old Vienna houses. The stranger then took a paper from his pocket, and looking intently, now at its contents, now at the features of Herr Richter, opened the conversation in a curt and peremptory manner:

"Sir, I am under the painful necessity of requesting you to follow me."

Herr Richter, incensed, grows restiff.

"Pray, sir, who are you that dare—" and without finishing the sentence he threw himself into an attitude of defence, if not defiance.

"Had you not better give less trouble?" coolly asked the stranger. "Am I to call assistance?"

Rapidly the truth dawned upon the Herr. The stranger, though clad in the ordinary attire of a bourgeois, belonged to that mysterious body, dreaded by every section of the community, since it received its orders, so it was universally believed, directly from the cabinet, or a joint committee of the holy alliance itself. Yes, he must be an agent of the secret police.

Herr Richter, however, is not hurried off to the star chamber where political offenders are dealt with, but is conducted to the Scotland Yard of Vienna—the headquarters of the gendarmerie—the central station for criminal suspects. In Austria it is safer to be classed with common thieves and felons than to be suspected of meddling with politics. So the Herr's mind was materially relieved; though ignominious his fate, on perceiving his destination he scarcely felt enraged at the indignity offered him.

When they had arrived within the gloomy precincts of the gaol barracks, things began to explain themselves. There was evident satisfaction, not to say exultation, on the faces of the officials. The captor was specially gratified; and waving his warrant, as though it were an honorable trophy, over the head of his unfortunate prize, he exclaimed—

"I've captured him at last; I've found him and caught him, this prince of pickpockets!" and he enacted the passion of triumph so perfectly that he jeered at and derided in true Teutonic fashion his safe and sound victim in the most cold-blooded and insolent manner.

"As I was passing down the Kätner Strasse," continued this self-gratulatory detective, "I saw him looking into a goldsmith's shop, noting every article in the window, and heard him muttering to himself, with a most complacent air, 'Any one of them could be mine in a moment if I chose.'"

A superior officer was then called, and the description in the warrant being read over, there could be no doubt as to the identity of the prisoner with the most active and desperate thief in Vienna. The personal appearance of Herr Richter tallied exactly with the written portrait in the possession of the Polizer-Haus; type and antitype could not be more exact.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the alarmed captive, "I the greatest thief in Vienna! I am Herr Richter, a gentleman, a man of property, rich enough to purchase twenty jewellers' shops. I beg you to be careful how you proceed further."

"Don't excite yourself," retorted the commissioner, "we shall be careful enough. You won't catch us giving you an opportunity of escape."

"Donnerwetter!" ejaculated the now infuriated rentier; "this is too much of a good thing. Just send round for my banker and he will tell you who and what I am. I'll sue you, sir—I'll sue you, sir, as sure as you are born," repeated the Herr, growing more exasperated every moment.

[{712}]

The superintendent, like most men of his profession, was well versed in physiognomy, and could read the features of the human face and interpret their varied expressions. "This is not feigned anger," he said to himself.

The banker was sent for, and identified the prisoner as his friend Herr Richter. As a matter of course the wealthy gentleman escaped the grasp of the Philistines.

On leaving the beetle-browed gateway of the police barracks the Herr breathed freely again, rejoicing that matters had turned out no worse in that empire of suspicion and caprice. He moved along through the principal thoroughfare of the Austrian capital, pondering over his recent unpleasant adventure. At length he called a cab to take him to his club, where he might drown the indignity of the morning in a bumper of Tokay or Johannisberg, and invite oblivion by devouring a good dinner. Hardly, however, had he placed his foot on the step than he was forced deep down into the vehicle by a mysterious personage at his back, who, whispering to the driver, "To the police station!" enters the cab also. Speechless and aghast as though a spectre were the intruder, the unfortunate Herr Richter looked wildly at his compulsory companion.

"Sir," said the spectre—

"I know all you are going to say," feebly remarked the desperate Richter, cursing his fate.

"Of course you know," sneered the spectre at his side, who, however, is no spectre, but a jolly-booking individual in the prime of manhood. "Of course you know." And with this he dives his hand into his pocket, and drags forth the fatal warrant.

"All right!" groans out the inevitable captive, with whom despair was fast degenerating into recklessness. "All right, you need not take the trouble to read every trait. I have read the account myself. It is very correct, wonderfully correct, terribly correct."

"For a gentleman of your profession," observed the portly detective, "you are really very civil. Half a dozen such as you would marvellously improve the manners of our modern chevaliers d'industrie. I say, old boy," continued the pleasant thief-catcher, poking the unresisting Herr in the ribs, "you ought to think it over, and exert yourself to instill a little politeness into your tribe. It's a large section of the community, you know. If yon get out again, think over my advice."

The only reply of Herr Richter was a faint, helpless smile.

Arrived at the station, a general shout of laughter greeted the captor and the captured.

The latter seated himself in a chair, and, composing his thoughts for a desperate harangue, thus addressed the commissioners present:

"Gentlemen, here I am again, and here I am resolved to remain. As it is, I should not be safe anywhere else a quarter of an hour until arrested and taken to the station by all your detectives one after the other. Calculating from to-day's experience, and forming a moderate estimate of the rate of locomotion at which I could proceed under the circumstances, it would take me a fortnight to get home and bury myself from the now hated gaze of mankind. You will therefore have the kindness to let me keep you company and make the personal acquaintance of each member of your force, who will then, I hope, be able to recognize me when he sees me in the streets."

The commissioner-in-chief regretted that he could not assent to the Herr's proposition. "Impossible! it would never do, my dear sir," he informed the astounded Richter, "for a civilian, even a man of your respectability and appearance, to know all the detectives; the state itself would be endangered. However," he added very graciously, "I will give you a certificate, under [{713}] my hand and seal, that you are not the man you have been taken for; and this will make, I hope, as far as lies in my power, the amende honorable. "

"A ticket-of-leave?"

"Comme vous voulez. "

Poor Richter surrendered unconditionally, glad, like the Bishop of Hereford, "that he could so get away." Never from that hour did he lose sight of that precious "ticket-of-leave," the prison release of the Austrian Scotland Yard. He always carried it about with him as a kind of amulet to charm away the too active agens de police. In his last will and testament he inserted a special clause, ordering that the old leather sheath, containing the official permit, should be placed in his coffin.

"Who knows how many a fix it may yet help me out of?" was written in the margin with his own hand.

Why should not I, then, do like Herr Richter? thought your humble servant, as he still lay awake. If ever the dastardly hand of a peeler be laid on my shoulder, such shall be my first step. Pshaw! why should I not take time by the forelock? why should I not go that very morning to Scotland Yard and acquaint the commissioners that my counterfeit was at large, and might commit some fearful atrocity, some terrible crime, and so beg for a ticket of recognition—a ticket-of-leave?

Alas! whilst I was putting on the breastplate and buckling on my armor against imaginary foes, I had forgotten the real danger that encompassed me. Whilst I was congratulating myself on the ingenious dispensation I was to obtain from the police, I forgot that I had not yet obtained a dispensation from the partner of my joys and sorrows who was calmly reposing by my side. Calmly reposing, I say, for nothing seemed to disturb her. There are natures, it appears to me, whose repose nothing can break, and it is exactly that class of natures which can most easily and effectually disturb the peace of others. It is a mighty faculty, and was possessed, à merveille, by Mrs. Sam.

When she woke I meekly broached my idea of police protection, thereby intending by a side-wind to establish my spotless innocence before her. Granted the necessity of police protection, the corollary would be that the story of the opera and the countess was all a myth. Mrs. Sam let me run the whole tether of suggestion with surprising complacency. I almost felt I was triumphant.

"Mr. Samuel——, you may be guilty of whatever folly you please; it is nothing strange to you," she began in her most stately and cutting manner; "but if you think of bamboozling me and throwing me off the scent, you have mistaken your woman. The herring to trail across my path must be stronger flavored than the one you have in hand if you would turn me from the pursuit. Justice I am resolved to have, and will sift the matter to the bottom. It is not yet time to get up, and I wish to finish my sleep. After breakfast, with your kind permission (oh the agony of that irony!) we will together call on the countess. She, perhaps, may be able to explain."

I knew the countess had left town; but I did not dare to say so, and hypocritically assented to Mrs. Sam's proposal. She was furious when she learnt that the countess was from home. "How long had she been from home?" "A fortnight," was the testimony of the butler. "Has she not been in town since?" "No." "Was she not in town on Monday?" "Certainly not." How freely I breathed as this witness gave his involuntary and corroborative evidence in my favor. Mrs. Sam turned round upon me with an incredulous smile. "I condone it this time," she graciously observed as we descended the steps, which reminded me very forcibly of the verdict of the Cornish jury—"We find the prisoner not guilty, only we advise him not to do it again."

---

[{714}]