NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny. By O. A. Brownson, LL.D. 8vo., pp. 435. New York: P. O'Shea. 1866.
This book, which was merely announced in our January number, is the fruit of Dr. Brownson's mature age, ripe experience, great learning, and extraordinary intellectual and literary culture and discipline. It would seem that his life-long labors as a philosophical and critical writer had been simply a course of preparation for this crowning achievement, and that nothing less severe could have trained his mind to grasp and handle the great principles involved with such masterly power, ease, perspicuity, and completeness.
The questions discussed are: Government; the Origin of Government; Constitution of Government; the United States; Constitution of the United States; Secession; Reconstruction; Political Tendencies; Destiny—Political and Religious. The argument throughout is sustained and connected in such a perfect manner, and the connection between the divisions of the subject so thoroughly welded, that it is impossible to make extracts at all within the compass of this notice which would give a correct idea of the work. It must be read and studied to appreciate its beauty, scope, and cogency.
Government and the origin of government are analyzed and placed on their historical and metaphysical basis. [{716}] The constitution of the United States is explained in a manner never before attempted or approached. The relations of the United States to the states in the Union, and their relations to her as a unit, are for the first time made clear and intelligible, and secession, while dealt with charitably as respects individuals and the erroneous premises honestly entertained by multitudes both South and North, is logically proved to be the highest of political crimes—"state suicide. '" The constitutional and Christian method of restoration is pointed out, and the glorious destiny of the country painted on the sky of the future with artistic beauty and prophetic grandeur.
The style is remarkable for its strength, density, clearness, and purity. It supports and carries forward the immense weight and volume of thought, argument, and historical and philosophical illustration without apparent effort, and transmits the author's meaning directly to the intellect, like a ray of light passing through a Brazilian pebble to the retina. If Dr. Brownson had done nothing else, his philological labors would entitle him to the lasting admiration of every lover of pure English.
We do not expect the work to be popular in the common sense of the term, or that it will escape the vituperation of narrow-minded men and those who have used all their feeble power in vain to pull down the structure of constitutional unity. But we do believe that it will be read and appreciated by a very large class of right-minded, thinking men South and North, and exert an immense influence in the direction of complete reconciliation and reconstruction by demonstrating the absolutely illogical character of secession, while it does justice to the honesty, manhood, courage, military skill, and fortitude displayed by the Southern people. It is the logical defeat of the rebellion. It places Dr. Brownson in the first rank as a Catholic statesman, doctor of laws, and fervent, consistent, patriot. He is the citizen who never despaired of the republic. Every man who wishes to understand the history and politics of the country must study this book, and if we are to realize the destiny distinctly indicated by the finger of Providence, the principles which it has established must become the ruling principles of the statesmen of the country. The glove is fairly thrown to the champions of the various specious and popular forms of error, falsehood, and fanaticism, both civil and religious, and they will be compelled to take it up and defend themselves successfully or be condemned by default in the final verdict of mankind. The typography, binding, and general execution are equal to the best London books.
JOURNAL OF EUGENIE DE GUÉRIN.
Edited by G. S. Trebutien. 12mo., pp. 460. Alexander Strahan, London and New York.
This very remarkable and most attractive book has already received a lengthened notice in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and we have only to add that never was there penned a book so full of the highest and most refined sentiment, touching pathos, combined with so much deep philosophic and poetic thought. What a pure and innocent soul is here revealed! Not to the world. She did not write for it, but for her own soul, and the soul of her idolized Maurice. He has found renown through these tear-bedewed pages of a devoted sister. We read it, yet can hardly believe it to be, as it is, a real journal.
Her descriptions are full of the intensest interest and charming naïveté. Here is one on a first communion:
"29th. What a sweet, simple, pious, and touching ceremony! I have only time to say this, and to declare that of all the festivals the one I delight in most is a first communion in a country district: God bestowing himself simply on children! Miou, the little Françouil de Gaillard, and Augustine were exquisite, both in innocence and beauty. How pretty they looked under their little white veils, when they returned weeping from the holy table! Divine tears! Children united to God; who can tell what was passing that moment in their souls? M. le Curé was admirable in his unction and gentleness; it was the Saviour saying to children, 'Come unto me.' Oh! how lovingly he addressed them, and then how he charged them to have a care of that white robe, that innocence with which they were clothed! Poor children, [{717}] what risks before them! I kept saying to myself, 'Which of yon will tarnish it first?' They are not going to Paris, indeed; but earth is everywhere soiled, everywhere evil is found, seduces, and leads away."
That closing sentence was not thoughtlessly penned. It was for the eye of that brother whom Paris had seduced and led away into error, but who never read that gentle admonition. Maurice de Guérin died soon after, reconciled to the Church, in his last agony embracing the crucifix; but Eugénie continues her journal to Maurice in heaven. Here is a passage which will, if we mistake not, induce our readers to procure and read the whole of this delightful volume. They will find it, as we have found it, like a rare and beautiful picture, which, with a strange selfishness, we desire to be universally admired, yet wish it were all our own:
"This woman, this nurse who watched thee, and held thee in illness for a year on her lap, has given me a greater shock than a winding sheet would have done. Heart-rending apparition of the past—cradle and tomb! I could spend the night with thee here in this paper, but the soul needs prayer; the soul will do thee more good than the heart. Each time that my pen rests here, a sword pierces my heart. I do not know whether I shall continue to write or not. Of what use is this Journal? For whom? Alas! and yet I love it as one loves a funereal urn, a reliquary in which is kept a dead heart, all embalmed with sanctity and love. Such seems this paper, where I still preserve thee, my so beloved one: where I keep up a speaking memory of thee, where I shall meet with thee again in my old age—if I live to be old. Oh! yes, the days will come when I shall have no life but in the past; that past shared with thee; spent beside thee, young, intelligent, lovable, raising and refining whatever approached thee; such as I recall thee, such as thou wert on leaving us. At present I do not know what my life is, if, indeed, I do live. Everything is changed within and without. Oh! my God, how heart-rending these letters are! They contain so many tears for my tears! This intimate friend of thine touches me as would a sight of thyself. My dear Maurice, all thou hast loved are dear to me—seem a portion of thee."
THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, January, 1866.
This is the first number of the new, or New York, series of this publication, which is to be issued every two months. It explains the reason and object of the change which has been made in the editorship and place of publication. The Convention of Unitarians held in this city a few months ago initiated a new and important movement in that denomination. The radical and destructive element was put down, and that party which is in favor of taking a positive Christian position achieved a victory. The Examiner has been made their organ, and is to be used in promoting the end they have in view. The convention solemnly and publicly recognized our Lord Jesus Christ, under that title which is indicative of his character as Supreme Head of the human race, in spite of the violent opposition of a few, which was vented in a very unseemly and vulgar manner, shocking to the Christian sentiment of the community. The declaration of belief is significant of the animuis of the movement, and shows it to be a return to the principle of positive and constructive Christianity. The impress of this idea is visible in the new phase of the Examiner, and has given it at once a position far above that which it formerly occupied. In its scholarly and literary tone it is superior to the old series; but the superiority is more marked and evident in the exhibition of a more fixed and earnest purpose to aim at a definite result, and to make more positive affirmation of religious and philosophical ideas. The writers recognize the wide-spread scepticism in intelligent minds as a lamentable fact, and have turned their face away from the road of scepticism and disintegration as one that conducts only to intellectual, moral, and social death. They do not profess to have surveyed the road which leads away from this "valley of the shadow of death;" but they seem to be convinced that there is one, and to be resolved to look for it and to try to guide others in a search for it. It is difficult to say, in regard to men who allow themselves so much latitude in belief, and so great a liberty of independent theorizing, what are the fixed doctrines in which they agree as the fundamental basis of [{718}] an anti-sceptical philosophy, and what are merely tentative hypotheses thrown out for discussion. It appears to us, however, that there are several sound principles of Christian philosophy and doctrine dominating in the articles of the number before us, and which we may suppose will hereafter give a certain unity of character and tendency to the work. One of these is the affirmation of the pure theistic doctrine, in contradiction to pantheism, in connection with a manifest tendency to repudiate the sensist philosophy of Hamilton, Mansel, and that class of writers, and to look for a better one. Another is a recognition that there is something in the idea of the supernatural which is real, and above the sphere of mere natural science. A third is a principle of reverence for the Scriptures, and the religious traditions of the human race, connected with a disposition to reject the scepticism of the pseudo-critical school of Germany. A fourth is an assertion of the obligatory force of the Divine Law, and the necessity of cultivating a personal relation to God as the principle of solid virtue and morality. There is also a sort of instinctive apprehension that a more thorough investigation of the difficulties which science appears to throw in the way of revealed religion will eventually produce a more triumphant vindication of the latter than it has ever had. The topics to be discussed in the Review are the most real and living questions of the age in philosophy and theology. They will be discussed by men of no mean pretensions to learning and intellectual ability, and of superior literary cultivation. We are glad that they have undertaken the work, and we hope for good results from it. We have no fear that they will weaken the religious belief of those who have a positive, dogmatic faith in regard to any essential doctrine of Christianity. The public which will be reached by their writings and sermons, are already familiar with all the questions and difficulties they will discuss. They are full of doubt, and drifting into infidelity. All the influence which these gentlemen will gain over them will tend to check this downward progress, and initiate a salutary retrogression toward Christian truth.
Moreover, all discussions of this kind will stimulate the work of investigating and exhibiting the doctrine of the Catholic Church in its relation toward rationalism. The controversy with orthodox Protestantism is finished, and Protestant orthodoxy has gone where Ilium formerly went. The real controversy of the day relates to the very foundation of revelation itself.
SPARE HOURS: A Monthly Miscellany for the Young. Boston: P. Donahoe. January, 1866.
We have received the first number of a new magazine with the above title. It is published by Mr. Donahoe, Boston, is well printed on fine paper, and illustrated with much taste. The matter, of which there are 64 pages, is both original and selected, and displays discrimination and tact on the part of the editor. It would be well to give credit to the source from which the selected matter is taken. This magazine fills a want long felt by the Catholic community in this country. Since the discontinuance of the "Youth's Catholic Magazine" we have had no periodical that gave us any reading for our children. We cordially welcome the advent of "Spare Hours" amongst as, and trust its subscription list may show that Catholics do appreciate good reading.
NICHOLAS OF THE FLUE, the Saviour of the Swiss Republic. A dramatic poem in five acts. By John Christian Schaad. 12mo., pp. 144. Washington, D.C.: McGill & Witherow. 1866.
This book purposes to give, in a dramatic form, an account of the rise of a dangerous civil dissension which took place among the brave and religious Swiss during the invasion of their country by Charles the Bold, and the happy reunion of sentiment by the wise interposition and holy prayers of a hermit. How religion, or the counsels of its ministers, can ever supplant the arbitrament of the sword or the stratagems of the politician in the successful adjustment of national difficulties, will not, we think, be so readily comprehended in our present society, and chiefly so because with us there is no unity of religion, and consequently a multiplicity of counsels, the prolific seed itself of discord. But that it is [{719}] possible, as it is enviable, may be seen by any one who will peruse this poem. Peace which nations enjoy is a blessing of God. "Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain who keepeth it." It is not to be wondered at then that a people thoroughly imbued with the spirit of faith should look to God for help in the day of trial, when the demon of discord sows the seeds of strife and disunion amongst them. The thought which evidently moved the writer to compose this work is the same which has often crossed our own mind during the late deplorable civil war: that if our beloved country had been one in religion, it never would have fallen a prey to such a fearful and almost fatal division, or at least would have rejoiced in a more speedy reconciliation.
MERRY CHRISTMAS. A cantata for Christmas eve. Affectionately inscribed to the children of the parish of St. Paul the Apostle, New York city. P. O'Shea.
This little brochure contains directions, with appropriate recitatives and hymns, for a religious celebration of Christmas by children, who describe, in a sort of infantine opera, the scenes of our Lord's nativity as related in the gospel. It contains, among other hymns, some of the most beautiful Christmas carols in the English language; and when sung by the voices of merry-hearted children must have a most edifying and pleasing effect. We are sure it will be welcomed in all our schools, and at the fireside of many a Christian family. It was performed with great success before an immense and delighted audience last Christmas night in the church of the Paulists, to the children of whose parish it is dedicated.
THE MONTHLY. Edited at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Chicago, III. Published by J. P. Byrne, Chicago.
The December number of "The Monthly" did not reach us until the first of January. This is rather late, and we presume is a mistake, as it has been heretofore promptly on hand. The number before us completes the second volume, and is quite interesting. It contains nine articles, the first being on "Fenianism and Secret Societies." There are two stories, one just commenced and one concluded. The former, "The Huron Chief," is a tale of the Catholic missions in the northwest, and the latter, "From June to October," is by an author not unknown to the literary world. The articles in this magazine are original, and are well written. We find in its literary notices the following hit at a class which we are sorry to say is but too numerous:
"The mission of a Catholic editor is something different from that of the mendicant who stands at a church gate with a 'Help-the-poor-blind-man' label upon his breast. And yet there are those—not a few—who look upon a pitiful subscription of three or four dollars a year to a paper or a magazine in the light of an alms, and actually imagine that they are performing one of the seven corporal works of mercy if they can be induced to subscribe, while, in justice, they are not paying a thousandth part of the interest on their lawful debts. Not long ago we happened to meet with a Catholic gentleman from New York, and among the different topics of conversation the subject of literature was brought in. This gave us the occasion to ask his opinion about 'The Monthly,' to which he replied that he was unaware of its publication, because he had never seen it noticed by a certain romantic sheet of the Quixotic stamp in that city. He is the type of a class for whose conduct there is not the shadow of an excuse. From this we might draw a general conclusion, and apply the same course of reasoning to the case of every Catholic publication in the country, for it is not rare to find Catholic families without a Catholic paper or magazine on their tables. Under these circumstances, then, it is not surprising that not a few of them should be strangers to the existence of the works which they ought to possess, while they may be conversant with a class of literature whose spirit is productive either of no good at all or positively injurious, and hence without either intellectual or moral benefit."
We wish "The Monthly" a happy and prosperous year.
HANS BRINKER, ETC. By M. E. Dodge. 12mo., pp. 347. New York: James O'Kane. 1866.
We could cordially recommend this well-written story were it not for one passage relating to autos da fe and the Inquisition. Those who have charge of Catholic youth are bound to [{720}] be extremely careful what books they place in their hands, and this becomes often a cause of perplexity, as there are so few which are entirely unexceptionable. Those who write with the express purpose of inculcating the distinctive principles of Protestantism are not amenable to our criticism. But those who do not write with this intention, and who merely seek to afford entertainment to the youthful mind with a modicum of instructive information, may perhaps consider it worth while to respect the religion of a large and increasing class of the reading public. We are not very exacting. We desire only that books written for the instruction and amusement of the young public at large should contain a sound and wholesome morality and nothing offensive to Catholics. We could not desire a better specimen of this class of books than the work of our gifted authoress, which we have read with pleasure, with the exception of the single passage alluded to; and this might have been left out without any injury to the purpose of the story. Those who are disposed to profit by our hints will find us always ready to assist the circulation of their books by our recommendation, if their literary merit renders them worthy of it.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, from the commencement of the Christian Era until the present time. By M. l'Abbe J. E. Darras. First American from the last French Edition. With Introduction and Notes by Archbishop Spalding. Vol. II. 8vo., pp. 627. New York: P. O'Shea.
The second volume of the history of the Catholic Church has just appeared, and it is in every respect in keeping with the first volume; is well printed on good paper, and makes a handsome book.
The Very Rev. Dr. Newman is preparing for the press a reply to Dr. Pusey's "Eirenicon," lately published in London. We shall give it to the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD at the earliest date.
The Messrs. Sadlier announce the publication of a new edition of Father Young's "Catholic Hymns and Canticles," together with a complete sodality manual. It will contain 107 hymns, arranged for all the different seasons and festivals of the Church, as well as the processions, ceremonies, etc.
Messrs. Murphy & Co., of Baltimore have in press a new and enlarged edition of "Archbishop Spalding's Miscellanea." This learned work will be carefully revised by the distinguished author, who will add nearly 100 pages of interesting matter, embracing among many other things his "Essay on Common Schools throughout the World"—his "Analysis of the Controversy into which he was forced by Professor Morse, in relation to an alleged saying of Lafayette"—his "Lecture on the Origin and History of Libraries," and his "Essay on Demonology and the Reformation." This new edition will thus embrace essays, reviews, and lectures on more than forty subjects, most of them historical, and all of more than ordinary interest.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
From KELLY & PIET, Baltimore: "The Spae Wife, or Queen's Secret, a story of the Times of Queen Elizabeth," by Paul Peppergrass, Esq. 12mo., pp 742. "The Little Companion of the Sisters of Mercy." 32mo., pp 102.
From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York: Parts 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of "The Complete Works of the Brothers Banim."
From P. O'SHEA, New York: "Life of St. Antony of Padua, of the Order of Friars Minor," by Father Servas Dirks, Friar Minor, etc. 12mo., pp 341. "The Life and Miracles of St. Philomena, Virgin and Martyr, whose sacred body was lately discovered in the Catacombs of Rome, and from thence transferred to Mugnano, Naples." 12mo., pp 135.
Statuta Dioecesana ab Illustrissimo et Reverendissimo P. D. Joanne Baptists Purcell, Archiepiscopo Cincinnatensi, in variis Synodis, quae hue usque in Ecclesia sua Cathedrali vel in Sacello Seminarii, celebratae sunt, lata et promulgata. Una cum Decretis Conciliorum Provincialium et plenarii Baltimorenslum, quibus interfuerunt omnes statuum Foederatorum Episcopi et Decretis Conciliorum Trium Cincinnatensium. Nunc primum in unum collecta et publici juris facta. Cincinnati: Published for the Most Rev. Archbishop of Cincinnati by John P. Walsh.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. II., NO. 12—MARCH, 1866.
Translated from Le Correspondant
POSITIVISM.
A. COMTE, LITTRÉ, H. TAINE.
An exposition of the various philosophical systems constructed in our times against Christianity, either as means of combatting it or as substitutes for it, and showing in the false assumption with which they all start the reason of their failure, would be an interesting and instructive work. It would be a new history of variations, and of the impotence of the human mind when it assumes to be sufficient for itself, and the natural complement to the first, were there a Bossuet to write it. Now it is a chapter of this history not yet written, but which one day will be, that I propose to prepare in rendering an account here of the positivist philosophy, of which M. Auguste Comte was the inventor, and M. Littré is the learned and fervent defender. To enable my readers to understand, as well as may be, this pretended philosophy, I will first state through what accidents and revolutions it has passed, then set forth its chief formulas, and finally conclude by passing on them such critical judgment as an impartial examination shall suggest.
The founder and chief of the positivist philosophy, Auguste Comte, died at Paris in 1858, in the 59th year of his age. He was born in 1798 at Montpellier, of Christian parents; but, placed early in the lyceum of that city, he soon lost there, under the influence of the reigning spirit of the school, the faith of his childhood. From the lyceum he went to the École Polytechnique, in which the worship of the Convention and revolutionary ideas was at that period held in high honor. We recall these circumstances, because the childhood and youth of a man serve to explain his mature age.
It does not appear that M. Comte, on leaving the Polytechnic School, received, as is ordinarily the case, any appointment in the public service, civil or military—wherefore we know not. Whatever may have been the reason, as he was without fortune he supported himself for several years by giving lessons in mathematics. [{722}] After a while, however, he was appointed repeater and examiner in the Polytechnic School, which position he held till the revolution of 1848. His profession as well as his aptitudes devoted him to the study of the exact sciences; but he cherished a far higher ambition, and already aspired to be the reformer and prophet of the human race. That this thought, was early germinating in his mind, is proved by a pamphlet which he published in 1822, when only twenty-four years of age, entitled "Système de Politique Positiviste" (System of Positivist Politics). He subsequently greatly modified and enlarged it, and his pretensions above all greatly expanded as he advanced; but the first idea of his system, not difficult, however, to discover, it must be acknowledged was deposited in that publication.
About this time he became connected with Henri Claude de Saint-Simon, and being much younger than the founder of Saint-Simonism, he naturally yielded to his influence, and became very near being absorbed in the god of the Rue de Taitbout. But Auguste Comte could not consent to that; he would be master not disciple, and therefore, after having written some articles in the Saint-Simonian journal, Le Producteur, he abandoned the sect, separated from Saint-Simon, and lamented bitterly the precious time which that depraved juggler, as he called him, had made him lose. After this rupture he was restored to himself and freed from all restraint; he could devote himself to the finishing stroke of the great work he meditated. [Footnote 108] The solemn moment approached. Hitherto he had only staked out his ground and sown the seeds, but the synthesis, the real cerebral unity, to use his language, was wanting. Without further delay he set himself resolutely at work, and a meditation continued for four score hours brought him to the conception, to the preamble as it were, of the systemization of the whole positive philosophy. [Footnote 109] But, alas! the long meditation brought with the system an access of madness. It was slight at first, he assures us, a simple passing enfeeblement of the cerebral organs, resulting from excessive labor; but the physicians took hold of it, and then the evil grew so much worse that it became necessary to shut him up in a madhouse—him who had just discovered the law of the universe! M. Littré complains that one of his collaborators in the Journal des Débats threw up this fact against the doctrine of his master, and he cites instances of very superior men who have had similar accidents befal them. This cannot be denied. No one can say that he is secure from such cruel attacks; but we may be permitted to remark that there is here an intimate correlation between the doctrine and the mental malady, since both are produced at the same time and by the same intellectual effort.
[Footnote 108: M. de Chalambert forgets to add that the cause of this rapture was precisely the attempt of Saint-Simon, after having failed to kill himself, to found a new religion, which he called Nouveau Christianisme, and of which the positive religion professed afterwards by M. Comte is only a manifest plagiarism.—TRANSLATOR]
[Footnote 109: A useless labor, for he might have learned it from that depraved juggler, Saint-Simon, who had reached it as early as 1804. Auguste Comte never made any advance on his master, but to the last remained rather behind him. With all his pretensions to originality, he was never anything more than the disciple of Saint-Simon.—TRANSLATOR.]
Two or three years passed thus, after which M. Comte, having recovered his health, resumed his labors, and in 1829 published the first volume of his "Cours de Philosophie Positive," in which for the first time he gives the principal data of his new theory. Five other volumes, of eight or nine hundred pages each, followed at long intervals, and it was only in 1842 that the work could be completed; not that ideas were wanting, but money to pay the printers, as the author himself tells us. During that time he opened a course of lectures, in which, under pretext of teaching astronomy, he essayed to indoctrinate the public in his principles. Thanks to these several methods of propagating his views, he at length succeeded in gaining a [{723}] few disciples, not numerous, indeed, but enough to encourage the hope of obtaining more.
Among those who from that time adhered to the positivist doctrine we must cite M. Etex, an artist, M. Vieillard, a politician who, then unknown, afterward obtained some note, and, in fine, M. Littré, a philologist, a litterateur, and a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. This last especially was an important recruit, an unhoped-far good fortune for the new school. M. Comte (they who have tried to read him know it but too well!) was essentially deficient in the art of explaining and expressing his ideas. M. Littré knows precisely how to write, if not with brilliancy, at least with method and clearness. Moreover, he had under his influence an important public organ, The National, and used it to the profit of the new philosophy. In 1844, M. Littré published in that journal, of which he was an editor, a series of articles in which he extolled the positivist philosophy, declared himself its disciple, and carried his complaisance toward the master so far as to give him the brevet of a man of genius. However, unknown to him perhaps, a great transformation was about to be effected; the affective element of the new doctrine, hitherto neglected, was about to make its way to the light and play its part.
Toward that epoch, M. Comte encountered a woman, still young, Madame Clotilde de Vaux, who lived separate from her husband. The misfortunes of this unhappy wife, misunderstood and deserted, touched him deeply; he received her into his house, and forthwith she became his Beatrix, or, rather, his Egeria, for it was from her that he received the revelation of the new dogmas which he hastened to promulgate to the world. All at once, under the inspired influence of Madame Clotilde de Vaux, the positivist philosophy is changed into a religion, in which the affective element decidedly predominates. With dogma and morals, worship and the priesthood are promptly organized. The sovereign pontificate belonged as a matter of right to M. Comte, and he would no doubt have willingly shared it with his holy companion, but she, alas! had already been removed by a premature death, and he must be resigned to proclaim himself alone, high priest or sovereign pontiff.
This metamorphosis was so much the bolder as hitherto one of the principal theses of the positivist philosophy had been precisely that the time for religion was gone, and gone for ever. It might well startle the adepts; but it failed to frighten M. Littré, the most important among them, for we find him using still The National and preaching in its columns, with all the zeal of the neophyte, the dogmas of the new religion—the religion of humanity. This was, it is true, in 1851, when each day saw born and die some new sect, and M. Littré and The National no doubt judged that, socialism for socialism, M. Comte's socialism was worth as much as any other, and in fact was more convenient. We are inclined, nevertheless, to believe that M. Littré was really smitten and vanquished (for what is there in the way of new religions of which a free thinker is not capable?), and we are confirmed in our belief because, not content to aid the establishment of the new worship with his pen, he actually contributed to it from his purse. The republic of 1848 was not a good mother for M. Comte, although he hailed it with enthusiastic acclamations and pronounced it immortal; it despoiled him at once of his means of subsistence. M. Comte was little relished by the savans, and relished them still less, especially those of the Academy of Sciences, who had obstinately refused to open their doors to him. M. Arago, to whom M. Comte attributed his disgrace, judging, doubtless, that there must be some incompatibility between the dignity of high priest and the functions of a repeater and examiner in the Polytechnic [{724}] School, deprived him of these two employments, from which he drew his support. M. Littré then came generously to the aid of his spiritual father, and headed an annual subscription by which the adepts must provide for the wants of their pontiff.
While these things were in progress there came the coup d'état of the 2d of December. M. Comte bore this trial with a scandalous resignation. The faithful, M. Littré among others, refused henceforward all active concurrence. But, on another side he found in M. Vieillard, become a senator of the new empire, a useful protector, and, thanks to him, he could soon resume his preachments. It was, in fact, all he desired, for he was singularly free from all political ambition.
From this moment M. Comte's religious zeal only augmented, and his pen became more active and prolific than ever. From 1851 to 1854 he published four huge volumes under the title of "Système de Politique Positiviste;" then a "Catéchisme Positiviste," a "Calendrier Positiviste," and announced new works for the following years, when death took him by surprise and cut short his labors. It cannot be said that his efforts were crowned with success, and that the numbers of his disciples was increasing; on the contrary, solitude was gathering closer and closer around him; but his faith was not shaken, and he remained to the last full of confidence in the future. If occidentality gave little, he hoped much from orientality, and, in 1852, he wrote to the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, and to the Sultan of Turkey, to induce them to undertake to propagate positivism in their respective dominions, by representing to them that it was the only means of salvation that remained to them.
Such is the succinct history of the positivist philosophy and religion. The religion, indeed, ended with its founder, for he declared a short time before his death that he had found no true believer worthy to succeed him in the pontificate; but the philosophy left disciples who, though they may not accept it in all its parts, yet continue to be inspired by its principles. Not long since they had an organ in the Revue Philosophique, in which they showed themselves much divided, and gravely discussed the question whether it must be a philosophy or a religion with which they should gratify the human race. They seem, however, after the advice of M. Littré, to have finally agreed that it is necessary first of all to reproduce the eighteenth century; that is to say, to renew, in the name of the emancipated flesh, the war against the Church and the religion of the spirit. Events have seemed to favor them, and instead of regretting the suspension of public liberty, by the establishment of the new empire, they even greet it as an advantage, since they remind us that it was under a similar régime that the encyclopaedic work of which they claim to be the legal heirs was born, grew, and prospered. In short, M. Littré published, a short while ago, a new brochure under the title of "Partóles de Philosophie Positive," in which he sustains all the principles of his master, and vindicates for himself the honor of having been his most faithful disciple.
We have joined the names of M. H. Taine with the names of Messrs. Comte and Littré, although he has never openly avowed himself an adherent of their school. But, beside the identity of his principles with those of positivism, the lightness of his philosophical luggage does not permit us to devote to him a separate study. We know of him on this subject only by the book entitled "Les Philosophes Français du dix-neuvième siècle" (French Philosophers of the Nineteenth Century), a superficial work, but agreeable, in which he judges with wit, sometimes with justice, the chief representatives of the eclectic philosophy, and to which he has added a concluding chapter that gives us an exposition of his method. It is to this [{725}] method which we shall, farther on, devote a few words. [Footnote 110]
[Footnote 110: M. de Taine has, since this article was written, published a work on English writers and literature, which has in certain quarters been well spoken of, and which really has some merit, though of a lighter sort.—TRANSLATOR. ]
II.
It will readily be perceived that we cannot even attempt to set forth within our limits the positivist religion and philosophy in all their details and developments, and that we must confine ourselves to their chief points or leading principles. We shall take our analysis from the works of M. Comte himself, and from the series of letters which M. Littré formerly inserted in The National, and which he has since republished in a volume entitled Révolution, Positivism, Conservatism, Paris, 1851. M. Littré has reproduced the ideas of the master with a fidelity and disinterestedness rare in a disciple, and he has over the master the advantage of style and method.
Positivism assumes as its starting point that modern society is suffering from a deeply rooted evil, that it is like a man in a fever who tosses and turns in his bed, seeking a position in which he may rest at ease, and finding none. Do what it will it can find no stable position. In vain has it effected immense progress, for this very progress turns to its disadvantage. Beside, what does progress avail if society cannot enjoy it in order and peace? But whence comes this evil, this trouble, this feverish and sterile agitation? Evidently it comes from intellectual and moral anarchy. Nobody any longer believes in anything; there is no longer any law, any principle, that unites all minds in a common symbol; every one draws from himself; divided egotisms are in mutual conflict, and seek each other's destruction. If such is the nature of the malady, the remedy is obvious. It must be in obtaining a doctrine which accepted by all becomes the doctrine of all, a bond of union for them, and the principle of peace.
But where is this doctrine to be found? Is it a religious doctrine— Catholicity, for instance? The Catholic doctrine, indeed, gave formerly the result desired, and realized in the world an incomparable unity; but it has had its day; science has demonstrated the impossibility of its dogmas, and it, in fact, finds now only here and there a real believer—the great majority have ceased to believe it. Will Protestantism supply the doctrine needed? No; for Protestantism is only a degenerate and illogical Catholicism. Will Islamism give it? Islamism has certainly its grand sides, but its morality is too defective, and its dogma is hardly less repulsive than the Christian. It is, then, manifest that all existing religions are impotent for the future to rally and unite in a common bond the minds of men. But as religion cannot do it, perhaps philosophy, metaphysics, can? Metaphysics is only the abstract form of religion, resting on the same basis and sustained by it, and does nothing but substitute abstract beings that have no reality for the supernatural beings imagined by religion, and which science equally rejects. Metaphysics has, as religion, been indeed useful, has aided science to show the inanity of religions dogmas; but, if useful in the work of destruction, it is impotent in that of rebuilding, and can henceforth serve only to perpetuate intellectual anarchy—that is to say, only aggravate the evil instead of curing it. If, then, the remedy can be found neither in religion nor in metaphysics, where can it be found?
It is to be found in a doctrine which substitutes for the supernatural beings of religion, and the abstract entities of metaphysics, the real beings which science demonstrates, and the existence of which nobody disputes or can dispute. But how find or how construct such a doctrine? The experience of what has been done in the exact sciences gives distinctly enough the answer. There was a time when mathematics, astronomy, physics, did not exist, and when men explained all the phenomena [{726}] of nature by chimerical hypotheses. Now, how has man come forth from that ignorance? By observing instead of imagining, as he had hitherto done; and in observing phenomena he discovered their laws, and thus, with time and effort, he succeeded in creating the sciences which are called mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry. Can we doubt, after this, that by applying the same method or following the same process in regard to the science of individual man, or biology, and the science of society, or sociology, we shall obtain the same result? And let it not be said that these sciences are of another order; the distinction attempted to be established between them and the exact sciences is puerile and unfounded, as science exists only on condition of being exact, and if not exact it is not science. Biology and sociology have, it is true, not yet the character of exact sciences; but why have they not? Simply because they are as yet in their infancy, as was chemistry two centuries ago; because, on the one hand, they have been badly studied, and, on the other, because they are more complex and less easily mastered. The difficulties, it is admitted, are therefore great; but it is necessary to conquer them, since the salvation of the world can be secured on no other condition.
The terms of the problem are now distinctly stated, together with the method of its solution. The malady from which society suffers is intellectual anarchy, and intellectual anarchy will cease only when we have made of the sciences of biology and sociology (it is known what these sciences mean) sciences as exact as are mathematics, astronomy, etc.; and to do this it is only necessary to use the same method in constructing them that is used in constructing the so-called exact sciences.
However, the whole is not yet said. Observation is, indeed, the true method, but observation of what? Of moral phenomena, the operations of the soul? But what is the soul? Who has seen it? Certain metaphysicians have, indeed, pretended to derive all science from the phenomena of the soul; but this is a gross error; psychology is an impossible science. In psychology the subject, or rather the organ which observes, is precisely that which is observed—the eye striving to see itself. To what, then, is observation to be applied? To the body, to the cerebral organs, and, primarily, to the external world; to the inorganic world at first, afterward to the organic world, to minerals, plants, animals. The study of animals is especially serviceable, since man, at most, has over the animal only the advantage of some superior intellectual faculties, and even that advantage appears doubtful, observes M. Comte, if we compare the acts of the mammiferae, the most elevated, with those of savages, the least developed.
After zoology, the most useful science is phrenology, the science which best teaches us what man really is. Dr. Gall under this relation has rendered an immense service, and created the true science of man. He erred, it is true, by too minute detail, and in wishing to determine at once the organs of theft, luxury, etc., which gave fair scope to criticism; [Footnote 111] but it would be difficult to resist the accumulated proofs on which he had established his system. In short, science is now in the position to give a classification of eighteen interior functions of the brain, or a systematic tableau of the soul. Thus it is neither from metaphysics nor from religion, but from zoology, and, above all, from phrenology, that we must seek the knowledge of the laws which govern intelligence.
[Footnote 111: Nothing is new under the sun, says Solomon. Any one curious on the subject of phrenology may read, as M. Cousin has well remarked, in Plato's Timoeus, all that Gall and Spurzheim, and their followers, have really established in their pretended science.—TRANSLATOR.]
However, method alone does not suffice. There is needed also a criterion, and here M. Comte confesses that the difficulty is great.
To observe with profit, to be able, by observation, to abstract from the [{727}] phenomena their laws, we most have an anterior law, a type-law, to serve as the term of comparison, in like manner as a standard is necessary to determine the value of a coin. Now, what furnishes this type? Observation? But this is only to recommence the difficulty. The embarrassment can be relieved only by reasoning from analogy, and a historical theory. Positivism, after all, then, resorts to reasoning and theorizing! The sciences which are firmly seated on positive realities began in hypotheses, and it has been by the aid of hypotheses, ascertained afterward to be false, that observation has succeeded in discovering the real laws of these sciences! It must be the same with biology and sociology. Humanity began by religion, and religion has passed through three phases, fetichism, polytheism, and monotheism. Religion, truly, is only a fiction, but a useful fiction, and even necessary to the development of humanity. Fetichism, in offering plants to the adoration of man, taught him to cultivate them; polytheism, in creating supernatural beings, gave birth to poetry and the fine arts; monotheism, in elevating minds, has fitted them for the culture of science. After religion came metaphysics, which, by transforming the dogmas into abstractions, destroyed them; and, by destroying them, opened the way for positivism. Now, what has taken place for humanity in general must be reproduced for each man in particular; each one of us must pass through the religious state and the metaphysical state before we can arrive at the positivist state. Thus, then, in like manner as it has been by means of false hypotheses that the real laws of the science have been discovered, so by means of hypotheses equally false, religion and metaphysics, will be discovered the true laws of biology.
We confess that we do not very clearly perceive what relation there is between this theory and the problem to be solved. The problem is how to find a criterion by the aid of which the true may be distinguished from the false; but this criterion escapes us still, and we have for it only a second method superposed on the first, or history coming to the aid of physiology. True, we are not told what bond connects the two methods, or how we are to combine them, and from their combination obtain the type-law; but we must not be too difficult, and we forewarn our readers that they must not look for any real connection, any logical nexus, between the various propositions which we are about to place before them. Beyond the gross materialism which follows necessarily from the positivist premises, all is arbitrary and capricious; the master says it, and he must be believed on his word, without being asked for reasons, good or bad. Our readers will judge for themselves if this be not so, and that they may not accuse us of exaggerating anything, we shall give generally textual citations.
After having presented the formula of its method, or rather of its two methods, the positivist school proceeds to the application and exposition of the consequences which are derived from it or them.
In the very outset they assert that there are no absolute truths, that all truth is relative; the true, the good, the fair, are such only by a provisional title; what was virtue yesterday may be crime to-day, and what is crime to-day may be virtue to-morrow. Thus speaks M. Littré:
"The positivist philosophy is experimental; . . . . it is composed of relative not absolute notions. . . . When man, in the beginning of his scientific career, launched into unrestricted researches after the absolute, he had only this way open to him; now another way has been opened, that of experience and induction. This way cannot conduct the inquirer to absolute notions, and when we demand them of reason we demand of her more than she has. The mind of man is neither absolute nor infinite, and to try to obtain from it absolute [{728}] solutions is to go out of the immutable conditions of human nature." [Footnote 112]—Littré, Conservatism, Revolution, and Positivism, pp. 5, 38.
[Footnote 112: M. de Chalambert might here reply, granting man has no infinite or absolute notions, which no finite mind can have, it by no means follows that he has no notions or conceptions of that which is infinite and absolute, or intuitions of necessary, eternal, and immutable truth, as are the first principles of all science, religion, and morals.—TRANSLATOR. ]
If there are no absolute truths, then there is no God:
"This conclusion," says M. Littré "rests on the decisive results of all scientific exploration during the long course of the ages, namely, that nothing of what is called first cause is accessible to the human mind, and the origin of the world can be explained neither by many gods nor by one god alone, neither by nature, chance, nor atoms. This result, erected into a principle, gradually takes possession of modern intelligence, and bears in its womb the social organization of the future of the race. . . . If, for a childish and individual satisfaction, the idea of some theological being, one or manifold, is retained, it is necessary to reduce the conception forthwith to a nullity, and to purely nominal and supererogatory functions; for the result of scientific investigation is, that there is in the course of things no trace of miracle or government from above, and nothing but an unbroken chain of laws modifiable, within certain limits, by the action from age to age of mankind. As Laplace says, such a being is henceforth a useless hypothesis."—lb. pp. 279, 298.
The soul has no existence distinct from that of the body, and therefore dies with it:
"This belief (concerning the survivance of the soul), which might be true, is not found to be so; science (always science!) has not been able to establish a single fact whatever of a life after death; and so, like a pond no longer alimented by inflowing streams, the opinion of an individual perpetuity gradually evaporates."—lb., pp.128.
There is room for liberty only because the biological phenomena are very complex:
"No science," says M. Littré (ib. , p. 114), "if the phenomenon has no law, and no power (liberty) if not complex enough to offer us struggles duly proportioned to the complication."
It follows from this that the effect of the progress of science must be to diminish human liberty, since in proportion as it elucidates questions it diminishes their complexity.
However, human intelligence must have an ideal:
"The ideal is its dream and its worship. Now what will be its ideal? Humanity itself. Humanity has a real existence; it is the great Being, really a great collective body, having a regular growth of its own, and provided, like every individual body, with temporary organs, which lose their activity, wither, and disappear in default of employment and nutrition" (ib. , p. 118). "Formerly, and conformably to the medium in which they moved, theology and metaphysics, its slave, gave their demonstration of the divine existence. In like manner science to-day gives the demonstration of the existence of humanity. It is no longer possible to mistake the growth of this ideal—the solidarity of its most remote past with its most distant future, and this powerful life of which each man has been, is, and will be an organ" (ib. , p. 283). "Humanity is a real ideal, which it is necessary to know (education), to love (religion), to embellish (the fine arts), to enrich (industry), and which therefore holds our whole existence, individual, domestic, and social, under its supreme direction" (ib. , p. 286).
To love and serve humanity is the whole positivist moral law. M. Littré says, pp. 291, 292: "This morality is much superior to the morality of the past, which was founded on selfishness. The 'salvation' of the theologians is as much a selfish calculation as the 'enlightened self-interest' [{729}] of the materialists. The materialists say, 'Do good: it is for thy interest in this life;' the theologians say, 'Do good: it is for thy interest in another life.' Never was there a more perfect system of selfishness organized in the world; and if powerful instincts, and, it is but justice to add, sacerdotal wisdom, had not in part counterbalanced the disastrous effects of such an habitual direction, individual asceticism and aspiration to salvation would have dissolved all social bonds."
It is, we see, no longer God whom we are to love and serve, but humanity, and as humanity has few or no rewards to bestow, the worship we render her must needs be disinterested. Selfishness falls in proportion as the hope of reward vanishes. [But suppose one does not love and serve humanity, will he suffer punishment or lose anything in consequence? If so, what becomes of the positivist doctrine of the disinterestedness of the worship of humanity?—TR.]
Such are the solutions offered by the positivist philosophy on the principal points of biology, or the science of the individual; we proceed now to sociology, or the science of society.
Positivism, being at once a philosophy and a religion, must admit and does admit two distinct societies—a temporal society and a spiritual society. We begin with the first.
The aim of the temporal society M. Littré, ib. , p. 119, explains in the following manner: "The historic tradition itself, without anything forced, arbitrary, fortuitous, or transitory, conducts us to the reign of industry. Before industry the whole past successively falls and disappears. For the modern man industrial activity is the only temporal occupation, the only practical activity. . . . If the accession of the industrial regimen is inevitable, it is also inevitable that the chiefs of our industry should be our temporal chiefs. We have no need of patricians or of gentlemen to lead us to war and conquest; we have no need of kings or kaisers to concentrate in their own hands the power of the sword. Their functions, formerly preeminent, are now without employment (!). But we have need of directors who can conduct the peaceful labors of industry with firmness and intelligence, labors which certainly want neither complication nor difficulty nor grandeur. It is to this end that all temporal power must aspire."
If so, if industry is the supreme and last end of humanity, evidently nothing is to be changed in the present condition of property, and that the wealth of the rich should be augmented rather than diminished. The constitution of the family must also be maintained. The marriage bond is, therefore, declared indissoluble; the positivist law is in this respect even more severe than the Christian law, for, not contented with prohibiting divorce, it even forbids second nuptials. In the purely political order the republican form must obtain.
"I have thought ever since February, 1848," said M. Littré, in 1850, p. 205, "that the establishment of the republic is definitive in France, having for it the guarantee of manners which have ceased to be monarchical, and after this wholly theoretical point of view, I have constantly lived, and engage to live, in security."
This confidence, wholly positivist, has been but poorly justified by events; yet there are compensations, and, in reality, the imperial régime, which has succeeded to the republic, differs not so much as might be supposed from that which the positivists themselves wished to establish. The principal conditions demanded by the positivist republic are: 1. Free discussion; 2. The preponderance of the central power; 3. The rigid restriction of the parliamentary or local power to the vote of the budget; 4. In fine, the investment of the growing power in the hands of proletaries or working-men.
M. Comte and M. Littré both agree on all these points; they both have an [{730}] equal horror of parliamentary government, under which, says M. Littré, power passes into the hands of lawyers, pettifoggers, and sophists. Both desire three directors; but M. Comte judges it most suitable to choose three bankers, because society is industrial, and bankers, who are the lessors of the funds of industry, are in a better position than others to know its wants. M. Littré (he was writing in The National in 1850) preferred three eminent proletaries. "What is the proletary," exclaims he, "operative or peasant, who, if he has equal intelligence, that he should not be as capable as M. Thiers or M. Guizot of directing political affairs?" He concedes, however, that as a counterpoise to the central proletarian power, the Chamber of Deputies should be composed of rich men, who are the best fitted by habit to vote the budget.
Master and disciple both agree, that Paris should elect the executive government; and that the rest of the French people should have the right to obey. Fear you that from such a system despotism must result? M. Littré reassures you, with his strange apothegm, "what is despotism in our days but government in the hands of the retrograde parties?" That is, despotism is simply power in the hands of those whose ideas are different from ours? Could he tell his secret with a more refreshing simplicity? He has another word which might excite some uneasiness. "The philosophical genius of the Convention was not inferior to its political genius, and, indeed, they were each the necessary condition of the other. Positivism is their direct heir. The whole positivist political theory, therefore, like all revolutionary theories, ends at last in this: Below, as the very condition of its existence, the sovereignty of the plebs; above, as the crown of the edifice, the dictator.
But we pass to the spiritual society. We have seen under the influence of what sentiments the positive philosophy was suddenly transformed into a religion. Madame Clotilde de Vaux had the initiative, and inspired, in 1845, the religious thought of M. Comte. From that moment it was no longer the intellect but the heart, no longer intelligence but love, that predominated in the positivist school. The disciples were transformed with the master. "I recognize and profess as the positivist philosophy requires," says M. Littré, p. 298, "that this affective side of human nature should always preponderate over the intellectual side." As soon as it was decided that religion should take the place of philosophy, M. Comte proclaimed a great Being and then a high priest. The great Being, who was none other than humanity itself, was defined to be "the collection of all beings, past, present, and to come, that freely concur in the completion of universal order," or more briefly, but not more clearly, "the continuous whole of convergent beings." [Footnote 113]
[Footnote 113: Aug. Comte, "Cours de Politique Positive," t. 1, p. 30.]
The high priest (le grand prétre) was, as we have said, M. Comte himself. After this came dogma and worship. The dogma had already its principal features in philosophy, and there was little to be added; but for worship, le culte, all was to be created. The fertile imagination of M. Comte promptly provided for it. He engaged at first in compiling and publishing a positivist catechism, by the side of which M. Littré gravely tells us "the Catholic catechism is only an embryo." He afterward constructed a calendar; he commences the new era with the year 1793, and names it Cycle of the Great Crisis. The year is divided into thirteen months of four weeks each; the months take the names of thirteen men of superior genius; instead of saying January, February, we must say Moses, Aristotle, etc. The days have also the names of celebrated men, but men of an inferior order. Several circular letters from the high priest to the faithful were dated the 4th of Moses, [{731}] 6th of the Great Crisis, or 6 Archimedes, Great Crisis 64.
There was, or rather was to have been, a college of assessor priests—the number of whom was fixed at twenty thousand for Europe, one-fourth of whom were allotted to France; positivist savans and poets were to compose the college faculty.
Time and money failed for the construction of a temple for the new worship, and the apartment occupied by M. Comte, Rue des Fosses, Monsieur-le-Prince, held temporarily its place. The faithful congregated there on appointed days, and every positivist believer was required to say three prayers daily. It was, doubtless, in consequence of one of these pious exercises that M. Littré exclaimed:
"I have too clearly perceived the efficacy of this regenerative socialism in myself and in the little group of disciples, and the calm content with which it fills the soul, not to desire to take part in it. . . . In these times, when all things seem giving way, how salutary and sweet to feel ourselves in communion with the immense existence which protects us, with that humanity which is the spirit of our globe, and the providence of successive generations!"—M. Littré, ib., p. 294.
The number of festival days was considerable; there were fourscore and one a year. The festival of the great Being, those of the sun, the dead, the police, the press, etc. Nine sacraments were instituted:
1. The Presentation, The parents present the new-born child to the priest, who accepts it, or, in some rare cases, rejects it. We are not told what becomes of the new-born child that is rejected.
2. Initiation. At fourteen the boy is delivered to the priesthood, who take charge of his instruction.
3. Admission. At twenty-one the adult is admitted to the service of humanity.
4. Destination. Seven years after the young man is admitted to the special office which he is judged capable of filling.
5. Marriage. Marriage is not permitted after thirty-five in men and twenty-eight in women. Three months continence before the definitive celebration, eternal widowhood, save in some rare cases, of which the high priest alone is the judge, are enjoined.
6. Maturity. At forty-two the man is admitted to the full maturity of the service of humanity.
7. Retirement. This takes place at sixty-three.
8. Transformation. Perfection is prepared by repentance.
9. Incorporation. Burial in a garden in the midst of flowers.
Once entered into this way, M. Comte cannot stop, and he even arrives at the Utopia of a virgin mother, at first hazarded only as a bold hypothesis, but afterward proclaimed as the synthetic résumé of the whole positivist religion, in which are combined all its aspects. He was preparing a special treatise on this grand discovery when death interrupted him. A word on this conception of a virgin mother. Through the indefinite progress of positivism, the wife may one day come to conceive without ceasing to be a virgin, and so universal continence become the supreme law of the positivist religion, without in other respects abolishing the social bonds of marriage.
But at least humanity, after so many efforts, once elevated to this glorious state, will henceforth remain in it? M. Comte thinks not; he inclines, on the contrary, to the belief that in spite of the positivist virtue, humanity will end by decreasing and entirely disappearing.
But we have detained our readers long enough with these sad lucubrations of a sickly brain. We could not well pass them over in silence, for they belong to the intellectual history of our times, and it seems to us some useful lessons may be extracted from them.
We have promised to make known [{732}] the philosophical theory of M. H. Taine, but as the matter is small, the exposition may be short. His theory may be reduced to the three following points:
1. The philosopher in the study of science must be disinterested, and draw his conclusions after having made his observations, without disturbing himself as to their consequences. The philosopher, in a word, must set the man aside, forget that he is a son, a father, a husband, a citizen, and regard science alone, nothing but science, with the facts observation furnishes.
2. Observation is the only method, and observation must be confined exclusively to physical phenomena, which alone are real. Metaphysical beings, notions of the soul, of first cause, are pure illusions; consequently nothing survives the body, and there is no God, at least no God that can be inferred from any observable phenomena.
3. The highest synthesis to which observation can conduce is that there is a vast assemblage of laws and phenomena which we call nature.
All this resembles positivism too closely to be separated from it. If we have distinguished it, we have done so that M. H. Taine should not accuse us of making him, in spite of himself, the disciple of a master whom, perhaps, he does not wish to own.
III.
Before proceeding to examine this strange and incoherent system either in its general principles or in its particular application, we must reduce to their first value the two propositions which we set forth as its preamble, or rather as its pretext: 1. That modern society is in want of a doctrine that unites all intelligences in a common symbol, and enables them to live in peace and harmony; and, 2. That this doctrine cannot be in the future the Catholic doctrine, though that doctrine for a long time in the past filled its office, for its dogmas are now known to be irreconcilable with the discoveries of science.
One of the most common practices of the sophistical spirit is not so much to deny facts as to distort them, exaggerate their reach, or confuse those which are distinct. This is what our positivists do in these propositions. That there is at present much intellectual anarchy, that many souls, having lost their faith, or suffered it to be greatly weakened, refuse to recognize any law except the law which they make for themselves, and that thence results a mental perturbation from which society suffers not a little, is a fact too evident and too lamentable to be questioned. It is only simple justice, however, to acknowledge that M. Comte has the merit of pointing it out much earlier than the most of his friends [and Saint-Simon much earlier than even M. Comte.—TR.] Although strongly imbued with the revolutionary spirit he comprehended [had learned from Saint-Simon?—TR.] as early as 1822 that that spirit, powerful indeed to destroy, is radically incapable of establishing anything, and he never spared the illusion of those who believed that the principles of the Constituent Assembly of 1789, engrafted on religious unbelief, could serve as the basis of the social edifice.
But if the evil denounced is only too real, it is not necessary to represent it as greater than it is, or to conclude, because faith in many souls has grown feeble, that it has entirely perished, and is no longer to be found among men. We know how difficult and how delicate it is to establish the balance-sheet of religious society. Appearances are deceptive, and to reach the real facts we must explore, to the bottom, the consciences of men, which only God can do. However, there are certain exterior circumstances which may enable us even on this point to approximate the real facts in the case. It is undeniable that there are in all the degrees of society men who really believe and faithfully practise religion; others who believe but practise not; [{733}] and still others who make an open profession of not believing. The first division have representatives in every social class, among the poor as well as among the rich, in the sciences, in literature, in art, in industry, in politics. Their faith in general is equally firm and enlightened, for it has been thoroughly tried, and has withstood every attack, both from within and from without.
The second class are more numerous, at least in the great centres of population, and form in those centres the bulk of society. They believe, but their faith is weak, or perhaps it were more proper to say that they have not faith, but only vague and indecisive beliefs, whose level rises or falls according to events. They recoil alike from avowed apostasy and from distinct, precise, and frank affirmation of the truth. As they have abandoned the practice of their religion, it may be supposed that they have lost all belief, but that is far from being the case, for often the slightest breath from without suffices to rekindle what seems to be extinct, but is really only asleep. It is rare, above all, that at the last moment, when the passions have been appeased, when they stand face to face with reality and see it as it is, their last and solemn word is not a word of faith.
The third class, those who make an open profession of unbelief, are relatively few; but they make up for their lack of numbers by their activity and the powerful means at their disposal. They fill high positions in the state, control the greater part of the organs of publicity, and gain the multitudes to their side all the more easily because they excel in the art of caressing popular prejudices and pandering to popular passions. Beside, their hatred of truth is greater than their attachment to any doctrine whatever, and they can, therefore, hold themselves free to attack the faith without being bound to defend anything of their own against it, or to maintain any self-consistency in their attacks. What moves and governs them is not the desire to ascertain or defend the truth, but to appear to have independence and hardihood of mind, and to pose themselves as despisers of the past and precursors of the future.
But to appreciate the real situation of things, it is not enough to regard the present. We must also consider the past. No society makes itself such as it is, and every society holds infinitely more from the generation that went before than from the existing generation. Now, as the society of the past was manifestly a Christian society, it cannot be that the present should not remain Christian in the greater part of its elements; and in fact, notwithstanding the formidable efforts that have been made to unchristianize modern society, and its numerous deviations, it is still the Christian spirit that inspires the laws, manners, and institutions, and so pervades the general intelligence that even those who would attack the Christian dogmas are constrained, in order to render their attacks more effective, to appeal to the very principles which Christianity has brought to light and made predominant.
Moreover, religious faith, far from decreasing, is actually progressing, and, if it has not yet recovered all the ground it had lost, its gains since the commencement of the present century have been far greater than its losses.
It is not difficult to detect the vice of the first proposition. It consists in assuming that Christian faith is dead, while it has only been lessened; that it has lost all authority over the intelligent, while, in fact, it continues to exercise, directly or indirectly, such an empire over them that its principles are universally regarded as the foundation and support of the social edifice itself.
But not contented with assuming that Christianity is dead, the positivists go further, and pretend that it cannot be restored to life, because its dogmas are found to be incompatible with the discoveries of science. This is not [{734}] a fact distorted, not a fact invented, and for which no proof is offered or attempted to be offered. We have in vain sought in the writings of Messrs. Comte and Littré even the semblance of a reason of any sort in support of the allegation. The positivists announce it, affirm it, but make no effort even to prove it, or at most only stammer out by the way the name of Galileo, as if it had not been a thousand times answered, at first, that the sacred writers must have spoken the language of their times, which after all is still the language of our times; afterward that Copernicus dedicated, in 1545, to Pope Paul III., his great work, in which he sets forth and defends the new or heliocentric system of the universe; that nearly a century elapsed before any censure of it intervened; that Galileo, although technically condemned, was neither loaded with chains nor cast into a dungeon; in fine—and it is the important point—that the holy office which condemned him, though possessing great and legitimate authority, is not the Church, and has no claim to infallibility. [Footnote 114]
[Footnote 114: This was written before the Encyclical of the Holy Father, dated December 8, 1864, otherwise the noble author might have modified his expression so as not even to seem to incur its censure. Without raising any question as to the infallibility of the pontifical congregations when they render a dogmatic Judgment approved by the Holy Father, it is evident that the judgment rendered in the case of Galileo was not a dogmatic judgment in the understanding of even Rome herself, for she has since rescinded it, and has permitted the theory to be taught in her schools as science. The judgment was disciplinary, not dogmatic, and assuming, therefore, that Galileo held the scientific truth, it offers no evidence of the incompatibility of Catholic dogma with science, any more than the condemnation of an unwarrantable insurrection in a monarchical country in favor of democracy would prove that the Church is hostile to liberty.—TRANSLATOR. ]
Unable to produce any facts to support their thesis, the positivists resort to historical induction. They argue that the sciences have been in a state of continuous progress for three centuries; but during the same three centuries they say faith has been in a state of continual decline; there is, therefore, an intimate correlation between the two facts, so intimate that we may assert the former as generating the latter. But to a legitimate induction, all the facts on which it depends should be carefully observed and reported, which in this case is not done.
It is not true that faith has declined in a fatal and continuous manner; nor is it true that the sciences have made their greatest progress in those epochs in which faith has most declined. Ask history. In the beginning of the sixteenth century occurred Luther's revolt; It produced in the Christian world a universal shock. During several years heresy made every day new progress, and a part of Europe was detached from the centre of unity; but very soon the movement was arrested, and before the end of that same century a reaction against it had begun, followed by a religious revival or re-birth which produced one of the grandest epochs in the history of mankind. In the eighteenth century a new attack, more formidable than the first, is made on faith; it triumphs, and seems to be on the point of destroying all truth. Yet from the beginning of the next century a second religious restoration is effected, of which it may be as yet too early to determine the full bearing on the future, but which has already had too serious results to allow its great importance to be questioned. Thus out of four centuries there are two, the sixteenth and the eighteenth, in which faith has declined, and two, the seventeenth and the nineteenth, in which faith has revived and increased. There is not then a fatal and continuous march of faith in a certain direction. There are two contrary currents that meet and combat each other, without its being lawful as yet from the point of view of science to say which will ultimately triumph.
But at least they are the centuries of doubt and unbelief in which science has made her greatest progress? Not at all. Precisely the contrary is the fact. The sixteenth century did hardly anything for science, but the seventeenth century, the age of the [{735}] Catholic revival, was the age of the Galileos, the Pascals, the Des Cartes, the Newtons, the Leibnitzes—the age in which not only philosophy, letters, the arts, were carried to their highest degree of splendor, but the great principles of modern science were discovered and established—principles from which have resulted all subsequent discoveries, which, it is well to remark, have been only an affair of application and patience, not of invention and genius.
But the positivists insist again that, granting there is no absolute incompatibility between science and faith, since the masters of science have been decided believers, and are so still; granting also that there is no direct relation between the progress of science and the decline of faith, since the periods in which science has grown are not coincident with those in which faith has diminished—still the general result of three centuries of activity is that science has gained and faith has lost, and it is difficult, therefore, to suppose that these two facts are wholly foreign one to the other.
We reply that if this were proposed as a mere hypothesis, it might pass, and there would be no inconvenience in admitting that the progress of science may have indirectly, and so by way of reaction, had some influence in weakening religious beliefs. In all progress, in every increase of power, there is danger. Man is naturally weak, and as soon as he feels himself in possession of a new force he suffers himself to be dazzled by it, attributes to himself all its merits, and soon comes to believe that he can suffice for himself, and dispense with all aid from above. Consider what takes place in our days. Certainly, it is impossible to conceive in what respect steam, chloroform, electricity, or photography conflicts with any Christian dogma. Religion, instead of standing aghast at these discoveries in the application of science, applauds them, and sees in them new and more efficient means of doing her own work, of ameliorating the condition of a large number, of propagating the Gospel, and drawing closer the bonds of unity throughout the world. Yet such is not the impression which they produce on all minds. Certain persons, at sight of so many marvels, are so carried away with enthusiasm as to conclude that man is on the eve of becoming God. The impression will, no doubt, soon wear away, but till it does, the intoxication continues, and hearts are inflated. In this way science may come to the aid of unbelief; not by itself, nor by the results it gives; but by the presumptuous confidence with which it too often fills the mind. As it is not and cannot be the principal and efficient cause of the success of unbelief, we must seek that cause elsewhere, in the unloosing of the passions, always impatient of the restraints of faith. History in fact teaches us that the great revolts of the intellect are contemporary with those of the will and the senses; that it was in the scandals of the revival of ancient learning in the fifteenth century that Protestantism was conceived; that more lately it was the les petits soupers of the Regency and under the impure inspirations of the Pompadours and the Du Barrys that was spun and woven the conspiracy against the God of Calvary. Modern unbelief may boast of the independence it has acquired, but assuredly not, if it has any self-respect, of its shameful cradle.
So we see that the very propositions which serve as a pretext to the positivist system are belied by the historical facts in the case. Far from being ready to perish, religion is every day making new progress, and none of its dogmas have as yet been contradicted or weakened by any of the real discoveries of science.
The positivist system itself, it will be recollected, is based on the assumption that no doctrine can henceforth obtain the assent of the intelligent, save on condition of being positive, [{736}] that is, as rigidly demonstrable as are the physical sciences. Such a theory hardly needs refuting, so contrary is it to common sense and the universal beliefs of the race. But as it has been set forth at length in a series of huge volumes, maintained and lauded in an important political journal, counts still many adepts, has been recalled not long since to the public attention by a work written by one of their number who has the honor of being a member of the Institute [and as it is gaining no little ground, under its philosophical aspect, in Great Britain and the United States—TR.], it is not permissible to neglect it, and we feel it necessary, if not to combat it directly, at least to point out the levity and inconsistency of its originators and adherents, who claim to be reformers of the human race, and with imperturbable gravity pretend that for six thousand years mankind has been the dupe of the grossest error, and that before their advent there were only illusion and falsehood in the world.
The assumption from which the system proceeds is that the real, the positive, is restricted to the world of the senses, or the material universe, and that what transcends the material order is for us at least unreal—a thesis directly opposed to that of Des Cartes, who taught that thought is the phenomenon the most real, the most positive of all. Now which is right, the author of the "Discourse on Method" or M. Comte? No great effort is needed to prove that it is Des Cartes, and that the existence of spiritual phenomena is not only more certain than that of physical phenomena, but more positive and more easily proved, because the knowledge of spiritual phenomena is direct and immediate, while that of sensible phenomena is only indirect and mediate. All knowledge, rational or sensible, is a spiritual phenomenon. Matter may be the occasion or medium of it, but can never produce it, for it is always spirit or mind that knows even in sensation or sentiment. We may be deceived as to the meaning of the phenomenon, but never as to its existence. [Footnote 115]
[Footnote 115: As a subjective fact, there can be no doubt of its existence: but this, with all respect to M. de Chalambert, is nothing to the purpose. All phenomena are subjective, and therefore mental, if you will, spiritual; but is there an objective spiritual reality revealed by these spiritual phenomena? This is the question, and I need not say it is a question not answerable on the Cartesian principle or method. Few persons outside of France regard Des Cartes as worth citing as an authority in philosophy, for, beginning with thought as a psychological phenomenon, he never did and never could attain scientifically to any objective existence, either spiritual or material. The error of Des Cartes was in seeking to settle the question of method before settling that of principles; the principles determine the method, not the method the principles, as M. Cousin, misled by his veneration for Des Cartes, pretends: and the principles are necessarily à priori, prior to experience—as without them experience is not possible—given, intuitive, and therefore objective. The real existence of the spiritual or supersensible order, superior to and distinct from the material, is certain from the demonstrable fact that the sensible has its root only in the supersensible, and the material in the spiritual, both as to the order of knowledge and as to the order of being. The author maintains the truth against the positivists, but his reasoning is not conclusive, because he is misled by the Cartesian method, which is the method of the positivists themselves. Malebranche followed in one direction the Cartesian method, and lost the material world; the Abbé Condillac followed it in another direction, and lost the spiritual world; the positivists follow it in both, and lose all reality, and, with Sir William Hamilton, make truth purely relative; that is, subjective, and as pure subjectivity is impossible, thus positivism is positive nihilism. The author proceeds to refute, on the Cartesian method, the denial by the positivists of the existence of spirit, of the absolute, of God, and the immortality of the soul; but as I do not regard his reasoning, though in defence of the truth, conclusive, I omit it, and pass to his exhibition of the inconsistencies and absurdities of positivism, in which he is admirable and perfectly successful.—TRANSLATOR. ]
Nevertheless, after having denied all the truths or principles which are the basis of all moral and intellectual life, the positivists pretend to pass from negation to affirmation, and undertake in their turn to dogmatize. But to affirm any doctrine whatever it needs a method, and we have shown that on the purely negative method which they commence with, they can never legitimately affirm anything. What then can they do? They invent another method, which they call induction, because they pretend that it is from the observation of the facts of history that they induce or draw their doctrine; but the process they adopt has none of the characters of a real induction. [{737}] To induction three things are necessary; the principle of causality, general notions, and particular facts. [Footnote 116]
[Footnote 116: I transfer the word notion, although no notion is or can be general, because French writers frequently use it when they really mean not notion, but the object or thing noted. I do not approve of this use either in French or English. We may have notions of the general, but not general notions; a notion, if you will, as has been previously said, of the absolute (though absolute is itself a bad term for necessary, eternal, immutable, and infinite being), but not absolute notions. The notion is subjective, the noted is objective. To all legitimate induction there is necessary causality, the general—the universal, as say the schoolmen—and the particular, and unless the mind has à priori knowledge or intuition of them, no induction is possible. This is what the author evidently means, and it is undoubtedly true.—TRANSLATOR.]
Experience gives the particular facts, and, by the aid of the principle of causality, we determine by way of induction their laws; that is, by means of particular facts we determine the general notions hitherto confused and vaguely perceived [that is, refer them to their respective genera or species.—-TRANSLATOR.] The positivists, then, who recognize no principle [of causality, and deny all general notions or notions of the general prior to the particular facts.—TRANSLATOR.] can make no induction, and have no scientific basis, no logical nexus for their theories, and are left to the caprices of their own imagination. Imagination, and imagination alone, is the new method they employ.
The human mind, according to the positivists, is radically incapable of knowing causes, and if it attempts to know them it exhausts itself with fruitless efforts. This is wherefore they treat as illusions all the causes which philosophers assign to phenomena. They deny the metaphysical being, God as cause; yet they substitute the metaphysical being humanity, and not content with affirming it, they even define it, both as principle and cause, to be a great collective beings— living a life of its own, and advancing continually through the ages from progress to progress, and from whom all individual existences proceed as their beginning, and to whom they all return as their end. Nor is this all. After having defined this metaphysical being, they explain it, and pretend to know what it has been, what it is, and what it will be—they, who declare that Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Des Cartes, and Leibnitz have done nothing, because in attempting to penetrate the mystery of human life these master minds broke against an insolvable problem—they, we say, do not hesitate to raise the veil, and to give us the complete solution of the far more formidable mystery of human destiny. They know its origin. Humanity has begun in fetichism; M. Littré, however, has discovered, since the death of his master, that prior to fetichism there was a state in which man like the brute sought only to satisfy his physical wants; but he maintains that at any rate, if fetichism was not the first it was at least the second state of humanity. If we ask him what proofs he has of this, he confesses that if direct facts are demanded he has none; but he has arguments, and here is the way in which he argues:
In America and the unexplored regions of Africa savage tribes are found who were and still are fetich worshippers, therefore so was it with all men in the beginning! Such is the positivist induction. [Footnote 117]
[Footnote 117: How know the positivists that these savage tribes do not represent the degenerate man, rather than the primitive man—man cut off from communion with the central life of humanity, not man in his first developments?—TRANSLATOR.]
Positivism continues: From fetichism humanity passed to polytheism, and then from polytheism to monotheism. But it forgets that it is not permitted to take the part for the whole, and if Europe became Christian after having been pagan, it has not been the same with all the world, for on one side we find the people Jewish, who have always believed in the unity of God, and, on the other side, we find many nations still remaining immersed in the darkness of idolatry. But we must not be too exacting with the positivists. They have here really some partial facts which they can use, though not legitimately as the basis of an argument. [Footnote 118]
[Footnote 118: Truth is older than error, and man began not in error, but in the truth, the sole principle of life and growth. Monotheism preceded, historically, both fetichism and polytheism, and the earliest and most authentic historical documents that we have prove that all the world began by believing in and worshipping one God. Polytheism bears evident traces of a prior religion which asserted the unity of God, of being not a development of fetichism, but a corruption of monotheism, as positivism bears unmistakable traces of its being a corruption of Christianity; a conclusive evidence that it never could have originated in a society that had never known and believed the Christian religion.—TRANSLATOR.]
As to the future, who can doubt that humanity will be positivist? Can any one prove the contrary? Is not the future a domain open to all, and where each may imagine for himself the part that pleases him? And yet, even in regard to the future, it is necessary to be circumspect. Young as positivism is, it has had the pain of seeing more than one of its predictions falsified by the event. In 1850 M. Littré assured us that the race had arrived at that degree of civilization that rendered war henceforth impossible, and that the republic was definitively established in France. What does he think of either prediction now? He would have obliged us if he had given us his explanations of these predictions in his last publication. The first would, perhaps, have embarrassed him; the second would give him less trouble, because the destruction of the republic of 1848 by the empire accords only too well with the positivist hostility to a really representative government.
It is useless to press the matter further. There is in the positivist induction no trace of a rational process, and positivism in the last analysis is simply the product of pure imagination. Moreover, M. Littré is so well aware of it that he has taken in advance his precautions against all unfavorable criticism. It may say what it pleases, he will not hear or heed it; he professes to be a positivist, and positivist he will live and die. His decision is made. Beside, no one who has not taken his degree of doctor in the mathematical, astronomical, physical, and chemical sciences, understands or can understand anything of positivism, and is incompetent to its discussion. But if instead of opposing one is disposed to accept it, he is very accommodating, and by no means exacts so laborious and painful an initiation. He requires only one thing—namely, the denial of the supernatural order. To be received into the positivist school it is not necessary to affirm or to believe anything—simple denial suffices.
We must in concluding make a single reference to M. Taine. As the positivists, M. Taine denies metaphysics, all metaphysical (spiritual) beings, God, and the human soul, and like them he substitutes for these others of his own fashioning. From Messrs. Comte and Littré he separates only on a single point. To the cause humanity he prefers the cause nature. There is no disputing about tastes. We add merely a word on one of the fundamental maxims of M. Taine's method. The philosopher, he says, must be in the study of science perfectly disinterested, and even to the degree of forgetting that he is a father, a son, a husband, a citizen. He must take account only of the facts furnished by observation, and in no respect trouble himself about their practical consequences. Were the facts observed to prove that paternal love, filial respect, conjugal tenderness, and devotion to one's country are empty words or dangerous illusions, he must not hesitate to immolate these sentiments on the altar of reality—or science. We do not discuss such a doctrine. The irreflection of the author (we can suppose nothing else) is so great that we need only indicate it. Does not M. Taine comprehend that the disinterestedness or indifference of the philosopher must consist not in abjuring the eternal principles of the just, the true, the good, the beautiful, and the noblest sentiments of the human heart, but simply in silencing within [{739}] him the voice of prejudice and passion, so as to leave his understanding free and unbiased? Knows he not that to know a fact he must study it first in himself and in its essence, and then in its manifold applications? The chemist asserts a substance only after, having resolved it into its elements, he has experimented on it in all its effects; in like manner, it is not enough for the philosopher to have studied a doctrine in its principle, he must go further, and establish that in its applications it conforms to the laws of the just, the true, and the beautiful. It is, in fact, this accordance that is, all things considered, the surest test of its truth. The moral is the counter-proof of the intellectual. M. Taine and his school recognize, it is true, no principles anterior to facts, and therefore want, as M. Comte avows, a type-law, a term of comparison, which may serve as the criterion of the judgment of facts themselves; but is there a more manifest mark of the falsity of a theory than that it leaves the human mind without any means of determining the significance of phenomena, without a touchstone to determine whether the metal be gold or copper?
But it is time to close. It is assuredly a grave fact, and one that merits more attention than it receives, that a doctrine so thoroughly materialistic and atheistic can be produced in our age, that it can obtain adherents, and be recognized by important and widely influential public journals, which, without openly displaying its flag, insinuate its principles, and strive to infuse it into the minds of their readers. Yet this fact is nothing new. There are always atheists in the world; even in the time of the Prophet King the impious said: There is no God. Non est Deus. But we discover in the positivist system a sign or symptom, if not graver at least more alarming, in the manifest enfeeblement in our time of reason, and the rational faculties of the soul, which it supposes. We know that society is not responsible for all that is said or done in its bosom, but we know also that people are in general treated as they deserve to be treated, and that writers, journalists, and system-mongers, when they believe they are addressing a community accustomed to think, to reason, to reflect, and to render an account to themselves of what is addressed to them, are on their guard and weigh carefully what they say. They may assign bad reasons, but they will at least assign reasons of some sort, and take great pains to do it, as the thing most essential to their success. There have always been sophists, but the sophist of former times reasoned; the sophist of to-day reasons not, he simply imagines. Do not attempt to refute him; he will not listen to you, for he understands not the language you speak; he denies or affirms with assurance, with audacity, even at the command of his passions or his caprices; he seeks not to convince, but to startle, to astonish, and neither proves nor cares to prove anything. Things have come to such a pass that Voltaire himself, if he could return, would blush with shame for his children. He might still smile approvingly on their blasphemies; his good sense would be shocked with the incoherence and extravagance of their theories; and he would say to them. Continue, my children, to deny, to crush l'infame, all that is well, but do have the grace not to attempt to put anything in place of what you deny. You are not equal to that, and can only render yourselves ridiculous.
The evil is very real and very great, but it has already been denounced by an authority so high, and with so much eloquence, that I need not any further insist on it. I would simply add that it calls for a prompt remedy, since the peril is great and imminent. When faith grows weak in souls, and reason remains, there is hope; for reason well directed leads back to faith, since human reason is the child of the divine reason, and [{740}] cannot persist in denying her mother; but when reason in her turn goes, and leaves only imagination in her place, there is no ground of hope; and everything is to be feared, for no means of salvation remain. Imagination is, indeed, one of the powers and one of the grandeurs of the human mind, which it elevates and adorns; but if it comes to predominate alone, without supporting itself on reason, it loses its virtue and its beauty, and is proper only to dazzle, to pervert, to bewilder and mislead. It sheds darkness, not light, or if it emits still some gleams, it is only to gild with a last and false splendor a dying civilization. When the barbarians thundered at her gates, Rome still imagined, but she had long since ceased to reason.
COUNT VICTOR DE CHALAMBERT
From Chambers's Journal.
PLAIN-WORK.
"Thank goodness, Lizzie! you were taught to work."
My husband is constantly repeating this sentiment to me, and I decidedly agree with him that it is a great cause for thankfulness. I may say, in passing, that I don't believe I should ever have married my husband at all if I had not been able to work, for one of his very first questions to me upon our becoming acquainted, was as to what occupation I took most pleasure in, and upon my answering "Plain-work," a pleased smile came over his face. From that moment, he has since confessed to me, he made up his mind that I should be his wife. I am now the mother of a large family, with constant demands upon my needle, and what I should do, if I had not early acquired the use of it, I cannot think. I made a point of teaching my own girls as soon as ever they became old enough to handle their needles, and if they don't all turn out good plain-workers, it certainly won't be my fault.
I look upon occupation as the true secret of happiness, and surely there is no occupation so well suited to a woman, whether she is the wife of a gentleman or a laborer, as needle-work. I would encourage the taste for it as early as possible in a girl, as I think it has such an influence for good on her character in making her womanly and sensible. It has also the effect of producing tidy habits, for no girl who can thoroughly use her needle will be content to go about the house with her frock torn or a rip in her petticoat; but, upon the first appearance of a hole, she will sit down and carefully mend it. When still quite young, she works for her doll; a little older, for some poor child in the village, or her own younger brothers and sisters. In either case, she is learning to be loving and kind, and the habit of working for others and being useful is good for her.
You wish probably to fit your daughter for her future career in life, and you naturally look forward to her marriage as the aim and object of your most ardent desires. I know I do with regard to my own girls, for, being a happy and married woman myself, I cannot bear the idea of their becoming old maids. Well, if you want her to marry, and you desire to train her to be a good wife, teach her to work; you are laying the foundation of much future happiness, and her husband will bless you for it. Say she marries a man not too well off, who is constantly engaged in his profession, and she is in consequence forced to spend [{741}] many hours of her day alone. This is very trying to her at first, fresh from a happy home and the bosom of a large family. She turns to her needle as her companion and solace during her husband's absence, and finds her greatest interest and pleasure in working for him. She keeps his clothes in good repair, and he never finds his socks in holes or his shirts minus their buttons. Very likely—and happy I consider it for her if it is so—his wedding outfit may have been small. In that case, she can employ herself in making him a new set of shirts; whilst her odd moments may be profitably spent in knitting him a set of warm socks against the coming winter. Depend upon it, he will never find any shirts that fit him so well, or any socks so comfortable, as those made for him by his wife during the early days of their married life. This gives her so much occupation during her day that she has no time to be dull or discontented. She gladly puts away her work when she expects her husband's return, and she meets him with a cheerful smile, being happy in her own mind and feeling that she has been praiseworthily engaged. She is also ready to enter into his interests and pursuits, in which she finds an agreeable relaxation.
Then there's the coming baby to work for. What mother does not remember the delights of working for her first baby! The care and thought bestowed first upon purchasing the materials, then upon cutting them out to the best advantage, followed by many months of happy employment in making them up. The little articles, when finished, are carefully put away in a drawer set aside for the purpose, and bunches of lavender are placed amongst them.
The first baby is born, and others follow, and the cares of a family come rapidly upon your child. She now feels the real use of her needle, and she learns to thank you accordingly for the pains you took with her. Not only can she sew well, but she knows how to cut out; and she has such a first-rate eye, from long practice, that she can take her patterns from the shop-windows. She makes the best use of her powers of observation. That which makes men good soldiers, doctors, engineers, literary men, artists, and naturalists, makes her a good plain-worker. In her own line, she is not to be beaten. Perhaps she is a little proud of her talent; but she uses it to good advantage, and her husband has the comfort of seeing his children well clothed, and of finding his bills comparatively small. Constant practice has also given her a capital knowledge of the value of materials, and she understands thoroughly the textures of different cotton, linen, and woollen fabrics, so that it would be very difficult to impose upon her.
I have taken it for granted that your daughter marries a poor man, as poor men unfortunately predominate in this world, and it is always as well to be prepared for the worst. But her husband may be rich or, at all events, well enough off to render it unnecessary that his wife should be a slave to her needle. You will still find that you have done your girl no injury by imposing upon her the early habit of using that instrument. You have, at all events, given her the power of superintending her servants, and seeing that their work is properly done; and she will not so easily be taken in by her dressmaker, or trampled upon by her nurse, who will soon find out that "missis" knows how to work for her own children, and will respect her accordingly.
But supposing that your daughter does not marry at all, still her knowledge of plain-work will not be thrown away upon her. If left poorly off, she has her own clothes to make and mend, and if not, surely there are plenty of claims upon her. There is her more fortunate sister, who married young, and is now a widow, with six children on her hands—think of the comfort and use her needle may be to them! Then her brothers are [{742}] most of them married with families, and Aunt Susan's work is invaluable, If she has no brothers or sisters, but is left entirely alone in the world, and so well off that she does not require to work for herself, let her turn to the poor, and give them the use of her needle; she will certainly find a never-ending field amongst them. By the time she has worked for all the babies in the parish, and helped the mothers about the clothes for the elder children, she will find she has occupation enough for her fingers to keep her mind happy and interested, and to prevent her from dwelling upon her own loneliness. She can also spend some time profitably in instructing the girls in the village-school how to cut out and sew. The ignorance upon these points in some schools is perfectly lamentable. I took a nursery-maid for my eighth baby straight from a national school. She was a fine healthy girl of sixteen. It will hardly be credited that she could not hold her needle properly! She doubled it up in her hand, and pushed it into her work in the most extraordinary manner. I tried in vain to teach her by every means in my power, but if the knack of holding the needle is not learned in early life, it is rarely acquired afterward. Although so very awkward about her work, that girl had been taught to crochet ridiculous watch-pockets, and to knit impossible babies' shoes, with such wonderful pointed toes that no infant I ever saw could get his feet into them. At length I was obliged to part with her on this account, though a tidy, active girl, and satisfactory in many ways. She is not the only case I have had in my house of ignorance on the subject of plain-work. Some of my servants have been able to sew well enough, but have not had the remotest idea of cutting-out and placing their work. I have often thought, if I had only time to spare, how much I should like to teach the rising generation the little I myself know of the art of plain-work.
In these days of sewing-machines people think much less of needle-work than they did formerly. I don't approve of sewing-machines myself. My husband accuses me of being jealous of them, but in this he is unjust to me. I don't approve of them simply because I think that the work produced from them—though I grant that the stitches may be regular enough—cannot be compared to good hand-work, particularly when employed upon fine materials. I have seen machine-work in every stage, and from the very best sewing-machines, and I never could consider it equal to good hand-work. I feel convinced in my own mind that sewing-machines will have their day, and that when that day is over, plain-work done by hand will be at as high a premium again as ever. Even pillow-lace is now gradually recovering the place it once occupied in public estimation, and from which it was temporarily ousted by lace produced from that unutterable abomination, the machine, and which used to be called "Nottingham lace."
I acknowledge machine-work may be all very well for cloth clothes, and useful in families where there are many boys; but my ten children are mostly girls, and I don't at all covet a machine. My husband offers me one periodically, and I as often refuse it. I could not bear to have one in the house, it would be going so entirely against my own principles.
It is most important, when a girl is learning to work, that great care should be taken with her to prevent her from acquiring bad habits; such habits, I mean, as clicking her needle with her thimble, pinning her work to her knee, biting the end of her thread, and sticking her needle into the front of her dress. These habits once gained will probably stick to her all her life, and she will find the greatest difficulty in overcoming them. It is therefore advisable that she should be taught to work by her mother, rather than be left to the instruction of servants. A [{743}] ladylike manner of working is essential, and should be carefully cultivated, for work may be executed both neatly and rapidly without the acquirement of any of these vulgar peculiarities. A great point to be learned connected with plain-work, and one that I consider quite indispensable, is the art of cutting out accurately and without waste of material. Far too little importance is attached to that branch of work, and many women go to their graves without acquiring it, having been dependent all their lives upon their servants or some kind friend for having their work cut out and placed for them. When this is the case ladies are apt to be too much under the thumb of their ladies' maids or nurses, who are not slow to profit by their own superior knowledge, and domineer over their mistresses accordingly.
Where there are a number of the same articles of clothing to be made, it is advisable to cut out one garment first, being careful to take the pattern in paper, and to complete it before cutting out the rest of the material. By this means an opinion can be formed as to whether it fits properly and any necessary alterations may be made. The other articles may then be cut out all together, care being taken to pin the separate parts together, to avoid their being mislaid or any mistakes made. It is no doubt essential that sewing should be neatly done, but I think this need not be achieved at the entire expense of all rapidity of execution. It really is perfectly ludicrous to see some women at their work. They look at each stitch when completed, and give it a little approving pat with the top of the thimble; and at this rate, though the neatness of the work may be undeniable, still so little is accomplished, that it is hardly worth the trouble of doing it at all. Method in plain-work is also highly necessary, and much time and labor may be spared by keeping all the materials in the proper places. If every article when done with is put away carefully, it is sure to be forthcoming when again required. Thus, there is no time wasted in searching for a missing reel of cotton, or hunting up a pair of scissors. The cleanliness of the work is also thereby kept unimpaired.
The greatest care should be taken with the pieces of broken needles, which are too apt to be left carelessly about the floor, and which are most dangerous, especially when there are any young children in the house. I must confess, and I do it with shame, that there was a time when I was not as careful as I am now. I never shall forget my husband's indignation upon coming into my room one day, where our second baby was crawling about on the ground, at finding a piece of a broken needle in her hand, quite ready to put it in her mouth. I think he was more angry with me then than he had ever been before during our married life. It was certainly a good lesson to me, for I have been most careful ever since, and I'll trouble him or anybody else to find a broken needle about my carpet now. Waste should be carefully avoided, both with regard to ends of cotton and pieces of material. The scraps of the latter which are too small to be of any use, instead of being left littered about the room, should be thrown into a waste-basket, to be cleared by the housemaid, and the larger pieces should be tidily put away. The time will probably come when they will be required for some purpose or other; and if pinned up in a tight bundle they will not occupy much space in a drawer or basket kept for the purpose.
I trust I have not ridden my hobby to death, nor worn out the patience of my readers, but it is a subject the importance of which I strongly feel. It must not, however, be supposed that I advocate the cultivation of work to the exclusion of more intellectual pursuits, or that I wish to take the bread from the mouth of my poorer sister. I consider a thorough [{744}] knowledge of the science of plain-work to be essential to every woman, be she rich or poor, and that in it she will always find a sphere of usefulness. It will, if cultivated, turn out for her own benefit, and the comfort and happiness of those around her, and surely it shall be said of her that "her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."
THE BIRTHPLACE OF SAINT PATRICK.
BY J. CASHEL HOEY.
The question of the birthplace of St. Patrick—a question which has been debated with considerable learning and acrimony for several centuries—has always seemed to me to have an interest far beyond the rival claims of clans and the jealous litigation of the antiquary. It is interesting not merely because it is in reality a curious archaeological problem, but also because it may in some measure afford a clue to the character of one of the greatest saints and greatest men of his own age or of any other—a saint who was the apostle of a nation which he found all heathen and left all Christian; who succeeded in planting the Catholic faith without a single act of martyrdom, but planted it so firmly that it has never failed for now 1,400 years, though tried in what various processes of martyrdom God and man too well know; a saint whose apostolate was the mainspring of an endless succession of missionary enterprises, prosecuted with the same untiring zeal in the nineteenth century as in the fifth, wherever the vanguard of Christendom may happen to be found, whether in Austria, in Gaul, in Switzerland, or in Iceland, as now at the furthest confines of America and of Australasia. Add to these ordinary evidences of the supernatural efficacy of St. Patrick's mission the testimony which is derived from the peculiar spiritual character of the people that he converted. The Irish nation retains the impress which it received from the hands of St. Patrick in a way that I believe no other Christian nation has preserved the mould of its apostle. If that nation has never even dreamed of heresy or schism, it is because, in terms as positive as an ultramontane of our own days could devise, [Footnote 119] St. Patrick established the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff as a chief canon of the Irish Church. Patience in poverty, an innate love of purity, prodigal alms-giving, and mutual charities, the practice of heavy penances and of long fasts, a peculiarly vivid sense of purgatory, and a strong devotion to the doctrine of the Trinity, which the saint taught in the figure of the shamrock—these have always been the distinguishing characteristics of Irish piety. They were the peculiar characteristics of the Christian of the fourth century, who had not yet learned to live at peace with the world—who felt that as yet Christians were in the strictest sense one family community—who practised mortification, as if the untamed pagan [{745}] blood were still burning in his veins, and the great temptation to whose faith was the heresy of Arius, and the question of the relations of the three divine persons. But St. Patrick was not only a great saint—was not merely and simply the apostle of the Irish; he was their teacher and their lawgiver, their Cadmus and Lycurgus as well. The school of letters which he founded in Ireland so well preserved the learning which had become all but extinguished throughout western Europe, that your own Alfred, following a host of your nobles and clerics, went thither to be taught, and the universities of Paris and Pavia owe their earliest lights to Irish scholars. The Brehon laws, which are at last to be published, by order of Parliament, a complete code of the most minute and comprehensive character, were, according to the evidence of our annalists, carefully revised and remodelled by St. Patrick, with the consent of the different estates of the kingdom of Ireland; and there is good reason to believe that this revision, of which there is abundant intrinsic evidence, had reference not merely to the Christian doctrine and the canons of the Church, but to the body of the Roman civil law.
[Footnote 119: "Quaecunqne causa valde difficilis exorta fuerit atque ignota cun?tis Scotorum gentis jadicils, ad cathedram archiepiscopi Hibernensium, atque hujus antistitis examinationem recte referenda. Si vero in illa, cum suis sapientibus, facile sanari non poterit talis causa praedictae negotiationis, ad Sedem Apostolicam decrevimus esse mittendam; id est, ad Petri Apostoli cathedram, auctoritatem Romae urbis habentem." This canon of St. Patrick is contained in the "Book of Armagh," the antiquity of which is instanced in the text of the present paper. The canon is of a date early in the fifth century; and it would be difficult to show so early, so emphatic and so complete a recognition of the Papal authority in the ecclesiastical legislation of any other national church.]
It would throw a certain light upon the character of a saint whose works were so various and so full of vitality, if we could arrive at any solid conclusion as to the place of his nativity, the quality of his parentage, and the sources of his education. The theory most generally accepted, and which certainly has the greatest weight of authority in its favor, is that which assumes that St. Patrick was born in Scotland, at Dumbarton, on the Clyde—the son, as we may suppose, of a French or British official employed in the Roman service at that extreme outpost of their settlements in this island, where he would have spent his youth surrounded by a perpetual clangor of barbarous battle, amid clans of Picts and Celts swarming across the barriers of the Lowland. The opinion that St. Patrick was a Scotchman has the unanimous assent of all the antiquaries of Scotland; but I am not aware that any of them has succeeded in identifying any single locality named in the original documents with any place of sufficient antiquity in or near Dumbarton; nor could I, in the course of a careful examination of the district and the recognized authorities concerning its topography, arrive at any acceptable evidence on the subject. I have to add to the Scotch authorities and pleadings, however, all the best of the Irish. That St. Patrick was born in Scotland is the opinion of Colgan, [Footnote 120] a writer whose services to the history of the Irish Church cannot be excelled and have not been equalled. The opinion of Colgan has overborne almost every other authority which intervened between his time and the present. The Bollandists [Footnote 121] accepted it without hesitation; and I hasten to add to their great sanction that of the two most learned antiquaries of the latter days of Ireland, Dr. John O'Donovan and Professor Eugene O'Curry. They, I am aware, were also of Colgan's opinion; and so, I believe, are Dr. Reeves and Dr. Todd, whose views on most points of ecclesiastical antiquities connected with Ireland are entitled to be named with every respect.
[Footnote 120: Colganus, R. P. F. Joannes, "Triadis Thaumaturgae, sen Divorum Patricii, Columbae, et Brigidiaetrium Hiberniae Patronorum, Acta. " Lovanii, 1647.]
[Footnote 121: "Acta Sanctorum Martii" a Joanne Bollando, tom. il. Antverpiae, 1668.]
Still it is to be said, on the other hand, that the opinion that St. Patrick was born in France has always had a traditional establishment in Ireland. It is asserted in one of the oldest of his lives, that of St. Eleran, and indicated in another, that of Probus. Don Philip O'Sullivan Bearre [Footnote 122] is not the first nor the last of the more modern biographers of the saint who has held that he was of French birth, though of British blood. But before the time of Dr. Lanigan, the most acute, the [{746}] most conscientious, and perhaps the most generally learned of Irish historians, there appears to have been no really candid and scientific examination of the original documents and evidences. Irish scholars were too angrily engaged in the controversy of Scotia Major and Scotia Minor to be seriously regarded when they proposed to remove St. Patrick's birthplace from the neighborhood of Glasgow to the neighborhood of Nantes. Until Dr. Lanigan published his Ecclesiastical History, [Footnote 123] no one seems to have even attempted to identify he localities named in the various original documents which concern the saint. Dr. Lanigan came to the conclusion that he was born not at Dumbarton but in France, at or in the neighborhood of Boulogne-sur-Mer. I am able, I hope, to perfect the proof which Dr. Lanigan commenced, and which, if he had been enabled to follow it up by local research and by the light lately cast on the geography of Roman Gaul, would, I am sure, have come far more complete from his hands.
[Footnote 122: D. Philippi O'Sullevani Bearri Iberni, "Patritiana Decas. " Madrid, 1629.]
[Footnote 123: Lanigan, John, D.D. "An Ecclesiastical History of Ireland." Dublin, 1820.]
I hold, then, with Doctor Lanigan, and with a tradition which has long existed in Ireland, and also in France, that St. Patrick was born on the coast of Armoric Gaul; and that Roman in one sense by descent—by his education in a province where Roman civilization had long prevailed, where the Latin language was spoken, and the privileges of the empire fully possessed—Roman too by the possession of nobility, which he himself declares, and of which his name was a curious commemoration [Footnote 124]—Roman, in fine, in the connection of his family which he testifies with the Roman government and with the Church, St. Patrick was a Celt of Gaul by blood. The fact that the district between Boulogne and Amiens was at that time inhabited by a clan called Britanni has misled both those who supposed he must have been born in the island of Britain and those who held that, if born in France, he must have been born in that part of it which was subsequently called Brittany.
[Footnote 124: Gibbon says ("Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," v. vi.) "At this period the meanest subjects of the Roman empire assumed the illustrious name of Patricius, which by the conversion of Ireland has been communicated to a whole nation." It is supposed that the name was conferred on St. Patrick in consideration of his parting with his nobility for a motive of charity, as he mentions in his Epistle to Coroticus. But he was certainly not the first of the name. Patricius was also the name of St. Augustine's father, born fully a century before.]
The original documents which bear on the point are only two in number —the "Confession" of St. Patrick himself, and the hymn in his honor composed by his disciple St. Fiech. Of the antiquity of these documents we have evidence the most complete that can be conceived. Not merely does written history certify the record of their age—they have borne much more delicate tests. The hymn of St. Fiech is written in a dialect of Irish that is to the Irish of the Four Masters as the English of Chaucer is to the English of Lord Macaulay. The quotations of Scripture which are given in the "Confession" of St. Patrick are taken from the version according to the interpretation of the Septuagint, and not according to the recent version of St. Jerome, which had indeed been just executed in St. Patrick's time, but had not yet been publicly received. At the same time, the "Liber Armachanus," which contains the original copy of the "Confession," contains also St. Jerome's translation of the New Testament—thus curiously marking the fact that the date of the one document by a little preceded the date of the other. The manuscript itself has been subjected to a most curious and rigorous examination. The authentic signature of Brian, Imperator Hibernorum, commonly called Brian Boroimhe, on the occasion of his visit to Armagh, carries us back at a bound eight hundred years in its history; but the scholar who is expert in the hue of vellum and the style of the scribe, will tell us that the "Book of Armagh" was [{747}] evidently a book of venerable age even then. The Rev. Charles Graves, [Footnote 125] a fellow of the University of Dublin, and a scholar specially skilled in the study of the Irish manuscripts and hieroglyphs, published a paper some years ago in the "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy" on the question of the age of the "Book of Amagh." That the version at present preserved in the library of Trinity College is a copy from a far older version he says there can be no doubt. The marginal notes of the scribe show that he found it difficult in many places to read the manuscript from which he was transcribing. But the same notes, the character of his writing, and a reference to the Irish primate of the time under whose authority the work was undertaken, leave no doubt that the transcript was executed by a scribe named Ferdomnach, during the primacy of Archbishop Torbach, at a date not later than the year of Our Lord 807.
[Footnote 125: Graves, Rev. C, "On the Age of the Book of Armagh: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," vol. iii., p. 816.]
Of the "Confession," beside the original copy in the "Book of Armagh," there are several manuscript versions of great age in England: two at Salisbury; two in the Cotton library; one, I believe, at Cambridge; another very interesting and valuable copy, that which was used by the Bollandists in printing their edition of the "Confession," existed until the time of the revolution in the famous French monastery of St. Vedastus. Fragments of the precious manuscripts of that learned congregation are scattered among the libraries of Arras, of Saint Omer, of Boulogne, and of Douai; but among them I could not find any trace of the missing manuscript of St. Patrick's "Confession;" nor could the present learned representatives of Bollandus, who were good enough to interest themselves in my inquiry, give me any room to hope that it still exists. It would have been of much importance to have been able to compare the style and the text of the only existing French copy with the original in Ireland—especially as that French copy belonged to the very district from which St. Patrick originally came.
There are four localities designated in these documents; three of them in the "Confession of St. Patrick," and one in the hymn of St. Fiech. In the "Confession," St. Patrick says of himself, "Patrem habui Calphurnium Diaconum (or Diacurionem) qui fuit e vico Bonaven-Taberniae; villam Enon prope habuit, ubi ego in capturam decidi." The hymn of St. Fiech adds that the saint was born at a place called Nem-tur.
The ancient "Lives of St. Patrick" cite these localities with little variation.
The first Life, given in Colgan's collection, and ascribed to St. Patrick junior, says, "Natus est igitur in illo oppido, Nempthur nomine. Patricius natus est in campo Taburnae."
The second Life, which is ascribed to St. Benignus, is word for word the same with the first on this point.
The third, supposed to be by St. Eleran, suggests that he was of Irish descent through a colony allowed by the Romans to settle in Armorica; but that his parents were of Strato Cludi (Strath Clyde); that he was born, however, "in oppido Nempthur, quod oppidum in campo Taburniae est." This life is of very ancient date, and shows clearly enough how old is the Irish tradition concerning the saint's birth in France.
The fourth Life, by Probus, says: "Brito fuit natione . . . de vico Bannave Tiburniae regionis, haud procul a mare occidentali—quem vicum indubitanter comperimus esse Neustriae provinciae, in qua olim gigantes." Here, again, we observe the same confused tradition of the saint's French origin; for Neustria was the name in the Merovingian period of the whole district comprised between the Meuse and the Loire.
The fifth and best known life, by Jocelyn, has it: "Brito fuit natione in pago Taburniae—co quod Romanus exercitus tabernacula fixerant ibidem, secus oppidum Nempthor degens, mare Hibernico collimitans habitatione."
The sixth Life, by St. Evin, declares that he was "de Brittanis Alcluidensibus, natus in Nempthur."
The Breviaries repeat the same names with as little attempt to fix the actual localities.
The Breviary of Paris says: "In Britiania natus, oppido Empthoria." The Breviary of Armagh: "In illo Brittaniae oppido nomine Emptor." The old Roman Breviary says simply: "Grenere Brito." The Breviary of Rheims: "In maritimo Brittaniae territorio." The Breviary of Rouen: "In Brittania Gallicana." The Breviary of the canons of St. John of Lateran: "Ex Brittania magna insula."
It will be observed that in the principal of these authorities there is a concurrence in accepting the locality called so variously Nemthur and Empthoria, as well as the second of the localities, the Taberniae, named by St. Patrick himself; and also that there is no appearance of certainty in the minds of the writers as to the exact sites of the places of which they speak. None of them ventures to name the exact district or diocese where Empthoria or the Taberniae are to be found.
But certain scholia upon the "Hymn of St. Fiech," which were for the first time published by Colgan in the "Triadis Thaumaturgae," boldly lay down the proposition that "Nemthur est civitas in Brittania Septentrionali, nempe Alcluida;" and the name is also translated as meaning "Holy Tower." The same writer, however, adds in another note that St. Patrick was not carried into his Irish captivity from Dumbarton, but from Boulogne, where he and his family were visiting some of their friends at the time when the Irish pirates swept down upon the coast of Gaul. The Irish annals say that about the period of St. Patrick's captivity, Nial of the Nine Hostages lost his life on the Sea of Iccius between France and England. These long piratical forays were not uncommon at the time. [Footnote 126] A little later, the last of our pagan kings, Dathy, was killed by lightning near the Rhaetian Alps.
[Footnote 126: Totum cum Scotus Iernem Movit, et infesto spumsvit remige Tethys CLAUDIAN.]
Colgan with a curious credulity accepted this improbable solution of the scholiast, of which it may in the first place be said that it is incompatible with the statement of St. Patrick himself, who declares distinctly that he was captured at a country house belonging to his father, near the town to which his family belonged.
Usher, however, who had equal opportunities of studying the original documents, also adopted this explanation. Several Irish writers, and especially Don Philip O'Sullivan, vaguely conscious of the tradition of St. Patrick's French origin, attempted to reconcile the fact of his being a Briton with the fact of his birth in France by the supposition that he was a Breton of Brittany. This theory, however, falls summarily to the ground when it is opposed to the fact that the province now known by the name of Brittany was not inhabited by any tribe which bore the name in the time of St. Patrick, "The year 458," says the Benedictine Lobineau [Footnote 127] in his learned history of Brittany, "is about the epoch of the establishment of the Bretons in that part of ancient Armorica which at present bears the name of Bretagne." There was, however, a clan called Brittani, further toward the north of France, a clan whose territory Pliny and the Greek Dionysius Periegetes had long before designated with accuracy: Pliny in these words, "Deinde Menapii, Morini, Oromansaci juncti pago, qui Gessoriacus vocatur; [{749}] Brittani, Ambiani, Bellovaci." [Footnote 128] The Brittani of the time of St. Patrick are to be found in the country that lies between Boulogne and Amiens. It is there that Lanigan came upon the first authentic traces of the origin of our apostle.
[Footnote 127: Lobineau. D. Gui Alexis, "Histoire de Bretagne. " Paris, 1707.]
[Footnote 128: Plinii Secundi, "Historia Naturalis; de Gallia," 1. iv. The editors of the Dauphin's edition have a note on the word Brittaui, which is worth quotation. "Ita libri omnes. Hi inter Gessoriacenses Ambianosqne medii, in ora similiter positi, ea loca teuuere certè, ubi nunc oppida Stapulae, Monetrolium, Hesdinium, et adjacentem agrum, Ponticum ad Somonam amnem. Cluverius hic Briannos legi mavult." See also the learned essay on the Britons of Armorica in the "Acta Sanctorum, Vitâ S. Ursulae;" Octobris, vol. ix., p. 108. A glance at the map will show the close relation of the district marked by the present towns of Etaples, Montreuil, Hesdin, and Ponthieu to the localities named a little farther on. That the Britons of Great Britain originally came from this district is declared in the Welsh Triads, thus: "The three beneficent tribes of the Isle of Britain. The first was the nation of the Cymmry, who came with Hu the mighty to the Isle of Britain, who would not possess nor country nor lands through writing and persecution, but of equity and in peace; the second was the stock of the Lioegrians, who came from the land of Gwasgwyn (Gascolgne), and were descended from the primitive stock of the Cymmry: the third were the Brython, and from the land of Llydaw they came, having their descent from the primary stock of the Cymmry." And again, Cynan is spoken of as lord of Meirlon (probably a Celtic form of the word Morini) in Llydaw. Taliessin also mentions the Morini Btython in his Prif Gyfarch, Lydaw, Latinized Letavia, is one of the early Celtic names of the country of the Morini, as Neustria, in the Life by Probus, was that given in the Merovingian period to the whole province between the Meuse and Loire, including Boulogne of course. Pliny mentions Boulogne itself as the Portus Morinorum Brittanicus. ]
He was guided to his conclusion, mainly, I think, by the "History of the Morini," published in the year 1639, by the Jesuit Malbrancq, [Footnote 129] and which seems strangely to have escaped the notice of every earlier Irish writer. In this work, there are two chapters devoted to the tradition of the connection of St. Patrick with the see of Boulogne. Malbrancq relates this tradition, which states that previous to his departure for the Irish mission, St. Patrick remained for some time at Boulogne, occupied in preaching against the Pelagian heresy, to contend with which Saint Germanus and Lupus had crossed over to Britain. Malbrancq refers, in proof of this fact, to the "Chronicon Morinense," to the Catalogue of the Bishops of Boulogne, and to the "Life of St. Arnulphus of Soissons." This tradition is to a certain extent a clue in tracing the early and intimate connection of St. Patrick with this country—but as yet it is nothing more.
[Footnote 129: Malbrancq, Jacobus, "De Morinis et Morinrum rebus. " Tornaci Nerviorum,1639—1654.]
The critical question is, whether the four names given by St. Patrick himself, and by St. Fiech, can be identified with any localities now known either in the district of Boulogne or any other district in which toward the close of the fourth century it is possible to find the conditions of Roman government and British blood combined? Before Lanigan there was, it seems to me, no serious attempt made to solve this question. The scholiast whose authority was so unhesitatingly adopted by Colgan and Usher simply says, "Nempthur est civitas in Brittania Septentrionali, nempe Alcluid." There is not a word more. He does not attempt to show how Nempthur and Alcluid are to be considered as convertible terms. Nor does he attempt to interpret the names of the three localities stated by St. Patrick himself. The same may be said, in the most sweeping way, of the biographies and the breviaries.
I will now read the reasons which Lanigan gives for identifying Bonaven with Boulogne, and Taberniae with a city very famous in the wars of the middle ages, long before Arras had been fortified by Vauban or defended by General Owen Roe O'Neill. It will be observed that Lanigan does not attempt to identify the two other localities Enon and Nempthur. The former he regarded as too insignificant, the latter he did not believe had any existence. I will not say that his proof with regard to the identity of Boulogne with Bonaven is conclusive; but if the whole of his proof rested on as strong presumptive grounds, little would remain to be said on the subject. The second part of it is, however, in my humble opinion, wholly erroneous. He says:
"Colgan acknowledges that there is an ancient tradition among the inhabitants of Armoric Britain that St. Patrick was born in their country, and that some Irishmen were of the same opinion. He quotes some passages from Probus and others whence they argued in proof of their position, but omits, through want of attention to that most valuable document, the following passage of 'St. Patrick's Confession:' My father was Calpurnius, a deacon, son of Potitus, a priest of the town Bonavem Taberniae. He had near the town a small villa, Enon, where I became a captive.' Here we have neither a town Nemthor nor Alcluit. Nor will any British antiquary be able to find out a place in Great Britain to which the names Bonavem Taberniae can be applied. Usher, although he had quoted these words, has not attempted to give any explanation of them, or to reconcile them with Nemthur.
"The word Taberniae has puzzled not only Colgan, but some of the authors of the Lives which he chose to follow; for while they left out Bonavem as not agreeing with Nemthur, they retained Taberniae, or, as they were pleased to write it, Taburniae, which they endeavored to account for by making it a district that got its name from having been the site of a Roman camp in which there were tents or tabernacles. Colgan, who swallowed all this stuff, quotes Jocelin as his authority for Taburnia being situated near the Clyde, at the South Bank. Great authority, indeed! It is, however, odd that such a place should be unnoticed by all those who have undertaken to elucidate the ancient topography of Great Britain. The places of Roman camps in that country were usually designated by the adjunct castra, whence chester, or cester, in which the names of so many cities and towns in England terminate.
"Bonavem, or Bonaven, was in Armoric Gaul, being the same town as Boulogne-sur-Mer in Picardy. That town was well known to the Romans under the name of Gressoriacum; but about the reign of Constantine the Great the Celtic name Bonaven or Bonaun, alias Bonon, which was Latinized into Bononia, became more general. According to Bullet, who informs us that Am, Aven, On, signify river in the Celtic language, the town was so called from its being at the mouth of a river; Bon, mouth, on or avon, river. Baxter also observes that Bononia is no other than Bonavon or Bonaun, for aven, avem, avon, aun, are pronounced in the same manner. The addition of Taberniae marks its having been in the district of Tarvanna or Tarvenna, alias Tarabanna, a celebrated city not far from Boulogne, the ruins of which still remain under the modern name of Terouanne. The name of this city was extended to a considerable district around it, thence called pagus Tarbannensis, or Tarvanensis regio. Gregory of Tours calls the inhabitants Tarabannenses. It is often mentioned under the name of Civitas Morinorum, having been the principal city of the Morini, in which Boulogne was also situated. Boulogne was so connected with Tarvanna that both places anciently formed but one episcopal see. Thus Jonas, in his 'Life of the Abbot Eustatius,' written near twelve hundred years ago, calls Audomarus Bishop of Boulogne and Tarvanna. It is probable that St. Patrick's reason for designating Bonaven by the adjunct Taberniae was lest it might be confounded with the Bononia of Italy, now Bologna, or with a Bononia in Aquitain, in the same manner that, to avoid a similar confusion, the French call it at present Boulogne-sur-Mer. Perhaps it will be objected that Tabernia is a different name from Tarvenna. In the first place, it may be observed that, owing to the usual commutation of b for v, and vice versâ, we might read Tavernia. Thus we have seen that Tarvenna was called by some Tarabanna. To account for the further difference of the names, nothing more is required than to admit the [{751}] transposition of a syllable or a letter, which has frequently occurred in old words, and particularly names of places. Nogesia, the name of a town, becomes Genosia. Dunbritton has been modified into Dunbertane, Dunbarton, Dumbarton. Probus agrees with the 'Confession,' except that, according to Colgan's edition, for Bonavem Taberniae he has 'Bannave Tyburniae regionis,' and adds that it was not far from the Western sea or Atlantic ocean. Although we may easily suppose that some errors of transcription have crept into the text of Probus, yet as to Bannave there is no material difference between it and Bonavem. Ban might be used for Bon; and the final m, which was a sort of nasal termination, as it is still with the Portuguese, could be omitted so as to write for Bonavem, or Bonaum (v and u being the same letter), Bonaue. Probus' addition of regionis is worth noticing, as it corresponds with what has been said concerning the Tarvanensis regio. "
I think the proof in this passage with regard to the word Bonaven is very strong. The passage which Lanigan cites from Bexter distinctly says, "Gallorum Bononia eodem pene est etymo; quasi dicas Bon-avon sive Bonaun." The derivation of the word is clear enough. Avon even in England retains its Celtic signification of a river. But the passage identifying the Tabernia of Boulogne with Therouanne is in my opinion altogether incorrect. Where he accounts for the change in the structure of the word by the usual transmutation of b and v, he overlooks the letter r—a letter which does not melt into the music of patois by any means so easily. Again, he hardly lays sufficient stress on the fact that the word Taberniae is invariably understood in all the scholia, and in all the lives, to mean the Campus tabernaculorum—the barracks and district occupied by a Roman army. In fine, he confuses Therouanne, which is at a distance of thirty miles from Boulogne, and certainly did not stand in the relation he supposes to it, with another city some twenty miles still further away. But Malbrancq, who was his chief authority, does not omit to mention that Tervanna and Taruanna are two absolutely distinct places: Tervanna was the old Roman name of the town now known as Saint Pol [Footnote 130]—Taruanna that of Therouenne.
[Footnote 130: "Comitum Tervanensium Annales Historici," Collectore Th. Turpin Paulinati. Ord. Predicat. 1731.]
It is very possible—I may add to the proof concerning the word Bonaven—that it may have been written originally Bononen, for Bononenses Taberniae. Any one familiar with the form of the letters of the early Irish alphabet, indeed of almost all early manuscript, will readily comprehend how easily an o might be written for an a, an n for a v, and vice versâ, by a scribe ignorant of the exact locality, and copying from a half-defaced document. Any one who looks at the form of the letters in the alphabet of the "Book of Kells," given in Dr. O'Donovan's Grammar, will conceive at a glance how this might have happened.
Assuming, however, that Lanigan is correct in his conjecture as to Boulogne, I have endeavored to discover whether the other localities named in the "Confession" and "Hymn" can be identified with localities now existing within the proper circumscription of the Roman military occupation around that city, and of a certain and unquestionable antiquity. I need not inform the academy of the great military importance of Boulogne at the time of which we treat. It was the point from which England had been invaded. It was the principal military settlement of the Romans in Northern Gaul. Julian the Apostate had held his headquarters there shortly before St. Patrick's birth. The country all around is marked by roads and mounds, which exhibit the rigid lines and stern solidity of Roman construction. I learn from a recent essay by [{752}] M. Quenson, an accomplished scholar of Saint Omer, that eighty-eight different works have been written to settle the site of the Portus Itius, whence Caesar embarked to invade Britain, and nineteen different localities assigned. Since M. Quenson wrote, M. de Saulcy has again opened, and this time I think finally determined, that controversy. Perhaps I am so far fortunate that the absorbing zeal with which this difficult problem has been pursued, in a country of such zealous scholars, still leaves to a stranger somewhat to glean, in places far inland from the famous port which they have so long labored to identify.
The localities to which St. Patrick refers have, I find, all been preserved with the least alteration of their etymology that it is possible to conceive in the space of so many centuries; and this, I may add, is peculiarly wonderful in a country where so many Roman names have, by the friction of the much mixed dialects of northern France, been almost frayed out of recognition. Who would suppose, for example, taking some of the familiar names of the department, that Fampoux was the Fanum Pollucis, Dainville Dianae villa, Lens Elena, Etaples Stapulae, Hermaville Hermetis villa, Hesdin Helenum, Souchez Sabucetum, Surques Surcae, Ervillers Herivilla, Tingry Tingriacum? [Footnote 131] And yet regarding these names there is no doubt that the modern French is a corruption of the old Latin form. Of the localities, which I proceed to designate, I submit that each has kept its original name with far less violation of the ancient word. The Enon, the Nemthur, the Taberniae of St. Patrick are, to my mind, manifest in comparison with the majority of a hundred other localities in the Boulonnais which undoubtedly derive their titles from a Roman source.
[Footnote 131: The name of the neighboring village of Ardres has run through the following traceable variations since the Roman period: Horda, Ardra, Ards, Ardrea, Ardes, Ardres.]
In the first place, let us take the word Enon. The river Liane, which runs into the sea at Boulogne, was known to the Romans as the Fluvius Enna. It is so marked on the most ancient maps of northern Gaul. It is so written in Latin by Malbrancq. Near Desvres—once called Desurennes, or Desvres-sur-Ennes—there is marked a little village of the same name, called also Enna. I will not be said to strain language, which has survived so many centuries, very severely when I venture to identify St. Patrick's Enon with this undoubtedly Roman Enon.
Lanigan totally disbelieved in the existence of the town called Nempthor. I could not do so; nor underrate the importance of identifying it, if possible, in such an inquiry as this. But the difficulty of discovering this place was hitherto greatly increased by a mistranslation of its meaning, for which I believe Colgan is responsible. The word was always supposed to mean "Holy Tower"—Neim, holy, and Tur, tower—until Professor Eugene O'Curry, when compiling, some years ago, his valuable catalogue of the Irish MSS. of the British Museum, after a minute examination of the manuscript, which is the oldest copy of the "Hymn" in existence, came to the conclusion that the word should really be written "Emtur," as it is indeed, though by accident I take it, in some of the breviaries. "The place of St. Patrick's birth," he says, "is generally written Nemtur; but there is clear evidence that the N is but a prefix introduced to fill the hiatus in the text, and that Emtur is the proper form of the word." The word, then, means not holy tower, but the tower of some place or person indicated by the word Em. Some eight miles distant from Desvres, toward the north, still within the military circumscription of which it is the centre, there is such a place. The river Em, or Hem, flows past a village of so great an antiquity, that even in the ordinary geographical dictionaries the record is preserved that Julius Caesar slept [{753}] there on his way to embark for the invasion of Britain. [Footnote 132] The town contains a Roman arch and the ruins of a Roman tower, from which the village derives its name. The name is Tournehem, or, as it was written in Malbrancq's time, Tur-n-hem. The tower and the river show the derivation of the word at a glance. The exigencies of Irish verse simply caused their transposition. I have only to add to Mr. O'Curry's ingenious note on the subject the remark that the n was not, as he supposes, merely inserted to fill up a hiatus in the line, but was obviously a part of it. It is a copulative as common in Celtic words as de in modern French, and has precisely the same meaning. Ballynamuck, for example, means the town of, or on, the river Muck. Tulloch na Daly (whose swelling dimensions the French afterward curbed into the famous name of Tollendall) is a more apposite instance.
[Footnote 132: "Ce lieu existait lorsque les l'egions romaines penétrèrent dans la Morinie, l'an de Rome 697, ou 57 ans avant l'ère valgaire, et consistait alors en un château fort garni de tours, d'où eat venu, selon Malbrancq, la dénomination de Tournehem du Latin à Turribus. César s'empara de ce château et y fit quelque séjour pour l'avantage de ea cavalerie. Environ deux siècles et demi après, c'est à dire en 218, Septime-Sévère, autre empereur romain, fit camper dans le voisinage de Tournehem (sur la montagne de Saint Louis) une partie de son armée destinée pour une expédition contre le Grand Bretagne, qu'll effectua glorieusement la même année."—P. Collet, "Notice Historique de Saint Omer suivi de celles de Therouanne el de Tournehem. " Saint Omer, 1830. Both M. Collet and Père Malbrancq, however, overlook the obvious derivation of the word—though both note the name of the river which flows through the town, and which M. Collet calls "la rivière de Hem ou de Saint Louis. " Again, M. H. Piers, in the "Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaries de la Morinie" (Saint Omer. 1834) says, '"César après s'être emparé des forteresses de la contrée s'y rendit de Ther ouanne, Sithieu et Tournehem, l'an 55 on 56 avant l'ère vulgaire, pour subjuguer la Grande Bretagne." In the same volume there is an interesting paper by M. Pigauit de Beaupré on the castle of Tournehem, which, he says, was partially rebuilt by Baldwin II., Count of Guines, in 1174, and continued to be a principal residence of the Dukes of Burgundy at so late a date as 1485. But the vastness and solidity of the works which he describes, some of them subterranean roads evidently used for communication with other fortified works, clearly indicate their Roman character. Baldwin, indeed, a prince far in advance of his age, seems to have attempted to revive Roman ideas, and rebuild Roman works wherever he found them within his dominions. The castle of Hâmes, near Calais, which he likewise rebuilt, and which he ceded to the English as part of the ransom of King John of France, was also, as M. Pigault de Beaupré shows, of Roman construction.]
I have yet to identify the Taberniae. To the eye, and on the old maps, they almost identify themselves. Desvres has all the characters of a great Roman military position—a vast place of arms, the tracings of fortified walls, the fosse, lines of circumvallation, and hard by on the forest edge the Sept Voies or Septemvium, the meeting of the seven great military roads leading from and to the other principal strongholds of the imperial power in northern and western Europe. Any one who examines in particular the "Carte des Voies Romaines du Département du Pas de Calais," published by the Commission of Departmental Antiquities, [Footnote 133] cannot fail to perceive that this now obscure village, which certainly never was raised to the rank of a Roman city, was nevertheless once a great nucleus of Roman power. The fragment of an ancient bridge is still known as the Pont de Caesar. The Septemvium, with its remarkable concentration of roads, is alone sufficient to indicate the importance of the place. There is one road leading straight to Amiens; one that reaches the sea by the mouth of the Canche; another that runs to the harbor of Boulogne; another that joins the roads from Saint Omer and from Tournehem, and carries them on to Wissante and Sangate, the supposed Portus Itius and Portus Inferior; the fifth road was to Tervanna and Arras; the sixth to Taruanna; the seventh to Saint Omer. Would so many roads, communicating with places of such military importance, have been concentrated by a race of such a centralizing talent as the Romans anywhere except at the cite of a great city or a great camp? On the ancient maps, indeed, the country which lies between Desvres and Boulogne, along the Liane, is simply marked Castrum.
[Footnote 133: "Statistique Monurnentale du Département du Pas de Calais. Publiée par la Commission des Antiquités Departementales. " Arras: chez Topino, Libraire, 1840.]
I now approach, not unconscious of its difficulties, the etymology of the word. In the lax Latin of the middle ages, we find Desvres spoken of as Divernia Bononiensis. There is the epitaph of a churchman, born in the place, which says on his behalf:
"Me Molinet peperit Divernia Bononiensis."
The local historian, Baron d'Ordre, speaks of the place as "Désurène, Divernia, aujourd'hui Desvres." [Footnote 134] The name Desvres itself evidently has undergone strange, yet traceable, variations and modifications. [Footnote 135] Its first appearance as a French word is "Desurennes," and this is derived from Desvres sur Enna, or Desvres upon the Enna or Liane, which, as I have said, flows past the place, giving its name to a little village near the forest. By this derivation, however, only the first two letters of the original word Desvres are left. How do they disappear, why do they reappear in the modern form of the word, and what is its original derivation?
[Footnote 134: "Notice historique sur la ville de Désurène Divernia, aujourd'hui Desvres." Par M. d'Ordre. Boulogne, 1811.]
[Footnote 135: "II n'y pas 50 ans que le nom de Desvres a prevalu sur celul de Desurenne que cette ville avait tonjours porté auparavant."—M. L. Cousin "Mémoires de la Société des Antiquarires de la Morinie," vol. iv., p. 239. M. Cousin's papers on Monthulin and Tingry, in the Transactions of this society, are in general accord with what I have said of the ancient military importance of the whole district of Desvres.]
It is a very curious fact, that in England the Roman camps seem to have been always known as "Castra," while in Gaul the Tabernae is the name which generally adhered to them. Lanigan says, and correctly, so far as I have been able to discover, that there is no trace of a Roman station called Tabernae in England, while the affix chester is the most common in its topography. In England, it may be said the Romans encamped; in France, the Tabernae meant a more settled and familiar residence, as familiar as the Caserne of the empire. It would be interesting to inquire whether as many cities in France do not derive their origin from these military stations as England has of Chesters. But the student who attempts this task will be sure to find the Latin word almost defaced beyond power of recognition by the etymological maltreatment which it has sustained in that conflict of consonants which has resulted in the present high polish of Academic French. I may mention one or two instances to show how little violence I do to French philology in identifying the Divernia Bononiensis of the middle ages with the Tabenae of Boulogne. Saveme in Lorraine is well known to be the Tabenae Triborocrum. It was known in a semi-Germanic form as Elsas Tabern. Gradually the sibilant ss of the first word invaded the second; and it has long settled down into one word in the form of Saveme. The Tabernae Rhenanae, on the other hand, retained the hard b instead of converting it into v, as inevitably happened in the south, and instead changed the T into Z Rhein-Zabren. In ages which had no hesitation in changing the pure dental T into the sibilant dentals S or Z, it will not be considered surprising that it was sometimes changed into D—the only other pure dental sound. Indeed, of all the transmutations of letters, those of d and t and those of v and b, are notoriously the most common. "The Irish d," says O'Donovan, "never has such a hard sound as the English d. " Again, "In ancient writings, t is frequently substituted for d. " Again, "It should be remarked that in ancient Irish MSS. consonants of the same organ are very frequently substituted for each other, and that where the ancients usually wrote p, c, t, the moderns write b, q, d." [Footnote 136] Decline the Irish word Tâd, father. It becomes Ei dâd, his father; Ei thâd, her father; by nhâd my father. We carry the tendency into English. The mistake is one from which certain parts of Ireland as well as certain parts of France are not exempt even to the present day; and in Munster one may still [{755}] hear, as in the times when the ballad of "Lillibullero" was written, the letter d occasionally used where the tongue intended t or th. Nor is this vagary of speech confined to the Irish. Why do the Welsh say Tafyd for David? It is the most frequently recurring of that systematic permutation of consonants which is one of the chief difficulties of the Cymbric tongue. The Welsh d and t turn about and wheel about in their mysterious alphabet without the slightest scruple. In Germany the convertibility of the same letters is also very marked. The German says das for that, Dank for thanks, Durst for thirst; and again Teufel for devil, Tanz for dance, Theil for dial. As to the same abuse in France, the dictionary of the Academy and that of Bescherelle [Footnote 137] lay down the principle very plainly: "Le t est une lettre à la fois linguale et dentale, comme le d son correlatif, plus faible, plus doux, avec lequel il est fréquemment confondu, nonseulement dans les langues germaniques, mais dans la plupart des langues. En latin, cette lettre so permute fréquemment avec le d: attulit pour adtulit. On écrivit primitivement set, aput, quot, haut, au lieu de sed, apud, quod, hand."
[Footnote 136: O'Donovan, John, LL.D., "A Grammar of the Irish Language." Dublin, 1845.]
[Footnote 137: "Dictionnaire de l'Académie Française," Bescherelle, "Dictionnaire National. " Paris, 1857.]
So far as to the permutation of T and D. I will not waste the time of the reader in order to show that the conversion of v into b is even more common. We find a familiar illustration of it in the old Latin name of Ireland, which, as every one knows, is variously written Ibernia, Ivernia, Hibernia, Juvernia, and Iernia. But the English word tavern, which is exactly derived from the Latin Taberniae, is a still more apposite illustration in the present case. In this word, finally, the intermediate vowel swayed in sound with the consonants which inclosed it. As the primary Latin T changed into the softer and feebler D, and the b into v, the intermediate a lost its full force. The mediaeval Latin melts into i in Divernia. The modern French form, Desvres, brings it half-way back toward its place at the head of the alphabet. It does not run the whole gamut of the vowels, as from Ibernia to Juvernia.
This Divernia Bononiensis, then, I claim to identify with the Taberniae Bononienses, Tournehem with Nemtur or Emtor, Enna with Enon. If it were necessary even to push the proof a step further, there is the district called Le Wicquet, which M. Jean Scoti, who was lieutenant particulier de la Sennechaussée de Boulogne, tells us is undoubtedly derived from the Latin Vicus, and which might naturally be the vico Bonaven Taberniae of which the "Confession" speaks; but the historian of Desvres, Baron d'Ordre, whom I have already cited, disputes this derivation, and says the word is Celtic, and comes from Wic, Celtic for wood, like our word wicket. Both may be right, for Vicus may be a Latin form of the same word. [Footnote 138] But the point is not material.
[Footnote 138: Among the names of villages in this district of whose history I could find no trace, is one called Erin, the place where Blessed Benedict Joseph Labre was born.]
Let me now add to the etymological evidence a few historical illustrations.
St. Patrick is stated in almost all his biographies to have been a nephew of St. Martin of Tours. St. Martin, though said to be a Celt of Pannonia, was during his military and early ecclesiastical career stationed in this identical district. The well known legend of his division of his cloak with the beggar, who proved to be our Lord himself, is alleged to have taken place at Amiens. It is recorded that he was baptized at Therouanne. The first church raised to his honor was built there. The principal missionaries of the district are said to have been his disciples, and evidently entertained a deep devotion to him, of [{756}] which there are still abundant evidences. [Footnote 139]
[Footnote 139: Of the 420 churches comprised in the ancient diocese of Boulogne, 82 had St. Martin for patron. I also find several dedicated to the Irish St. Maclou and St. Kilian: but, strange to say, not one to St. Victricius.—V. "Histoire des Evêques de Boulogne," par M. l'Abbé E. Van Drival. Boulogne, 1852. ]
St. Patrick, while in captivity at Slemish in Ireland, lived within sight of Scotland. A few miles only separate the coasts at Antrim. But when he escaped, he did not attempt to pass into Scotland. He made his way south, and passed through England to France. He says he was received among the Britons as if (quasi) among his own clan and kin. Doubtless there was close relationship of race and language between the Britons of the island and of the continent. There were Britons and there were Atrebates on both sides of the sea. [Footnote 140] But Britain was not the saint's native place nor his resting-place. He went on, and abode with those whom he calls his brethren of Gaul, "seeing again the familiar faces of the saints of the Lord," until he was summoned to undertake his mission to Ireland.
[Footnote 140: M. Piers, in the paper already cited, quotes H. Amédée Thierry as saying; "Les Brittani furent les premiers qui a'y fixèrent; il habitalent une partie de la Morinie; peut-être par un pieux souvenir ont-ils appelé leur nouvelle patrie la Grande Bretagne. Les Atrebates anglais, originaires de Belgium, résidaient à Caleva ou Galena Atrebatum, à 22 milles de Venta Belgarum dans le canton où est aujourd'hui Windsor." H. Piers adds that there is a tradition that a colony of the Morini had given their name to a distant country of islands which they discovered; but that he has found it impossible to discover the name in any ancient atlas. Perhaps the district of Mourne, on the north-east coast of Ireland, is that indicated. The Irish derivation of the name is at all events identical with the French ]
In his own account of the vision which induced him to undertake the apostolate of Ireland, he says he was called to do so by a man, whose name is variously written Victor, Victoricius, and Victricius. The real name is in all probability Victricius; but if it were Victor or Victoricius, it would be equally easy (were it not for the fear of failing by essaying to prove too much) to identify the source of the saint's inspiration with the same district. Saint Victricius was the great missionary of the Morini at the end of the fourth century; but he had been preceded in that capacity by St. Victoricius, who suffered martyrdom with Sts. Fuscien and Firmin, at Amiens, in A.D. 286. Again, the name Victor is that of a favorite disciple of St. Martin, whom Sulpicius Severns sent to St. Paulinus of Nola, [Footnote 141] and of whom they both write in terms of extraordinary encomium. But the person referred to in the "Confession" is far more probably St. Victricius, [Footnote 142] who was an exact contemporary of St. Patrick, who was engaged on the mission of Boulogne at the time of his escape, and who is said to have been a French Briton himself. Malbrancq's "Annals of the See of Boulogne" aver that in the year 390 the "Morini a Domino Victricio exculti sunt," and that in the year 400 he dedicated their principal church to St Martin. [Footnote 143]
[Footnote 141: S. Paulini Nolani "Opera. " Epistola xxiii. in the "Patrologiae Cursus Compietus" of J. P. Migne, vol. lxi. Paris, 1847. See also the two epistles to St. Victricius, who with St. Martin persuaded Paulinus to withdraw from the world. I hare a suspicion that the disciple of St. Victricius, named in these epistles now as Paschasius, now as Tytichus or Tytius (the name being evidently misprinted, but there being no doubt, as the Bollandists say, that the two names refer to one and the same person), may have been in reality St. Patrick. In his 17th Epistle, St. Paulinus refers to the accounts he had heard from this young priest of the anxiety of St. Victricius for the evangelization of the most remote parts of the globe, and speaks of him as a disciple in every way worthy of his master; "In cujus gratia el humauitate, quasi quasdam virtutam gratiarumque tuarum lineas velut speculo reddente collegimus.">[
[Footnote 142: Franciscus Pommeraeus, O. S. B.. In his "History of the Bishops of Rouen." says St. Victricius was also sometimes called Victoricus and Victoricius.]
[Footnote 143: See also "Acta Sanctorum Augustii;" tom. ii., p. 193. Antverpiae, 1735.]
When St. Patrick was on his way to Ireland, with full powers from Pope Celestine, it is recorded that he was detained at Boulogne by the request of Sts. Germanus and Lupus, who were proceeding into Britain in order to preach against the Pelagian heresy; and that during their absence he temporarily exercised episcopal functions at Boulogne, and so came to be included in the list of its bishops. If St. Patrick were a native of the island, is it not probable that Germanus and Lupus would rather have [{757}] invited him to join their mission? But their object in asking him to interrupt his own special enterprise for a time in order to remain among the Boulonnais was, it is said, to guard against the spread of this heresy on the continent. And it is very natural that they should have asked him to stay for such an object, and that he should have consented, if this were indeed his native district, in which his intimacies were calculated to give him a special degree of influence; but not otherwise, hastening as he was under the sense of a divine call to the conversion of a whole nation plunged in paganism.
And, as I began by saying, all this proof is important mainly because it tends in some degree to elucidate the spirit and the work of the saint. We begin to see how with the Celtic character of a French Briton, which made him easily akin to the Irish, he combined the Roman culture and civilization, which added to his missions peculiar literary and political energy, that long remained. We see in him the friend and comrade of the great saints of a great but anxious age. We see how he connects the young Church of Ireland, not with Rome alone, but with the great militant Christian communities of Gaul—a connection which his disciples were destined so to develope and extend in the three following centuries; and we cease to wonder that both Ireland and France have clung so fondly to a tradition which linked together in their earliest days two churches whose mutual services and sympathies have ever since been of the closest kind.
From The Lamp.
THE BETTER PART.
"Sweet sister Lucille, I watch thee working,
From morning till nightfall, on cloth of gold,
On silks of purple, and finest linen,
And gems lie before you of worth untold.
Makest thou vestments for holy preacher,
And cloths to adorn the altar rare?"
"Ha, ha!" quoth Lucille, "thou simple creature!
The garments I make I intend to wear.
Dost thou not see I am nobly fashioned,
Regal indeed is my bearing and mien;
Are not my features as finely chiselled
As e'en were the features of Egypt's queen?
I'll work, and work, and I'll never weary,
Until rich garments be duly wrought,
Suited to clothe my unrivalled form.
For which tissues fitting cannot be bought.
[{758}] But, my gentle Mary, I watch thee praying.
And wasting many a precious day,
Sauntering out amid lanes and alleys,
And taking to beggars upon the highway.
You bring them on to sit at your table,
You feed them on savory meat and wine;
Are they above you, that you should clothe them,
And so humbly serve while they feast and dine?"
Then answered Mary: "God's poor, my sister,
Are more than our equals, I should say;
One day they'll feast in the kingdom of heaven,
For Christ will call them from hedge and highway.
I too am working a costly garment
With tears and penance, fasting and prayer;
'Tis to clothe my soul, and with God's needy
The raiment I weave I hope to wear."
Each walked her way through this vain world;
Lucille lived with courtiers who gave her praise,
Solicitous still to adorn her person,
She frittered time to the end of her days;
She work'd, and work'd, and never felt weary.
Changing her costume as changed her will;
When death came, unfinished still were her garments,
But withered and sinful he found Lucille.
Each walked her way through this vain world;
Mary sought neither courtiers nor praise,
But in the lazar-house, firm and steadfast.
Good she worked to the end of her days.
She smooth'd the couch of the sick and dying,
She taught the sinner the ways of the Lord,
She gave to the "little ones" drink refreshing;
Verily she shall not lose her reward.
From The Month.
CONSTANCE SHERWOOD:
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.
(CONCLUDED.)
CHAPTER XXVI.
On the night before the 10th of December neither Muriel nor I retired to rest. We sat together by the rush-light, at one time saying prayers, at another speaking together in a low voice. Ever and anon she went to listen at her father's door, for to make sure he slept, and then returned to me. The hours seemed to pass slowly; and yet we should have wished to stay their course, so much we dreaded the first rays of light presaging the tragedy of the coming day. Before the first token of it did show, at about five in the morning, the door-bell rung in a gentle manner.
"Who can be ringing?" I said to Muriel.
"I will go and see," she answered.
But I restrained her, and went, to call one of the servants, who were beginning to bestir themselves. The man went down, and returned, bringing me a paper, on which these words were written:
"MY DEAR CONSTANCE—My lord and myself have secretly come to join our prayers with yours, and, if it should be possible, to receive the blessing of the holy priest who is about to die, as he passeth by your house, toward which, I doubt not, his eyes will of a surety turn. I pray you, therefore, admit us."
I hurried down the stairs, and found Lord and Lady Arundel standing in the hall; she in a cloak and hood, and he with a slouching hat hiding his face. Leading them both into the parlor, which looketh on the street, I had a fire hastily kindled; and for a space her ladyship and myself could only sit holding each other's hands, our hearts being too full to speak. After a while I asked her when she had come to London. She said she had done so very secretly, not to increase the queen's displeasure against her husband; her majesty's misliking of herself continuing as great as ever.
"When she visited my lord last year, before his arrest," quoth she, "on a pane of glass in the dining-room her grace perceived a distich, writ by me in bygone days with a diamond, and which expressed hopes of better fortunes."
"I mind it well," I replied. "Did it not run thus?
'Not seldom doth the sun sink down In brightest light
Which rose at early dawn disfigured quite outright;
So shall my fortunes, wrapt so long in darkest night,
Revive, and show ere long an aspect clear and bright.'"
"Yea," she answered. "And now listen to what her majesty, calling for a like instrument, wrote beneath:
'Not seldom do vain hopes deceive a silly heart
Let all each witless dreams now vanish and depart;
For fortune shall ne'er shine, I promise thee, on one
Whose folly hath for aye all hopes thereof undone.'
"We do live," she added, "with a sword hanging over our heads; and it is meet we should come here this day to learn a lesson how to die when a like fate shall overtake us. But thou hast been like to die by another means, my good Constance," her ladyship said, looking with kindness but no astonishment on my swollen and disfigured face, which I had not remembered to conceal; grave thoughts, then uppermost, having caused me to forget it.
"My life," I answered, "God hath mercifully spared; but I have lost the semblance of my former self."
"Tut, tut!" she replied, "only for a time."
And then we both drew near unto the fire, for we were shivering with cold. Lord Arundel leant against the chimney, and watched the timepiece.
"Mistress Wells," he said, "is like, I hear, to be reprieved at the last moment."
"Alas!" I cried, "nature therein finds relief; yet I know not how much to rejoice or yet to grieve thereat. For surely she will desire to die with her husband. And of what good will life be to her if, like some others, she doth linger for years in prison?"
"Of much good, if God wills her there to spend those years," Muriel gently said; which words, I ween, were called to mind long afterward by one who then heard them.
As the hour appointed for the execution approached, we became silent again, and kneeling down betook ourselves to prayer. At eight o'clock a crowd began to assemble in the street; and the sound of their feet as they passed under the window, hurrying toward the scaffold, which was hung with black cloth, became audible. About an hour afterward notice was given to us by one of the servants that the sledge which carried the prisoners was in sight. We rose from our knees and went to the window. Mr. Wells's stout form and Mr. Genings's slight figure were then discernible, as they sat bound, with their hands tied behind their backs. I observed that Mr. Wells smiled and nodded to some one who was standing amidst the crowd. This person, who was a friend of his, hath since told me that as he passed he saluted him with these words: "Farewell, dear companion! farewell, all hunting and hawking and old pastimes! I am now going a better way." Mistress Wells not being with them, we perceived that to be true which Lord Arundel had heard. At that moment I turned round, and missed Muriel, who had been standing close behind me. I supposed she could not endure this sight; but, lo and behold, looking again into the street, I saw her threading her way amongst the crowd as swiftly, lame though she was, as if an angel had guided her. When she reached the foot of the scaffold, and took her stand there, her aspect was so composed, serene, and resolved, that she seemed like an inhabitant of another world suddenly descended amidst the coarse and brutal mob. She was resolved, I afterward found, to take note of every act, gesture, and word there spoken; and by her means I can here set down what mine own ears heard not, but much of which mine own eyes beheld. As the sledge passed our door, Mr. Genings, as Lady Arundel had foreseen, turned his head toward us; and seeing me at the window, gave us, I doubt not, his blessing; for, albeit he could not raise his chained hand, we saw his fingers and his lips move. On reaching the gibbet Muriel heard him cry out with holy Andrew, "O good gibbet, long desired and now prepared for me, much hath my heart desired thee; and now, joyful and secure, I come to thee. Receive me, I beseech thee, as the disciple of him that suffered on the cross!" Being put upon the ladder, many questions were asked him by some standersby, to which he made clear and distinct answers. Then Mr. Topcliffe cried out with a loud voice,
"Genings, Genings, confess thy fault, thy papist treason; and the queen, no doubt, will grant thee pardon!"
To which he mildly answered, "I know not, Mr. Topcliffe, in what I have offended my dear anointed princess; if I have offended her or any other person in anything, I would willingly ask her and all the world forgiveness. If she be offended with me without a cause, for professing my faith and religion, or because I am a priest, or because I will not turn minister against my conscience, I shall be, I trust, excused and innocent before God. 'We must obey God,' saith St. Peter, 'rather than men;' and I must not in this case acknowledge a fault where there is none. If to return to England a priest, or to say mass, is popish treason, I here do confess I am a traitor. But I think not so; and therefore I acknowledge myself guilty of these things not with repentance and sorrow of heart, but with an open protestation of inward joy that I have done so good deeds, which, if they were to do again, I would, by the permission and assistance of God, accomplish the same, though with the hazard of a thousand lives."
Mr. Topcliffe was very angry at this speech, and hardly gave him time to say an "Our Father" before he ordered the hangman to turn the ladder. From that moment I could not so much as once again look toward the scaffold. Lady Arundel and I drew back into the room, and clasping each other's hands, kept repeating, "Lord, help him! Lord, assist him! Have mercy on him, O Lord!" and the like prayers.
We heard Lord Arundel exclaim, "Good God! the wretch doth order the rope to be cut!" Then avoiding the sight, he also drew back and silently prayed. What followeth I learnt from Muriel, who never lost her senses, though she endured, methinks, at that scaffold's foot as much as any sufferer upon it. Scarcely or not at all stunned, Mr. Genings stood on his feet with his eyes raised to heaven, till the hangman threw him down on the block where he was to be quartered. After he was dismembered, she heard him utter with a loud voice, "Oh, it smarts!" and Mr. Wells exclaim, "Alas! sweet soul, thy pain is great indeed, but almost past. Pray for me now that mine may come." Then when his heart was being plucked out, a faint dying whisper reached her ear, "Sancte Gregori, ora pro me!" and then the voice of the hangman crying, "See, his heart is in mine hand, and yet Gregory in his mouth! O egregious papist!"
I marvel how she lived through it; but she assured us she was never even near unto fainting, but stood immovable, hearing every sound, listening to each word and groan, printing them on the tablet of her heart, wherein they have ever remained as sacred memories.
Mr. Wells, so far from being terrified by the sight of his friend's death, expressed a desire to have his own hastened; and, like unto Sir Thomas More, was merry to the last; for he cried, "Despatch, despatch, Mr. Topcliffe! Be you not ashamed to suffer an old man to stand here so long in his shirt in the cold? I pray God make you of a Saul a Paul, of a persecutor a Catholic." A murmur, hoarse and loud, from the crowd apprised us when all was over.
"Where is Muriel?" I cried, going to the window. Thence I beheld a sight which my pen refuseth to describe—the sledge which was carrying away the mangled remains of those dear friends which so short a time before we had looked upon alive! Like in a dream I saw this spectacle; for the moment afterward I fainted. Many persons were running after the cart, and Muriel keeping pace with what to others would have been a sight full of horror, but to her were only relics of the saintly dead. She followed, heedless of the mob, unmindful of their jeers, intent on one aim—to procure some portion of those sacred remains, which she at last achieved in an incredible manner; one finger of Edmund Genings's hand, which she laid hold of, remaining in hers. This secured, she hastened home, bearing away this her treasure.
When I recovered from a long swoon, she was standing on one side of me and Lady Arundel on the other. Their faces were very pale, but peaceful; and when remembrance returned, I also felt a great and quiet joy diffused in mine heart, such as none, I ween, could believe in who have not known the like. For a while all earthly cares left me; I seemed to soar above this world. Even Basil I could think of with a singular detachment. It seemed as if angels were haunting the house, whispering heavenly secrets. I could not so much as think on those blessed departed souls without an increase of this joy sensibly inflaming my heart.
After Lady Arundel had left us, which she did with many loving words and tender caresses, Muriel and I conversed long touching the future. She told me that when her duty to her father should end with his life, she intended to fulfil the vow she long ago had made to consecrate herself wholly to God in holy religion, and go beyond the seas, to become a nun of the order of St. Augustine.
"May I not leave this world?" I cried; "may I not also, forgetting all things else, live for God alone?"
A sweet sober smile illumined Muriel's face as she answered, "Yea, by all means serve God, but not as a nun, good Constance. Thine I take to be the mere shadow of a vocation, if even so much as that. A cloud hath for a while obscured the sunshine of thy hopes and called up this shadow; but let this thin vapor dissolve, and no trace shall remain of it. Nay, nay, sweet one, 'tis not chafed, nor yet, except in rare instances, riven hearts which God doth call to this special consecration—rather whole ones, nothing or scantily touched by the griefs and joys which this world can afford. But I warrant thee—nay, I may not warrant," she added, checking herself, "for who can of a surety forecast what God's designs should be? But I think thou wilt be, before many years have past, a careful matron, with many children about thy apron-strings to try thy patience."
"O Muriel," I answered, "how should this be? I have made my bed, and I must lie on it. Like a foolish creature, unwittingly, or rather rashly, I have deceived Basil into thinking I do not love him; and if my face should yet recover its old fairness, he shall still think mine heart estranged."
Muriel shook her head, and said more entangled skeins than this one had been unravelled. The next day she resumed her wonted labors in the prisons and amongst the poor. Having procured means of access to Mistress Wells, she carried to her the only comfort she could now taste—the knowledge of her husband's holy, courageous end, and the reports of the last words he did utter. Then having received a charge thereunto from Mr. Genings, she discovered John Genings's place of residence, and went to tell him that the cause of his brother^s coming to London was specially his love for him; that his only regret in dying had been that he was executed before he could see him again, or commend him to any friend of his own, so hastened was his death.
But this much-loved brother received her with a notable coldness; and far from bewailing the untimely and bloody end of his nearest kinsman, he betrayed some kind of contentment at the thought that he was now rid of all the persuasions which he suspected he should otherwise have received from him touching religion.
About a fortnight afterward Mr. Congleton expired. Alas! so troublesome were the times, that to see one, howsoever loved, sink peacefully into the grave, had not the same sadness which usually belongs to the like haps.
Muriel had procured a priest for to give him extreme unction—one Mr. Adams, a friend of Mr. Wells, who had sometimes said mass in his house. He also secretly came for to perform the funeral rites before his burial in the cemetery of St. Martin's church.
When we returned home that day after the funeral, this reverend gentleman asked us if we had heard any report touching the brother of Mr. Genings; and on our denial, he said, "Talk is ministered amongst Catholics of his sudden conversion."
"Sudden, indeed, it should be," quoth Muriel; "for a more indifferent listener to an afflicting message could not be met with than he proved himself when I carried to him Mr. Genings's dying words."
"Not more sudden," quoth Mr. Adams, "than St. Paul's was, and therefore not incredible."
Whilst we were yet speaking, a servant came in, and said a young gentleman was at the door, and very urgent for to see Muriel.
"Tell him," she said, raising her eyes, swollen with tears, "that I have one hour ago buried my father, and am in no condition to see strangers."
The man returned with a paper, on which these words were written:
"A penitent and a wanderer craveth to speak with you. If you shed tears, his do incessantly flow. If you weep for a father, he grieveth for one better to him than ten fathers. If your plight is sad, his should be desperate, but for God's great mercy and a brother's prayers yet pleading for him in heaven as once upon earth.
"JOHN GENINGS."
"Heavens!" Muriel cried, "it is this changed man, this Saul become a Paul, which stands at the door and knocks. Bring him in swiftly; the best comfort I can know this day is to see one who awhile was lost and is now found."
When John Genings beheld her and me, he awhile hid his face in his hands, and seemed unable to speak. To break this silence Mr. Adams said, "Courage, Mr. Genings; your holy brother rejoiceth in heaven over your changed mind, and further blessings still, I doubt not, he shall yet obtain for you."
Then this same John raised his head, and with as great and touching sorrow as can be expressed, after thanking this unknown speaker for his comfortable words, he begged of Muriel to relate to him each action and speech in the dying scene she had witnessed; and when she had ended this recital, with the like urgency he moved me to tell him all I could remember of his brother's young years, all my father had written of his life and virtues at college, all which we had heard of his labors since he had come into the country, and lastly, in a manner most simple and affecting, we all entreating him thereunto, he made this narrative, addressing himself chiefly to Muriel:
"You, madam, are acquainted with what was the hardness of mine heart and cruel indifference to my brother^s fate; with what disdain I listened to you, with what pride I received his last advice. But about ten days after his execution, toward night, having spent all that day in sports and jollity, being weary with play, I resorted home to repose myself. I went into a secret chamber, and was no sooner there sat down, but forthwith my heart began to be heavy, and I weighed how idly I had spent that day. Amidst these thoughts there was presently represented to me an imagination and apprehension of the death of my brother, and, amongst other things, how he had not long before forsaken all worldly pleasure, and for the sake of his religion alone endured dreadful torments. Then within myself I made long discourses concerning his manner of living and mine own; and finding the one to embrace pain and mortification, and the other to seek pleasure—the one to live strictly, and the other licentiously—I was struck with exceeding terror and remorse. I wept bitterly, desiring God to illuminate mine understanding, that I might see and perceive the truth. Oh, what great joy and consolation did I feel at [{764}] that instant! What reverence on the sudden did I begin to bear to the Blessed Virgin and to the Saints of God, which before I had never scarcely so much as heard of! What strange emotions, as it were inspirations, with exceeding readiness of will to change my religion, took possession of my soul! and what heavenly conception had I then of my brother's felicity! I imagined I saw him—I thought I heard him. In this ecstasy of mind I made a vow upon the spot, as I lay prostrate on the ground, to forsake kindred and country, to find out the true knowledge of Edmund's faith. Oh, sir," he ended by saying, turning to Mr. Adams, which he guessed to be a priest, "think you not my brother obtained for me in heaven what on earth he had not obtained? for here I am become a Catholic in faith without persuasion or conference with any one man in the world?"
"Ay, my good friend," Mr. Adams replied; "the blood of martyrs will ever prove the seed of the Church. Let us then, in our private prayers, implore the suffrages of those who in this country do lose their lives for the faith, and take unto ourselves the words of Jeremiah: 'O Lord, remember what has happened unto us. Behold and see our great reproach; our inheritance is gone to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are become as children without a father, our mothers are made as it were widows.'"
These last words of Holy Writ brought to mine own mind private sorrows, and caused me to shed tears. Soon after John Genings departed from England without giving notice to us or any of his friends, and went beyond seas to execute his promise. I have heard that he has entered the holy order of St. Francis, and is seeking to procure a convent of that religion at Douay, in hopes of restoring the English Franciscan province, of which it is supposed he will be first provincial. Report doth state him to be an exceeding strict and holy religious, and like to prove an instrument in furnishing the English mission with many zealous and apostolical laborers.
Muriel and I were solitary in that great city where so many misfortunes had beset us; she with her anchor cast where her hopes could not be deceived; I by mine own folly like unto a ship at sea without a chart. Womanly reserve, mixed, I ween, with somewhat of pride, restraining me from writing to Basil, though, as my face improved each day, I deplored my hasty folly, and desired nothing so much as to see him again, when, if his love should prove unchanged (shame on that word if! which my heart disavowed), we should be as heretofore, and the suffering I had caused him and endured myself would end. But how this might happen I foresaw not; and life was sad and weary while so much suspense lasted.
Muriel would not forsake me while in this plight; but although none could have judged it from her cheerful and amiable behavior, I well knew that she sighed for the haven of a religions home, and grieved to keep her from it. After some weeks spent in this fashion, with very little comfort, I was sitting one morning dismally forecasting the future, writing letter after letter to Basil, which still I tore up rather than send them—for I warrant you it was no easy matter for to express in writing what I longed to say. To tell him the cause of my breaking our contract was so much as to compel him to the performance of it; and albeit I was no longer so ill-favored as at the first, yet the good looks I had before my sickness had by no means wholly returned. Sometimes I wrote: "Your thinking, dear Basil, that I do affection any but yourself is so false and injurious an imagination, that I cannot suffer you to entertain it. Be sure I never can and never shall love any but you; yet, for all that, I cannot marry you." Then effacing this last sentence, which verily belied my true desire, I would write another: "Methinks if you should see me now, yourself would not wish otherwise than to dissolve a contract [{765}] wherein your contentment should be less than it hath been." And then thinking this should be too obscure, changed it to—"In sooth, dear Basil, my appearance is so altered that you would yourself, I ween, not desire for to wed one so different from the Constance you have seen and loved." But pride whispered to restrain this open mention of my suspicious fears of his liking me less for my changed face; yet withal, conscience reproved this misdoubt of one whose affection had ever shown itself to be of the nobler sort, which looketh rather to the qualities of the heart and mind than to the exterior charms of a fair visage.
Alas! what a torment doth perplexity occasion. I had let go my pen, and my tears were falling on the paper, when Muriel opened the door of the parlor.
"What is it?" I cried, hiding my face with mine hand that she should not see me weeping.
"A letter from Lady Arundel," she answered.
I eagerly took it from her; and on the reading of it found it contained an urgent request from her ladyship, couched in most affectionate terms, and masking the kindness of its intent under a show of entreating, as a favor to herself that I would come and reside with her at Arundel Castle, where she greatly needed the solace of a friend's company, during her lord's necessary absences. "Mine own dear, good Constance," she wrote, "come to me quickly. In a letter I cannot well express all the good you will thus do to me. For mine own part, I would fain say come to me until death shall part us. But so selfish I would not be; yet prithee come until such time as the clouds which have obscured the fair sky of thy future prospects have passed away, and thy Basil's fortunes are mended; for I will not cease to call him thine, for all that thou hast thyself thrust a spoke in a wheel which otherwise should have run smoothly, for the which thou art now doing penance: but be of good cheer; time will bring thee shrift. Some kind of comfort I can promise thee in this house, greater than I dare for to commit to paper. Lose no time then. From thy last letter methinks the gentle turtle-dove at whose side thou dost now nestle hath found herself a nest whereunto she longeth to fly. Let her spread her wings thither, and do thou hasten to the shelter of these old walls and the loving faithful heart of thy poor friend,
"ANNE ARUNDEL AND SURREY."
Before a fortnight was overpast Muriel and I had parted; she for her religious home beyond seas, I for the castle of my Lord Arundel, whither I travelled in two days, resting on my way at the pleasant village of Horsham. During the latter part of the journey the road lay through a very wild expanse of down; but as soon as I caught sight of the sea my heart bounded with joy; for to gaze on its blue expanse seemed to carry me beyond the limits of this isle to the land where Basil dwelt. When I reached the castle, the sight of the noble gateway and keep filled me with admiration; and riding into the court thereof, I looked with wonder on the military defences bristling on every side. But what a sweet picture smiled from one of the narrow windows over above the entrance-door!—mine own loved friend, yet fairer in her matronly and motherly beauty than even in her girlhood's loveliness, holding in her arms the pretty bud which had blossomed on a noble tree in the time of adversity. Her countenance beamed on me like the morning sun's; and my heart expanded with joy when, half-way up the stairs which led to her chamber, I found myself inclosed in her arms. She led me to a settle near a cheerful fire, and herself removed my riding-cloak, my hat and veil, stroked my cheek with two of her delicate white fingers, and said with a smile,
"In sooth, my dear Constance, thou art an arrant cheat."
"How so, most dear lady?" I said, likewise smiling.
"Why, thou art as comely as ever I thee; which, after all the torments inflicted on poor Master Rookwood by thy prophetical vision of an everlasting deformity, carefully concealed from him under the garb of a sudden fit of inconstancy, is a very nefarious injustice. Go to, go to; if he should see thee now, he never would believe but that that management of thine was a cunning device for to break faith with him."
"Nay, nay," I cried; "if I should be ever so happy, which I deserve not, for to see him again, there could never be for one moment a mistrust on his part of a love which is too strong and too fond for concealment. If the feebleness of sickness had not bred unreasonable fears, methinks I should not have been guilty of so great a folly as to think he would prize less what he was always wont most to treasure far above their merits—the heart and mind of his poor Constance —because the casket which held them had waxed unseemly. But when the day shall come in which Basil and I may meet, God only knoweth. Human foresight cannot attain to this prevision."
Lady Arundel's eyes had a smiling expression then which surprised me. For mine own heart was full when I thus spoke, and I was wont to meet in her with a more quick return of the like feelings I expressed than at that time appeared. Slight inward resentments, painfully, albeit not angrily, entertained, I was by nature prone to; and in this case the effect of this impression suddenly checked the joy which at my first arrival I had experienced. O, how much secret discipline should be needed for to rule that little unruly kingdom within us, which many look not into till serious rebellions do arise, which need fire and sword to quell them for lack of timely repression! Her ladyship set before me some food, and constrained me to eat, which I did merely for to content her. She appeared to me somewhat restless: beginning a sentence, and then breaking off suddenly in the midst thereof; going in and out of the chamber; laughing at one time, and then seeming as if about to weep. "When I had finished eating, and a servant had removed the dishes, she sat down by my side and took my hand in hers. Then the tears truly began to roll down her cheeks.
"O, for God's sake, what aileth you, dearest lady?" I said, uneasily gazing on her agitated countenance.
"Nothing ails me," she answered; "only I fear to frighten thee, albeit in a joyful manner."
"Frightened with joy!" I sadly answered. "O, that should be a rare fright, and an unwonted one to me of late."
"Therefore," she said, smiling through her tears, "peradventure the more to be feared."
"What joy do you speak of? I pray you, sweet lady, keep me not in suspense."
"If, for instance," she said in a low voice, pressing my hands very hard,—"if I was to tell thee Constance, that thy Basil was here, shouldst thou not be affrighted?"
Methinks I must have turned very white; leastways, I began to tremble.
"Is he here?" I said, almost beside myself with the fearful hope her words awoke.
"Yea," she said. "Since three days he is here."
For a moment I neither spoke nor moved.
"How comes it about? how doth it happen?" I began to say; but a passion of tears choked my utterance. I fell into her arms, sobbing on her breast; for verily I had no power to restrain myself. I heard her say, "Master Rookwood, come in." Then, after those sad long weary years, I again heard his cheerful voice; then I saw his kind eyes speaking what words could never have uttered, or one-half so well expressed. Then I felt the happiness which is most like, [{767}] I ween, of any on earth to that of heaven: after long parting, to meet again one intensely loved—each heart overflowing with an unspoken joy and with an unbounded thankfulness to God. Amazement did so fill me at this unlooked-for good, that I seemed content for a while to think of it as of a dream, and only feared to be awoke. But oh, with how many sweet tears of gratitude—with what bursts of wonder and admiration—I soon learnt how Lady Arundel had formed this kind plot, to which Muriel had been privy, for to bring together parted lovers, and procure to others the happiness she so often lacked herself—the company of the most loved person in the world. She had herself written to Basil, and related the cause of my apparent change; a cause, she said, at no time sufficient for to warrant a desperate action, and even then passing away. But that had it forever endured, she was of opinion his was a love would survive any such accident as touched only the exterior, when all else was unimpaired. She added, that when Mr. Congleton, who was then at the point of death, should have expired, and Muriel gone beyond seas to fulfil her religious intent, she would use all the persuasion in her power to bring me to reside with her, which was the thing she most desired in the world; and that if he should think it possible under another name for to cross the seas and land at some port in Sussex, he should be the welcomest guest imaginable at Arundel Castle, if even, like St. Alexis, he should hide his nobility under the garb of rags, and come thither begging on foot; but yet she hoped, for his sake, it should not so happen, albeit nothing could be more honorable if the cause was a good one. It needed no more inducement than what this letter contained for to move Basil to attempt this secret return. He took the name of Martingale, and procured a passage in a small trading craft, which landed him at the port of a small town named Littlehampton, about three or four miles from Arundel. Thence he walked to the castle, where the countess feigned him to be a leech sent by my lord to prescribe remedies for a pain in her head, which she was oftentimes afflicted with, and as such entertained him in the eyes of strangers as long as he continued there, which did often move us to great merriment; for some of the neighbors which she was forced to see, would sometimes ask for to consult the countess's physician; and to avoid misdoubts, Basil once or twice made up some innocent compounds, which an old gentleman and a maiden lady in the town vowed had cured them, the one of a fit of the gout, and the other of a very sharp disorder in her stomach. But to return to the blissful first day of our meeting, one of the happiest I had yet known; for a paramount affection doth so engross the heart, that other sorrows vanish in its presence like dewdrops in the sunshine. I can never forget the smallest particle of its many joys. The long talk between Basil and me, first in Lady Arundel's chamber, and then in the gallery of the castle, walking up and down, and when I was tired, I sitting and he standing by the window which looked on the fair valley and silvery river Arun, running toward the sea, through pleasant pastures, with woody slopes on both sides, a fair and a peaceful scene; fair and peaceful as the prospect Basil unfolded to me that day, if we could but once in safety cross the seas; for his debtors had remitted to him in France the moneys which they owed him, and he had purchased a cottage in a very commodious village near the town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, with an apple-orchard and a garden stored with gay flowers and beehives, and a meadow with two large walnut-trees in it. "And then bethink thee," he added, "mine own dear love, that right in front of this fine mansion doth stand the parish church, where God is worshipped in a Catholic manner in [{768}] peace and freedom; and nothing greater or more weighty need, methinks, to be said in its praise."
I said I thought so too, and that the picture he drew of it liked me well.
"But," quoth Basil suddenly, "I must tell thee, sweetheart, I liked not well thy behavior touching thine altered face, and the misleading letter thou didst send me at that time. No!" he exclaimed with great vehemency, "it mislikes me sorely that thou shouldst have doubted my love and faith, and dealt with me so injuriously. If I was now by some accident disfigured, I must by that same token expect thine affection for me should decay."
"O Basil!" I cried, "that would be an impossible thing!"
"Wherefore impossible?" he replied; "you thought such a change possible in me?"
"Because," I said, smiling, "women are the most constant creatures in the world, and not fickle like unto men, or so careful of a good complexion in others, or a fine set of features."
"Tut, tut!" he cried, "I do admire that thou shouldst dare to utter so great a . . . ." then he stopped, and, laughing, added, "the last half of Raleigh's name, as the queen's bad riddle doth make it." [Footnote 144]
[Footnote 144: "The bane of the stomach, and the word of disgrace. Is the name of the gentleman with the bold.">[
Well, much talk of this sort was ministered between us; but albeit I find pleasure in the recalling of it, methinks the reading thereof should easily weary others; so I must check my pen, which, like unto a garrulous old gossip, doth run on, overstepping the limits of discretion.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Before I arrived, Lady Arundel had made Basil privy to a great secret, with warrant to impart it to me. In a remote portion of the castle's buildings was concealed at that time Father Southwell, a man who had not his like for piety and good parts; a sweet poet also, whose pieces of verse, chiefly written in that obscure chamber in Arundel Castle, have been since done into print, and do win great praise from all sorts of people. Adjoining to his room, which only one servant in the house, who carried his meals to him, had knowledge of, and from which he could not so much as once look out of the window for fear of being seen, was a small oratory where he said mass every day, and by a secret passage Lady Arundel went from her apartments for to hear it. That same evening after supper she led me thither for to get this good priest's blessing, and also his counsel touching my marriage; for both her ladyship and Basil were urgent for it to take place in a private manner at the castle before we left England. For, they argued, if there should be danger in this departure, it were best encountered together; and except we were married it should be an impossible thing for me to travel in his company and land with him in France. Catholics could be married in a secret manner now that the needs of the times, and the great perils many were exposed to, gave warrant for it. After some talk with Father Southwell and Lady Arundel, I consented to their wishes with more gladness of heart, I ween, than was seemly to exhibit; for verily I was better contented than can be thought of to think I should be at last married to my dear Basil, and nevermore to part from him, if it so pleased God that we should land safely in France, which did seem to me then the land of promise.
The next days were spent in forecasting means for a safe departure, as soon as these secret nuptials should have taken place; but none had been yet resolved on, when one morning I was called to Lady Arundel's chamber, whom I found in tears and greatly disturbed, for that she had heard from Lady Margaret Sackville, who [{769}] was then in London, that Lord Arundel was once more resolved to leave the realm, albeit Father Edmunds did dissuade him from that course; but some other friend's persuasions were more availing, and he had determined to go to France, where he might live in safety and serve God quietly.
My lady's agitation at this news was very great. She said nothing should content her but to go with him, albeit she was then with child; and she should write to tell him so; but before she could send a letter Lord Arundel came to the castle, and held converse for many hours with her and Father Southwell. When I met her afterward in the gallery, her eyes were red with weeping. She said my lord desired to see Basil and me in her chamber at nine of the clock. He wished to speak with us of his resolve to cross the seas, and she prayed God some good should arise out of it. Then she added, "I am now going to the chapel, and if thou hast nothing of any weight to detain thee, then come thither also, for to join thy prayers with mine for the favorable issue of a very doubtful matter."
When we repaired to her ladyship's chamber at the time appointed, my lord greeted us in an exceeding kind manner; and after some talk touching Basil's secret return to England, our marriage, and then as speedy as possible going abroad, his lordship said: "I also am compelled to take a like course, for my evil-willers are resolved to work my ruin and overthrow, and will succeed therein by means of my religion. Many actions which at the outset may seem rash and unadvised, after sufficient consideration do appear to be just and necessary; and, methinks, my dearest wife and Father Southwell are now minded to recommend what at first they misliked, and to see that in this my present intent I take the course which, though it imperils my fortunes, will tend to my soul's safety and that of my children. Since I have conceived this intent, I thank God I have found a great deal more quietness in my mind; and in this respect I have just occasion to esteem my past troubles as my greatest felicity, for they have been the means of leading me to that course which ever brings perfect quietness, and only procures eternal happiness. I am resolved, as my dear Nan well knoweth, to endure any punishment rather than willingly to decline from what I have begun; I have bent myself as nearly as I could to continue in the same, and to do no act repugnant to my faith and profession. And by means hereof I am often compelled to do many things which may procure peril to myself, and be an occasion of mislike to her majesty. For, look you, on the first day of this parliament, when the queen was hearing of a sermon in the cathedral church of Westminster, above in the chancel, I was driven to walk by myself below in one of the aisles; and another day this last Lent, when she was hearing another sermon in the chapel at Greenwich, I was forced to stay all the while in the presence-chamber. Then also when on any Sunday or holyday her grace goes to her great closet, I am forced either to stay in the privy chamber, and not to wait upon her at all, or else presently to depart as soon as I have brought her to the chapel. These things, and many more, I can by no means escape, but only by an open plain discovery of myself, in the eye and opinion of all men, as to the true cause of my refusal; neither can it now be long hidden, although for a while it may not have been generally noted and observed."
Lady Arundel sighed and said:
"I must needs confess that of necessity it must shortly be discovered; and when I remember what a watchful and jealous eye is carried over all such as are known to be recusants, and also how their lodgings are continually searched, and to how great danger they are subject if a Jesuit or seminary priest be found within their house, I begin to see that either you cannot serve God in such [{770}] sort as you have professed, or else you must incur the hazard of greater sufferings than I am willing you should endure."
"For my part," Basil said, "I would ask, my lord, those that hate you most, whether being of the religion which you do profess, they would not take that course for safety of their souls and discharge of their consciences which you do now meditate? And either they must directly tell you that they would have done the same, or acknowledge themselves to be mere atheists; which, howsoever they be affected in their hearts, I think they would be loth to confess with their mouths."
"What sayest thou, Constance, of my lord's intent?" Lady Arundel said, when Basil left off speaking.
"I am ashamed to utter my thinking in his presence, and in yours, dearest lady," I replied; "but if you command me to it, methinks that having had his house so fatally and successfully touched, and finding himself to be of that religion which is accounted dangerous and odious to the present state, which her majesty doth detest, and of which she is most jealous and doubtful, and seeing he might now be drawn for his conscience into a great and continual danger, not being able to do any act or duty whereunto his religion doth bind him without incurring the danger of felony, he must needs run upon his death headlong, which is repugnant to the law of God and flatly against conscience, or else he must resolve to escape these perils by the means he doth propose."
"Yea," exclaimed his lordship, with so much emotion that his voice shook in the utterance of the words, "long have I debated with myself on the course to take. I do see it to be the safest way to depart out of the realm, and abide in some other place where I may live without danger of my conscience, without offence to the queen, without daily peril of my life; but yet I was drawn by such forcible persuasions to be of another opinion, as I could not easily resolve on which side to settle my determination. For on the one hand my native, and oh how dearly loved country, my own early friends, my kinsfolk, my home, and, more than all, my wife, which I must for a while part with if I go, do invite me to stay. Poverty awaits me abroad; but in what have state and riches benefited us, Nan? Shall not ease of heart and freedom from haunting fears compensate for vain wealth? When, with the sweet burthen in thine arms which for a while doth detain thee here, thou shalt kneel before God's altar in a Catholic land, methinks thou wilt have but scanty regrets for the trappings of fortune."
"God is my witness," the sweet lady replied, "that should be the happiest day of my life. But I fear—yea, much I do fear—the chasm of parting which doth once more open betwixt thee and me. Prithee, Phil, let me go with thee," she tearfully added.
"Nay, sweet Nan," he answered; "thou knowest the physicians forbid thy journeying at the present time so much as hence to London. How should it then behoove thee to run the perils of the sea, and nightly voyage, and it may be rough usage? Nay, let me behold thee again, some months hence, with a fair boy in thine arms, which if I can but once behold, my joy shall be full, if I should have to labor with mine hands for to support him and thee."
She bowed her head on the hand outstretched to her; but I could see the anguish with which she yielded her assent to this separation. Methinks there was some sort of presentiment of the future heightening her present grief; she seemed so loth her lord should go, albeit reason and expediency forced from her an unwilling consent.
Before the conversation in Lady Arundel's chamber ended, the earl proposed that Basil and I should accompany him abroad, and cross the sea in the craft he should privately [{771}] hire, which would sail from Littlehampton, and carry us to some port of France, whence along the coast we could travel to Boulogne. This liked her ladyship well. Her eyes entreated our consent thereunto, as if it should have been a favor she asked, which indeed was rather a benefit conferred on us; for nothing would serve my lord but that he should be at the entire charge of the voyage, who smiling said, for such good company as he should thus enjoy he should be willing to be taxed twice as much, and yet consider himself to be the obliged party in this contract.
"But we must be married first," Basil bluntly said.
Lady Arundel replied that Father Southwell could perform the ceremony when we pleased—yea, on the morrow, if it should be convenient; and that my lord should be present thereat.
I said this should be very short notice, I thought, for to be married the next day; upon which Basil exclaimed,
"These be not times, sweetheart, for ceremonies, fashions, and nice delays. Methinks since our betrothal there hath been sufficient waiting for to serve the turn of the nicest lady in the world in the matter of reserves and yeas and nays."
Which is the sharpest thing, I think, Basil hath uttered to me either before or since we have been married. So, to appease him, I said not another word against this sudden wedding; and the next day but one, at nine of the clock, was then fixed for the time thereof.
On the following morning Lord Arundel and Basil (the earl had conceived a very great esteem and good disposition toward him; as great, and greater he told me, as for some he had known for as many years as him hours) went out together, under pretence of shooting in the woods on the opposite side of the river about Leominster, but verily to proceed to Littlehampton, where the earl had appointed to meet the captain of the vessel—a Catholic man, the son of an old retainer of his family—with whom he had dealt for the hiring of a vessel for to sail to France as soon as the wind should prove favorable. Whilst they were gone upon this business, Lady Arundel and I sat in the chamber which looked into the court, making such simple preparations as would escape notice for our wedding, and the departure which should speedily afterward ensue.
"I will not yield thee," her ladyship said, "to be married except in a white dress and veil, which I shall hide in a chamber nigh unto the oratory, where I myself will attire thee, dear love; and see, this morning early I went out alone into the garden and gathered this store of rosemary, for to make thee a nosegay to wear in thy bosom. Father Southwell saith it is used at weddings for an emblem of fidelity. If so, who should have so good a right to it as my Constance and her Basil? But I will lay it up in a casket, which shall conceal it the while, and aid to retain the scent thereof."
"O dear lady," I cried, seizing her hands, "do you remember the day when you plucked rosemary in our old garden at Sherwood, and smiling, said to me, 'This meaneth remembrance?' Since it signifieth fidelity also, well should you affection it; for where shall be found one so faithful in love and friendship as you?"
"Weep not," she said, pressing her fingers on her eyelids to stay her own tears. "We must needs thank God and be joyful on the eve of thy wedding-day; and I am resolved to meet my lord also with a cheerful countenance, so that not in gloom but in hope he shall leave his native land."
In converse such as this the hours went swiftly by. Sometimes we talked of the past, its many strange haps and changes; sometimes of the future, forecasting the manner of our lives abroad, where in safety, albeit in poverty, we hoped to spend our days. In [{772}] the afternoon there arrived at the castle my Lord William Howard and his wife and Lady Margaret Sackville, who, having notice of their brother's intent to go beyond seas on the next day, if it should be possible, had come for to bid him farewell.
Leaving Lady Arundel in their company, I went to the terrace underneath the walls of the castle, and there paced up and down, chewing the cud of both sweet and sad memories. I looked at the soft blue sky and fleecy clouds, urged along by a westerly breeze impregnated with a salt savor; on the emerald green of the fields, the graceful forms of the leafless trees on the opposite hills, on the cattle peacefully resting by the river-side. I listed to the rustling of the wind amongst the bare branches over mine head, and the bells of a church ringing far off in the valley. "O England, mine own England, my fair native land—am I to leave thee, never to return?" I cried, speaking aloud, as if to ease my oppressed heart. Then mine eyes rested on the ruined hospital of the town, the shut-up churches, the profaned sanctuaries, and thought flying beyond the seas to a Catholic land, I exclaimed, "The sparrow shall find herself a house, and the turtle-dove a nest for herself—the altars of the Lord of hosts, my king and my God."
When Basil returned, he told me that the vessel which was to take us to France was lying out at sea near the coast. Lord Arundel and himself had gone in a boat to speak with the captain, who did seem a particular honest man and zealous Catholic; and the earl had bespoken some needful accommodation for Mistress Martingale, he said, smiling; not very commodious, indeed, but as good as on board the like craft could be expected. If the wind remained in the same quarter in the afternoon of the morrow, we should then sail; if it should change, so as to be most unfavorable, the captain should send private notice of it to the castle.
The whole of that evening the earl spent in writing a letter to her majesty. He feared that his enemies, after his departure, would, by their slanderous reports, endeavor to disgrace him with the people, and cause the queen to have sinister surmises of him. He confided this letter to the Lady Margaret, his sister, to be delivered unto her after his arrival in France; by which it might appear, both to her and all others, what were the true causes which had moved him to undertake that resolution.
I do often think of that evening in the great chamber of the castle—the young earl in the vigorous strength and beauty of manhood, his comely and fair face now bending over his writing, now raised with a noble and manly grief, as he read aloud portions of it, which, methinks, would have touched any hearts to hear them; and how much the more that loving wife, that affectionate sister, that faithful brother, those devoted friends which seemed to be in some sort witnesses of his last will before a final parting! I mind me of the sorrowful, dove-like sweetness of Lady Arundel's countenance; the flashing eyes of Lady Margaret; the loving expression, veiled by a studied hardness, of Lord William's face; of his wife my Lady Bess's reddening cheek and tearful eyes, which she did conceal behind the coif of her childish namesake sitting on her knees. When he had finished his letter, with a somewhat moved voice the earl read the last passages thereof: "If my protestation, who never told your majesty any untruth, may carry credit in your opinion, I here call God and his angels to witness that I would not have taken this course if I might have stayed in England without danger of my soul or peril of my life. I am enforced to forsake my country, to forget my friends, to leave my wife, to lose the hope of all worldly pleasures and earthly commodities. All this is so grievous to flesh and blood, that I could not desire to live if I [{773}] were not comforted with the remembrance of his mercy for whom I endure all this, who endured ten thousand times more for me. Therefore I remain in assured hope that myself and my cause shall receive that favor, conceit, and rightful construction at your majesty's hands which I may justly challenge. I do humbly crave pardon for my long and tedious letter, which the weightiness of the matter enforced me unto; and I beseech God from the bottom of my heart to send your majesty as great happiness as I wish to mine own soul."
A time of silence followed the reading of these sentences, and then the earl said in a cheerful manner:
"So, good Meg, I commit this protestation to thy good keeping. When thou hearest of my safe arrival in France, then straightway see to have it placed in the queen's hands."
The rest of the evening was spent in affectionate converse by these near kinsfolk. Basil and I repaired the while by the secret passage to Father Southwell's chamber, where we were in turn shriven, and afterward received from him such good counsel and rules of conduct as he deemed fitting for married persons to observe. Before I left him, this good father gave me, writ in his own hand, some sweet verses which he had that day composed for us, and which I do here transcribe. He, smiling, said he had made mention of fishes in his poem, for to pleasure so famous an angler as Basil; and of birds, for that he knew me to be a great lover of these soaring creatures:
"The lopped tree in time may grow again.
Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorest wight may find release of pain.
The driest soil suck in some moistening shower;
Times go by turn, and chances change by course.
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.
"The sea of fortune doth not over flow,
She draws her favors to the lowest ebb;
Her time hath equal times to come and go.
Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web;
No joy so great but runneth to an end.
No hap so hard but may in fine amend.
"A chance may win that by mischance was lost.
The well that holds no great, takes little fish;
In some things all, in all things none are crossed.
Few all they need, but none have all they wish;
Unmeddled joys here to no man befal,
Who least have some, who most have never all.
"Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring;
No endless night, yet not eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing;
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay;
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall."
The common sheet of paper which doth contain this his writing hath a greater value in mine eyes than the most rich gift that can be thought of.
On the next morning. Lady Arundel conducted me from mine own chamber, first into a room where with her own hands she arrayed me in my bridal dress, and with many tender kisses and caresses, such as a sister or a mother would bestow, testified her affection for her poor friend; and thence to the oratory, where the altar was prepared, and by herself in secret decked with early primroses, which had begun to show in the woods and neath the hedges. A small but noble company were gathered round us that day. From pure and holy lips the Church's benison came to us. The vows we exchanged have been faithfully observed, and long years have set a seal on the promises then made.
Basil's wife! Oh, what a whole compass of happiness did lie in those two words! Yea, the waves of the sea might now rage and the winds blow. The haven might be distant and the way thither insecure. Man's enmity or accident might yet rob us each of the other's visible presence. But naught could now sever the cord, strong like unto a cable chain, which bound our souls in one. Anchored in that wedded unity, which is one of God's sacraments, till death, ay, and beyond death also, this tie should last.
We have been young, and now are old. We have lost country, home, and almost every friend known and affectioned in our young years; but [{774}] that deepest, holiest love, the type of Christ's union with his Church, still doth shed its light over the evening of life. My dear Basil, I am assured, thinks me as fair as when we did sit together fishing on the banks of the Ouse; and his hoary head and withered cheeks are more lovely in mine eyes than ever were his auburn locks and ruddy complexion. One of us must needs die before the other, unless we should be so happy that that good should befal us as to end our days as two aged married persons I have heard of. It was the husband's custom, as soon as ever he unclosed his eyes, to ask his wife how she did; but one night, he being in a deep sleep, she quietly departed toward the morning. He was that day to have gone out a-hunting, and it was his custom to have his chaplain pray with him before he went out. The women, fearful to surprise him with the ill news, had stolen out and acquainted the chaplain, desiring him to inform him of it. But the gentleman waking did not on that day, as was his custom ask for his wife, but called his chaplain to prayers, and, joining with him, in the midst of the prayer expired, and both were buried in the same grave. Methinks this should be a very desirable end, only, if it pleased God, I would wish to have the last sacraments, and then to die just before Basil, when his time cometh. But God knoweth best; and any ways we are so old and so near of an age, one cannot tarry very long behind when the other is gone.
Being at rest after our marriage touching what concerned ourselves, compassion for Lady Arundel filled our hearts. Alas! how bravely and how sweetly she bore this parting grief. Her intense love for her lord, and sorrow at their approaching separation, struggled with her resolve not to sadden their last hours, which were prolonged beyond expectancy. For once on that day, and twice on that which followed, when all was made ready for departure, a message came from the captain for to say the wind, and another time the tide, would not serve; and albeit each time, like a reprieved person, Lady Arundel welcomed the delay, methinks these retardments served to increase her sufferings. Little Bess hung fondly on her father's neck the last time he returned from Littlehampton with the tidings the vessel would not sail for some hours, kissing his face and playing with his beard.
"Ah, dearest Phil!" her mother cried, "the poor babe rejoiceth in the sight of thee, all unwitting in her innocent glee of the shortness of this joy. Howsoever, methinks five or six hours of it is a boon for to thank God for;" and so putting her arm in his, she led him away to a solitary part of the garden, where they walked to and fro, she, as she hath since written to me, starting each time the clock did strike, like one doomed to execution. Methinks there was this difference between them, that he was full of hope and bright forecastings of a speedy reunion; but on her soul lay a dead, mournful despondency, which she hid by an apparent calmness. When, late in the evening, a third message came for to say the ship could not depart that night, I begun to think it would never go at all. I saw Basil looked at the weathercock and shrugged his shoulders, as if the same thought was in his mind. But when I spake of it, he said seafaring folks had a knowledge in these matters which others did not possess, and we must needs be patient under these delays. Howsoever, at three o'clock in the morning the shipman signified that the wind was fit and all in readiness. So we rose in haste and prepared for to depart. The countess put her arms about my neck, and this was the last embrace I ever had of her. My lord's brother and sisters hung about him awhile in great grief. Then his wife put out her hands to him, and, with a sorrow too deep for speech, fixed her eyes on his visage.
"Cheep up, sweetest wife," I heard him say. "Albeit nature suffers in this severance from my native land, my true home shall be wherever it shall please God to bring thee and me and our children together. God defend the loss of this world's good should make us sad, if we be but once so blessed as to meet again where we may freely serve him."
Then, after a long and tender clasping of her to his breast, he tore himself away and getting on a horse rode to the coast. Basil and I, with Mr. William Bray and Mr. Burlace, drove in a coach to the port. It was yet dark, and a heavy mist hung on the valley. Folks were yet abed, and the shutters of the houses closed, as we went down the hill through the town. After crossing the bridge over the Arun the air felt cold and chill. At the steep ascent near Leominster I put my head out of the window for to look once more at the castle, but the fog was too thick. At the port the coach stopped, and a boat was found waiting for us. Lord Arundel was seated in it, with his face muffled in a cloak. The savor of the sea air revived my spirits; and when the boat moved off, and I felt the waves lifting it briskly, and with my hand in Basil's I looked on the land we were leaving, and then on the watery world before us, a singular emotion filled my soul, as if it was some sort of death was happening to me—a dying to the past, a gliding on to an unknown future on a pathless ocean, rocked peacefully in the arms of his sheltering love, even as this little bark which carried us along was lifted up and caressed by the waves of the deep sea.
When we reached the vessel the day was dawning. The sun soon emerged from a bank of clouds, and threw its first light on the rippling waters. A favoring wind filled our sails, and like a bird on the wing the ship bounded on its way till the flat shore at Littlehampton and the far-off white cliffs to the eastward were well-nigh lost sight of. Lord Arundel stood with Basil on the narrow deck, gazing at the receding coast.
"How sweet the air doth blow from England!" he said; "how blue the sky doth appear to-day! and those saucy seagulls how free and happy they do look!" Then he noticed some fishing-boats, and with a telescope he had in his hand discerned various ships very far off. Afterward he came and sat down by my side, and spoke in a cheerful manner of his wife and the simple home he designed for her abroad. "Some years ago, Mistress Constance," he said—and then smiling, added, "My tongue is not yet used to call you Mistress Rookwood—when my sweet Nan, albeit a wife, was yet a simple child, she was wont to say, 'Phil, would we were farmers! You would plough the fields and cut wood in the forest, and I should milk the cows and feed the poultry.' Well, methinks her wish may yet come to pass. In Brittany or Normandy some little homestead should shelter us, where Bess shall roll on the grass and gather the fallen apples, and on Sundays put on her bravest clothes for to go to mass. What think you thereof, Mistress Constance? and who knoweth but you and your good husband may also dwell in the same village, and some eighteen or twenty years hence a gay wedding for to take place betwixt one Master Rookwood and one Lady Ann or Margaret Howard, or my Lord Maltravers with one Mistress Constance or Muriel Rookwood? And on the green on such a day, Nan and Basil and you and I should lead the brawls."
"Methinks, my lord," I answered, smiling, "you do forecast too great a condescension on your part, and too much ambition on our side, in the planning of such a union."
"Well, well," he said; "if your good husband carrieth not beyond seas with him the best earl's title in England, I'll warrant you in God's sight he weareth a higher one far [{776}] away—the merit of an unstained life and constant nobility of action; and I promise you, beside, he will be the better farmer of the twain; so that in the matter of tocher, Mistress Rookwood should exceed my Lady Bess or Ann Howard."
With such-like talk as this time was whiled away; and whilst we were yet conversing I noticed that Basil spoke often to the captain and looked for to be watching a ship yet at some distance, but which seemed to be gaining on us. Lord Arundel, perceiving it, then also joined them, and inquired what sort of craft it should be. The captain professed to be ignorant thereof; and when Basil said it looked like a small ship-of-war, and as there were many dangerous pirates about the Channel it should be well to guard against it, he assented thereto, and said he was prepared for defence.
"With such unequal means," Basil replied, "as it is like we should bring to a contest, speed should serve us better than defence."
"But," quoth Lord Arundel, "she is, 'tis plain, a swifter sailer than this one we are in. God's will be done, but 'tis a heavy misfortune if a pirate at this time do attack us, and so few moneys with us for to spare!"
Now none of our eyes could detach themselves from this pursuing vessel. The captain eluded further talk, on pretence for to give orders and move some guns he had aboard on deck; but it was vain for to think of a handful of men untrained to sea-warfare encountering a superior force, such as this ship must possess, if its designs should be hostile. As it moved nigher to us, we could perceive it to be well manned and armed. And the captain then exclaimed:
"'Tis Keloway's ship!"
This man was of a notorious, infamous life, well known for his sea-robberies and depredations in the Channel.
"God yield," murmured the earl, "he shall content himself with the small sum we can deliver to him and not stay us any further."
A moment afterward we were boarded by this man, who, with his crew, thrice as numerous as ours and armed to the teeth, comes on our deck and takes possession of the ship. Straightway he walks to the earl and tells him he doth know him, and had watched his embarkation, being resolved to follow him and exact a good ransom at his hands, which if he would pay without contention, he should himself, without further stop or stay, pass him and his two gentlemen into France, adding, he should take no less from him than one hundred pounds.
"I have not so much, or near unto it, with me," Lord Arundel said.
"But you can write a word or two to any friend of yours from whom I may receive it." quoth Keloway.
"Well," said the earl, "seeing I have pressing occasion for to go to France, and would not be willingly delayed, I must needs consent to your terms, no choice therein being allowed me. Get me some paper," he said to Mr. William Bray.
"Should this be prudent, my lord?" Basil whispered in his ear.
"There is no help for it, Master Rookwood," the earl replied. "Beside, there is honor even amongst thieves. Once secure of his money, this man hath no interest in detaining us, but rather the contrary."
And without further stopping, he hastily wrote a few lines to his sister the Lady Margaret Sackville, in London, that she should speak to Mr. Bridges, alias Grately, a priest, to give one hundred pounds to the bearer thereof, by the token that was between them, that black is white, and withal assured her that he now certainly hoped to have speedy passage without impediment. As soon as this paper was put into Kelloway's hand, he read it, and immediately called on his men for to arrest the Earl of Arundel, producing an order from the queen's council for to prove he [{777}] was appointed to watch there for him, and carry him back again to land where her majesty's officers did await him.
An indescribable anguish seized my heart; an overwhelming grief, such as methinks no other event, howsoever sad or tragical, or yet more nearly touching me, had ever wrought in my soul, which I ascribe to a presentiment that this should be the first link of that long chain of woes which was to follow.
"O, my lord!" I exclaimed, almost falling at his feet, "God help you to bear this too heavy blow!"
He took me by the hand; and never till I die shall I lose the memory of the sweet serenity and noble steadfastness of his visage in this trying hour.
"God willeth it," he gently said; "his holy will be done! He will work good out of what seemeth evil to us." And then gaily added, "We had thought to travel the same way; now we must needs journey apart. Never fear, good friends, but both roads shall lead to heaven, if we do but tread them piously. My chief sorrow is for Nan; but her virtue is so great, that affliction will never rob her of such peace as God only giveth."
Then this angelic man, forecasting for his friends in the midst of this terrible mishap, passed into Basil's hands his pocket-book, and said, "This shall pay your voyage, good friend; and if aught doth remain afterward, let the poor have their share of it, for a thank-offering, when you reach the shore in safety."
Basil, I saw, could not speak; his heart was too full. O, what a parting ensued on that sad ocean whose waves had seemed to dance so joyously a short space before! With what aching hearts we pressed the young earl's hand, and watched him pass into the other ship, accompanied by his two gentlemen, which were with him arrested! No heed was taken of us; and Kelloway, having secured his prey, abandoned our vessel, the captain of which seemed uneasy and ill-disposed to speak with us. We did then suspect, which doubt hath been since confirmed, that this seeming honest Catholic man had acted a traitor's part, and that those many delays had been used for the very purpose of staying Lord Arundel until such time as all was prepared for his capture. The wind, which was in our favor, bore us swiftly toward the French coast; and we soon lost sight of the vessel which carried the earl back to the shores of England. Fancy, you who read, what pictures we needs must then have formed of that return; of the dismal news reaching the afflicted wife, the sad sister, the mournful brother, and friends now scattered apart, so lately clustered round him! Alas! when we landed in France, at the port of Calais, the sense of our own safety was robbed of half its joy by fears and sorrowing for the dear friends whose fortunes have proved so dissimilar to our own.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The deep clear azure of the French sky, the lightsome pure air, the quaint houses, and outlandish dresses of the people in Calais; the sound of a foreign tongue understood, but not familiar, for a brief time distracted my mind from painful themes. Basil led me to the church for to give thanks to God for his mercies to us, and mostly did it seem strange to me to enter an edifice in which he is worshipped in a Catholic manner, which yet hath the form and appearance of a church, and resembles not the concealed chambers in our country wherein mass is said; an open visible house for the King of kings, not a hiding-place, as in England. After we had prayed there a short time, Basil put into a box at the entrance the money which Lord Arundel had designed for the poor. A pale thin man stood at the door, which, when we passed, said, "God [{778}] bless you!" Basil looked earnestly at him, and then exclaimed, "As I live, Mr. Watson!" "Yea," the good man answered, "the same, or rather the shadow of the same, risen at the last from the bed of sickness. O Mr. Rookwood, I am glad to see you!" "And so am I to meet with you, Mr. Watson," Basil answered; and then told this dear friend who I was, and the sad hap of Lord Arundel, which moved in him a great concern for that young nobleman and his excellent lady. Many tokens of regard and interchange of information passed between us. He showed us where he lived, in a small cottage near unto the ramparts; and nothing would serve him but to gather for me in the garden a nosegay of early flowerets which just had raised their heads above the sod. He said Dr. Allen had sent him money in his sickness, and an English lady married to a French gentleman provided for his wants. "Ah! that was the good madame I told you of," Basil cried, turning to me; "who would have harbored . . . ." Then he stopped short; but Mr. Watson had caught his meaning, and with tears in his eyes said: "Fear not to speak of her whose death bought my life, and it may be also my soul's safety. For, God knoweth, the thought of her doth never forsake me so much as for one hour;" and thereupon we parted with much kindness on both sides. That night we lay at a small hostelry in the town; and the next morning hired a cart with one horse, which carried us to Boulogne in one day, and thence to this village, where we have lived since for many years in great peace. I thank God, and very much contentment of mind, and no regrets save such as do arise in the hearts of exiles without hope of return to a beloved native country.
The awaiting of tidings from England, which were long delayed, was at the first a very sore trial, and those which reached us at last yet more grievous than that suspense. Lord Arundel committed to the Tower; his brother the Lord William and his sister the Lady Margaret not long after arrested, which was more grief to him, his lady wrote to me, than all his own troubles and imprisonment. But, O my God! how well did that beginning match with what was to follow! Those ten years which were spent amidst so many sufferings of all sorts by these two noble persons, that the recital of them would move to pity the most strong heart.
Mine own sorrows, leastways all sharp ones, ended with my passage into France. If Basil showed himself a worthy lover, he hath proved a yet better husband. His nature doth so delight in doing good that it wins him the love of all our neighbors. His life is a constant exercise of charity. He is most indulgent to his wife and kind to his children, of which it hath pleased God to give him three—one boy and two girls, of as comely visages and commendable dispositions as can reasonably be desired. He hath a most singular affection for all such as do suffer for their religion, and cherishes them with an extraordinary bounty to the limits of his ability; his house being a common resort for all banished Catholics which land at Boulogne, from whence he doth direct them to such persons as can assist them in their need. His love toward my unworthy self hath never decreased. Methinks it rather doth increase as we advance in years. We have ever been actuated as by one soul; and never have any two wills agreed so well as Basil's and mine in all aims in this world and hopes for the next. If any, in the reading of this history, have only cared for mine own haps, I pray them to end their perusal of it here; but if, even as my heart hath been linked from early years with Lady Arundel's, there be any in which my poor writing hath awakened somewhat of that esteem for her virtues and resentment of her sorrows which hath grown in me from long experience of her singular worth; [{779}] if the noble atonement for youthful offences and follies already shown in her lord's return to his duty to her, and altered behavior in respect to God, hath also moved them to desire a further knowledge of the manner in which these two exalted souls were advanced by long affliction to a high point of perfection—then to such the following pages shall not be wholly devoid of that interest which the true recital of great misfortune doth habitually carry with it. If none other had written the life of that noble lady, methinks I must have essayed to do it; but having heard that a good clergyman hath taken this task in hand, secretly preparing materials whilst she yet lives wherewith to build her a memorial at a future time, I have restrained myself to setting down what, by means of her own writing or the reports of others, hath reached my knowledge concerning the ten years which followed my last parting with her. This was the first letter I received from this afflicted lady after her lord's arrest:
"O MY DEAR FRIEND—What days these have proved! Believe me, I never looked for a favorable issue of this enterprise. When I first had notice thereof, a notable chill fell on my soul, which never warmed again with hope. When I began to pray after hearing of it, I had what methinks the holy Juliana of Norwich (whose cell we did once visit together, as I doubt not thou dost remember) would have called a foreshowing, or, as others do express it, a presentiment of coming evil. But how soon the effect followed! I had retired to rest at nine of the clock; and before I was undressed Bertha came in with a most downcast countenance. 'What news is there?' I quickly asked, misdoubting some misfortune had happened. Then she began to weep. 'Is my lord taken?' I cried, 'or worse befallen him?' 'He is taken,' she answered, 'and is now being carried to London for to be committed to the Tower. Master Ralph, the port-master, hath brought the news. A man, an hour ago, had reported as much in the town; but Mr. Fawcett would not suffer your ladyship to be told of it before a greater certainty thereof should appear. O woe be the day my lord ever embarked!' Then I heard sounds of wailing and weeping in the gallery; and opening the door, found Bessy's nurse and some other of the servants lamenting in an uncontrolled fashion. I could not shed one tear, but gave orders they should fetch unto me the man which had brought the tidings. From him I heard more fully what had happened; and then, in the same composed manner, desired my coach and horses for to be made ready to take me to London the next day at daybreak, and dismissed everybody, not suffering so much as one woman to sit up with me. When all had retired, I put on my cloak and hood; and listing first if all was quiet, went by the secret passage to the chapel-room. When I got there, Father Southwell was in it, saying his office. When he saw me enter at that unusual hour, methinks the truth was made known to him at once; for he only took me by the hand, and said: 'My child, this would be too hard to bear if it were not God's sweet will; but being so, what remaineth but to lie still under a Father's merciful infliction?' and then he took out the crucifix, which for safety was locked up, and set it on the altar. 'That shall speak to you better than I can,' he said; and verily it did; for at the sight of my dying Saviour I wept. The whole night was spent in devout exercises. At dawn of day Father Southwell said mass, and I received. Then, before any one was astir, I returned to mine own chamber, and, lying down for a few moments, afterward rung the bell, and ordered horses to be procured for to travel to London, whence I write these lines. I have here heard this report of my dear lord's journey from one which conversed with Sir George Carey, [{780}] who commanded the guard which conducted him, that he was nothing at all daunted with so unexpected a misfortune, and not only did endure it with great patience and courage, but, moreover, carried it with a joyful and merry countenance. One night in the way he lodged at Guildford, where seeing the master of the inn (who sometime was our servant, and who hath written it to one of my women, his sister), and some others who wished well unto him, weeping and sorrowing for his misfortunes, he comforted them all, and willed them to be of good cheer, because it was not for any crime—treason or the like—he was apprehended, but only for attempting to leave the kingdom, the which he had done only for his own safety. He is soon to be examined by some of the council sent to the Tower for this special purpose by the queen. I have sought to obtain access to him, but been flatly reused, and a hint ministered to me that albeit my residence at Arundel House is tolerated at the present, if the queen should come to stay at Somerset House, which she is soon like to do, my departure hence shall be enforced; but while I remain I would fain do some good to persons afflicted as myself. I pray you, my good Constance, when you find some means to despatch me a letter, therewith to send the names and addresses of some of the poor folks Muriel was wont to visit; for I am of opinion grief should not make us selfish, but rather move us to relieve in others the pains of which we feel the sharp edge ourselves. I have already met by accident with many necessitous persons, and they do begin in great numbers to resort to this house. God knoweth if the means to relieve them will not be soon lacking. But to make hay whilst the sun shines is a wise saying, and in some instances a precept. Alas! the sunshine of joy is already obscured for me. Except for these poor pensioners, that of fortune causeth me small concern.—Thy loving friend, A. A. and S."
"Will and Meg are at present in separate prisons. It is impossible but that she shall be presently released; for against her nothing can be alleged, so much as to give a pretence for an accusation. My lord and Will's joint letter to Dr. Allen, sent by Mr. Brydges—who, out of confidence, mentioned it to Mr. Gifford, a pretended priest, who lives at Paris, and is now discovered to be a spy—is the ground of the charges against them. How utterly unfounded thou well knowest; but so much as to write to Dr. Allen is now a crime, howsoever innocent the matter of such a correspondence should be. I do fear that in one of his letters—but I wot not if of this they have possession—my lord, who had just heard that the Earl of Leicester had openly vowed to make the name of Catholic as odious in England as the name of Turk, did say, in manner of a jest, that if some lawful means might be found to take away this earl, it would be a great good for Catholics in England; which careless sentence may be twisted by his enemies to his disadvantage."
Some time afterward, a person passing from London to Rheims, brought me this second letter from her ladyship, written at Rumford, in Essex:
"What I have been warned of verily hath happened. Upon the queen's coming to London last month, it was signified to me I should leave it. Now that Father Southwell hath been removed from Arundel Castle, and no priest at this time can live in it, I did not choose to be delivered there, without the benefit of spiritual assistance in case of danger of death, and so hired a house in this town, at a short distance of which a recusant gentleman doth keep one in his house. I came from London without obtaining leave so much as once to see my dear husband, or to send him a letter or message, or receive one from him. But this I have learnt, that he cannot speak with any person whatsoever but in the presence and hearing of his [{781}] keeper or the lieutenant of the Tower, and that the room in which he is locked up has no sight of the sun for the greatest part of the year; so that if not changed before the winter cometh it shall prove very unwholesome; and moreover the noisomeness thereof caused by a vault that is under it is so great that the keeper can scarce endure to enter into it, much less to stay there any time. Alas! what ravages shall this treatment cause on a frame of great niceness and delicate habits, I leave you to judge. By this time he hath been examined twice; and albeit forged letters were produced, the falsity of which the council were forced to admit, and he was charged with nothing which could be substantiated, except leaving the realm without license of the queen, and being reconciled to the Church of Rome, his sentence is yet deferred, and his imprisonment as strict as ever. I pray God it may not be deferred till his health is utterly destroyed, which, I doubt not, is what his enemies would most desire.
"Last evening I had the exceeding great comfort of the coming hither of mine own dear good Meg, who hath been some time released from prison, with many vexatious restraints, howsoever, still laid upon her. Albeit very much advanced in her pregnancy, nothing would serve her when she had leave to quit London but to do me this good. This is the first taste of joy I have had since my lord's commitment. In her face I behold his; when she speaks I hear him. No talk is ministered between us but of that beloved husband and brother; our common prayers are put up for him. She hath spied his spies for to discover all which relates to him, and hath found means to convey to him—I thank God for it—some books of devotion, which he greatly needed. She is yet a-bed this morning, for we sat up late yester-eve, so sweet, albeit sad, was the converse we held after so many common sufferings. But methinks I grudge her these hours of sleep, longing for to hear again those loved accents which mind me of my dear Phil.
"My pen had hardly traced those last words, when a messenger arrived from the council with an express command to Margaret from her majesty not to stay with me another night, but forthwith to return to London. The surprise and fear which this message occasioned hastened the event which should have yet been delayed some weeks. A few hours after (I thank God, in safety) a fair son was born; but in the mother's heart and mine apprehension dispelled joy, lest enforced disobedience should produce fresh troubles. Howsoever, she recovered quickly; and as soon as she could be removed I lost her sweet company. Thine affectionate friend to command,
"A. A. AND S."
Some time afterward, one Mr. Dixon, a gentleman I had met once or twice in London, tarried a night at our house, and brought me the news that God had given the Countess of Arundel a son, which she had earnestly desired her husband should be informed of, but he heard it had been refused. Howsoever, when he was urgent with his keepers to let him know if she had been safely delivered, they gave him to understand that she had another daughter; his enemies not being willing he should have so much contentment as the birth of a son should have yielded him.
"Doth the queen," I asked of this gentleman, "then not mitigate her anger against these noble persons?"
"So far from it," he answered, "that when, at the beginning of this trouble, Lady Arundel went to Sir Francis Knowles for to seek by his means to obtain an audience from her majesty, in order to sue for her husband, he told her she would sooner release him at once—which, howsoever, she had no mind to do—than only once allow her to enter her presence. He then, her ladyship told me, rated her exceedingly, asking if she and her husband were not ashamed to make themselves [{782}] papists, only out of spleen and peevish humor to cross and vex the queen? She answered him in the same manner as her lord did one of his keepers, who told him very many in the kingdom were of opinion that he made show to be Catholic only out of policy; to whom he said, with great mildness, that God doth know the secrets of all hearts, but that he thought there was small policy for a man to lose his liberty, hazard his estate and life, and live in that manner in a prison as he then did."
A brief letter from Lady Tregony informed me soon after this that, after a third examination, the court had fined Lord Arundel in £10,000 unto the queen and adjudged him to imprisonment during her pleasure. What that pleasure proved, ten years of unmitigated suffering and slow torture evinced; one of the most grievous of which was that his lady could never obtain for to see him, albeit other prisoners' wives had easy access to them. This touching letter I had from her three years after he was imprisoned:
"MINE OWN GOOD FRIEND—Life doth wear on, and relief of one sort leastways comes not; but God forbid I should repine. For such instances I see in the letters of my dear lord—which when some of his servants do leave the Tower, which, worn out as they soon become by sickness, they must needs do to preserve their lives—he findeth means to write to me or to Father Southwell, that I am ashamed to grieve overmuch at anything which doth befal us—when his willingness and contentment to suffer are so great. As when he saith to that good father, 'For all crosses touching worldly matters, I thank God they trouble me not much, and much the less for your singular good counsel, which I beseech our Lord I may often remember; and to me this dear husband writes thus: 'I beseech you, for the love of God, to comfort yourself whatsoever shall happen, and to be best pleased with that which shall please God best, and be his will to send. I find that there is some intent to do me no good, but indeed to do me the most good of all; but I am—and, thank God, doubt not but I shall be by his grace—ready to endure the worst which flesh and blood can do unto me.' O Constance, flesh and blood doth sometimes rebel against the keen edge of suffering; but I pray you, my friend, how can I complain when I hear of this much, long dearly cherished husband, ascending by steps the ladder of perfection, advancing from virtue to virtue as the psalm saith, never uttering one unsubmissive word toward God, or one resentful one toward his worst enemies; making, in the most sublime manner, of necessity virtue, and turning his loathsome prison into a religious cell, wherein every exercise of devotion is duly practised, and his soul trained for heaven?
"The small pittance the queen alloweth for his maintenance he so sparingly useth, that most of it doth pass into the hands of the poor or other more destitute prisoners than himself. But sickness and disease prey on his frame. And the picture of him my memory draweth is gradually more effaced in the living man, albeit vivid in mine own portraying of it.
There is now a priest imprisoned in the Tower, not very far from the chamber wherein my lord is confined; one of the name of Bennet. My lord desired much to meet him, and speak with him for the comfort of his soul, and I have found means to bring it to effect by mediation of the lieutenant's daughter, to whom I have given thirty pounds for her endeavors in procuring it. And moreover she hath assisted in conveying into his chamber church-stuff and all things requisite for the saying of mass, whereunto she tells me, to my indescribable comfort, he himself doth serve with great humility, and therein receives the blessed sacrament frequently. Sir Thomas Gerard, she saith, and Mr. Shelly, which are likewise prisoners at this time, she introduces secretly into his lodgings for to hear mass and have speech with [{783}] him. Alas! what should be a comfort to him, and so the greatest of joys to me, the exceeding peril of these times causeth me to look upon with apprehension; for these gentlemen, albeit well disposed, are not famed for so much wisdom and prudence as himself, in not saying or doing anything which might be an occasion of danger to him; and the least lack of wariness, when there is so much discourse about the great Spanish fleet which is now in preparation, should prove like to be fatal. God send no worse hap befal us soon.
"In addition to these other troubles and fears, I am much molested by a melancholy vapor, which ascends to my head, and greatly troubles me since I was told upon a sudden of the unexpected death of Margaret Sackville, whom, for her many great virtues and constant affection toward myself, I did so highly esteem and affection."
From that time for a long while I had no direct news of Lady Arundel; but report brought us woful tidings concerning her lord, who, after many private examinations, had been brought from the Tower to the King's Bench Court, in the hall of Westminster, and there publicly arraigned on the charge of high treason, the grounds of which accusation being that he had prayed and procured others to make simultaneous prayer for twenty-four hours, and procured Mr. Bennet to say a mass of the Holy Ghost, for the success of the Spanish fleet. Whereas the whole truth of this matter consisted in this, that when a report became current among the Catholics about London that a sudden massacre of them all was intended upon the first landing of the Spaniards, this coming to the earl's ear, he judged it necessary that all Catholics should betake themselves to prayer, either for the avoiding of the danger or for the better preparing themselves thereunto, and so persuaded those in the Tower to make prayer together for that end, and also sent to some others for the same purpose, whereof one of greater prudence and experience than the rest signified unto him that perhaps it might be otherwise interpreted by their enemies than he intended, wishing him to desist, as presently thereupon he did; but it was then too late. Some which he had trusted, either out of fear or fair promises, testified falsely against him—of which Mr. Bennet was one, who afterward retracted with bitter anguish his testimony, in a letter to his lordship, which contained these words: "With a fearful, guilty, unjust, and most tormented conscience, only for saving of my life and liberty, I said you moved me to say a mass for the good success of the Spanish fleet. For which unjust confession, or rather accusation, I do again and again, and to my life's end, most instantly crave God's pardon and yours; and for my better satisfaction of this, my unjust admission, I will, if need require, offer up both life and limbs in averring my accusation to be, as it is indeed, and as I shall answer before God, angels, and men, most unjust, and only done out of fear of the Tower, torments, and death." Notwithstanding the earl's very stout and constant denial of the charge, and pleading the above letter of Mr. Bennet, retracting his false statement, he was condemned of high treason, and had sentence pronounced against him. But the execution was deferred, and finally the queen resolved to spare his life, but yet by no means to release him. His estates, and likewise his lady's, were forfeited to the crown, and he at that time dealt with most unkindly, as the following letter will show:
"DEAR CONSTANCE—At last I have found the means of sending a packet by a safe hand, which in these days, when men do so easily turn traitors—notable instances of which, to our exceeding pain and trouble, have lately occurred—is no easy matter. I doubt not but thy fond affectionate heart hath followed with a sympathetic grief the anguish of mine [{784}] during the time past, wherein my husband's life hath been in daily peril; and albeit he is now respited, yet, alas! as he saith himself, and useth the knowledge to the best purpose, he is but a doomed man; reprieved, not pardoned; spared, not released. Mine own troubles beside have been greater than can be thought of; by virtue of the forfeiture of my lord's estates and mine, my home hath been searched by justices, and no room, no corner, no trunk or coffer, left unopened and unransacked. I have often been brought before the council and most severely examined. The queen's officers and others in authority—to whom I am sometimes forced to sue for favor, or some mitigation of mine own or my lord's sufferings—do use me often very harshly, and reject my petitions with scorn and opprobrious language. All our goods are seized for the queen. They have left me nothing but two or three beds, and these, they do say, but for a time. When business requires, I am forced to go on foot, and slenderly attended; my coach being taken from me. I have retained but two of my servants —my children's nurse being one. I have as yet no allowance, as is usual in such cases, for the maintenance of my family; so I am forced to pay them and buy victuals with the money made by the sale of mine own jewels; and I am sometimes forced to borrow and make hard shifts to procure necessary provisions and clothes for the children; but if I get eight pounds a week, which the queen hath been moved to allow me, then methinks I shall think myself no poorer than a Christian woman should be content to be; and I have promised Almighty God, if that good shall befal us, to bestow one hundred marks out of it yearly on the poor. I am often sent out of London by her majesty's commands, albeit some infirmities I do now suffer from force me to consult physicians there. Methinks when I am at Arundel House I am not wholly parted from my lord, albeit my humble petition, by means of friends, to see him is always denied. When I hear he is sick, mine anguish increases. The like favor is often granted to Lady Latimore and others whose husbands are at this time prisoners in the Tower, but I can never obtain it. The lieutenant's daughter, whom I do sometimes see, when she is in a conversible mood doth inform me of my dear husband's condition, and relates instances of his goodness and patience which wring and yet comfort mine heart. What think you of his never having been heard so much as once to complain of the loss of his goods or the incommodities of his prison; of his gentleness and humility where he is himself concerned; of his boldness in defending his religion and her ministers, which was alike shown, as well as his natural cheerfulness, in a conversation she told me had passed between her father, the lieutenant, and him, a few days ago? You have heard, I ween, that good Father Southwell was arrested some time back at Mr. Bellamy's house; it is reported by means of the poor unhappy soul his daughter, whom I met one day at the door of the prison, attired in a gaudy manner and carrying herself in a bold fashion; but when she met mine eye hers fell. Alas! poor soul, God help her and bring her to repentance. Well, now Father Southwell is in the Tower, my lord, by Miss Hopton's melons, hath had once or twice speech with him, and doth often inquire of the lieutenant about him, which when he did so the other day he used the words 'blessed father' in speaking of him. The lieutenant (she said) seemed to take exception thereat, saying, 'Term you him blessed father, being as he is an enemy to his country?' My lord answered: 'How can that be, seeing yourself hath told me heretofore that no fault could be laid unto him but his religion?' Then the lieutenant said: 'The last time I was in his cell your dog, my lord, came in and licked his hand,' Then quoth my lord, [{785}] patting his dog fondly: 'I love him the better for it.' 'Perhaps,' quoth the lieutenant in a scoffing manner, it might be he came thither to have his blessing.' To which my lord replied, 'It is no new thing for animals to seek a blessing at the hands of holy men, St. Jerome writing how the lions which had digged St. Paul the hermit's grave stood waiting with their eyes upon St. Anthony expecting his blessing.'
'Is it not a strange trial, mine own Constance, and one which hath not befallen many women, to have a fondly loved husband yet alive, and to be sometimes so near unto him that it should take but a few moments to cross the space which doth divide us, and yet never behold him; year after year passing away, and the heart waxing sick with delays? Howsoever, one sad firm hope I hold, which keepeth me somewhat careful of my health, lest I should be disabled when that time cometh—one on which I fix my mind with apprehension and desire to defer the approach thereof, yet pray one day to see it—yea, to live long enough for this and then to die, if it shall please God. When mine own Philip is on his death-bed, when the slow consumptive disease which devoureth his vitals obtaineth its end, then, I ween, no woman upon earth, none that I ever heard of or could think of, can deny me to approach him and receive his last embrace. Oh that this should be my best comfort, mine only hope!"
I pass over many intervening letters from this afflicted lady which at distant intervals I received, in one of which she expressed her sorrow at the execution at Tyburn of her constant friend and guide, Father Southwell, and likewise informed me of Mistress Wells's death in Newgate, and transcribe this one, written about six months afterward, in which she relates the closing scene of her husband's life:
"MINE OWN DEAR CONSTANCE—All is over now, and my overcharged heart casteth about for some alleviation in its excessive grief, which may be I shall find in imparting to one well acquainted with his virtues and my love for him what I have learnt touching the closing scenes of my dear lord's mortal life. For think not I have been so happy as to behold him again, or that he should die in my arms. No; that which was denied me for ten long years neither could his dying prayers obtain. For many months notice had been given unto me by his servants and others that his health was very fast declining. One gentleman particularly told me he himself believed his end to be near. His devout exercises were yet increased—the bent of his mind more and more directed solely toward God and heaven. In those times which were allotted to walking or other recreation, his discourse and conversation either with his keeper or the lieutenant or his own servant, was either tending to piety or some kind of profitable discourse, most often of the happiness of those that suffer anything for our Saviour's sake; to which purpose he had writ with his own hand upon the wall of his chamber this Latin sentence, 'Quanto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc saeculo, tanto plus gloriae cum Christo in futuro;' the which he used to show to his servants, inviting them, as well as himself, to suffer all with patience and alacrity.
"In the month of August tidings were brought unto me that, sitting at dinner, he had fallen so very ill immediately upon the eating of a roasted teal, that some did suspect him to be poisoned. I sent him some antidotes, and all the remedies I could procure; but all in vain. The disease had so possessed him that it could not be removed, but by little and little consumed his body, so that he became like an anatomy, having nothing left but skin and bone. Much talk hath been ministered anent his being poisoned. Alas! my thinking is, and ever shall be, the slow poison he died of was lack of air, of sunshine, of kindness, [{786}] of loving aid, of careful sympathy. When I heard his case was considered desperate, the old long hopes, sustained for ten years, that out of the extremity of grief one hour of comfort should arise, woke up; but now I was advised not to stir in this matter myself, for it should only incense the queen, who had always hated me; whereas my lord she once had liked, and it might be, when she heard he was dying, she should relent. She had made a kind of promise to some of his friends that before his death his wife and children should come unto him; whereupon, conceiving that now his time in the world could not be long, he writ a humble letter to her petitioning the performance of her promise. The lieutenant of the Tower carried this letter, and delivered it with his own hands to the queen, and brought him her answer by word of mouth. What think you, mine own Constance, was the answer she sent that dying man? God forgave her! Philip did; yea, and so do I—not fully at the time, now most fully. His crown should have been less glorious but for the heart-martyrdom she invented.
"This was her message: 'That if he would but once go to the Protestant church his request should not only be granted, but he should moreover be restored to his honor and estate with as much favor as she could show.' Oh, what were estates and honors to that dying saint! what her favor to that departing soul! One offering, one sacrifice, one final withdrawing of affection's thirsty and parched lips from the chalice of a supreme earthly consolation, and all was accomplished; the bitterness of death overpast. He gave thanks to the lieutenant for his pains; he said he could not accept her majesty's offers upon that condition, and added withal that he was sorry he had but one life to lose in that cause. A very worthy gentleman who was present at this passage related it to me; and Lord Mountague I have also had it from, which heard the same from his father-in-law, my Lord Dorset. Constance, for a brief while a terrible tumult raged in my soul. Think what it was to know one so long, so passionately loved, dying nigh onto and yet apart from me, dying unaided by any priest—for though he had a great desire to be assisted by Father Edmund, by whose means he had been reconciled, it was by no means permitted that either he or any other priest should come to him—dying without a kindred face to smile on him, without a kinsman for to speak with him and list to his last wishes. He desired to see his brother William or his uncle Lord Henry; at least to take his last leave of them before his death; but neither was that small request granted—no, not so much as to see his brother Thomas, though both then and ever he had been a Protestant. And all this misery was the fruit of one stem, cruel, unbending hatred—of one proud human will; a will which was sundering what God had joined together. Like a bird against the bars of an iron cage, my poor heart dashed itself with wild throbbings against these human obstacles. But not for very long, I thank God; brief was the storm which convulsed my soul. I soon discerned his hand in this great trial—his will above all human will; and while writhing under a Father's merciful scourge, I could yet bless him who held it I pray you, Constance, how should a woman have endured so great an anguish which had not been helped by him? Methinks what must have sustained me was that before-mentioned gentleman's report of my dear lord's great piety and virtue, which made me ashamed of not striving to resemble him in howsoever small a degree. Oh, what a work God wrought in that chosen soul! What meekness, what humility, what nobleness of heart! He grew so faint and weak by degrees that he was not able to leave his bed. His physicians coming to visit him some days before his death, he desired [{787}] them not to trouble themselves now any more, his case being beyond their skill. They thereupon departing, Sir Michael Blount, then lieutenant of the Tower, who had been ever very hard and harsh unto him, took occasion to come and visit him, and, kneeling down by his bedside, in humble manner desired my dear Phil to forgive him. Whereto mine own beloved husband answered in this manner, 'Do you ask forgiveness, Mr. Lieutenant? Why, then, I forgive you in the same sort as I desire myself to be forgiven at the hands of God;' and then kissed his hand, and offered it in most kind and charitable manner to him, and holding his fast in his own said, 'I pray you also to forgive me whatever I have said or done in anything offensive to you,' and he melting into tears and answering 'that he forgave him with all his heart;' my lord raised himself a little upon his pillow, and made a brief, grave speech unto the lieutenant in this manner: 'Mr. Lieutenant, you have showed both me and my men very hard measure.' 'Wherein, my lord?' quoth he. 'Nay,' said my lord, 'I will not make a recapitulation of anything, for it is all freely forgiven. Only I am to say unto you a few words of my last will, which being observed, may, by the grace of God, turn much to your benefit and reputation. I speak not for myself; for God of his goodness hath taken order that I shall be delivered very shortly out of your charge; only for others I speak who may be committed to this place. You must think, Mr. Lieutenant, that when a prisoner comes hither to the Tower that he bringeth sorrow with him. Oh, then do not add affliction to affliction; there is no man whatsoever that thinketh himself to stand surest but may fall. It is a very inhuman part to tread on him whom misfortune hath cast down. The man that is void of mercy God hath in great detestation. Your commission is only to keep in safety, not to kill with severity. Remember, good Mr. Lieutenant, that God who with his finger turneth the unstable wheel of this variable world, can in the revolution of a few days bring you to be a prisoner also, and to be kept in the same place where now you keep others. There is no calamity that men are subject unto but you may also taste as well as any other man. Farewell, Mr. Lieutenant; for the time of my short abode come to me whenever you please, and you shall be heartily welcome as my friend.' My dear lord, when he uttered these words, should seem to have had some kind of prophetic foresight touching this poor man's fate; for I have just heard this day, seven weeks only after my husband's death, that Sir Michael Blount hath fallen into great disgrace, lost his office, and is indeed committed close prisoner in that same Tower where he so long kept others.
"And now my faltering pen must needs transcribe the last letter I received from my beloved husband, for your heart, dear friend, is one with mine. You have known its sufferings through the many years evil influences robbed it of that love which, for brief intervals of happiness afterward and this long separation since, hath, by its steady and constant return, made so rich amends for the past. In these final words you shall find proofs of his excellent humility and notable affection for my unworthy self, which I doubt not, my dear instance, shall draw water from your eyes. Mine yield no moisture now. Methinks these last griefs have exhausted in them the fountain of tears.
"'Mine own good wife, I must now in this world take my last farewell of you; and as I know no person living whom I have so much offended as yourself, so do I account this opportunity of asking your forgiveness as a singular benefit of Almighty God. And I most humbly and heartily beseech you, even for his sake and of your charity, to forgive me all whereinsoever I have offended you; and the assurance I have of this your [{788}] forgiveness is my greatest contentment at this present, and will be a greater, I doubt not, when my soul is ready to depart out of my body. I call God to witness it is no small grief unto me that I cannot make you recompense in this world for the wrongs I have done you. Affliction gives understanding. God, who knows my heart, and has seen my true sorrow in that behalf, has, I hope, of his infinite mercy, remitted all, I doubt not, as you have done in your singular charity, to mine infinite comfort.
"Now what remaineth but in a few brief sentences to relate how this loved husband spent his last hours, and the manner of his death? Those were for the most part spent in prayer; sometimes saying his beads, sometimes such psalms and prayers as he knew by heart. Seeing his servants (one of which hath been the narrator to me of these his final moments) stand by his bedside in the morning weeping in a mournful manner, he asked them 'what o'clock it was? they answering that it was eight or thereabout, 'Why, then,' said he, 'I have almost run out my course, and come to the end of this miserable mortal life,' desiring them not to weep for him, since he did not doubt, by the grace of God, but all would go well with him; which being said he returned to his prayers upon his beads again, though then with a very slow, hollow, and fainting voice; and so continued as long as he was able to draw so much breath as was sufficient to sound out the names of Jesus and Mary, which were the last words he was ever heard to speak. The last minute of his last hour being come, lying on his back, his eyes firmly fixed toward heaven, his long, lean, consumed arms out of the bed, his hands upon his breast, laid in cross one upon the other, about twelve o'clock at noon, in a most sweet manner, without any sign of grief or groan, only turning his head a little aside as one falling into a pleasing sleep, he surrendered his soul into the hands of God who to his own glory had created it. And she who writeth this letter, she who loved him since her most early years—who when he was estranged from her waited his return—who gloried in his virtues, doated on his perfections, endured his afflictions, and now lamenteth his death, hath nothing left but to live a widow; indeed with no other glory than that which she doth borrow from his merits, until such time as it shall please God to take her from this earth to a world where he hath found, she doth humbly hope, rest unto his soul."
The Countess of Arundel is now aged. The virtues which have crowned her mature years are such, as her youth did foreshadow. My pen would run on too fast if it took up that theme. This only will I add, and so conclude this too long piece of writing—she hath kept her constant resolve to live and die a widow. I have seen many times letters from both Protestants and Catholics which made unfeigned protestations that they were never so edified by any as by her. As the Holy Scriptures do say of that noble widow Judith, "Not one spoke an ill word of her," albeit these times are extremely malicious. For mine own part I never read those words of Holy Writ, "Who shall find a valiant woman?" and what doth follow, but I must needs think of Ann Dacre, the wife of Philip Howard, earl of Arundel and Surrey.
After the lapse of some years, it hath been my hap to have a sight of this manuscript, the reading of which, even as the writing of it in former days, doth cause me to live over again my past life. This lapse of time hath added nothing notable except the dreadful death of Hubert, my dear Basil's only brother, who suffered last year for the share he had, or leastways was judged to have, in the Gunpowder Plot and treason. Alas! he which once, to improve his fortunes, denied his faith, when fortune turned her back [{789}] upon him grew into a virulent hatred of those in power, once his friends and tempters, and consorted with desperate men; whether he was privy to their counsels, or only familiar with them previous to their crimes, and so fell into suspicion of their guilt, God knoweth. It doth appear from some good reports that he died a true penitent. There is a better hope methinks for such as meet in this world with open shame and suffering than for secret sinners who go to their pompous graves unchastised and unabsolved.
By his brother's death Basil recovered his lands; for his present majesty hath some time since recalled the sentence of his banishment. And many of his friends have moved him to return to England; but for more reasons than one he refused so much as to think of it, and has compounded his estate for £700, 8s. 6d.
Our children have now grown unto ripe years. Muriel (who would have been a nun if she had followed her godmother's example) is now married, to her own liking and our no small contentment, to a very commendable young gentleman, the son of Mr. Yates, and hath gone to reside with him at his seat in Worcestershire; and Ann, Lady Arundel's god-daughter, nothing will serve but to be a "holy Mary," as the French people do style those dames which that great and good prelate, M. de Genève, hath assembled in a small hive at Annecy, like bees to gather honey of devotion in the garden of religion. This should seem a strange fancy, this order being so new in the Church, and the place so distant; but time will show if this should be God's will; and if so, then it must needs be ours also.
What liketh me most is that my son Roger doth prove the very image of his father, and the counterpart of him in his goodness. I am of opinion that nothing better can be desired for him than that he never lose so good a likeness.
And now farewell, pen and ink, mine old companions, for a brief moment resumed, but with a less steady hand than heretofore; now not to be again used except for such ordinary purposes as housewifery and friendship shall require.
[THE END]