The Catholic World, Vol. 18, October, 1873, to March, 1874. / A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science

by Various

CATHOLIC LITERATURE IN ENGLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION.

CONCLUDED.

After the death of Alexander Pope, in 1744, it was a long time before English Catholic literature could boast of any living name. Prelates, indeed, and priests there were, whose admirable writings circulated among their co-religionists, but few who were known to the public generally as successful aspirants for literary fame. Yet the devotional and controversial writings of the time—the works, for example, of Bps. Hay, Challoner, and Milner—took no mean part in the cultivation of the intellect and taste. The influence of classical authors from without was discoverable in their style, and they kept pace in general with the enlarged experience of the age. There is no philosophy so deep as Catholic philosophy; none so comprehensive, affecting, and complete. It embraces all other philosophies so far as they are sound; and far from being at variance with any branch of human science, it incorporates all knowledge into itself as parts of a system of universal truth. It is the philosophy of life and of society; the philosophy of the soul, her joys and sorrows, her aspirations and ends. It solves all the questions which vex the inquiring spirit, so far as it is possible for them to be solved under our present conditions of being. Catholic philosophy, under this point of view, is set forth in the most touching manner by Bp. Challoner in his Meditations for Every Day in the Year. Apart from the edifying character of these reflections, it is impossible to read them attentively without allowing them distinct literary merit. While they evince a tenderness and pathos that are sure to win on the reader's heart, they exhibit also much art in composition. The sentences are well balanced and musical; the subject is always exposed methodically; and the appeals, however addressed to the feelings, are controlled by strict reasoning.

Take, again, Bp. Milner's End of Controversy—a series of letters addressed to the Protestant Bishop of St. David's. It is a complete armory. If Dr. Challoner's Meditations was fitted to implant the divine philosophy of Catholicism deeply in the breast, Dr. Milner's End of Controversy was no less calculated to arm the sincere Catholic with every needful weapon of defence against the assailants of his creed. If luminous arrangement, clear reasoning, and profound learning constitute claims to literary merit, that book possesses it in no ordinary degree. Edition after edition has been published, and it has been produced in so cheap a form as to be accessible to readers in the humblest circumstances. Though the face of controversy between Catholics and Protestants has much changed of late years in England, firstly by the Anglo-Catholic or Tractarian movement, and, secondly, by the wide spread of infidel opinions under the form of positivism, yet the old arguments in support of Catholicism remain unchanged, and there are few cases of heavy resistance which Dr. Milner's letters will not meet even now. Ingenious additions and variations have been made by subsequent controversialists to supply passing needs, but, after all, these grand old field-pieces, when brought fairly into line, will be found equal to the task of demolishing any bench of Protestant bishops and any assembly of Presbyterian elders.

The Lives of the Saints, by the Rev. Alban Butler, appeared for the first time in 1754, ten years after Pope's death. The venerable author was Principal of the English College at St. Omer, then the principal seminary for English ecclesiastics. The wide celebrity of the work, and the fact of its having been made a reference-book in every good Catholic library, render it needless to dwell on its excellences. Suffice it to say that it exhibits a profound acquaintance with the subjects of which it treats, and preserves a wise medium between credulity and disbelief. The copious notes, containing accounts of the writings of sainted fathers and doctors, are invaluable to literary men; and the Lives in general shows that the author's knowledge and research extended far beyond the bounds of theology, hagiology, and church history. His nephew, Charles Butler—himself a well-known literary character—published an Account of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Alban Butler, in which he gives, as nearly as possible, a list of the principal works and sources from which the author of the Lives of the Saints derived his information. He then goes on to say that literary topics were frequently the subject of his uncle's familiar conversation, and quotes from memory many of his criticisms on Herodotus, whose style he greatly admired, Cicero, Julius Cæsar, the works of Plato, and the modern Latin poems of Wallius, together with the relative merits of the sermons of Bossuet and Bourdaloue.

Charles Butler always took a laudable pride in dwelling on his uncle's merits, and in making them better known to the public. To his editorship is owing the publication of the Notes of Alban Butler's travels during the years 1744-46. He informs us in a short preface that in many places they were little more than mere jottings, and not intended for publication; that their meaning, also, was frequently difficult to decipher. By his care and diligence, however, they were brought into a readable form; and the volume, published in Edinburgh in 1803, and now rarely to be met with, is valuable as showing the highest degree of knowledge of Italian ecclesiastical affairs then attainable by a cultivated and inquiring traveller. Seldom has a book of travels had more facts condensed into it. It is a monument of close observation; and at a time when handbooks were very few and very imperfect, it must have been a precious vade mecum in the hands of Catholic travellers, and particularly ecclesiastics. The writer seems, in every spot he visited, to have gathered up all that could be collected respecting it either from books or individuals. The amount of statistics is enormous, and the attention to details truly laudable. Had these Travels been written for the public, and graced with the flowing style and the free and copious reflections which abound in the Lives of the Saints, they would have been read frequently to this day, and have ranked high among compositions of a similar kind.

The writings of Charles Butler are of no mean value, in consequence of his having directed his attention to English Catholic history at a time when scarcely any other writers thought it worth their while to obtain accurate information on the subject, and still less to record it for the benefit of others. Charles Butler made it his business to preserve everything of importance which he could collect respecting the political and religious condition of his co-religionists in England since the time of the Reformation; and all subsequent historians have, in such matters, been greatly indebted to his Historical Memoirs and Reminiscences. His style, it is true, is very sketchy, and his matter reads like notes and memoranda; but the intrinsic value of what he places on record atones in some measure for this defect. In his opinions he inclined rather to the liberal school of thought, and this fact brought him into serious collision with Bp. Milner on the subject of the veto and other matters then in debate. There can, however, be no doubt of his sincere attachment to the Catholic religion, while his love of literature and all that concerns mental progress is no less apparent in his works. Acquainted as he was with most of the distinguished men of the day, he had ample opportunities of observing their peculiar gifts and habits. The remarks which he makes in his Reminiscences on the parliamentary eloquence of Chatham, North, Fox, Pitt, and their compeers, whom he had seen and heard, have this merit, that they were derived from no second-hand sources. His Horæ Biblicæ, Germanic Empire, Horæ Juridicæ, his numerous biographies, his Historical Memoirs of the Church of France and of English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics, were not merely up to the standard of his time, but often beyond it, in consequence of the peculiarity of the materials that he brought together. While he was familiar with a wide range of literature, English, foreign, and ancient, he was also conversant with algebra, music and other fine arts. The motto he adopted for his Reminiscences from D'Aguesseau shows his love of study: Le changement de l'étude est toujours un délassement pour moi—"A change of study is always a relaxation for me." If he is sometimes formal and verging on priggishness—as when he styles himself all through two volumes "the Reminiscent"—the fashion of his day, which was far more stilted than we should approve, must be his excuse. If we had enjoyed the pleasure of his acquaintance, we should, no doubt, have pronounced him "a gentleman of the old school."

The Rev. Joseph Berington was another Catholic of the last century who has embalmed his memory in a useful work. Charles Butler wrote of his Literary History of the Middle Ages: "It presents the best account in print of that important subject." The Biographie Universelle, that Pantheon of genius, contains a very imperfect but interesting monument to his memory. He was a contemporary of Charles Butler, and a link in the chain of English Catholic authors since the great overthrow of religion. Between the years 1776 and 1786, he published several controversial works directed against infidelity and Protestantism. He then published the History of Abelard and Heloise, with the genuine letters of those around whom Pope's poem had thrown much romantic interest. It soon reached a second edition, and was followed by a History of Henry II. and his Two Sons, vindicating the character of S. Thomas à Becket. But it was not till 1814 that he published the work on which his reputation mainly rests, The Literary History of the Middle Ages. By that time his experience had matured, and he had collected a large body of materials from numberless sources. His work, when it appeared, was the best compendium to be found; but since that period the researches of Maitland, Kenelm Digby, and many others have thrown open to our view more clearly the fair fields and wealthy mines of mediæval lore. This volume served as a stimulus to the inquiries of other students, and it was thought worthy of republication so late as 1846. What we admire in it is the taste of the writer and his genuine love of the subject on which he treats. He does not write like a dry bibliographer, but in a genial way—like one whose learning has not eaten out his individual human heart.

But the merit of Berington and Charles Butler fades into insignificance when compared with that of Lingard. Before his time, English history was almost unknown. The Catholic side of a number of questions had never been fairly presented, and the true sources of history had either not been discovered, or were very scantily resorted to. It was Dr. Lingard who first made the public sensible of the value of documents brought to light by the Record Commission; the Close and Patent Rolls extant in the Tower; the Parliamentary writs; the papers and instruments of the State Paper Office; the despatches of De la Mothe Fénelon, the French ambassador in London in the reign of Elizabeth; the letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell; and the archives of the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères in France. Accustomed as we now are to see history written by the lights of such incontestable evidence, we often wonder how our forefathers could have accepted with complacency the jejune records founded in too many cases on tradition and fancy. To Dr. Lingard and Miss Strickland is principally due the praise of having introduced a more respectable and reliable method.

Historians generally train themselves unconsciously for their larger works by the composition of some smaller ones. It was thus with Lingard, who published, in 1806, his Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and lived to watch over its success, and improve it in numerous editions, during a period of forty-five years. He availed himself gladly of the labors of other workers in the historic field, and saw, with singular pleasure, the laws, charters, poems, homilies, and letters of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors collected and published. But no work on the Anglo-Saxon portion of English history is more valuable and interesting than his own. He causes the church of that epoch to live before us with its laws, polity, doctrines, sacraments, services, discipline, and literature. He consults the original authorities, and, putting aside wearisome controversies on points of detail, confines himself to facts well ascertained.

It was during his residence at Pontop and Crook Hall, and before removing to Ushaw—in a neighborhood where Weremouth and Jarrow recalled the memory of Bede, and where Tynemouth, Hexham, Lindisfarne, and many other spots spoke eloquently of the past—that Lingard used, in his spare moments, to compile the several papers on the religion, laws, and literature of the Anglo-Saxons, of which his work is composed. Seated by the evening fireside, he would read them to his companions, and their interest in his theme, and surprise at the extent of his learning, increased with every reading. When, at length, the series reached its close, his friends earnestly requested him to publish them as a connected history; and thus the foundation of his future reputation and usefulness was laid. If amateur authors would more frequently try their strength in this way, without rushing unadvisedly into print, they would be spared much disappointment and expense, and the standard of current literature would be raised.

The publication of The Anglo-Saxon Church naturally led to Lingard's being solicited to extend his history to a later period. Why should not he, who was evidently so competent, trace the fortunes of the church through the Norman, Plantagenet, Lancastrian, and Yorkist periods? Nay, what reason was there why he should not give the world a Catholic version of the history of the Reformation, so commonly and flagrantly misrepresented? How many old Catholic families would be delighted to peruse a faithful record of events in which their ancestors were concerned! Might not he throw a halo round many illustrious Catholic names, and tear up by the roots many Protestant historic falsehoods? Had not several of the Stuart kings shown a bias, and more than a bias, towards the ancient religion? And who could exhibit the different phases in the career and character of those kings so well as he? If Queen Mary had been unduly reviled, and Queen Elizabeth extravagantly praised, on whom could the task of rectifying these mistakes be devolved so safely as on Lingard? Such questions stirred his activity and laudable ambition; for he was not unconscious of his ability to write the history of his country. At first, indeed, he modestly shrank from so serious an undertaking, and contemplated only an abridgment for the use of schools; but a secluded mission like that of Hornby, to which he had retired, is highly favorable to the composition of important works. The Abridgment was revised when he had buried Henry VII., and, after being rewritten, was thrown aside. The scaffolding was thrown down, but the house stood.

When Lingard visited Rome in 1817, he was, in the first instance, discouraged by the reception he met with. It was intimated to him by a member of the Sacred College that Dr. Milner had already sufficiently exposed and refuted the calumnies contained in Hume, and that further researches for the purposes of English history were unnecessary or of slight importance. Every writer of eminence has met with similar rebuffs. Lingard was mortified, but not deterred from the object he had in view. Before he left Rome, the archives of the Vatican had been opened to him without reserve, his admission to the libraries was facilitated, and transcripts of such unpublished documents as he might require were promised him. Unfortunately, the privilege of consulting the Vatican treasures was of little use, seeing that the French Revolution had thrown the codices into much confusion.

In the early part of 1819 the three volumes of the History of England, extending to the death of Henry VII., were published, having been purchased by Mawman, the publisher, for a thousand guineas; and other volumes followed at irregular intervals, till, in 1830, the whole history down to the Revolution of 1688 had appeared. For the first and second editions the author received altogether £4,133—an extraordinary amount, considering the unpopularity of Catholics at the time of its appearance, and the small number of English Catholic readers. But its fame extended beyond the English shores; translations in French and German were published; and an Italian translation was printed, by the Pope's desire, at the press of the Propaganda. His Holiness subscribed for 200 copies of this translation; and Cardinal Cristaldi, the Trésorière Générale, for a yet larger number. It was reproduced in America, and in Paris by Galignani, and read at Rome with enthusiastic delight. Pius VII., in August, 1821, conferred on the author the triple academical laurel, creating him at the same time doctor of divinity and of canon and civil law. Leo XII. invited him to take up his residence in Rome; but from this Lingard excused himself by saying that it was necessary he should examine original papers which could be found in England only. On his departure, the same pontiff presented him with the gold medal which is usually reserved for cardinals and princes, and he is said to have designed for him the dignity of the cardinalate.

As time went on, Lingard's knowledge of English history widened and deepened. He availed himself eagerly of the new sources of information which this century has opened so abundantly, and, by the constant revision of his work, he rendered it increasingly valuable. It would be difficult to overstate its merits, one of the highest of which is its impartiality and fearless statement of what the writer knew to be true. He avoided all appearance of controversy, and often refuted Hume without appearing to do so. His great aim was to write a history which Protestants would read, and in this he succeeded. In 1825, the President of the English College at Rome, Dr. Gradwell, wrote to him, saying: "Your History is much spoken of here as one of the great causes which have wrought such a change in public sentiment in England on Catholic matters." Dr. Wiseman, writing to Lingard in July, 1835, said: "All the professors at Munich desired me, again and again, to assure you of the high esteem they entertain for you, and the high position your work is allowed, through all Germany, among historical productions. Prof. Phillips, formerly professor of history at Baden, now at Munich, requested me to inform you that he owes his conversion (which made immense sensation, on account of his well-known talents) chiefly to your History, which he undertook to review." A few weeks only before Cardinal Wiseman's death, he thus expressed his sense of Dr. Lingard's merits, both as an author and a man: "Be assured of my affectionate gratitude to you for much kindness in my early youth, and still more for the great, important, and noble services which you have rendered to religion through life, and which have so much contributed to overthrow error, and give a solid historical basis to all subsequent controversy with Protestantism."

In mentioning those writers who have helped to construct an English Catholic literature, it would be impossible to omit the name of Thomas Moore. Though an Irishman by birth, the English, among whom he chiefly resided, are accustomed to reckon him among their own; and though, unhappily, he ceased, at an early period of life, to observe regularly the duties of his religion, he never ceased altogether to frequent the services of the Catholic Church; and in his writings he maintained to the last the truth of Catholicism, and the immense superiority of its system over all modern forms and sections of Christianity. His Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion is no less forcible in argument than humorous in style; and numberless passages in his diaries and poems prove that Catholicism retained its hold over his heart as well as his understanding, though it did not always influence duly his practice as a member of the church. Probably his passion for society, and his fondness for the great, were in some measure the causes of his conforming outwardly to Protestant observances, and allowing his children to be educated in the doctrines and usages of the Church of England. Certain it is that his own affections were never weaned from the faith of his parents; and one of his most intimate friends, Lord Russell, who was also his biographer, assures us that, when in London, it was his custom to frequent the Catholic chapel in Wardour Street.

We cannot in this place discuss as fully as it deserves the question of Moore's personal Catholicity. Suffice it to refer to a passage in his Diary, under the date November 2 to 9, 1834, and to the following, dated April 9, 1833: "In one of my conversations with Lord John (Russell), we talked about my forthcoming book, and I explained to him the nature of it, adding that I had not the least doubt in my own mind of the truth of the case I undertook to prove in it—namely, that Popery is in all respects the old, original Christianity, and Protestantism a departure from it." Such was the lesson which the Travels of an Irish Gentleman in search of a Religion was intended to teach; nor could anything less than a deep sympathy for the faith of the people of Ireland have inspired Moore with such touching lamentations over their wrongs and sufferings. The frame of his mind was essentially religious; and those who have been wont to think of him as a dissolute devotee of fashion will feel surprised to discover in the authentic records of his life a fond and faithful husband, an affectionate son, a loving parent, and, as far as his feelings were regarded, a devout Christian. His Sacred Songs were not efforts of the imagination merely; they expressed the genuine emotions of his inmost heart; and how beautifully, and in numbers how inimitably melodious! There is a disposition among some critics to disparage Moore's poetry, and to treat him merely as a love-sick rhymer; but his fame is proof against such pitiful assailants; and his poems will awaken echoes in the human heart when their artificial and obscure poetizings shall

"... bind a book, or line a box,
Or serve to curl a maiden's locks."

There cannot be a doubt that his writings contributed largely to the success of the movement in favor of Catholic emancipation, and that his Irish Melodies in particular conspired with the speeches and addresses of O'Connell to kindle in the breasts of Irishmen and Irishwomen the determination to set their country free. The enthusiasm, even to tears, which they excited on the lake, in the grove, in the music-hall and the banqueting-room, when sung to the soft notes of the piano or harp, burst forth sooner or later in action, and produced results by which senates were moved and populations stirred. The power which poetry has over men's hearts and actions is a test of its merits that rises far above the technicalities of a pedantic school; and Moore's lyrics are not found wanting when tried by this standard. They are truly "magnetic." They have fired many a soldier on the field of battle, and excited many an orator at the hustings; they have comforted many a solitary mourner, and smoothed many a touch of sickness and pain. We have, of course, no apology to offer for some of those in which he celebrates earthly love; though it must be admitted he has not been unmindful of that higher, that divine love, which alone can crown earthly affections with true happiness. No one has sung more sweetly than Moore the truths that God is "the life and light of all this wondrous world"; that he dries the mourner's tear; that "the world is all a fleeting show"; that there is nothing bright but the soul may see in it some feature of Deity, and nothing dark but God's love may be traced therein. What hymn-book contains a spiritual lesson more true and beautiful than this?

"As morning, when her early breeze
Breaks up the surface of the seas,
That in their furrows, dark with night,
Her hands may sow the seeds of light,

"Thy grace can send its breathings o'er
The spirit, dark and lost before,
And, freshening all its depths, prepare
For truth divine to enter there!"

But it is in Moore's national poems that we must look for the principal gauge of his influence on public opinion. Their effect in England was no less magical than in Ireland. Wherever they were sung or read, they turned enemies into advocates; and mammas little dreamed that political treatises were entering their homes in the shape of rolls of music. By adapting modern words to ancient airs, they appealed to listeners by the twofold charm of antiquity and novelty. They surpassed the plaintive sweetness of Carolan, being addressed to more refined audiences than had ever gathered round Erin's minstrels of old. During one-and-twenty years, from 1807 to 1828, the Irish Melodies transmitted the "light of song" "through the variegating prism of harmony"; and the cruel acts against minstrels in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth were atoned for by the rapturous welcome given in England under the last two of the Georges to the most tuneful expressions of patriotism that ever broke from lip and lyre since the days of "the sweet Psalmist of Israel." They laid bare the bleeding heart-strings of the Irish cotter, exile, and emigrant; they pleaded for the redress of his wrongs, centuries old; they invoked a Nemesis on his oppressor; they enlisted on his side the suffrages of the noble, the tender-hearted, and the brave. They coupled Ireland with Poland in the minds of all lovers of political justice; and they even suggested analogies between the Irish and the persecuted and outcast people of Israel. That they promoted indirectly, and still promote, the cause of Catholicism is certain; for the sequences of mental associations are governed by rules as fixed as those which attend the sequences of natural products. Under the symbol of lovers, which all can understand, they frequently set forth the relation between the Irishman and his country, including his religion. To the true Irishman, indeed, of that period, the ideas of his native land and his father's faith were inseparable, and he would have thought that which was disloyal to either to have been treason against both. Moore's Catholic education—the never-forgotten lessons of Catholic parents, whom he fondly loved—constituted a large element in the power and charm of his ever-varied and incomparable Melodies.

The practical importance of journalism as a branch of literature cannot be too highly rated; for, though in itself it seldom reaches the highest literary excellence, it brings it down to the level of ordinary understandings, and retails to the public what in the wholesale they would not buy. In the beginning of 1840, the Catholic field in England was sufficiently extended, and its prospects were so promising that a weekly organ of greater ability and wider scope than any which then existed was imperatively required. No one appeared better able to conduct such a journal successfully than Frederic Lucas. Born of Quaker parents, and educated at the London University, he had, at an early age, been distinguished for his ardent pursuit of literature in preference to art, science, or mathematics. Skilful as a debater, and insatiable in his historical researches, he was attracted to the subject of religion by its controversial and historic side. The works of Bentham, and the stirring events of the revolutionary period of 1830, drew him deep into politics, while the poetry of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth strewed his pathway with shells and flowers, and colored every object around him with rainbow hues. Called to the bar in 1835, he became intimately acquainted with Thomas Carlyle, personally and as an author. The writings of this eminent historian and philosopher had for him a special charm, to which the peculiarity of their style was no drawback. He took great interest in the lectures on Heroes and Hero Worship when they were first delivered; and it was from his accurate notes that a full report of Lecture No. 1 was published in the Tablet. Though the tendency of Carlyle's works is towards anything but Catholicism, they had, strange to say, an indirect tendency that way in Lucas' case. They called up many sympathies in favor of the middle ages, and pointed to increase of faith as the grand remedy for human ills.

There was about this time a great stirring of the public mind on religious subjects, and Lucas, reflecting deeply on the chaotic state of Christendom and the ever-multiplying forms of schism, became attracted to views set forth with great ability by Oxford divines, tending to revive mediæval practices and produce a tranquil reliance on ancient ecclesiastical authority. But he felt no inclination to stop at the half-way house. To exchange Quakerism for Anglicanism would, he thought, be a loss rather than a gain; for the doctrines of the Society of Friends could, at least, be stated definitely, whereas those of the Church of England were matter of ceaseless debate between three parties—High Church, Low Church, and Broad Church. He therefore broke through every barrier, and ruptured many ties of friendship, interest, and old association. His Reasons for becoming a Roman Catholic was a pamphlet remarkable for the poetic exuberance of its style, and still more from the fact of its being addressed to Friends, and its defending Catholicism from a Friend's point of view. A few articles published in the Dublin Review established Lucas' literary reputation among his co-religionists, and he was soon invited to edit a new Catholic weekly journal, which he named the Tablet. The first number appeared on the 16th of May, 1840, and during fifteen years Lucas continued to direct the undertaking, and to take a leading part in its composition. Some of the literary and miscellaneous papers were, in the early days of the publication, contributed by non-Catholics; but it was then, and has ever since been, regarded as an exponent of Catholicism—not, indeed, absolutely authoritative, but in the highest degree weighty, and semi-official.

It can scarcely be necessary to speak of the ability which this journal displayed in Lucas' hands. One anecdote will suffice to prove the intellectual readiness and aptitude of the editor. An article which appeared in the Dublin Review in 1849, on the "Campaigns of the Duke of Marlborough," at once attracted the notice of Sir William Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War. Competent judge as he was, he supposed the article to be written by a soldier, and could not conceive that any other than a military man could exhibit so much familiarity with the manœuvres of armies and the tactics of generals. When he learned that it was a civilian who thus described and commented on the battles of Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, he hastened to make his acquaintance, and offered him every species of encouragement.

But if English Catholics were fortunate in having a really literary man at the head of their most popular journal, they were still more so in possessing an archbishop who was a connoisseur in art, skilled in science, and profound in ancient and modern lore. There were few subjects with which Cardinal Wiseman was not conversant; and when weary of business and serious study, he would often refresh his own mind and entertain his friends by discussing topics altogether outside the ordinary grave circle of a prelate's discourse. He could talk of pancakes and posy-rings, of "Cymbeline" and "Peter Bell," as fluently as of general councils and the Acts of the Martyrs. His Essays, reprinted from the Dublin Review, his Connection between Science and Revelation, his Fabiola, a Tale of the Catacombs, and his Lives of the Last Four Popes, abundantly establish his literary reputation, and are equally creditable to his research, observation, and inventive faculty. The story of Fabiola was composed, as he tells us, "at all sorts of times and places, early and late; in scraps and fragments of time, when the body was too fatigued or the mind too worn-out for heavier occupation; in the roadside inn, in the halt of travel, in strange houses, in every variety of situation and circumstance, sometimes trying ones." In the midst of his episcopal labors, he found time for the delivery of numerous lectures on secular subjects, which attracted public attention to many curious points in literature, art, and science. In the present age, when every field of knowledge and experiment is crowded with eager students, and when a disposition is seen everywhere to subordinate all discoveries and researches to high, if not always correct, views of religion, it seems to be of the utmost importance that Catholics in general should, as far as they are able, copy the example of Cardinal Wiseman in cultivating the happy and hallowed alliance of truth divinely revealed and truth humanly ascertained, feeling sure that, however the two may seem here and there to clash one with another, the discrepancy between them is only apparent, and will vanish on closer investigation.

Dr. Newman has adopted a perfectly unique mode of enriching the Catholic literature of his country. He is now, in his advanced age, republishing all his works from the commencement of his author-life. Many of these appeared while he was still a clergyman of the Church of England; but to these he appends qualifying or explanatory notes, thus laying before his readers both his first and second thoughts. This often gives him an opportunity of rebutting his former errors, and, by a brush of arms, laying low many a favorite Anglican defence. The series serves, also, to fill up various parts of his biography which had been sketched only in the Apologia pro Vita Sua. It is, therefore, welcome to the reading public in general, to whom his earlier life has never lost its interest in consequence of his conversion. The avidity with which his works are read by non-Catholics is no small proof of their merit intellectually considered. Indeed, to use the words of one writing in a hostile spirit in the Pall Mall Gazette of Sept. 23, 1872: "The extreme beauty of his language, the rarity of his utterances, his delicate yet forcible way of dealing with opposition when obliged to do so—all these things have invested his image with a kind of halo, to which, for our parts, we scarcely remember a parallel."

Nothing could prove more conclusively the esteem in which he is held by the English public than the reception given to his Apologia. Though this publication was polemical, though Dr. Newman's adversary was a Protestant clergyman and professor in the University of Cambridge, the verdict given by the leading journals and reviews of the day was emphatically on the side of the Priest of the Oratory—the convert from Anglicanism! Mr. Kingsley was universally condemned as having advanced what he could not substantiate; and the beautifully naïve account which the assailed gave of his own life, opinions, literary and ministerial career, was welcomed and hailed with praise, admiration, and delight. The Spectator (than which no review in England stands higher) styled the Apologia: "An interior view of one of the greatest minds and greatest natures ever completely subjected to the influence of reactionary thought"; and it added: "Mr. Kingsley has grievously wronged a man utterly unintelligible to him, but as incapable of falsehood or of the advocacy of falsehood as the sincerest Protestant." The Union Review, a High Church organ, said of the same work: "Since the Confessions of S. Augustine were given to the world, we doubt if any autobiography has appeared of such thrilling interest as the present." The Saturday Review was scarcely less emphatic. "Few books," it said, "have been published, in the memory of this generation, full of so varied an interest as Dr. Newman's Apologia." To these extracts we must add one more from a writer in the Times: "So far as one can judge from the opinions of the press, it is universally acknowledged that Dr. Newman has displayed through his whole life, and never more so than at the time he was most bitterly assailed, the most transparent idea of an honorable and high-minded gentleman."

It is not so much to the theological as to the literary character of Dr. Newman's works that we wish to call attention. As a writer of sermons, he has never been surpassed. Old as the Christian religion is, he never failed in preaching to present some portion of it in a new light. The Scriptures of the Old Testament in his hands acquire new meaning and import; and the subtlety of his thought is only equalled by the limpid clearness of his style. To those who remember him only as he appeared in the pulpit of S. Mary the Virgin's, Oxford, his image is that of a seer piercing the depths of nature and redemption, and enunciating, under the influence of a divine afflatus, truths full of awe and tenderness, but often too vast for the comprehension of his hearers.

The test of any work of art is this—that it will bear the closest inspection. The fine gold of Dr. Newman's sermon-writing becomes more evident when his discourses are molten down in the crucible of severe criticism. They have nothing to fear from dissection; rather they court the anatomist's knife. Their beauty does not lie on the surface merely, though that surface is passing fair; they have that interior charm and sweetness, that plaintive and mysterious tenderness, which belongs to the notes of a Stradivarius violin when played by a master-hand. They suggest more than they say; they are replete with thoughts that often lie too deep for tears, and make us feel that we are greater than we know. They win upon our hearts like a living voice, and make us love the writer, whom we have perhaps never seen. "Eloquent" would be a poor and vulgar adjective to apply to them. They are more than eloquent; they are poetry, religion, and philosophy combined in prose, which is prose only because it is not in rhythm.

Largely as Dr. Newman is gifted with the imaginative faculty, he has not acquired, nor, indeed, deserved to acquire, the same honors as a poet as by his prose writings. His verses entitled "Lead, kindly Light," are faultlessly beautiful, and some parts of Gerontius are very fine; but in his poetry in general there is a want of color and detail. His mind has not been turned sufficiently to the minuter qualities and phases of natural objects to make a consummate poet. He is too abstract, chill, and classical for the luxurious requirements of modern verse. But when, in his prose, he launches into matter highly poetical in its nature, as in Callista, when he describes the ravages of the locusts, or in his Sermons, when he dwells on the assumption of Our Lady's body into heaven, his language is equally copious and brilliant, reaching the highest form of speech without any sacrifice of simplicity, point, or color. Whatever Dr. Newman writes, be it sermon, history, or fiction, it has the air of an essay. It is a charming disquisition—the outpouring of the thoughts of a great and original mind on some point which deeply interests him, and the connection of which with other matters of high import he sees more clearly than other men. But he is not discursive; he does not straggle about from one subject to another, but keeps closely to that which is in hand. Hence, to cursory readers he often seems to be forgetting some truths, because he dwells so fully and forcibly on others. It is their minds which are at fault, not his. All parts of a large system of Christian philosophy are present to his view at all times; and for this very reason he can afford to spend himself on each in detail and labor upward from the particular to the universal. In this respect he resembles Plato, while in others he has been compared, not unjustly, to S. Augustine:

"Whene'er I con the thoughtful page
My youth so dearly prized,
I say, This foremost of his age
Is Plato's self baptized!

"But kindling, weeping, as I read,
And wondering at his pen,
I cry, This Newman is indeed
Augustine come again.

"The sweet, sublime 'Athenian Bee'
And Hippo's seer, who ran
Through every range of thought, I see
Combined in this new man."

When Thomas Moore was visiting Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, nearly fifty years ago, they both agreed that much of the poetry then appearing in periodicals, and passing comparatively unnoticed, would, not many years before, have made the reputation of the writers. If they were alive now, with how much stronger emphasis would they make a similar remark! Magazine poetry in England now is as superior to that of 1825 as that of 1825 surpassed that of 1775. There are not a few poets at this moment, whose names are scarcely known, who would, at an earlier period of English literature, have been crowned with laurel by general consent. The great poets of this century have raised the standard of poetry, and verse nowadays is what Scott and Wordsworth, Byron and Moore, Shelley and Tennyson, have made it. Mr. Aubrey de Vere, in the time of Daniel, Carew, Drummond, and Drayton, would have been a star of the first magnitude; whereas he is now, partly on account of his Catholic principles, observed and admired by the public far less than he deserves. Born of a Protestant family, and educated in the Protestant religion, he has in ripe years chosen the better part, and embraced the faith of the large majority of his countrymen. He has thrown himself into the views of Irish Catholics on political subjects, and has, without disloyalty to the existing government, reproduced in modern verse the passionate sentiments of Irish chieftains, captives, exiles, emigrants, and serfs of the soil in days long past. Residing, however, chiefly in England, and representing, as he does, the later colonists of Ireland, we may venture to class him among English authors, or, at least, to consider his poems as a contribution to English Catholic literature. Occasional obscurity and faulty rhymes are, in his case, redeemed by poetry's prime excellence—originality of thought and expression. Lines pregnant with truth and beauty are constantly recurring, and the deeply religious feeling which pervades all has the great advantage of not being expressed in hackneyed and conventional language. The May Carols is a perfect conservatory of lovely images clustering round the central figure of immaculate Mary. The 21st carol, on "The Maryless Nations," is perhaps better known in the United States than in England, for it is said that this prophet is less honored in his own country than in America; yet it may fairly be quoted here as a very favorable specimen of Mr. Aubrey de Vere's reflective verse:

"As children when, with heavy tread,
Men sad of face, unseen before,
Have borne away their mother dead,
So stand the nations thine no more.

"From room to room those children roam,
Heart-stricken by the unwonted black:
Their house no longer seems their home;
They search, yet know not what they lack.

"Years pass: self-will and passion strike
Their roots more deeply day by day;
Old servants weep; and 'how unlike'
Is all the tender neighbors say.

"And yet at moments, like a dream,
A mother's image o'er them flits;
Like hers, their eyes a moment beam,
The voice grows soft, the brow unknits.

"Such, Mary, are the realms once thine
That know no more thy golden reign.
Hold forth from heaven thy Babe divine!
Oh! make thine orphans thine again."

There is another "May Carol" which has always struck us as particularly beautiful, because so highly figurative. Metaphor and music make up the soul of poetry. It is an apostrophe to the south wind, and is headed by the motto, Adolescentulæ amaverunt te nimis, a text from the Canticles, which sufficiently explains the mysticism of the lines:

"Behold! the wintry rains are past,
The airs of midnight hurt no more;
The young maids love thee. Come at last:
Thou lingerest at the garden door.

"'Blow over all the garden; blow,
Thou wind that breathest of the South,
Through all the alleys winding low,
With dewy wing and honeyed mouth.

"'But wheresoe'er thou wanderest, shape
Thy music ever to one Name;
Thou, too, clear stream, to cave and cape
Be sure to whisper of the same.

"'By every isle and bower of musk
Thy crystal clasps as on its curls;
We charge thee, breathe it to the dusk,
We charge thee, grave it in thy pearls.'

"The stream obeyed. That Name he bore
Far out above the moonlit tide.
The breeze obeyed; he breathed it o'er
The unforgetting pines, and died."

This is the very algebra of language, and all the terms employed are raised, as it were, to their highest powers. Such verse could proceed only from one of

"The visionary apprehensive souls
Whose finer insight no dim sense controls."

There is another poem by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, which deserves to be quoted for its ingenuity; nor can we, in reading it, but be reminded of what was said of Euripides, and might, with equal truth, be said of him: "In all his pieces there is the sweet human voice, the fluttering human heart." The Irish race in these verses is compared to a great religious order, of which England is the foundress:

"There is an order by a Northern sea,
Far in the west, of rule and life more strict
Than that which Basil reared in Galilee,
In Egypt Paul, in Umbria Benedict.

"Discalced it walks; a stony land of tombs,
A strange Petræa of late days, it treads.
Within its courts no high-tossed censer fumes;
The night-rain beats its cells, the wind its beds.

"Before its eyes no brass-bound, blazoned tome
Reflects the splendor of a lamp high hung;
Knowledge is banished from her earliest home
Like wealth: it whispers psalms that once it sung.

"It is not bound by the vow celibate,
Lest, through its ceasing, anguish too might cease;
In sorrow it brings forth, and death and fate
Watch at life's gate, and tithe the unripe increase.

"It wears not the Franciscan's sheltering gown,
The cord that binds it is the stranger's chain:
Scarce seen for scorn, in fields of old renown
It breaks the clod; another reaps the grain.

"Year after year it fasts; each third or fourth
So fasts that common fasts to it are feast;
Then of its brethren many in the earth
Are laid unrequiem'd like the mountain beast.

"Where are its cloisters? Where the felon sleeps!
Where its novitiate? Where the last wolf died!
From sea to sea its vigil long it keeps—
Stern Foundress! is its rule not mortified?

"Thou that hast laid so many an order waste,
A nation is thine order! It was thine
Wide as a realm that order's seed to cast,
And undispensed sustain its discipline!"

The Catholic press in England, which at the commencement of this century was smitten with barrenness, now teems with ceaseless productions. Few of them, however, except those we have mentioned, are destined to form part of standard literature. Even Miss Adelaide Anne Procter's verses are not as widely appreciated as they deserve to be, though, during her lifetime, they obtained for her the reputation of being one of the most tuneful moralists that ever sung or breathed. Mrs. William Pitt Byrne has earned well of the public by the lively manner in which she has described so many Catholic countries, and the diligence with which she has collected her materials. Her works on Belgium, France—Paris in particular—Spain, and Hungary have supplied amusement and instruction to a large number of subscribers to circulating libraries, and have thus accomplished a great part of the purpose for which they were written. F. Faber's numerous volumes are too well known to need much comment on this occasion. They are intensely devotional, full of fervid eloquence, and rich with the coloring of a poetic mind. Many of his Hymns are popular, and will long remain so, because they are simple, forcible, and direct. Lady Georgina Fullerton has succeeded as a religious novelist, and has been the first as an English Catholic to occupy the ground which is now especially hers. Kenelm Digby's Ages of Faith, Compitum, and other works have a special charm for those who love choice quotations and pictures of mediæval piety; Mr. T. W. Allies has ably and valiantly defended the Papal supremacy; Mr. John Wallis has rendered Heyne's Songs in graceful English lyrics; Mr. Charles Waterton's Wanderings are deservedly prized by naturalists; Mr. Richard Simpson's Life of Campion displays much historical research; F. Morris has depicted admirably the sufferings of Catholic martyrs and confessors under the Reforming sovereigns; the Life of the Marquis of Pombal, by the Conde da Carnota (an English work), though too favorable to the Portuguese prime minister, is highly valuable so far as it is documentary; and the papers read before the Academia of the Catholic Religion, and published in two volumes, supply in themselves a test of the literary proficiency of many distinguished members of the church in England at the present time. The following works also deserve to be mentioned as valuable additions to the stock of English Catholic literature: The Evidence for the Papacy, by the Hon. Colin Lindsay; The Life of Cardinal Howard, by F. Palmer; Buckley's Life and Writings of the Rev. Father O'Leary; Christian Schools and Scholars, by the author of The Knights of S. John; Dr. Husenbeth's Life of Bishop Milner; Mr. Maguire's Rome, its Ruler and its Institutions; and Dr. Rock's Hierurgia.

Among Catholic poets, we ought not to forget Mr. Coventry Patmore, whose playful, pleasing, and thoughtful octosyllabics—The Angel of the House and Faithful for Ever—found many admirers ten or twelve years ago. There is in these fluent productions a simplicity which at first sight strikes one as namby-pamby, but which, on further consideration, is seen to be a light veil of serious thought and genuine emotion. There are minds which can never appreciate poetry of the highest order; who admire it only because they are taught that they ought to do so, but cannot love it, even though it be stamped with the approval of ages. "None ever loved because he ought" is true in reference to more subjects than one; and it is well that second-rate poetry should be written and preserved for second-rate appreciations. Mr. Coventry Patmore's works fulfil a purpose, and are therefore not to be despised, though they will never obtain a large reward.

It is to be hoped and expected that, as time goes on, Catholic literature in England will enlarge its borders without declining in orthodoxy. Colleges and universities yet to be founded will encourage learning in all its branches, and prove to the world by new examples that science and religion mutually support each other. The more firmly the children of the church are rooted in the faith, the more strength will their intellect acquire, and the more freedom will they be able to indulge with safety. The literary spirit, animated and guided by the true religion, will ever find new fields of useful speculation and research; and the rebuke of ignorance, so often cast on members of the church, will fall pointless when they are able to meet non-Catholic historians and professors on their own ground, and to rob them frequently of a crown in the arena of literary combat.

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