Library Notes

by A. P. Russell

Suddenly the wheel turned. "The same people who, by a solemn objurgation, had excluded even the posterity of their lawful sovereign, exhausted themselves in festivals and rejoicings for his return." Restored royalty "made it a crime to attend a dissenting place of worship. A single justice of the peace might convict without a jury, and might, for a third offense, pass sentence of transportation beyond the sea, or for seven years. The whole soul of the restored church was in the work of crushing the Puritans, and of teaching her disciples to give unto Cæsar the things which were Cæsar's. She had been pillaged and oppressed by the party which preached an austere morality. She had been restored to opulence and honor by libertines. Little as the men of mirth and fashion were disposed to shape their lives according to her precepts, they were yet ready to fight knee-deep in blood for her cathedrals and palaces, for every line of her rubric and every thread of her vestments. If the debauched cavalier haunted brothels and gambling-houses, he at least avoided conventicles. If he ever spoke without uttering ribaldry and blasphemy, he made some amends by his eagerness to send Baxter and Howe to jail for preaching and praying. The ribaldry of Etherege and Wycherley was, in the presence and under the special sanction of the head of the church, publicly recited by female lips in female ears, while the author of the Pilgrim's Progress languished in a dungeon for the crime of proclaiming the gospel to the poor. Then came those days never to be recalled without a blush—the days of servitude without loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The caresses of harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the manners of a government which had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a second time driven forth to wander on the face of the earth, and be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations."

The morality of the court was exhibited in the character of the sovereign, according to whose ethics "every person was to be bought; but some people haggled more about their price than others; and when this haggling was very obstinate and very skillful, it was called by some fine name. The chief trick by which clever men kept up the price of their abilities was called integrity. The chief trick by which handsome women kept up the price of their beauty was called modesty. The love of God, the love of country, the love of family, the love of friends, were phrases of the same sort, delicate and convenient synonyms for the love of self."

A great licentiousness, says Emerson, treads on the heels of a reformation. How many times in the history of the world has the Luther of the day had to lament the decay of piety in his own household! "Doctor," said his wife to Martin Luther, one day, "how is it that, whilst subject to papacy, we prayed so often and with such fervor, whilst now we pray with the utmost coldness and very seldom?" "The courtiers of Charles II. were very dissolute because the Puritans were too strict; Addison and Steele were respectable because Congreve and Wycherley were licentious; Wesley was zealous because the church had become indifferent; the revolution of 1789 was a reaction against the manners of the last century, and the revolution in running its course set up a reaction against itself." "The drawing a certain positive line in morals," says Hazlitt, "beyond which a single false step is irretrievable, makes virtue formal, and vice desperate." "Puritanism," says Taine, "had brought on an orgie, and fanatics had talked down the virtues."

"To what a place you come in search of knowledge!" exclaimed a bitter republican to Castelar, in the streets of Rome, during the reign of the pope, not long before Victor Emanuel. "Here everybody is interested about lottery tickets; no one for an idea of the human brain. The commemoration of the anniversary of Shakespeare has been prohibited in this city of the arts. Her censorship is so wise that when a certain writer wished to publish a book on the discoveries of Volta, she let loose on him the thunders of the Index, thinking it treated of Voltairianism—a philosophy which leaves neither repose nor digestion to our cardinals. On the other hand, a cabalistic and astrological book, professing to divine the caprices of the lottery, has been printed and published under the pontifical seal, as containing nothing contrary to religion, morals, or sovereign authority. Rabelais knew this city—Rabelais. On arriving, in place of writing a dissertation on dogmas, he penned one on lettuces, the only good and fresh articles in this cursed dungeon. And priest though he was, a priest of the sixteenth century, more religious than our generation, he had a long correspondence with the pious Bishop of Maillezais on the children of the pope; for the reverend prelate had especially charged him to ascertain whether the Cavaliere Pietro Luis Farnese was the lawful or illegitimate son of his holiness. Believe me, Rabelais knew Rome."

An old letter-writer, inditing from Paris, said, "Nakedness is so innocent here! In a refined city, one gets back to the first chapter of Genesis; the extremes meet, and Paradise and Paris get together."

What opposite characters were the leaders in the Reformation. The monks said the egg was laid by Erasmus, hatched by Luther. "On the other hand," says Motley, "he was reviled for not taking side manfully with the reformer. The moderate man received much denunciation from zealots on either side. He soon clears himself, however, from all suspicions of Lutheranism. He is appalled by the fierce conflict which rages far and wide. He becomes querulous as the mighty besom sweeps away sacred dust and consecrated cobwebs. 'Men should not attempt everything at once,' he writes, 'but rather step by step. That which men cannot approve they must look at through the fingers. If the godlessness of mankind requires such fierce physicians as Luther, if man cannot be healed with soothing ointments and cooling drinks, let us hope that God will comfort, as repentant, those whom he has punished as rebellious. If the dove of Christ—not the owl of Minerva—would only fly to us, some measure might be put to the madness of mankind.' Meantime, the man whose talk is not of doves and owls, the fierce physician, who deals not with ointments and cooling draughts, strides past the crowd of gentle quacks to smite the foul disease. Devils, thicker than tiles on house-tops, scare him not from his work. Bans and bulls, excommunications and decrees, are rained upon his head. The paternal emperor sends down dire edicts, thicker than hail upon the earth. The Holy Father blasts and raves from Rome. Louvain doctors denounce, Louvain hangmen burn, the bitter, blasphemous books. The immoderate man stands firm in the storm, demanding argument instead of illogical thunder; shows the hangmen and the people, too, outside the Elster gate at Wittenberg, that papal bulls will blaze as merrily as heretic scrolls."

Erasmus was a philosophical thinker; Luther a bold actor. The former would reform by the slow processes of education; the latter by revolution. "Without Erasmus," says Froude, "Luther would have been impossible; and Erasmus really succeeded—so much of him as deserved to succeed—in Luther's victory." Erasmus said, "There is no hope for any good. It is all over with quiet learning, thought, piety, and progress; violence is on one side and folly on the other; and they accuse me of having caused it all. If I joined Luther I could only perish with him, and I do not mean to run my neck into the halter. Popes and emperors must decide matters. I will accept what is good, and do as I can with the rest. Peace on any terms is better than the justest war." Luther said, "I take Erasmus to be the worst enemy that Christ has had for a thousand years. Intellect does not understand religion, and when it comes to the things of God it laughs at them." "Whenever I pray," he said, "I pray for a curse upon Erasmus."

Melancthon was as different from Luther as Erasmus. He was the theologian of the three,—so much so that the scholars were all jealous of him. Sir Thomas More wrote to Erasmus that Tyndale had seen Melancthon in Paris; that Tyndale was afraid "if France should receive the word of God by him, it would be confirmed in the faith of the Eucharist contrary to the sect of the Wickliffites." "I have been born," said Luther, "to war and fight with factions and devils, therefore my books are stormy and warlike. I must root out the stumps and stocks, cut away the thorns and hedges, fill up the ditches, and am the rough forester, to break a path and make things ready. But master Philip walks gently and silently, tills and plants, sows and waters with pleasure, as God has gifted him richly." When Melancthon arose to preach on one occasion, he took this for a text: "I am the good shepherd." In looking round upon his numerous and respectable audience, his natural timidity entirely overcame him, and he could only repeat the text over and over again. Luther, who was in the pulpit with him, at length impatiently exclaimed, "You are a very good sheep!" and telling him to sit down, took the same text, and preached an excellent discourse from it.

Coming down to later times, and to characters more purely literary, what could more beautifully illustrate the harmony of opposites, so often observable in literature and life, than the intimacy which existed between Professor Wilson and Dr. Blair? The course and habit of Dr. Blair's life "were like the smooth, deep water; serene, undisturbed to outer eye; and the very repose that was about him had a charm for the restless, active energy of his friend, who turned to this gentle and meek nature for mental rest. I have often seen them sitting together," says Mrs. Gordon, "in the quiet retirement of the study, perfectly absorbed in each other's presence, like school-boys in the abandonment of their love for each other, occupying one seat between them, my father, with his arm lovingly embracing 'the dear doctor's' shoulders, playfully pulling the somewhat silvered locks to draw his attention to something in the tome spread out on their knees, from which they were both reading. Such discussions as they had together hour upon hour! Shakespeare, Milton—always the loftiest themes—never weary in doing honor to the great souls from whom they had learnt so much. Their voices were different, too: Dr. Blair's soft and sweet as that of a woman; the professor's sonorous, sad, with a nervous tremor: each revealing the peculiar character of the man."

Godwin and Rough (to whom some of Lamb's most amusing letters were written) met at a dinner-party for the first time. The very next day, it is stated, Godwin called on a friend (a fellow-guest) to say how much he liked Rough, adding: "By the way, do you think he would lend me fifty pounds just now, as I am in want of a little money?" He had not left his friend an hour before Rough came with a like question. He wanted a bill discounted, and asked whether his friend thought Godwin would do it for him. The habit of both was so well known that some persons were afraid to invite them, lest it should lead to an application for a loan from some acquaintance who chanced to be present.