there may be grounds for fear that, should ever the Government inspectors of schools hear of it, the poor innocents would be put to an inconvenient questioning; and it is possible that these inspectors, or multitudes of men equally learned, discreet, and wise, may, after lecturing the school teachers and scholars on superstition, go directly, with as great credulity, to a lecture of another kind, and to witness mesmeric experiments, which assume powers far beyond those of any miracles whatever. Those who would smile at the tale of a holy man healing the sick by a word, will credit a somnambulist who, upon a physician's fee, professes to look blindfolded into the inside of his credulous patient, and, without knowing anything whatever about medicine, say what drug will effect a cure; who advertises to be at home for consultation upon people's most private affairs—to tell them of unknown, unsuspected, important papers and documents—to tell the past, the present, and, more wonderful, the future. And, with a wonderful inconsistency, there are men who, having entire faith in these assumptions, and on the infallibility of their science, have no belief whatever in a soul, scoff at spirituality, and boldly pronounce the phenomena of seeing without eyes, travelling without feet, bidding doors, whether of mansion or of cabinets, open to them, and, being obeyed, of knowing all secrets which were never told; of knowing what is passing thousands of miles off with persons never before seen, by holding any person's hand; of entering into that person; of prophesying; of knowing thoughts and their consequences, as to be shown in events;—audaciously, we say, pronouncing these phenomena to arise from materialism.
While such things are, and things as strange, who can hope to expel superstition from the stronghold of man's belief? and who would wish to do it altogether, if the vacant citadel is to be taken possession of by such philosophy as this—the fanaticism of science? And whilst we condemn, as it must be confessed we ought, but duly and discreetly, the greater part of the Romish saintology, their legends and the works of art relating to them, as all belonging to "ages dark" and obsolete, it may not be altogether amiss to turn over some of the old and new pages of the evangelical magazines, where modern saints figure in portraiture and biography—that is, in our enlightened art and literature; and it is more than probable we shall be humbled and disgusted, and be charitably disposed to make some apologies even for the aurea legenda. And should any, in their folly or in their wickedness, desire to set up a new idol, to rival or obliterate the memory of St Johanna Southcote the immaculate, or St Huntingdon, for whom the fishes leaped voluntarily from the ponds into his sanctified hands, and for whose sake sudden death came upon the man who would not receive him as a tenant, let such person or persons not despair of collecting a household of "Latter-day Saints" after the authorised manner of Joe Smith the Mormonist. It may be read in modern biographies, that children almost infants have been miraculously converted whilst in idle play, and have gone back to their homes and converted their great-grandfathers. Poor good John Wesley believed many of these absurd things. He assented to the assertion of the profligate who courted his sister, that it was by "the Lord's directions;" and again, that suddenly "the Lord" had told him to transfer his affections to John's other sister. The published Sancta sanctorum of religious sects are nigh forgotten now-a-days; but they still exist, as did other legends, to be collected in form, should a seeming necessity or a cunning purpose require it: for there are multitudes who credit them now, and many more who might, without much difficulty, be made strenuous to establish them for "their Church."
We must not, however, forget, that the subject of Mrs Jameson's book before us is the legends of the monastic orders in their connection with art. And here modern superstition or fanaticism is at a desperate disadvantage. Modern art itself is far too worldly, too material a thing for spirituality, real or assumed. In those evangelical portraits to which we have already alluded, gross, and, as it would almost seem, studiedly ugly similitudes, lest the flesh should boast, shining with an unction too human, and with the conceit of self-applause escaping from every pore, and redolent of congregational adoration, vulgar personifications of peculiar and hostile sectarianism, the material man has been alone the aim of the artist. There is no tale told—no act of devotion represented—no religious procession, no temple spirituality,—but the man alone; not as he might be seen—humble, devout towards God, but, as it were, with his back to sacred things, and his face towards his people, as if he were the sole or chief recipient of worship. How different in character were the works of Angelico, Il Beato, of Giotto, and those great and pious men, who with their wondrous genius adorned the cloisters of the monastic orders—not with the portraiture of the monks of the day, but with devout and holy processions, acts of their founders, and incidents of sacred history! They taught by the eye; and it possessed, in some respects, a charm above that of the being taught by books. Picture, at once, is able to imbue the spectator with a kind of spirituality ere it touches the understanding; whereas, in reading, it is the uninformed and grosser imagination supplies the portraiture from scenes of a narrow experience, and personages of a homely familiarity.
Yet even in very many of the monastic pictures Mrs Jameson finds a defect, in the too human purpose of the painters and their patrons: she ascribes somewhat of a vain-glorious and exclusive, where the chief object was to exalt a St Benedict, a St Francis, or St Dominick, not as men, but as saints of their respective orders, and for those orders. Still, we think this objection is carried too far. The purpose was, at least, no present portraiture; and surely the subjects did often convey precept, and were calculated to touch the heart, and kindle devotion, and encourage human charities. Undoubtedly, far higher in the poetical scale were those themes of an actual Divinity, of which she treated so enthusiastically in the first part of her former volumes—ascending from angels and archangels, from the heavenly host, to the precincts around the throne of the Divine glory. Yet be it duly weighed, in favour of the patronage of the monastic orders, that this exaltation of art in its theme was not altogether ever abandoned; and upon the whole, we doubt if advantages were not in some degree gained by the admixture of things more comprehensible, and more directly appealing to natural sensibilities. Besides, there was a class of paintings which arose out of our human affections, and which, therefore, led to a pious trust, through our common sympathies: we allude to votive pictures, which were of the earliest and latest date—pervading, indeed, the whole religion; for it was, in truth, a practice continued from the heathen worship.
"The pictures, too," says our authoress, "which are suspended in churches as votive memorials of benefits received, are often very touching. I recollect such a picture in the gallery of Vienna. A youth about fifteen, in the character of Tobias, is led by the hand of his guardian angel Raphael; and on the other side is St Leonard, the patron of captives, holding his broken fetters; Christ the Redeemer appears above; and below in a corner kneels an elderly man, his eyes fixed on the youth. The arrangement of this group leaves us no doubt of its purpose. It was the votive offering of a father whose son had escaped, or had been redeemed from captivity. The picture is very beautiful, and either by Andrea del Sarto, or one of his school. If we could discover where it had been originally placed, we might discover the facts and personages to which it alludes; but, even on the walls of a gallery, we recognise its pathetic significance: we read it as a poem—as a hymn of thanksgiving."
Mrs Jameson makes a very good remark upon a deficiency in catalogues of galleries and collections—the omission of the name of the church or chapel, or the confraternity, whence the pictures were purchased, and such history as might be known respecting them. Our collectors, indeed, are not without their picture-pedigrees; but they are of a curious kind—rather too expressive of a fear of dupery of dealers, and implying but little good foundation of taste in purchasers. Picture-pedigrees refer not to an inherent virtue, visible as the pure blood of the Arabian courser, but to the supposed taste or better known wealth of the last possessor. Few pictures stand on their own merits—they acquire a virtue from the hands or houses they have passed through, more than from the hands that worked them. Indeed, the known collector is generally the only authenticity of the painter, and stamps the value. But to say somewhat of pictures of sacred subjects—and they are by far the finest in known collections—from this deficiency in the catalogues much of their interest is lost; not only so, but we see them in the midst of strange incongruities, as well as injured in their effect by locality, and by light unsuited to them. We cannot judge fairly of their real excellence, nor understand the actual religious power they once possessed. Many of them were painted for private chapels or oratories, and purposely, perhaps, for dim religious light; for an intimate communion of the devout with the one sentiment and with it alone. We have often earnestly wished that, in building national galleries, the large and ostentatious display, at one view, were not the object, and that the particular character of our greatest works were well considered, and fit positions given, and proper lights adjusted. It would be a great thing, for instance, to see the "Raising of Lazarus" of Sebastian del Piombo, in our National Gallery, in a room by itself, and under a studied and arranged light. It is now where it is not all, and at all times, visible; and it is far too important in itself, of too impressive a character, for the look of one passing moment, and the distraction of many things. In the Vatican the Apollo has a room to himself. Picture galleries should not emulate the show-rooms of trade. If the pictures are irrecoverably removed from their own birthplace, from their own home, separated from their local history and interest, much may still be done, in some degree, to preserve for them their general character, and to allow them to make the intended general impression. And it is in fact for this purpose that we highly estimate this work of Mrs Jameson, that, in referring to these legends, we may read the productions to which they have given rise.
"What a lively, living, really religious interest is given to one of these sacred groups when we know the locality, or the community for which it was executed; and how it becomes enriched as a production of mind when it speaks to the mind through a thousand associations, will be felt, I think, after reading the legends which follow."
The Benedictine order stands first in point of time and in interest, not as regards art only, but as the great civilising order of the world. The Benedictines were the early missionaries of the north of Europe; they, banished the impure and inhuman rites of heathenism, by conveying, regardless of peril, the light of the gospel into the wilds of Britain, Gaul, Saxony, and Belgium. They gave security to the oppressed, rescued from the spoiler, and were a refuge to the poor in times of tyranny and barbarism. They were the sole depositaries of learning and of the arts; collected and transcribed books—particularly the Scriptures—which were charitably bestowed or deposited as precious gifts. We owe to them not only the diffusion of the Scriptures, but the preservation of classical literature. To them we owe the recovery of the works of Pliny, Sallust, and Cicero.
"They were the fathers of Gothic architecture; they were the earliest illuminators and limners; and, to crown their deservings under this head, the inventor of the gamut, and the first who instituted a school of music, was a Benedictine monk, Guido d'Arezzo."
They were the great civilisers, by bringing science to bear upon agriculture; the authors of experimental farming and gardening; the cultivators of new fruits and herbs. They cleared and cultivated; science and the plough went with them wherever they planted the cross. We cannot forbear quoting the words of Sir James Stephen:—