"Hath two ordained, who should on either hand
In chief escort her; one seraphic all
In fervency; for wisdom upon earth
The other, splendour of cherubic light!
I but of one will tell: he tells of both
Who one commandeth, which of them soe'er
Be taken; for their deeds were to one end."
Of Dante's description of St Dominick, that he was—
"Benigno ai suoi ed ai nemici erudo,"
we think Mrs Jameson's paraphrastic translation a little unwarrantable—"unscrupulous, inaccessible to pity, and wise as a serpent in carrying out his religious views and purposes."
Shakspeare was more true,—
"Lofty and sour to those that loved him not,
But, to those men that sought him, sweet as summer."
Greater learning and energy characterised the Dominicans; sanctity and humility and self-denial the Franciscans. The good of both communities is eloquently set forth by Sir James Stephen, and quoted in this volume:—
"So reiterated and so just have been the assaults on the Mendicant friars, that we usually forget that, till the days of Martin Luther, the Church had never seen so great and effectual reform as theirs.... Nothing in the histories of Wesley or of Whitfield can be compared with the enthusiasm which everywhere welcomed them, or with the immediate and visible result of their labours. In an age of oligarchal tyranny, they were the protectors of the weak; in an age of ignorance, the instructors of mankind; and in an age of profligacy, the stern vindicators of the holiness of the sacerdotal character and the virtues of domestic life."
Two remarkable things are spoken of both. One, that after fasting, and being rapt in a vision, St Francis was seen with the "Stigmata," (the miracle of the present day,) the wounds of the Saviour in his hands, his feet, and his side. St Dominick invented the Rosary; which, like most inventions of the Romish Church, and from the nature of its claim, is perpetuated to this day. Of the artistic treatment of the mysteries of the rosary, Mrs Jameson professes to have much to say, when she comes to the legends of the Madonna. The cruelties towards the Albigenses—ascribed apparently with too much reason to St Dominick—shows that when religion descends to fanaticism, persecution becomes a tenet; and in this, politics and religion, when both lose their reliance on Providence to guide all things to an end, are of one character, and make the interference of man's oppressive and bloody hand the only instrument.
One of the order of St Dominick has been immortalised by Titian, in perhaps the finest work of his hands—St Peter Martyr. Fra Bartolomeo, in painting this martyr, took the portrait of that extraordinary fanatic, his friend, Jerome Savonarola, who, too successful in the destruction of works of art that did not come up to his religious mark, met with a terrible fate—being strangled, and then burned in the great square at Florence, in 1498. The face is striking, and indicative of the impetuosity of a fanatic and religious demagogue. We should be glad to treat of many of the characters, members of these communities; but space, and the difficulty of selection, where there is so much of interest, will not allow us. We therefore pass on to the Jesuits.