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Life of Father Ignatius of St. Paul, Passionist.

Picture and Autograph of Fr. Ignatius

LIFE OF
Father Ignatius of St. Paul,
PASSIONIST

(The Hon. & Rev. George Spencer).
Compiled chiefly from his
Autobiography, Journal, & Letters.
BY
The Rev. Father Pius A Sp. Sancto,
Passionist.

DUBLIN:
James Duffy, 15, Wellington Quay;
And 22, Paternoster Row, London.
1866.
[The right of translation is reserved.]

Cox And Wyman,

Classical and General Printers, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.

To the Very Reverend
Father Ignatius Of The Infant Jesus,
Passionist,
Long The Director Of Father Ignatius Of St. Paul,
For Nine Years The Faithful Steward Of The Anglo-Hibernian
Province, Which He Found A Handful And Made A Host,
This Volume,
Written By His Order And Published With His Blessing,
Is Dedicated,
To Testify The Gratitude All His Subjects Feel, And The Most Unworthy Of Them Tries To Express,
By His Paternity's
Devoted And Affectionate Child,
The Author.

Preface.

Great servants of God have seldom been understood in their lifetime. Persecution has assailed them often, from quarters where help would be expected in their defence. Even holy souls are sometimes mistaken about the particular line of virtue which distinguishes their contemporaries from themselves. St. John of the Cross, St. Joseph Calasanctius, and St. Alphonsus Liguori, have had the close of their lives embittered, as we might call it, by domestic persecution; and it was some time before their splendour, as they vanished from the horizon of life, rose again to its zenith, and outshone its former glory. If the impartial eye, with which we read their actions, fails to find a plea for the manner they have been dealt with, let us remember that we have no interests at stake—no false colouring of passion to blind us. Death, indeed, does not always mow down mistaken notions with the life of him about whom they are taken up. We must, however, be thankful that it slays so many wrong impressions, and attribute the residue to other causes.

Justice to the dead is an impulse of nature; and those who would qualify praise of the living by the mention of unworthy actions or inferior motives, will qualify blame of the dead by a contrary proceeding. This instinct has its golden mean as well as every other. If an ancient Greek ostracised a man because he was praised by every one, many moderns will defend a man because he is similarly blamed.

Whenever there exists a difference of opinion about a man during life, it requires some length of time after he has departed, for prejudice to settle to the bottom, and allow his genuine character to be seen through clearly.

These facts, and the experience of history, lead us to conclude that a man's life cannot be impartially written when his memory is yet fresh in people's minds. Thousands have had opportunities of judging, and bring their impressions to compare them with the page that records the actions from which they were taken; and if they be different from the idea the biographer intends to convey, it is not probable that, in every case, their possessors will be content to lay them aside. It is supposed, moreover, that a biographer owes a kind of vassalage to his subject— that he is obliged to defend him through thick and thin—in good and evil report. He is obliged, according to traditionary, though arbitrary laws, to suppress whatever will not tell in his favour, to put the very best face upon what he is compelled to relate, and to make the most of excellencies. His opinion, therefore, must be received with caution, for it is his duty to be partial, in the most odious sense of that word, and it would be a capital sin to deviate from this long-established rule.

These difficulties do not beset the life that is here presented to the public. Father Ignatius had his alternations of praise and blame during life; but those who thought least of him were forced to admit his great sanctity. If this latter quality be conceded, apology has no room. An admitted saint does not require to be defended; for the aureola of his own brow will shed the light through which his actions are to be viewed. We see, therefore, no wrong impressions that require to be removed—no calumnies that have to be cleared away—nothing, in fact, to be done, except to give a faithful history of his life. For this reason, we venture to publish this work before the second anniversary of his death; and it would have been published sooner, if the materials from which it is composed could have been arranged and digested.

Again, he was heedless of the praise or blame of men himself, and it would be an injustice to his memory to wait for a favourable moment for giving his thoughts publicity.

Those who expect to find nothing in the lives of holy people but goodness and traits of high spirituality, will be disappointed when they read this. Those who are accustomed to read that some saints indeed have lived rather irregularly in their youth, but find themselves left in blessed ignorance of what those irregularities were, will also be disappointed. They shall find here recorded that young Spencer was not a saint, and they shall be given data whereon to form their own opinion too. They shall see him pass through various phases of religious views, and shall find themselves left to draw their own conclusions about his conduct throughout.

And now, perhaps, it is better to give some reasons why this course was adopted in writing his life, rather than the usual one. Besides that already given, there are two others.

In the first place, ordinary, well-meaning Christians feel disheartened when they find saints ready to be canonized from their infancy, and cannot think of the Magdalenes when they find the calendar full of Marys, and Agneses, and Teresas. Neither will they reflect much on an Augustin, when the majority are Sebastians and Aloysiuses. Here is an example to help these people on; and they are the greater number. We have therefore shown Father Ignatius's weak points as well as his strong ones; we have brought him out in his written life precisely as he was in reality.

He comes before us with a mind full of worldly notions, he traces his own steps away from rectitude, he makes his confession to the whole world. How many will see in the youth he passed, far away from God and grazing the edge of the bottomless precipice, a perfect illustration of their own youth. Let them then follow him through life. They shall find him a prey to the worst passions, anger, pride, and their kindred tendencies. They shall see him put his hand to the plough, and, according to the measure of his grace and light, subduing first one, and then another of his inclinations. They can trace his passage through life, and see that he has so far overcome his passions that an equivocal warmth of temper is a thing to be wondered at in him. There is a servant of God that gives us courage, we need not despond when he leads the way for us. Occasional imperfections are mentioned towards the latter part of his life. These only show that he was a man and not an angel, and that a defect now and again is not at all incompatible with great holiness.

There was a reality about the man that can never leave the minds of those who knew him. He hated shams. He would have the brightest consequences of faith realized. He would not have the Gospel laws be mere matter of sentimental platitudes, but great realities pervading life and producing their legitimate effects. He went into them, heart and soul; and the few points in which he seemed to go this side or that of the mean of virtue in their observance, we have recorded, that others may see how he observed them. Exceptions show the beauty of a rule; and this is the second reason why we have written as a historian and not as a panegyrist.

And now for an account of the materials from which the memoir has been compiled. He wrote an account of his life about the year 1836. He was then on a bed of sickness from which he scarcely expected to rise; but we shall give his own reasons for writing what he has written. The autobiography begins thus:—

"When a man comes before the world as an author, there is much danger of his being actuated by motives of which he does not like to acknowledge the influence, and people are so naturally disposed to suspect the motive to be something different from that which ought to be the leading one of all our important actions, and especially of those which are possessed by our religious actions; namely, the honour of God, and our own neighbour's good; that the common preface to such works is, to guard the author against the imputation of vanity or of self-love, in some one or other of the contemptible forms in which it rules so widely in this poor world of ours. Such introductory apologies, on the part of an author, will not, I believe, meet with full credit with those who know the world. Those who are most obviously the slaves of self-will, will, generally, be loudest in their protestations of the purity and excellence of their motives; so that my advice to those who wish to establish in the minds of others a good opinion of their sincerity, would generally be, to say nothing about it, and let their conduct speak for itself. Yet this is not what I intend to do in the commencement of my present work. What I have undertaken is, to give to the public a history of my own mind. I shall make it my study to recollect with accuracy and to state with truth the motives, the impressions, and the feelings by which I have been guided in the important passages of my past life; and therefore there seems to be some peculiar reason, from the nature of the work itself, why I should commence by stating why I have undertaken it. Yet I will not venture to say positively what are my motives. I rather shall state, in the sight of God and of my brethren, what are the motives which I allow myself to entertain in deliberately presenting a history of my thoughts to the public. My readers are at liberty to judge me in their own way, and suppose that I deceive myself in the view I take of my own intentions as much or as little as to them shall seem probable. Of this which, have obliged me to leave my flock to the care of others, while my proper business is to be, for a time, to recover my health by rest and relaxation. Here then is an opportunity for undertaking something in the way of writing; and I am about to make what I conceive is the most valuable contribution in my power to the works already existing for the defence of our Holy Faith.

"I have not the knowledge requisite for producing a learned work, nor am I ever likely to acquire it. A work of fancy or invention is, perhaps, yet further out of my line. I never had any talent for compositions in which imagination is required. I hardly ever wrote a line of poetry except when obliged to it at school or college. But it requires neither learning nor imagination to give a simple statement of facts, and there is a charm in truth which will give to a composition, which bears its stamp, an interest more lively, perhaps, than what the beauties of poetry and fiction are employed to adorn.

"I believe the history of the human mind must always be interesting. If the most insignificant of men could but be taught to write a correct account of what has passed within his soul, in any period of his existence, the history would be full of wonders and instruction; and if, with God's help, I am able to fulfil my present undertaking, and to give a picture of my own mind and heart, and recount, with truth and perspicuity, the revolutions which have taken place within me, I have no doubt the narrative will be interesting. The minds and hearts of men are wonderfully alike one to another. They are also wonderfully various. Read the history of my mind and you will find it interesting, as you know a book of travels is, through countries which you have visited. You will see your own heart represented to you, and be, perhaps, pleasingly reminded of the feelings, the projects, the disappointments, the weaknesses of days gone by. But I have a greater object before me than your amusement. I desire your instruction. I may, perchance, throw on some passage of your history, on some points of the great picture which a retrospect of your past life presents to you, a more correct light. I may show you where your views of things might have often been more true than they were at the time, when your steps might have been more prudently, more happily taken, and by the consideration of mistakes and errors which I have afterwards acknowledged, though once blind to them, and from which I have recovered through the goodness of God, you may be assisted to take some steps forwards in the path of truth and happiness.

"I do not, however, propose to myself the benefit of others only in this composition. The noblest and the most useful study of mankind is man; but, certainly, this study is in no way so important as when it is in the contemplation of ourselves that we follow it up. It is a high point of wisdom to know and understand other men; but we know nothing that will indeed avail us if we know not ourselves. Hence, while I am undertaking a history of myself for the instruction of others, I purpose, at the same time, and in the first place, to gain from my researches instruction for myself. In now recollecting and declaring the doings of God towards me, and my doings towards Him, I most earnestly desire an advancement in myself of love and humility; would that it might be an advancement in perfection! I began this work with fervent prayer that I may be preserved from the snares with which it may be accompanied; above all, that I may not make it an occasion of vain-glory, and so turn what ought to be done for God's service and for others' good into an offence of God and my own exceeding loss; but that, being delivered from the danger, I may find it the occasion of exceeding spiritual benefit to myself, if it be not to any others."

The reader must take what Father Ignatius writes of himself with some qualifications. He seems to have had an invincible propensity to put his worst side out in whatever he wrote about himself. He did not see his own perfections, he underrated his knowledge, his mind, his virtues. He saw good in every one except himself. But it is needless to speak much on this point, as his candour and simplicity are sure to make every reader favourable.

It is to be regretted that the autobiography does not reach farther into his life than his ordination as a minister. How gratifying it would have been if we could read his interior conflicts, his exterior difficulties, his alternations of joy and sadness, in the sweet, affectionate style which tells us his early life. But the reason must have been:—He had little to charge himself with; he had no faults serious enough to lower him in the esteem of men from that time forward, and therefore he did not write.

The next source of information is his journal. He began to keep a journal in 1818, when he first went to Cambridge, and continued it uninterruptedly down to 1829, a short time before his conversion. We have found nothing in the shape of a diary among his papers, from that time until the year 1846, a few months before he became a Passionist, except a journal of a tour he made on the Continent in 1844, and that is given entire in the third book. The journal from 1846, until a few days before his death, is a mere record of dates and places in which he has been and persons he spoke to. It is so closely written that it is scarcely readable by the naked eye, and he gives in one page the incidents of six months. This journal was of great use to him. It helped his memory and prevented his making mistakes in the multitude of scenes through which, he passed. It is also a valuable contribution to the annals of our Order.

Besides these two sources of information regarding his life, we have had access to a multitude of letters, running over the space of upwards of forty years. He preserved a great many of the important letters he received; and several of his friends, who preserved letters received from him as treasures, kindly lent us their stock for the preparation of this volume. His Eminence the late Cardinal Wiseman gave us what letters he possessed, and promised to contribute some recollections of his friend, but was prevented by death from fulfilling his promise. Our thanks are due to their Lordships, the Right Rev. Dr. Ullathorne, the Right Rev. Dr. Wareing, the Right Rev. Dr. Turner, the Right Rev. Dr. Grant, the Right Rev. Dr. Amherst, and to several clergymen and lay persons, for their kindness in sending us letters and furnishing us with anecdotes and pleasing recollections of Father Ignatius. Among the latter we are under special obligations to Mr. De Lisle and Mr. Monteith. In truth we have found all the friends of Father Ignatius most willing to assist us in our undertaking. Nor must we forget several religious who have helped us in every possible way. The information gathered from the correspondence has been the most valuable. His letters were written to dear friends to whom he laid the very inmost of his soul open,—fervent souls, who sympathized with his zealous exertions and profited by his advice in advancing themselves and others in the way of virtue.

The Dowager Lady Lyttelton has kindly furnished us with dates and accurate information about the members of the Spencer family, and as she is the only survivor of the children of John George, Earl Spencer, we hope the memory of her dear brother will serve to alleviate the weight of her advancing years, and prolong them considerably to her children and grandchildren. We beg to express our sincere thanks for her ladyship's kindness.

A fourth and not a less interesting source of information has been our own memory. Father Ignatius was most communicative to his brethren; indeed he might be said to be transparent. We all knew him so well. He related the anecdotes that are given in his memoir to us all; and when each Father and Brother gave in his contribution, the quantity furnished would have made a very entertaining life of itself. Their thanks must be the consciousness of having helped to keep him yet amongst us as far as was possible.

These, then, are the sources from which the following pages have been compiled. The facts related may therefore be relied upon as perfectly authentic. We possess the originals of the matter quoted—vouchers for every opinion advanced, and the anecdotes can be corroborated by half a dozen of witnesses.

Seeing that his life had been so diverse, and that the changes of thought which influenced the early portion of it were so various, it was thought best to divide it into four distinct books. The first book takes him to the threshold of the Anglican ministry; the second into the fold of the Church; the third into the Passionist novitiate; and the fourth follows him to the grave.

We shall let the details speak for themselves, and only remark that there is an identity in the character as well as in the countenance of a man which underlies all the phases of opinion through which he may have passed. It will be seen that, from childhood to old age, Father Ignatius was remarkable for earnestness and reverence. Whatever he thought to be his duty he pursued with indomitable perseverance. He was not one to cloak over a weak point, or soothe a doubt with a trumped-up answer. He candidly admitted every difficulty, and went with unflagging zeal into clearing it up. This was the key to his conversion. He had, besides, even in his greatest vagaries, a reverential spirit with regard to his Creator, which formed an atmosphere of duty around him, outside which he could not step without being stung by conscience. A sting he never deadened. These were the centripetal and centrifugal forces that kept his life balanced on an axis that remained steady in the centre during his every evolution.

We have endeavoured to be faithful to his memory. We have tried, as far as we could, to let himself tell his life; we have only arranged the materials and supplied the cement that would keep them together. Whether the work has suffered in our hands or not is immaterial to us. We have tried to do our best, and no one can do more. If any expressions have escaped us that may appear offensive, we are ready to make the most ample apology, but not at the sacrifice of a particle of truth. If, through ignorance or inadvertence, errors have been committed, we hold ourselves ready to retract them; and retract, beforehand, anything that may, in the slightest degree, be injurious, not to say contrary, to Catholic doctrine, and submit ourselves unreservedly in this point to the judgment of ecclesiastical authority.

St. Joseph's Retreat, Highgate, London, N., Feast of the Epiphany, 1866.

CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
Father Ignatius, a Young Noble.

CHAPTER I.
His Childhood — Page [1]

CHAPTER II.
Four First Years At Eton — [6]

CHAPTER III.
His Two Last Years At Eton — [12]

CHAPTER IV.
Private Tuition Under Mr. Blomfield — [18]

CHAPTER V.
He Goes To Cambridge — [22]

CHAPTER VI.
His First Year In Cambridge — [28]

CHAPTER VII.
Conclusion Of His First Year In Cambridge — [42]

CHAPTER VIII.
Second Year In Cambridge Takes His Degree — [48]

CHAPTER IX.
Travels On The Continent — [57]

CHAPTER X.
English Life In Naples — [65]

CHAPTER XI.
Continuation Of His Travels — [74]

CHAPTER XII.
An Interval Of Rest And Preparation For Orders — [91]

BOOK II.
Father Ignatius, an Anglican Minister.

CHAPTER I.
He Is Ordained, And Enters On His Clerical Duties — [103]

CHAPTER II.
He Mends Some Of His Ways — [110]

CHAPTER III.
He Receives Further Orders — [117]

CHAPTER IV.
Mr. Spencer Becomes Rector Of Brington — [122]

CHAPTER V.
Changes In His Religious Opinions — [127]

CHAPTER VI.
Opposition To His Religious Views — [134]

CHAPTER VII.
Progress Of His Religious Views — [142]

CHAPTER VIII.
Some Of The Practical Effects Of His Views — [148]

CHAPTER IX.
Scruples About The Athanasian Creed — [155]

CHAPTER X.
Incidents And State Of Mind In 1827-28 — [166]

CHAPTER XI.
The Maid Of Lille — [174]

CHAPTER XII.
Ambrose Lisle Phillipps — [186]

BOOK III.
Father Ignatius, a Secular Priest.

CHAPTER I.
His First Days In The Church — [199]

CHAPTER II.
Mr. Spencer In The English College, Rome — [206]

CHAPTER III.
Father Spencer Is Ordained Priest — [212]

CHAPTER IV.
Father Spencer Begins His Missionary Life — [220]

CHAPTER V.
Prospects Of Widening His Sphere Of Action — [226]

CHAPTER VI.
Newspaper Discussions, Etc. — [232]

CHAPTER VII.
Private Life And Crosses Of Father Spencer — [240]

CHAPTER VIII.
Association Of Prayers For The Conversion Of England — [248]

CHAPTER IX.
His Last Days In West Bromwich — [258]

CHAPTER X.
Father Spencer Comes To Oscott — [264]

CHAPTER XI.
Some Of His Doings In Oscott College — [270]

CHAPTER XII.
Some Events Of Interest — [275]

CHAPTER XIII.
His Tour On The Continent In 1844 — [280]

CHAPTER XIV.
Close Of His Career In Oscott; And His Religious Vocation — [343]

BOOK IV.
Father Ignatius, a Passionist

CHAPTER I.
The Noviciate — [351]

CHAPTER II.
His First Year As A Passionist — [361]

CHAPTER III.
A Peculiar Mission — [368]

CHAPTER IV.
Death Of Father Dominic — [374]

CHAPTER V.
Spirit Of Father Ignatius At This Time — [380]

CHAPTER VI.
His Dealings With Protestants And Prayers For Union — [387]

CHAPTER VII.
Father Ignatius In 1850 — [393]

CHAPTER VIII.
A New Form Of "The Crusade" — [400]

CHAPTER IX.
Visit To Rome And "The Association Of Prayers" — [413]

CHAPTER X.
A Tour In Germany — [428]

CHAPTER XI.
Father Ignatius Returns To England — [436]

CHAPTER XII.
A Little Of His Home And Foreign Work — [443]

CHAPTER XIII.
Sanctification Of Ireland — [449]

CHAPTER XIV.
Another Tour On The Continent — [453]

CHAPTER XV.
Father Ignatius In 1857 — [458]

CHAPTER XVI.
His "Little Missions" — [464]

CHAPTER XVII.
Father Ignatius At Home — [469]

CHAPTER XVIII.
A Few Events — [477]

CHAPTER XIX.
Trials And Crosses — [483]

CHAPTER XX.
Foreshadowings And Death — [495]

CHAPTER XXI.
The Obsequies Of Father Ignatius — [504]

BOOK I.
F. Ignatius, a Young Noble.

Image of Cross
I X P

LIFE OF FATHER IGNATIUS OF ST. PAUL, PASSIONIST.

BOOK I.
F. Ignatius, a Young Noble.

CHAPTER I.
His Childhood.

Saint Paul gives the general history of childhood in one sentence: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child." The thoughts and ways of children are wonderfully similar; the mind is not sufficiently developed to give direction to character, and the peculiar incidents that are sometimes recorded to prove "the child the father of the man," seem more the result of chance than deliberation. With all this, we like to bask our memory in those sunny days: we love to look at our cradles, at where we made and spoiled our little castles, and we recall the smallest incidents to mind, as if to try and fancy we could be children again. This natural sentiment makes us anxious to know all about the infancy and childhood of those whose life has an interest for us; although knowing that there can be nothing very strange about it; and even, if there be, that it cannot have much weight in moulding the character of our hero, and less still in influencing our own. The childhood of Father Ignatius forms an exception to this. It is wonderful; it shaped his character for a great part of his life. Its history is written by himself, and it is instructive to all who have charge of children. Before quoting from his own autobiography, it may be well to say something about his family; more, because it is customary to do so on occasions like the present, than to give information about what is already well known.

His father was George John, Earl Spencer, K.G., &c., &c. He was connected by ties of consanguinity and affinity with the Earl of Sunderland and the renowned Duke of Marlborough; was successively member of Parliament, one of the Lords of the Treasury, and succeeded Lord Chatham as First Lord of the Admiralty on the 20th of December, 1794. This office he retained until 1800, and, during his administration, the naval history of England shone with the victories of St. Vincent, Camperdown, and the Nile. Perhaps his term of office was more glorious to himself from the moderation and justice with which he quelled the mutiny at the Nore, than from the fact of his having published the victories that gave such glory to his country. He married, in 1781, Lavinia, the daughter of Sir Charles Bingham, afterwards Earl of Lucan. Five sons and three daughters were the issue of this marriage. Two of them died in infancy. The oldest, John Charles, Lord Althorp, succeeded his father in 1834, and died childless in 1845; the second, Sarah, is the present Dowager Lady Lyttelton; the fifth, Robert Cavendish, died unmarried in 1830; the sixth, Georgiana, was married to Lord George Quin, son to the Marquis of Headfort, and died in 1823; the seventh, Frederick, father of the present earl, succeeded his eldest brother in 1845. The youngest, the Honourable George Spencer, is the subject of the present biography.

He was born on the 21st of December, 1799, at the Admiralty in London, and baptized according to the rite of the Church of England, by the Rev. Charles Norris, prebendary of Canterbury. Whether he was taken to Althorp, the family seat in Northamptonshire, to be nursed, before his father retired from office in 1800, we have no means of knowing; but, certain it is, that it was there he spent his childhood until he went to Eton in 1808. We will let himself give us the history of his mind during this portion of his existence: the history of his body is that of a nobleman's child, tended in all things as became his station:—

"My recollections of the five or six first years of my life are very vague,—more so by far than in the case of other persons; and whether I had any notions of religion before my six-year-old birthday, I cannot tell. But it was on that day, if I am not mistaken, that I was taken aside, as for a serious conversation, by my sister's governess, who was a Swiss lady, under whose care I passed the years between leaving the nursery and being sent to school, and instructed by her, for the first time, concerning the existence of God and some other great truths of religion. It seems strange now that I should have lived so long without acquiring any ideas on the subject: my memory may deceive me, but I have a most clear recollection of the very room at Althorp where I sat with her while she declared to me, as a new piece of instruction, for which till then I had not been judged old enough, that there was an Almighty Being, dwelling in heaven, who had created me and all things, and whom I was bound to fear. Till then, I believe, I had not the least apprehension of the existence of anything beyond the sensible world around me. This declaration, made to me as it was with tender seriousness, was, I believe, accompanied with gracious expressions, which have never been, in all my errors and wanderings, obliterated. To what but the grace of God can I ascribe it, that I firmly believed from the first moment this truth, of which I was not capable of understanding a proof, and that I never since have entertained a doubt of it, nor been led, like so many more, to universal scepticism; that my faith in the truth of God should have been preserved while for so long a time I lived, as I afterwards did, wholly without its influence?

"I continued, with my brother Frederick, who was twenty months older than myself, under the instruction of this same governess, till we went to Eton School. I do not remember the least difficulty in receiving as true whatever I was taught of religion at that time. It never occurred to me to think that objections might be made to it, though I knew that different religious persuasions existed. I remember being told by our governess, and being pleased in the idea, that the Church of England was peculiarly excellent; but I remember no distinct feelings of opposition or aversion to the Catholic religion. Of serious impressions I was at that time, I believe, very susceptible; but they must have been most transient. I remember, more than once, distinctly saying my prayers with fervour; though, generally, I suppose, I paid but little attention to them. I was sometimes impressed with great fear of the Day of Judgment, as I remember once in particular, at hearing a French sermon read about it; and, perhaps, I did not knowingly offend God, but I could not be said to love God, nor heartily to embrace religion, if, as I suppose, my ordinary feeling must have corresponded with what I remember well crossing my mind when I was about seven years old,—great regret at reflecting on the sin of Adam; by which I understood that I could not expect to live for ever on the earth. Whatever I thought desirable in the world,—abundance of money, high titles, amusements of all sorts, fine dress, and the like,—as soon and as far as I understood anything about them, I loved and longed for; nor do I see how it could have been otherwise, as the holy, severe maxims of the Gospel truth on these matters were not impressed upon me. Why is it that the truth on these things is so constantly withheld from children; and, instead of being taught by constant, repeated, unremitting lessons that the world and all that it has is worth nothing; that, if they gain all, but lose their souls, they gain nothing; if they lose all and gain their souls, they gain all? Why is it that they are to be encouraged to do right by promises of pleasure, deterred from evil by worldly fear, and so trained up, as it seems, to put a false value on all things? How easily, as it now appears to me, might my affections in those days have been weaned from the world, and made to value God alone? But let me not complain, but bless God for the care,—the very unusual care, I believe,—which was taken of me, by which I remained, I may say, ignorant of what evil was at an age when many, I fear, become proficients. This blessing, however, of being wonderfully preserved from the knowledge, and consequently from the practice, of vice, was more remarkably manifested in the four years of my life succeeding those of which I have been now writing."

The instilling into young minds religious motives for their actions was a frequent topic of conversation with Father Ignatius in his after-life. He was once speaking with some of our young religious on this subject in general; one of them remarked how easy it was to act upon holy motives practically, and instanced his own childhood, when the thought that God would love or hate him kept him straight in his actions: this was the simple and perpetually repeated lesson of his mother, which he afterwards forgot, but which finally stopped him in a career of ambition, and made him a religious. The old man's eye glistened as he heard this, and he sighed deeply. He then observed that it confirmed his opinion, that parents ought to instruct their own children, and never commit them to the mercies of a public school until they were perfectly grounded in the practice of virtue and piety. The next chapter will show why he thought thus.

CHAPTER II.
Four First Years At Eton.

"The 18th of May, 1808, was the important day when first I left my father's house. With a noble equipage, my father and mother took my brother Frederick and me to the house of the Rev. Richard Godley, whom they had chosen to be our private tutor at Eton. He lived, with his family, at a place called the Wharf, about half a mile from the college buildings, which we had to go to for school and chapel across the playing-fields. Oh! how interesting are my recollections whilst I recall the joys and sorrows of Eton days; but I must not expatiate on them, as my own feelings would lead me to do with pleasure. What I have to do now is to record how the circumstances in which I was then placed have contributed to influence my religions principles, and formed some links in the chain of events by which I have arrived at my present state, so different from all that might then have been anticipated. Mr. Godley I consider to have been, what I believe my parents likewise regarded him, a strictly conscientious and deeply religious man; and I must always account it one of the greatest blessings for which, under God, I am indebted to their wisdom and affection, that I was placed in such hands at so critical a time. I do not intend, in all points, to declare my approbation of the system which he pursued with us: but how can I be too grateful for having been under the strict vigilance of one who did, I am convinced, reckon the preservation of my innocence, and the salvation of my soul, his chief concern with me? I remained with Mr. Godley till the Midsummer holidays of 1812. My brother left Eton and went to sea in the year 1811.

"Those who know what our public schools are, will reckon it, I believe, almost incredible that I should be four years at Eton, and remain, as I did, still almost ignorant of what the language of wickedness meant. Mr. Godley's yoke I certainly thought at the time to be a heavy one. Several times each day we were obliged to go across the playing-fields to school, to chapel, or to absence (which was the term by which Etonians will yet understand the calling over the names of the boys at certain times); so that during the daytime, when in health, we could never be more than three hours together without appearing with the boys of the school. Mr. Godley, however, was inexorable in his rule that we should invariably come home immediately after each of these occasions: by this we were kept from much intercourse with other boys. Most grievous then appeared my unhappy lot, in the summer months especially, when we had to pass through the playing-fields, crowded with cricketers, to whom a lower boy, to fag for them and stop their balls, was sure to be an important prize, whose wrath we incurred if we dared despise their call, and run on our way; whilst, if we were but a few minutes late, the yet more terrible sight awaited us of Mr. Godley's angry countenance. We had not exemption from one of these musters, as most boys had who lived at a distance from the school, yet none of them were bound like us to a speedy return home. It seemed like an Egyptian bondage, from which there was no escape; and doubtless the effect was not altogether good upon my character. As might be expected, the more we were required to observe rules and customs different from others, the more did a certain class of big bullies in the school seem to count it their business to watch over us, as though they might be our evil geniuses. A certain set of faces, consequently, I looked upon with a kind of mysterious dread; and I was under a constant sense of being as though in an enemy's country, obliged to guard against dangers on all sides. Shrinking and skulking became my occupation beyond the ordinary lot of little schoolboys, and my natural disposition to be cowardly and spiritless was perhaps increased. I say perhaps, for other circumstances might have made me worse; for what I was in the eyes of the masters of public opinion in the school, I really was—a chicken-hearted creature, what, in Eton language, is called a sawney. It may be, that had I been from the first in free intercourse among the boys, instead of being a good innocent one, I might have been, what I suppose must be reckoned one of the worst varieties of public-school characters, a mean, dishonourable one. Whatever I may have lost from not being trained, from the first of my Eton life, in the perfect spirit of the place, could I possibly have escaped during that time in any other way the utter corruption of my morals, at least the filling of my mind with familiar images of all the most foul iniquity? For, alas! where is the child from the age of eight till twelve who, without one compassionate friend, already strong in virtue to countenance and to encourage him, shall maintain the profession of modesty and holiness against a persecution as inveterate and merciless in its way as that which Lot had to bear at Sodom? Was not the angel of God with me when He preserved me for so long from all attacks of this kind in such a place as Eton was in my time? How can I remember Godley but with veneration and gratitude, who, though, it may be, not so considerately and wisely as might be possible (for who is as wise as he might be?), kept me, I might say, almost alone untainted in the midst of so much corruption.

"Yet, till the last year of my stay with him, I did not learn decidedly to love religion. It was still my task and not my pleasure. At length, my brother Frederick being gone to sea, and two other boys, Mr. Godley's stepsons, who were with us under his instructions, being sent to school elsewhere, I remained his only pupil, and, I may almost say, his chief care and joy. He felt with me and for me in the desolation of my little heart, at being parted from my first and hitherto inseparable mate, and I became his almost constant companion. It is not difficult to gain the confidence of a simple child: he spoke almost continually of religious subjects, and I learnt to take his view of things. I certainly did not begin to lose my pleasure in life. Death was an idea which still was strange to me; and I did not come to an understanding of the great doctrines of Revelation. I remember not to have taken much notice of any peculiar articles of faith; but still believed implicitly, without argument or inquiry, what I was taught. I can now hardly give an account of what were the religious ideas and impressions which began so greatly to engage my mind, except that I took my chief delight in hearing Mr. Godley speak about religion, that I had a great abhorrence and dread of wickedness, thought with pleasure of my being intended to be a clergyman, as I was always told I should be, and admired and loved all whom I was taught to look upon as religious people. All these simple feelings of piety, which were often accompanied with pure delight, were greatly increased in a visit of six weeks which I paid, with Mr. Godley, to his mother and sisters at Chester. He was a Prebendary of that cathedral, and of course had to spend some time there every year in residence. Usually, when he went from home, from time to time, he was used to get one of the other tutors at Eton to hear my brother's and my lessons, and to look over our exercises; but in the last summer I staid with him, with my father's consent, he took me with him. Mr. Godley's sisters, who showed me great kindness, like him, I suppose, had no wish concerning me than to encourage me in becoming pious and good, and I got to read a few pious books which they recommended. 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Doddridge's 'Life of Colonel Gardiner,' Alleine's 'Alarm,' were some which I remember taking great effect upon me; so that when I returned from Chester to Eton, though I cannot recall many particulars of my feelings, I know that the chief prevailing one was, an ardent desire to keep myself untainted at Eton, and to keep from all fellowship with the set of boys whom I knew to be particularly profane mockers of piety. I bought a book of prayers, and during the three weeks that I yet remained with this tutor, after our return from Chester, and when first I went home to the summer holidays, I took no delight like that of being by myself at prayer. Ah! how grievous would be the thought if we could but understand how to lament such a calamity as it deserves, of a pious child's tender, pure soul denied, made forgetful of all its good, and hardened. O God, grant me wisdom to understand the magnitude of such an evil, grant me a heart now at length to mourn over the devastation and uprooting which it was, at this time, Thy holy will to permit, of all those fair flowers of grace which Thy hand had planted in my heart; and grant me to mourn my fall, that I may now once at last recover that simplicity of childlike piety, the feelings of which I now recollect, indeed, though faintly, but never have since again enjoyed. Oh! God, if a child's love, pure through ignorance of sin, is never to be mine again, oh! give me at least that depth of penance for which my fall has given me such ample matter.

"It occurred not to my mind to consider whether the new thoughts which occupied my mind, and the books in which I took such pleasure, would be approved of at home. I took them with me to the holidays. It was judged, as was to be expected, by my parents, that Mr. Godley's views of religion were not such as they would wish to be instilled into me; and it was determined that I should leave his house and be placed with one of the public tutors at Eton. It is a difficult thing to classify religious Protestants, and so I do not here pronounce Mr. Godley and his sisters to have been Evangelical, or Calvinistic, nor give them any distinctive title. They did not, as far as I remember, inculcate upon me any peculiar notions of religion, but they certainly were not in the way which is usually called orthodox Church of England religion, though indeed it is difficult to define exactly what this is. It was likely, or rather morally certain, that while with Mr. Godley, I should follow his guidance, and take his views; so I was to be placed among the other boys, as I imagine with the idea likewise, that I should gain in this way more of the advantages supposed to belong to the rough discipline of a public school. I do not understand how it was that I received the intimation of this change with so little sadness. Distant evils, as we all know, lose their sting strangely; and, having the holidays before me when this change was declared, I felt no trouble about it then. It is easy to talk a docile child into agreement with any plan made for him by those whom he is used to confide in; and so I remember no difficulty when my books were taken away, and I had no more persons by to bring my former thoughts to remembrance, in quietly discontinuing my fervent practices."

CHAPTER III.
His Two Last Years At Eton.

"In the course of September, 1812, I began a new stage of my life by entering at the Rev. ***'s, where I was, alas! too effectually to be untaught what there might be unsound in my religion, by being quickly stripped of it completely. The house contained, I think, but about ten or twelve boys at the time I went to it, a much smaller number than the generality of boarding houses about the school; and, dreadful as was its moral condition, it was respectable in comparison to others. There is no doubt that it was recommended to my parents because its character stood high among the rest. The boys were divided into three or four messes, as they were called. Each of us had a room to himself and a separate little establishment, as the boys had allowances to provide breakfast and tea for themselves, and we did not meet in common rooms for private study, as in some schools. In order to make their means go farther, two or three would associate together and make a joint concern; and very comfortable some would make themselves. But comfort was not what I had now to enjoy.

"I have adverted already to the system of fagging at our public schools. The law is established immemorially at Eton that the upper boys, those of the fifth and sixth class, have an authority to command those below them. This law, though understood and allowed by the masters, is not enforced by them. They will interfere to check and punish any great abuse of the power of the upper boys; but the only power by which the commands of these masters are to be enforced is their own hands; so that a boy, though by rank in the school a fag, may escape the burdens to be imposed if he have but age and strength and spirit to maintain his independence. Each upper boy may impose his commands on any number of inferiors he may please at any time and in any place, so that an unhappy lower boy is never safe. Nothing exempts him from the necessity of immediately quitting his own pursuits and waiting on the pleasure of an unexpected master, but being under orders to attend his tutor, or a certain number of privileged excuses in matters about which those potentates condescend to consider the feelings of the subalterns, and where public opinion would condemn them if they did not—such as being actually fagging for some one else, being engaged to play a match at cricket which his absence would spoil. It was this sort of out-of-door casual service which alone I had to dread as long as I was in Mr. Godley's house. When I went to Mr. ***, I had to serve my apprenticeship in domestic fagging, which consisted in performing to one or more of the fifth or sixth form boys in the house almost all the duties of a footman or a waiter at an inn. The burden of this kind of servitude of course depended, in the first place, on the temper of one's master, and then on the comparative number of upper and lower boys in a house. During the time I had to fag at Mr. ***'s, but especially in the latter part of it, the number of fags was dismally small, and sometimes heavy was my yoke.

"But it is not this which gives to my recollection of that period of my life its peculiar sadness. I might have made a merry life in the midst of it, like that of many another school-boy, and I was merry sometimes, but I had known better things. I had once learnt to hate wickedness, and I never could find myself at ease in the midst of it, though I had not strength to resist it openly. The first evening that I arrived at this new tutor's house, I was cordially received to mess with the set of three or four lower boys who were there. These were quiet, good-natured boys; but, to be one with them, it was soon evident that the sweet practices of devotion must be given up, and other rules followed from those I knew to be right. I was taken by them on expeditions of boyish depredation and pilfering. I had never been tempted or invited before to anything like this, and it was misery to me, on account of my natural want of courage as well as my tender conscience, to join such enterprises. Yet I dared not boldly declare my resolution to commit no sin, and I made a trial now of that which has been so often tried, and what has often led to fatal confusion—to satisfy the world without altogether breaking with God. One day we went to pick up walnuts in a park near Eton; another day to steal beans or turnips, or the like, from fields or gardens; then, more bold, to take ducks and chickens from farmyards. It is a common idea that this kind of school-boys' theft is not indeed a sin. At Eton it certainly was not so considered. A boy who stole money from another boy was disgraced, and branded as a wretch almost beyond forgiveness, whereas for stealing his school-books, he would not be blamed; and for robbing orchards or farmyards he would be honoured and extolled, and so much the more if, in doing it, one or two or three together had violently beaten the farmer's boy, or even himself. But where is the reason for this distinction? The Word of God and a simple conscience certainly teach no such difference. At any rate, I know, to my sorrow, that the beginning of my fall from all that was good, was by being led to countenance and bear a part, though sorely against my better will, in such work as this.

"This was not the worst misery. My ignorance in the mysteries of iniquity was soon apparent. However much I strove to keep my countenance firm, I could not hear immodesties without blushing. I was, on this account, a choice object of the fun of some of the boys, who took delight in forcing me to hear instructions in iniquity. One evening after another, I well remember, the quarters would be invaded where I and my companions were established; all our little employments would be interrupted, our rooms filled with dirt, our beds, perhaps, tossed about, and a noisy row kept up for hours, of which sometimes one, and sometimes another of our set was the principal butt. I was set up as a choice object, of course, on account of my simplicity and inexperience in their ways, so that some of the partners of these plagues with me would blame me for being so silly as to pretend ignorance of what their foul expressions meant; for they could not believe it possible that I should really be so simple as not to understand them. I maintained for some time a weak conflict in my soul against all this flood of evil. For a little time I found one short space of comfort through the day, when at length, after an evening thus spent, I got to bed, and in secret wept and prayed myself to sleep; but the trial was too strong and too often repeated. I had no kind friend to speak to.

"Mr. Godley still lived at the Wharf, and though he seemed to think it right not to press himself upon me, he asked me to come and dine when I pleased. Two or three times I went to dine with him, and these were my last really happy days, when for an hour or two I could give my mind liberty to feel at ease, and recollect my former feelings in this kindly company. But I could not, I dared not, tell him all I was now exposed to, and so I was left to stand my ground alone. Had any one then told me that by myself I must not hope to resist temptation, and rightly directed me how to call on God for help, I have since thought I might have stood it; but I had not yet known the force of temptation, nor learnt by experience the power of God to support the weak. My weakness I now felt by clear experience, and after a short conflict,—for this battle was soon gained by the great enemy who was so strong in the field against me,—I remember well the conclusion striking my mind, that the work of resistance was useless, and that I must give up. Where were you, O my God, might I now exclaim, to leave me thus alone and unprotected on such a boisterous sea? Ah! my Lord, I have never found fault with thy divine appointments in thus permitting me to fall. Only I say, as before, give me grace now fully to recover what I lost; and I will ever bless thee for allowing me to have known so much evil, if it be but that I may warn others,

"It might be, perhaps, ten days after my arrival at Mr. ***'s, when I gave up all attempt to pray; and I think I did not say one word of prayer for the two years and more that I afterwards continued there. I remember once being by, when one of the most rude and hard of my tormentors was dressing himself, and, to my surprise, turned to me, and, with his usual civility, said some such word as, 'Now hold your jaw;' and then, down on his knees near the bed, and his face between his hands, said his prayers. I then saw for a moment to what I had fallen, when even this fellow had more religion than unhappy I had retained; but I had no grain of strength now left to rise. One would think that in the holidays my change would have been discovered; for I imagine that I never knelt down even at home except in the church. But, alas! little did my family suspect what a place was Eton; or, at least, if a suspicion comes across parents' minds of what their children are exposed to in public schools, they generally persuade themselves that this must be endured for a necessary good, which is, to make them learn to know the world.

"When I had ceased attempting to maintain my pious feelings, the best consolation I had was in the company of a few boys of a spirit congenial to what mine was now become. All the time that I remained at Eton I never learnt to take pleasure in the manly, active games for which it is so famous. It is not that I was without some natural talent for such things. I have since had my time of most ardent attachment to cricket, to tennis, shooting, hunting, and all active exercises: but my spirit was bent down at Eton; and among the boys who led the way in all manly pursuits, I was always shy and miserable, which was partly a cause and partly an effect of my being looked down upon by them. My pleasure there was in being with a few boys, like myself, without spirit for these things, retired apart from the sight of others, amusing ourselves with making arbours, catching little fishes in the streams; and many were the hours I wasted in such childish things when I was grown far too old for them.

"Oh! the happiness of a Catholic child, whose inmost soul is known to one whom God has charged with his salvation. Supposing I had been a Catholic child in such a situation—if such a supposition be possible—the pious feelings with which God inspired me, would have been under the guidance of a tender spiritual Father, who would have supplied exactly what I needed when about to fall under that sense of unassisted weakness which I have described. He would have taught me how to be innocent and firm in the midst of all my trials, which would then have tended to exalt, instead of suppressing, my character. I would have kept my character not only clear in the sight of God, but honourable among my fellows, who soon would have given up their persecution when they found me steadfast; and I might have brought with me in the path of peace and justice many whom I followed in the dark ways of sin. But it is in vain to calculate on what I might have been had I been then a Catholic. God be praised, my losses I may yet recover, and perhaps even reap advantages from them."

CHAPTER IV.
Private Tuition Under Mr. Blomfield.

"Had the public masters of the school been attentive to the advancement of the scholars in learning while negligent of their morals, and had I been making progress in my studies while losing my innocence, I might have continued longer in that place; for I did not fall into gross, outward, vicious habits, and it is possible that no difference was perceived in my behaviour at home. But I suppose my father saw a wide difference between the care which Mr. Godley bestowed on me and that which boys in the public tutors' houses could receive. I know not exactly the reasons that led to the change; but, in the Christmas holidays at the end of the year 1813, Mr. Blomfield was invited to Althorp, and he was pointed out to me as my intended future tutor. Many of my readers will know at once that he is now [Footnote 1] the Protestant Bishop of London. My father had presented him somewhat before this period with the rectory of Dunton, in Buckinghamshire, having been led to do so by the distinguished character which he heard of him from Cambridge for he did not personally know him when he offered him this piece of preferment. From the time that I made his acquaintance, and received some directions from him for private reading at Eton during the remaining time of my stay there, I began to take some more decided interest than I had yet done in advancing myself in literary knowledge.

[Footnote 1: This was written in 1836. See Preface. Dr. Blomfield died in 1857.]

This, as well as my growing older and more independent of other boys, and falling in with more sensible companions, gave to my mind a more satisfactory turn during my last year at Eton. There was no return, though, to religion whilst I remained there, nor was there likely to be; and so, most blessed was the change for me when, before Christmas 1814, I left Mr. ***'s, and, after remaining at home for about three months in company with my brother Frederick, returned for the first time from sea, I went to Mr. Blomfield's in March, 1815. I staid there till near the time of my first going to Cambridge, which was in the summer of 1817. Simplicity and purity of mind, alas! are not regained with the readiness with which they are lost: the falling into bad company and consenting to it will utterly ruin all innocence. The removal of occasions may prevent the growth of evil habits and the farther increase of corruption; but this alone will not restore that blessed ignorance of evil which was no longer mine. My residence with Blomfield was, however, the means to me of great good. Here I was confirmed in that love for study and knowledge of which I have already noticed the commencement. He had himself, as is well known, though still young, gained a reputation for classical learning among the scholars of England and the Continent; and his example and conversations inspired me with desires for the like distinctions, to which he gave all possible encouragement. This I reckon to have been a considerable advantage to my religious welfare; for, although the motive I set before me was merely worldly, and the subjects which I studied had little of a good and much of a bad tendency, as must needs be the case with pagan literature, yet, by gaining a habit for study, I was directed in a line widely distinct from the most vicious of the society through which I was afterwards to pass; and, by being a reading man at Cambridge, I was saved from much perversion."

We shall be pardoned for interrupting the course of this interesting narrative, by inserting an anecdote, which shows how unchanged was his opinion on the merits of pagan literature. In a conversation with his religious companions, shortly before he died, he happened to say something about the discoveries of Cardinal Mai among the Bobbio manuscripts. Some one remarked that it was nothing less than Vandalism for the old monks to erase one of the classic authors, and write some crude chronicle or other over it. "Well," replied Father Ignatius, "I suppose the monks had as much respect for Virgil and Ovid as the angels have."

To resume.

"But what was of the chief importance to me at this time was, being in a house and with company, where, if subjects of religion were not so much put before me as with Mr. Godley, and if I was not constantly exhorted and encouraged in simple piety, I and my fellow pupils felt that no word of immorality would have been anywise tolerated. Prayers were daily read in the family, the service of the Church was performed with zeal and regularity, the Sunday was strictly observed, and a prominent part of our instruction was on matters of religion. It was also to me an invaluable benefit, that the companion with whom I was principally associated, during the chief part of my time at Dunton, was one who, like me, after a careful education at home, where he had imbibed religious feelings, had gone through the corruptions of another public school, but was now, like me, happy to find himself in purer air.

"With him I was confirmed at Easter, 1816, by Dr. Howley, then Protestant Bishop of London, now Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an incalculable blessing to me, slave as I was to false shame, and cowardly as I was to resist against bold iniquity, that I now had had a period granted me, as it were, to breathe and gain a little vigour again, before the second cruel and more ruinous devastation which my poor heart was shortly to undergo. I prepared seriously for my confirmation, and for receiving the Sacrament from time to time, and recovered much of my former good practices of private devotion. I remember especially to have procured once more a manual of prayers, and during the last months of my stay at Dunton I spent a long time in self-examination by the table of sins in that book, somewhat similar to our Catholic preparation for confession. But, alas! I could go no further than the preparation. Oh! the great enemy of our souls knew well what he was doing in abolishing confession. As before, when I first lost my innocence and piety at Eton, confession would, I am convinced, have preserved me from that fall; so now that I was almost recovering from the fall, if I had had the ear of a spiritual father to whom I might with confidence have discovered the wounds of my poor soul, he would have assisted me utterly to extirpate the remains of those evil habits of my heart. He would have shown me what I knew so imperfectly, the horrible danger of the state in which I had been so near eternal damnation; he would have made me feel that holy shame for my sins, which would have overcome that false earthly shame by which I still was ready to be mastered; and he would, in short, have poured in that balm and oil which the ministers of God possess, to heal, and strengthen, and comfort me for my future trials, so that I might have stood firm against my enemies. But it pleased Thee, O my God, that once more, by such sad experience, I should have occasion to learn the value of that holy discipline of penance, the power and admirable virtue of the divine sacraments, with the dispensation of which Thou hast now entrusted me, that I may be a more wise and tender father to Thy little ones whom Thou committest to my care."

CHAPTER V.
He Goes To Cambridge.

Young Spencer went with Mr. Blomfield to Cambridge in the spring of 1817, and was entered fellow commoner of Trinity. He returned, immediately after being matriculated, to his family, and spent the summer in cricketing and sea-bathing, in Ryde, Isle of Wight, and hunting or shooting at Althorp. On Saturday, October 18th, he came to London with his parents. He and his brother Frederick went about shopping, to procure their several outfits for the University and the sea. On the morning of the 21st October, he set out from his father's house to Holborn, to catch the seven o'clock fly for Cambridge. This vehicle, which has been so long superseded by the Eastern Counties Railway, was filled with passengers before the Spencer carriage arrived. He then took a post chaise at ten o'clock, and arrived in Cambridge a little before six in the evening. All that remained of that day, and the greater part of the next, was spent in getting his rooms furnished, hiring his servant, making a few acquaintances, meeting those he knew before, and the other employments of a freshman. His tutor in classics was Mr. Evans, who long continued in the same capacity at Cambridge, and had the reputation of being a most upright man. For mathematics he had a Mr. Peacock, who afterwards became Dean of Ely, and restored the cathedral there. He fell into good hands, seemingly, as far as his studies were concerned. He does not seem to have been less fortunate in the choice of his companions. He is very slow in making friends; one he does not like for being "too much of the fine gentleman;" another invites him, and he remarks: "I suppose I must ask him to dinner or something else; but I should not wish to continue acquaintance with him, for though he is good-natured, he is likely to be in a bad set." He also goes regularly to visit Mr. Blomfield, who resided in Hildersham, and advises with him about his proceedings. He also avoids needless waste of time, and says in his journal: "They all played whist, in their turns, but Bridgman and myself; which I am glad I did not, for I like it so well that I should play at it too much if I once began." Besides these precautions, and a feeling of indignation that bursts out now and again when he has to note a misdemeanour in his associates, he reads seven hours a day on an average. These conclusions are collected from the notes of a journal he wrote at the time; they mark a very auspicious beginning; and, being clear facts, will serve as a kind of glass through which one may read the following from his autobiography.

"My intentions were now well directed (on entering Cambridge). I began well, and for a time did not give way to the detestable fashions of the place, and was not much ashamed in the presence of the profligate. I was very happy likewise. I found myself now for the first time emerged from the condition of a boy. I was treated with respect and kindness by the tutors and fellows of the college; my company was always sought, and I was made much of by what was supposed to be the best—that is, the most well-bred and fashionable, set in the University. I had all the health and high spirits of my age, and I now enjoyed manly amusements, being set free from the cowardly feeling of inferiority which I had to oppress me at Eton. My first term at Cambridge—that is, the two months that passed before the first Christmas vacation after my going there— was, as I thought, the happiest time I had yet known. I find it difficult, however, now to understand that happiness, and still more to understand the religious principle which had more or less some influence over me, when I remember one circumstance which by itself proves my religion to have been absolutely nugatory, and which, I remember well, most grievously spoiled my happiness. As to my religion, I do not remember that at that time I said any private prayer. I suppose I must have discontinued it when I left Mr. Blomfield's, or soon after. Yet I had a sort of principle which guarded me from joining in the profane contempt of God's worship which prevails generally in the College chapels at Cambridge, and for a long time from consenting to the practice of open immoralities, or even pretending to approve them, though almost all the young men whom I knew at Cambridge either notoriously followed or at least sanctioned them."

He alludes to "one circumstance" in the last extract as being a test of his depth in religious matters, which it will be interesting to have in his own words. It occurred before his entering Cambridge; but as it considerably influenced his feelings during his stay there, it may as well find its place here.

"The circumstance to which I allude was something of an affair of honour, as the world blindly calls it, into which I got engaged, and which had so important an influence upon my religious feelings for about two years that I will here particularly relate the circumstances of it. In the last summer vacation, before my going to Cambridge, I attended, with my father, the Northampton races, in our way from the Isle of Wight to visit my brother at his place in Nottinghamshire. I had begun, at that time, to be extremely fond of dancing, as well as cricket, shooting, and the like amusements. At this race ball at Northampton, I enjoyed myself to the full; but, unwittingly, laid the foundation for sorrow on the next day. Fancying myself a sort of leader of the gaiety, in a set which seemed to be the most fashionable and smart of the evening, I must needs be making up parties for select dances; which proceeding was, of course, taken by others as intruding on the liberties of a public entertainment; and it happened that, without knowing it, I barred out from one quadrille which I helped in forming, the sister of a young gentleman of name and fortune in the county. I was in the mean time making up a party for a match at cricket on the racecourse for the next day, and this gentleman was one of my chief helpmates. The next day, while busy in collecting our cricketers to go to the ground, I met him in the street, and he gave me the hard cut. I knew not what it meant, and simply let it pass; but on the morning after, I was surprised at receiving a letter from him to tell me what was my offence: it ended with the words (which are deeply enough impressed on my memory not yet to be forgotten), 'If I did not look upon you as a mere boy, I should call you in a more serious manner to account for your rudeness.' He then told me where he might be found the following day. Without much reflecting on this unpleasant communication, I showed it to my father, who was near me, with several other gentlemen of the county, when I received it. He asked me whether I had meant any rudeness, and when I told him I had not, he bid me write an apology, and particularly charged me not to notice the concluding taunt. He afterwards mentioned it to two others of these gentlemen, who both agreed that I had done right in sending such an answer. But soon after my mind fell into such a torment as I had never yet known. The answer was certainly right according to Christian rules, and I suppose the laws of honour would not have required more; but, at the time, I know not whether it would not be esteemed in his mind and that of the friends whom he might consult, to be too gentle for a man of courage. A most agonizing dilemma I was now in, neither side of which I could endure. On the one hand, I could not bear to look on death, and standing to be shot at was what nothing but a fit of desperation could bring me to. On the other, that awful tyrant, the world, now, as it were, put forth his hand and claimed me for his own. To lose my character for courage, and be branded as a coward, was what I could not anyways endure. I went with my father in the carriage to sleep at Loughborough; and when, at the inn, I retired from him to my bedroom, the tumult of my mind was at its height. I had all but determined to set off and go that very night to the place assigned me by this gentleman, who by one disdainful expression had now mysteriously become, as it appeared, the master of my doom; and, renewing the quarrel, take my chance of the consequence. But again, I saw this would not save my honour, if it were already compromised. It was clear that a change of mind like that would hardly satisfy the world, which does not forgive a breach of its awful laws on such easy terms. I finally slept off my trouble for the present; but my soul remained oppressed with a new load, which almost made me weary of my life. I remained convinced that I had not reached the standard of courage in this affair; and I felt, therefore, that it depended on the good-nature of this gentleman whether my character should be exposed or not. He did not reply to my letter of explanation. Was he satisfied or not? During my first term at Cambridge he was expected there, and I was even invited to meet him at a wine party, as one who was known to be one of his neighbours and friends. I dared not show any reluctance to meet him, lest the whole story should be known at Cambridge; and if I did meet him, was he again to treat me with disdain? If he did, how should I avoid a duel? I knew that having anything to do with a duel was expulsion by the laws of the University; but if I, coward as I was, had not yet made up my mind, as I had, that I must run the chance of his shot, if he chose still to resent the affront, no wonder, if the spoiling of my prospects in life, by expulsion from Cambridge, was not much regarded. The present distress was evaded by his not coming, as was expected. After this I desired one person who knew him as a friend, and to whom alone I had explained my case, to write and ask whether my apology had appeared to him sufficient. The answer to this was an assurance that the thing had been no more thought of; but it was two years before I met him in person, and by his courteous manner was finally satisfied that all was right between us. I might think it impossible that the great question could be overlooked by men, what is to become of them in eternity, if I had not had the experience of my own feelings in such an occasion as this. In that memorable evening at Loughborough, I did not indeed altogether overlook the moral question—Is a duel wrong? I had made the most of what I had heard said in palliation of it by some moralists; I could not find any ground, however, to think it right before God; yet the thought of having, perhaps before the next day was past, to answer in the presence of God for having thrown away my life in it, was not the consideration which deterred me from the rash resolution. Now, how stands the world in England on this question? It is clear that a Catholic, whether ecclesiastic or layman, has no choice. He must either utterly renounce his religion or duelling. A maintenance of the abominable practice by which duelling is justified would deprive him of communion with the Church. But how stand Protestants? The clergy are exempted from this law by the world. But how many Protestant laymen are there of the rank of gentlemen who dare to proclaim that they detest duelling, and that they would sooner bear the disgrace of refusing a challenge than offend God by accepting it, or run the risk of offending God? for I suppose the greater part would try an argument to prove that it may be excusable. The clergy generally, I believe, reckon it decidedly a wicked worldly law, yet they receive laymen to communion without insisting on this enormous evil being first abjured. I do not, however, here propose a further discussion of the question generally. To this law of the world, miserably as it tormented me for a time, I believe I am indebted spiritually more than can well be understood: at least to the misery which it occasioned me. I have heard it related of blessed (now Saint) Alphonsus Maria di Liguori that he owed his being led to bid adieu to the world and choosing God for the portion of his inheritance, to making a blunder in pleading a cause as an advocate. Having till that time set his happiness on his worldly reputation for talent, he then clearly saw how vain, were the promises of the world, and once for all he gave it up. I knew not, alas! whither nor how to turn for more solid consolation, and thus the spoiling of my happiness, which had resulted from a mistake in a ball-room, did not teach me to be wise; but it contributed materially, and most blessedly, to poison my happiness at this time. Yet, in a general way, I went on gaily and pleasantly enough, for serious reflections, on whatever subject it might be, had no long continuance."

CHAPTER VI.
His First Year in Cambridge.

What strikes a Catholic as the most singular feature in Protestant education is the want of special training for the clergyman. A dozen young men go to the University for a dozen different purposes, and there is the same rule, the same studies, the same moral discipline for all. Such, at least, was the rule in the days of Mr. Spencer's college life. It seems extraordinary to the Catholic student, who has to learn Latin and Greek only as subsidiary instruments to his higher studies; who has to read two years philosophy and four years theology, and pass severe examinations nine or ten different times in each, besides a general one in all, before he can be qualified to receive the priesthood. The clerical training with us is as different from that through which young Spencer had to pass as one thing can be from another.

His life for the first year may be very briefly told. He hears from Mr. Blomfield that he is to attend divinity lectures, and he forthwith begins. He is advised by a Professor Monk, afterwards Protestant Bishop of Gloucester, to stand for a scholarship, and he does so after getting Blomfield's consent. This makes him study very hard for some time, and though he did not succeed, the taste he had acquired by the preparation did not leave him till the end of the year, when he came out in the first class, having left his competitors, with one exception, far behind. He also spends some hours every day in athletic exercises, is very fond of riding, goes now and again to London and Althorp to amuse himself with attending the theatres, dining out, shooting partridge, and playing at Pope Joan. He relaxes in his determination to avoid whist, and indulges so far that he puts a note of exclamation in his journal at having returned to his chambers one night without having had a game. This seems to be the regular course of his life at Cambridge, a course edifying indeed, if compared with the lives of his companions. He says:—

"I have observed before that the example and conversation of Mr. Blomfield, while I remained with him, gave an impulse to my mind towards the love of literary pursuits. I did not think, however, of exerting myself particularly in that way till the end of the first term, when I was persuaded by Mr. Monk, the Greek professor, now Protestant Bishop of Gloucester, to be a candidate for a university scholarship. Dr. Monk was four years senior to Mr. Blomfield, and I understood from him that he had been of great service to him in the same way, when at college, encouraging his exertions and studies. I was told that I passed this examination creditably, but I did not stand so high among the competitors as to make it desirable that I should repeat the attempt afterwards, and the only honours that I tried for were confined to Trinity College. I was thus stimulated during this time to more than common exertions; it gave me a disposition to study which continued through my time at Cambridge, and was the only good disposition which was encouraged in me. I have reason then to remember with gratitude those who helped me in this way; though it is a lamentable thing that, being there professedly as a student for the church, in what is the proper seminary for ecclesiastics of the Church of England, I cannot call to mind one word of advice given me by anyone among my superiors or companions to guard me against the terrible dangers with which I was surrounded of being entirely corrupted, or to dispose me towards some little care of my spiritual concerns.

"My studies I followed with great zeal all the time I was at Cambridge; but, as is generally the case there with those that aim at places in the public examinations, I managed them without proper distribution of time. By running through the journal I kept at the time I find that, when first I began to read hard, I have often sat without moving from my table and read the clock round, that is, from three or four in the afternoon to the same hour the next morning, for the sake of doing what was counted an extraordinary feat. There is no doubt that reading with regularity a smaller number of hours every day would be more available for the attainment of learning than these immoderate surfeits of study, as one may call them; I only interposed a few days of amusement, when hardly any work was done. In the long run, such a course as mine could not answer, for it was sure to hurt the health and prevent the attainment of the real end of all a young man's studies, which is, acquiring knowledge to be turned to account in after life. Few young men at Oxford or Cambridge, I suppose, have wisdom enough to calculate this in advance. The object which they aim at is present distinction, and outstripping their fellows in the race for college prizes; and, as far as my experience goes, a glut of reading, if the health does but stand it without breaking down, is the way to make the most of one's chance at a public examination.

"The time of my being at Cambridge is one so interesting to me in the recollection, that I cannot satisfy myself, when giving an account of my progress through life, without dwelling at some length upon it. My college course was not very long. At the time when I was at Cambridge, honorary degrees were conferred on the sons of noblemen at the end of two years' residence, by which they came to the enjoyment of the rank and all the privileges of a Master of Arts, which title was not to be attained, in the ordinary course, in less than six or seven years. And what shortens the college life much more is the extravagant length of the vacations; so that what is reckoned one year at Cambridge is not more than five months' actual residence in the University. Yet this is a most important and critical period, and the short two years during which I was an undergraduate at Cambridge were of immense importance in my destiny. How vast is the good, of which I have learned the loss, but which I might have gained, had I then known how to direct my views! On the other hand, how may I bless God for the quantity of evil from which I have been preserved, and how wonderful has been my preservation! When I remember how destitute I was of religion at this time, I must say that I have to wonder rather at my being preserved from so much evil, than at my having fallen into so much. And how can I bless God for his exceeding goodness of which I am now reminded, when I think how, against my own perverse will, against my foolish, I must say mad wishes, I was prevented by his Providence from being at this time irrevocably ruined and lost? What can I return to Him for this blessing? One principal intention in my present work is to record the sentiments of gratitude, however weak and most unworthy, with which I at least desire my soul to be inflamed, and which I hope will engage all the powers of my soul throughout eternity. Most gladly, if it were for His honour and for the edification of one soul which by the narrative might reap instruction, I would enter before all the world into a more detailed explanation of this my wonderful deliverance; but this I must not do, for I must not be the means that others, hitherto in the simplicity of holy ignorance, should be made acquainted with the dark iniquity of which the knowledge has once infected my own unhappy understanding. Be this enough to say on this point, which I was obliged to touch, lest it should seem unreasonable that I should speak of my case as one of most marvellous and almost unparalleled mercy, when the circumstances which I may now detail, and what are generally known among my most intimate companions, do not justify such feelings in the review of it.

"By the great mercy of God, I had provided for me a refuge and, as it were, a breathing time, between Eton and Cambridge. At Mr. Blomfield's, my progress in evil was checked, and I had time to prepare myself for the University with good resolutions, though I knew not what sort of trials I should meet with there, nor had I learnt how unavailing were my best resolutions to support me, while yet I had not wholly put my confidence in God's grace. The vacation which came between my leaving Dunton and going to Cambridge I spent chiefly in the Isle of Wight, and my soul was almost wholly occupied that summer about cricket. I never became a great cricketer myself; I had lost the best time for gaining the art while at Eton; but, this summer, what perseverance and diligence could do to make up for lost time, I think I did. Oh! that I might have the same degree of zeal now in serving the Church of God, and collecting and instructing a faithful flock, as I then had in seeking out, and encouraging and giving and procuring instruction for my troop of cricketers. The occupation of my mind on this subject was enough to drive away any ardent attention to religion as well as to study. I may say, in favour of this passion for cricket, that it was one of the pursuits which I took to at the recommendation of my mother. I remember generally that when anything in the way of amusement or serious occupation was suggested to me by her, or anything else but my own fancy, nothing more was required to make me have a distaste for it. Otherwise, how many useful accomplishments might I have gained which would now have been available to the great objects I have before me. My dear mother wished me to learn fencing when I was at Eton, and a good deal of time I spent, and a good deal of money must have been paid by my father to Mr. Angelo, the fencing-master who came to Eton. It might have been better for me to have gained perfection in this exercise, by which it is related that St. Francis of Sales acquired in part that elegance of manner and nobleness of carriage through which he gained so many souls to Christ. While other boys made fencing their amusement, I always would have it as a task, and of course gained nothing by it. At a later period, when we were at Naples, and I had a weakness in my eyes which made such an employment suitable, my mother would have had me learn music. She gave me a guitar, and would have paid for my lessons; but I could not take to it, and have thus lost the advantage which, since I have become a Catholic, I should have so much valued of understanding the science of music, seeing that the trifling knowledge I do possess is of so much use. There is the apology, then, for my cricket mania; that she proposed my taking to it in the summer I speak of. I was surprised to find myself willing to acquiesce in the suggestion. What I did take to I generally followed excessively, and she did not calculate on the violence with which I followed up this. I got into very little bad company by means of this pursuit, and perhaps, on the whole, I rather gained than lost by it. It was manly and healthful, and though, when in the heat of it, I thought it almost impossible I should ever give it up, yet when I took Orders I did give it up; and if it was in itself of no use, I hope that one sacrifice, among the many I was obliged to make and, thank God, did willingly make to more important objects, it was not without value. Thus much for my cricketing; I mention it here as being the only distinct cause to which I can attribute my losing before I went to Cambridge the habits of serious thought and of regular prayer, which I have observed I regained in a good degree towards the latter part of my Dunton time.

"I nevertheless was full of good purposes. I desired and was resolved to keep myself from giving countenance to immorality as well as practising it, though after having once given way at Eton, I hardly ever dared to say a word or even to give a look in disapproval of whatever might be said or done before me by bold profligates. I could not bear to appear out of the fashion; so that when other boys at Eton used to talk of the balls and gay parties which they had been to in their holidays, I was quite ashamed, when asked what I had done, to say that I had been to no balls; for to my mother I am greatly indebted for her wise conduct in this respect, that she did not, as was done by others, make us men before our time. So, although I detested and from my heart condemned the fashionable immoralities of the young men with whom I came to be associated about the time of my going to Cambridge, I hardly dared declare my mind, except sometimes, almost in confidence, to one who seemed to be like myself. Oh! what good might I have done had I then known the value of God's grace, and, despising the world, boldly stood up for the cause of virtue, at the same time continuing to be gay and cheerful with my companions, and taking a leading part in all innocent and manly diversions, and in the objects of honourable emulation which were set before me and my fellows. I know how much I might have done by supporting others, weak like myself, by acting at this time as I ought to have done, by what I felt myself on one or two occasions when such support was given me. I thank God that the memory of my brother Robert, who died in 1830, commanding the Madagascar, near Alexandria, now rises before me to claim my grateful acknowledgment as having twice given me such help at a critical time. Never was a man more calculated than he to get on, as it is said, in the world. He was brave and enterprising, and skilled in all that might make him distinguished in his profession; at the same time he was most eager in the pursuit of field sports and manly amusements; and in society was one of the most agreeable and popular men of his day. Once I remember complaining to him that I was ashamed of having nothing to say before some ladies about balls, when I was about sixteen. 'What a wretched false shame is that!' said he to me. From that time I became more ashamed of my shame than I had been before of my want of fashion. More important yet was the service he did me when he was about to go on one of his cruises as commander of the Ganymede. I was talking with him, the last evening before he left London, about the Easter before I went to Cambridge. He knew well what I should be exposed to better than I did and charged me to take care never to laugh or look pleased when I was forced to hear immoral conversation. What rare advice was this from the mouth of a gay, gallant young officer; and if there were more of his character who were not ashamed to give it to their young brothers and friends, how many might be saved, who are now lost, because they do not see one example to show how a manly, fashionable character can be maintained with strict morality and modesty. These few words from him were of infinite service to me. They made deep impression on me at the time I heard them, and the resolution which I then made continued with me till after I had been some time at Cambridge, when the battle I had to bear against the universal fashion of iniquity once more, as formerly, at Eton, proved too strong for me, and I again gave way. My fall now was gradual. I began with the resolution to avoid all expenses which would embarrass me with debts, and to keep from several fashionable amusements which would engage too much time. For awhile, on this account, I would not play at cards; but in less than half-a-year this determination failed, and I wasted many an evening at whist of my short college life. I soon grew careless, too, about my expenses, and should have been involved in great embarrassments, had it not been for my brother's (Lord Althorp's) generosity, who, hearing from me at the end of my first year that I was in debt, gave me more than enough to clear it all away; and, thus having enabled me to set my affairs again in order, was the means of saving me from ever afterwards going beyond my means extravagantly. I might, however, have given way in some such resolutions as not playing at cards; I might have entered into some expenses which I shunned at first, without losing my peace of mind, and again defiling my conscience, of which the good condition was partly restored; but these were not the crying evils of the place. In the set with which I was now associated in the University, gambling was not at that time much practised, and not at all insisted on. There were occasional drunken parties, and it was with difficulty that I kept out of them; but the system of violently forcing people to drink, as well at the Universities as throughout genteel society in England, had fallen off before my time. There were some sets where drinking was practised at Cambridge much more excessively than in what called itself the best set of all. I could not help, without offending the laws of society, being present at a considerable number of dinners and suppers where men drank immoderately, but I was permitted to keep myself sober without much difficulty; one or two gave me countenance thus far, though any intimation of disapproving of what others did, on religious or moral grounds, I felt would not have been anyways tolerated; and so I ventured not. Swearing was among them rather unfashionable than not. Some undergraduates were notorious for profane and impious language; and this was excused, and tolerated, and made fun of, but it was not common, and many among us made no difficulty of condemning it. I therefore never fell into this habit. The crying, universal, and most frightful evil of the place was open immorality. There was at Cambridge, in my time, a religious set, who were sometimes called Simeonites, from Mr. Simeon, one of the great leaders and promoters of the Evangelical party in these latter days, who was minister of one of the small churches in Cambridge, and for many years attracted into his influence a certain number of young men. Among these open vice was not countenanced; but not so the set to which I principally belonged, and these were as distinct as if they had not belonged to the same University. I was introduced to some few of these, and rather valued myself on having an acquaintance with them, as well as with many of the purely reading men; and my fashionable friends did not altogether object to it, though I was generally a little ashamed at being seen with any of them, and avoided any frequent intercourse with them. I have wondered since that, if it were only from mere curiosity, I should never once have gone to hear Simeon preach, but so it was. I understood nothing whatever of what is in England called Evangelical religion. Indeed, I thought nothing of religion; had I paid any attention to it at this time, I could hardly have escaped seeing how desperate was the course which I was following, and I might perhaps have taken a strong resolution, and have joined the serious party at once; but, very likely, I should have found the power of fashion at that time too great, and, by knowing more of religion, should only have made my conscience more guilty; and so I believe it may be better that none ever spoke to me on the subject all the time. I repeat it, that in our set, whatever other deviation from the most established fashion was tolerated, any maintenance of chastity or modesty was altogether proscribed. It was not long, then, before I found myself beat out of the position I endeavoured to maintain. During the first term I stood my ground rather better. One reason for this was, that among what were called the freshmen—that is, those who entered with me on my college life, there were several who were not initiated in vicious practices. These, remaining for a time more or less in their simplicity, gave me some countenance in not going at once in the way of the veteran professors of evil. But as I saw some of them grow by degrees shameless and bold, and soon beginning to join their older brethren in upbraiding my weakness and folly for not being like the rest, I found all my resolution failing, and, alas! many a deliberation did I take whether I should not at length enter the same way with them. I was still withheld, though it was not the fear of God which restrained me. I knew that my entering a course of open profligacy would not be tolerated by my parents. I had a character for steadiness among the tutors and fellows of the college, which I was ashamed to lose; though even before them I found it sometimes to answer best not to appear different from other young men. Besides, as I had resisted the first period of attacks, and established among my companions a kind of character of my own, I felt that even they would be astonished if I at last declared myself as one of their sort. I could not bear the thought of their triumph, and the horrid congratulations with which I should be greeted, if once I was found going along with them in open feats of iniquity. Oh! how grievous is the reflection that by such motives as these I was restrained. I was longing often to be like them. I could not bear the taunts which were sometimes made at me. Here again some of the old Etonians perhaps would bring up the remembrance of my ancient propensity to blush, and would take pleasure in putting me again to confusion. Occasionally, by strange interpositions of Divine Providence, I was hindered from accomplishing purposes of evil which I had, in a sort of desperation, resolved by myself to perpetrate, by way of being decided one way or other, like a man on the brink of a precipice determining to throw himself down in order to escape the uneasy apprehension of his danger. One way or another I was restrained, so that it has afterwards appeared to me as if I had but barely stopped short of taking the last decisive steps by which I might be irrevocably ranked among the reprobate. I never thought at the time of this danger, otherwise I could hardly have borne my existence; but, as it was, my mind at times was gloomy and miserable in the extreme. To make me yet more so, at the end of my first year I began to be afflicted with bilious attacks, arising, perhaps, from my imprudent management in regard to study, to diet, and to hours; and these occasioned exceeding depression of spirits, under which I used to fancy myself the most unhappy of creatures. I had no knowledge of the power of religion to set me free, and make me superior to all external sensible causes of depression, and I knew no better than to give myself up to my low feelings when they came upon me, till some distraction removed them, or till the fit passed away of itself. Many times at Cambridge, in order to hold up my head in a noisy company after dinner, I drank wine to raise my spirits, though not to great excess, yet enough to teach me by experience how mistaken is the calculation of those who, when in sorrow, seek to cheer themselves in that way, or in any way but by having recourse to God by prayer and acts of resignation. I remember well once being told by a good aunt of mine, that it was quite wrong to give way to my depression, about which I one day complained to her, and that religion would surely cure it; but the time was not come for me to understand this truth, and I took no notice of her words.

"In the meantime I continued zealous about my studies. I did not stop to ask cui bono was I working in them. Had I seen how utterly vain was a first-class place or a Trinity prize-book, which I had set before me as the object of my labours, I should have found but little consolation and refreshment to my melancholy reflections in these pursuits. On the contrary, I should only have pined away with a more complete sense of the truth of the Wise man's sentence which Almighty God was teaching me in His own way, and in His own good time: 'Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity' but to serve Thee only. I do not mean that if rightly followed, such academical honours are worth nothing. I wish I had followed them more prudently and effectually. They were the objects set before me by my superiors at the time, and I should say to another in my place that he should do his best to gain the highest place in a spirit of obedience, and for the honour of God, to whom we owe all the credit and influence in the world which, by just and honourable exertions, we can gain. In recollecting, therefore, how I exerted myself, and succeeded in these attempts, I am dwelling on one of the most happy points of view which that part of my life suggests to me; for though I did not do this as I ought, yet I was doing what I ought, and by doing so was preserved from much evil, and God knows how far the creditable footing I gained at Cambridge in the studies of the place may yet be available for a good end."

It is hard to believe young Spencer was so utterly devoid of religion as he here describes himself to be; we draw a more favourable inference from a journal he kept at the time. Noticing the death of the Princess Charlotte, he says: "It appears to be the greatest calamity that could have befallen us in public, and it is a deplorable event in a private point of view. It must be ascribed to the interposition of Providence, which must have some end in view beyond our comprehension." He speaks of the death of Mrs. Blomfield thus—"It is for her a happy event, after a life so well spent as hers has been." A few pages further on he has these words about the death of another friend of his. "I was extremely shocked to-day at hearing that James Hornby died last Friday of apoplexy. It was but a short time past that I was corresponding with him about the death of Mrs. Blomfield; and little he or I thought that he would be the next to go. The last year and a half I stayed at Eton I lived in the greatest intimacy with him, which had afterwards fallen away a little; but he was very clever and promising, and I always was fond of him. It must be a wise dispensation of Providence, and may be intended as a warning to us, in addition to those we have lately had in the deaths of Maitland and Dundas. God grant it may be an effectual one!"

These are not the spontaneous expressions of one altogether a stranger to piety, though they may very well be put down as the transient vibration of chords that had long lain still in his heart, and which these rude shocks must have touched and made audibly heard once more. This conclusion is more in accordance with other remarks found scattered here and there in the same journal. He criticises sermons and seems to like none; he is regular at chapel and puts on his surplice on the days appointed; but he refuses to take the sacrament for no conceivable reason but that he does not care about it, and hears it is administered unbecomingly. He is shrewd and considerate in his remarks upon persons and things; yet there is scarcely a line of scandal or uncharitableness in the whole closely written volume. When he records a drunken fit or a row, he suppresses the names of the rioters; and if he says a sharp word about a person in one page, he makes ample amends for it in many pages afterwards; by showing how mistaken he was at first, and how agreeable it was to him to change his opinion upon a longer acquaintance. This might not appear very high praise; but let us take notice of his age and circumstances, and then perhaps it may have its value. He was a young man, just turned eighteen; he had been brought up in splendour at home, and in a poisonous atmosphere at school. That he was not the vilest of the vile is to be wondered at more than that he preserved as much goodness as he did. Where is the young man, of even excellent training, who will be able to contend, unaided and taunted, against a whole college of the finest youth of any country? His motives may be beneath a Christian's standard, but the fact that with this weak armour, the bare shadow of what it might be, he made such noble resistance and passed almost unscathed through the furnace into which he was cast, only shows what he would have done had he been imbued with the teachings of a higher order. The very human respect and worldly considerations that succeeded in keeping him from vice, acquire a respectability and a status in the catalogue of preservatives from the fact of their being successful in his case. His was a fine mind, and one is moved to tears at seeing this noble material for sanctity thus tossed about and buffeted by a herd of capricious companions who could not see its beauty. Let us take up any young man's journal of his age and read some pages of it, what shall we find? Jokes played upon green freshmen, tricks for outdoing proctors, records of follies, or perchance pompous unreality put on to conceal all these or worse. His diary is the generous utterance of a noble mind; it is candid, true, conscientious, and puts a failing and a perfection of the writer side by side. It is no wonder that he was loved and courted, and that his companions had acquired an esteem for him in college, which years and toils have not succeeded in lessening. His keen grief at the deficiencies of his college life only shows to what height of sanctity he had reached, when what another might boast of wrung from him these lamentations.

CHAPTER VII.
Conclusion Of His First Year In Cambridge.

The events recorded in his journal at this time could very conveniently be swelled into chapters, if one had a mind to be diffuse. To trace the fortunes of the gentlemen he comes in contact with—Denison, Wodehouse, Carlisle, Hildyard, Brougham, and a host of others, who afterwards shone in different circles, High Church controversies, pleadings at the bar, parliamentary debates, and Irish Lord-lieutenancies,—would form some very interesting episodes. We should add many titles to the off-handed surnames of the collegian's journal, and say a few words about how those dignities were procured, earned, and worn by the possessors. It might be, perhaps, interesting to some readers to know how many gay young noblemen were enticed into becoming sons-in-law to some very reverend doctors. All this and more Mr. Spencer notes down in the journal, but it is not our theme.

"I have before observed that about my first Christmas I was encouraged by Mr. Monk and by Mr. Blomfield, who had removed from Dunton and lived then about ten miles from Cambridge, to undertake a contest for a University prize; but from this I afterwards drew back. I followed up then principally the object of getting into the first class at the Trinity College examinations, which took place at the end of each year, and which is an honour much esteemed, on account of that College standing so high in the University, though of course it is not on a level with the honours gained in examinations where competitors are admitted from the whole body of students in the University. It was one object of silly ambition at Cambridge to do well in the examinations without having appeared to take much trouble about it. During my second term I fell into the idea of aiming a little at this, and I went to many more parties, and took more time for various amusements, particularly cards, than I allowed myself in the first term. Had I not been checked for this, I should probably have lost much ground in my race. But a check did come to me at Easter, when I went to town, and one evening expressed to my father and mother something of self-congratulation for having united so much amusement with my studies. My mother saw the danger I was now falling into, and, as it seemed to me, with too great severity, for an hour together represented to me the absurdity of my notions, and upbraided me with going the way to disappoint all their prospects. I had no thought of bringing such a reproof upon myself, and went to bed actually crying with mortification. However, it had its effect, and I was thankful for it afterwards. The next term, which was the last and critical one before the examination, I spent in very severe and regular study, and cared not how some idle ones might derogate from my success, and comfort themselves for their inferiority by the thought, that I had read so hard as to take away from my merit. At length, on the 18th May, 1818, the very day, as I observed, on which, ten years before, I had gone to Eton, I went into the examinations in which was to be gained the little share of credit in this way which was to fall to my lot. They lasted for a week; and, a day or two after, I received a note from Mr. Amos, now a distinguished ...... in London, who was one of the examiners, and a great friend of mine, which filled me with exultation: 'I have the greatest pleasure in informing you that you are in the first class. Ollivant is only eight marks above you, and you and he have left all the rest of the class at a long, very long, distance.' I afterwards learnt that the highest number of the marks was between 1,600 and 1,700, and that while Ollivant and I were near together at the head, the next to me was at the distance of 291. Lord Graham, now Duke of Montrose, was one of the first class, and if he had read as much as I did, there is no doubt he would have been before me. I was told at the same time that I learnt the above-named particulars, as I find it in my journal, that 'I was best in mathematics, and Grahame next, although Grahame was first in algebra;' after which I thus expressed my ambition at the time: 'I hope that Grahame will not read for next year's examination, and if my eyes last out (for at that time I was under some apprehension on that point) I may have a chance of being first then, which would be delightful.' Such is all earthly ambition, and, as in my case, so always its effects—disappointment and mortification. Had I offered all my studies to God, and worked for Him, depending on His help, I should have done much more. I should have enjoyed my successes more purely, and should have been guarded from all disappointment. The second year's examination is much more confined to mathematics than to classics, and had I been wise and regular and well-disciplined in my mind, I might have gained that first place which I was aiming at, for Grahame did not read for it. As it was, Ollivant, who was some way behind me in the first year, got up his ground, and beat me in the second year's examination, in which, though I was second again, I had no remarkable superiority over the one who came next to me."

Spencer formed the acquaintance of Sir Thomas Fremantle while they were both at Dunton under the charge of Mr. Blomfield. Fremantle went to Oxford and he to Cambridge, but they continued the intimacy, begun here, to which Spencer pays cordial tributes of unfeigned gratitude. Sir Thomas was a welcome guest at Althorp; he and George used to spur each other on to renewed exertions in the pursuit of literary honours. Spencer formed a plan for the long vacation, and went, on March 25, to Oxford, to lay the subject before Fremantle; it was, that they should go somewhere and read together. Spencer got into the coach in London, and arrived in Oxford at twelve at night. He lionised the place next day, was introduced to different celebrities, and dined and "wined" in the most select companies his friends, Fremantle and Lord Wilton, could muster for his reception. He lived during the time in the rooms of a fellow commoner of Oriel. He did not leave a single department unvisited. He played at tennis with a Mr. Denison; compared the agreements and disagreements of their ways there with those of Cambridge; the only thing noteworthy he chose to put down in his diary, as the result of his comparison, is, that (when he plays cards in W ***'s rooms, where there are four tables) "they play high, and I do not like the kind of party so well as those at Cambridge."

Spencer continued in Cambridge, and read, or idled, as the tone of his mind directed, until the 31st of July, 1818. This morning he set off, at half-past five, in the Rising Sun, for Birmingham; he falls in with a brilliant Etonian, who recounts the progress of things at his old school; and has to sleep in what he calls "the most uncomfortable and uncivil inn I have ever seen." He sets off on another coach next morning for Shrewsbury, and finds, to his agreeable surprise, that Fremantle travelled by the inside of the same vehicle. They both travel together into Wales, having first procured a supply of candles, tea, and other commodities for housekeeping, which they did not hope to find at hand where they were going to. After many long stages, up-hill and down-hill, among Welsh mountains, and strange fellow-travellers, they arrive at Towyn, at ten o'clock at night on the 2nd of August, having been nearly three days performing a journey which can now be accomplished in a few hours.

Towyn is a little town in Merionethshire, situated on the sea coast, on a neck of land formed by a graceful little creek, into which the River Doluny empties itself, and a kind of sloping arm of the channel. Here Spencer and Fremantle took up their residence for the long vacation, in a nice little house for which they paid ten guineas a month. They had the whole premises to themselves, with a waiting-man named Davis, and a maid Kitty. Their mode of life was very regular. They rose early, bathed in the sea, which rolled its waves against their premises, breakfasted, and studied till two o'clock. It was customary with them then to go out exploring with dog and gun until dinner, dine at five, take another stroll, and read again until they thought it time to take tea, and chat until bed-time. Each in turn was steward for a week; they purchased their own provisions in the little town, thus making a regular home there for the term of their stay. They read pretty well for the first week or two; afterwards they got so fond of brisk air and the adventures they came across in their daily walks, that the reading became less agreeable, and soon irksome. The first adventure recorded in the journal is the following. They were both returning home after a two hours' vain pursuit of game, and came across a gouty old gentleman, who asked them a number of impertinent questions. He then asked them to dine, but finding out on inquiry that he was "a notorious blackguard," although great in lands and money, they politely declined his invitation. Another time they rode a great way up the country and stopped at a pretty place, which they found, to their chagrin, not to be a fairy castle exactly, but "a grand shop for gossip, kept by two old ladies, assisted by a third," at whose qualifications in point of age the reader is left to make guesses. Another day they went out to shoot, and met another serious adventure, which is thus noted: "I got an immense ducking in a black mud ditch, which came up to my middle or higher, and Fremantle got a wetting too, but not so serious as mine." Things go on smoothly now for about a week; they receive several visits from neighbouring gentry, and the way in which the return to some of them is described gives us a fair specimen of the flow of spirits Spencer enjoyed at the time.

"Saturday, Aug. 15.— We made ourselves greater bucks than usual to-day, and set off at two to call on Mr. Scott, near Aberdovey. He takes pupils there. We came home to dinner at half-past five; and after dinner (still greater bucks) we went to drink tea at Bodalog, with Mr. and Mrs. Jeffreys, and came home at half-past ten (14 miles walking)."

The next adventure was one in which they tried their hands at shooting on the river with Mr. Jeffreys' long gun; whether the weight of the instrument, or an effort to reach the game that it killed, drew them nearer the water than they intended, he tells us that they "got quite soused in the water," and figured at the gentleman's dinner-table in two complete sets of the apparel of the old man, to the no small amusement of the company. Nothing remarkable occurred after this to the two friends, except a trip to Aberystwyth, where they lodged a few days, met a few old acquaintances, and enjoyed a ball that was given to the ladies and gentlemen who were there for the season; until the 14th of September. This day they had a great battle of words with their landlord, who did not like their leaving him so soon: in this, however, they came off victorious. They both travel through Wales, visit Snowdon, Carnarvon, and meet a body of Cambridge men reading with a tutor at Conway.

September 29th, he took the mail to London, and thus ended his long vacation. He stays at Wimbledon with his own family until the time for returning to Cambridge again. He relates in the journal that a man comes to teach Lady Spencer, his mother, how to bind books. This may be thought a strange kind of recreation for a lady of high rank; but it will not when we read that "this was the same person who set off the fashion of shoemaking!"

He concludes his first year in Cambridge thus:—

"This day's journal completes a year from the time I began to keep my history. It has indeed been an important year in my life the first in which I have been my own master, and have, I fear, settled my character with all its faults. Several things which I have both done and undone I shall never cease regretting. I have only to thank God that there is no more reason for regret. With my reading, on the whole, I am as well satisfied as I ever expected."

Two words are underlined in this extract; they were often on his lips till the day of his death, and frequently formed the subject of his sermons. If his character had its faults settled with it in his own estimation, it is pleasing to see the habit of resignation existing as a virtue in him even at this age. It was one that was confirmed in him afterwards, to an eminent degree.

CHAPTER VIII.
Second Year In Cambridge—Takes His Degree.

During the first term of his second year in Cambridge, his average hours of reading decreased; yet he had still a taste for study, and had not yet thrown aside what remained of his former ambition to distinguish himself. He and the Duke of Montrose declaim on the respective merits of Charles V. and Francis I.; they tossed up for sides, and Charles V. fell to Spencer. This keeps him at hard study for some time; meanwhile he hears Ollivant declaim, and thinks he will get both prizes. After the declamation, in which he comes off more creditably than he expected, he has half a hope of a prize, which he says he should be surprised though delighted to receive. He did get one, but not so high as he expected. Here and there in his journal at this time a few expressions of discontent escape from him about Cambridge; the cause being partially what has been related in the chapter before last. This had also, conjointly with another circumstance, the effect of cutting short his University career. He writes in the autobiography:—

"I made some good progress during this year, but I should have done much more had I been constantly regular. I must have suffered great loss by my interruptions, as I find by my journal that for about four weeks at the end of the long vacation, when I had come home and was taken up with shooting, I did not make one hour's study; and two more long intervals of cessation from reading took place in the Christmas and Easter vacations, when a little steady application, if it were but for three hours a-day, would have kept my mind attentive, and given me a great advantage. After my first examination, I entertained some thoughts of waiving my privilege of taking an honorary degree, and going through the Senate House examinations with a view to University honours; but I lost all wish to remain at Cambridge towards the end of the second autumn. I was at times quite disgusted with the place, for such reasons as I have stated; besides which, my father and mother had made a plan, which pleased me greatly, of going for a year on the Continent, in which I was to accompany them. My brother Frederick, who was come home about this time, was to be of the party likewise, and happy was I in the prospect of being again some time in his company; but as an opportunity occurred for him to go to South America, with Sir Thomas Hardy, with the hope of being made Commander, this professional advantage was justly preferred."

Some of the heads at Cambridge as well as Lady Spencer urged him at this time to stand for a fellowship, but he gave up the idea, and it ended in his joining a new club they had formed—the Eton club. These clubs at the Universities are looked upon with no great favour by proctors and others who have charge of the morals of the students. Their dinners entail great expenses on the members, and they end as the first meeting did in his case: "They all made an enormous row, and I too, by the bye." He came to spend the Christmas of 1818 at Althorp, and closes the year with a succession of parties, Pope Joan, and bookbinding. There is one little incident recorded in his journal at this time which gives us a perfect insight into his character. One might expect that at this age, nineteen, he would be very romantic and dreamy, and that we should find many allusions to those topics which engross so much of the time of novel-reading youths and maidens nowadays. Nothing of the sort. There is an affair of the heart, but his conduct in it, with his remarks on it, are worthy of a sexagenarian. At a party, which took place at his father's, he dances with various young ladies, among the rest a certain Miss A., who, he says, "was a great flame of mine two years ago; she is not so pretty as I thought her then, but she is a delightful partner. I was again in love, but not violently to-night." Two or three days after this, he is at another party, and dances with a new set of partners to the extent of three quadrilles. Of one of these he thus speaks—"I was delighted with Miss B., who is a pleasant unaffected girl, and I am doomed to think of her I suppose for two or three days instead of Miss A. I was provoked that she would not give me her fan at parting." Was it not cool and thoughtful of him to mark out the time such a change of sentiment was likely to last? The next page of the journal brings the subject before us still more clearly. His mother took him for a walk around Althorp, and told him that she was planning a house for the parsonage at Brington:

"Which they say is to be mine when I am old enough; it might be made a most comfortable and even a pretty place, and if I live to come to it I can figure to myself some happy years there with a fond partner of my joys, if I can meet with a good one. 'Here then, and with thee, my N.' [Footnote 2] would have been my language some time ago; but how my opinions even of such important things change with my increasing years. This thought often occurs to me, and will I hope prevent me from ever making any engagements which cannot be broken, in case my fancy should be altered during the time which must elapse before the completion of them."

[Footnote 2: A quotation, as the reader may remember, from Guy Mannering.]

It will be seen, further on in the biography, how this affair ended. There is a very good lesson in what he has left for young men of his age. If reason were allowed to direct the affections, many would be preserved from rash steps that embitter their whole lives. It seems amusing to a Catholic to find the prospects of a clergyman's happiness so very commonplace; but it will be a relief to learn by-and-by how very different were his ideas when he became a clergyman, and built and dwelt in that identical parsonage that now existed only in his own and his mother's mind. He gets a commission in the Northamptonshire Yeomanry before returning to Cambridge for Hilary term this year.

Studies seem to him a necessary evil now, and he writes with a kind of a sigh of relief when he notes, a few pages on, that he has taken his last compulsory lesson in Latin. Balls and parties of all kinds are his rage. George and a friend of his had notice of a ball coming off in Northampton in a few days, and he heard that his "ladye love" would be one of the company, so they determined to be there. He writes letters, gets an invitation for his friend, and makes all the preparation possible for a week previous. The day comes, it is rainy; but, no matter, they pack their best suits into trunks, bring the necessary apparatus for making a good appearance, they search the town for a conveyance, and at length procure a team for a tandem at Jordan's. Off they go, eighteen miles the first stage, then eight more; they bait their horses and dine; off again for full sixteen miles. He has also to run the risk of a cross-examination from whatever members of his family he may happen to meet at the ball, and to answer the difficult question, "What brought you here?" It is raining in torrents, it is a cold February day; but all difficulties appear trifles to the two young adventurers as they urge their team over the hills and plains of Northamptonshire. Even Spencer boasts in his journal that he is now a first-rate whip. They arrive in high glee, forgetting their hardships in the glow of anticipation, and are greeted with the bad news, as they jump from their conveyance, that the ball has been put off until next month. To make matters worse, the bearer of these unfavourable tidings assured them that he wrote to them to give this information, and they had an additional motive to chagrin in the fact of their having forgotten to ask for their letters in the hurry and anxiety to come off. He notes in the journal—"Feb. 10. We set off again in our tandem for Cambridge, truly dimissis auribus, but with a resolution to try again on the 5th March." On the 5th of March they faithfully carried out this resolution. The ball took place, but the ladies they were anxious to meet did not come, so they only half enjoyed the thing. Spencer took a hack and rode off to Althorp to make his appearance at his father's. He was very nervous about the prospect of a meeting with his parents, and having to give an account of himself. Fortunately the Earl was deep in some measure for furthering George's happiness, and looked upon his son's arrival as an auspicious visit. Everything thus passed off smoothly, and the youngsters arrived in Cambridge with their tandem "without accidents, but with two or three narrow escapes." His journal here has few incidents out of the ordinary line of his daily life; he learns to wrestle with success; so as to bring his antagonist to the ground with a dilapidation of the res vestiaria. He practises a good deal at jumping, and one day, in clearing a hedge, a bramble caught his foot, which brought him with violence to the ground; by this mishap his eye was ornamented with a scar which gave him some trouble afterwards. He also gets a shying horse to ride: this noble charger had a particular dislike to carts: he shied at one in the market-place in Cambridge, and soon left his rider on the flags. Spencer mounted again, but found on his return, after a good ride, that his toe was sprained, and it kept him indoors for five or six days. This chapter of accidents was amply counterbalanced by the agreeable fact that he had just attended his twenty-fifth divinity lecture, and had obtained the certificate which was to insure him the imposition of his bishop's hands, whenever he might think it convenient to put himself to the trouble of going through the ceremony. His course is now coming to an end; he becomes a freemason, and rises four degrees in the craft before the end of June. A bishop visits Trinity College, and standing in solemn grandeur, with a staff of college officers dressed out in their insignia encircling him, his lordship delivers a grave expression of his displeasure at the stupidity some twenty students gave evidence of during their examination. Spencer comes out in the first class once more; his brother Frederick is in Cambridge at the time, and as soon as the result is known they take coach for London. Here they spend their time agreeably between dining at home and abroad, going to Covent Garden, and taking sundry lessons from an Italian dancing-master, until July 5th, when George returns to Cambridge to take out his degree. We will hear himself now giving an account of this great event.

"My college labours terminated with the end of the second year's college examination for the classes, which took place on the 1st of June, 1819. On the 5th of June the result was declared, when, as I have before said, I was in the first class again, and second to Ollivant. This was rather a disappointment, and gave me some reasonable discontent. For the cause of my not being, as I might have expected, as far above the others as I had been the year before, I saw clearly was a degree of carelessness in my reading, especially of one subject that is, the three first sections of Newton's Principia, which were appointed for the second year's reading, and for which I had not had a taste as for other parts of mathematics. However, the time was now past to recover my place, and soon the importance of this little matter vanished into nothing. I then went to London till the beginning of July, when I returned to Cambridge to receive my degree as Master of Arts from the Duke of Gloucester, who came in person at the commencement of this year to confer the degrees as Chancellor of the University, and to be entertained with the best that the colleges could raise to offer him in the way of feasts and gaieties. My Cambridge cares and troubles were now well-nigh past, and I enjoyed greatly the position I held at this commencement as steward of the ball, and a sort of leader of the gaieties in the presence of the Royal personages, because I was the first in rank of those who received their honorary degrees.

"From this time there has been a complete cessation with me of all mathematical studies, and almost of all my classical, to which I have hardly ever again referred. For when I again returned to regular study, I had nothing in my mind but matters of theology. It was at this time, after leaving Cambridge, when I remained principally fixed as an inmate in my father's house, till I was settled in the country as a clergyman, that I was in the character of what is called a young man about town. It was with my dear brother Frederick, who was at home at the time, as I before observed, that I began in earnest to take a share in the enjoyment of London life. I have seen the dangers, the pleasures, and the miseries of that career, though all in a mitigated degree, from the happy circumstance of my not being left alone to find my way through it, as so many are at the age of which I speak. With many, no doubt, the life in London is the time for going to the full depth of all the evil of which Oxford or Cambridge have given the first relish. My father and mother were not like many aged veterans in dissipation—whom in the days when the fashionable world was most accounted of by me, I have looked on with pity—who to the last of their strength keep up what they can of youth, in pursuing still the round of the gay parties of one rising generation after another. They (my parents) hardly ever went into society away from home. They kept a grand establishment, when in London, at Spencer House, as well as at Althorp in the winter, when the first society, whether of the political, or the literary and scientific, were constantly received. It would, therefore, have been unreasonable in me to be fond of going out for the sake of society, when, perhaps, none was to be met with so interesting as that at home; besides this, my father and mother were fond of being surrounded by their family circle; and if I or my brothers, when staying with them in London, went out from home several times in succession, or many times a week, they would generally express some disappointment or displeasure; and though I used at the time to be sometimes vexed at this kind of restraint, as I was at other restraints on what I might have reckoned the liberty of a young man, I used generally, even then, to see how preferable my condition was. I now most clearly see that the feelings of my parents in this matter were most reasonable, and that it was a great blessing to me that I was situated in such circumstances. They were desirous that we should see the world, and when any amusement was going on, or party was to take place, which she thought really worthy of attention, as not being so frivolous as the general run of such things, my mother zealously assisted in procuring us invitations, and providing us with needful dresses; as, for instance, at this time she gave to my brother Frederick and me very handsome full-dress uniforms (his being, of course, that of a naval officer, mine of the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, in which I then held a commission), that we might appear at balls and parties where full-dress was required, such as foreign ambassadors sometimes gave. These were, she thought, really worth going to on account of extraordinary or remarkable characters who came to them, whether English or foreigners. Thanks to their regular domestic habits, and to the strict authority which my mother still kept over us all, while being at Spencer House, I should have found it almost as difficult as in a well-regulated college to go into any extravagant irregularities, and so I was hardly tempted to do so. My feeling habitually was to try and avoid invitations and engagements from home, far from seeking them eagerly."

The incidents we are able to add from his journal during the interval between leaving Cambridge and going abroad are very meagre, yet, since they are characteristic of the man's feelings, a few will be inserted. From the journal: "Tuesday, July 20. We got up and went to a dreadful formal breakfast at 10½. At one we were dressed, and the company began to arrive for a public breakfast, to be given to-day to the people of the county in honour of the marriage of Lord Temple. The collation was in the greenhouse, and lasted off and on till about 6!" He goes through the particulars of the entertainment, the quadrilles and country dances, the partners' perfections, &c., &c.; but when Lady Buckingham asked himself and his brother to stay a little while longer, much as they liked it, they would not do so, because their mother desired them to be home at a certain time. One must admire his obedience even at the expense of his enjoyment, when he might calculate upon the implicit consent of his mother to their acceding to such a request, and from such a quarter. Another thing we gather from this is, that F. Ignatius, even when a youth, could never bear what was formal or ultra-refined; he always liked natural ease and unaffected simplicity. "We find him turn away from a blue-stocking, and steal three days' thoughts from his "flame" to bestow them on one more unaffected and simple. The next incident he chooses to record is, that the clergyman of the church he used to attend had gone to spend his honeymoon, and that a preacher whom he did not admire took his pulpit in his absence. There are some partings of friends, and a great variety of amusements, to fill up the pages for a month or so. Father Ignatius used to tell a very remarkable anecdote about this period of his life; he used it to illustrate the sacrifices that people can willingly make for the law of fashion, and how reluctant they are to make even the smallest for the love of God. There was a great ball to be given somewhere in London; it was to be a most splendid affair, full in all particulars of dress and etiquette, and one of those that the Countess Spencer thought really worth going to. A celebrated coiffeur was imported direct from Paris, and he had a peculiar style of hair-dressing that none of that craft in London could hope to imitate with success. All the belles, marchionesses of high degree, who intended figuring at the ball, hired the French coiffeur. He accepted all the engagements, but found they were so many that it would take twenty-four hours' hard work, without a moment's repose, to satisfy all. He had to begin at three o'clock in the afternoon of the day preceding the ball, and Father Ignatius knew one lady who was high upon his list. She had her hair dressed about four, and, lest it might be disarranged, slept in her arm-chair, with her neck in stocks, for the night. This lady, be it remembered, was no foolish young belle, but a matron who might have conveniently introduced her granddaughter to the circle she attended. "These people," he used to say, "laugh at the folly of St. Peter of Alcantara and other mortified saints; and we, who aspire to be saints, will undergo with difficulty what worldlings cheerfully endure for vanity and folly." He often laughed at this, and often laughed others into seriousness at his comments on it.

CHAPTER IX.
Travels On The Continent.

Spencer's thoughts now seemed perpetually fluttering around the expectation of going abroad and seeing wonders. This idea comes out at most unexpected times in the journal, it forms a parenthesis in everything he considers bearing seriously upon his welfare. At one time he is disappointed in not having his brother for companion, at another he hopes his parents will not consider this trip travelling enough for him; he expects, too, that the parental reins will be slackened somewhat; and even it crosses his mind, as a kind of remote probability, that he may perchance be allowed to take a tour by himself. All that was hopeful in these day-dreams was gratified, and some of them to an extent that he was very far from imagining at the time. The great day did arrive at last; the evening before, the different branches of the family came to dine at Wimbledon, where the Earl was then staying. They were very serious, as they were going "on a formidable expedition next morning." In the morning, the different articles of luggage were sent before them on a van; and, after parting with Lords Althorp, Lyttelton, and their families, the party started for the Continent. It consisted of Lord and Lady Spencer in one carriage, George and the physician in another, and the servants in a third. They had a courier employed, Luigi Cavani, whose office it was to ride ahead of the cavalcade, and provide horses and other necessaries at the next stage. They set sail at Dover at six o'clock on the evening of the 14th September, and, after what was called a favourable passage, arrived in Calais the next morning at half-past seven o'clock. One can leave London Bridge nowadays at the time they left Dover Harbour, and be in Paris before they landed. He says in the autobiography:

"It was on the 15th of September, 1819, that we landed at Calais a day most interesting to me, as I then considered, because the first of my setting foot in a foreign land, but much more, I now must reckon, as being the first on which I trod Catholic ground and entered a Catholic church." In the journal he says: "Dr. Wilson and I walked about a little (in Calais) to the market-place and the church, both which were extraordinary to the greatest degree in my eyes. Sept. 16. We breakfasted at eight, and then started on our journey. 1st went my father and mother in their carriage with 4 horses; 2ndly. Dr. Wilson and I in a hired calèche with two horses. 3rd. Drewe and the maids, in one with three horses; and last, the fourgon, with 3. This was the order of march. I was amused extremely by the difference of this and our English posting. The appearance of the postilions is so new to me, as they crack their long whips over their heads, and the little horses with their rope harness look so mean. Luigi rode post to order horses and manage everything for us, and was always found waiting at every relay."

We quote this in full to give an idea of how noblemen travelled in the not very olden time. If George was much surprised at the church in Calais, his wonder knew no bounds when he entered the Cathedral in Amiens, and saw "Mass performed by separate Priests at different Altars, and people at each." This is a mystery to Protestants who see Catholic rites for the first time. They are taught to look upon true worship as consisting in the meaning of some well-written sentences, pronounced with emphatic unction, and responded to with some degree of fervour. The service, the fine old psalms, anthems, and collects of the Prayer-Book, issuing forth in melodious accents from the lips of a God-fearing man, is about the highest kind of public worship they can have any notion of. The sermon is first with some, second with others; but whatever place the peculiar excellence of the preacher, and the effects of it on a given occasion, may gain in the heart of an individual, it may be taken for granted that the service comes before the sermon in the abstract. But service and sermon must be heard, and listened to, and understood. With this idea in their minds, and accustomed to see the minister assume a manner and mien calculated to produce prayerful thoughts in his congregation, they are surprised, if not shocked, at the Catholic Mass. They find the Priest hurrying off through Latin prayers, and producing breathless attention by his own silence; they see him arrayed in unintelligible attire, moving one way and another, bowing, genuflecting, standing still, or blessing. They scarcely understand a word or gesture, and feel perfectly sure that the old woman who beats her breast and counts her beads by the side of their staring effrontery is as much in the dark as themselves, if not more. They have seen one evidence more of the humbug of Popery, and bless God that Cranmer procured them another ritual. It is not our object to explain Catholic mysteries, but it may be as well to hint that if a stranger to Jerusalem happened to wander to Calvary on the great day of the Crucifixion, and believed in the divinity of the Victim who hung upon the Cross, he would find more devotion in kneeling in silence at His feet, than in listening to the most eloquent declamation he could hear about it. Such is the case with the Catholic now as then; he knows the same Victim is offered up still, and when the great moment arrives in the middle of the Mass, he would have everything to be hushed and silent, except the little bell that gives him notice of the awful moment. A reason why there should be people at the different altars lies in this: that there is the same Sacrifice on each, and one may happen to come into the church at a time when it would be more convenient to hear Mass at some one place than at another. The course of their journey lay through Paris, which they entered from St. Denis by Montmartre. They remained some days there to see Notre Dame, and Paris from its summit, admire the length of the Louvre, and visit Fontainebleau. In the course they took by Auxerre, Maison Neuve, Dijon, Poligny, and Morey, in order to cross Mount Jura and to see Mont Blanc on their way to Switzerland, they have to endure many privations. The inns are bad, the cooking is inferior, and they have to undergo discomforts while sleeping in the châlets of mountaineers, who were not accustomed to have their quiet invaded by such state visits every day. All this they bore manfully until they arrived in Geneva, which they find "crammed with English." It strikes George as extraordinary that the Genevese should have their shops in the top story of their houses. He misses the morning service in the Calvinist Church on Sunday; thinks their afternoon function very like the Scotch, and sensible. He gives vent to his indignation at finding "a number of blackguard fellows playing cards and smoking, publicly, at a cafe, whilst there were only twenty at church." He is disappointed, therefore, at not finding Geneva the devout, religious place he imagined it to be. He sees a few of the sights with Dr. Wilson, and they cross the Lago Maggiore in a boat, whilst the rest of the company go round it by land. They all meet together in Milan; there they find Lord Lucan. He goes to see the Duomo, Brera, theatres; and admires the fine streets, shops, &c., and says the Cathedral is unique. He had the pleasure of meeting the famous Angelo, afterwards Cardinal, Mai at the Ambrosian Library. He went to the Cathedral on Saturday to see Mass performed, and was disappointed at not hearing the organ. He had, however, quite enough of the rite on Sunday, October 17th:—

"At 10½ I went to the Duomo, and got into a little gallery over the choir, from whence I saw the ceremonies for the anniversary of the consecration of the church. There was a procession all round the building, with incense burning, and with the Priests singing anthems all the time, and a quantity of other mummery, the sight of which might well have driven Calvin to the extremities which he went to in the contrary way. The whole service is always in Latin, so that the people may not reap even the smallest benefit from it."

We shall give another extract from the journal, as it shows the state of his mind at the time:—

"This day completes the second year of my journal. How quick are they flown! those two years which are supposed to be the happiest in life. I think any time in life is happy if one knows the secret of making it so. I have not learnt it yet, and have had a great deal of unhappiness since going to College. But for what? Nothing but my own imagination and weaknesses, for everything which generally gives happiness I have enjoyed. I have made several friends, been successful enough in my College studies, and have never wanted anything; but I have a morbid constitution which makes me raise phantoms of unhappiness where there is none, and clouds the fairest scenes with a veil of melancholy. This must be conquered, somehow or other, or I shall be a creature useless to others and tormenting to myself."

He feels much distaste at what he terms the dirty style in which an Italian gentleman chooses to live, because that gentleman finds himself quite comfortable without such furniture and appliances as are deemed essential in England. He happened to be a man fond of books, and spent his spare time in libraries and academies.

The travellers leave Milan after a fortnight's stay, and proceed through Placentia, Parma, Modena, and Bologna. Here the celebrated Cardinal Mezzofanti called upon them, and Spencer remarks that the only thing worth seeing, as far as he has gone, in Italy, are churches and their ornaments. He singled out one of those latter for special remark, as we find by the following passage:—

"Oct. 30. At nine o'clock Dr. Wilson's friend, a lawyer, took him and me up to a church on the mountain, near the town, famous for a picture—done, as they say, by St. Luke! There is a fine arcade to it for 2½ miles, and pilgrims go by this to adore this nonsense!"

Their next stay is at Florence, where he had the ill-luck of not providing against mosquitoes, who took the liberty of biting him heartily the first night he slept there. News reaches him next day that a great friend of his at Cambridge, a Mr. Gambler, has obtained a fellowship in Trinity. This makes him merry all the evening. They halt again for some rest at Perugia. All he says about this classic town is, "Before breakfast the Doctor and I saw a gallery of frightful old pictures, and other maraviglia of Perugia, and then set off, still through mountainous country, to Spoleto. They start for Rome next day, they see it fifteen miles off, but he does not seem to have had a single spark of enthusiasm as he looks upon the great mistress of the world for the first time. Of course Rome, as the capital of Christendom, was not likely to stir up his best feelings, when we remember the then frame of his religious mind. At all events, cold and listless as it might be, he entered Rome on Wednesday, the 10th November, 1819. The first thing he and his father with the Doctor did on arriving, was to pay a visit to St. Peter's. "We saw it inside and out. It was most glorious: but its size from some reason or other disappoints me, as it does all strangers; it improves upon acquaintance, I fancy." How like Byron's opinion. "Childe Harold:" Canto iv. 65:—

"Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why? it is not lessened: but thy mind,
Expanded by the Genius of the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only find
A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by His brow."

He visits next the Capitoline, the ancient Forum, and the Coliseum; he remarks: "this last is quite stupendous, and quite answers my expectations. I could not yet understand the plan of the staircases and seats. The Pope has stuck it all over with little chapels." He meets Tom Moore, and spends a day with him and other merry companions in Tivoli.

He stayed in Rome this time only a week: for on the 17th November they all started for Naples. In passing through Terracina he meets what Catholics will recognize as a svegliarino. It is customary, when a mission is being given in some parts of Italy, for one of the missioners to go out, accompanied by a bell, and such companions, lay and clerical, as wish to take part in the ceremony, go around the village, and preach from a table in three or four different places. This has a remarkable effect—the listless loungers who prefer basking in the sun, or swallowing maccaroni, to going to the church for the sermons, are thus roused so far as to put their heads out of the window or door and ask what's the matter. By-and-bye the crowd thickens, one looks inquisitively at the other, and when their curiosity has been worked upon sufficiently, the missioner gets up, and in a fiery zealous discourse puts the fear of God into his hearers. Thousands are brought to repentance by these means every year. The sermon, of course, is not a polished oration, with points of rhetoric to suit the laws of criticism. It is rather broken and inflamed, short and telling sentences, and delivered with all that unction and impetuosity for which Italians are remarkable; and which is anything but intelligible to an Englishman, who is accustomed to the measured discourses of a London Churchman. Accordingly we find this proceeding thus dotted down in the journal:—"At Terracina we were very much amused by a procession of penitents with the Bishop of Terracina, and an extravagant sermon preached by a priest from a table before the inn." At that time, how little could he foresee that he should afterwards give such a mission in Italy himself, and further, to the utmost of his power, with equal zeal, though with more sedateness, even such an extravaganza, as it now appeared to him. His style of preaching, however, as we shall hereafter see, was never such as to qualify him for an emphatic svegliarino.

On November 21 they arrive in Naples, not very pleasantly, as Lady Spencer had suffered from the roughness of the road, and was obliged to rest a night in Capua, and George was suffering from a soreness in his eye. These inconveniences were forgotten for a moment on meeting Lord George Quin and his lady, daughter to Lord Spencer. Young Spencer was delighted with the children, though they could only speak French or Italian. The soreness of his eye keeps him at home next day, which he enjoys as he has full opportunity of chatting with his sister, whom he seems to have loved very much. He has already alluded to the plan his mother formed for his learning to play on the guitar; so we shall not quote any of the handsome greetings which the guitar-master receives as he comes to inflict the penance of making his pupil tune the strings of this romantic instrument.

CHAPTER X.
English Life In Naples.

The English who wintered in Naples at the same time with the Spencer family seemed to have formed, as they generally do, a special caste. They dined together, drove out together, they laughed at the churches, and crowded the opera. Their conduct in the latter place did not seem to be very edifying to the Neapolitans, who, perhaps, may have thought it was an English custom to see a nobleman "tumbling tipsy one night into Earl Spencer's box," to the no small disedification of the whole family, who were models of sobriety and decorum. The English, by forming their own circles in this exclusive manner, and by their external deportment on various occasions, keep away the higher and more pious grades of society in Catholic cities. The scoffers at monachism and priestly rule are freely admitted within the English pale, and pay for their hospitality, by catering to the worst prejudices of their entertainers, and maligning their neighbours. It is very often a repetition of the fable of the sour grapes. For this we have ample testimony in the writings of our contemporaries, which we will strengthen by quoting Father Ignatius's own words a little later. The better Italians sometimes laugh at all this, so that John Bull is become a by-word among them for exclusiveness and arrogant, selfish pride. The blame lies with the English.

They sometimes found disagreeable incidents from the clashing of tastes and customs. On the 8th of December they made the round of the churches, but were sorely piqued that the Neapolitans had too much respect for our Blessed Lady to open the operas and theatres on the evening of the Feast of her Immaculate Conception, so they had to content themselves with whist, and discordant notes from George's guitar. Another of these crosses occurred a few days after. George made a lame excursion to Vesuvius, and when groaning from toothache on his return, heard that the father of his bosom friend, Sir Thomas Fremantle, senior, was dead. To make matters worse, the remains could not be interred in a cemetery, and the Inglesi had to pay the last sad rites to their friend in a private garden. On Christmas Day they had service at the Consul's, and then they walked about, and had their whist for the rest of the day. The old year was danced out at a grand quadrille party, of which more hereafter; and George tells us very carefully that "a set of us drank in the new year in diavolone." How remarkable, at every turn, and even by such chance and off-hand expressions, to note the contrast between the George Spencer of that day and the subject of divine grace he afterwards became!

It is a relief to begin the new year 1820 with recording an exception made to the general custom above. George was presented by his father to King Ferdinand, and all the nobili Inglesi were invited to join in the festivities with which it was customary to usher in the new year. For the rest, the evenings and early part of the mornings are spent in a continual whirl of amusement, and it would require a page to number up the balls and dances he figured in. He visits also the Carthusian and Camaldolese monasteries, but makes no comments. He goes two or three times to see Vesuvius and the crater and the lava, of which he gives a very nice description; after this he is allowed, by special favour, to be at the Royal chase: this puts him in great humour, for, besides the sport it afforded in the way of getting shots at such choice game as wild boars, it gave him an opportunity of seeing the "King and all his court, to which nothing can be similar."

Towards the end of January, Lord and Lady Spencer determined on returning to England, and offered to leave George to travel through the sights of Southern Italy. He perceives, in a few days, the tokens of an inclination in his parents to have his company, and goes straightway to the Honourable Augustus Barrington, who was to be his fellow-traveller, and breaks off the plan they had formed. It was only after very pressing instances from his father and mother that he could be persuaded to take up the first plan anew. A portion of his autobiography will throw some light upon many things we have only just touched upon, and, therefore, it is better to quote it here, though it might come in more opportunely at the conclusion of his first tour abroad.

"It is extraordinary, indeed, that I should have remained a whole year on the Continent and never once have seriously taken into consideration the subject of the Catholic religion. Such was the case; and I returned to England, as far as I can remember, without one doubt having crossed my mind whether this was the true religion or not. ...

And now for a little recollection of the state of my mind during this period of travelling, and its moral effects upon me. During all this time I continued, thank God, wholly convinced that a course of iniquity would not answer; and had I met with any among the young men, my associates, who would have dared to speak out fully in favour of morality, I should, I believe, have been ready to agree with him. But where were such to be found? I had now grown so far more independent of the world, that I had not open assaults to bear continually against for not running with the rest. Many of the young men who maintained their character as free licentious livers, yet professed some degree of moderation and restraint in their indulgences. Some I remember, who professed to keep clear of immoral practices, and no doubt their sincerity in this might be depended on; for where no credit but dishonour would be the reward of steady conduct, there was no temptation to pretend to it falsely. But I remember now but one who dared to allude in my hearing—and that was but once, I think, in private—to the consequence of this sin in another world, and to maintain that it was better to avoid it for fear of punishment hereafter. While, then, I still knew that the way of evil was all wrong, and would have been most happy if the fashion of wickedness could have been at an end; and though I never once, as far as I know, was the first to introduce immodest conversation, and hardly ever heard it introduced by others without inward repugnance, and seldom joined in it; yet I never dared declare how much I hated it, and was still in the most awful and desperate state of wishing I had been like the worst, sooner than be thus subject to the torment of being put to shame before bold profligates. While with my parents, I have before said, I was under good surveillance, and could not think of being detected by them in any evil. How shall I ever be thankful enough for all this? My father's character was such that though many who were often in his company were men whom I have known, when out of it, to delight in most abominable things, I knew of none who ever dared in his sight to do more than covertly allude to them. I was therefore happy in this respect whenever he was near; but when once more left to myself, I again returned to those fearful deliberations of which I have before spoken of, as it were, selling myself, for a time at least, to work wickedness without restraint. It may be well conceived how miserably fallen and corrupt must have been my heart when such purposes were entertained within it; and if, partly through some remains of the holy impressions of my childhood, which still operated on my poor, degraded heart as a kind of habit not yet quite worn off; partly by a sense of the shame and misery I should have before my family and some more whom I knew in the world, who would be themselves most afflicted if they heard of my fall from the good dispositions which they had known in me; partly from a fear of ridicule, even from the profligate, if, after all, I was to fell; partly by the wonderful providence of God, which (I acknowledge) most wisely and most tenderly, yet strongly interposed at times to baffle the madness of my designs when about to be accomplished—if, I say, thus I have been in a degree preserved, God knows I have no credit due to me: God knows that from my heart I take only shame and confusion of face to myself in the remembrance, of my very preservation. Towards the latter part of my stay abroad, I began to be in some way weary of this uncertain state of mind. I was always expecting to take Orders when I should reach the age; and as I knew that then I should not be expected by the world to join in its fashionable vices, and should even suffer in public estimation if I did, my thoughts began to be rather better directed, and I took pains from time to time to overcome some of the evil that was in me."

"It is wonderful that any good disposition should have lived within me, when every remembrance of religion seems to have been put out of my mind. I now could hardly understand how this should have indeed been the case, if I had not a clear remembrance of certain circumstances which plainly show what was the state of my mind. On the 27th January, 1820, I went up Mount Vesuvius with Dr. Wilson, when, as we were looking into the crater of the volcano, a discharge of red-hot stones took place. I heard them whistle by me as they ascended, and though it was of no use to attempt to get out of the way, I hurried back a few steps by a natural impulse, and immediately saw a lump of red-hot stuff twice the size of one's head fall on the spot where I had been standing just before. We immediately ran down the side of the mountain, and reached a place about a quarter of a mile distant from the mouth of the crater, from whence we could see the upper cone of the mountain. Just then a grand explosion took place, which shook the whole mountain, and a vast quantity of these masses of fiery red stuff was spouted out from the crater, which in its return appeared entirely to cover the whole space over which we had been running five minutes before. Here was an evident escape which, in a mind possessed with any religion at all, could not fail of awakening some serious reflections. Alas! I never thought of the abyss into which I must have fallen had not the good angel, who watched and guided me through so many perils which I thought not of, then preserved me. When I came down in the evening to Naples, the only effect was that I was pleased and vain at having a good adventure to relate, and showing off a spirit of bravery and indifference, when some blamed me for my rashness.

"Another circumstance I may record to show how free from all religious fear my mind was. I have before noticed the fits of melancholy which became habitual to me during the last part of my Cambridge life. These came, I think, to their greatest height in the last half of the time I spent at Naples. The interesting excitement of our journey, the company of my sister when I first came to Naples, and the gaieties of which I had my fill there, and which at first had all the charm of novelty, kept me from much thought of any kind, and I enjoyed the balls, the concerts, the grand operas, the enchanting rides of Naples, for a month or six weeks, almost without a cloud. At least I used always to count that my brightest period in the way of enjoyments. Unhappy those who have health and spirits and talents to enable them to please and be pleased long together in such a round of vanity! To my great vexation I found myself again attacked with my old enemy, melancholy; do what I would, I could not drive away those fits of gloom. They were caused partly by the effect on my health of too much good living, and bad hours; but the chief cause was the intrinsic worthlessness of all such pleasure, which will discover itself sooner or later to every one even of its most devoted lovers, and which happily showed itself to me sooner than others. Oh! what frivolous causes did my happiness then seem to depend on! Not dancing to my satisfaction in one quadrille, fancying that some of my favourite partners were tired of my conversation, and that the nonsense of some other silly youth pleased her better, was enough to turn what I flattered myself was about to be a bright and pleasant evening into gloom and sadness. Sometimes, without an assignable cause, my spirits failed, as at others an equally frivolous reason would remove my clouds and make me bright again; but gradually the gloomy moods gained ground, and grew more dark and tedious. I remember comparing notes with another young man, who was like me a victim of the dumps, and finding some satisfaction in the sympathy of a fellow-sufferer, who, with a smile at the absurdity of such feelings, of which he was well sensible while he avowed them, exactly described to me my state of mind when he said that under them he fancied himself the most unfortunate of mankind, and would willingly have changed places with the most despicable and wretched of men, not to say with any animal almost. Poor blind fools that we were! We could not between us suggest the way to be happy which is open to all.

"I remember well coming home one night from a ball, which, by my journal, I find to be on the 25th January, when, as I wrote at that time, I was more miserable than ever I was in that way. I went to bed, and heard a noise like a creak in the ceiling of my room. I felt a wish that it would break through and crush me. How I used to wish at that time I had the sort of bold, firm heart which appeared through some of the young manly faces which I used daily to meet—to whom low spirits was a thing unknown. I knew not that I was quarrelling with the most choice of God's mercies to me, without which I should probably have been irrevocably lost. I still, to this day, am used to the visits of my feelings of dejection, but, thank God, I know better how to receive them; and, far from wishing them away, I rather fear their departure, and desire they may never leave me. For if I have within me one bright, heavenly desire, I owe it to these feelings, which first poisoned my pleasure in the world, and drew me at length to seek for it elsewhere, and now I wish never to have peace within my breast while one desire lives there for anything but God.

"Yet that thought of wishing even to be crushed, that I might escape from my miserable feelings, shows how far I was at that time from knowing how great a cause for sorrow I really had in the state of my soul—which, if I had known it, must have driven away all imaginary griefs—nor from what quarter I should seek for happiness; and it is a wonder that it took so long a time, and so many repetitions of the same lesson, before I began to correspond with the gracious purpose of my Heavenly Teacher; of Him who was thus correcting me, that I might at length love Him, and love Him willingly. How was it that I could have lived so long without being awakened to one sentiment of religious fear? ...

"But now we must return to the Catholic Faith. The main object of this memoir being to trace the steps of my progress towards Catholicity, it would be expected that the period of my residence for a whole year in Catholic countries must be most interesting. Indeed it is wonderful that this year of my life should have been, as it appears to me to have been, quite neutral in its effects. I certainly made no progress towards my present faith. This would not be extraordinary; for how many Protestants by their travels abroad not only make no progress towards Catholicity, but are made its violent enemies. But, undoubtedly, this was the effect produced on me. It seems that at this time I was under the influence of altogether other objects and notions from any connected with religion. What I sought was, first, my own pleasure—next, only general information; what I was chiefly controlled by was human respect. Having no care at all about religion in any form, the question of which was the right form never troubled me, and so the observations which I could not help making on the Catholic religious practices which I saw, were very superficial. It might be interesting to transcribe a few passages from my journal which show what was my mind.

"It is remarkable how easily one's mind takes in and rests contented in the belief of false and prejudicial representations of things. I never had had much pains taken with me to set me against the Catholic religion; but though I knew nothing of what it was, I rested in the conviction that it was full of superstition, and, in fact, as good as no religion at all. I never opened my mind all the time I was abroad to the admission of any idea but this; and so I looked on all the Catholic ceremonies which I saw, in this perverted light. I did not fall in the way of anyone to set me right; for I was contented to go on in the stream of the English society with which almost all the towns in Italy were filled, and if any really zealous exemplary Catholics are sometimes mingled with them, they do not find it available or prudent to introduce the mention of religion; while there will be always some who have no objection to seek to please them by encouraging their prejudices, which they do effectually by telling stories—some true, perhaps, some obviously false—of the Priests and Religious. Such a person, who bore the title of Abbate, and therefore must have been professedly a true Catholic, we fell in with at Milan; he assisted my father in his search after curious books. I remember some of his conversations, and I find notice in my journal of his dining with us, and being 'very amusing in some stories about the Catholic processions.' The impression on my mind was that the whole system of religion which we saw was mere formality, people being taught to content themselves with fulfilling some external rules, and the clergy making it their business to keep them in the dark. I took little notice of religious matters till we entered Italy. There Milan was the first town we stopped at. On the Sunday after our arrival was the anniversary of the consecration of the church. I saw the ceremonies in the Cathedral, the very place where St. Augustine's heart was moved and his conversion begun, by hearing the strains of holy music, perhaps the same which I then heard. But very different was the effect on me; here are the wise remarks inserted in my journal."[Footnote 3]

[Footnote 3: The passage is given in page 60.]

The autobiography breaks off abruptly here; but in order to fit the remarks to the events which they concern, we have kept one or two paragraphs in reserve for another place.

CHAPTER XI
Continuation Of His Travels.

After staying about three months in Naples, Spencer sets out with Barrington, to travel through Sicily, on the 27th February. The voyage was very smooth until they came to Stromboli, and passed near the cave of AEolus, who "puffed at them accordingly," and delayed their landing at Messina until March 2. He goes to a ceremony in the cathedral there, and says, "the priests seem nourishing and very numerous here." On his way to Mount Etna he remarks, with a kind of incredulous air, that he went to see the lions of the five chestnuts and the bridge, which has the same legend attached to its origin as the Devil's Bridge in Wales, "dogs being, in both cases, sent over first to pay the forfeit for having built it." [Footnote 4]

[Footnote 4: The most circumstantial legend bearing upon the remark in the text is that about the Bridge of Rimini. Here there was a fearful rapid, without a stone within the distance of 70 miles that was available for building purposes. The bridge-builder of the town may or may not have had the contract; but, at all events, he set down in a confused state of mind as to how it might be done. The devil appeared to him and contracted for the building of the bridge on these easy terms—getting the first that crossed it for his own. The bargain was struck, and in the twinkling of an eye some thousands of infernal imps were scampering down the mountains with a gigantic stone on the shoulder of each. One-third of them were quite sufficient, and the arch-fiend who presided over the building cried out, that no more were wanted: when each devil threw down his load where he happened to be when the master's yell reached his ears. This is said to account for the rocks one sees strewn about near this bridge. The bridge itself is a circle, and was built in one night, and indeed some kind of infernal machine would seem necessary to remove the blocks of stone of which it is composed. Now came the trial. The Christian builder of bridges had no fancy for going to hell, and he was too charitable to send anyone else there. He bethought him of an expedient, and calling out his dog he took a small loaf, and threw it across the bridge with all his might. The dog, of course, ran after it. Whereupon the devil seized him, and in a rage flung him up to somewhere near the moon, and the dog falling from this height upon the bridge, made a hole in its only arch which cannot be filled up to this day. The legend embodies at least a specimen of the Catholic instinct: viz., the anxiety of the devil for our destruction, and how all hell thinks it cheap to turn out for a day's hard labour in the hopes of gaining one single soul.]

He chiefly lodges in convents during his rambles through Sicily, the inns being so very bad that they drive travellers away. He and his companion sleep in different convents, and are very well treated; but that scarcely evokes a word of thanks. Poor monks! they have a bad name in Protestant nations, and what would be praiseworthy in others is only an equivocal quality in them. This is very sad; that men who have bid farewell to the world should, on that very account, be considered hardly entitled to the bare rights of human beings. Yet go on, poor souls, in your vocation; your Master before you received the same treatment from the world, and you are not greater than He. Spencer meets one or two monks whom he likes pretty well—one was the superior of the Carmelites at Grirgenti. The rest he calls "stupid friars," "lazy monks," and so forth, according to the tone of mind he happens to be in. In one monastery they shut the door of the room allowed them in the face of one of the brethren, because, forsooth, they were "bored by visits from the monks." His journey does not always lie through convents, and he meets others who are not monks; one of these was a wine-merchant at Marsala, a native of England. It seems the pair of tourists were received as handsomely by their countryman as they had been by the "stupid friars," for he is thus described in the journal: "He seems to think himself commissioned to keep up the English character in a strange land, for he is a John Bull in caricature in his manner." We are also told, a little lower down, that he is very hospitable to all English who pass by that way. They had the novelty of seeing an Italian Good Friday in Marsala; the impression is thus noted:

"Friday, Mar. 31.— This was Good Friday. The first, and I hope the last, I shall spend without going to church; not that I should not like to be abroad another year. We were reminded of the day by quantities of groups representing the Passion and Crucifixion, almost as large as life, carried about on men's shoulders, which, absurd as they are, seemed to make an impression on the populace. Men dressed in black accompanied them, with crowns of thorns and crosses. It strikes me as direct idolatry, nearly. The gentry were all in mourning, and the sentinels had their muskets with the muzzles inverted. We all three (Sir H. Willoughby accompanied Barrington and Spencer) took a walk up to the top of Monte di Trapani, the ancient Eryx, where is a town of the same name. We examined what was to be seen there, and came down again to dinner. We dined at 6½, and had some meat, which we have not been able to get for some days, it being Passion Week." He spent Easter Sunday in Palermo, and here are his comments on its observance:

"Sunday, April 2, Easter-day.— We set off from Ahamo about 7¼. I walked on for an hour, and then rode forward all the way to Monreale, where I stopped an hour till the others came up. We then proceeded together to Palermo. In the villages we passed, the people were all out in their best clothes, which was a very pretty sight. Bells were clattering everywhere, and feux de joie were fired in several villages as we passed, with a row of little tubes loaded with gunpowder, in the market-places, and processions went about of people in fancy dresses with flags and drums. This religion is most extraordinary. It strikes me as impious; but I suppose it takes possession of the common people sooner than a sensible one."

He completed the tour of the island by arriving in Messina, after a most successful attempt to see Mount Etna, on the 14th of April. They left Sicily for Reggio in a boat, and arrived there "with a good ducking." They both went to visit Scylla, which was guarded as a citadel by armed peasants. The sturdy yeomen refused to admit them, whereupon George, with true English curiosity, climbed up the wall to get a peep at the sea, and perhaps inside. Scarcely had he got half-way up when he was taken prisoner by the sentinel. He was accordingly invited to visit the interior of the castle, and had to gaze at the bleak walls of its keep for an hour, until Willoughby procured his release from the commandant. They travelled on, and George does not seem to be satisfied with the people of Salerno, whom he designates as "surly and gothic." He heard his companions had to get an escort of gendarmes, to save them from robbers, all along here. Returns to Naples, April 26, delighted at being safe in life and limb; he goes to the old lodgings to a party, and reflects thus on his return: "I came home about one, rather sad with seeing the representation of what I had enjoyed in the winter—but all the people changed. Gaiety after all does not pay." This last sentence is not underlined by Spencer himself. It is done to point a moral that may be necessary for a certain class of persons. It is often supposed that monks, and the like people, paint the world blacker than it is in reality, and that it is a kind of morose sourness of disposition that makes recluses cry down the enjoyments of those outside convent-walls. This line will perhaps defend F. Ignatius from such an imputation. He wrote that after the pure natural enjoyment of scenery had been compared with the excitement of a ball-room; if he thought, in his wildness, that gaiety did not pay, no wonder that his opinion was confirmed in the quiet tameness of his after-life. A passage from the autobiography, omitted above, comes in here opportunely. He was speaking of the absence of the fear of God from his miserable mind:—

"This was almost true concerning the entire period. One occasion I will mention when I was impressed with some shame at my wretched state. While I was making the tour of Sicily, my father and mother left Naples in the Revolutionnaire, a fine frigate which had been placed at their disposal, and by which they went to Marseilles, to shorten their land journey homewards. When I returned to Naples I found a long letter from my father, full of kindness and affection for me, in which he explained to me his wishes as to the course of my journey home. This letter I believe I have not kept, but I remember in it a passage nearly as follows: 'As to your conduct, my dear George, I need not tell you how important it is for your future happiness and character that you should keep yourself from all evil; especially considering the sacred profession for which you are intended. But, on this subject, I have no wish concerning you but to hear that you continue to be what you have hitherto been.' 'Ah!' thought I to myself, 'how horrible is the difference between what I am and what this sentence represents me.' But worldly shame was yet more powerful in me than godly shame, and this salutary impression did not produce one good resolution."

On May 3rd, 1820, he came to Rome a second time. His first visit this time also was to St. Peter's, which, he says, "looked more superb to me than ever." He attended Cardinal Litta's funeral from curiosity, and has no remark about it worth extracting. There are two passages in the journal relating to the ceremonies of Ascension Thursday and Corpus Christi, which may be interesting as being indicative of his notions of Catholic ritual:—

"Thursday, May 11.— Got up early, and wrote till breakfast. At 9½ went off with Barrington and Ford to St. John of Lateran, where there were great ceremonies to take place for the Ascension Day. The old Pope was there, and was carried round the church blessing, with other mummeries. It was a fine sight when he knelt down and prayed (or was supposed to do so) in the middle of the church, with all the Cardinals behind him. Now this goes for nothing in comparison to what it must have been when the Pope was really considered infallible (sic). We then all went out of the church to receive the blessing, from the principal window in the façade. The Pope came to this in his chair, and performed the spreading of his hands very becomingly. The whole thing was too protracted, perhaps, to be as striking as it should; but I was not as disappointed as I expected to be. The cannonry of St. Angelo and the band certainly gave effect; and the crowd of people on the space before the church was a scene to look at."

"Thursday, June 1.— To-day is the feast of Corpus Domini, one of the greatest in the Catholic Church; so at eight we went, having breakfasted funzioni, which are very grand on this occasion. There was a great procession round the cortile—first of the religious orders, about 450 monks only; and the boys of St. Michael's Hospital, of the Collegio Romano, &c. Then came curates, and priests temporal and secular, prelates, and monsignores, the ensigns or canopies of the seven basilicas with their chapters, and the priests belonging to them following; next came bishops, then cardinals, and then the Pope, carried on four men's shoulders. He was packed up on the top of the stand with his head out alone. He seemed more dead than alive, and worse than on May 11 at S. Giovanni's. The group of people about him, with their robes and splendid mitres, made a very brilliant sight. The former part of the procession rather showed the decadence of the Church from a great height, than its present glory. After the Pope came the guardia nobile, and other soldiers, in splendid uniforms. After the procession there were functions in the Church, and a benediction from the Altar, and which I did not see so well. St. Peter's never showed so well as with a crowd of people in it, when one may estimate its dimensions from the comparison of their littleness."

This is a fair specimen of how a candid, prejudiced Protestant stares at Catholic services. He puts down as undisputed that all is absurd before he goes, and if the Man of Sin himself, the poor Pope, is in the middle of it, it rises to the very highest pitch of abomination. A man who could consider holiday attire and exultation impious on Easter Sunday, and the mourning and fasting and processions of Good Friday something worse, cannot be very well qualified to comprehend the Ascension and Corpus Christi in Rome. Catholics do believe in the authority of the Pope and the power of the Keys, and also in the Real Presence; will it not follow, as a natural conclusion, that the four quarters of the globe should get its spiritual Father's blessing one day in the year, and that we should try to find out the best way of honouring our Incarnate God in the Blessed Sacrament? But consistency is not a gift one finds among Protestants, especially when they give their opinion on what they think too absurd to try to understand. They must admit the Catholic ceremonial is imposing; but then it is only to quarrel with it for being so. They can understand pageantry and pomp in honouring an earthly monarch; but does it occur to them that every best gift is from above, and that the King of kings should be honoured with every circumstance of splendour and oblation a creature can offer?

One or two of the salient points of his character come out in a few extracts we shall produce from the journal now. He says, on leaving Rome—"How delightful, and yet how melancholy, was my walk about those dear rooms at the Vatican; after next Thursday I believe I am never to see them again, so farewell to them now." This illustrates his better nature; he was very affectionate, and could love whatever was really worth loving; he was not very demonstrative of this feeling, but when it came to leave-taking, he had to give vent to it. A peculiar caste of his mind was to listen to every proposition, and weigh the reasons adduced to support it. If they were unanswerable, he at once admitted it, and, if possible, tested it by experience. This was the great key to his conversion and subsequent life. In conversation, perhaps, with a medical friend, he was told that it was far the best way, whilst on the move in travelling, neither to eat nor drink. This was supported by reasons drawn from the digestive principles, and so forth. He thought it was well proved, and could find no valid objection against it, so he determined to try it, and travelled from Rome to Sienna without tasting a morsel for forty-two hours, and says in his journal—"It is much the best way in travelling." In Florence we have other tokens of the regret with which he parts from his friends; and in the same page a very different feeling on parting with some Franciscans. These "entertained him uncommonly well for mendicants," and showed him all their treasures of art and piety with the greatest kindness; yet it did not prevent him calling them "lazy old monks" when they let him away at three o'clock in the morning.

He walks about the country a good deal, and finds it pleasant, "as the common people here are much more conversable than ours." This striking difference between a Catholic and a Protestant peasantry is patent to the most superficial observer. The poor Irish, French, or Italian labourer, who can neither read nor write, is quite at his ease with the merchant or the noble. He will have his joke and his laugh, very often at the expense of his superior, and never outstep the bounds of due respect. He is light-hearted and gay everywhere, and the exact opposite of the English navvy.

The real cause of the difference is the want of religion in the poor Briton. The Catholic religion inculcates humility on the great. It brings the Lord of the Manor and his servant to the same confessional and the same altar: they may be as far asunder as pole from pole outside the church, but inside it they are both on a level. The works of mercy are insisted on, and high-born ladies are most frequently the ministering angels of the poor man's sick-bed, and the instructors of his children, and nurses of his orphans. "Blessed are the poor" is not a dead letter in Catholic theology, and until it be, and that poverty becomes felony, the same ease and happiness will pervade the peasantry of Catholic countries, which now gives them such grace and beauty. The doctrine of self-worship and money-adoration can never fuse races; there is a wide wide chasm between the upper and the lower orders in Protestant countries, which no amount of mechanics' lectures, and patronizing condescension, can bridge over, as long as the germs of the worldly system remain rooted in the education and manners of the people. Of course, these remarks do not apply to the general state of things, for there is oppression in Catholic countries as well as elsewhere; they simply concern the working of a Christian principle, if it get fair play.

He visits Pisa, Lucca, Carrara, Sestri, and stops at Genoa. A bit of the Protestant breaks out here. "We went to see that foolish sacro catino at the Cathedral, which I have no doubt is glass instead of emerald." He says again: "It makes me rather onked to be alone now, though sometimes I wish to be so. But the only solitude that is disagreeable is among numbers in a large town. The solitude of the Apennines, and such places as last night's habitation, is a pleasure to me." Now one vetturino hands him over "to another more blackguard than himself" on his way to Bologna, where he has a very satisfactory meeting with Mezzofanti once more. Off he starts through Ferrara, Rovigo, and Padua, for Venice; he visits the Piazza S. Marco, and is told complacently by a French doctor, who proved to be a terrible bore by-and-by, that it is nothing to the Palais Royal. He visits Mantua on a pilgrimage to Virgil's birthplace, and says of a sight he saw by accident: "I was amused by a figure of S. Zeno, just like a smiling Otaheitan idol of the largest dimensions, which is the great protector of the town." It is not hard to tell which way his devotion lay. Spencer and a Mr. Lefevre, who was now his travelling companion, go to a villegiatura here, and are splendidly entertained for a couple of days. They travel on for Germany through the Tyrol; from Verona to Riva they chiefly travel by the Lago di Garda, and the only incidents he chooses to record, until they come to "dem goldenen Adler" (the golden Eagle) at Brixen, are the cicerone's opinions of Catullus, whom that well-informed individual thought to have been a brigand chief. They had to bring the bill of fare before the police in Riva, but were not successful in getting a single charge diminished; he enjoyed a good deal of idyllic life along here, and did not seem to think much pro or con of the little town of Trent, though one should fancy he would say something, if it were only a few angry words about the Great Council.

He considers the Germans more honest than the Italians, and was inclined to admire their solidity and steadiness; but his driver fell asleep on their way to Innspruck, and let the reins fall on the horse's neck when descending a steep, and he veers round to the opinion that if they were a little livelier, it would be much better. On his way through Bavaria to Munich he thinks the country very like England—well cultivated and flourishing. "The costumes extraordinary, but not so pretty as the Tyrolese. The people themselves, both men and women, are the ugliest race I ever saw." They had letters of introduction to Prince Loewenstein and Count Peppenheim, two aides-de-camp of the King of Bavaria; they were invited to a royal chasse. Perhaps it is as well to give the whole account from the Journal, as it conveys an idea of German sports too fine to be overlooked.

"Monday, Aug. 21.— At 4½ this morning we started for the chasse in the mountains about three leagues off. At the end of two leagues we were stopped and obliged to walk, as the road became too narrow for the King to pass us, in case we had been in the way when he came up. So we walked the rest till we came to the toils where Loewenstein received us. The chasse was in a deep valley, shut in on the sides by precipitous rocks: into this they had tracked about 80 or 90 head of deer, and shut them in by toils at both ends; then little green enclosures were made for the guns to be posted in. We had one of these guns given us in conjunction with other spectators, the shooter who was to have been there not having arrived. Before the line was a broad course of a torrent, and beyond that was a wood into which they had forced the game, and from which they drove it again with dogs, and even into the way of the guns. This went on for 4 or 5 hours, during which they cannonaded very quick, but with little effect, for I never saw a much greater proportion of misses. The result was about 70 head of deer. We were much surprised in the middle of the time at seeing Devon walk up. He came from Salzburg for the purpose of this chasse, and stayed with us through it. After it we were standing near the place where the King was counting out the game, when Peppenheim presented us to him, and he asked us to dine at Berchtesgaden. As our carriage was so far off, we were obliged to be carried as we could, and I was taken in by Loewenstein, who is, by the bye, about the fattest man in Bavaria. We dressed directly, both ourselves and Devon, who had nothing here; and even so we were late for dinner. However, the King was so gracious and good-humoured that it all went off capitally. It was an interesting dinner for the faces that we saw. Eugene Beauharnais, Prince Schwartzenberg, Reichenbach, engineer, Maréehal Wrede, and about 16 more, were there. We stayed till about 6, and then came home.

"Tuesday, Aug. 22.— To-day we again followed the motions of the Court. Devon came over with horses from Hallein, where he had returned last night; and so we went about comfortably. Schwartzenberg took us to a famous machine of Mr. Reichenbach's, without the King. This machine is employed to raise the salt water, which is brought from the mines here, and convey it over the mountains to Reichenhall, about 3 leagues distant, where is a manufactory for extracting the salt. The reason of this is, that there is not enough wood for consumption here. It is a vast forcing-pump, which is worked by fresh water from a height of 400 feet, and raises the salt water 1,200. This water is in the proportion of 53 to 44 heavier than fresh water. I did not understand the whole explanation, being in German, but I admired the machine, which works in a room so quietly as actually not to be perceptible from the noise, except a little splashing. After this we came to a miserable dinner at the inn, which was too full to attend to us. At 1½, about, we started again to a romantic lake, König See, where another scene of this royal drama was to be enacted. The King came, with his whole party, an hour after us, and we were invited by Loewenstein into his royal boat, which was rowed by 11 men and one pretty damsel. "We went all down the lake, with several other boats full following, one of which had 4 small cannons, which they constantly discharged for the echo. The thing we came though for was, two artificial cascades from the top of the mountains, one in the course of a small torrent, which had been stopped above and made into a lake, full of large pieces of timber, which were precipitated all at once with surprising effect. The other was a dry cascade, down which two heaps of timber were discharged, like the launching of a ship from an inclined plane, the smallest of which, as I could judge from below, was twice the height of a man, and four times the length at least. The finest part of this was the prodigious splashing at the bottom, which resembled, in appearance and sound, a line of cannonading. By way of sport, this is the most superb child-amusement one could conceive. We rowed back in the same boat, and disembarked about sunset. We proceeded directly to a salt-mine, without the King, where was to be an illumination. We all were decked out in miners' habits, and embarked, in little carts drawn by two men, down a shaft 1,800 feet long, lighted by candles all the way, ourselves having one each, like white penitents. At the end of this we were surprised by entering a large chamber, perhaps 200 yards round, with a gallery at the top; the whole was surrounded by festoons of lamps, and below it was a rich star of fire, which showed the depth of the mine off to great advantage. A band of music was playing, and mines were exploded at the bottom with really tremendous noise. Altogether, this scene pleased me more than any I have seen here, or perhaps anywhere.

"Wednesday, August 23.— At 5 we started in the carriage, with Devon's servant, for the second chasse (of chamois); we found ourselves among a long train of other carriages also going there. We passed through the chasse of Monday, and went about 3 miles further on foot. We found that of 60 chamois which had been collected in the toils, 40 had escaped; so the chasse was but of about an hour's duration before they were all killed. The stands of shooters were confined, so we were made to climb up a little mountain, or rather a large rock, from which we had an excellent view of everything. The scenery was superb and wild. Before, behind, and everywhere, were immense mountains of solid and shagged rock, 9,000 feet high above the sea, with nothing like vegetation but patches of stunted firs, which did not, even so, reach halfway up their height, and looked like moss. It made a contrast with the tameness of the chasse, where about 16 chamois were driven about and killed out of little boxes, in an enclosure of a few acres. It was not so fine in that respect as the deer chasse. The King asked us again to dinner, near a small house in the valley of the deer chasse (Wimbach). The table was put on a platform under a sycamore-tree in a glorious situation. I was unexpectedly called upon to sit next to Prince Schwartzenberg, and always called milord, which probably was the original mistake. The whole business went off very satisfactorily. The King's manners are most affable, and made everything comfortable about him."

After this grand performance, our tourists took a ride through a salt-mine, astride of a plank, with a man before and behind running as fast as could be; they come finally to daylight, and shortly afterwards to Salzburg. They travelled the country to Lintz, and sailed down the Danube to Vienna, where they found the police "ridiculously strict about passports." A few days after their arrival in Vienna they took a drive through the Prater, and "during the drive we conversed on the subject of family calamities, and on one's means of bearing them. Soon after we came home, Lord Stewart's attaché, Mr. Aston, called with a letter for me from Mr. Allen, which told me of the horrible news of my brother Bob's death in America, killed in an affray with his first lieutenant! How strangely fulfilled were our yesterday's prognostics. This is a sort of thing that is too great and deep an accident to feel in the common way. I hardly understand it at this distance: I shall though before long. I went with Lefevre after dinner to Lord Stewart's, where I found a German courier was to start soon for England. I shall accompany him." This is from the Journal; we shall now give an extract from the Autobiography:—

"My first tour abroad was suddenly terminated at Vienna by a letter which I received to recall me home, from the Rev. J. Allen, now Bishop of Ely. This letter gave me notice of the supposed death of my brother Robert, in South America, who, it was reported, had been killed in an affray with his first lieutenant. This most strange story, for which there was not the slightest foundation in truth, was conveyed to our family in England in such a way as gained it entire belief, and all had been for two or three weeks in deep mourning and under the greatest affliction, when the falsehood of the report was discovered. This affliction was considered a sufficient cause for gathering together all the members of the family who were at liberty to come home; and so I was desired to return immediately. I bought a carriage at Vienna, and, travelled for some nights and days without ceasing, during which I thought to try an experiment on how little nourishment I could subsist; and from a sort of curiosity to amuse myself, for I can hardly attribute it to a better motive, I accomplished a fast which it would appear a dreadful hardship to be reduced to by necessity, and a very small approach to which, in these times, would be by most persons looked on as a most unreasonable austerity. I passed those successive intervals of 38, 50, and 53 hours, as I find in my journal, without touching the least particle of food to eat or drink; and what I took between the intervals was only a little tea and bread and butter. This matter is not worth noticing, except to show that, as I went through this, while travelling, which is rather an exhausting employment, without the least detriment to my health, and without a feeling of hunger almost all the time, it is a sad delusion for people in good health to fancy they need so many indulgences and relaxations to go through the fasts appointed by the Church.

"It was when I got to Calais that I went to the English news-room to see further accounts in the newspapers of my brother's death, the report of which, though at first I had some suspicions it might be false, I afterwards had made up my mind entirely to believe. My joy was exceeding great at finding an explicit contradiction to it in one of the latest papers. I remember going on my knees to thank God, in the news-room, when I found myself alone, which I believe was the first occasion for a long, long time I had made a prayer of any sort, or gone on my knees, except in church-service time. This I never gave up entirely, and during this time I never gave up receiving the Sacrament explicitly, though I do not find that I received it all the time I was abroad. I did not intend to commit acts of hypocrisy, but must have gone on from custom and a certain sense of propriety, without considering that I was mocking God."

On his arrival at Althorp he found the family all in the most joyous mood possible. A little passage of his Journal gives an idea of the character of the noble family in their relations with the tenantry:—

"Friday, Sept. 22. Bread and meat given to the poor of Brington, Brampton, and Harleston, as a rejoicing for Bob's recovery. Three oxen were killed, and the effect seemed very good. They gave some lively cheers as they departed."

He goes to London, and hears Henry Brougham's speech on Queen Caroline's trial; and immediately after, he starts for Switzerland to see his sister, Lady Georgiana Quin. We shall relate this in his own words in the Autobiography:—

"I became so fond of the business of travelling that, as I was returning homewards, my mind was occupied constantly with plans for further excursions. I intended to have gone with Lefevre from Vienna to Dresden and Berlin on our way home, but I could not think of regarding this as my last journey. I was longing to see Greece. I had had thoughts of Spain, Russia, Egypt, and various indeed have been the fancies and inclinations which have passed through my mind. The regular travelling mania had its turn about this time, and I wonder not, by my feelings then, at so many of our countrymen, whom I have known myself, who have left England for a short excursion, and not having professional engagements, nor wise parents and relations, as I had, to control them, have become regular wanderers, and have spent, in travelling about, the years on the good employment of which, at home, depended mainly their success in after-life. It may be judged how truly I was possessed with this spirit of wandering, at the time of which I speak, by my remaining but one fortnight at Althorp with my family before I was again on wing. My sister, Lady Georgiana Quin—whose society had made to me one of the chief charms of the winter at Naples, and whose being at Naples with Lord George, her husband, and her children, had been the main inducement for my father and mother to make an undertaking, at their age, and with their habits, so extraordinary as this long journey—had left Naples during my tour in Sicily, and was settled at a country-house called the Château de Bethusy, near Lausanne. I proposed going to see her, and to give her the full account of all that concerned the strange report about my brother Robert. I wonder at my having had my parents' consent to make another departure so soon, and with apparently so insufficient an object. I suppose they thought it reasonable to give me this liberty, by way of compensation for the sudden cutting-off of my first grand tour. This time I passed by Dieppe to Paris, thence by Lyons to Bethusy, where, having stayed a fortnight—the pleasantest, and, alas! almost the last days I had in my sister's company—I returned by Nancy to Paris, and thence through Calais to England. I reached Althorp on the 19th of November, 1820. And so the fancy for travelling soon died away, as my prospects for fresh journeys met with no encouragement at home; and here is an end of all my travellings for mere travelling's sake. When next I left England, it was, thank God, with thoughts and views far other than before."

An extract from the Journal of this time may not be without interest:—

"October 17, 1820.— With this day's journal ends the third year that I have kept it. This year has been the most interesting and varied I have ever passed, and probably ever shall, for my travelling will not last long. I certainly have reaped advantages in some respects, and great ones. I have had experience in the world, and have learnt to shift for myself better than I could have done by any other means. I have, I hope, increased the confidence of my family in me; and, above all, I have nearly expelled that melancholy disposition I gained at college; but most active I feel I must be to prevent its return when I again remain quiet in England. I have still a damper to my prospects that occasionally overwhelms me, but I must, I trust, get over that too; as I have now persuaded myself on sober reflection, though I am sadly slow in beginning to act on the principle, that one quality alone is within all our reach, and that one object alone is worth trying for. God grant this thought may often occur to me. I have this year enjoyed the pleasures and diversions most enlivening, and which I always most desired; but even they are insufficient to make one happy alone, though nearer to it than any others. Let us then look to what certainly can."

This train of thought seemed to have occupied his mind between his leaving Paris, and returning to it again during the last visit to his sister. There is one paragraph in the Autobiography which refers to both; here it is, and it is the last morsel of that interesting document that remains unwritten in his life:—

"The most remarkable impression of religion which I remember in all this period, was in a place where it might have been least expected. No other than the Italian Opera at Paris. I passed through that city, as I have said before, in my last journey to Lausanne, and on my return a month later. Both times I went to see the opera of Don Giovanni, which was the piece then in course of representation. I conceived that after this journey I should give up all thoughts of worldly vices. I was likely to be fixed at home till the time of my ordination, and should assume something of the character of a candidate for holy orders. In short, I felt as if it was almost my last occasion, and I was entertaining, alas! some wicked devices in my mind when I went to this most dangerous and fascinating opera, which is in itself, by the subjects it represents, one of the most calculated to beguile a weak soul to its destruction. But the last scene of it represents Don Giovanni, the hero of the piece, seized in the midst of his licentious career by a troop of devils, and hurried down to hell. As I saw this scene, I was terrified at my own state. I knew that God, who knew what was within me, must look on me as one in the same class with such as Don Giovanni, and for once this holy fear of God's judgment saved me: and this holy warning I was to find in an opera-house at Paris."

CHAPTER XII.
An Interval Of Rest And Preparation For Orders.

This chapter begins with his twenty-first birthday. He comes before us, a fine young man nearly six feet high, graceful and handsome, of independent mien, winning manners, and all the other attributes of gentlemanly perfection that are calculated to make him an object of attraction. His journal, even then, tends to show his worst side; we find self-accusations in every page, and the round of enjoyments broken in upon by serious correctives. For the great problem which moralists solve so easily, and those whom the solution concerns keep away from consideration, we will find in his life a golden key. It is too soon yet to speak about the special workings of Divine Grace in his soul; but, even so far off, we can find glimmerings of the glorious sun of his after-life. Let us look into the world, we find thousands that really enjoy and luxuriate in gay parties, balls, pastimes, and pleasures, without a pang of remorse, and others with sensibilities as keen, if not keener, for the relish of these luxuries, plunging into them with a kind of intoxicating gusto, and coming out fagged and disgusted, when they were perhaps thought the very soul and life of the company. We are told of a patient dying of melancholy who called in a doctor to prescribe for him; the prescription of the medical man was, that he should go and hear Mr. N., a celebrated comic actor, for a number of nights successively, and the remedy was guaranteed to prove infallible, for no one could listen to him and not laugh himself to hysterics. "Ah, my dear friend," answered the patient, "I am the veritable Mr. N. myself." It is sometimes argued that small minds of a feminine caste, composed of the ingredients which the "Spectator" wittily discovers in the dissection of a beau's head, can be content with frivolities, whilst a grand intellect is only made indignant by them. We could quote examples to bear us out in a conclusion the direct contrary of this. How, then, can we solve the problem? Why can some live and die in a whirl of dissipation with apparent relish, whilst others get clogged by a few balls, and fling worldly enjoyment to the winds on account of the very nausea it creates? It may be considered as "going into the sacristy" to say that those whom God chooses for great things, He weans from pleasure by a salutary dissatisfaction? so the point will not be insisted on. The only ordinary way in which it can be accounted for is, that the lovers of pleasure deafen the voice of conscience, whereas the others give this good monitor room to speak, and occasionally lend an ear. Whichever way we please to look upon F. Ignatius at this period of his life, we shall find ample material for theorizing on the unreality of worldly joys. He concludes the first volume of his Journal with the following considerations:—

"Dec. 31.— I have ended this year, as the last, with a very pleasant evening, as far as noise and fun can make it. But a more reasonable way would be (as I am now in my room, with my watch in my hand, nearly on the stroke of twelve) to end it in making good resolutions for the year to come,—which may, I hope, pass as prosperously, and more usefully, than the last. The new year is now commenced, and I recommend myself to the protection and guidance of Almighty Providence to bring me safely and well to the end of it. I now bid farewell to this journal-book, which is but a record of my follies, and absurdities, and weaknesses, to myself, who know the motive of the actions which are here commemorated, and of many more which I have done well to omit. There is no fear of my forgetting them, nor do I wish it. The less other men know about my inward thoughts, the better for me in their estimation."

Many of the readers of this book will feel disposed to disagree with the last sentence. We have had his interior before us, as clearly perhaps as any other man's we can possibly call to mind, and yet there is scarcely one that must not admire and love him as well, for the sacrifice he made for their benefit in exposing his interior, as for the beautiful sight that very disclosure gives them of his noble heart. It is not very easy to write an interesting chapter about this portion of his life; the Autobiography is run out, and the Journal gives no incident of any great importance till we come to the subject-matter of the next volume. Let us string together a few of the leading events, especially such as may be calculated to give us some idea of his mind and occupations.

He begins the volume by writing down that he got up rather earlier than usual, played at battledore and shuttle-cock with Lady Georgiana Bingham, and kept up to 2,120 hits. He is disappointed then in a day's sport, and gives this account of his evening: "I was rather bilious and nervous to-night, and consequently would have preferred being out of the way, but from a wrong principle, I fear, viz., because I thought I should seem rather dull and ill-humoured. But what if I did, to the gay people that do not, nor wish to, know? And what if I did, to those who do know how far it is real, my ill-humour?" It was customary, as he told us some chapters back, for the Spencer family to spend Christmas at Althorp, and collect many of their immediate relatives about them during the time. The place is beautifully disposed for every kind of enjoyment; there are landscapes and pictures for the ladies to draw from, fine grounds for the gentlemen to shoot over, everything that generosity and princely goodness could procure to make the evenings as lively and entertaining as possible. Balls and dances were, of course, a sine qua non. Let us not, however, imagine it was all dissipation at Althorp. Lords Althorp and Lyttelton used, every Sunday and often on week days, to read a sermon to the assembled guests from some of the Anglican divines, and sometimes, too, from the French, as we may see in a remark in the first chapter. The party at Althorp this Christmas did not go beyond three-and-twenty. George, notwithstanding the sour extract quoted above, went into the sports with heartfelt glee occasionally, and, as a proof of this, it is enough to say that he danced, in one night, in seven country dances and eight sets of quadrilles. He says in one place: "Lyttelton, Sarah (Lady Lyttelton), and I, breakfasted together, talking of a wise resolve of Nannette's, to pull down a house she had just finished at Richmond, because it was not pretty enough for the inhabitants to look at."

He goes to London as soon as the Christmas party is broken up, where he dines chiefly at home, but is about occasionally, seeing his old friends, and different things that pleased his whim or his taste. One of these was "seeing the King going in state, and the nobility as contented as if they never said a word against him on the Queen's trial;" another was hearing Bishop Van Mildert preach. He has the good fortune of meeting Sir Walter Scott at his father's, and says "We all stayed the evening listening to him telling Scotch stories." His next evening would be, perhaps, in the House of Lords or Commons, and all the family seemed in a great stir to be present at the debates on the "Catholic Question." What opinions they held about it do not appear from the Journal; but there is nothing said there against Catholics since he left Italy.

He begins to clear away the mist that lay between him and the parsonage. He puts himself a little in the way of learning something of what a clergyman could not be respectable without. His first essays in this direction were, to hire a "dirty Jew master" to teach him Hebrew, and to go occasionally to Mr. Blomfield's, who was rector of Whitechapel, to dine and talk with clerical company. The first time he tried this is told as follows:—

"I took up Fremantle, and we went together to Blomfield's to dine. We met Dr. Lloyd, Mr. Rennel, Mr. and Mrs. Lyall, Mr. Watkinson, Mr. Mawman, Mr. Tavel, and one more clergyman—a proper High Church set, with language of intolerance. I was much amused though by observing them." So much for his first lesson in church polity. That he was not extravagant at this time is evidenced by a little incident. He found himself the possessor of a good sum, and had been, for some time, putting part of his allowance aside until he finds himself able to pay his brother, Lord Althorp, what he lent him to pay off his debts in Cambridge, as early as the 7th of April. "This was a very busy day. I first went to Althorp to offer him payment of a large debt I owe him, but he refused it very generously, and made me rich in a moment by so doing."

He pays off the Jew on the 25th of April, having had his lectures from the 8th of March previous. This apparent falling away from the spirit of his vocation, was redeemed in a few days, by his falling half in love with some very high lady. He crosses himself immediately for the absurdity, and wishes she were a clergyman's daughter. This fit wears out completely in ten days' time. Lord John Russell and Sydney Smith dine at his father's, and he says of the latter: "Sydney Smith is a new person on my list, and very entertaining he is." The author of "Peter Plimley's Letters" must certainly have been an agreeable guest. On the 15th of June he gives the following note:—"My father and I went to see the marriage of Mr. Neville and Lady Georgiana Bingham, in the Portuguese Catholic Chapel, in South Street, close to Vernon's house. Dr. Poynter, the Catholic bishop of London, performed it, and gave us a long-prosy dissertation on the sacrament of marriage." The scene changes now to Ryde, Isle of Wight, where the family go to spend the summer. George occupies his time there in riding, fishing (with no success), boating, cricketing, and doing the tutor to a young ward of his father. He also learnt perspective from a Mr. Vorley, and his opinion of him is, that "he talks more nonsense than any one I know in a given time." He remained his pupil until he "picked his brains," which did not require much time or application seemingly. He hears of Napoleon's death, and comments thereon thus:—"We heard this morning of Bonaparte being dead in St. Helena. It does not make so much noise as one would have thought his death must eight years ago. For one thing, it will save us £150,000 a year."

St. Swithin's Day, July 15. "It rained all morning, which is ominous. "This kept them indoors, and it was well, for they were all in a bustle preparing for the coronation of William IV. The countess and her maids were busy at the laces and the freshening of faded colours, until the earl's state robes were got ready; when he was called upon to fit them on, that the keen glance of ladies' eyes might see if there was a flaw or a speck to be removed. George was present at the time, and says: "My father put on his robes, and was looked at by a room full of ladies and gentlemen." George himself, by the way, makes some bold efforts at grandeur, and succeeds in getting into the Peers' quarter of Westminster Abbey, at the coronation, "dressed in red coat, with ruffs." After the coronation, they return to the Isle of Wight, and George resumes his sports, with a little variation namely, that he hears a "twaddle preacher," and receives the Sacrament without much preparation, a proceeding he thus defends:—"I never can be satisfied by any motives that occur for refusing on account of short notice, and I think that when the Office is performed with devotion and sincerity, to the best of one's ability, it is always profitable."

It may be objected that we do not give more numerous extracts from the Journal; but we think it would tire the patience of readers to be told, gravely and solemnly, such grand events as, "George Lyttelton, Lord Lyttelton's eldest child, got into breeches to-day." Matters kindred to this, with the hours of dining, and names of the guests, form the bulk of the diary.

Towards the end of this year, 1821, he finds himself alone in Althorp, waiting for the collecting of the Christmas party there, and muses thus:—"I wish I might go on living as I now do, without any company and nonsense. I have daily amusement, and, withal, get through a good deal of reading." This last clause will make many expect that Tillotson or Jeremy Taylor is in his hands for a great part of the day. It may be so, but we are told in the same page:—"In the evening I read 'Guy Mannering;' for a novel, when once begun, enslaves me." He was very fond of the Waverly Novels, and seems to have read them as they came out. He misses a hunt, through mistake, and says; "I was annoyed to-day at the hoy I made in my manoeuvres; but I am ashamed of being so, for it all came from my odious vanity, and sensibility to the opinion of all the fools I met with." On his twenty-second birthday he makes these reflections:—"This anniversary becomes uninteresting after passing 21. But it should be a useful annual admonition to make the best of our short, fleeting life. What are called the best and happiest years of life are already past with me. God grant that I make those that remain more profitable to others, and consequently to myself. As to happiness, I think my temper and dispositions have prevented my having my share to the full of youthful pleasures; so I may look forward to the future for better circumstances: if I can but tutor my mind into contentment at my situation, and an engrossing wish to make my duty the leading guide of my actions. Indolence and irresolution are my stumbling blocks."

The new year of 1822 was danced into Althorp by a grand ball. Three days after he had a narrow escape with his life; he went out partridge-shooting with Lord Bingham, and this gentleman's powder-flask took fire, and burst in his hand. George and the attendants were nearly blown up, and Lord Bingham was severely scorched. This he considered the greatest danger he was ever in, and thanks God for his escape. The impression, however, did not last long; for he tells us, as the result of a game of cards, on the same night:—"I did not get to sleep for a long time for thinking over a trick at cards which E—— did. I succeeded in discovering it." When the Christmas party is dissolved, George's comments are: "I am sorry they are all going, though the young damsels have caught nothing of my heart."

There is an event now to be recorded. He becomes a magistrate, and his first essay in court makes him think the business very amusing. He shouts huzza! on hearing that his brother Robert is about to come home. True, however, to his character, of never undertaking anything unless he knew its obligations sufficiently to be able to acquit himself in them to the satisfaction of his conscience, he goes to London, and studies "Blackstone's Commentaries," to qualify him for a proper discharge of his duties as a magistrate. He dines, dances, goes to balls and theatres, pays visits and bills during his stay in London, notwithstanding.

Now he begins to prepare seriously for his future profession. Full nine months before he is to receive Orders, on March the 12th he begins to write a sermon. That is the point; let a man give a sermon, and he may become a minister any day, provided he has an earl or a viscount at his back, and a bishop who sits tête â tête with either in the House of Lords, and has two or three sons whom he wishes to put into posts of honour. The sermon is everything. Any one can read the Service, provided he has a good voice and distinct utterance; but the sermon—that requires brains, views, style, and paper. How these things can be done without we shall see further on. For the present, poor George did not discover the secret. He could bowl to a wicket, play cribbage, read Walter Scott, and shoot partridges, but where was his theology? The twenty-five lectures were buried long ago under some stone between Cambridge and Althorp. Well, the fact of it was, he must do something. He goes to hear the "crack" preachers of London, and even the "twaddle" ditto. He catches up some idea from them, borrows the book Lord Althorp reads from on Sunday afternoons, and gets an idea of what a sermon is like. He sets to, therefore, to write one himself, and in six months that sermon is finished.

One could not expect him to be a bookworm just now. Lord Palmerston is at a stag-hunt, and patronized the young candidate. Washington Irving dines at his father's, and George has to take notes of his "Yankee twang, sallow complexion, and nasal sounds." He used to say to us that one who saw Irving, and heard him speak, could never believe he was the author of "The Traveller" or "Bracebridge Hall," and much less of "Knickerbocker's History of New York." Irving himself alludes to this, when he says, somewhere, that the London people "wondered that he held a quill in his hand, instead of wearing it in his scalp-lock." He gets over all this after the Ryde recreation, and the hunting at Wiseton, when, towards the end of September this year, he bids farewell to his military life as a cornet in the Yeomanry of Northampton. This is as a preparation for his Orders; but they come upon him still unexpectedly when he receives a letter from the Bishop of Peterborough, on the 5th of October, to signify that he would have Ordination on the 22nd of December following. He writes to the Diocesan Examiner to ask what books he is to read, and how he is to prepare, and that gentleman graciously tells him that he need not trouble himself; that he knows, from the respectability of his family, he must be already quite prepared. [Footnote 5] George is contented for the present, but he has an eye to the future; he borrows, therefore, some twelve of the Wimbledon clergyman's best sermons, and says "that will set me up for a start." He then goes on retreat about the 16th of December, and his day is divided into four principal parts, making allowances for dinner and sleep, consisting of shooting, cribbage, whist, and sermon writing or copying, as the case might be. On the 18th, two days before, he adds one more spiritual exercise to his usual ones; he reads a novel. The next day he goes off to Peterborough, and dines with the Dean and his wife, "who are to feed him" whilst he is there. His examination is gone through—one of the Thirty-nine Articles to be translated into Latin, and he has an exposé, with illustrations, on the nature of mesmerism, for the rest of the terrible ordeal. This passed successfully, he comes home to the Dean's house, bids good night to the materfamilias, and collects his spirits for the great occasion. He is wrapt in sublime ecstacy, and bursts forth into the following exclamation in his Journal: "I am 22 years old, and not yet engaged to be married!"

[Footnote 5: Here is a copy of the letter with which he was favoured from that dignitary:
"Yarmouth, Norfolk, October 12.
"My Dear Sir,
"I am sorry my absence from Cambridge may have made me appear neglectful in answering your letter, but I have some consolation in thinking that you will not have suffered by the delay. As far as I am concerned, in my character of examiner, it is impossible that I could ever entertain any idea of subjecting a gentleman with whose talents and good qualities I am so well acquainted as I am with yours, to any examination except one as a matter of form, for which a verse in the Greek Testament, and an Article of the Church of England returned into Latin will be amply sufficient. With regard to the doctrinal part of the examination, that is taken by the Bishop himself, but it is confined entirely to the prepared questions, which are a test of opinions, not of scholarship. This information, then, will, I trust, be satisfactorily, and will leave you at liberty to pursue your theological studies in that course which you yourself prefer, and which I am confident will be a good one. I really am unable to say whether the Bishop of Peterbro' requires a certificate of the Divinity Lectures or not, but I know that he does not in all cases make it a sine qua non; at any rate, I think you had better send for it, as it will give the professor but very little trouble to forward it under cover to your father.

"If I can be of the least service in answering any other queries, or in any other way whatever, I beg you will, at any time, give me a line; and believe me, my dear Sir,
"Yours very sincerely,
"T. S. Hughes.
"I shall not be in Camb. till the beginning of next month.">[

BOOK II.
F. Ignatius, an Anglican Minister.

BOOK II.
F. Ignatius, an Anglican Minister.

CHAPTER I.
He Is Ordained, And Enters On His Clerical Duties.

The Establishment retains in her written formularies a great deal of what looks very like Catholic. She has an attempt at a profession of faith; a kind of a sacramental rite, as a substitute for the Mass; a mode of visiting the sick, a marriage service, baptismal service, burial service, and an ordinal; even something like the Sacrament of Penance can be gleaned from two or three clauses in the Book of Common Prayer. How much of sacramental power there may be in those several ordinances is very easily determined; we admit none whatever in any except baptism—the judicial voice of the Establishment leaves its efficacy an open question—and matrimony. Of late, some amongst them have felt their want of sacramental wealth so keenly, that they would fain persuade themselves the shells of Catholic rites, which the Reformers retained, were filled with sacramental substance. To give this theory some show of plausibility, they claimed valid orders. Pamphlets and books have been written on two sides of this question until there seems scarcely any more to be said upon it, so we just mention what is the Catholic opinion on the validity of Anglican orders.

With what Protestants think of them we have no immediate concern; nor would it be an easy matter to extract anything definite from the multitude and contrariety of opinions on this one point.

We hold them to be simply null; they do not even come up to doubt; for if the Archbishop of Canterbury became a Catholic to-morrow, and wished to exercise any ministry, he would be obliged to receive all the orders from the first tonsure upwards, absolutely, and without even an implied condition. This has always been the practice: and, the Church's acting thus, at the period which is now involved in obscurity, is the best de facto argument that the orders of the Establishment were then, as they are now, a human designation, and nothing more. There is nothing sacramental in Anglican orders, and there never was, since England broke away from the Church, and, consistently enough, orders were expunged from the Protestant catalogue of sacraments in the very infancy of the Reformation. They still keep up a semblance of orders: they have what they call the diaconate, the priesthood, and the consecration of bishops. A deacon is ordained much in the same way as our own deacons, and he can perform all the duties of the parish, with the exception of the Communion Service.

We see a man marked out by an Anglican bishop for ecclesiastical duties, without any sacramental grace, spiritual character, or jurisdiction, for no less a work than the care of immortal souls. Let us see now what instruments he has wherewith to accomplish this.

He had once two Sacraments—the Lord's Supper and Baptism; the former, Catholics know to be an empty ceremony, and perhaps it would nearly be a Protestant heresy to say it was much more. Baptism they had as Turks have, and as every lay man and woman in the world, who performs the rite properly, has. Now their judicial decisions do not consider it worth the having; so, as far as in themselves lies, they have tried to deprive themselves of it. The practical means of sanctification a minister has to use are chiefly four: prayer, preaching, visiting, and reading. The reading part may evidently be performed as well, if not better sometimes, by a layman. The visiting is often better done by the clergyman's wife or daughter than by himself, for, in attention to sickness and sweet words of consolation, the female gifts seem the more effectual. All that remains to him, peculiarly for his own, is the preaching, and the respectability of character his own conduct and regard for his position may give him. His power is altogether personal, and if he be an indifferent preacher or a careless liver, he loses all.