Saints," in thirty-two volumes, to say nothing of that wonderful mine. of concentrated learning, with which I suppose most of you are familiar, Alban Butler's "Lives of the Saints." Then it was that the great pictures became intelligible to her, and then it was that she resolved to impart to others the knowledge which she had thus painfully obtained; and so she wove into beautiful garlands the flowers of sanctity which she had gathered in these quaint old-world gardens, and with a reverence worthy of her holy work, she handles them with such loving care that their grace and fragrance are alike preserved. And so it comes to pass that we have at her hands beautiful sketches of the lives of the saints, in which many well-nigh forgotten legends are preserved to illustrate a great picture, or to explain a doubtful one. Of course in her hands it is "Sacred and Legendary Art," and nothing more and, perhaps, it is well that it should be so; we do not look to those outside the Church to go beyond this. But with occasional expressions which are natural in such a quarter, and with shortcomings and misunderstandings which are inevitable under such circumstances, we shall all of us find much which will instruct us in her beautiful pages. Another of Mrs. Jameson's works is called "Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns," and gives us what she thinks should, perhaps, more properly be called "Comparative Sketches, or Memorials" of twelve great rulers. I will just mention their names to give you an idea of the wide scope of the work: Semiramis, Cleopatra, Zenobia, Johanna I. and II. of Naples; Isabella of Castile; Mary, Queen of Scots; Elizabeth of England; Christina of Sweden; the Empress Maria Teresa, and Catherine II. of Russia. Her intention in writing is, she says, to give in small compass, and at one view an idea of the influence which a female government has had generally on men and nations, and of the influence which the possession of power has had individually on the female character. "It would have been," she adds, "far easier to write such a work in twenty volumes than in two; but in that case the latter end of the history would certainly have forgotten the beginning,' and the principal object, that of presenting a general coup d'ail which might be grasped by the mind at once, would have been defeated altogether." has, of course, her own views in which many others share, respecting the manner in which we are driven through a course of history as part of our early education. "The memory," she says, " is loaded to repletion with facts, dates, and names; meanwhile, some of the best faculties of the mind, which might well be exercised on these subjects, remain dormant, the natural judgment is surrendered to mere words, producing prejudices and false associations which tinge our feelings and opinions during our whole lives." She And would you wish to hear her opinion, drawn from history, of what comes of female rule over nations? I wonder whether you will rejoice or grieve at it. Be this as it may, here at any rate it is: "On the whole it seems indisputable, that the experiments hitherto made in the way of female government have been signally unfor tunate; and that women called to empire have been, in most cases, conspicuously unhappy or criminal. So that, were we to judge by the past, it might be decided at once, that the power which belongs to women (us), as a sex, is not, properly or naturally, that of the sceptre or the sword." Perhaps I ought to add, that this was written before our queen came to the throne. Mrs. Jameson is, as you must ere this have seen, a traveller, and one who has not limited her wanderings to the well-beaten tracts, though these, of course, have been carefully and profitably trodden by her. We have the fruits, not only indirectly in her works on Painters and Pictures-her Lives of the Painters I mean, and her treatise on Sacred and Legendary Arts-but directly in her volumes of travels. Her Diary of an Ennuyée-a somewhat affected name which, it seems, her publisher gave to her pleasent volume on Italy; and three volumes of "Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada." Here we have the same thoughtful mind, the observant eye, the independent judgment, and the refined womanly spirit, which indeed show themselves in all her works, and make us willing to put up with and pass silently over passages which jar upon our Catholic instincts, and pain us more indeed for her sake than our own. And this I do not wish to dwell upon, but yet cannot pass over in silence. We must make up our minds to meet with opinions and statements in Protestant writers which we of course should not, or ought not, to find in what comes from Catholic pens. It is one of the penalties which we must pay for using such books at all; and of course it is much to be wished that we had writers enough of our own to supersede them altogether. The time may come, let us hope and pray, when such will be the case. But seeing the peculiar circumstances under which English literature has sprung up and grown through the last three centuries-how it was, we might almost say, born with Protestantism itself, and how it has grown and flourished under that unholy influence; we cannot wonder if the anti-Catholic spirit is strong within it, and so its teachings have to be carefully watched and duly guarded against. We cannot, at present at least, throw it aside, or with it we must abandon almost all that constitutes English literature. But while we have good schools and colleges to ground us in the faith, and to instil into our minds sound Catholic principles of criticism; while history is stripped of its false tinsel, and men and actions are weighed in the only true balance, that of the Sanctuary; while our appointed guides give us the Church's clue which alone can keep our steps from straying in the mazes of the world; while, in short, we come forth into the broad fields of literature, pure in heart and sound in faith, we may not fail to profit even by writers who are not of us, at least when they are as honest in their writings, as earnest in their efforts at doing good, as upright in their intentions, and as true in their hearts as Mrs. Jameson. MR. ALFRED AUSTIN'S "HUMAN TRAGEDY."* ΤΗ HE name of Alfred Austin has been long and favourably known in the world of letters. As a prominent contributor to the London press, and as the author of works both of poetry and prose, he has established his reputation as a thoughtful and a polished writer. But the poem now before us-fragments of which have been previously published-entitles him to be called much more than that, and gives him, if we mistake not, an undoubted place among the English Bards whose fame is not confined to their own day and generation. Of course we speak of Mr. Austin's work from a purely literary point of view; from a Catholic standpoint we should find much to censure in it, though less, perhaps, than might at first sight be supposed. We will indeed account for our leniency towards much that is blameworthy by taking our first extract from that portion of the poem which was originally published in a separate form under a title which in itself was a homage to the Blessed Virgin, "Madonna's Child." Olympia-a maiden of whom we shall have more to say anon-is this child of the sweet Mother, whom Mr. Austin speaks of as "by Divine decree Imacculate made." She spent hours in prayer before her altar; she kept its lamp bright, its flowers fresh; and she sang our Lady's praises with "melody unearthly sweet, taught her, it seemed, by the celestial throng:" "O Mother Mary, full of grace, " Above all other women blest, Through whose pure womb our erring race Pray for us! Thou by the Holy Ghost that wert With every heavenly gift begirt; Thou that canst shield us from all hurt, Pray for us! Pray for us! Tower of David, Ivory Tower, Vessel of Honour, House of Gold, Mirror of Justice, Wisdom's Seat, "Bright Queen of the angelic choir, Of patriarchs, prophets, worshipped Queen! Queen of the apostolic train, Queen that o'er all the saints dost reign, Pray for us! Pray for us!" * W. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. The subjects of which Mr. Austin mainly treats in "The Human Tragedy" are Love, Religion, Patriotism, and Humanitarianism. On the first of these he touches with an almost Byronic warmth, yet, withal, a delicacy which we cannot too much admire, especially when we call to mind the semi-paganism of his lovers, and their creedless indifference to all social laws. The religion with which love struggles in the "Tragedy" is the Catholic religion; for, though the hero had "passed out from the Temple," he And "Did ever the old faith and ways revere;" "To him, too, did it seem Rome's hoary creed Was slowly dying, they were already dead;" Nor could he put aside "The constant recollection that the wise, The great, the good, the many-martyred dead, The Patriotism dealt with in "The Human Tragedy" is the passion for Italian unity; and this is loved and battled for by some of Mr. Austin's heroes-to say nothing of heroines-whose distorted dreams of Humanitarianism finally lead them to fight as comrades with the wretches of the last Parisian revolution whose hands are stained for all history with the blood of the hostages; or, at best, to live as idle visionaries, hoping "For common happiness to all mankind- Mr. Austin's poem, which fills a bulky volume, is written throughout in the metre which Keats has immortalised by his "Isabella ;" and his verses have a sweetness some Italian poets have made peculiarly their own, but which is rarely met with in the English tongue. Some of Mr. Austin's expressions are stronger than we should like to hear, or care to repeat; but this, perhaps, is inevitable in a description of such scenes, for instance, as some of the hellish orgies of the Commune; and here and there he makes use of words which are so obsolete that we had to refer to dictionaries in search of their meaning, and sometimes without success. But these are small blemishes, which it seems almost ungenerous to notice, in a poem which, taken as a whole, is not less beautiful in its execution than bold in its design. Godfrid is the principal actor in the "Tragedy," and, while making a few extracts from the poem, we will fill in at the same time a rapid outline of his life. In his first youth, he fell in love with Olive, "An English maiden, unexiled From that true paradise-an English home- But even in this "Paradise" sorrow all too surely stalked; for though Godfrid and Olive loved each other, they were forced to live apart. Olive became the wife of Sir Gilbert, a country gentleman, who could sport much better than he could speak French, and thought of all outside England only as Papists and Revolutionists, yet who, by a rather unlikely and inconsistent change of character, as it seems to us, became later in life the reddest of the Paris "Reds." Godfrid went abroad and settled down in a little town upon Italian shores. "The worship of the place, like all beside In the little village church Godfrid daily knelt, even though he did not pray, "When transubstantiated wine and bread In mystic Mass renewed the gainful loss To the same church a beautiful and sinless maiden was also daily wont to come. Godfrid loved to watch her as she prayed; and one day when she was out gathering blossoms in the neighbouring wood, and had caught at a branch which was more than she could manage, he, happening at the moment to pass by, stepped up and plucked it for her: "And she said, Thanks, gentle sir; my flowers are not for me "Then place these there,' he said, 'unless, ndeed, But who would not feel blest to know that prayers The maiden was Olympia, and how she and Godfrid loved each other, the poet beautifully tells, but we cannot linger over his verses, even when he touchingly describes the parting which takes place between them in consequence of Olympia's refusal to marry one who will not humbly pray, which her lover declares he cannot honestly do. Neither can we pause to follow Godfrid through his Garibaldian campaign, or to quote the magnificent description Mr. Austin gives of the triumphal procession of the Holy Father to S. Peter's, when the French troops arrived in Rome, in 1867, and, for the moment, put the Church's foes to flight. VOL. IV. 2 II |