sable qualification. Avarice, or what the Spaniards name Miseria, would not dishonour him more than drunkenness or effeminacy. If you will credit writers of the middle ages, love made young men gentle and humble, devoted and generous. They will tell you that there moved a hidden virtue from the heart of woman which, like a heavenly influence, prompted them to everything well and fair; that as the partiality or peculiar devotion for particular altars or chapels evinced by the angelic maiden, seemed to enhance the reverence of those who loved them for the same, so did they cast a perfume, an air of paradise over the most ordinary actions. The ancient writers love to remark how the Catholic religion supplied the young as they passed on through the different stages and relations of life, at the entrance of every new sphere, with some principle, the observance of which was calculated to endear them to others. The working of these divine wheels produced sweet music, ever varied and alike unearthly, even when it seemed to attach men by fresh bonds to the earth. It made them assiduous scholars, joyous and generous companions, disinterested and faithful lovers, affectionate husbands, benignant and wise fathers, courageous and free subjects, merciful and just rulers, and by domestic virtues secured the public tranquillity; for fearful is the void left in society when, in place of the loving and gentle affections, the sweet charities, the amiable relations of life, springing from the experienced or remembered love of young hearts, is substituted cold and passionless reason, or hatred like that of demons, and pride such as reigned in fallen angels plotting to be gods. What renders, however, the love of the middle ages, a phenomenon wholly unprecedented in the moral history of man, was the supernatural tone which was imparted to it by faith in the doctrines of the Catholic religion.

"I bless the happy moment," says Petrarch, "that directed my heart to Laura. She led me to see the path of virtue, to

i detach

my heart from base and grovelling objects; from her I am inspired with that celestial flame which raises my soul to heaven, and directs it to the Supreme Cause, as the only source of happiness.” If Plutarch, in the passage formerly quoted, speaks the sense of his contemporaries, it is not less true that Petrarch, in these words, expresses the opinion of the middle ages, with regard to the nature and con

sequences of love. After reading the works of Richard of St. Victor, and other great contemplatists of that time, one might suppose that love could not be severed from charity, which is the destruction of all vices. The maiden that was chosen by the heroic youth of those times, she to whom he would plight his troth, though to have her and death were both one thing, had always a chaplet in her hands, and as she smiled, her thoughts seemed ever fixed upon the joy of angels. She would have given counsel like Beatrice to Dante, when he beheld her with such rapture of celestial bliss, that affection found no room for other wish.

Vanquishing me with a beam Of her soft smile, she spake: Turn thee, and list: These eyes are not thy only paradise.'"*

In love all her wish was innocence, all her thoughts were prayer:

"I have need of many orisons

To move the heavens to smile upon my state, Which well thou know'st is cross and full of sin."

Such is the timid language of that love which inspired the genius of the middle ages; for hear the great master who represents it, and who was himself its most glorious image, "Love awakens and excites us; it gives us wings to fly to the highest regions, and oft its burning flame is the first stage, where the soul, ill at ease here below, rises to the Creator. All its desires are lofty; it can purify the soul." It is thus that Michael Angelo conceives the love of woman. And who need be reminded of the noble sense in which the bards of chivalry and the authors of knightly romance understood love? It is their sentiment which is expressed by the modern poet :

"Time tempers love, but not removes,
More hallow'd when its hope is fled:
Oh! what are thousand living loves
To that which cannot quit the dead ?"

In the palmerin of England, the knight of death, when he had lost his fair love, would still always carry about her image, at the sight of which he went forth to his adventures, with as lively a regard to her honour as though she still smiled upon him.

If you would estimate the sensibility of the middle ages, and learn what impressions affection caused in them, you should hear some tale of death in love, attached to their simple annals. "Come forth, thou fearful man," says the friar in Shakspeare,

speaking in the very spirit of those days, "affliction is enamoured of thy parts, and thou art wedded to calamity." But amidst this profound woe, what consolation had they in their faith! Their love was associated with images of celestial brightness and eternal beatitude. Let us hear Dante, speaking of himself in his Vita Nuova. "Some days afterwards, I experienced a painful infirmity. I suffered from it unceasingly during many days, so that I became weak, and like those who cannot move themselves. On the ninth day, during an almost intolerable pain, it occurred to me to think of the lady that I loved. When I had dreamt of her some time, I began to think of my weakened life, and seeing how uncertain was its course, even were I to be in perfect health, I began to lament within myself all such misery. Then after a deep sigh, I said to myself, 'Of necessity the lovely Beatrice must die some time or other; and then such a wandering of ideas seized me, that I closed. my eyes, and began to labour like one in phrenzy, and to fancy a thousand things. During this delirium, figures of women with dishevelled hair, appeared to me, saying, 'you also will die;" and then other figures still more horrible presented themselves, and said to me, you are dead.' My imagination having begun to wander, I at length no longer knew where I was, and I seemed to behold women walking, with their hair floating down, weeping and lamenting; and the sun seemed to be obscured, and the stars to become of such a colour that I thought they were in mourning. Amazed and terrified at this vision, I thought that a friend came to me and said, 'do you not know that your admirable lady is departed from this world?' Then I began to weep bitterly, and not only did I weep in imagination, but I wept with a flood of real tears. I thought that I looked up to heaven, and that I saw a multitude of angels, who were returning up thither, and had before them a cloud very white; and I thought that the angels sung a glorious hymn, and that I could hear the words of their chaunt, hosanna in excelsis, and that I could hear nothing more. Then it seemed as if my heart said to me, it is true-our well-beloved lady is dead.' And I thought then that I went to see the body in which this noble and blessed soul had dwelt, and this deceitful imagination, which showed me my lady dead, was so strong, that it seemed as if I saw the women who covered her

head with a white veil, and it seemed me that her countenance had such an ai of humility, that I thought I heard he say, I behold the principle of sovereig peace.' In this imagination I called her, saying, dear departed one, come me, be not cruel, come to me who deservet you so much, and who already, as you see weareth your colours.' And when I ha seen all the sorrowful offices discharged which are due to inanimate bodies, thought that I returned to my chamber and that from thence I looked up to hea ven; and my illusion was so great that began to say aloud, 'O beautiful soul how blessed is he that seeth thee !'"'

The love of the middle ages is now ranked among the follies and eccentricities of an epoch that was immersed in darkness and barbarism. Nevertheless, I shall re late somewhat from its traditions and records, though my discourse should seem like an old tale, which will have matter still to rehearse, though credit be asleep, and not an ear open.

When king Gyron le Courtois, king Melyadus, another knight, and a certain maiden, had come to the spot in the forest where the young knight was slain, they found his body stretched across the road. his hand still grasping his sword, and his helmet on his head. All the road was deep in blood about him. Then the maiden alighted and went gently up to him, and took off his helmet, and his mouth was full of blood. So after gazing on him for a long time with a distracted look, she burst into tears, and said, "Ah, beauteous friend, how dearly hast thou paid for my love! The good and the joy which_thou hast had from me have been only sad and bitter death: beauteous friend, courteous and wise, valiant, heroic, good knight in every guise, since thou hast lost thy youth for me in this manner, in this strait, and in this agony, as it clearly appears, what else remains for me to suffer for thy sake, unless that I should keep you company? Friend, friend, thy beauty is departed for the love of me; thy flesh lies here bloody Friend, friend, we were both nourished together. I knew not what love was wher I gave my heart to love thee. Thee only will I love without fail, and besides thee no other, and certainly I know that thou didst love only me. Young friend, thou wert my joy and my consolation; for to see thee and to speak to thee alone was sufficient to inspire joy. Friend, whilst alive, thou wert mine in will, and it is

I

clear that thou wert also mine at death. Friend, what I behold slays me; I feel that death is within my heart." Then taking up his sword, she kissed it, and holding it in her hands, turned to Melyadus, and implored him that he would have the knight buried on that spot, and that he would have her body placed by his side in the grave. "How, in God's name," said the king, "what mean you? Do I not behold you in good health, and fair, so as to surpass all the maidens upon earth?" "Sire," she replied, "you do not feel what I feel. My sorrow is greater than you suppose. know of a certainty that I shall die this day, and will you promise me, in God's name, to grant me this prayer?" The king, all amazed and concerned, replied, "Truly I cannot believe that it should happen as you say; but if it should be so, which God avert, I will have your wish fulfilled." Then turning to Gyron, they talked together concerning the slain knight, while the maiden knelt down over the body, and kissed the sword, which she held firm in her hands, as she gazed upon him. When Gyron perceived that she remained so long without moving, he cried out to the king, "Sire, wouldst thou behold the strangest marvel that thou hast ever seen since thou wert born?"

"Yea,

that would I; show it to me," replied Melyadus. "In God's name, then, thou shalt see it; approach that maiden, and thou wilt find that she has died of grief." "Impossible!" exclaimed the king. "Nay, but it is so," said Gyron, 66 or never believe me more." And the king, who could not believe him, came up to the maiden, and certainly of a truth he then saw clearly enough that she was dead, and he signed himself on witnessing this wondrous sight. The other knight also signed himself with the sign of the cross. "Well," said the king, "it is even so. Sooth, one can say with safety that the maid loved truly, and with great love; for she hath died for him." "It is so," said Gyron, "now can there be from this event, a strange tale henceforth told. I will compose a lay, and a new chaunt, which shall be recorded and sung after our death, in many foreign kingdoms. Let us at present provide for their burial; but how shall we discover their names, that we may write them on their tomb?" "We can only learn that," replied Melyadus, "by riding to the castle yonder, which is called le Chastel Ygerve, where they were both born, for they were born both in one castle, and they

were nourished together." So to that castle they rode, and alighting, were received and instructed as to the name of the knight, which was Absdlon, and of the maiden, which was Cesala, and Gyron made a lay, which is still known as "the lay of the two lovers."*

You perceive, reader, how justice is expressly brought forward here as the principle of this devoted affection, which requires the offering of life for life. Now this constancy in love, and the faith which could receive such testimony of it as credible, belong, in a most remarkable degree, to the manners of the middle age, so as to be found even in men whom all

things else abandon. "With one solitary exception, all misfortunes that flesh is heir to have been visited on me," says the unhappy Jordano Bruno, in the dedication of a poem to Sir Philip Sidney, who received him into his house when he visited London as a wandering, homeless exile. "I have tasted every kind of calamity but one, that of finding false a woman's love!"

The manners of Spain, till lately at least, were said, among other characteristic features of the middle age, to have retained this fidelity. "As it may be well imagined," says Huber, ed," says Huber, "women, and through them, love, occupy a very important place in the social life of the Spaniards. Love, and the conversation of women in Spain, imply neither foppish gallantry, and cold calculation, as in France, nor rude sensuality, and defined, faithless formality, as amongst northern nations; but on the contrary, the real emotions of the guileless heart, ever earnest, reciprocal, true, and holy.+"

We have seen the fair side; let us reverse the medal:

"Oh! how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!"

Reader, from what source descend the greatest evils into the bosom, whence the rib was taken, to fashion that fair cheek, whose taste all the world pays for, even Gentiles in their fabling showed?

Love, exceeding measure, brings neither glory nor virtue to men.‡

Φεῦ, Φεῦ, βροτοῖς ἔρωτες ὡς κακὸν μέγα. Why seem these eyes created only to Gyron le Courtois, f. CCIX. + Skizzen aus Spanien. XXVI. Eurip. Med. 627. § Id. 331.

What men are

devour an eternal tear? these with minds which appear the echo of all the melancholies that are in nature? Love, abandoned to itself, hath done this. They sought a balm, and they found a poison; they sought their dream, on rising from their couch, and they found the wound in their heart; they sought for rest, and found the tempest; they sought the way of their young years, and they found the way of eternal grief. Alack! alack that fond nature should disdain counsel, rush headlong to its ruin, and then, forsooth, complain that heaven should practise stratagems upon so soft a subject as itself! Reader, wouldst thou hear a piteous predicament, some moving story of deep love? Open any of the domestic histories of the middle age, visit the abbeys of Cluny, or Citeaux, and search into the past life of the convertites who mourn there, and then if thou art a poet, thou wilt not depart unsatisfied; only be pitiful; let not the force of vulgar speech move thee to scorn, but bend thine eyes down, as if to view memorials of the buried, drawn upon earth-level tombs. Remember, that if the world for human passions, be all temptation, and yet all severity, the converse marks the Church, which is all prevention; and on the other hand, all forgiveness. Nay, ere you leave her sanctuaries for penitence prepared, there may perhaps be found some aged father, who has had long experience and deep knowledge of the minds of men, who will intimate to you, by tears and looks significant, that those old writers whom your great poet speaks of, uttered truth in saying,

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as in the sweetest bud the eating canker dwells, so eating love inhabits in the finest wits of all."

Dante marks the distinction well, when of love he says,

"In all my joys," he says, "there is pain at the bottom; and this pain is so bitter, that no sweets of love can remove the taste. I thought that would pass, and it has only increased; I sought to adore her that I loved in all things. If I heard the brook murmur, I used to say, it is her sigh; if I saw the deep abyss, I would say, it is her heart; of the clouds and stars, and of the breath of evening, I made an eternal Rachel. Forgive me if I confess the truth. This fervour, which I recall to mind, is now my despair. All this world has passed; it has withered on my heart."

Dante represents Beatrice as reproaching him for having overlooked the true destiny of love.

When from flesh

To spirit I had risen, and increase
Of beauty and of virtue circled me,

I was less dear to him, and valued less.
His steps were turn'd into deceitful ways,
Following false images of good, that make
No promise perfect."*

Yet old history is not without moving narratives which prove that even in such cases there was often something gained, as when men learned to add, with an effectual desire after justice, "O, if I could know what it was to be loved by heaven! O, if I could taste divine love! For it is a force stronger than mine, which impels me to love more than with love, and to lose myself in that sea of Christ which they say is deep enough to receive to rest innumerable souls, and all their remembrances with them." Search the annals of religious orders, search the particular history of each abbey, and there you will find what was the end of that thirst, the source of so many tales of poesy and woe,-the names of Antonius Santaranensis, James of Tuderto, Raymund Lullus, the Abbot de Rancy, are as familiar to the cloister, as they were once to bower and hall.

"I have seen vain love," says a saint of the desert, "made occasion of penance, and the same love transferred to God; love excluded by love, and fire extinguished by fire." It was these victims who became the fervent penitents. What do I say? they became the poets who, like Jacoponus, have left to the Church, chants of seraphs and hymns, that breathe heaven. Ah me! they seem to cry each moment, "How sweet is love, itself possest, when but love's shadows are so rich in joy!"

* Purg. XXX. St. John Climac. Grad. XV.

NNUNTIAVERUNT opera Dei, thus chanted voices when I prepared to move onwards. Et facta

ejus intellexerunt, others added in responsive strain, while I saw a crowd who sat apart with such effulgence crowned, as send forth beauteous things eternal. These had all been separate to the Church; these had all pleased God in their days, and had been found just. They had trusted in the Lord, and had preached his precepts, and had turned men to justice, and had been heard from the holy mountain.

Attend now, reader, and mark intently as thou canst, whilst I endeavour to unfold a grand historic page, and show what was the institution, character, action, and influence of the clergy, in relation to the fulfilment of the divine promise, to those who hungered and thirsted after God.

The ecclesiastical discipline which imposed celibacy on all who ministered at the altar, originated in the motives alleged by the apostle of the nations, the justice, and irresistible weight, of which might be collected out of the mouths even of those adversaries, who in different ages of the Church, have pretended that the reasons which prescribe its abolition, would rather sink the scale. The remark of Anselm de Bagadio, Bishop of Lucca, in the time of Gregory VII. that the deficiency of the clergy of Milan, in preaching and other good works, must arise from their being married (an abuse which under the direction of the Roman Pontiffs, along with St. Ariald, and St. Herlembald, he was appointed to correct, is sufficient to disprove all the arguments of the historian Landulph, who incautiously records it, even had he not so grossly falsified the doctrine of antiquity, in order to prove that marriage had been permitted to his clergy by St. Ambrose. At the first, this discipline could not have appeared new or paradoxical to the Gentile philosophers, who had con

• Muratori in Landulph. Prolegomena, Rer. Ital. Script. tom. IV.

sulted the early traditions, or had paid attention to the condition and phenomena of human life. St. Augustin remarks in his book, "De Vera Religione," that Plato chose a life of celibacy merely from philosophic speculations.

The Greek poet speaks of the advantages of men, who are without the marriage state, and says, that "those who are not fathers of children, not knowing whether it be sweet or bitter to possess them, however unhappy in this ignorance, are yet delivered from many labours." But he adds, "I behold those in whose houses there is this sweet fruit, oppressed with cares unceasingly; first with respect to the manner in which they should educate them, and then as to their means of leaving them a provision, while after all, it is uncertain whether they undergo all this labour for those that will prove good or evil." The old Roman authors gave a definition, fanciful, it is true, of the word expressing an unmarried life, tracing it from that which expressed a celestial life, delivered from the burden of earthly cares.+

Of the objection founded upon political reasons, it is needless to speak; for the arguments of those who adduce it are generally involved in such contradiction, that they refute themselves, as in the work entitled, "New Principles of Political Economy," by Sismondi, one part of which is devoted to attacking ecclesiastical celibacy, and the other to proving the necessity of interdicting marriage to the poor.

After a review of the ancient states, and the changes wrought by Christianity, some have come to the conclusion of Rubichon, that a clergy, under the discipline of celibacy, with its property and its different relations, were the conditions of existence of modern society. He that was sent affirms, it is better to adopt the state which the Church sanctions; those