Russian and an acute thinker, M. S―, was one of the most welcome. He was blind, but his infirmity only seemed to enhance his powers of conversation, and made his company more agreeable than it might otherwise have been. One night, the bishop was speaking of Lamennais and his more hidden life. There were soul-struggles and temptations assaulting him even in his chosen retreat of La Chênaie, in the midst of his triumph, when the Christian youth of France clustered round him, and sat at his feet as his humble disciples. He sometimes fancied himself irretrievably destined to eternal loss, and experienced paroxysms of terrible agony. The Abbé Gerbet, his confessor, once surprised him in one of these fits of despair, and did his best to strengthen and comfort him; but the demon was not to be laid so easily. The bishop, telling us this, added: "The three greatest geniuses of France in this age have fallen, the one through pride, the others through vanity Lamennais, Victor Hugo, and Lamartine." The conversation having having rested upon these two failings, some one quoted the saying that "The greater part of mankind is incapable of rising to the level of pride." A Russian lady who was present then said: "Indeed, one ought to have a great deal of pride to save one's self from petty vanity." Thereupon M. Squickly remarked: "Oh! therefore, we should burn down a city to prevent fires." Our Russian friend was very sharp at repartee. Another evening, when he brought with him a young German, the conversation fell upon Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg, Prince Albert's brother. He had lately had an immense forest awarded to him as damages for some losses sustained during the Austro-Prussian war of "There are people who make arrows out of any wood, but he has contrived to make wood out of any arrow." This is a French rendering of ""Tis an ill wind that blows no one good"; but the connection in this case between an arrow, a weapon typical of the war, and the wood, or forest gained in compensation, is better expressed by the French form.* Later on, some one remarked that in that war the telegraph had been Prussianized throughout Germany; and when the young German, S――'s friend, was trying to give us an idea of Duke Ernest's ticklish position, S― interrupted: "Yes, yes; I know what you mean; in short, he played the part . . . of the telegraph!" Mgr. Mermillod had a winning way of turning everything into a moral, and at the same time giving balm to a rebuke and strength to a counsel. For instance, one day, as he visited a sick penitent of his, whose mental energy was for ever soaring beyond her physical capabilities, he said: Re "You will do more good on your sick-bed than you could in the best of health in the London salons. member that Our Blessed Lord lay but three hours stretched upon the cross, and thereby converted the world; while, during his three years' ministry, he scarcely converted a handful of Jews." On New Year's Eve, 1866-7, he gave us a few little books of devotion as a souvenir, and then, making the sign of the cross on each of our foreheads, said: "Here are crosses to disperse the crosses of 1866 and frighten away those of 1867." *The original proverb sounds less ponderous ly: "Il en est qui font flèche de tout bois, mai lui, il a fait bois de toute flèche." Another time, on one of his penitents going to him with a load of doubt, uneasiness, almost despair, he gave her the wisest and gentlest counsels, after which he said sympathizingly, comprehending the whole in a dozen words: "I understand, my child; you go from one extreme to another-from sadness to laughter, from melancholy to irony." Once when some one in his presence expressed a wish that all priests were like him, he answered humbly: "My dear child, every priest is in some sort an incarnation of the Spirit of God."* The faith is out the presence of its pastor, so With such internal bulwarks as the Benedictine secretary of Mgr. Mermillod represents, and such external champions as the eloquent, energetic, and enlightened bishop himself, it is It is sad to think of Geneva with- not too much to say that not even The Catholic reader will not misunderstand the still more forcible original: "Tous les prêtres c'est une petite incarnation du bon Dieu." the faintest heart has reason to dread the fall of the rock-built citadel of Peter. CATHOLIC LITERATURE IN ENGLAND SINCE THE REFORMATION. It is not surprising that Catholic literature was at a low ebb for many years after Henry VIII., of evil memory. Deprived of the means of knowledge in their own country under Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James I., Catholics were compelled to seek education abroad in colleges where they forgot their mothertongue and the writers of their native land. As to their brethren who remained at home, it was dangerous for them even to possess books, and they seldom had time or opportunity to make themselves acquainted with their contents. A prayer-book, black with use and carefully secreted, was all the library of those who were liable at any moment to be ferreted out of vaults and wainscots, and hanged, drawn, and quartered for believing in the Papal supremacy. The Puritan movement in the time of Charles I. and the Commonwealth was highly unfavorable to literature in general; and the Catholics who joined the royal standard were more anxious to wield the sword than the pen. But the fewer the authors who broke the long literary silence of the Catholic body in England, the more their names deserve to be cherished. We will endeavor, therefore, to make a catena auctorum, and to offer a few comments on each link in the chain. Though all of them were Catholics at some period or other of their lives, they were not all persistent in their faith nor exemplary in their practice. It will be understood that they are cited in their literary capacity, and not as saints, martyrs, and confessors in a calendar. Robert Southwell, however, must head the list, as he was both author and martyr. He published many volumes in prose and verse, though his life was closed prematurely in his thirty-fifth year. Educated at Douay, he labored in England eight years during Elizabeth's reign. He was a member of the Society of Jesus, and he touched the hearts of his suffering brethren by his tender and plaintive verse. S. Peter's Complaint, with Other Poems, appeared in 1593, and Mæoniæ, or Certaine Excellent Poems and Spirituall Hymnes, in 1595, the year in which he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn, under a false charge of being engaged in a political movement. His real offence was that of the Bishop of Ermeland and the Jesuits of Germany in the present day-his allegiance in spiritual matters to the authority of the Holy See. Robert Southwell's memory is still cherished in England, and it is not long since selections from his poems were read to a crowded audience in Hanover Square Rooms, London, by the Rev. F. Christie, S.J. They do not rise high in poetic merit, but they are full of noble, just, and devout sentiments. "Time Goes by Turns" is found in most collections of British poetry. The following are the last stanzas of his "Conscience": "No change of fortune's calms Can cast my comforts down; "And when in froward mood She moves an angry foe, Small gain I find to let her come, Less loss to let her go." Religious writings-sermons, meditations, and even works of controversy had more importance, in a literary point of view, in Queen Eliza beth's reign than they have now. At that time, people read little; books were few and dear. Books of piety cultivated the mind, though used chiefly to edify the heart. They exercised many persons in the art of reading, who, but for that branch of literature, would have read nothing at all. They kept up a habit which was good on secular grounds, apart from the higher spiritual consideration. Looked upon in this light, the tracts and letters of such holy men as Campion, Persons, and Allen (afterwards cardinal) had a twofold value. Edmund Campion was an accomplished scholar. He received his education at S. John's, Oxford, and being courteous and refined, as well as clever, he was universally beloved. After leaving college, he went to Ireland, and wrote a history of that country, which was highly esteemed. Having been reconciled to the church, he repaired to the new college at Douay, that he might there study theology; and after following the usual course, he was admitted into the Society of Jesus, and sent to England to comfort and strengthen his brethren who were contending for the faith. His friendship for Persons, his publication of a work written by that father, entitled Reasons for not Going to Church (that is, to the parish Protestant church), and the seizure of a private press, which a Catholic gentleman had given to the friends, that they might work off edifying books and tracts, led to his apprehension. He was dragged through the streets of London, with a paper fixed on his hat, stigmatizing him as "Campion, the seditious Jesuit" (July, 1581), and being tried for treason, of which he was quite guiltless, he was barbarously executed, after suffering the most horrible tortures. The life of Cardinal Allen, if carefully written, would be an important addition to English Catholic literature, and in "Drink to me only with thine eyes," "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." Now and then he touches a more sacred chord, and such as might suit a Catholic lyre, as in the following hymn : volve numerous particulars of thrill- and in the "Hymn to the Moon," ing interest respecting the political and domestic history of the times. His writings lie in the border-land between theology and politics. His Apology or Defence of the Jesuits and Seminarists was a reply, written in 1582, to the proclamations of the government which denounced the Catholic priests as traitors. Persons engaged in the same controversy, dwelling chiefly on the dogmatic and practical side of the question. All honor to these heroes of the cross, whom literature as well as religion claims as her own! In placing "Rare Ben Jonson " among Catholic authors, it is not meant to claim him altogether as one of the church's children. In early youth, he bore arms and served a campaign in the Low Countries. His troop being disbanded, he took to the stage; but a hot temper often led him into brawls, and in one of these he had the misfortune to kill a brother actor. Being in prison, he contracted an intimacy with a fellowprisoner, a Catholic priest, which ended in his conversion. During twelve years he remained a Catholic, and then returned to the Established Church. It was the only pathway to worldly success, and he became a favorite with James I., as Shakespeare had been with Queen Elizabeth. We name them together, for, indeed, they were rivals; yet what a difference between the texture and the productions of their brains! Ben Jonson was made poet-laureate, and wrote comedies and masques without number. Here and there we find in his works noble sentiments worthily expressed, as in that classical drama, Catiline's Conspiracy. We find also rhythmical sweetness, as in the song, "To Celia," "Hear me, O God! That I may prove "If thou hadst not Been stern to me, "For sin's so sweet, Their punishment." The way had been prepared for Ben Jonson's success as a dramatist In not to speak now of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, and Marlowe-by the miracle plays or mysteries of the middle ages, similar to those which are acted at the present time among the Indians in Mexico, and the famous Ammergau, or Passion Play, in Bavaria. these plays, The Fall of Man, The Death of Abel, The Flood, Lazarus, Pilate's Wife's Dream, St. Catharine's Wheel, and the like, were brought on the stage with the approbation of the clergy, in order that they might bring home the mysteries of the faith to people's heart and imagination, and supply in some measure the place of books. The miracle plays had been succeeded in time by moral plays, which, from the early part of Henry VI.'s long reign, had represented apologues, not histories, by means of allegorical characters. Vices and Virtues, however, did not stand their ground long at the theatre. They gradually changed into beings less vague and shadowy, who, while they represented vices or virtues in the concrete, had, in addition, the charm of resembling real life. Richard Crashaw's fame as a poet rests mainly on one line, and that in Latin; nor was the rest of his poetry of sufficient force and merit to enable him always to retain the credit of that single line. It has over and over again been attributed to Dryden and other hands. Yet it is positively his, and a poem in itself. It is to be found in a volume of Latin poems published by Crashaw in the year in which he graduated at Cambridge (1635). The line is a pentameter-on the miracle at Cana of Galilee and consists of two dactyls, a spondee, and two anapests. It is often quoted inaccurately, but we give it exactly: Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit. "The modest water saw its God, and blushed." The author's mind was devotional from his earliest years. He had always been hearing about religion; for his father preached at the Temple, and took part largely in the controversies of the day. There was one favorable feature in the religious polemics of that period-both sides professed belief in God and in the Christian religion; now our warfare is with atheists, deists, pantheists, positivists, with whom we have scarcely any common ground. After his election as a Fellow of Peterhouse in 1637—about the time that Hampden, Pym, and Cromwell himself were embarking for New England, and were forcibly detained from sailinghe became noted in the university as a preacher, and passed so much of his time in devotion that the author of the preface to his poems says: "He lodged under Tertullian's roof of angels. There he made his nest more gladly than David's swallow near the house of God. There, like a primi tive saint, he offered more prayers in the night than others usually offer in the day. There he penned these poems: Steps for Happy Souls to climb to Heaven by." In 1644, sorrow came to his calm nest; and as he would not sign the covenant, he was driven from the university he loved and from surroundings increasingly dear. Accomplished in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish, skilled in drawing, music, and engraving, he was still more noted for his talent in the higher art of poetry. He belonged to what is called the fantastic school of Cowley, which is full of conceits. But "conceits" are often original and beautiful ideas quaintly expressed. The poetry of conceits was a reflex. of the times, and is, with all its faults, far preferable to classic platitudes in flowing verse. The overthrow of the Church of England by the Commonwealth was to Crashaw a cause of poignant regret. He could no longer bear to look on the towers and spires of venerable churches given over into the hands of bawling, nasal Puritans. He quitted England, and, crossing the Channel, found that, in France, he was a member of no church at all. His own communion was extinct, and he was a stranger to the Catholic Church, before whose altars he now stood as an alien. But he had taken up his residence in France, and it was not long before he decided on embracing the faith which that land prized as its most precious heritage. After the decisive battle of the Civil War had been fought at Naseby, the poet Cowley, who was an ardent royalist, visited Paris, and found Crashaw in great distress. He represented his case to Henrietta Maria, the exiled queen of England, and presented him to her. He received kindness from her majesty, and letters |