The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324,
April, 1886, by Various

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Title: The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886

Author: Various

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THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

NO. CCCXXIV. APRIL, 1886. VOL. CLXII.




CONTENTS:


I. Matthew Parish

II. The Christian Brothers.--Religious Schools in France and England.

III. Archives of the Venetian Republic.

IV. Yeomen Farmers in Norway.

V. Oliver Cromwell: his character illustrated by himself.

VI. Travels in the British Empire.

VII. The Bishop of Durham on the Ignatian Epistles.

VIII. Books and Reading.

IX. Characteristics of Democracy.

X. The Gladstone-Morley Administration.


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CONTENTS OF NO. 324.


Art.                                                              Page

I.--Matthæi Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica
Majora. Edited by Henry Richards Luard, D.D., Fellow of
Trinity College, Registrary of the University, and Vicar of
Great St. Mary's Cambridge. Published by the Authority of
the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the
direction of the Master of the Rolls. 7 vols. 8vo. London,
Vol I. 1872--Vol. VII. 1883.                                       293


II.--1. The Christian Brothers, their Origin and Work, with
a sketch of the Life of their Founder, The Venerable Jean
Baptiste de la Salle. By Mrs. R. F. Wilson. London, 1883.

2. La Première Année d'Instruction Morale et Civique:
notions de droit et d'économie politique (Textes et Récits)
pour répondre à la loi du 28 Mars 1882 sur l'enseignement
primaire obligatoire: ouvrage accompagné de Résumé, de
Questionnaires, de Devoirs, et d'un Lexique des mots
difficiles. Par Pierre Laloi. Quatorzième Edition. Paris,
1885.

3. Report of the Committee of Council on Education (England
and Wales). 1884-85.

4. Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the Incorporated National
Society. 1885.                                                     325


III.--The State Papers of the Venetian Republic; namely,
Cancelleria Inferiore, Cancelleria Ducale, Cancelleria
Secreta, preserved in the Convent of the Frari, at Venice.
                                                                   356


IV.--1. Journal of a Residence in Norway during the years
1834, 1835, and 1836. By Samuel Laing, Esq. London, 1837.

2. Le Royaume de Norvège et le Peuple Norvégien. Par le Dr.
O. I. Broch. Christiania, 1878.

3. Official Reports of Prefects on the Economic Condition of
the Provinces of Norway in 1876-80. Christiania, 1884.

4. Publications of the Statistical Bureau Christiania.             384


V.--A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Esq.;
Secretary, first to the Council of State, and afterwards to
the Two Protectors, Oliver and Richard Cromwell. In Seven
Volumes, containing authentic Memorials of the English
affairs from the year 1638 to the Restoration of King
Charles II. Vol. III. London, 1742.                                414


VI.--1. Oceana, or England and her Colonies. By James
Anthony Froude. London, 1886.

2. Through the British Empire. By Baron von Hübner. 2. vols.
London, 1886.

3. The Western Pacific and New Guinea. By Hugh Hastings
Romilly, Deputy Commissioner of the Western Pacific. London,
1886.                                                              443


VII.--The Apostolic Fathers: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp.
Revised Texts, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and
Translations. By J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D.,
Bishop of Durham. London, 1885. 2 vols.                            467


VIII.--1. An Address delivered to the Students of Edinburgh
University on Nov. 3, 1885. By the Earl of Iddesleigh, Lord
Rector of the University of Edinburgh.

2. Hearing, Reading and Thinking: an address to the Students
attending the Lectures of the London Society for the
Extension of University Teaching. By the Rt. Hon. G. J.
Goschen, M.P.

3. The Choice of Books and other Literary Pieces. By
Frederic Harrison. London, 1886.                                   501


IX.--1. Popular Government. Four Essays. By Sir Henry Sumner
Maine. Second Edition. London, 1886.

2. Democracy in America. By Alexis de Tocqueville.
Translated by Henry Reeve. New Edition. London, 1862.

3. On the State of Society in France before the Revolution
of 1789. Translated by Henry Reeve. Second Edition. London,
1873.                                                              518

And other Works.


X.--1. Fourth Midlothian Campaign. Political Speeches
delivered, November, 1885, by the Right Hon. W. E.
Gladstone, M.P. Edinburgh, 1886.

2. John Morley: The Irish Record of the New Chief Secretary,
1886.

3. Ireland: A Book of Light on the Irish Problem. Edited by
Andrew Reid. London, 1886.                                         544

And other Works.




ART. I.--_Matthæi Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora._
Edited by Henry Richards Luard, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College,
Registrary of the University, and Vicar of Great St. Mary's, Cambridge.
Published by the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's
Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. 7 vols. 8vo.
London, Vol. I. 1872--Vol. VII. 1883.


Some of our readers are not likely yet to have forgotten the remarkable
essay which the late Professor Brewer contributed to our pages in 1871,
and which has since been reprinted in the volume of 'English Studies,'
published shortly after the author's death in 1879. English History owes
a larger debt to few men of our time than it owes to Mr. Brewer. As a
teacher whose pupils were always eager to listen to all that fell from
his lips, and whose enthusiasm never failed to awake a kindred spark in
the minds of those who looked to him for light in dark places and
guidance along tortuous paths of research, Mr. Brewer has had few
equals, and perhaps has left no successor who can compare with him. As a
writer he was always brilliant, lucid, and vigorous, and his unrivalled
'Introductions' to the Calendars of Letters and Papers, concerned with
the reign of Henry VIII., will long continue to be read by all students
of our History, as necessary and indispensable interpreters of the vast
storehouses of original documents which he did so much to rescue from
the oblivion or obscurity to which they had previously been consigned.
But it was as an organizer of research that Mr. Brewer earned his
greatest fame and achieved his greatest success, and it was to him more
than to any one man, to his immense persistence in urging upon the
powers that be a more generous freedom of access to our Records, and to
his prodigious powers of work in arranging and tabulating the enormous
masses of documents of all kinds which constitute the _Apparatus_ of
English History, that this country stands indebted, and will remain
indebted as long as our literature lasts.

In the Essay on 'New Sources of English History' the learned author has
given us a startling account of the deplorable condition into which some
of the most precious of our national manuscripts had been allowed to
fall--of the utterly chaotic state of our depositories--of the
hopelessness, the despair which must needs have come upon one student
after another who might be fortunate enough to be turned loose into the
various prison-houses of our muniments--and of the efforts made, and
happily at last made with splendid success, to cleanse the Augean
stable, and to let the world know something of the wealth it contained.
With characteristic modesty Mr. Brewer said nothing of his own part in
all that laborious and sagacious organization which resulted in our
obtaining the magnificent _Calendars_, which have opened out to us all
'that new world which is the old' that had become almost forgotten or
unknown. He was not the man to assert himself, he knew that posterity
would give him his due, but with a simple desire to stimulate research,
and to show how much remained to be done, and how much to be discovered
and made known, he drew the attention of his readers chiefly and
primarily to the value of the Calendars, and to the important results
which those Calendars had already produced, and were destined to produce
hereafter. He had quite enough to say upon this point, and if his life
had been spared, it is probable that he would eventually have given us a
more comprehensive account of the series of volumes which, though now
issuing from the press _pari passu_ with the Calendars, were originally
undertaken a little later. Such an Essay by such a master would indeed
have been an important aid to the student, but at the time of Mr.
Brewer's lamented death the day had hardly come for such a _résumé_; and
even now, though so much has been achieved, so much and so well, the
hour has hardly arrived nor the man for taking a comprehensive survey,
and giving to the public an intelligent and intelligible account of that
other Library of Chronicles, and biographies, and letters, and
cartularies, and those other memorials of the Middle Ages in England,
which it is to be feared are hardly as well known as they ought to be,
nor as widely studied as they deserve.

Meanwhile it is high time that attention should be drawn to that noble
series of volumes now issuing from the press under the editorship of
scholars whose reputation is assured, and whose work continues to
enhance their reputation--high time that we should begin to do something
like justice to the labourers, who have deserved so well at the hands
of such Englishmen as have any sentiment of loyalty to the great
thoughts, the great doings, and the noble lives of their forefathers.
The philosopher, who 'holds the mirror up to nature,' has not of late,
as a rule, missed his reward. The historian, who in his dogged, patient,
toilsome fashion holds the mirror up to the life of bygone ages, has
received among us scant recognition, and generally is rewarded with but
barren honour. What has been done and still is doing will be best
understood by briefly reviewing the progress of that movement, which has
brought about the great revival of English Historical study, and under
the influence of which the opinions and convictions of educated men have
passed through a very decided change, one destined to produce still
greater and more unlooked for changes of sentiment and belief before the
present century shall have closed.

It is just fifty years since 'the Father of Record Reform,' as he has
been justly called, received his patent creating him Master of the
Rolls. Although as far back as the year 1800 a Commission was issued for
the methodizing and digesting the National Records, and for printing
such calendars and indexes as should be thought advisable; and though
during the next twenty-seven years many works of supreme interest and
importance were printed at the public expense, the enormous extent of
our National Records were known to few, and the difficulty of consulting
them, (dispersed as they were through a score of different depositories)
was enough to deter all but the most resolute enquirers. It was Lord
Langdale who first set himself to reduce the chaos of our archives into
something like order. When the old Record Commission expired in 1837, it
was by Lord Langdale's influence that the Public Record Act was passed
on the 14th of August, 1838, whereby the Records named therein were
placed under the custody of the Master of the Rolls for the time being,
and hereupon a new era began. Nevertheless it was not till July 1850
that a vote was obtained from the Treasury for the erection of a
national depository, wherein our vast archives should be assembled under
a single roof, and not till 1855 that the magnificent _Tabularium_ in
Fetter Lane was opened for the reception of our muniments.

Lord Langdale died in April 1851;[1] he was succeeded in the Mastership
of the Rolls by Lord Romilly, then Sir John. A happier choice could not
have been made. To Lord Langdale belongs the credit of carrying out the
grand scheme for consolidating the various collections of documents,
which, as we have said, had up to this time been widely dispersed, and
the very existence of the larger mass of which was known only to a few
experts. To Lord Romilly we owe it that the great original sources of
English History so assembled have been rendered accessible to any
student who desires to consult them; and it is to him, too, that we are
indebted for the issue of that unrivalled series of 'Chronicles and
Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland, from the Invasion of the Romans
to the Reign of Henry VIII.,' which has laid the foundation for a
science of history firmer and deeper and wider than before was believed
to be even attainable.

Great men are at once the leaders and the product of their age. When
Lord Langdale set himself to his task he was only attempting that which
had been talked of since the reign of Edward II. For five centuries the
unification of our National Records had been recommended and advised by
lawyers, statesmen, and scholars from generation to generation, but no
practical scheme had ever been suggested, and the difficulties in the
way of reform were supposed to be insuperable. It was a Herculean task,
and one that grew ever more arduous the longer it was postponed. During
the first quarter of the present century profound dissatisfaction had
begun to be felt at the condition of our historical literature. The
ordinary text-books were full of fables, more than suspected to be
fables, and which yet it was extremely difficult to disprove
satisfactorily. Theories which had long passed current were being rudely
assailed, and yet--in the face of the obstacles that hindered
research--stubbornly held their ground, or were repeated with peremptory
dogmatism. A deep distrust of the old methods and the old assumptions
had given rise to a widespread desire to drag forth from their
hiding-places any documents, however dry or recondite, which might throw
some clear light upon our national life and manners, and not only upon
mere events of national importance during Medieval times. A desire to
know the truth was _in the air_. The science of history had passed out
of its infancy, and the stirrings of a new craving--the passion of
Research--were making themselves felt in that mysterious restlessness
which indicates that the old smooth-faced docility, the old childish
submission to tutelage, the old unquestioning acceptance of authority,
has gone for ever, and a new life has begun. The year before Lord
Langdale received his appointment as Master of the Rolls, the Surtees
Society had been founded for the printing of unedited MSS. illustrative
of the history of the northern counties; and in the same year that the
old Record Commission expired, the English Historical Society was
started, a society which numbered amongst its promoters such men as the
late Mr. Kemble, Mr. H. O. Coxe, Sir T. Duffus Hardy, and Mr.
Stevenson--the leaders and teachers of that school of younger men who
have so ably followed in the steps of their seniors, and who, mounting
on the shoulders of the giants, have gained a wider view than it was
given to those others to attain. The five years that followed saw the
foundation of the Camden, the Percy, and the Chetham Societies, not to
mention many another that has done useful work in its way. The labours
of these pioneers soon made it quite apparent that the sources of our
national history--social, ecclesiastical, and political--were quite too
voluminous for private enterprise to deal with, and would demand the
co-operation of a body of trained scholars and the resources of the
public exchequer to make them available as apparatus for the teachers of
the future.

On the 26th of January, 1857, Sir John Romilly submitted to the Treasury
his memorable proposal for the publication of certain materials for the
History of England;[2] and on the 9th of February a Treasury Minute was
put forth approving of the plan that had been drawn up as one 'well
calculated for the accomplishment of this important national object in
an effectual and satisfactory manner within a reasonable time.'
Forthwith arrangements were made for the issue of that series of works
which is now known as the 'Rolls Series,' a collection which has already
extended to upwards of 200 volumes.

The lines laid down by Sir John Romilly were almost exactly those which
had been followed by the English Historical Society. Every editor was to
'give an account of the MSS. employed by him, of their age and their
peculiarities;' he was to add 'a brief account of the life and times of
the author, and any remarks necessary to explain the chronology; _but no
other note or comment_ was to be allowed, except what might be necessary
to establish the correctness of the text.' The restriction was
absolutely necessary if only for this, that when the 'Rolls Series' was
first commenced even the most accomplished of its editors were mere
learners. The time had not yet arrived for comments. The text was wanted
first in its completeness and integrity.

Looking back to this period--little more than a quarter of a century
ago--it is difficult for us to realize the deplorable condition into
which our historical literature had been allowed to fall. Kemble's great
work, the 'Codex Diplomaticus ævi Saxonici,' the first volume of which
appeared in 1839, and his 'History of the Saxons in England,' published
in 1849, came upon the great body of intelligent men as the revelation
of new things. It is sufficient to turn to the chapter on the
Constitutional History of England before the Conquest, in Hallam's
'History of the Middle Ages,' to be assured how meagre and superficial
even Hallam's knowledge was of everything before the Norman invasion. It
was no fault of his; he made good use of all such materials as were then
accessible to the student--that is, all such as had been printed; for
that incomparably larger _apparatus_ which since Hallam's days has been
published to the world, it was for all practical purposes as if it had
never existed at all. Even men of culture and learning were persuaded
that all that was ever likely to be known about the religious houses had
been collected in the new edition of Dugdale's 'Monasticon.' It is
hardly too much to say that of the history of English monasticism Hallam
knew nothing. Dr. Lingard himself had very little more to say of the
great Abbeys than his predecessors, and had a very inadequate conception
of the part they played in the development of our institutions; and when
Dr. Maitland wrote his brilliant 'Essays on the Dark Ages,' he hardly
names St. Edmundsbury or St. Alban's, and though one of his most
fascinating chapters is concerned with the early days of Croyland, his
only authority for the beautiful story, which he has handled so
skilfully, is a romantic narrative attributed to Ingulphus, which has
been demonstrated to be a somewhat clumsy though a clever forgery. Of
the Mendicant Orders--of the work they did, of the influence they
exercised, and of the attitude adopted towards them in the 13th century
by the parochial clergy on the one hand, and by the monks on the
other--even less was known, if less were possible, than of their
wealthier rivals.

Two years had scarcely elapsed since the issue of the Treasury Minute of
February, 1857, before it began to be said that the history of England
would have to be written anew. In the single year 1858 _eleven_ works of
the highest importance were printed, and it was evident that neither
original materials nor scholarly editors would be wanting to make the
'Rolls Series' all that it was desired it should become. The 'Chronicles
of the Monasteries of Abingdon and of St. Augustine at Canterbury,' the
contemporary 'Life of Edward the Confessor,' and the priceless
'Monumenta Franciscana,' telling the wonderful story of the settlement
of the Minorites among us, were printed from unique MSS. Next year the
'Chronicle of John of Oxnedes' was brought out by Sir Henry Ellis, and
the 'Historia Anglicana' of Bartholomew Cotton, by Dr. Luard, neither
work having ever before been printed. Volume followed volume in rapid
succession, a steady improvement becoming observable in the style of
editing, as the several editors became more familiar with the results of
their predecessors' labours.

It was while working at Bartholomew Cotton that Dr. Luard was brought
into intimate relations with the 13th century. Hitherto the _composite_
character of such chronicles as had been published had indeed been
perceived, but no attempt had been made to trace the original authority
for statements repeated in the same words by one writer after another.
Dr. Luard opened out a new line of enquiry, and in his edition of
Cotton's Chronicle he endeavoured to distinguish in every instance the
material which might fairly be called original from that which his
author had borrowed from older writers and incorporated into his text.
The borrowed matter was printed in smaller type, and the sources from
which it had been derived were indicated by references given at the foot
of the page. Cottons' own additions were printed in a bolder type, so as
at once to catch the eye. While conducting the laborious researches
necessitated by this new method of editing his text, it became clear to
Dr. Luard that Cotton had borrowed largely from Matthew Paris--who had
lived just a generation before him--and that he had also borrowed from a
mysterious writer much read in the 14th and 15th centuries, who went by
the name of Matthew of Westminster. As to this Matthew of Westminster,
Dr. Luard postponed dealing with him till some future time. He might
prove a mere mythic personage, and it was suspected he would; but
Matthew Paris was certainly no shadow, but a very real man, whose
greatness seemed to grow greater the more he was studied and the better
he was known. Yet as Dr. Luard became more familiar with the text of
Paris, he was soon convinced that in its printed form it was bristling
with the grossest inaccuracies of all kinds. Originally it had been
published under the authority of Archbishop Parker in 1571; and though
other editions had appeared, in this country and on the Continent,
several times since then, Paris's great work had remained exactly in the
same state as Parker (or whoever his agent was) had left it three
centuries ago. That is to say, that by far the most important work on
English history during the 13th century--not to mention European
affairs--and by far the most minute and trustworthy picture of English
life and manners during the reign of Henry III.--a record, too, drawn
up by a contemporary writer of rare genius and literary skill--was
defaced by blunders, audacious tampering with the text and gross
inaccuracies, to such an extent that no conscientious student could
allow himself to quote the printed work without first referring to one
of the very MSS. which the Archbishop professed to have used.

Nevertheless, the task of bringing out a critical edition of the
'Chronica Majora' did not appear less formidable as fresh sources of
information cropped up; and Dr. Luard shrank from the immense labour
that such an edition involved, it was because he had formed a correct
notion of its magnitude. In 1861 he brought out in the same series the
'Letters of Robert Grosseteste,' the heroic and magnanimous Bishop of
Lincoln; and while working at this volume, the England of the 13th
century became more and more alive and present to the mind of the
student.

But distinctly and grandly as one noble character after another revealed
itself, there was a strange mist that required to be dispelled before
even the importance of great events could be rightly estimated. The
inner life of the monasteries, great and small, must be enquired into,
so far as it was possible to get any information on so obscure a
subject; and, above all, the paramount influence which so magnificent an
institution as the Abbey of St. Alban's exercised upon the intellectual
life of the country must be studied with patient impartiality. Before a
scholar with so lofty an ideal of an editor's duty could venture upon
his _magnum opus_, there was indeed an enormous mass of preliminary work
to get through. The horizon seemed to widen everywhere as the years of
historical discovery went on. It was left to Mr. Riley to attack that
wonderful collection of documents to which he gave the title of
'Chronica Monasterii Sancti Albani'--a series occupying twelve thick
volumes, and which furnish us not only with a priceless _apparatus_, by
the help of which a hundred problems perplexing the historian are
furnished with a clue towards their solution--but which afford such an
insight into the life of the greatest monastery in England during its
best times as nobody expected could ever be forthcoming. While Mr. Riley
was occupied with the _Chronicles_ of St. Alban's and the lives of its
Abbots, Dr. Luard was engaged in collecting all the _Annals_ of the
lesser monasteries which he could lay his hands on. Some of these had
already been printed more or less carelessly; others had never seen the
light since they were written. Such as were printed were extremely
difficult to procure--scarce and costly. Dr. Luard took six years in
bringing out his five volumes--volumes referring to the golden age of
English Monasticism, which threw all sorts of side-light upon Mr.
Riley's 'Chronicles,' while they were in turn continually being
explained and illustrated by them.

While the 'Monastic Annals' were passing through the press, a very
startling announcement was made by no less a person than Sir Frederick
Madden, Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum.
Sir Frederick declared that he had come upon a copy of what was commonly
called the 'Historia Minor' of Matthew Paris, not only written by the
author himself, but actually annotated, corrected, and illustrated with
drawings by his own hand. Such an announcement made by an expert of
European reputation, one who had been handling MSS. all his life,
necessarily created a sensation in the literary world. If it were
accepted and proved true, it was one of the most curious romances in the
history of literature. But was it true? To most critics the antecedent
improbability of the theory put forth by Sir Frederick was so great as
to relegate it to the domain of extravagant paradox; but the name and
fame of its supporter were too high to allow of its being dismissed
without refutation. For two or three years no one ventured to enter the
lists against so formidable a champion who had staked his reputation
upon the issue. At last another great specialist, not a whit less
competent than the other, came forward to controvert the opinions and
theory which had been so confidently maintained by Sir Frederick. In
1871 Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy brought out the third volume of his
_Catalogue_, and it was in the famous Introduction to this volume that
the Madden Hypothesis was first assailed with damaging effect. Sir
Thomas, it must be remembered, was Deputy Keeper of the Records. Sir
Frederick was Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts at the British
Museum. Each was the representative man in his own department, and a
very pretty quarrel arose. Into the merits of that quarrel it is
impossible to enter here; it is a matter for specialists, not for
outsiders, to pronounce upon. This, however, may be said with
confidence, that if we except that school of very able and accomplished
experts which the British Museum has trained, experts whose _range_ of
diplomatic knowledge must needs be wider than that of any 'Record man,'
the refutation of Sir Frederick Madden by Sir Thomas Duffus was
generally regarded as unanswerable and triumphant. With the exception
indicated--a very important exception indeed--the Madden Hypothesis was
believed to be utterly demolished, in fact 'blown into the air.'
Nevertheless there are those, from whom something may be expected some
day in the way of rejoinder who are by no means sure that the last word
on this question has been said that deserve to be said, and even so
scrupulous and sagacious a critic as Dr. Luard seems to be less certain
than he was that Madden was quite wrong in _all_ he affirmed, and Hardy
quite right in _all_ he denied.

The attention which had been drawn to Matthew Paris by this remarkable
controversy could not but have its effect in awakening a desire for that
critical edition of the larger Chronicle which Dr. Luard had been so
long preparing. The way was cleared for such an edition now; it was not
likely that any more MSS. of the author would be discovered. Such as
were deposited in the various libraries had been carefully scrutinized,
or their homes were known, and the long years of preparatory study had
been turned to good account--no pains had been spared nor any labour
grudged. In 1872 the first volume of the 'Chronica Majora' appeared in
the 'Rolls Series.' In 1884 the seventh and last volume was issued,
containing the learned editor's last preface, glossary, and emendations,
and an Index to the whole work, extending over nearly 600 pages. It is a
long time since an English scholar has had the good fortune to carry to
its completion so important a work as this, projected on so large a
scale, executed with such conscientious care--characterized by so much
critical skill and scrupulous accuracy--all this achieved single-handed
in the midst of other duties, professional and academical, which would
be quite sufficient to exhaust the energies of an ordinary man.

Now that the work has been done, and done so thoroughly that it may
safely be asserted the _standard edition_ of the 'Chronic Majora' has
been published once for all, we are in a better position than we ever
were heretofore for taking a survey of the life and labours of its
author, and for answering the enquiries which of late have been made
with increasing frequency, and made too among those who might have been
expected to be able to answer them. Who and what was Matthew Paris? What
did he do, and what did he write that the learned few should speak of
him with so much reverence, though to the unlearned many he is little
more than a famous and familiar name?

Perhaps before dealing with his personal history, or entering into any
examination of his literary labours, it will be well first to answer the
question--_What_ was Matthew Paris? for it is simply impossible to
estimate rightly the debt we owe to him, or to understand the brief
account that could be drawn up of his career till we have learned to
know something of the _profession_ to which he belonged, and the great
foundation of which he was so distinguished an ornament. By profession
Matthew Paris was a monk. A monk 'professed' is a term indicating the
higher grade to which not every brother in a monastery attained. The
very term 'profession' may be traced to the cloister. In its usual
acceptation it is modern.

To dilate upon the various monastic orders, which were almost as
numerous in the 13th century as the different religious denominations
are in the 19th, would be out of place here. Suffice it to say that the
English monasteries in Henry III.'s time counted by hundreds. But there
were monasteries and monasteries. Some the homes of the scholar, the
devout and the high-minded, the seats of learning and the resting-places
of the studious and the aged, who hated war and tumult, and only longed
for repose. Some that were mere hiding holes for the lazy and the
incompetent, the failures among the younger sons of the gentry, who had
not the power of pushing their way in the world, or whose career had
been a disappointment. Such men, where all else failed, could get
themselves admitted into some smaller religious house by the interest of
the patron; sometimes bringing in a trifling addition to the common
property, sometimes simply 'pitchforked' into a vacancy, it is difficult
to say how. Then they became 'brethren' of the monastery, and sharers in
most of the good things that it could offer; they were almost exactly in
the same position as Fellows of Colleges were twenty years ago, holding
their preferment for life, with this difference, that a Fellowship at
the smallest College in Oxford or Cambridge always implied _some_
qualification for the post. A College Fellow, at the worst, must have
had some claims to learning or culture; whereas in the smaller and more
remote monasteries a man might be scandalously ignorant, and yet gain
admittance as a brother of the house.

Between the highest and the lowest of that great army of monks,
dispersed through the length and breadth of the land, when English
monarchism had declined from its earlier ideal, there was as great a
distance as there is at this moment between the Fellows of Balliol or
Trinity, and the poor brethren of the Charterhouse, or the bedesmen in
the cathedrals of the old foundation.

In the first half of the 13th century English monarchism was at its
best; the 12th century was emphatically the reformation age of British
monarchism. All the many schemes for starting new orders with improved
_Rules_, and all the efforts to improve the discipline of the religious
houses and fan the fire of devotion among their members, assumed that
the monasteries were then living institutions with vast powers for good;
and institutions which needed only to be reformed to make them all that
the most earnest and ardent enthusiast claimed that they ought to be,
and might become. In the fifty years preceding the accession of King
John, more than 200 monasteries had been built and endowed--some of them
munificently endowed, and the only purely English order (that of St.
Gilbert of Sempringham) had been founded, and in little more than fifty
years could count no less than fourteen considerable houses. Englishmen
believed in the monastic system as they have never believed in anything
else since then; never have such prodigious sacrifices been made, never
has such lavish munificence been shown by the _upper classes_ as during
the century ending with the accession of Edward I. In the next hundred
years they were chiefly the townsmen and traders, not the landed
proprietors, who emptied their money-bags into the lap of the Begging
friars. Certainly the great religious houses at the end of the 13th
century had the entire confidence of the country, and it is impossible
to understand the long reign of Henry III. unless we are fully awake to
the fact that then, too, the monasteries were not only thriving and
powerful, but were institutions on whose help and power the people leant
with an assured confidence, because they were pre-eminently the people's
friends. But between the old foundations which had a history and the new
houses that were springing up in every shire, some feeling of jealousy
and soreness was sure to arise. The old abbeys, with a history that
looked back into a past all clouds and mist, but none the less glorious
for that, affected a supercilious tone towards the mushrooms that had of
late sprouted into vigorous life. A man need not be an old man who can
remember when the Eton and Winchester boys at the Universities affected
an air of contempt for all the 'modern' places of education, and
disdained to number such institutions as Cheltenham or Clifton among the
'public schools.' These were all very well in their way, but where were
their traditions? So with the older and grander Benedictine monasteries,
with charters from Saxon kings, let alone anything else. Glastonbury,
where men said two of the Apostles had built themselves a house of
prayer, and where St. Patrick and St. Dunstan lay entombed; Canterbury,
where Augustine, the English apostle, found a home; Malmesbury, where
St. Aldhelm preached to the barbarous people, and when they tired of his
sermon played to them upon his harp, and, anticipating Mr. Sankey, sang
David's Psalms to the crowds that moved by him as they passed over the
bridge of Avon. These venerable foundations, about whose origin a
glamour of mystery had gathered, whose history had become strangely
obscured by the body of myths that had grown up in the lapse of
centuries--which had survived pillage and anarchy, and all the horrors
of fire and sword, desolating, devastating--were there before men's
eyes, testifying to the amazing vitality which a millennium of strange
vicissitude had not only not destroyed, but not even impaired. Such a
mighty pile of buildings, as had risen up to heaven there in the old
Roman town of Verulam, appealed to the imagination of mankind--the very
materials of the massive tower, ruddy in the blaze of the noon-day, must
have been a wonder and astonishment to many an awe-struck pilgrim
perplexed at the first sight of Roman bricks burnt on the spot a
thousand years ago. There stood the mighty Roman rampart, vast,
enormous--the ground beneath his feet teeming with the tangible memories
of grisly conflict, or of an old civilization that had been blotted out
long ago--the swords of Roman legionaries, the bones of British heroes,
coins with legends that few could read turned up by the ploughman's
share. Yonder, men said, away there at Redburn, the heathen pursuers had
come upon England's proto-martyr and slain the saint of God, whose bones
since then had been gathered up, and were now resting in their sumptuous
shrine. When the Norman came, and the new order was set up in the
land--not a day before it was needed--the thirteenth Abbot of St.
Alban's was of the blood royal, and heir, they said, to Cnut, the Danish
king, who had passed away. It was to him that the awful Conqueror made
oath he would bind himself by the Confessor's laws, an oath which, if he
ever meant to keep, he meant to interpret according to his mood. Even
the very laxity and shortcomings of the abbots of generations back,
which tradition, and something more to be trusted than tradition,
declared to have been matters of scandal, proved no more than that the
great Abbey could live through evil times, outride the storms which
would wreck weaker vessels, and right itself, though overloaded with
abuses which timid pilots would have shrunk from throwing overboard: and
now that 400 years had passed since Offa, the Saxon king--(stirred
thereto by Karl, the Emperor)--had founded the monastery in St. Alban's
honour, and from generation to generation vast building operations had
been going on almost without interruption, and the old Abbey still held
up its head proudly, its Abbot taking precedence of every other in the
land; any man might be excused for thinking that to become a monk of St.
Alban's Abbey was to become a personage of no small consideration.

Verily it was a great abbey in the days of King John. There, in the
eighth year of that King's reign, was held that memorable council
which, if it had been let alone, would doubtless have issued its protest
against the intolerable aggression of the Pope and his _curia_. There,
six years afterwards, another assembly was convened; the first occasion
on which we find any historical proof that representatives were summoned
to a national council in England. Eight times during his reign the
ruffian King was himself a guest at the Abbey. Once after John's death,
when Louis was desperately struggling to hold his own against young
Henry's friends and supporters, he too came to St. Alban's, and
threatened to give it over to fire and sword: only money saved it from a
sack. There was always something to take, and yet always wonderful state
kept up. The magnates in Church and State were for ever going in and
out; the mere domestic expenditure was enormous. Yet, even when the
country was groaning under horrible anarchy, and grinding taxation, and
war and poverty, the building went on as if men lived only to glorify
the great house, and to raise its church tower, or beautify the west
front, or fill the windows with stained glass, or erect the splendid
pulpit in the nave--a miracle of art.

It would be a very great mistake to conclude that all this lavish
expenditure implied the enjoyment of large rents from land. The revenue
derived from the tenants of the Abbey and the profits of farming were no
doubt considerable; but that revenue could never have sufficed alone to
defray the cost of keeping up the establishment. In point of fact, when
a monastery, great or small, depended wholly upon its landed property,
it invariably got into debt; sometimes it got hopelessly into debt. It
is clear that before the Dissolution a very large number of the
religious houses were insolvent. The striking paucity in the number of
'religious' at the time of the suppression--for hardly one house in ten
had its full complement of inmates--is by no means wholly to be
attributed to the reluctance on the part of people in general to take
upon themselves the monastic vows. Where a monastery was financially in
a critical condition, the brotherhood resorted to the expedient which is
at this moment being carried out at more than one College in Oxford and
Cambridge. Now, when times are bad, we temporarily suppress a
Fellowship; then, on the death of a brother of the house, they chose no
monk into his place.

The income from landed estates at St. Alban's was probably at no time
equal to what may be called the extraordinary income. The offerings at
the shrines of SS. Alban and Amphibalus, the proceeds of the offertory
at those magnificent and dramatic functions in which the multitude
delighted, and the _douceurs_ that were always expected and almost
always given in return for hospitality, which only in theory was
free,--these and many another source of profit, which the universal
habit of giving money for 'pious uses' supplied, all made up a sum
total, in comparison with which the proceeds of the rent-roll were
insignificant. In the taxation of Pope Nicholas (A. D. 1291) the whole
revenue of the Abbey from rent and dues in the liberty of St. Alban's is
set down at 392l. 8s. 3-1/4d., a sum which in those days would go as far
as 5000l. a-year now. Even granting that this was only half the net
income derivable from the Abbey's estates, which were widely
distributed, an expenditure of 10,000l. a year would go in our own time
a very little way towards meeting the charges which such an enormous
establishment involved. The mere keeping up the buildings at all times
entailed a very heavy annual outlay. Already in the 13th century the
precincts of the Abbey were overcrowded with palatial edifices, which
were never pulled down except to make room for larger ones. There were
acres of roofs within the Abbey walls.

And what return was being made to the nation, that every rank and every
class were keeping up a rivalry in munificence in favour of such an
institution as this? What had they done, what were they doing, these
seventy men, with their Abbot at their head, who were in the enjoyment
of an income larger than that of many a principality? How was it that no
one _in those days_ accused them of being indolent drones? Mere burdens
upon the earth, as they were called frequently enough, and loudly
enough, and angrily enough, three centuries later? It was the age for
the expansion of the monastic system--none then wished to sweep the
monks away. One of the reasons why the monasteries had retained their
hold upon the affection of the people, and were regarded with reverence
and pride and confidence, lay in this, that they had moved with the
times, and that the monasticism of the 13th was very different indeed
from the monasticism of the 9th century. The primitive asceticism had
almost vanished; it had not, however, died, leaving nothing in its
place. No one now expected to find the religious houses filled with
religious people, everyone holy, devout, and fervent; the personal
sanctity of the inmates was one thing, the sanctity of their churches
and shrines was quite another. In the old days the monks were separate
from the world, living to save their own souls at best; examples to such
as trembled at the wrath of God, and longed for the life to come. As
time went on they mixed more boldly with the sinful world, and gradually
they became more and more the illuminators of the darkness round them.
Now they were regarded as in great measure the salt of the earth, and if
that salt should lose its savour, where was such virtue elsewhere to be
found? Personally, the men might be worldly--vicious, as a rule, they
certainly were not--they were, _mutatis mutandis_, what in our time
would be called cultured gentlemen, courteous, highly educated and
refined, as compared with the great mass of their contemporaries; a
privileged class who were not abusing their privileges; a class from
whence all the art and letters and accomplishments of the time emanated,
allied in blood as much with the low as the high, the aristocracy of
intellect, and the pioneers of scientific and material progress. The
model farming of the 13th century would be regarded as barbaric by our
modern theorists; but such as it was, it was only to be met with on the
demesne lands of the larger monasteries, and was a prodigious advance
upon the _petite culture_ of the open fields. The Priory at Norwich made
an income out of its garden in the days of Edward III., and probably
much earlier; the pisciculture of the religious houses remains a mystery
as yet unsolved; the skill exhibited in the management of the
water-power of many a district round even the smaller houses, still
awakes wonder in those who think it worth their while to study it. At
St. Alban's, as at Glastonbury, St. Edmund's Abbey, and elsewhere, the
culture of the vine was made profitable for generations. The monasteries
were the first to give personal freedom to the villeins, and the first
to commute for money payments the vexatious _services_ which worried the
best men and maddened the worst. The landlords in the 13th century were
real _lords_ of the _land_. They were, as a class, very poor, spite of
the privileges they enjoyed and the power that they possessed of making
themselves disagreeable; and though the constitution of a _manor_ was a
limited monarchy, and the _limits_ were very many, yet the lord could
exercise a great deal of petty tyranny in his little kingdom if he were
so disposed. In the manors which were in the possession of the religious
houses the lord was necessarily non-resident, and the tenants were left
to manage their own affairs with very little interference. The tenants
of the monasteries were in a far more favoured condition than the
tenants of some small lord, needy and greedy, who extorted his dues
literally to the last farthing, and who knew exactly what the best beast
was, on the land that owed him a heriot; and, when the tenant was _in
extremis_, kept a sharp look-out that a fat bullock or a promising young
horse should not be driven off before the owner died.

So the monasteries at the time we are now concerned with were regarded
at once with pride and affection by the great bulk of the people; they
were places of refuge where, in a turbulent time, men and women who had
been stricken, bereaved or wronged, might find a quiet refuge and hide
their heads and be forgotten and fall asleep, with the prayers of other
sufferers to console and support them in their passage through the
valley of the shadow of death. The gentlest spirits here could taste the
bliss of a holy tranquillity; the ascetic could indulge his most
fantastic self-immolation; the morbid visionary could dream at his will
and give his imagination full play, none hindering him; evil demons
might chatter and gibe and twit him at his prayers; choirs of angels
might calm his despair with celestial lullabies; awful forms might rise
from clouds of incense as the gorgeous procession moved along the vast
church aisles, or stopped before some glittering shrine. What then? Who
would question the reality of a miracle, or doubt that sublime
revelations might be made to any holy monk as he wrestled in prayer with
a rapture of the soul, and found himself lifted to the seventh heaven in
ecstasy unutterable?

What has been said applies mainly to the older houses, those which were
under what may be called the _primitive_ Benedictine rule. If men were
moved to rigid asceticism, however, and had a taste for bald simplicity;
if art, and music, and ornate architecture, had no charm for them, and
they dreamt that God could only be sought and found in the wilderness,
the Cistercian houses offered such a congenial asylum. The Cistercians
were the Puritans of the monasteries, and appealed to that mysterious
sentiment which makes some minds shrink with fear from the touch of
luxury, and regard culture as antagonistic to personal holiness. The
sentiment was strong in the reign of Henry II., when nineteen Cistercian
houses were founded; but it is not improbable that other motives, beside
mere taste for a stricter discipline, led to the foundation of eight
more in the reign of King John. Meanwhile the Benedictines had become by
far the most learned and most _educating_ body in the land, and
pre-eminent above them all was the great Abbey of St. Alban's. If it was
not at this time the centre of intellectual life in England, it was
because at this time centralization was unknown. Eadmer, Florence of
Worcester, Gervase of Canterbury, William of Malmesbury, Simeon of
Durham, were all 12th-century Benedictines. They were all students and
writers of history, and history meant _literature_ till Peter Lombard
arose at the end of the 12th century and revolutionized the world of
thought--at any rate the domain of logic. John of Salisbury fiercely
assails the intellectual innovators of his time on the ground that the
new lights of the 12th century disdained to be students of history and
affected contempt for the past. It was the old story; literary culture
found itself in antagonism with scientific culture, and the vigorous
childhood of scientific research was aggressive, insolent, and noisily
insubordinate. The old seminaries, whose homes were in the Benedictine
monasteries, refused to welcome the new learning. Its teachers settled
themselves elsewhere; at Paris, on the other side of the water, they had
a hard fight of it. Once in 1209 the Synod of Paris actually prohibited
the reading of Aristotle's 'Metaphysics.' At Oxford they seem to have
met with a more generous reception. Perhaps it was because that
reception was too enthusiastic that King Stephen at the close of his
miserable reign expelled Vacarius, the first teacher of scientific law
in England. Whereupon young men of parts and ambition crossed the
Channel, seeking and finding at Pavia and Bologna what was not to be had
at home. The monastic schools held their own, and went on in the old
groove; the intellectual revolution which soon came about by the agency
of the Mendicant Orders was not yet dreamt of. St. Alban's, Malmesbury,
and other such mighty foundations, stuck to the old studies, just as
Eton and Winchester stuck to Latin Verse as the one thing needful, and
reluctantly gave into the newfangled notion of having a 'modern side.'

Outside the Abbey precincts, a hundred yards from the great gate, and
separated from it by the _Rome land_, which may possibly have served the
boys as a playground, stood the Grammar School. Whether it offered a
different training from that which was usually supplied to the scholars
who were under training in the cloister, it is difficult to say. Within
the precincts, when the 13th century began, there stood the great
church--enriched by the accumulated offerings of centuries, and glowing
with dazzling splendour of jewels and cloth of gold, and glass that
glorified the very sunshine, and wonders of sculpture and colour and
needlework filling the heart to overflowing with inexplicable hopes and
longings for an ideal that seemed possible of realization, if only the
Church in heaven should be as far removed above the actual of the Church
on earth, as the glories of the Church on earth were removed above the
squalid life of the common workday world. All this in witness that the
great Abbey was, first and foremost, a religious foundation, raised in
the first instance to the glory of God, and meant to help forward the
worship of God, and make the worship worthy of the Most High.

But besides being primarily and emphatically a religious foundation, the
Abbey in the 13th century had grown into something else, and had become
the home of a corporation of scholars and students, who were the leaders
of art and culture in an age when art and culture were to be met with
nowhere outside the walls of a great monastery. There, in what might be
called the museum of the Abbey, you might see no mean collection of
antique gems that had once been the pride of Roman magistrates.
Mysterious specimens of barbaric goldwork, fashioned by unknown
craftsmen for the necks of nameless chieftains who had drawn the sword
and perished, none knew when. Engraved gems that had been dug up in
mysterious sepulchres, about which even imagination despaired of telling
any story; relics of saints and martyrs, charters of Saxon kings,
granted centuries before the Normans came to ring out the old and ring
in the new. The wealth of mere archæological specimens at St. Alban's
made it such a museum of antiquities as provokes wonder and bitterness,
as we read the catalogue of what was once there, and has perished
utterly and for ever.[3]

The range of buildings to the south of the church covered a far larger
area than that which the church itself occupied. Uncertain though the
exact site may be and is, there had already been added in Brother
Matthew's time what we should now call an Art school, a Library, and,
almost more famous than all, the Scriptorium. By-and-bye, too, came the
printing-press which John Herford set up in 1480. Wynkyn de Worde was
sometime schoolmaster of Saint Alban's, and Lady Juliana Berners' famous
volume issued from the Abbey Press, while Caxton was still pursuing his
craft in the almonry of another monastery at Westminster.

In the days of King John, however, people had so little idea of the
possibility of the printing-press, that they were almost equally
ignorant of such a material as paper for literary purposes. Yet it is a
huge mistake which has not yet been exploded, as it ought to be, that
reading and writing were rare accomplishments in the 13th century.
Knowledge of a certain kind was disseminated far more effectively and
far more universally than is generally believed. The country parson was
expected to be the schoolmaster of his parish, and generally was so, and
there was hardly a village in England during the reign of Henry III, in
which there were not one or more persons who could write a _clerkly_
hand, draw up accounts in _Latin_, and keep the records of the various
petty courts and gatherings that were continually being held, sometimes
to the annoyance and grievous vexation of the rural population. The
professional _writers_ were so numerous, and their training so severe,
that they had got for themselves privileges of a very exceptional kind;
the _clerk_ took rank with the _clergyman_, and the _writer_ of a book
was almost as much esteemed as its _author_.

The scriptorium of a great monastery was at once the printing-press and
the publishing office. It was the place where books were written, and
whence they issued to the world. With the traditional exclusiveness of
the older monasteries there was less desire, no doubt, to diffuse and
disperse than to accumulate books, but the composing and the
multiplication of books was always going on. The scriptorium was a great
writing school too, and the rules of the art of writing which were laid
down there were so rigidly and severely adhered to, that to this day it
is difficult to decide at a glance whether a book was written in St.
Alban's or St. Edmund's Abbey. Sometimes as many as twenty writers were
employed at once, and besides these there were occasionally
supernumeraries, who were professional scribes, and who were paid for
their services; but nothing short of perfect penmanship, such trained
skill, for instance, as would now be required for an engraver, would
qualify a copyist to take part in the finished work, which the copying
of important books required.

One of the conclusions which Sir Thomas Hardy arrived at during the
course of his minute examination of Sir Frederick Madden's theory is so
curious, and opens out such an unexpected view of the way in which our
monasteries may have been brought under the influence of foreign
literature, that it is worth while in this connection to quote the great
critic's own words:

     'After minutely examining every page of the manuscripts in
     question, as well as others, which were undoubtedly written
     in the monastery of St. Alban's, and comparing them with
     others executed in various parts of England and on the
     Continent, I can come to no other conclusion than that
     during the latter half of the 13th century, and perhaps a
     little earlier, there prevailed among the scribes in the
     Scriptorium of St. Alban's, a peculiar character of writing
     which is not recognizable in any other religious house in
     England during that period; but which is traceable in some
     foreign manuscripts, and even in private deeds executed in
     England in the neighbourhood of St. Alban's during the 12th
     and 13th centuries. These facts lead me to the inference,
     that _the schoolmaster who taught the art of writing to
     Matthew Paris and the other members and scholars of the
     establishment at St. Alban's was a foreigner_; that his
     pupils not only imitated their instructor in the formation
     of his letters, but also in his exceptional orthography.'

What questions suggest themselves as we accept the conclusion arrived
at! Who was he, this 'foreigner,' who had come from across the sea to
bring in his outlandish novelties into the great scriptorium? Was he
some 'Frenchman' imported from sunny Champagne, where Thibaut, the
mawkish singer was making verses which his people loved to listen to?
Did he teach the young novices French as well as writing? Did he touch
the lute himself on Feast-days, and charm them with some new lyric of
Gasse Bruslé, or delight them with one of Rutebeuf's merry ditties?
France was all alive with song at this time, and princes were rivals now
for poetic fame. It may be that this 'foreigner' brought in a taste for
light literature as well as for a new fashion in penmanship, and made
known to his pupils such alluring novelties as the 'Roman d'Alexandre,
soon to be eclipsed by the 'Roman de la Rose.'

The scriptorium at St. Alban's was founded by Abbot Paul, a kinsman of
Archbishop Lanfrance, when the great Abbey had already existed for three
centuries. Paul became Abbot eleven years after the Conquest, and he
showed himself an able and earnest administrator. From this time
learning and a love of books became a tradition of the house. Abbot
after abbot continued to add to the collection of MSS., and to increase
the value of the library. But St. Alban's had never had a great
historian of its own. Strange and shameful fact! East and west and north
and south, all over the land, there were great writers holding up their
proud heads. Out in the desolate wilds there at Peterborough, they had
been actually keeping up a chronicle for centuries--aye, and written in
the vernacular too. The lonely monastery of Ely, among the swamps, had
its historian. Malmesbury boasted her learned William; and Worcester,
which St. Wulstan had raised from the dust, as it were, only the other
day, had already her Florence. In the great houses of the Northern
Province there had been no lack of writers to whom the past was an open
book. Even Westminster had long ago had her _chronographer_, and far
away in furthest Wales, Geoffrey, the Monmouth man, was making men open
their eyes very wide indeed with tales--idle tales they might be, but
they were well worth the reading--and there was talk too of another
young Welshman, Giraldus, who was on the way towards outdoing the other
by-and-bye. What are we coming to? Holy St. Alban, shalt thou and thy
house be put to shame?--that be far from us!

Thus it came to pass that about a century after the foundation of the
scriptorium, and when the library had grown to an imposing size, Abbot
Simon bestirred himself, and a new office was created in the Abbey, to
wit, that of Historiographer. In our time we should have given this
functionary a grander title, and called him Professor of History; but in
the 12th century, they called him what he was, a writer of history, and
from this time, in fact, the writing of history, after a certain
authorized method, began, and what had been called, and deserves to be
called, the St. Alban's School of History took its rise.

It is evident that before the 13th century had well begun, an historical
compendium of great value had already been drawn up, which must have
been compiled by careful students with a command of books such as during
this age was rare.

     'The compilation,' says Dr. Luard, 'whenever and by
     whomsoever it was written must be regarded as a very curious
     and remarkable one. The very large number of sources
     consulted, the miscellaneous character of many of the
     extracts, the mixture of history and legend, the giving
     fixed years to stories which even writers like Geoffrey of
     Monmouth had left undated, the care at one time and the
     carelessness at another, the slavishness with which one
     authority is followed, and the recklessness with which
     another is altered, the frequent confusion of dates, their
     ignorance and want of care, the blunders displayed in many
     instances from the compiler not understanding the author
     whom he is copying, as is especially the case in the
     extracts from the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle;" all these
     characteristics may well earn for the author the title that
     Lappenberg has given to him, though under the name of
     "Matthew of Westminster," namely, that of the "Verwirrer der
     Geschichte." At the same time there is no doubt that he had
     access to some materials which we no longer possess: and my
     object has been to trace all his statements, where possible,
     to their source, and to distinguish any additions that the
     compiler has made when they are merely rhetorical
     amplifications of his own, or when they are really from some
     source not now extant.'--Pref. to vol. i., p. xxxiii.

After all that can be said, the work surprises us by the erudition it
displays. Nor is that surprise lessened when we have gone through the
masterly analysis of its contents, which Dr. Luard has given us in the
Preface to his first vol. Such as it was, it became the great text-book
on which Roger of Wendover founded his own labours when he incorporated
it into the chronicle which he left behind him. Roger of Wendover did
good work, and laboriously epitomized, supplemented and improved, but he
was a mere literary monk after all; a student, a bookworm, simple,
conscientious, and truthful; a trustworthy reporter, 'a picker-up of
learning's crumbs,' a monkish historiographer, in short; but by no means
a historian of large views and of original mind. Roger of Wendover died
in 1236, and Matthew Paris succeeded to his office and work.

From what has been said, the reader may be presumed to have gained
something like an answer to our first question: _What_ was Brother
Matthew? Briefly, he was a representative monk of the most powerful
monastery in England during the 13th century, when that monastery was at
its best, and doing the work which in after times the Universities and
great schools of the country took out of the hands of the religious
houses; work, too, which since those days has been done by the
printing-press, and by many other institutions better fitted to deal
with the requirements of an immensely larger population, and to be the
instruments of diffusing culture and refinement through the nation after
it had outgrown the older machinery.

When we come to look into the personal history of Brother Matthew, the
details of his biography need not detain us long. Sir Henry Taylor's
famous line is only half true, after all;

    'The world knows nothing of its greatest men'

really means that the world knows less about them than it would like to
know. And yet the world knows almost as much about them as is good for
it. The leading facts of a man's career are all that concern most of
us--the main lines--not the details. Of Matthew Paris we know enough,
because he has himself given us so faithful a picture of his times, and
so charming an insight into the daily life which he led.

Unnecessary doubt has been suggested as to his parentage, and whether
his extraction was or was not from a stock that could boast of gentle
blood. For our part we incline strongly to the belief, that Brother
Matthew was called Paris because that was his name, and had been his
father's name before him. A family of that name held lands in
Bedfordshire in Henry III.'s time; others of the same stock were settled
in Lincolnshire earlier still; and the Cambridgeshire family (one of
whom was among the visitors of the monasteries under Henry VIII.)
boasted of a long line of ancestors, and retained their estates in the
Eastern Counties till late in the 17th century. Young Matthew probably
received his education in the school at St. Alban's, and soon showed a
decided taste for learning and the student's life, and that in the 13th
century meant an inclination for the life of the cloister. Many a
precocious lad is even now taught from his childhood to look forward to
the glories of a College Fellowship, and the career which such an
academic success may open to him; and in the 13th century a schoolboy's
ambition was directed to the goal of admission to a great
monastery--that step on the ladder which whosoever could reach, there
was no knowing how high he might climb--how high above the common sons
of earth or, if he preferred it, how high towards the heaven that is
above the earth.

Matthew was probably born about the year 1200, and in January 1217 he
became a monk at St. Alban's, _i. e._, he became a _novice_. At this
time a lad could commence his noviciate at 15; but the age was
subsequently advanced to 19, the younger limit having been found, as a
rule, too early even for the preliminary discipline required. On the day
after the lad was admitted, a frightful scene took place in the
monastery. A band of Fawkes de Breauté's cut-throats had stormed the
town of St. Alban's, burst into the Abbey, and slaughtered at the door
of the church one Robert Mai, a servant of the Abbot. William de
Trumpington was Abbot at this time, a vigorous and resolute personage,
who ruled the convent with a firm hand. Like all really able men, he was
ably seconded, for he knew how to choose his subordinates. At first the
monks had repented of their choice, and there were quarrels and
litigation and appeals to the Pope, and many serious 'unpleasantnesses;'
but as time went on, Abbot William had won the allegiance of all the
convent, and they were proud of him. He was a man of books, among his
other virtues, and had an eye for bookish men; and when he deposed Roger
de Wendover from being Prior of Belvoir with a somewhat high hand, and
brought him back to St. Alban's, he doubtless did so because he knew
that at Belvoir he was a square man in a round hole, while in the
scriptorium of the Abbey he would be in his right place. Certainly the
event proved that the Abbot was right, and it was to this judicious
removal of a student and man of letters to his proper home that we owe
so much of our knowledge of those interesting minutiæ of English history
which the writer has revealed. It was under the eye of Robert de
Wendover that Matthew Paris grew up, rendering him every year more and
more substantial assistance in the library and in the scriptorium.

But the young man was not only a bookworm and a copyist, he soon got to
be looked upon as a prodigy. He was a universal genius; he could do
whatever he set his hand to, and better than any one else. He could
draw, and paint, and illuminate, and work in metals. Some said he could
even construct maps; he was versed in everything, and noticed everything
from 'the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall;' he was
an expert in heraldry; he could tell you about whales, and camels, and
buffaloes, and elephants--he could even draw an elephant--illustrate his
history, in fact, with the elephant's portrait, the first elephant, he
says, that had ever been seen in our northern climes. It was centuries
before men had dreamt of what the science of geology would one day
reveal. Then, too, he had vast capacity for work, and was a courtly
person, and he had the gift of tongues, and had been a great traveller;
he had early been sent by the convent to study at the University of
Paris, and wherever he went, he was the man to make friends. When the
Benedictines in Norway had convinced themselves that there was sore need
of a reform of their rule and discipline, they applied to Pope Innocent
IV. to send them a Visitor furnished with the necessary authority for
carrying out so delicate and difficult a mission, and they made choice
of Matthew Paris as the fittest possible person for such a work.
Reluctantly Brother Matthew was compelled to undertake the task; he
started on his northern voyage in 1248, and was absent about a year. In
Norway he soon grew into high favour with King Hacon, who peradventure
would have kept him at his side if he could. This seems to have been the
most important episode in his otherwise uneventful life. But the
advantages and opportunities which were at the command of any ambitious
and studious young monk at St. Alban's were in themselves extraordinary.
We have said that building was always going on. It was going on on a
very large scale indeed in Abbot William's time. That means that there
were the plans and sections and working drawings to be copied for the
architect, and measurements and calculations by the thousand to be
made--_a school of architecture_, in short: and besides that, what Roger
de Wendover was in the scriptorium, that Walter of Colchester, _pictor
et sculptor incomparabilis_, was in the painting room. Walter was a
sculptor; indeed he wrought at his marvellous pulpit which the Abbot set
up in the middle of the church: and he carved the story of St. Alban
upon the great beam over the high altar, and did many another thing of
which we have only too brief descriptions. Then, too, there was Richard,
the monk who decorated the grand new guests' hall _deliciose_, as we are
told, and who painted pictures and carried out other works of
embellishment at a pace which none could have kept up, but that he had
his father to help him with his brush, and another artist, John of
Wallingford, to carry out his great designs, and many more skilled
limners whose names have gone down into silence.

When Abbot William's reign came to an end, the monks were unanimous in
choosing John of Hertford as his successor, and the new Abbot lost no
time in showing favour to Matthew Paris. Next year Roger de Wendover
died, and who could there be so worthy to succeed him as historiographer
as the versatile and accomplished brother, who by this time was the
boast of the great house? And historiographer accordingly Matthew
became--_mutatis mutandis_, a sort of 13th-century editor of the
'Times;' his business was to gather from all points of the compass, if
not the latest news, yet the best and most trustworthy reports upon
whatever was worth recording. He had his correspondents all over Europe,
and that he sifted the evidence as it came to him we know.

Wherever there was any great event that deserved a place in the Abbey
Chronicle, some splendid pageant to describe, some battle, or treaty, or
pestilence, or flood, or famine, straightway tidings came to the
vigilant historiographer; and there was a comparison of the evidence
brought in, and some testing of witnesses, and finally the narrative was
drawn up and incorporated into Matthew's history. Again and again it
happened that a great personage who, while himself _making_ history, was
anxious that his own part in a transaction should be represented
favourably, would try and get the right side of the famous chronicler,
and would furnish him with private information. Even the King himself
thought it no scorn to communicate facts and documents to Brother
Matthew. Once when Henry saw him in a crowd on a memorable occasion, he
picked him out, and bade him take his seat by his side, and see to it
that he made a true and faithful report of what was going on; and it is
evident that the royal favour which he enjoyed through life must have
extended to furnishing him with many a story and many a detail which
none but the King could have supplied. The minute account of the attempt
to assassinate Henry in 1238; the curious State paper giving a narrative
of the dispute between the King and his nobles in 1242; the strange
scene at the tomb of William Marshall in 1245, and scores of other
incidents in the career of Bishop Grossteste and Richard of Cornwall,
were evidently 'inspired,' and can only have come from eye-witnesses of
the events recorded. Nevertheless Matthew, though he was willing enough
to receive information, and to utilise facts and documents, was by no
means the man to reproduce them exactly in the form in which they came
to him. More than once he ventured to remonstrate with the King, and
very much oftener than once he expresses his opinion of him in no
measured terms. Some of the severest censures he had marked for
omission, and some expressions he modified considerably, for we have the
good fortune to possess his chronicle both in an earlier and in a later
form; but even though the fuller and more outspoken record had perished,
we should still have had enough proof to make it clear that we have in
Matthew Paris an instance of a born historian, one who never consented
to be a mere advocate, taking a side and seeing only half the truth of
anything; but a man gifted with the judicial faculty, that precious gift
without which a man may be anything you please--a rhetorician, a special
pleader, a picturesque writer, a laborious collector of facts; but an
historian never. And yet Matthew Paris was a magnificent hater, with a
fund of indignant scorn and righteous anger which never fails him upon
occasion. Friend of King and nobles as he was, he will not spare his
words of wrathful censure upon the tyrant, or upon any that he held
deserving of rebuke for cruelty, oppression and avarice. When he has to
lay the lash on such as had proved themselves enemies to his much-loved
Abbey, or who had wronged and defrauded it, he is well-nigh as fierce as
Dante. He singles them out--the doomed wretches--and holds them, as it
were, over the fire of hell before he drops them down into the burning
flame.

Did Ralph Cheinduit, that blustering, burly knight, cry aloud 'A fig for
St. Alban and his monks! Since they excommunicated me--look you! I have
only increased in girth, behold me fat and jolly, in faith almost too
big for my saddle. A fig for them all!' Did he say so, the impious
wretch? Be it known that from that very day Sir Knight began to shrink
and waste and pine, and if he had not repented and been absolved in
time, he had gone down to the bottomless pit with never a hope of
deliverance.

Did not Sir Adam Fitz William show the evil spirit that was in him when
he sided against us time and again? And now, look to his awful end!
Gorged with meat and drink one night, he sprawled upon his bed,
_indigestus_, as you may say, and he never woke more. Aye! and he died
intestate too. And as though that was not bad enough, his wife too died,
straightway, like another Sapphira slain by the shock of the tidings.
And then there was Alan de Beccles, too, always notorious for setting
himself against us and our house, he too perished as the other did, for
he loved choice dainties overmuch, and he dined late and he ate as none
should eat, and when he could eat no more, suddenly his speech failed
him and his veins burst, smitten with an apoplexy. And many another,
whom it would take too long to name, following his evil course, and
being prosecutors of Holy Alban's Church, perished for ever by God's
vengeance.

It is no longer the fashion now to denounce the Pope and his myrmidons,
but if the rage of Exeter Hall should ever recur, and the orators of the
old platform should revive a taste for anti-papal agitation, they might
find in Matthew Paris as rich a repertory of testimonials against Roman
aggression and greed as the most rabid Irish Protestant could desire. 'O
thou Pope,' he bursts out once, 'thou the father of all the fathers in
Christ, how it is that thou sufferest the realms of Christendom to be
fouled by such creatures as are thine?' The 'creatures' were the papal
legates and nuncios and all their belongings, who were plundering
England without shame. 'Harpies they were and blood-suckers,' says
Matthew, 'mere plunderers, skinning the sheep, not shearing them only.'
Then there were the King's Justiciars--'Justice'--nay, with that they
had nothing to do. Why tell of their unrighteous deeds? he asks. 'Better
forbear from vainly writing about the _wrongers_, and return to the
story of the wronged.'

Of course the friars come in for their share of strong words--chiefly
because the Pope made use of them so vilely, and not less because they
set themselves above their betters--us, to wit--monks of the old houses.

     'They started with such fair professions, they were going to
     be so very poor, and so very unworldly, and were going to
     supplement our work and interfere with nobody, and give us
     all a helping hand. Look at them now!' says Matthew; 'they
     march through the streets in pompous array with banners
     flaunting in the sun and waxen tapers, and rich burghers in
     holiday garments joining in the long train, and if they have
     no land they have money, good store, and as for their
     churches, they are eclipsing us all. Their invasion of our
     territory is a dreadful scandal, and they sneer at us and at
     all other religious men and women and they flout the parish
     priests and call them humdrums, and schism is at work
     horribly, and the people are running away from the old
     guides, and there is no end to them. Actually in the year of
     grace 1257,' he says, 'a new order of these fellows turned
     up in London. Friars of the sack, forsooth, because they
     were clothed in sackcloth! Of course they came armed with a
     papal licence as usual. What did these fellows come for? Was
     it to make confusion worse confounded? Alas! Alas! If we had
     only been as we were in the golden age, these friars would
     never have had a chance--not they! We too are not as the
     monks of old were; they lived the guileless life--austere,
     hard, self-denying, saintly! What are we in comparison with
     them?

     'Did not we find the bones of our brethren there, hard by
     the High Altar, when we were beautifying the same? O ye
     degenerate sons of this degenerate age! Two centuries ago
     and our monks were men of faith and prayer. In the year of
     grace one thousand two hundred and fifty-one, we found more
     than thirty of them buried together, and their bones were
     lying there, white and sweet, redolent with the odor of
     sanctity every one; each man had been buried as he died, in
     his monastic habit, and his shoes upon his feet too. Aye,
     and _such_ shoes--shoes made for wear and not for
     wantonness. The soles of these shoes were sound and strong,
     they might have served the purpose for poor men's naked feet
     even now, after centuries of lying in the grave. Blush ye!
     ye with your buckles, and your pointed toes and your fiddle
     faddle. These shoes upon the holy feet that we dug up were
     as round at the toe as at the heel, and the latchets were
     all of one piece with the uppers. No rosettes in those days,
     if you please! They fastened their shoes with a thong, and
     they wound that thong around their blessed ankles, and they
     cared not in those holy days whether their shoes were _a
     pair_. Left foot and right foot each was as the other: and
     we, when we gazed at the holy relics--we bowed our heads at
     the edifying sight, and we were dumbfounded, even to awe, as
     we swung our censers over the sacred graves of the ages
     past!'

The anecdotes and out-of-the-way pieces of information in the 'Chronica
Majora,' which may be said to represent the _paragraphs_ of modern
journalism, are countless. Brother Matthew enlivens his history with
these cross-lights at every page, and what gives to these scraps an
added charm is that Matthew himself seems to be always with us when he
prattles on. Not even Herodotus has succeeded more entirely in
impressing his quaint personality upon his narrative. It is always
something which he has seen, or heard from some living man who saw it
with his own eyes.

     'There was my friend John of Basingstoke, had studied at
     Paris, and a wonder of learning he was, but he told me
     himself that his best teacher by far was the young lady
     Constantina, daughter of an archbishop she. Archbishop of
     Athens, too--archbishops may marry out there! Before she was
     twenty she knew all that men may know; she was worth two
     universities of Paris any day; she foretold the coming of
     plagues and storms, and eclipses--and--more wonderful
     still--the coming of earthquakes too: and John of
     Basingstoke was her scholar, and whatever he knew that was
     deep and rare, he learnt it of the lady Constantina, the
     Archbishop's daughter.'

Matthew is very great when he has to tell of omens and portents:

     'We were scurvily treated by Pope Innocent III.,' he says,
     'in the days of Abbot John. Spite of all our privileges and
     indulgences, the Pope would have him come to Rome every
     third year; a sore burden and harm to us all. Forthwith evil
     omens came. Thrice in three years was our tower struck by
     lightning. After that wrong of his Holiness it was no wonder
     that the impression of the papal seal in wax, which we had
     taken good care to fix on the top of the steeple, availed
     not to keep off the thunderbolt--small good you see in that
     kind of thing.'

Besides the miscellaneous paragraphs, there are periodical reports of
the weather, and the storms, and the droughts, and the harvests.
Moreover, there are what answer to our police reports, and details of
criminal proceedings against Jew and Gentile, and births and deaths and
marriages, and now and then brief notes upon the state of the markets,
and sometimes hints and reflections upon the desirability of certain
reforms in Church and State; and all this not in the spirit of modern
journalism, which at its best too often bears the marks of haste, and
betrays the literary soldier of fortune paid for his work at so much a
column, but genuine, hearty, throbbing with a certain passionate loyalty
to a tradition, or an idea which you may say is exploded, grotesque, or
fanciful, but which in the 13th century honest men and devout ones lived
by and lived for, and were trying in their own way to carry out into
action.

But now that we have got this precious 'Chronicle,' not to mention other
works in the composition of which Brother Matthew had at least a large
share--though our space forbids us dwelling upon them or their contents,
and we must refer our readers to Dr. Luard's elaborate prefaces if they
would desire to know all about them--another question suggests itself,
which sooner or later will become a pressing question--What are we going
to do with such a national work of which this country has great reason
to be proud?

The days are gone by when a man was supposed to be educated in
proportion as he was familiar with the literature of Greece and Rome and
ignorant of everything else. Already at Oxford candidates for the
highest honours in the final schools think it no shame to read their
Plato or their Aristotle in English translations, and in half the time
that was needed under the old plan they get a mastery of their
Thucydides or Herodotus, devoting themselves to the subject-matter after
they have proved at 'Moderations' that they have a respectable
acquaintance with the language of the authors.

May the day be far off when Homer and Æschylus shall cease to be read in
the original! The great writers of Hellas and Italy were poets or
orators, great teachers or great thinkers; but they were something more.
They were perfect instrumentalities too. Their thoughts, their lessons,
their aspirations, their regrets, you may interpret and transfer into
the speech and the idioms of the moderns; but the music of their
language, the subtleties of melody and rhythm, and harmony and tone, can
no more be translated than a symphony for the strings can be adequately
represented upon the organ. You may persuade yourself that you have got
the substance; you have missed the perfection of the form. Yet who but a
narrow pedant will insist that the study of any literature, ancient or
modern, is valuable chiefly for familiarizing us with the language, not
for enriching our minds with the subject matter? Do we desire to
understand the past and so to be better able to estimate the importance
of great movements that are going on in the present or, by the help of
the experience of bygone ages, to forecast the future? Then it behoves
us to see that our induction shall be made from as wide a view as may
be, and to avail ourselves of any light that may be gained. But it is
mere waste of time to be for ever staring at the lamp which may be
pretty to look at in itself, but is then most precious when it serves as
a means to an end. If we are ever to construct a Science of History, the
old methods must give place to something which may approximate to
philosophic enquiry. When we come to think of it, how very small an area
of time or space is covered by the historians of Greece and Rome: how
small an area and how superficially dealt with! Even Thucydides hardly
ventures to lift the veil which separates the civilization of his own
age from that of an earlier period; he lifts it for a moment, then drops
the curtain and passes on. It is true indeed that Herodotus introduces
us to a world that is not Hellenic, and brings us into some sort of
relation with men whose habits and art and religion had a character of
their own; but then these nations were not as we, and not as men even of
our race could ever become. We never seem to be _in touch_ with Egypt or
Assyria, and when he prattles on about these nations it is less as a
historian than as an observant traveller that Herodotus delights and
allures. Xenophon's passing notices of the manners and education, of the
_feudalism_ and the social life of the Medes, are too brief to be
anything but tantalizing; but the neglect of Xenophon by professed
students is not creditable, however significant. Perhaps of all the
Greek writers Polybius was the man who had the truest conception of the
historian's vocation; perhaps, too, it was just because he was so much
before his age that his voluminous and ambitious work has come down to
us little more than a fragment. Because he was something better than a
compiler of annals, they who read history only to be amused found him
dull, and the moderns have not yet reversed the verdict which was passed
upon him. Who ever heard of a candidate for honours taking Polybius into
the schools?

It is from the Latin historians that we might have expected so much and
from whom we get so little. What do they tell us of ancient Spain--the
Spain that Sertorius pretended he was going to regenerate, and whose
civilization, literature, and national life he did so much to
extinguish? If it were not for what Aristotle has told us in the
_Politics_, what should we know of that mighty commercial Republic which
monopolized the carrying trade of the old world? It never seems to have
occurred to Livy that the political organization of Carthage could be
worth his notice. His business was to glorify Rome, and to tell how Rome
grew to greatness--grew by war and conquest and pillage, and the
ferocious might of her relentless soldiery. The 'Germania' of Tacitus
stands alone--unique in ancient literature; but what would we not give
for such a monograph upon the Britain which Cæsar attempted to conquer,
or the Gaul which he plundered and devastated? The great captain's
famous missive might be inscribed as the motto of his 'Commentaries.'
Veni! vidi! vici! sums up in brief the substance of what they contain.
It was always Rome's way! Rome swept a sponge that was soaked in blood
over all the past of the nations she subdued. She came to obliterate,
never to preserve. Her chroniclers disdained to ask how these or those
doughty antagonists had grown formidable, how their national life had
developed; whether their progress had been arrested by the conquerors or
whether they had become weak and enervated by social deterioration or
moral corruption. Enough that they were _Barbarians_.

The science of history can be but little advanced by writers such as
these, who pass from battlefield to battlefield--

    'Crimson-footed, like the stork,
    Through great ruts of slaughter,'

and to whom the silent growth of institutions and the evolution of
ethical sentiments and the development of the arts of peace were matters
which never presented themselves as worthy of their attention. You may
call this history if you will, in truth it is little better than
Empiricism. The world is a larger world than Rome or Athens dreamt of,
and students of history are beginning to realize that not quite the last
thing they have to do is 'to look at _home_.' Such a work as the
'Chronica Majora' of Matthew Paris is a national heritage which it is
shameful to allow much longer to be known only by the curious and
erudite. Now that there is no excuse for our neglect, is it too much to
hope that the day may not be far distant when the name of this great
Englishman may become as familiar to schoolboys as that of Sallust or
Livy, of Cornelius Nepos or Cæsar--his name as familiar, and his
writings better known and more loved?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lord Langdale resigned three weeks before his death.

[2] The proposal to print and publish the _Calendars_ had been approved
by authority of the new Record Commissioners as early as January 1840.
_See_ preface to Mr. Lemons' 'Calendar' (Domestic, 1547-1580), p. viii.

[3] In Luard's sixth volume there are two facsimiles of certain coloured
drawings of the more precious gems at St. Alban's, with careful
descriptions of them, these and the illustrations being most probably
_executed by Mathew Paris himself_.




Art. II. 1.--_The Christian Brothers, their Origin and Work, with a
sketch of the Life of their Founder, The Venerable Jean Baptiste de la
Salle._ By Mrs. R. F. Wilson, London, 1883.

2. _La Première Année d'Instruction Morale et Civique: notions de droit
et d'économie politique (Textes et Récits) pour répondre à la loi du 28
Mars 1882 sur l'enseignement primaire obligatoire: ouvrage accompagné de
Résumé, de Questionnaires, de Devoirs, et d'un Lexique des mots
difficiles._ Par Pierre Laloi. Quatorzième Edition. Paris, 1885.

3. _Report of the Committee of Council on Education_ (England and
Wales). 1884-85.

4. _Seventy-fourth Annual Report of the Incorporated National Society._
1885.


Most travellers in France will have met occasionally in Paris and in the
provincial towns a school of boys walking two and two, and followed by a
serious-looking superintendent of very solemn deportment. The boys are
in no marked respect different from other boys, but they are orderly and
well conducted. They are probably on their way to a church; and if you
watch them, you will see them march in with much propriety. The
superintendent is evidently not an ordinary schoolmaster; you would
suppose that he is an ecclesiastic of some kind. He wears a loose black
cloak, a hat with a low crown and a portentous brim, and bands such as
were much worn by English clergymen till late years, and which, when
strongly developed, were supposed to indicate a sympathy with
Calvanistic theology. Nevertheless, the solemn-featured young man is not
an ecclesiastic, neither is he a Protestant minister. He is one of the
Frères Chrétiens, or Christian Brothers; and the boys whom he has under
his charge are pupils in one of the Écoles Chrétiennes, or Christian
Schools.

We will venture to assume, that some of our readers are not well
acquainted with the story and the principles of the remarkable
institution known as the Schools of the Christian Brothers, or with the
life of their remarkable founder. We propose in this article to supply
some information upon the subject, not only because we think that such
information will be interesting in itself, but also because we believe
that from the story of the work and principles of the French schools of
the Christian Brothers, we may proceed without difficulty, and almost by
necessary consequence, to some useful considerations with respect to
English schools as now established and conducted amongst ourselves.

Jean Baptiste de la Salle was born in Rheims, April 30, 1651. The house
in which he was born is still standing, and is regarded with reverence.
He came of a noble family, which was originally of Bearn. His
grandfather settled at Rheims, of which he became an honoured citizen,
but was apparently in no way himself remarkable. His second son, Louis,
was the father of a child, who received the name of Jean Baptiste on the
same day as that upon which he was born.

This child, whose career we purpose briefly to follow as that of the
founder of the Christian Brothers, exhibited early signs of a devotional
spirit; he learned to recite the Breviary from his grandfather, and
continued to do so even before being bound to the practice by his
ordination vows; and he soon made it clear to himself and to others that
his vocation was that of the priestly office. His conduct as a student
in the University of Rheims, which he entered at eight years old, was
marked by diligence in study and gentle docility.

Before he had reached the age of sixteen he was made a canon of the
cathedral; such were the strange ecclesiastical possibilities of those
times. An aged relative resigned in his favour, and died the following
year. The preferment, however, did not spoil him; he looked upon it as a
call to duty. He was diligent in attendance upon the offices of the
Church, diligent in private prayer, diligent in study--in every way a
remarkable boy-canon!

In October 1670 he entered the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, where,
amongst other fellow-students, was Fénelon, subsequently the great
Archbishop of Cambrai. Little is recorded of his seminary life, except
that it was gentle, modest, blameless. In 1672 he lost his father, and
in the same year returned to Rheims to take charge of his younger
brothers and sisters. The responsible position in which he was thus
placed seems to have shaken for a time his persuasion that he had a true
vocation for the priesthood; but after consultation with a friend who
knew him well, his doubts vanished, and on the eve of Trinity Sunday in
this same year he was admitted to the subdiaconate.

Then follow six years of quiet home work and retirement. During this
time he attended the theological course of the University, provided for
the education of his brothers and sisters, and gave himself very
earnestly to prayer and good works. In the year 1678, on Easter Eve, he
was ordained Priest.

During all this time De la Salle's attention does not seem to have been
turned to that which ultimately became the great work of his life. As
not unfrequently happens, the real bent was given to his energies by
what might be described as accidental circumstances. The friend whom he
consulted when in doubt concerning holy orders was one Canon Roland.
This good man had interested himself much about an orphanage for girls
at Rheims, which had fallen under bad management, and urgently needed
reform. Canon Roland was taken ill just before De la Salle's ordination,
and, dying not long after, left the young priest his executor,
commending to his special care the orphanage just mentioned. De la Salle
could not refuse the charge; it was not much to his taste, but it was
the bequest of his friend; it was the leading of God; and he girded
himself to the task. He applied through the Archbishop to the King for
letters patent recognizing the institution, and thus put it upon a
lasting foundation; he bore the expense of the whole transaction; then
he supplemented the funds out of his own means; and having thus
satisfied his obligations to his deceased friend, he returned to his
quiet devotional life. The thought that this orphanage for girls would
constitute a valuable training school for schoolmistresses seems already
to have crossed his mind.

Now comes the turning-point of De la Salle's life, and it comes in a
curious way. There was a certain rich, fashionable, and extravagant
married lady living in Rouen, who, like the rich man in the parable, was
clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day, while Lazarus lay
at the gate. One day a poor beggar, who had been harshly repulsed from
the door, touched the heart of a servant by his manifest misery, and was
received into the stables, where he died the same night. The dead man
must needs be buried; so the servant went to the mistress, confessed his
fault, received some violent language and notice of dismissal, but at
the same time procured a sheet to serve as a shroud for the corpse. At
dinner-time the lady perceived the very sheet, which she had given for
the burial, folded up and lying in her own chair; some mysterious hand
had brought back the ungracious present, as though the deceased beggar
would not receive a favour in death from one who had been so cruel to
him in life.

This strange and apparently not very important occurrence changed the
whole course of the lady's life. She gave up all her old habits of
magnificence and extravagance, lived the life of a devotee, and soon
succeeded in separating from herself all her old companions and friends,
who, in fact, deemed her mad. After her husband's death she became still
more strict in her habits, and devoted to the service of the poor a
large part of her fortune.

Amongst other charities which she assisted was the female orphanage, of
which we have already spoken as having been cared for by Canon Roland,
and after his death by M. de la Salle. She conceived the idea of
establishing something of the same kind for boys in her native town of
Rheims, and she consulted Canon Roland on the subject. Ultimately she
engaged a devout layman, named Adrien Nyel, who had experience of poor
schools in Rouen, promised him maintenance for himself and a young
assistant, gave him a letter of introduction to her relative M. de la
Salle, and sent him to Rheims to open a school there for poor boys.

This school, which was commenced in 1679, was the germ of the great
system of _Écoles Chrétiennes_. Its success led a pious lady in Rheims
to wish to establish another of the same kind in a different part of the
town. She consulted M. de la Salle, who had become patron of the first
school, on the subject; and thus he became, without any special wish or
intention of his own, drawn into the work of the education of poor boys.
His own account of the matter is worth quoting:--

     'It was,' he wrote, 'by the chance meeting with M. Nyel, and
     by hearing of the proposal made by that lady [to whom
     reference has been made], that I was led to begin to
     interest myself about boys' schools. I had no thought of it
     before. It was not that the subject had not been suggested
     to me. Many of M. Roland's friends had tried to interest me
     about it, but it took no hold of my mind, and I had not the
     least intention of occupying myself with it. If I had ever
     thought that the care which out of pure charity I was taking
     of schoolmasters would have brought me to feel it a duty to
     live with them, I should have given it up at once; for as I
     naturally felt myself very much above those whom I was
     obliged to employ as schoolmasters, especially at first, the
     bare idea of being obliged to live with such persons would
     have been insupportable to me. In fact, it was a great
     trouble to me when first I took them into my house, and the
     dislike of it lasted for two years. It was apparently for
     this reason that God, who orders all things with wisdom and
     gentleness, and who does not force the inclinations of men,
     when He willed to employ me entirely in the care of schools,
     wrought imperceptibly and during a long space of time, so
     that one engagement led to another in an unforeseen way.'

This passage somewhat anticipates events; but it is convenient for the
condensed character of this narrative that it should be so. We will
therefore briefly fill up the gap left by M. de la Salle's own statement
by saying, that he found the work of directing schools for the poor
increase upon his hands in a wonderful manner. The success of those
which he visited and superintended led to the establishment of others.
Soon the masters themselves formed a small body which required
superintendence and guidance. He took a house in which he placed them;
the home of course needed rules for its orderly and efficient working;
these M. de la Salle supplied. But still all was not quite as it should
be. Cathedral duties took up much of the Canon's time; these duties were
of primary obligation, and left comparatively little of the day to be
given to the superintendence of schoolmasters. But more than this, the
difference of station and comfort and habits between a well-endowed
Canon of a Cathedral, enjoying in addition a private fortune of his own,
and poor schoolmasters taken from the humblest ranks, and living in the
most humble manner, was quite immeasurable. It was comparatively easy to
have the whole company to dine with him, and so to meet them half way
down the social hill; but this was not enough. M. de la Salle began
gradually to realize the fact, that his great undertaking of supplying
schools and schoolmasters for the gratuitous education of the poor,
could only be crowned with complete success on the condition of his own
adoption of poverty in all its thoroughness. Accordingly he determined
to resign his canonry and spend his fortune upon the poor. Not
altogether so easy a thing as might at first sight appear. Great
opposition was made by his friends: the Archbishop was unwilling to
accept his resignation: nothing but persevering determination on the
part of De la Salle could have carried the business through; but he was
full of perseverance and full of determination, and in 1683 he at last
succeeded in divesting himself of his Cathedral preferment. The sale of
his property, and spending the money upon the poor, was an easier
matter, especially as the year 1684 was one of dearth; in the course of
that year and the following he managed to get rid of all.

This parting with his money, instead of spending it upon his great work,
may well seem to be a conduct of doubtful wisdom; especially as at a
later period much difficulty was encountered for want of funds. But it
is hard, and perhaps not justifiable, to find fault with a man, who
adopts the course of selling all that he has and giving to the poor,
after using devoutly such a prayer as the following:--

     'My God, I do not know whether to endow or not. It is not
     for me to found communities, or to know how they should be
     founded. It, is for Thee, Oh my God. Thou knowest how, and
     canst do it in the way which is pleasing to Thee. If Thou
     foundest them, they will be well founded. If Thou foundest
     them not, they will be without foundation. I beseech Thee,
     my God, make me know Thy will.'

Soon after the last livre was spent, De la Salle had occasion to make a
journey in connection with his work. He went on foot, as needs he must,
and begged his way. An old woman gave him a piece of black bread; he ate
it with joy, feeling that now he was indeed a poor man. He had at this
time reached the age of thirty-three years.

Behold the Society of the Christian Brothers, and the Christian Schools,
taking form at last with De la Salle at the head! Let us examine that
work and see how matters stand.

In the first place, so far as the founder was himself concerned, his
life was one of asceticism, but still more of prayer:--

     'He prayed by day and by night--his life was one incessant
     communion with God. He would fain have avoided even the
     interruption caused by sleep, and he grudged every moment
     given to it, because it shortened his time of prayer. He
     slept on the ground, or sometimes in his chair, and was the
     first to rise at the sound of the morning bell. While at
     Rheims he regularly spent Friday night in the Church of
     Saint Rémi; he made the sacristan lock him in, and there
     poured out his soul in prayer for help, and guidance, and
     success in his work.'

The Superior and the Brothers of course lived a common life. The great
principle of bringing himself exactly to the level of those who worked
under him, which had led to his resignation of his stall and the sale of
his property, made it quite certain that he would not call upon the
Brothers to do or to bear anything which he was not willing to do and to
bear himself. But the burden was heavier to him than to them. They were
poor men originally, accustomed to hard work and rough fare; while he
had been brought up in ease and plenty, and had never known what want
and poverty were. Consequently it cost De la Salle much effort and
self-denial to enter upon his new life; but he was satisfied with no
half measures; the sacrifice was to be absolute and complete; he fought
the battle and gained it,--yet not he, but the grace of God that was in
him. At the first starting of the Society there was no distinct rule,
but the following arrangements were made:--

The food was to be substantial but frugal, fit for labourers engaged in
hard toil; nothing costly, nothing but what was necessary; on the other
hand no special rigour of abstinence, beyond that demanded of other
Christians.

For dress was adopted a capote, such as was common in the country, made
of coarse material, and black; together with a black cassock, thick
shoes, and a broad-brimmed hat.

For a name they chose that of 'Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes,' or, as
commonly abbreviated, 'Frères Chrétiens.'

With regard to vows, De la Salle decided that they should take the
three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, but for three years
only. They might make them perpetual the following year.

As to the Superior himself, he had little difficulty with regard to the
first two points, for his only possessions were a New Testament, a copy
of the 'Initiation,' a Crucifix and a Rosary; and to celibacy he was
already committed. With regard to obedience, the fulfilment of the vow
was not easy to a man in his position; but he endeavoured to find a way
to make this vow also a practical one, by the method of resigning his
post and putting one of the Brothers in his place; this he ultimately
succeeded in doing, though only for a short time.

We must leave to the reader's imagination the manner in which the work
grew under such remarkable auspices, the growth of M. de la Salle's
reputation as a saint, and the constantly increasing load of
responsibilities of all kinds which rested upon his shoulders.

In the year 1688 the work extended to Paris. When De la Salle arrived
there he left behind him in Rheims a principal house containing sixteen
Brothers, and a training college for country schoolmasters, containing
thirty men, besides fifteen lads in their noviciate. For the purpose of
his work in Paris he hired a house in the village of Vaugirard; this he
occupied for seven years, collecting the Brothers about him in their
vacations, and making it a home for the sick and weary, and a place
where postulants might make proof of their profession. We shall not
follow his footsteps during this time, except to say that the work
flourished wonderfully well under his hand, as it always did,
notwithstanding all kinds of difficulties. We may produce, however, a
striking document of self-dedication which belongs to this period. The
Brothers seem to have been strongly moved by the desire of making their
vows perpetual, instead of only for three years; the Superior opposed
the innovation, but finding them resolute, he at length gave way, and
commenced the new system by a formal dedication of himself, expressed in
the following remarkable words:--

     'Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, prostrate in
     deepest reverence before Thine infinite and adorable
     Majesty, I consecrate myself wholly to Thee, to seek Thy
     glory in all ways possible to me, or to which Thou shalt
     call me. And to this end I, Jean Baptiste de la Salle,
     Priest, promise and vow to unite myself to, and abide in
     society with, the Brothers [here follow twelve names], and
     in union and association with them to hold free schools in
     any place whatsoever (even though, in order to do so, I
     should have to beg for alms, and live on dry bread), or to
     do in the said Society any work which may be appointed for
     me, whether by the Community or by the Superior who shall
     have the direction of it. For which reason I promise and vow
     obedience as well to the Society itself as to the Superior
     of it. And these vows of association with, and steadfastness
     in, the said Community, and of obedience, I promise to keep
     inviolable during my whole life; in witness whereof I have
     signed. Done at Vaugirard, this sixth day of June, being the
     Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, in the year 1694.

    '(Signed) DE LA SALLE.'

Having taken this step, De la Salle made a great effort to divest
himself of his post as Superior, but in vain. He argued, but the
Brothers were not convinced. He insisted upon an election, and every
single vote was given for him. He begged for a second voting, but the
result was the same. The Brothers said it would be time enough for them
to elect his successor, when death had deprived them of him. So in his
post of Superior he remained; and doubtless the Brothers were right, and
he was wrong, as to the point in dispute between them.

Let us now look for a moment at the rule of the Christian Brothers in
the complete form which it ultimately assumed.

The first article sets forth the purpose of the Society as follows:--

     'The Institute of the Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes is a
     Society, the profession of whose members is to hold schools
     gratuitously. The object of this Institute is to give a
     Christian education to children, and it is for this purpose
     that schools are held, in order that the masters, who have
     charge of the children from morning to night, may bring them
     up to lead good lives, by instructing them in the mysteries
     of our Holy Religion and filling their minds with Christian
     maxims, while they give them such an education as is fitting
     for them.'

Thus the schools were to be free, and they were to be essentially and
fundamentally Christian; but there was no intention of making them
exclusively religious and banishing secular studies. On the other hand,
the greater part of the time given to the children was devoted, as in
reason it must be, to secular teaching; and only a small portion
retained for teaching of a more solemn kind. No doubt De la Salle
depended for the religious results of schooling more upon the men who
taught and the general atmosphere of his schools, than upon amount of
religious lessons actually taught and learnt: this is indicated by the
following article of the Rule:--

     'The Brothers of the Society will have a very deep reverence
     for the Holy Scriptures, and in token of it they will always
     carry about them a copy of the New Testament, and will pass
     no day without reading a portion of it, in faith, respect,
     and veneration for the Divine Words which it contains. They
     will look upon it as their prime and principal Rule.'

Again:--

     'The spirit of the Institute consists in a burning zeal for
     the instruction of children, that they may be brought up in
     the fear and love of God, and led to preserve their
     innocence, where they have not already lost it; to keep them
     from sin, and to instil into their minds a great horror of
     evil, and of everything that might rob them of purity.'

The great purpose of De la Salle was to form men suitable for the work
of education as thus conceived; and one notable feature of his scheme
was that they should be laymen; even with regard to the Superior of the
Society, De la Salle, though himself a Priest, bound the Brethren down
to a pledge that they would not, when he was gone, elect a Priest into
his room. It is needless to say that he had no prejudice against the
priestly office as such; but he was genuinely persuaded that the work
which he wished to have done could best be performed by laymen; partly
because they could give themselves up to it more completely, partly
because they could be had more cheaply, and partly because poor men such
as he enlisted, and intended to enlist, were more thoroughly on a level
with the poor, whose children he desired to educate. It was in the same
spirit that he forbade to the Brothers the knowledge of Latin.

There are five vows in the Society. Brothers who have not attained the
age of twenty-five years can take them for only three years. No one may
take them even for three years, until he has been at least two years in
the Society, and has had one year's experience of the Noviciate, and one
year's teaching in the schools. The vows are as follows:--

    1. Poverty.
    2. Chastity.
    3. Obedience.
    4. Steadfastness.
    5. Giving gratuitous instruction to children.

By this last vow they also bind themselves to take all possible pains to
teach them well and to bring them up Christianly; and they promise
neither to ask nor to accept, from the scholars, or from their parents,
anything, be it what it may, either as a gift, or in any other form of
remuneration whatsoever.

The rule of daily life is given by the following table:--

     4.30 A.M. Hour of rising.

     5. Prayer and meditation.

     6. Attend Mass, reading, &c.

     7.15. Breakfast; prayer and preparation for school.

     8 till 11. School, and children taken to Church.

     11.30. Particular examination of conscience; dinner and
     recreation.

     1 P.M. Prayer in oratory, and depart to various schools.

     1.30 till 5. School; half an-hour given to catechism.

     5.30. Spiritual reading and mental prayer. The reading
     begins with a portion of the New Testament, read upon the
     knees.

     6. Mental prayer, and confession of faults one to another.

     6.30. Supper; reading at all meals; recreation.

     8. Study of catechism.

     8.30. Prayers in oratory.

     9. Retire to dormitory; in bed by 9.15.

So much for the Rule of the Christian Brothers. It is sufficiently
strict; but, as before remarked, not intensified by any special
austerities. The general order prescribed is, however, strengthened by
injunctions against unnecessary communications with persons outside the
Brotherhood, unnecessary possessions, unnecessary exercise of the will:
the devotion to the rule is absolute, the poverty complete, the
submission of the will unbounded. Very wonderful all this, but quite
true.

In connection with the rule, it may be well to say a few words
concerning the manuals which De la Salle composed for the guidance of
the Brothers. The principal was a book entitled, 'Conduite à l'usage des
Écoles Chrétiennes;' this was circulated in manuscript, and a copy given
to each Brother in charge of a school, but was not printed during the
author's lifetime. He revised it in 1717, when he had retired from his
post as Superior, and it was printed in 1720, a year after his death. It
has been the guide of the Brothers ever since, and is read through twice
a year in every one of their houses. The book shows great insight and
good sense. Here is an instruction for a lesson in arithemetic:--

     'After the children have done their sums on the paper,
     instead of correcting them himself the master will make the
     children find out their mistakes for themselves, by rational
     explanation of the processes. He will ask them, for
     instance, why in addition of money they begin with the
     lowest coin, and other questions of the same sort, so as to
     make sure that they have an intelligent understanding of
     what they do.'

When the subject is religious teaching, the tone of the book rises to
the occasion:--

     'The masters will take such great care in the instruction of
     all their scholars, that not one shall be left in ignorance,
     at least of the things which a Christian ought to believe
     and do. And to the end they may not neglect a thing of such
     great importance, they will often meditate earnestly on the
     account which they will have to give to God, and that they
     will be guilty in his sight of the ignorance of the children
     who shall have been under their care, and also of the sins
     into which their ignorance may have caused them to fall.'

The faults which De la Salle regards as worthy of being treated with
most severity are these: untruthfulness, quarrelling, theft, impurity,
misbehaviour in church. It is notable that idleness and inattention to
lessons, sauciness, and other boyish faults, which have brought much
trouble upon many thousands of urchins, are not here enumerated at all;
probably the wise Superior of the Christian Brothers thought that these
and the like infirmities could be more successfully treated by other
means than by severe punishment. We incline to believe that he was
right. Certainly we shall have no difficulty in assenting to the wisdom
of the rules laid down as to the conditions of punishment being useful:
it must be (1) disinterested, that is, free from all feeling of revenge;
(2) charitable, that is, inflicted from a real love to the child; (3)
just; (4) proportioned to the fault; (5) moderate; (6) free from anger;
(7) prudent; (8) voluntary on the part of the scholar, that is,
understood and accepted by him; (9) received with respectful submission;
(10) in silence on both sides.

These samples must suffice to indicate M. de la Salle's practical and
simple wisdom.

The thought of all that we wish to say before concluding this article
compels us once more to appeal to the reader's imagination with regard
to the success of De la Salle's work. His fame went through France and
beyond it; he became the recognized apostle of elementary education;
when he made an expedition to Calais and the north in the latter part of
his career, it was almost a triumphal progress; nothing, however, could
spoil the sweet simplicity of his character, or interfere with his utter
devotion to his work, and his humble desire to shift the burden upon
what he believed to be stronger shoulders than his own. This desire was
at length accomplished, and on the 8th of May, 1717, after much earnest
consideration and religious observance, a second Superior of their
Society was unanimously elected by the Christian Brothers.

And now this remarkable man had nothing more to do in this world but to
await his call and to depart in peace. At the earnest entreaty of the
Brethren he took up his abode with them in their house at Rouen; and
there, in the midst of increasing infirmities, and in the exercise (so
far as was possible) of his priestly office, he tarried the Lord's
leisure. We give the closing scene in the words of the interesting
volume, the title of which heads this article, and from which we have
been drawing the materials of our sketch.

     'The Festival of St. Joseph, March 19, was approaching. He
     had always had a special veneration for that great Saint,
     whom he had chosen for patron of his Society, and he had a
     great wish to celebrate once more on that Festival. He could
     hardly have hoped to do so, for he had now for some time
     been quite unable to leave his bed; but in the evening of
     the 18th, about ten o'clock, his pain was unexpectedly
     relieved, and he was conscious of some return of strength.
     The night was quiet, and on the morning of the Festival he
     was able to crawl to the Altar, and to celebrate the Holy
     Mysteries in the presence of all the Brothers, who could
     scarcely believe their eyes. All that day he continued
     better, was able to converse with the Brothers, listened for
     the last time to their confidential talk, and gave them some
     last counsels. But the pain came on again, and he was
     obliged to go to bed.

     'The Curé of the parish, hearing that he was worse, hastened
     to visit him, and thinking from the bright cheerfulness of
     his face that the dying man was not aware of his own
     condition, said to him, "Do you know that you are dying, and
     must soon appear before the presence of God?" "I know it,"
     was the answer, "and I wait His commands; my lot is in His
     hands, His will be done." In truth, his soul dwelt
     continually in unbroken communion with God, and he only
     waited with longing for the moment when the last ties that
     bound him to earth should be severed. Several days passed
     thus. Feeling that he was getting worse, he asked for the
     Viaticum, and it was arranged that he should receive it on
     the following day, which was Wednesday in Holy Week. He
     spent the whole night in preparation, and his little cell
     was decorated as well as the poverty of the house allowed.
     When the time came, he insisted on being taken out of bed,
     and dressed, and placed in a chair, vested in a surplice and
     stole. At the sound of the bell announcing the approach of
     the Priest, he threw himself on his knees, and received his
     last Communion with the same wonderful devotion which had
     often formerly struck those who assisted at his Mass, only
     with even more of the fire of love in his face. It was the
     last gleam of a dying light, which was being extinguished on
     earth, to shine with undiminished brightness "as the stars
     for ever and ever."

     'The next day he received Extreme Unction. His mind was
     still quite clear, and the Superior asked him to give his
     blessing to the Brothers who were kneeling round him, as
     well as to all the rest of the Community. He raised his eyes
     to heaven, stretched out his hands, and said, "The Lord
     bless you all."

     'Later in the day he became unconscious, and the prayers for
     the dying were said; but again he revived. About midnight
     the death agony came on: it was the night of the Agony in
     Gethsemane. It lasted till after two: then there was another
     interval of comparative ease, and he was able to speak. The
     Superior asked him whether he accepted willingly all his
     sufferings. "Yes," he replied, "I adore in all things the
     dealings of God with me." These were his last words; at
     three o'clock the agony returned, but only for a short hour.
     At four o'clock in the morning of Good Friday, the 7th of
     April, 1719, he fell asleep.

     'As soon as the news of his death was spread abroad, the
     house was beset by crowds desiring to see him. All revered
     him as a Saint, and wanted to look once more on the
     venerable face, and to carry away something in remembrance
     of him. He had nothing belonging to him but a Crucifix, a
     New Testament, and a copy of the Imitation; but his poor
     garments were cut up, and distributed in little bits to
     satisfy the people.'

The Christian Brothers since the death of their great founder have
steadily continued their charitable self-denying work. They have
received much encouragement from high authorities in Church and State,
much also from the good opinion which their work has gained for them
wherever it has been known. Their history, however, records reverses:
the chief of them connected with the catastrophe of the great
Revolution. With regard to this, it might have been expected on general
grounds, that in a social upheaval, which was essentially a rising of
the poor and oppressed against the rich and the privileged, a society
which had poverty as its foundation principle, and the free education of
the children of the poor as its only reason of existence, must have been
spared by general consent in the midst of the social ruin by which so
much was overwhelmed. At first it seemed that this might have been so;
when the Religious Orders were suppressed by decree of the National
Assembly in 1790, exception was made in favour of those engaged in
public instruction and the care of the sick; but in 1792 all
corporations, specially including the Christian Brothers, were
abolished, on the ground that their existence was incompatible with the
conditions of a really free State. During the Reign of Terror the
Institute was broken up, the Brothers scattered, and many suffered.
There was a revival under Napoleon, which lasted till the Revolution of
1830. At this time the Institute was shaken, as was almost everything
else in France; but the recognized merits of the Christian Brothers
carried them safely through the storm, and one of the most telling and
triumphant facts in their history is the confidence reposed in them by
M. Guizot, when Minister of Public instruction under Louis Philippe.
More than once M. Guizot endeavoured, but in vain, to persuade the
Superior to accept the Cross of the Legion of Honour.

The work of the Christian Brothers in France at the present time is of
special value; but also carried on under much chilling discouragement. A
systematic attempt is being made to secularize education, and to drive
every indication of religious faith from the primary schools. It remains
to be seen what will be the result of the fanatical opposition to all
that is dear to the minds of many French men and almost all French
women, which is carried on so persistently by the Legislature and the
Government. Already there are signs of reaction; the result of the late
elections, which has substantially changed the proportion of parties in
the representative Chamber, is probably not a little connected with the
enforcement of an utterly godless education.[4] Meanwhile it would seem,
as a matter of fact, that the number of children under the teaching of
the Christian Brothers has increased instead of diminishing: there are
still some French people left who have not bowed the knee to Secularism,
and Materialism, and Atheism: even those who tremble at Priestcraft can
accept the ministration of the Christian Brothers, who cannot (as we
have seen) be Priests, according to their fundamental rule: and so,
although the secularist flood is just now frightfully high, there is a
gleam of hope to be found in the work of the Christian Schools, and the
light which shines in them and from them may serve as a witness for God
till the tyranny be overpast, and then may perhaps serve as a light at
which the torch of religious teaching will be lighted again once more.

We have placed at the head of this article the title of one of the
manuals in use in the primary schools of France. It is worth studying in
connection with the work of the Christian Brothers, and on other grounds
as well. The entire absence of all reference to God or to any kind of
religious knowledge or religious principle in connection with duty is
startling, and gives the book a complexion somewhat strange to an
English mind; and there are portions which can scarcely fail to strike
an Englishman as droll; but is full of French ingenuity. It contains a
vast amount of compressed information, and the dry instruction of the
text is enforced, or rather sweetened and made palatable, by a series of
stories in the form of a running commentary or collection of foot-notes,
in which the heroes of the stories illustrate the lessons which the
scholars have to learn.

We take two or three specimens from the manual, which we will present in
a free translation:--

     OUR DUTIES TOWARDS OURSELVES

     'As you grow older, you become more serious. Consider what
     your duties are.

     'You have duties towards yourselves, that is, towards your
     bodies and towards your souls.

     'Sound health must be taken care of; weak health must be
     strengthened by a good hygiene.

     'Hygiene demands cleanliness; wash your whole body carefully
     and frequently.

     'Keep nothing dirty upon you, nor in your house, nor near
     your house.

     'Hygiene demands good air: air your bed, your chamber, and
     all places in which you live and work.

     'Hygiene forbids all excess, and the use of injurious
     things, as alcohol and tobacco. It prescribes temperance and
     sobriety.

     'Hygiene requires you to avoid a sudden change from heat to
     cold. When you are in a perspiration, do not lie down upon
     the ground, do not expose yourself to draughts, and do not
     drink cold water.

     'Hygiene requires gymnastic exercises, which make the body
     supple, healthy, and strong.

     '_Attention to health gives a chance of long life._

     'In order to fulfil your duties towards your soul, you must
     continue to cultivate your intelligence and to educate
     yourself.

     'Do not forget that you can educate yourself at any age.

     'You must fight against sensuality, which would make you
     gluttons, drunkards, and debauchees; against idleness, which
     would make you useless to others and a burden to them;
     against selfishness and vanity, which would make others
     detest you; envy, which would render you unhappy and
     hateful; anger and hatred, which might lead you to all kinds
     of evil deeds.'

These lessons are enforced by an extract from the French Law, which
informs scholar that the persons found in a condition of manifest
intoxication in the street or a public-house are punished by a fine of
from 1 to 15 francs; that for a second offence the punishment is
imprisonment for three days; and that for a third breach of the law the
offender may be sentenced to imprisonment for from six days to a month,
and to a fine of from 16 to 300 francs. In addition to this, the
offenders will be declared incapable of exercising their political
rights for two years.

This is a very practical teaching; but the duties which little boys owe
to their bodies and souls are rendered more attractive, than either the
dicta concerning hygiene or the threatened results of evil ways are
likely to make them, by the history of a certain Dr. John Burnett, a
physician, who made an immense fortune in New York. This is found as a
_feuilleton_ at the foot of the page, under the title 'Un Bon
Charlatan.'

The pith of the teaching under the head of Morals, is contained in the
following summary:--

     '1. I will fulfil my duties towards myself. My duties
     towards my body are, cleanliness, sobriety, temperance,
     precaution against the inclemency of the seasons, exercise.

     '2. I will fulfil my duties towards my soul by continuing to
     educate myself, and by combating all bad passions.

     '3. I will not do to another that which I would not that he
     should do to me.

     '4. I will not do him wrong, either by striking him, or
     robbing him, or deceiving him, or lying to him, or by
     breaking my promise, or by speaking evil of him, or by
     calumniating him.

     '5. I will do to another that which I should wish him to do
     to me.

     '6. I will love him, I will be grateful, exact, discreet,
     charitable.'

Very good resolutions these, but one cannot avoid the thought that the
little scholar might estimate 3 and 5 not the less, perhaps the more, if
informed of the life and character of Him who first spoke these apparent
simple rules in such a manner as to impress them upon the heart of the
world. Would not all the resolutions gain strength from the belief that
duty towards God is the true spring of duty towards our neighbours and
ourselves, and that the grace of God is necessary to make the best
resolutions practically operative in the life?

We will now give our readers a specimen of the tales by which the
lessons of the manual are illustrated and enforced. It shall be taken
from the section entitled _Society_, the second subsection of which is
as follows:--

     'FREEDOM OF LABOUR.

     'In France; labour is free; every one employs, as he
     pleases, his intelligence and his arms.

     'You may choose any profession you please; but everybody
     else has the same right as yourself.

     'Competition is therefore permitted; never complain of
     competition.

     'If you hinder your neighbour from working as he pleases,
     you may yourself be hindered in like manner.

     'Competition excites the workman to do his best and at the
     cheapest rate.

     'Thus competition is advantageous to all. _Never ask Society
     to interfere with the freedom of labour, but work hard
     yourself._'

These wholesome lessons on competition are illustrated by the following
tale:--

     GREGORY'S VIEWS ON COMPETITION.

     'Our friend Gregory is a good husband; but he sometimes has
     little arguments with his wife.

     'The other day, Mrs. Gregory was angry, because she had
     found out that a shoemaker was going to establish himself in
     the village. "What do we want another shoemaker for," said
     she "when you and I are here already? The Government ought
     to prevent such things."

     'Gregory, who was at his work, lifted his head and said:
     "The Government ought to prevent women from talking
     nonsense. Suppose that I was the shoemaker who had just
     established himself in the village; what would you say if
     any one interfered with my carrying on my trade? You would
     not be very well pleased, I fancy."

     'He then explained to his wife the necessity of competition.

     '"There is plenty of work for everybody," said he. "If there
     had been already two or three shoemakers in the place, this
     new fellow would not have come to settle here. He would have
     seen that there was nothing for him to do. I am surprised
     that no competing shoemaker has come here before. You know
     very well that we have sometimes to refuse work, and that
     there are people in the village who have to go to the town
     to get their shoes. Beyond doubt the newcomer will take some
     of our custom; but it is our business to look after that. We
     must work better than we have done hitherto; and that's all
     about it."

     'Mrs. Gregory was not convinced, but she said nothing.

     '"You see," continued Gregory, "you must look a little
     beyond the end of your nose. You wish that there should be
     only one shoemaker in the place. The linendraper wishes that
     there should be only one linendraper; the grocer only one
     grocer; and so on through all the trades. Very well; don't
     you remember when we had only one linendraper how dear
     shirts used to be? And don't you remember some twenty years
     ago, when there was only one smith? You could never get hold
     of him; and when you did, his charges were tremendous. I
     recollect him putting a bell to our front door. When he gave
     me the bill, and I had seen the amount, I said to him, 'my
     good fellow, I didn't order a silver bell.' 'And I have not
     put up a silver bell,' was the reply. 'Oh! I thought from
     the price it must have been silver,' said I. This vexed him,
     and he answered, 'If you are not satisfied, go elsewhere.'
     That was well enough; he was the only smith in the
     neighbourhood. I could not send for a man from Pekin: he
     would have been sure to be lost on the road, and I should
     have been obliged to provide for his family."

     'Gregory made some other good remarks to show that if
     competition prevents a shopkeeper from selling his goods at
     a high price, it enables him to buy from others at a cheap
     rate. "So on the whole," concluded he, "do not let us fuss
     and make ourselves ill. I would much rather have some
     coffee, than be compelled to take medicine."'

Gregory must have had some of the saintly qualities of his great
namesakes to enable him to take so calm a view of the invasion of his
shoemaking monopoly. We trust that Mrs. Gregory was eventually convinced
by his wise and philosophical arguments, and still more, that the
generation of Frenchmen who enjoy such teaching from their early years
may emulate so bright an example.

We cannot refrain from making one more extract from our little manual.
The thirteenth section deals with 'The Rights and Duties of the Citizen'
and the third subsection treats as follows of:--

     'POLITICAL DUTIES.

     'The French people ought more than any other people, to
     respect the law made by its own deputies.

     'It ought without murmuring to pay the taxes voted by the
     Chambers, and to fulfil its military duties.

     'It ought to respect the authority of all the agents of the
     Government, from the lowest to the highest, from the _garde
     champêtre_ to the Ministers and the President of the
     Republic, for the agents of authority are the servants of
     the law, and all are chosen directly or indirectly, by the
     deputies of the people.

     '_The greater the rights of citizens, the greater their
     duties._

     'It used to be said, _Noblesse oblige_. This meant: a
     nobleman ought to behave himself better than another, to be
     worthy of his nobility.

     'It should now be said, _Liberté oblige_. This means that a
     free citizen ought to behave himself better than another, in
     order to be worthy of liberty.

     'You have the duty of putting your name upon the electoral
     roll at the Mairie of the Commune in which you reside.

     'You have the duty of voting, and you must vote according to
     your conscience.

     'You have not the right of being indifferent to public
     affairs, and of saying that they do not concern you.

     'You have an interest in securing to your Commune good
     Municipal Councillors, who will look well after the
     finances, will take care of the schools, and of the roads,
     and attend to all wants.

     'You have an interest in securing to your Department good
     General Councillors, who will do for the Department what the
     Municipal Councillors do for the Commune.

     'You have an interest in nominating good Deputies and good
     Senators, who may make useful and just laws, choose a
     President of the Republic worthy of that supreme honour, and
     keep the Government in good ways.

     'You ought to make a good choice, not merely for your own
     interest, but for the love of your country.

     '_Love those republican institutions which France has
     provided for herself._

     'Endeavour to make them loved, respecting the while your
     neighbour's opinions, and restraining yourself from all
     hatred and from all violence.

     'The future of the Republic depends upon each of you. If
     each of you does his duty, it will be strong: strong enough
     to make our lives happy, and to restore to us one day the
     brothers whom we have lost--the BROTHERS OF ALSACE AND
     LORRAINE.'

This is the conclusion of the manual. All works up to ALSACE AND
LORRAINE. (The capital letters are in the original.) Is it not
delightful? Is it not most truly French?

We should be sorry to see a parody or parallel to this French manual
introduced into our schools. At the same time we think there is
something to be learnt from studying it. Our neighbours seem to have in
some respect learnt better than ourselves the maxim of Horace:--

               'pueris dant crustula blandi
    Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima.'

The pages of our manual are full of literary _crustula_; and we imagine
that most boys would find themselves sufficiently amused to read and
study the book, whether they were desirous of profiting by the contents
or not. And after all it is a great thing to _get hold_ of a boy,
whether it be by the loving and evidently self-sacrificing efforts of
the Christian Brothers, or by the ingenious mental food provided by the
Minister of Public Instruction. Notwithstanding such ingenuity, we do
not, however, believe that the present system of French teaching can
answer: it is hollow and unsound: it ignores the deepest of motives, and
disregards the most potent of influences: it may breed a desire to fight
with Germany for the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine, but it can
scarcely produce the highest class of citizens and heroes, because it
does not acknowledge the fear of God as the beginning of wisdom, and the
love of God as the best foundation of the love of man. The principles of
duty inculcated in the manual from which we have been exhibiting a few
elegant extracts will never rear such a character as De la Salle, nor
supply the foundation of such an institution as that of the Christian
Brothers.

But we must come nearer home--

    'Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.'

We have not yet arrived in England at the complete secularization of our
elementary schools; but we are, in the opinion of some and in the wish
of others, within measurable distance of the Paradisiacal terminus of
secularism and secular reform; and therefore, with the thought of what
has been going on and is still going on in France, we may do well to
look for a few moments to our own country, and examine what has been
going on and is going on there.

Let us beware, however, of exaggeration or alarmism. We do not at all
desire to imply that there is anything approaching to parallelism in the
conditions and possibilities of the two countries. Had it been proposed
to do in England what has been done in France, the opposition would have
been indignant and overwhelming. There is no such desire for
emancipation from Priests and Priestcraft in England as has long existed
and still exists in France. To be sure we hear something on this side of
the Channel of sacerdotal pretensions and unwarrantable clerical claims;
but the men by whom the offence comes are few in number, and, at the
worst, they and their conduct are but as a drop in the great bucket of
the English Church and its influence upon the nation. In France matters
are painfully different. While the women are largely _dévotes_, the men
are very sparingly _dévots_. Unfortunately the admission of
superstitious practices, the practical hiding of Holy Scripture, the
adoption under the patronage of the Church of foolish tales of miracles,
and the absence of effectual protest against the unwarrantable
assumptions of the Vatican, have combined to offer to the intellect of
France an unnecessary obstacle, which in too many instances causes
shipwreck to faith; and so, while in England the men, who make the laws,
are, speaking broadly, Christian believers, in France the men, who
equally make the laws, are as broadly unbelievers. This difference is
not likely to disappear. France has reached a point at which the disease
of unbelief may be said to have become chronic; England, on the other
hand, although there have been of late, and are still, symptoms of
infidel proclivities, appears nevertheless, so far as her condition can
be tested to be sound at heart, and in some respects in a more healthy
state of religious conviction and activity than has been manifested
hitherto.

The question of the comparative conditions of France and England is one
with which we have no desire to enter at length; and indeed a native of
one of the countries is very unlikely to be in a condition to take a
quite just and fair view of the other. We only desire to guard ourselves
from appearing to assume the probability of the secularization of our
English schools on the ground of the step having been already taken in
France. And having premised this caution, we will ask our readers to
accompany us in the consideration of some details, suggested by the
Report of the National Society, and by that of the Committee of the
Privy Council on Education. Afterwards we will submit a few general
reflections, and so close our article.

It was feared by some and hoped by others fifteen years ago, when the
law of compulsory education and School Boards was enacted in this
country, that Voluntary Schools would undergo what was described at the
time as a 'process of painless extinction,' and that Board Schools would
reign supreme. These fears and hopes have been curiously falsified; the
Voluntary Schools have not been extinguished either painlessly or
otherwise; on the other hand, they have increased, both in work done and
in support given, to an extent which could never have been anticipated.
It will be observed that the question is not purely and simply between
Board and Voluntary Schools; it may be so in some parishes, where with
unanimity on the part of the parishioners, one Parish School can be made
to supply the wants of all; but generally the question is that of
supporting Voluntary Schools and paying towards Board Schools as well;
the support of one does not exclude the legal claim of the other, as it
has been frequently argued that it ought in equity to do; consequently
Voluntary Schools are heavily handicapped, and nothing but a deep sense
of the advantage of freedom in religious teaching, and an utter dread of
secularism, can account for the remarkable results exhibited by the
progress of Voluntary Schools under such manifest difficulties.

The following Tables are so exceedingly instructive, that we make no
apology for introducing them:--

_Accommodation._


Day Schools, Year ended August 31      1882.       1883.       1884.

Church                               2,385,374   2,413,676   2,454,788
British, &c.                           384,060     386,839     394,009
Wesleyan                               200,909     200,564     203,253
Roman Catholic                         269,231     272,760     284,514
Board                                1,298,746   1,396,604   1,490,174

                                     4,538,320   4,670,443   4,826,738

_Number on the Registers._

Day Schools, Year ended August 31.     1882.       1883.       1884.

Church                               2,133,978   2,134,719   2,121,728
British, &c.                           339,812     337,531     333,510
Wesleyan                               177,840     175,826     172,284
Roman Catholic                         232,620     226,567     226,082
Board                                1,305,362   1,398,661   1,483,717

                                     4,189,612   4,273,304   4,337,321

_Average Attendance._

Day Schools, Year ended August 31.     1882.       1883.       1884.

Church                               1,538,408   1,562,507   1,607,823
British, &c                            245,493     247,990     253,044
Wesleyan                               125,109     125,503     128,584
Roman Catholic                         160,910     162,310     167,841
Board                                  945,231   1,028,904   1,115,832

                                     3,015,151   3,127,214   3,273,124

_Voluntary Contributions._

Day Schools, Year ended      1882.           1883.           1884.
       August 31.

                           £. s. d.        £. s. d.        £. s. d.
Church                   581,179  5  3   577,313 16  5   585,071 11 10
British, &c               75,132 11  8    71,519  2  9    72,978 10  0
Wesleyan                  15,705  2  2    15,271 14  1    16,802  2  0
Roman Catholic            51,283 11  7    51,564 15  2    57,672  1  2
Board                      1,545  2  2     1,420  1  3     1,603  7 10

                         724,845 12 10   717,089  9  8   734,127 12 10

From these Tables it appears that in spite of the surrender of some
Church Schools to Boards, a process which is always to some extent going
on, and which causes an increase in the number of Board Schools beyond
that produced by actual building, the accommodation in Church Schools
rose in 1884 by 41,112, and the average attendance by 45,316. The Church
was also educating about half as many again as were being educated in
Board Schools, and the amount voluntarily contributed during the year
was more than 585,000l., in addition to a large sum expended on
buildings and improvements.

This does not look much like speedy extinction, and we sincerely trust
that that event is still far distant. It is not so much that we are
opposed to Board schools on principle, still less that we disapprove of
the national determination that every child shall be educated, which
logically leads to some national machinery involving the principle of
Board Schools in some form or other,--not so much this, as that we are
persuaded that the existence of Voluntary Schools is an unspeakable
benefit even to the Board Schools themselves. We hold that a definite
system of religious teaching, according to which the religious studies
of the school and the secular are co-ordinate and equally regarded, and
the religious atmosphere which such consideration implies, are of the
very essence of a rightly ordered school; the ideal may be reached in a
Voluntary School, it is impossible that it should be reached in a Board
School; nevertheless, there may be Board schools _and_ Board Schools; in
some there may be simple secularism, and in others there may be a good
religious spirit and fair religious teaching; and the degree in which
the average quality of Board Schools will approximate to the latter
limit rather than the former, will depend very much upon the standard
set up by the Voluntary Schools. A reference to the Report of the
Committee of Council on Education proves that Voluntary Schools are
worked more cheaply, and, so far as can be judged by the results of
examination, are secularly not less successful than schools upon the
Board system; and therefore even with reference to economy there is some
advantage in keeping the two classes of school going side by side. But
all questions of comparative economy, and of advantages arising from an
honourable competition, are as nothing compared with the reflected
influence in the direction of bringing up the average religious
character of Board Schools to the highest point which the shackles of
legislation allow.

In addition to the work of voluntary elementary schools, there are two
other departments in which voluntary efforts are doing much in support
of the religious and Christian character of English Education.

There are no less than thirty Training Colleges in connection with the
Church. The pupils trained in these Colleges are not in general bound by
any rule to accept posts only in Church schools; as a matter of fact,
many are drafted into Board Schools; but it is impossible to exaggerate
the importance to the subsequent influence for good, in a school of
whatever kind, of a thorough religious training in youth upon definite
religious principles. So far as an opinion can be formed, it would seem
that these Training Colleges must always rest upon a voluntary
foundation; it is difficult to conceive of their being carried on upon
State principles; you may make religious teaching optional in an
elementary day school, and the evil results may be not easily
perceptable; but when eighty or a hundred young men or young women are
brought together into one home, to lead a common family life with common
purposes and prospects, the religious equality principle breaks down;
you must have common religious teaching and common worship, and these
must be utterly vapid and miserable, unless there be a hearty agreement
upon the grounds and articles of faith, such as is only possible for
those who are of one Church, or at all events of one denomination.
Doubtless on this very account efforts have been made, and efforts will
be made, to break down the Church Training College system, or to erect
something on broader principles which shall gradually extinguish it; but
on all grounds we trust that these efforts may fail, and that at all
events no change may be introduced which shall be successful in
rendering impossible the carrying on of institutions, to which we are
convinced that the education of the poor children of England is indebted
more than to almost any other. We have but been working out under new
conditions the great problem which De la Salle perceived to lie at the
root of elementary education: the forming of the instrument wherewith to
do the work was, as he clearly perceived, the great thing to be
accomplished; and for that purpose personal influence was needed; it was
necessary to stir up in each young aspirant to the office of a teacher
something of the enthusiasm of teaching, to breed a high conception of
the value and responsibilities of the office, to make it felt that
self-denial and self-devotion were essential conditions of any lasting
success. English Training Colleges differ very widely from that
community which De la Salle established, and over which he presided; in
our opinion, they, at least their managers, might profit by studying his
work and emulating his spirit; but after all, they will still be widely
different, and any attempt at exact imitation amongst ourselves would
perhaps produce a parody rather than an adequate copy. Any one who can
remember the early work of Derwent Coleridge at St. Mark's, Chelsea, and
the vast change which was brought about in the training of the
schoolmaster, the estimate of his qualifications, and his general
status, by the admirable and laborious efforts of that good and able
man, will be conscious that a work has been done amongst us in these
latter days, upon which De la Salle himself would have looked with a
kindly smile of approval, though in some respects he might have
imagined, and perhaps with justice, that it was not so thorough as his
own.

The other department of voluntary action to which we proposed to refer,
is that which is known as Diocesan Inspection.

This system of inspection is carried on by Clergymen, who are appointed
with the approval and in connection with the Bishops, and whose stipends
are provided by voluntary contribution. The action is not uniform
throughout the Dioceses, but there is scarcely a Diocese in which the
work is not carried on with great energy. These Inspectors visit the
schools, in some Dioceses and Board Schools as well as those in
connection with the Church; they examine the children, confer with the
masters and mistresses, give advice and encouragement as may seem to be
necessary and fitting, and make a report upon the general condition of
the school with reference to religious knowledge. In most Dioceses there
is in addition some kind of prize scheme, by means of which children are
encouraged to give special attention to the religious side of their
education.

We think it worth while to call attention to this system of Diocesan
Inspection, because it is well that Englishmen, and especially English
Churchmen, should be awake to the religious needs of our times, and the
efforts which are being made to meet them. We are aware that all such
machinery as that which we have described must be ineffectual in
implanting in the minds of children that 'fear of the Lord,' which is
'the beginning of wisdom.' No system of inspection and examination, and
no careful grinding of certain lessons, whether they be taken from Holy
Scripture or from any other book, into the minds of little children, can
be a substitute for the true influence of heart upon heart; the teacher
who would generate religious life in the soul of a child must imitate
the Prophet, who put his mouth to the child's mouth, and his eyes upon
his eyes, and his hands upon his hands, and prayed that the child might
awake to new life; nevertheless on the supposition that no pains are
spared in obtaining suitable masters and mistresses, much may be done to
encourage them in their difficult work by making it manifest that the
heart of England and of England's Church is with them. And indeed it
_is_ a difficult work: the education of children will never be a simple
and easy thing as long as the world lasts: the value of the finished
article may generally be taken as some measure of the labour and care
necessary to produce it: and the value of a pure, simple-hearted,
well-taught Christian child is so immeasurably and indescribably great,
that we may safely conclude that the workmen and workwomen employed in
producing the result must have spent upon their work an incredible
amount of honest self-denying toil: a perfunctory discharge of the
office of schoolmaster,--so many hours a week, and so much pay,--will
never do: the master of the Elementary School must ever be a Christian
Brother in reality, if not in name.

Passing for a moment from the religious side of the educational
question, the reader may be interested by looking at a few statistics,
indicating the general position of England, or rather England and Wales,
with reference to elementary education.

In the year ending August 31, 1884, Her Majesty's Inspectors visited
18,761 day schools, having on their registers the names of 4,337,321
children. Of these, 3,273,134 were, on an average, in daily attendance
throughout the year. The amount of income arising from school-pence, it
may be worth while noting, was 1,734,115l., or nearly two millions. The
Government grants reached 2,722,351l., or nearly three millions.

Besides the day schools, 847 night schools were examined. In many parts
of the country these night schools were very important: they afford big
boys the only opportunity of keeping up their knowledge, or
intellectually improving themselves. Nearly twenty-five thousand
scholars over twelve years of age are, on an average, in attendance each
night.

There are nearly forty thousand certificated teachers at work; and 3214
students are being prepared in forty-one Training Colleges.

The expense of education at different places varies remarkably, and
apparently without any intelligible principle. Thus the income per
scholar from voluntary contributions in Voluntary Schools, and from
rates in Board Schools, is in certain selected towns as follows:--

                     Voluntary
                  contributions.         Rates.
                     £    s.   d.        £    s.   d.
London               0    9    0-1/4     1    9    9
Brighton             0   11    7-1/2     0   17    7
Birmingham           0    5    3-3/4     0   13   10-3/4
Bradford             0    2   11-3/4     0   13    2
Sheffield            0    2    4-3/4     0    9    8
Manchester           0    4    7         0   10   10

We submit the above figures and facts to the reader's consideration, and
we are compelled to confess that we do not find ourselves in a condition
to offer a satisfactory solution of the difficulties which they suggest.
We should probably have expected that London would be in an exceptional
position with regard to this as to many other matters; but the
magnificent manner in which its Board contributions exceed those of any
other town quite baffles us; it will be observed that the odd shillings
and pence of London more than pay the whole expense at Sheffield.
Possibly the practical difficulty of understanding this economical
anomaly may have had something to do with the results of the late Board
election in London.

On the whole, we English people seem to be solving the national
education question _more nostro_. We have got a system not quite
symmetrical, not quite logical, not the perfect exponent of the
crotchets of any particular school, but nevertheless one which has on
the whole produced remarkable results, and seems to have in it
sufficient powers of adaptation and development. Of late a new question
has been opened--and an important one--namely, that of making elementary
education entirely gratuitous. There is something to be said in favour
of the proposal, and it is a pity that the merits of the question should
have been somewhat obscured by the intolerable, but to some persons
perhaps attractive, suggestion that the additional expenditure necessary
for making education gratuitous should be supplied by the robbery of the
Church, or (in politer phrase) by the appropriation to the purposes of
education of the national property hitherto supplied to the support of
religion. This cat can scarcely be said to have been let out of the bag,
for her head was no sooner seen peeping out than the alarm created was
dangerously great, and Puss was concealed again in a twinkling; _but she
is inside the bag still_. A much less objectionable proposal was
speedily made, namely, that the deficiency created by the remission of
school-pence should be supplied by a Parliamentary grant. And this
proposal, we presume, may be regarded as at present before the country.

Looking upon the matter from a Chancellor of the Exchequer point of
view, it is a serious thing to think of having to make an addition of
about two millions to the annual national expenditure; and it may be
observed that leading statesmen on both sides of politics may be found
who are at present unconvinced. Doubtless an expenditure of two millions
would not be grudged by the nation for any necessary purpose; but when
the proposal is to substitute a payment of two millions by the Exchequer
for the two millions paid in driblets by the persons most interested,
for the most part gladly and with special provisions for preventing the
payment pressing hardly upon the exceptionally poor, it may well be that
many sensible persons will ask the question, _Cui bono_?

Independently, however, of any fiscal considerations, it seems to us
that there are weighty arguments against the proposal of a gratuitous
education.

It may be observed, and we think it an important observation, that the
proposal of free education is in the teeth of all our recent policy; and
some pressing reasons ought to be given for a complete and sudden
reversal of all that we have hitherto been doing. There are many free
schools in the country, endowed by 'pious founders,' and established for
the special purpose of giving free education to the children of
particular parishes. Some of these schools have had to pass through the
hands of the School Commissioners and to receive new schemes. It has
been, we believe, the invariable practice to insert into these new
schemes the condition of school-pence; the portion of the endowment so
saved has been applied to the foundation of exhibitions and other
methods of assisting deserving children. The inhabitants of the parishes
in which this innovation has been introduced have grumbled and
submitted; it has in some cases been a bitter pill, but the law-abiding
character of the Englishman has caused it to be swallowed without noisy
remonstrance. We cannot, without raising a suspicion of having practised
educational quackery, retreat from the position which we have thus taken
up.

What is the argument for the position? It is sometimes stated thus, that
people value a thing more when it costs them something to get it. The
argument is not to be despised; but we think that it yields in
importance to the consideration, that the payment of the school fees is
almost the only indication left of the great truth, that the parent is
responsible for his children's education. We have sometimes trembled
when we have seen in Board Schools directions concerning the doings of
the children, which would seem to have had a right to come from parents,
but which do in fact come 'by order of the Board.' We have almost feared
lest in the Fifth Commandment our boys and girls of the rising
generation should be tempted to substitute 'Board' for 'father and
mother.' Certainly there is great danger in virtue of modern social
arrangements lest parents should forget their highest duties to their
children, and children cease to honour their parents in the good
old-fashioned way. We confess, therefore, that we are jealous of the
proposal to take away from the father the proud privilege of paying for
his children's schooling, even though it may sometimes cost him an
effort to do so.

It may be said, of course, that every man does pay indirectly, because
he pays according to his means to the taxes of the country, and that
therefore the proposal only gives him of his own. The argument is
defective, because it ignores the fact that whatever a man may pay
indirectly in taxes, there is a conscious effort in finding the pence
for the children's schooling, which morally is of great importance. But
the argument fails also on other grounds: it assumes that all men have
children equally; it asserts that the married man with his five children
has no more responsibility than the elderly spinster who lives next
door; it supposes that the parents have not a special interest in their
children, distinct from that which can be felt by any other person
whatever. It may be further urged, that if a man pays for his children
while they are in process of education, the pressure comes upon him when
he is in full vigour, and most able to bear it; whereas if the payment
of pence be commuted for a perpetual tax, the pressure becomes one of a
lifelong character, and is not relieved when the powers of earning begin
to diminish.

We do not deny that painful cases have occurred, and are likely to still
occur, in which parents are summoned before the magistrates for the
non-attendance of children at school. But free education will not get
rid of these painful cases. Already arrangements are made by law for the
payment of fees for very poor parents who make the proper application;
and if there be any obstacle in the way of the smooth working of the
law, the matter should be looked into and the law amended; but the great
difficulty in the way of good attendance on the part of very poor
children lies, as we apprehend, not more with school-pence, than with
school-clothes, and school-dinners. Attendance cannot be enforced
completely all round, unless free education comprise in its idea free
food and clothing, as well as free books and lessons.

We cannot but fear also lest the remission of school-pence should be
another step towards the destruction of Voluntary Schools. It is evident
that the proposal is so regarded; and though it may not be difficult to
find arguments to show, that if the loss from school-pence be made up
from the Exchequer, the compensation will work equally and fairly with
respect to all schools, whether Voluntary or Board, still there can be
little doubt that the additional grant will give a handle for proposing
to introduce some more direct interference with the management of
Voluntary Schools than has existed hitherto: and it is probably a true
instinct which leads many friends of Voluntary Schools to look upon the
free system with sincere apprehension. Certainly the indirect abolition
of Voluntary Schools would be a great calamity; and if the views already
expressed be correct, the abolition would leave a legacy of weakness,
and a permanent injury to the Board Schools, when they found themselves
'monarchs of all they survey,' and without the wholesome rivalry of
Voluntary Schools.

There was no such objection to the free education offered to his poor
brethren by the hero of this article, the sainted De la Salle. He made
himself poor and bound all his disciples to a life of poverty, in order
that they might have fullest sympathy with the poor, and might teach
their children for no other payment or purpose but the love of God. The
atmosphere of a school conducted upon such principles would be so
saturated with the spirit of holiness and godly love, that there would
be no danger of duty to parents, or indeed of any duty either to God or
man, being left out of sight. It would never be forgotten in such
schools that the formation of character is the chief aim of education:
_manners makyth man_--as William of Wickham, our great English father of
liberal education, has taught us: and _manners_, taken in the broadest
and best sense, even more than the three Rs and all the extra subjects
of all the standards, is what we want in our elementary schools, and
what we shall never get, except upon the condition of a religious tone
and a pure atmosphere, and teachers whose hearts are animated by the
love of little children and by the love of God.

We gladly turn once more, before laying down our pen, to the volume
which we have already introduced to the reader, and out of which we have
told the tale of De la Salle, and the Christian Brothers. We do so for
the purpose of showing what kind of men these good Brothers are, when
put to the test in a severe and unexampled manner.

     'After the disasters of the Prussian invasion in 1871,' says
     our author, 'the City of Boston, in America, placed at the
     disposal of the French Academy a special prize of two
     thousand francs to be given to whoever should be judged most
     worthy of the honour, on account of services rendered during
     the siege and in presence of the enemy. The Academy could
     find no more fitting recipient of this distinction than the
     Community, which during the whole time of the war had sent
     five hundred infirmarians into the battlefields, one of whom
     had fallen under the fire of the Prussians, among the
     wounded at Bourget. Public opinion fully endorsed the
     decision, when the first literary body in the world adjudged
     this reward to the humble and despised corps of the Frères
     des Écoles Chrétiennes. At the same time the National
     Defence Government insisted on decorating their venerable
     Superior with a cross of honour. He would have refused it,
     as he and his predecessors had already done many times, and
     he only yielded when he was told that there was nothing
     personal in the honour; that it belonged to his Institute;
     and that it was only as the representative of the Society
     that he was asked to wear it. The eminent Dr. Ricord, who
     had been an eyewitness of the devotion of the Brothers, was
     charged with the office of fastening the cross on the
     cassock of Frère Philippe, in the great hall of the
     mother-house. This was the most embarrassing moment in the
     life of that man of God. He could not bear to wear the cross
     of honour, and in fact he never did wear it. When he
     returned after conducting the Doctor to the door at the end
     of the ceremony, he somehow managed that no one should
     perceive his decoration. The cross was not to be seen; and
     it has remained ever since as a kind of myth, or mysterious
     souvenir; it was never found.'

Thus in France Ministers of Public Instruction and Superiors of the
Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes agree in removing the cross from
elementary schools: but how marvellous the distance between the
religious principles which lead to the two kinds of removal!

And now, in these days of payment by results, let us look for one moment
to the Écoles Chrétiennes from this point of view; and then we will bid
the Brothers a respectful farewell.

     'For the last forty years a certain number of exhibitions or
     scholarships (bourses) have been offered by the City of
     Paris for competition amongst the scholars of elementary or
     primary schools, which give to the successful candidates a
     right of free education in the higher class schools. The
     number of scholarships which are offered varies. In 1848
     there were twenty-nine; in 1871, fifty; in 1874, eighty; and
     in 1877 the number was raised to a hundred. Competition is
     open to all elementary schools, whether taught by the
     Christian Brothers, or by lay teachers of no religious order
     or society.

     'The result, taking the thirty years from 1847 to 1877, has
     been that of 1445 exhibitions gained by scholars, 1148 have
     been won by boys from the Christian schools, and 297 by
     those from other schools. Or to take the last seven years of
     that period, during which every effort has been made by the
     Government, at a lavish outlay, to promote the efficiency of
     the secular schools, the results, though the numbers are not
     quite so disproportioned, yet show a marked superiority in
     the schools of the Christian Brothers. Out of 490
     exhibitions, 364 have been adjudged to their pupils, and 126
     to those of the secular schools.'

Well done, Christian Brothers! You have preached an admirable sermon to
all those who take an interest in the education of children upon those
comprehensive and deep-reaching words of Christ, 'Take no thought,
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal
shall we be clothed?... But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.'

FOOTNOTES:

[4] 'The policy of the late Chamber with regard to religion, education,
and the army had very much greater weight with the electors.... The
persistent threat held out by certain Republicans to destroy the Church,
either by a hypocritical fulfillment of the Concordat or by the forcible
separation of Church and State, has been skilfully used by their
adversaries amongst the peasantry, who dread nothing so much as having
to pay their curé themselves. The Government was so well aware of this
fact, that in some of the departments the Catechism was ordered to be
recited in the schools during the last week before the elections, though
only two months earlier the teachers had been strictly forbidden to use
it. This childish stratagem had, as might have been expected, no great
success.'--Gabriel Monod, in 'Contemporary Review,' of December, 1885.




Art. III.--_The State Papers of the Venetian Republic_; namely,
_Cancelleria Inferiore, Cancelleria Ducale, Cancelleria Secreta,_
preserved in the Convent of the Frari, at Venice.


In recent years a new tendency has been given to historical studies by
the avidity with which scholars have investigated the masses of State
documents accumulated through centuries, almost untouched, in the Record
Offices of various nations. This tendency has been in the direction of
minuteness and accuracy of detail. The finer shades of policy, the
subtler turns in the game of nations, have been revealed by this
intimate study of the documents which record them. Among the archives of
Europe there is none superior, in historical value and richness of
minutiæ, to the Archives of the Venetian Republic, preserved now in the
convent of the Frari at Venice. The importance of these archives is due
to three causes: the position of the Republic in the history of Europe,
the fullness of the archives themselves, and the remarkable preservation
and order which distinguishes them, in spite of the many dangers and
vicissitudes through which they have passed. Venice enjoyed a position,
unique among the States of Europe, for two reasons. Until the discovery
of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, she was the mart of Europe
in all commercial dealings with the East--a position secured to her by
her supremacy in the Levant, and by the strength of her fleet; and, in
the second place, the Republic was the bulwark of Europe against the
Turk. These are the two dominant features of Venice in general history;
and under both aspects she came into perpetual contact with every
European Power. The universal importance of her position is faithfully
reflected in the diplomatic documents contained in her archives. The
Republic maintained ambassadors and residents at every Court. These men
were among the most subtle and accomplished diplomatists of their time,
and the government they served was exacting and critical to the highest
degree. The result is that the dispatches, newsletters and reports of
the Venetian diplomatic agents, form the most varied, brilliant, and
singular gallery of portraits, whether of persons or of peoples, that
exists. There is hardly a nation in Europe that will not find its
history illustrated by the papers which belong to the Venetian
department for foreign affairs. Nor are the papers which relate to the
home government of the Republic less copious and valuable. Each
magistracy has its own series of documents, the daily record of its
proceedings: in this we find the whole of that elaborate machinery of
State laid bare before us in all its intricacy of detail; and we are
enabled to study the construction, the origin, development, and
ossification, of one of the most rigid and enduring constitutions that
the world has ever seen; a constitution so strong in its component
parts, so compact in its rib-work, that it sufficed to preserve a
semblance of life in the body of the Republic long after the heart and
brain had ceased to beat.

Admirable as are the preservation and order of these masses of State
papers, it is not to be expected that each series, each magisterial
archive, should be complete. There are many broad lacunæ, especially in
the earlier period, which must ever be a cause for regret: for Venice
growing is a more attractive and profitable subject than Venice dying.
During the nine hundred and eighty-seven years that the Government of
the Republic held its seat in Venice, the State papers passed through
many dangers from fire, revolution, neglect, or carelessness. When we
recal the fires of 1230, 1479, 1574, and 1577, it is rather matter for
congratulation that so much has escaped, than for surprise that so much
has been destroyed. The losses would, undoubtedly, have been much more
severe had all the papers and documents been preserved in one place, as
they are now. But the Venetians stored the archives of the various
magistracies either at the offices of those magistrates, or in some
public building especially set apart for the purpose. The Secret
Chancellery, which was always an object of great solicitude, containing
as it did all the more private papers of the State, was deposited in a
room on the second floor of the Ducal Palace. Many of the criminal
records belonging to the Council of Ten were stored in the Piombi under
the roof of the Palace; and the famous adventurer Casanova relates how
he beguiled some of his prison hours by reading the trial of a Venetian
nobleman, which he found among other papers piled at the end of the
corridor where he was allowed to take exercise. Soon after the fall of
the Republic, the following disposition of the papers was made. The
political archive was stored at the Scuola di S. Teodoro; the judicial,
at the convent of S. Giovanni Laterano; the financial, at S. Procolo. In
the year 1815, the Austrian Government resolved to collect and arrange
all State papers in one place. The building chosen was the convent of
the Frari; and the work was entrusted to Jacopo Chiodo, the first
director of the archives. The scheme suggested by Chiodo has served as a
basis for the arrangement that has been already carried out, or is still
in hand.

Under the Republic it was natural that access to important diplomatic
papers and to secrets of State should be granted with reserve, and only
to persons especially authorized to make research. The directors
appointed by the Austrian Government showed a disposition to maintain
that precedent; and M. Baschet relates that it was only by a personal
appeal to the Emperor that he obtained access to the archives of the
Ten. The Italian Government allow nearly absolute liberty; and nothing
can exceed the courtesy of the officials under their distinguished
director, the Commendatore Cecchetti.

Any attempt to explain the archives of Venice and to display their
contents, must be preceded by a statement of the main features of the
constitution of the Republic upon which the order and the arrangement of
the archives is based. The constitution of Venice has frequently been
likened to a pyramid, with the Great Council for its base and the Doge
for apex. The figure is more or less correct; but it is a pyramid that
has been broken at its edges by time and by necessity. The legislative
and political body was originally constructed in four groups, or
tiers--if we are to preserve the pyramidal simile--one rising above the
other. These four tiers were the Maggior Consiglio or Great Council, the
Lower House; the Pregadi or Senate, the Upper House; the Collegio, or
the Cabinet; and the Doge. The famous Council of Ten and its equally
famous Commission, the Three Inquisitors of State, did not enter into
the original scheme; they are an appendix to the State, an intrusion, a
break in the symmetry of the pyramid. Later on we shall explain their
construction and relation to the main body of government. For the
present we leave them aside, and confine our attention to the four
departments of the Venetian constitution above mentioned.

The Great Council, as is well known, did not assume its permanent form
and place in the Venetian constitution till the year 1296. At that date
the famous revolution, known as the closing of the Great Council, took
place. By that act, which was only the final step in a revolution that
had been for long in process, those citizens who were excluded from the
Great Council remained for ever outside the constitution; all functions
of government were concentrated in the hands of those nobles who were
included by the Council; the constitution of the Republic was
stereotyped as a rigid oligarchy. Previous to the year 1296, a great
council had existed, created first in the reign of Pietro Ziani (1172);
but this council was really democratic in character, not oligarchic; it
was elected each September, and its members were chosen from the whole
body of the citizens. Earlier still than the reign of Ziani, the
population used to meet tumultuously and express their opinion upon
matters of public interest, such as the election of a Doge or a
declaration of war, first in the _Concione_ under their tribunes, while
Venetia was still a confederation of lagoon-islands; and then in the
_Arengo_ under their Doge, when the confederation was centralized at
Rialto. But of these assemblies the latter was disorderly and irregular,
and the former was of doubtful authority. It is from the closing of the
Great Council that we must date the positive establishment of the
Venetian oligarchy, and the completion of that constitution which
endured for five hundred years, from 1296 till the fall of the Republic
in 1797.

The age at which the young nobles might take their seats in the Council,
that is to say, might enter upon public life, was fixed at twenty-five,
except in the cases of the Barbarelli, or thirty nobles between the ages
of twenty and twenty-five, who were elected by ballot on the fourth of
each December, St. Barbara's day; and in the case of those who, in
return for money advanced to the State, obtained a special grace to take
their seats before their twenty-fifth year.

The chief functions of the Great Council were the passing of laws, and
the election of magistrates. But in process of time the legislative
duties of the Council were almost entirely absorbed by the Senate; and
the Maggior Consiglio only retained its great and distinguished
function, the election of almost every officer of State, from the Doge
downwards. The large number of these magistracies, and the various
seasons of the year at which they fell vacant, engaged the Great Council
in a perpetual series of elections. It is not our intention to explain
in detail the elaborate process by which the Venetians carried out their
political elections; such an explanation would carry us beyond our
scope, which is to state the position and functions of each member in
the constitution of the Republic. But, briefly, the process was this.
The law required either two or four competitors for every vacant
magistracy, and the election to that magistracy was said to take place
_a due_ or _a quattro mani_, respectively. If the office to be filled
required _quattro mani_, the whole body of the Great Council balloted
for four groups of nine members each, who were chosen by drawing a
golden ball from among the silver ones in the balloting urn. Each of
these groups retired to a separate room, and there each group elected
one candidate to go to the poll for the vacant office. The names of the
four candidates were then presented to the Council and balloted. The
candidate who secured the largest number of votes, above the half of
those present, was elected to the vacant office. Thus the election to
the magistracy was a triple process; first, the election of the
nominators, then the election of the candidates, and finally the
election to the office.

The Great Council, as representing the whole Republic, possessed certain
judicial functions, which were used on rare occasions only, when the
State believed itself placed in grave danger through the fault of its
commanders. The famous case of Vettor Pisani, after his defeat at Pola,
in 1379, and the case of Antonio Grimani, in the year 1499, were both
sent to the Grand Council, who passed sentence on those generals. But,
broadly speaking, the judicial functions of the Maggior Consiglio hardly
existed, its legislative functions dwindled away, and were absorbed by
the Senate, and its chief duty and prerogative lay in the election of
almost every State official.

Coming now to the second tier in the pyramid of the constitution, the
Senate, or Pregadi,--the invited, we find that the Senate proper was
composed of sixty members, elected in the Great Council, six at a time.
The elections took place once a week, and were so arranged that they
should be complete by the first of October in each year. In addition to
the Senate proper, another body of sixty, called the _Zonta_ or
addition, was elected by the outgoing Senate at the close of its year of
office; but it was necessary that the names of the _Zonta_ should be
approved by the Great Council before their election was valid. The
Senate and the Zonta together formed one hundred and twenty members; and
besides these, the Doge, his six councillors, the Council of Ten, the
Supreme Court of Appeal, and many special magistrates, who presided over
departments of Finance, Customs, and Justice, belonged _ex officio_ to
the Senate, and brought the number of votes up to two hundred and
forty-six. Further, fifty-one magistrates of minor departments also sat,
with the right to debate, but without the right to vote.

The Senate was the real core of the Administration. The presence, _ex
officio_, of so many and such various officers of State sufficiently
indicates the wide field which was covered by the authority of the
Pregadi. The large number of the Senatorial body, and the diversity of
subjects with which it dealt, required that business should be carried
on with parsimony of time and precision of method; and therefore private
members were restricted to the right of debate. Only the Doge, his
councillors, the Savii Grandi and the Savii di Terra ferma had the right
to move the Senate; and their propositions related to peace, war,
foreign affairs, instructions to ambassadors, and representatives of
foreign Courts, to commercial treaties, finance, and home legislation.
The various measures were spoken to by their proposers, and by the
magistrates whose offices they affected. As in the case of the Great
Council, the Senate also on rare occasions exercised judicial functions.
It was in the discretion of the College to send a faulty commander for
trial either to the Great Council or to the Senate; but in that case the
charge must be one of negligence or misjudgment; if the charge implied
treason, it was taken before the Council of Ten. A few of the higher
officers of State were elected in the Senate, among them the Savii
Grandi and the Savii di Terra ferma, and the Admiral of the Fleet. The
functions of the Senate were legislative, judicial, and elective. But
just as the Great Council was pre-eminently the elective body, so the
Senate was pre-eminently the legislative body in the constitution of
Venice.

The Collegio or Cabinet of Ministers, formed the third tier in the
pyramid. The College was composed of the following members: The Doge,
his six councillors, and the three chiefs of the Court of Appeal; these
ten persons formed the Collegio minore, or Serenissima Signoria; in
addition to these there were the six Savii Grandi; the five Savii di
Terra ferma, and the five Savii da mar; a body of twenty-six persons in
all, forming the College. Beginning with the lowest in rank, the Savii
agli ordini, or da mar, were, as their name implies, a Board of
Admiralty; but they acted in that capacity under the orders of the Savii
Grandi upon whom the naval affairs of the Republic immediately depended.
The Savii agli ordini had a vote but no voice in the College; this post
was given, for the most part, to young and promising politicians; it was
a training school for statesmen: 'Officio loro,' says Giannotti, 'è
tacere ed ascoltare.' The office lasted for six months only; and so
there was a constant stream of young men passing through the political
school, and becoming intimately acquainted with the affairs of the
Republic and the methods of government. How excellent that school must
have been will become apparent as we proceed to note the functions of
the College of which the Savii agli ordini formed a silent part.

Next in order above the Savii agli ordini came the Savii di Terra ferma.
This Board was composed of five members; the Savio alia Scrittura, or
Minister for War; the Savio Cassier, or Chancellor of the Exchequer; the
Savio alle ordinanze, or minister for the native militia in the cities
on the mainland; the Savio ai da mò, or minister for the execution of
all measures voted urgent; the Savio ai Ceremoniali, or Minister for
Ceremonies of State. These Savii di Terra ferma, like the Savii agli
ordini, held office for six months only.

The six Savii Grandi, who came above the Savii di Terra ferma,
superintended the actions of the two boards below them, and, if
necessary, issued orders which would override those of the other
ministers. They were, in fact, the responsible directors of the State.
The Savii Grandi were required to prepare all business to be laid before
the College, where it was first discussed and arranged before being
submitted to the Senate for approval. To facilitate this labour of
preparation, each of the Savii Grandi took a week in turn, and the Savio
of the week was, in fact, Prime Minister of Venice. It was he who read
dispatches, granted audiences to ambassadors, and prepared official
replies. The Doge presided in the College, it is true, but it was the
Savio of the week who opened the business, and suggested the various
measures to be adopted.

Besides these boards of Savii, the College included the Ducal
Councillors, and the three chiefs of the Court of Appeal. We shall speak
of these latter when we come to the judicial department of the
constitution. The office of Ducal Councillor was, perhaps, the most
venerable in Venice. These six men held, as it were, the Ducal honours
and functions in commission; they embodied the authority of the Doge to
such an extent, that without their presence he could not act; he became
a nonentity unless supported by four at least of his council; while, on
the other hand, the absence of the Doge in no way diminished the
authority of the Ducal Councillors. For example, the Doge without his
council could not preside, neither in the Maggior Consiglio, nor in the
Senate, nor in the College, but four Ducal Councillors had the power to
preside without the Doge. The Doge might not open dispatches except in
the presence of his council, but his council might open dispatches in
the absence of the Doge. Yet, great as were the external honours of the
Ducal Councillors, the office was rather ornamental than important. It
was the Savii Grandi who were the directing spirit through all the
multitudinous affairs of the College. As we have seen, those affairs
embraced the whole field of government, except the field of Justice. The
College had no judicial functions, nor did it legislate. As the Maggior
Consiglio was the elective member, and the Senate the legislative, so
the College was the initiative and executive member of the State. The
College proposed measures which became law in the Senate; and the
execution of those laws was entrusted to the College which had the
machinery of State at its disposal. It is this right of initiating which
distinguishes the College; and it is just upon this point that the Ducal
Councillors appear to have a slight pre-eminence; for the Doge, his
council, and the Savii alone, had the right to initiate in the Senate;
the Doge, his council, and the chiefs of the Ten alone, had the right to
initiate in the Council of Ten; the Doge and his council alone had the
right to initiate in the Maggior Consiglio. The Doge and his council
alone move through all departments of government, presiding and
initiating, embodying the spirit of the Republic; and yet in no case is
their power great; for the Savii had more influence in the Senate, the
Chiefs of the Ten in the Council of Ten; and the Great Council, where
the Doge and his councillors had the field to themselves, was of little
importance in the direction of affairs.

At the apex of the constitutional pyramid we find the Doge. The Doge
also had his distinctive functions in the State; his duties were
ornamental rather than administrative. Though all the acts of the
Government were executed in his name, laws passed, dispatches sent,
treaties made, and war declared, yet it is not in these departments that
the Doge stands pre-eminent; it is throughout the pomp and display of
the Republic that he is supreme; and the archive wherein his glory shows
most brightly is the _Ceremoniali_.

The Doge was elected for life. When a Doge died, the eldest Ducal
Councillor filled the office of Vice-Doge until the election of the new
Prince. The remains of the deceased Doge were laid out in the Chamber of
the Pioveghi, on the first floor of the Ducal Palace, dressed in robes
of State, the mantle of cloth of gold and the ducal beretta. Twenty
Venetian noblemen were appointed to attend in the chapelle ardente. On
the third day the Doge was buried; and the Great Council on the same day
elected the officers who were to revise the coronation oath, and to
render its provisions more stringent if the conduct of the deceased had
revealed any point where a future Doge could exercise even the smallest
independence in constitutional matters. At the same time the Council
elected another body of officers, who were required to examine the
conduct of the late Doge, and, if he had violated his coronation oath,
his heirs paid the penalty by a fine. Immediately after the appointment
of these officers, the Maggior Consiglio proceeded to create the
forty-one electors to the dukedom. The process of election was long and
intricate, and occupied five days at the least; for there was a
quintuple series of ballots and votings to be concluded before the
forty-one were finally chosen. When the forty-one noblemen had been
appointed they were taken to a chamber specially prepared for them,
where, as in the case of a papal election, they were obliged to stay
until they had determined upon the new Doge. They were bound by oath
never to reveal what took place inside this election chamber. But this
oath was not always observed in the spirit; and memoranda of the
proceedings of the forty-one are still preserved in the private archives
of the Marcello family. The first step was to elect three priors, or
presidents, and two secretaries. The presidents took their seats at a
table on which stood a ballot-box and an urn. The secretaries gave to
every elector a slip of paper, upon which each one wrote the name of the
man whom he proposed as Doge. The forty-one slips of paper were then
placed in the urn, and one was drawn out at hazard. If the noble, whose
name was written upon the slip, chanced to be an elector, he was
required to withdraw. Then each of the electors was at liberty to attack
the candidate, to point out defects and recal misdeeds. These hostile
criticisms, which covered the whole of a candidate's private life, his
physical qualities and his public conduct, were written down by the
secretaries, and the candidate was recalled. The objections urged
against him were read over to the aspirant, without the names of the
urgers appearing, and he was invited to defend himself. Attack and
defence continued till no further criticisms were offered, and then the
name of the candidate was balloted before the priors. If it received
twenty-five favourable votes, its owner was declared Doge; if less than
twenty-five, a fresh name was drawn from the urn, and the whole process
was repeated until some candidate secured the necessary five-and-twenty
votes. As soon as this issue was reached, the Signoria was informed of
the result, and the new Doge, attended by the electors, descended to
Saint Mark's, where, from the pulpit on the left side of the choir, the
Prince was shown to the people, and where, before the high altar, he
took the coronation oath and received the standard of Saint Mark. The
great doors of the Basilica were then thrown open, and the Doge passed
in procession round the Piazza and returned to the Porta della Carta. At
the top of the Giants' Stair the eldest Ducal Councillor placed the
beretta on his head, and he was brought to the Sala dei Pioveghi, where
the late Doge had lain in state, and where he too would one day come.
Then the Doge retired to his private apartments, and the ceremony of
election closed.

As we have already observed, the position of the Doge in the Republic of
Venice was almost purely ornamental. The Doge presided, either in person
or by commission through his councillors, at every Council of State; he
presided, however, not as a guiding and deliberating chief, but as a
symbol of the Majesty of Venice. He is there not as an individual, a
personality, but as the outward and visible sign of an idea, the idea of
the Venetian oligarchy. The history of the personal authority of the
Doge falls into three periods. A period of great vigour and almost
despotic power dates from the foundation of the Dukedom, in the year
697, down to the reign of Pietro Ziani in 1172. During this first
period, the Ducal authority showed a tendency to become concentrated,
and almost hereditary in the hands of one or two powerful families. For
example, we have seen Doges of the Partecipazio house, five Doges of the
Candiani, and three of the Orseoli. But the rivalry and balanced power
of these great families eventually exhausted one another, and preserved
the Dukedom of Venice from ever becoming a kingdom. A second period
extends from the year 1172 down to 1457, and is marked by the emergence
of the great commercial houses, and the development of the oligarchy
upon the basis of a Great Council. The aristocracy during this period
were engaged in excluding the people from any share in the government,
and in curbing and finally crushing the authority of the Doge. The steps
in this process are indicated by the closing of the Great Council, the
revolution of Tiepolo, the trials of Marino Faliero, Lorenzo Celsi, and
the Foscari. The third period covers what remains of the Republic, from
1457 down to 1797. During this period the Doge was little other than the
figurehead of the Republic; the point of least weight and greatest
splendour; the brilliant apex to the pyramid of the Venetian
constitution.

So far, then, we have examined the four tiers in the original structure
of the constitution, the Doge, the College, the Senate, and the Great
Council; and we have seen that, broadly speaking these were,
respectively, ornamental, initiative and executive, legislative, and
elective. But this pyramid of the constitution was not perfectly
symmetrical; its edges were broken. This interruption of outline was
caused by the Council of Ten. The exact position in the Venetian
constitution occupied by this famous Council, and its relations to the
other members of the government, have proved a constant source of
difficulty and error to students of Venetian history. Leaving aside the
obscure problem of the origin of the Ten, it is still possible for us to
indicate the constitutional necessity which called that Council into
existence. As we have pointed out, the College could not act on its own
responsibility without the Senate; the Senate could not initiate without
the College, for the preparation of all affairs passed through the hands
of the College. To establish connection between these two branches of
the administration was a process that required some time; it could not
be done swiftly and secretly. In all crises of political importance,
whether home or foreign, some instrument, more expeditious than the
Senate, was required to sanction the propositions of the College. That
instrument, acting swiftly and secretly, with a speed and secrecy
impossible in so large a body as the Senate, was created with the
Council of Ten. The Ten were an extraordinary magistracy, devised to
meet unexpected pressure upon the ordinary machine of government. The
emergence of the Ten proves this view. Without determining whether the
Council existed previous to the year 1310, we may take that year as the
date of its first appearance as a potent element in the State. The
rebellion of Tiepolo and Querini, an aristocratic revolt against the
growing power of the new commercial nobility, paralysed the ordinary
machinery of State, and revealed the danger inherent in a large and
slow-moving body of rulers. The Ten were called to power, just as the
Romans created the Dictatorship, in order to save the State in a
dangerous crisis.

The place of the Ten in the constitutional structure is below the
College and parallel with the Senate. Below the College the
administration bifurcates, the ordinary course of business flows through
the Senate, the extraordinary through the Ten. The Ten possessed an
authority equal to that of the Senate; the choice of which instrument
should be used, rested with the College. The Ten appear to be of more
importance than the Senate, solely because they were used upon more
critical and dramatic occasions. Wherever the machinery of the College
and Senate moves too slowly, we find the swifter machinery of the
College and the Ten in motion. And so not only in political affairs,
home and foreign, but also in affairs financial and judicial, the
Council of Ten takes its part. The Ten, as being the readier instrument
to the hands of the College, gradually absorbed more and more of the
functions which originally belonged to the Senate. This process of
absorption, and the extension of the province of the Ten, is marked by
the establishment of its sub-commissions, that took their place in every
department side by side with the delegations of the Senate and the
ordinary magistrates. In politics and foreign affairs there is the
famous office of the Three Inquisitors of State. In the region of
Justice all cases of treason and coining, and certain cases of outrage
on public morals, came before the Ten; and it was always open to the
College to remove a case from the ordinary courts to the Ten, when State
reasons rendered it expedient to do so. In the Police department the
Esecutori contro la Bestemmia, and in Finance the Camerlenghi, were
officers of that Council. In the War Office the artillery was under
their control; and in the arsenal certain galleys, marked C.X., were
always at their disposal.

These five great members of the State, four regular and one irregular,
formed the political and legislative departments of the Venetian
Government. It would require too many details to give a similar account
of the Judicial, Educational, and Religious machinery.

One of the most remarkable features in the Venetian constitution is the
infinite subdivision of government, and the number of offices to be
filled. Nobles alone were eligible for the majority of these offices,
and if we consider how small a body the Great Council really was, it is
clear that the larger number of Venetian noblemen must have been
employed in the service of the State at some time in their lives. The
great political and administrative activity which reigned inside the
comparatively small body that formed the ruling caste, as compared with
the absolute stagnation and quiet which marked the life of the ordinary
citizen, is one of the most noteworthy points in the history of Venice.
Every noble above the age of twenty-five was a member of the Maggior
Consiglio; every week that council had to fill up some office of State,
had some new candidate before it. The tenure of all offices, except the
Dukedom and the Procuratorship of St. Mark, was so brief, rarely
exceeding a year, or sixteen months, that the fret and activity of
elections must have been nearly incessant. This constant unrest bore its
fruit in perpetual intrigues, and the censors were appointed to check
the rampant canvassing and bribery. But the main point which is
impressed upon us is the universality of political training to which all
the nobles of Venice were subjected. No matter how frivolous a young
patrician might be, he would be obliged to sit in the Great Council; he
would be called upon to assist in electing the Ten, whose omniscience
and severity he had every reason to dread; he might even find himself
named to fill some minor post. It was impossible, under these
circumstances, that he should fail to be educated politically, or that
he should ever lose the keenest interest in every movement of the State.
It is to this political activity that we may possibly look for one of
the reasons which conduced to that extraordinary longevity which the
constitution of Venice displayed.

Each of the Government offices, many as they were, possessed its own
collection of papers. These are either still in loose sheets, just as
they left the office, or bound in volumes. They are indicated by the
name of the Government department, the subject dealt with, and the date.
The pages are of three kinds; first, there are the files or _filze_, the
original minutes of the Board, written down in actual Council by the
secretaries, and with the _filze_ are the dispatches or other documents
upon which the Council took measures. In many of the more important
departments, such as the Senate, the Ten, or the College, these _filze_
were epitomized; the substance of each day's business was written out in
large volumes known as _Registri_; each entry was signed by the
secretary who had made the digest, and was accepted as authentic for all
purposes of reference. These registers are, in many cases, of the
greatest value where the files have been destroyed or lost. They were
more constantly in use, and therefore more carefully preserved; and now
they frequently form our sole authority for certain periods. As a rule
the registers are very full and good; they contain all that is of
importance in the files; but in making research upon any point it is
never safe to ignore the files where they exist. In some cases the
secretaries made a further digest of the registers in volumes known as
Rubrics, which contain in brief the headings of all materials to be
found in the registers. As the registers sometimes supply the place of
lost files, so the rubrics are occasionally our only authority where
registers and files are both missing. The rubrics are often of the
highest value. As an instance, we may cite the twenty volumes of rubrics
to the dispatches from England between the years 1603 and 1748. The
method of research, therefore, where all three kinds of documents exists
is this, to examine first the rubrics, then the registers, and then the
files. But the infinite subdivisions of the Government offices in Venice
render the task of research somewhat bewildering; and a student cannot
be certain that he has exhausted all the information on his subject,
until he has examined a large number of these minor offices. He will
probably find some notice of the point he is examining in the papers of
the Senate or of the Ten, and, if it be a matter of home affairs, he can
trace it thence through the various magistracies under whose cognizance
it would come; or if it be a matter of foreign policy, he will find
further information in the papers of the College.

Under the Republic these collections of State papers were not known as
archives, but as chancelleries. The collections of highest interest, the
papers to which the student is most likely to turn his attention, are
those relating to the ceremony, to the home, and to the foreign policy
of Venice. These three groups are contained in the Ducal, the Secret,
and the Inferior Chancelleries. The three chancelleries were committed
to the charge of the Grand Chancellor and his staff of secretaries, who
received, arranged, and registered the official papers as they issued
from the various Councils of State. The Grand Chancellor was not a
patrician; he was chosen from that upper class of commoners known as
_cittadini originarii_, an inferior order of nobility, ranking below the
governing caste, but bearing coat armour. The office of Grand Chancellor
was of great dignity and antiquity, and was held for life. The
Chancellor was head and representative of the people, as the Doge was
head and representative of the patricians; and, when the nobility began
to exclude the people from all share in the government, the Grand
Chancellor was allowed to be present at all sessions of the Great
Council and of the Senate as the silent witness of the people,
confirming the acts of the Government, and bridging, though by the
finest thread, the gulf that otherwise separated the governed from the
governing. The part which the Grand Chancellor took in the business of
the Maggior Consiglio and of the Senate was a constant and an active
part. It was his duty to superintend the arrangements for every
election, to direct the secretaries in attendance, to announce the names
of the candidates for office, and to proclaim the successful competitor.
His seat in the Great Council Hall was on the left-hand of the Doge's
daïs, and his secretaries sat below him. But the custody of the State
papers was by far the most important function which the Grand Chancellor
had to perform. To assist him in these labours he was placed at the head
of a large College of Secretaries, trained in a school especially
established to fit them for their duties. In the year 1443 a decree of
the Great Council required the Doge and the Signoria to elect each year
twelve lads to be taught Latin, rhetoric and philosophy, and the number
of the pupils was gradually increased. From this school they passed out
by examination, and became first extra-ordinaries and ordinaries, called
Notaries Ducal, then secretaries to the Senate, and finally secretaries
to the Ten. The post of secretary was one which required much diligence
and discretion. The secretaries were in constant attendance on the
various Councils of State, and thus became intimately acquainted with
all the secret affairs of the Republic. They were frequently sent on
delicate missions. It was a secretary of the Ten who brought Carmagnola
to Venice to stand his trial; and, as we shall presently relate, it was
a secretary of the Senate who announced to Thomas Killigrew, the English
Minister, his dismissal from Venice. The secretaries were sometimes
accredited as Residents to foreign Courts, though they were not eligible
for the post of Ambassador. Inside the Chancellery the secretaries were
entirely at the disposal of the Grand Chancellor, and their duties were
to study, to invent, and to read cipher; to transcribe the registers
and rubrics; to keep the annals of the Council of Ten, and to enter the
laws in the statute book.

We may now turn our attention to the principal series of State papers
which issued from the five great members of the Constitution, the
Maggior Consiglio, the Senate, the Ten, the College, and the Doge, and
show how these papers were arranged under the three Chancelleries of
which we have spoken.

The Cancelleria Inferiore was preserved in one large room near the head
of the Giants' Staircase in the Ducal Palace, and was entrusted to the
care of the Notaries Ducal, the lowest order of secretaries. The
documents in this Chancellery related chiefly to the Doge; his rights,
his official possessions, his restrictions, and his state. Among these
papers, accordingly, we find the coronation oaths, the Reports of the
Commissioners appointed to examine those oaths, and the Reports of the
Commissioners appointed to review the life of each Doge deceased. This
series is valuable as revealing the steps by which the aristocracy
slowly curtailed the personal authority of the Doge, and bound his
office about with iron fetters, and crushed his power. In addition to
these papers the Inferior Chancellery contained the documents relating
to the dignitaries of St. Mark's in its capacity as Ducal Chapel; the
order and ceremony of the Ducal household; the expenditure of the Civil
List; and the archives of the Procurators of Saint Mark, which contained
the will, trusts, and bequests of private citizens.

The Ducal Chancellery, which the Council of Ten once called 'cor nostri
status,' was preserved on the upper floor of the palace, and was reached
by the Scala d'oro. The papers were arranged in a number of cupboards
surmounted by the arms of the various Grand Chancellors who had presided
in that office. The documents of the Ducal Chancellery are of far higher
importance than those contained in the Cancelleria Inferiore; they
consist of political papers which it was not necessary to keep secret.
Among the many interesting series of documents which fell to the Ducal
Chancellery, the most valuable are the 'Compilazione delle Leggi,' or
statute-books distinguished by the various colours of their
bindings--gold, roan, and green--to mark the statutes which relate to
the Maggior Consiglio, the Senate, and the College respectively; the
Secretario alle voci, or record of all elections in the Great Council;
the Libri gratiarum, or special privileges. But most important of all is
the great series of documents which include the whole legislation of the
State relating to Venetian affairs on sea and land. Of this vast series
those marked _Terra_ contain 3128 volumes of files, 411 volumes of
registers, and 7 volumes of rubrics; those marked _Mar_ number 1286
volumes of files, 247 volumes of registers, and 7 volumes of rubrics. It
will easily be seen how important the Ducal Chancellery is both for the
verification of dates, and also as displaying so large a tract of the
Venetian home administration.

But important as the Ducal Chancellery undoubtedly is, it cannot vie in
interest with the Cancelleria Secreta, which might, with every justice,
have been called 'cor nostri status', for it is in the papers of that
Chancellery that the long history of the growth, splendour, and decline
of the Republic is to be traced in all its manifold details and
complicated relations. The Secret Chancellery was established by a
decree of the Great Council in the year 1402. Its object was to preserve
those papers of the highest State importance, from the publicity to
which the Ducal Chancellery was exposed. The regulation of the Secret
Chancellery was undertaken by the Council of Ten, and the rigorous
orders which they issued from time to time abundantly prove the
difficulty they experienced in securing the secrecy which they desired.
The Secret Chancellery became the depository of all State papers of
great moment; and if we take the chief members of the constitution in
order, and note the documents issuing from them which fell to the
custody of the Secreta, we shall see how the great flow of Venetian
history is to be followed here rather than in any other department of
the archives.

To begin with the Maggior Consiglio, we have the long series of
registers containing the deliberations of the Council from the year 1232
down to the fall of the Republic in 1797, occupying forty-two volumes,
and distinguished, at first, by such capricious names as Capricornus,
Philosus, Presbiter, and Fronesis; and later on by the names of the
secretaries who prepared them, Ottobonus primus, Ottobonus filius,
Busenellus, and Vianolus. In the special archive of the Avogadori di
Commun a contemporary series of registers is to be found; it covers from
1232 to 1547, and should be consulted together with the first series,
for it is more voluminous and minute. The first reference to England
that occurs in the Venetian archives is in the volume Fronesis
(1318-1385). This, and all other documents relating to Great Britain,
have been collected and rendered accessible in the splendid and
monumental series of the 'Calendar of State Papers,' edited with such
diligence and care by the late Mr. Rawdon Brown. Mr. Brown's published
work goes down to the year 1552; and it is only after that date that any
work relating to England remains to be done. That work, however, is
voluminous, for the regular and unbroken series of dispatches from
England does not begin till the reign of James I. Little more respecting
England is to be expected from the papers of the Great Council, however;
for at the date where Mr. Brown's work ends, the Maggior Consiglio had
ceased to occupy a high position in the direction of Venetian foreign
policy; its functions were chiefly confined to the election of
magistrates.

The Senate supplied a far larger number of papers to the Secret
Chancellery than that yielded by the Great Council. This was to be
expected, owing to the central position of the Senate in the
constitution, and its prominent place in the management of Venetian
policy, home and foreign. The oldest documents in the archives of Venice
belong to the Senate. They are contained among the volumes of Pacts or
treaties, seven in number, without including the volume Albus, which is
devoted to treaties between the Republic and the Eastern Empire, nor the
volume Blancus, which contains the treaties between Venice and the
Emperors of the West. The thirty-three volumes of Commemoriali formed a
sort of commonplace book for the use of statesmen; in them were
registered briefly the most important events and abstracts of principal
documents which passed through the hands of the Government. The
Commemoriali cover the years 1293 to 1797; but after the middle of the
sixteenth century they were neglected, and they are chiefly valuable
down to that date only. After the Patti and Commemoriali we begin the
record of the regular proceedings in the Senate. This series contains
papers relating to home government, foreign policy, the dominions of
Venice on the mainland, in Dalmatia and the Levant, ecclesiastical
matters, relations with Rome, instructions to ambassadors and reports
from governors. So widely spread and so varied were the attributes of
the Senate, that the analysis of a single day's proceedings in that
house would prove most instructive to the student of the Venetian
constitution, and would, in all probability, bring him into contact with
a large number of the leading magistracies of the Republic. The series
of senatorial papers proceeds in almost unbroken completeness from the
year 1293 down to the close of the Republic; and counting files,
registers and rubrics, numbers 1599 volumes. This main series is known
by different names at different periods, and shows signs of that
tendency to subdivision which characterizes all Venetian Government
offices. The volumes which run from the year 1293 to 1440 were known as
Registri misti; those covering from 1491 to 1630, and overlapping the
first Misti, were called Registri secreti. After the year 1630 the
papers of the Senate are divided into those known as Corti, relating to
foreign Powers; and those known as Rettori, relating to the government
of the Venetian dominion.

Besides this great series of Deliberazioni, containing the general
movement of business in the Senate, there is another voluminous series
of documents, equally important, and even more interesting to the
student of general history, the dispatches received from Venetian
representatives in foreign Courts, and the Relazioni, or reports which
ambassadors read before the Senate upon their return from abroad.
Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of this series; and the value of the
Relazioni at least has been fully recognized. Yet it should be borne in
mind that the Relazioni are only a part of the series, and that, taken
alone and isolated from the dispatches, they lose much of their value.
For we must not forget that the Relazioni were drawn up on more or less
conventional lines; the headings, under which the report was to fall,
were indicated by the Government, and were invariable; and, further, the
home-coming ambassador handed his report to his successor, who
frequently used it as a basis in drawing up his own. The result is that,
except in the descriptions of Court life, and in the sketches of
prominent characters, the Relazioni are apt to repeat themselves. But,
taken with the dispatches, which arrived almost daily, they form the
most varied, brilliant, and minute gallery of national portraits that
the world possesses. The reports and dispatches were made by men whose
whole political training had rendered them the acutest of observers, and
they were presented to critics who were filled with the keenest
curiosity, and were accustomed to demand full and precise information.
Not a detail is omitted as unimportant; the diurnal gossip of the Court,
the daily movements of the sovereign and his favourites; are all
recorded with impartial and unerring observation. The relation of the
Dispacci to the Relazioni is the relation of the study to the picture.
The Relazioni are the large canvas upon which the whole nation is
broadly depicted, the Dispacci are the patient and minute studies upon
which the excellence of the picture depends. The majority of the
Venetian Relazioni between the years 1492 and 1699 have been published;
the earlier part by Signor Alberi, and the later by Signori Barozzi and
Berchet. The eighteenth century still remains to be worked out. In the
series of Relazioni and Dispacci, Great Britain occupies a comparatively
small space. While France, Germany, and Constantinople, each give five
volumes of reports, England gives one only, dating from 1531 to 1763. Of
dispatches from England there are 139 volumes in all; while from
Constantinople we have 242, from France 276, from Milan, 230, and from
Germany 202.

Previous to the year 1603, when the regular series of dispatches from
England begins, there had been intermittent relations between the
Republic and the English Court. Sebastian Giustiniani was Venetian
ambassador in London in the reign of Henry VIII. (1515-1519); and in the
reign of Mary, Giovanni Michiel represented the Republic for four
years--from 1554 to 1558. The Protestant reign of Elizabeth caused a
long break, during which the Republic received its information about the
affairs of England from its ambassadors in France and Spain. Permanent
relations were not resumed between the two Powers till the accession of
James I., one of whose earliest acts was to send Sir Henry Wotton to
Venice as his ambassador. The appointment of Sir Henry Wotton was a
movement of gratitude on the part of the King; and the cause of it
cannot be better told than in the words of Sir Henry's biographer, who
thus describes this 'notable accident:'

     'Immediately after Sir Henry Wotton's return from Rome to
     Florence--which was about a year before the death of Queen
     Elizabeth--Ferdinand, the Great Duke of Tuscany, had
     intercepted certain letters that discovered a design to take
     away the life of James, the then King of Scots. The Duke
     abhorring this fact, and resolving to endeavour a prevention
     of it, advised with his Secretary Vietta, by what means a
     caution might be best given to that King; and after
     consideration it was resolved to be done by Sir Henry
     Wotton, whom Vietta first commended to the Duke, and the
     Duke had noted and approved of above all the English that
     frequented his Court.

     'Sir Henry was gladly called by his friend Vietta to the
     Duke, who dispatched him into Scotland with letters to the
     King, and with those letters such Italian antidotes against
     poison as the Scots till then had been strangers to.

     'Having parted from the Duke, he took up the name and
     language of an Italian; and thinking it best to avoid the
     line of English intelligence and danger, he posted into
     Norway, and through that country towards Scotland, where he
     found the King at Stirling. Being there, he used means, by
     Bernard Lindsey, one of the King's bed-chamber, to procure
     him a speedy and private conference with his Majesty.

     'This being by Bernard Lindsey made known to the King, the
     King required his name--which was said to be Octavio
     Baldi--and appointed him to be heard privately at a fixed
     hour that evening.

     'When Octavio Baldi came to the Presence-chamber door, he
     was requested to lay aside his long rapier--which,
     Italian-like, he then wore;--and being entered the chamber,
     he found there with the King three or four Scotch Lords
     standing distant in several corners of the chamber; at the
     sight of whom he made a stand; which the King observing,
     bade him be bold and deliver his message; for he would
     undertake for the secrecy of all that were present. Then did
     Octavio Baldi deliver his letters and message to the King in
     Italian; which when the King had graciously received, after
     a little pause, Octavio Baldi steps to the table, and
     whispers to the King in his own language that he was an
     Englishman, beseeching him for a more private conference
     with his Majesty, and that he might be concealed during his
     stay in that nation; which was promised and really performed
     by the King, during all his abode there, which was about
     three months. All which time was spent with much
     pleasantness to the King, and with as much to Octavio Baldi
     himself as that country could afford; from which he departed
     as true an Italian as he came thither.'

The presence of Sir Henry in Venice, where he was a _persona
gratissima_, both for his love of Italy and his knowledge of the
language, did much to strengthen the new relations between England and
the Republic. The feeling between Venice and the Stuart kings became
extremely cordial; but on the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1642, the
Republic suspended the commission of Vincenzo Contarina, who had been
appointed to succeed Giovanni Giustinian as ambassador to England. The
secretary Girolamo Agostino, however, continued to discharge Venetian
affairs till the year 1645; and his dispatches contain minute
particulars concerning the progress of the Civil War. In the year 1645,
Agostino was recalled, and the interests of Venice in England were
entrusted to Salvetti, the Florentine resident. Agostino left behind him
in England a secret agent, with instructions to forward a weekly report
on the progress of affairs to the Venetian ambassador in France, among
whose dispatches we find these newsletters from London. After the death
of Charles I it is not likely that the Republic would have been
represented at the Court of Cromwell, towards whom the feeling of Venice
was not cordial, had she not been in great straits for help against the
Turk. But in the year 1652 she resolved to dismiss the representative of
Charles II, then in Venice; and, at the same time, the Government
instructed the ambassador at Paris to send his secretary, Lorenzo
Pauluzzi, to London to open negociations with Cromwell. With Pauluzzi
the series of dispatches from London recommences; but these dispatches
are to be found among the communications from the Venetian ambassador in
Paris, by whom they were forwarded to the Senate. The dispatches of
Pauluzzi are of great importance, and give us a vivid though hostile
picture of Cromwell and his surroundings. 'Nell' universale,' he says,
'ha pochissimo affetto;' and further on, 'non ardiscono tentare alcuna
cosa nè parlare che tra i denti; ma ognuno sta sperando un giorno
verificate le profizie che questo governo non possa a lungo durare.' In
1655 the negociations between England and Venice had advanced so far
that the Republic had determined to send an Ambassador Extraordinary to
the Protector's Court. Giovanni Sagredo, ambassador at Paris, was
chosen, and the closing paragraph of his first dispatch shows how
strongly Cromwell's personality impressed him. 'Per il resto,' he
writes, 'è uomo di 56 anni, con pochissima barba, di complessione
sanguigna, di statura media e robusta e di presenza marziale. Ha una
fisonomia cupa e profonda. Porta una gran spada al fianco. Soldato
insieme ed oratore, e dotato di talenti per persuadere e per operare.'
The result of Sagredo's mission is contained in the long and brilliant
Relazione which he read in the Senate on his return to Venice in 1656.
In this splendid specimen of a Venetian report, he gives, with singular
lucidity and grasp, a brief sketch of the condition of Great Britain; of
the causes of the Civil War; of Cromwell's rise to power; of his foreign
relations; and closes with a portrait of the Protector which confirms
Pauluzzi's unfavourable view, and draws a terrible picture of that
restlessness and dread which clouded Cromwell's last days--'più temuto
che amato ... vive con sempiterno sospetto.' When Sagredo returned to
Venice, his secretary Francesco Giavarnia was left behind in England, as
Venetian resident, and continued to hold that post till the Restoration,
sending dispatches every week direct to Venice, detailing the close of
the Protectorate, and the return of Charles II., whom he was the first
to welcome at Canterbury the day after his landing. In 1661 the Republic
gladly re-opened full relations with the Stuarts. Giavarnia was
superseded by two Ambassadors Extraordinary, who conveyed to Charles two
gondolas for the water in St. James's Park, and from that date onwards
the diplomatic connection between England and the Republic followed the
ordinary course.

We come now to the papers of the Council of Ten; all of these were
committed to the custody of the Secret Chancellery. We have already seen
that the Council of Ten was an extraordinary office, used upon
extraordinary occasions, where secrecy and speed were required. Its
chief occupations may be summed up under three heads--safety of the
State, protection of citizens, and public morals. That being the case,
the number and interest of its documents is very great--greater than
that of any other Council of State; but this interest is confined, for
the most part, to matters affecting the home policy of the Republic;
foreign affairs finds comparatively little illustration among the
papers of the Ten. The series of documents, containing the ordinary
business of the Ten, dates from the year 1315 to the close of the
Republic. The documents are arranged according to the matter they deal
with, that is to say political matter, _parti communi_ and _secreti_, or
criminal matter, _parti crimminali_. The immense importance and interest
attaching to the papers of the Ten will be illustrated by the statement,
that there we find the cases of Marino Faliero, of the Carraresi, of
Carmagnola, of Foscari, of Caterina Cornaro, and of Foscarini.

Among the papers of the Collegio we find ourselves once more in the
general current of foreign politics. The ordinary proceedings of the
College, the papers containing the arrangement and discussion of affairs
to be presented to the Senate, are included in the volumes of files and
registers, known as the Notatorii del Collegio. The College was
entrusted, as we have said, to receive all the representatives of
foreign Powers and to open all letters and dispatches addressed to the
Government. It is in the three series known as Lettere Principi,
Espozioni Principi, and Ceremoniali, that we obtain the fullest
information about the action of the agents from foreign Courts resident
in Venice. The series called Lettere Principi, letters from royal
personages, covers the years between 1500 and 1797, and is contained in
fifty-four volumes of _filze_. England is represented by two of these,
beginning with the year 1570, and ending with 1796, entitled 'Collegio,
Secreta, Lettere. Rè e Regina d'Inghilterra.' These volumes contain one
hundred and seventy-one letters, thus distributed among the various
sovereigns; there are thirteen in the reign of Elizabeth; forty in that
of James I.; four in that of Charles I.; three from Oliver Cromwell; one
from Richard Cromwell; one from Speaker Lenthal: ten during the reign of
Charles II.; five during that of his brother; three during the reign of
William, including one from the Old Pretender; seven in the reign of
Anne; eight in that of George I.; twenty-one from George II; and
fifty-five from George III. These letters are concerned with formal
announcements and the exchange of courtesies, the credentials of
ambassadors and notices of royal births, marriages and deaths. Their
historical importance is very slight. The long series of George III. is
almost entirely occupied by noting the yearly increase of his family.
The autographs of the ministers who countersigned the letters, form
their greatest attraction. The late Mr. Rawdon Brown has published
facsimiles of these autographs down to the year 1659; but after that
date we find such interesting endorsements as those of Lauderdale,
Arlington, Bolingbroke, Carteret, Pitt, Halifax, Henry Conway,
Shelburne, and Charles James Fox. On a loose parchment among these
letters is one very curious document. It is dated Bologna, 21st
February, 1671, and begins 'Carlo Dudley per la gratia di Dio Duca di
Northumbria et del Sacro Romano Impero, Conte di Woruih e di Licester,
et Pari d'Ingliterra.' The document goes on to state that Charles
Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, in consideration of the affection and
partiality always shown towards his person and house, grants to Ottavio
Dionisio, noble of Verona, the title of Marquis to him and to his eldest
son, to his younger sons and to his brothers and their sons the title of
Count, in perpetuity; and this in virtue of the declaration and
authority of His Holiness Pope Urban VIII., which conferred on Charles
Dudley and his eldest born the right to exercise all the privileges of
an independent prince. At the date which this document bears, 1671,
there was no Duke of Northumberland; that title had lately been bestowed
by Charles II. on an illegitimate son, and had perished with him. This
Charles Dudley was probably some pretender to the honours of the Dudley
family who once held the dukedom of Northumberland. The document is
curious, for the noble family on whom Charles Dudley conferred this
title of Marquis still exists, and we do not know if any British
subject, either before or after, has even claimed to be a fountain of
honour. But Charles Dudley is not the only English pretender who figures
among the papers at the Frari. Filza 8 of the loose papers, titled
'Miscellanea Diversi Manoscritti,' contains the marriage certificate and
will of James Henry de Boveri Rossano Stuart, natural son of Charles
II., and seven letters from his son James Stuart, dated Milan, Gemona
and Padua, 1722 to 1728. The majority of these letters are addressed to
Cardinal Panighetti, from whom this 'povero principe Stuardo,' as he
calls himself, hoped to receive money and support in some imaginary
claims on the Crown of England. The letters are full of a certain
pathos--the pathos which cannot fail to attach itself to fallen royalty.
The handwriting is that of an uneducated man; and James Stuart, in these
letters, certainly shows no signs of the ability required to meet so
trying a situation. He appeals to the Cardinal first on the grounds of
his creed. It is 'for the Faith that he finds himself in the miserable
little town' of Gemona. Failing upon this line, James Stuart abandons
himself to astrology, in the hope that the stars may give an answer
favourable to his hopes. But to all his appeals the Cardinal replies
with cold reserve, and when he hears of astrology, he adds a sharp and
crushing reprimand.

Leaving the Lettere Principi we come to the last two series of State
papers of which we shall speak, the Espozioni Principi, or record of
all audiences granted to ambassadors and of the communications made by
them in the name of the Power they represented; and the Libri
Ceremoniali, or record of the great functions of State, coronations and
funerals of the Doges, the elections of the Grand Chancellors, the
reception accorded to ambassadors, princes and distinguished travellers.
The Republic of Venice was as punctilious as any Court of Europe upon
the points of precedence, ceremony, and etiquette. The reader will not
have forgotten the amusing account, given by the elder Disraeli, of the
long struggle between the Master of the Ceremonies and the Venetian
ambassador at the Court of St. James. The Government required from its
representatives a minute account of every detail of etiquette observed
towards them, and replied in kind in their treatment of foreign
ministers in Venice. The Republic was punctilious abroad, and no less so
at home. Every stage in the public entry, first audience and _congé_ of
foreign ambassadors were carefully regulated and based upon precedent.
The ambassadors of Spain and France had each a special volume devoted to
the ceremonies and etiquette which the Republic observed towards them.
M. Baschet describes at length the receptions of the French ambassadors,
for whom he claims the highest rank among the representatives of foreign
Powers at Venice. Great Britain sent fifty-eight embassies, in all, to
the Republic, between the years 1340 and 1797. Of these ambassadors, Sir
Gregory Cassalis filled the office twice, Sir Henry Wotton thrice, the
Earl of Manchester twice, and Elizeus Burgess twice. The ceremony to
which the ambassador was entitled may be gathered from the accounts of
these embassies preserved in the Esposizioni Principi and the
Ceremoniali.

The reception of Lord Northampton in the year 1762 will afford us the
most detailed view of the ceremony, for on that occasion some questions
of precedent arose, and the Cavaliere Ruzzini, who was entrusted with
the conduct of the affair, presented a long report to the Senate on the
subject. The ambassador was not officially recognized by the Government
until he had made his public entry, and presented his credentials at his
first audience in the College. Until that had taken place, he remained
incognito, and was in fact supposed not to be in Venice. Before the
ambassador arrived, the English Consul was expected to hire a palace for
his use. There was no fixed embassy in Venice; Thomas Killigrew lodged
at San Cassano, Lord Holdernesse at San Benedetto, Lord Manchester at
San Stae. John Udny, who was consul at the time of Lord Northampton's
Embassy, rented the Palazzo Grimani at Cannaregio for the ambassador
whenever his appointment was announced, and an amusing and
characteristic story attaches to this affair. The palace belonged to a
Contessa Grimani, and was in bad repair; but the owner promised to
restore and fit it up for the ambassador. When the consul went to see
the palace, shortly before the ambassador's arrival, he found that
nothing had been done to it, and moreover that a gondolier and his wife
occupied the ground-floor and refused to move. He wrote at once to the
Contessa requesting her to remove the gondolier, to which he received
for answer that the gondolier's wife had been nurse to one of the
Countess's boys, and the Grimanis had promised her twenty ducats a-year;
if the ambassador liked to pay that amount, the gondolier would turn
out; if not, they must manage to share the palace between them. The
consul appealed to the English Resident, John Murray, who wrote an angry
letter to the Government, complaining of this treatment; 'La carità
della nobile donna,' he says, 'verso la moglie del gondoliere merita
senza dubbio gran lode, ma il sottoscritto s'imagina che l'avvocato più
scaltro si troverebbe bene intrigato di produrre una legge o esempio per
incaricare l'Ambasciatore Inglese di questa carità.'

The matter was probably arranged, for on the 22nd of October Lord
Northampton arrived, incognito, of course, with all his suite, and took
up his residence. Lord Northampton was ill, and it was not until the
beginning of the next year that he took the necessary steps to make his
entry and to secure his first audience. The etiquette observed upon such
occasions required that the ambassador should send his secretary to
leave copies of his credentials at the door of the College, and to ask
on what day the Doge would receive him. The College reply through one of
their secretaries that an answer will be sent. The Doge was then
consulted what day would suit him, and he answers by putting himself at
the disposal of the College. The Senate is then informed of the
ambassador's arrival, and sixty senators, under the direction of a
leader, are appointed to attend the ambassador until the ceremonies of
his reception shall be completed. The days selected for Lord
Northampton's reception were the 29th and 30th of May, 1763; and the
Caveliere Ruzzini was named as head of the sixty senators who were to
attend the ambassador. Ruzzini informed Lord Northampton of these
arrangements, and at the same time sent him a programme of the ceremony,
which was based upon that observed towards Lord Holdernesse, and was
identical with that which the Republic offered to the ambassador of the
King of Sardinia. Before his public entry, the ambassador and all his
suite went to the island of San Spirito, in the lagoon towards
Malamocco. The fiction of the ceremony supposed all ambassadors to be
lodged there until they had presented their credentials. San Spirito was
chosen as the point of departure for the ambassadorial procession
because the distance between that island and Venice was supposed to
correspond exactly with the distance between London and Greenwich,
whence the Venetian ambassador was wont to begin his progress. Sir Henry
Wotton's second embassy forms a rare exception to this rule, for the
Venetians were so fond of that charming and accomplished poet, that they
allowed him to make his entry from San Giorgio Maggiore, which is much
nearer the city and more convenient. After midday on the 29th, Ruzzini
and his sixty senators, each in his gondola, arrived at San Spirito, and
found the household of the ambassador drawn up along the landing-place
_en grande tenue_. Lord Northampton was informed of Ruzzini's arrival,
and came to meet him on the staircase. After exchanging the prescribed
compliments, Ruzzini, with the ambassador on his right hand, descended,
and both entered the Cavaliere's gondola. The whole procession left San
Spirito and proceeded by the Grand Canal to the ambassador's lodging at
San Girolamo, accompanied, as Ruzzini says, by 'un immenso popolo
spettatore del nostro viaggio;' for these official entries were among
the most popular of the Venetian spectacles, and the whole city went out
to witness them. At the palace fresh speeches and compliments followed.
Lord Northampton was suffering acutely from an illness of which he died
that same year, but Ruzzini reports with obvious satisfaction that he
did not spare him a single ceremony, 'adempi ad ogni parte del consueto
ceremoniale.' The next day Ruzzini and the sixty senators again attended
at the ambassador's palace to conduct him to his audience in the
College. Lord Northampton was worse than he had been the day before; but
Ruzzini was implacable. It cost the ambassador three-quarters of an hour
to ascend the Giant's Stair. When at last he reached the door of the
Collegio, the Doge and all the College rose; the ambassador uncovered
and made three bows, and, leaving his suite behind him, he mounted the
daïs and took his seat on the right hand of the Doge. The ambassador
then covered his head, and simultaneously one of each order of the Savii
did the same. The ambassador handed his credentials to the Doge, and
remained uncovered while they were being read. The Doge made a brief and
formal reply, welcoming the ambassador to Venice, and each time the
King's name occurred, the ambassador raised his cap. After repeating his
three bows, the ambassador retired, and was accompanied to his palace
by the sixty senators who had waited for him at the door of the
Collegio. This closed the ceremony of entry.

The English Ambassador Extraordinary enjoyed certain privileges which
were established on the precedent of the embassy of Lord Falconberg,
Cromwell's son-in-law. Among these privileges was the right to lodging
and maintenance at the cost of the Republic, a right which the
ambassador usually compounded for the sum of five or six hundred ducats;
a box at each theatre in Venice was placed at his disposal, and when he
took his _congé_ the Senate voted him a gold chain and medal of the
value of two thousand scudi. The ambassadors ordinary enjoyed certain
exemptions from customs dues. These exemptions were frequently abused,
and were the cause of constant friction between the Government and the
representatives of the Powers. In the year 1763 Mr. John Murray's
Istrian wine was seized, and he only recovered it after expressing
himself _ben mortificato_. Mr. Murray was constantly in trouble on this
subject. The year before he had addressed an indignant letter to the
Government because 'a certain official of the Custom House had accused
him of allowing his servants to sell wine and flour at the door of the
Residency. It is but a poor satisfaction after so long a period of
suspicion to know that that official is bankrupt and no proof of the
accusation is forthcoming.' But by far the most curious episode of this
nature was that which befell Tom Killigrew, the poet, grandfather of the
Mrs. Anne Killigrew of Dryden's famous ode and a friend of Pepys, who
recals him as 'a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the
King, who told us many merry stories,' this, perhaps, among the number.
Killigrew was sent to represent Charles II. at Venice in 1649, just
after the execution of Charles I., and while his son was _a ramingo_, or
knocking about, as the Venetian ambassador politely puts it. Killigrew
was received in the usual way on February 10, 1650, and made his address
'in lingua cattiva,' as the report affirms. But the Republic soon tired
of its alliance with an exiled king, and resolved to dismiss Killigrew
as soon as possible. Killigrew was poor, and his master had little or
nothing to give him, so he hit upon the expedient of keeping a butcher's
shop, where he could sell meat, cheaper than any one else in Venice, by
availing himself of his exemptions from octroi. The Senate resolved to
fasten upon this illicit traffic as a pretext for dismissing Killigrew;
and on the 22d of June, 1652, they sent their Secretary, Busenello, to
tell Killigrew, _vivâ voce_, that he must go. Busenello went to San
Fantin, and there found one of Killigrew's butchers, who told him that
the Resident only kept his shop there, but lived himself at San Cassano.
At San Cassano Busenello was told that Killigrew was dining at Murano,
and would not be home till evening; but very soon after he saw the
Resident at his window, and insisted on being announced. He explained
'with all possible delicacy,' as he says, the order of the Senate; but
Killigrew received the message with every sign of anger and pain. With
tears in his eyes he declared that it was the other ambassadors who
robbed the customs, while he had all the blame. It was true that he did
keep 'a little bit of a butcher's shop to support himself,' but that
could not hurt the revenue; and he added that, under any circumstance he
should leave Venice, for he had received his letters of recall from
France, four days previously. The Senate no more than their secretary
believed in the existence of this letter of recall; but Killigrew really
had the letter, dated March 14th, and it was sent into the College,
along with a brief exculpatory epistle from the Resident, on the 27th of
June. Killigrew left Venice the same day as he was bound to do by
ambassadorial etiquette; and Charles had not another recognized agent to
the Republic until his restoration; for the Venetians definitely adopted
the policy of courting Cromwell, in the vain hope that he would assist
them against the Turk.

With the papers of the College we close this notice of the political
documents in the archives at the Frari. The other departments of the
Government had each their own series of papers, equally copious and
valuable. The heraldic and genealogical archives of the Avvogadori di
Commun, for example, the Charters of the German and Turkish Exchanges
and the records of the Mint and the public Banks, offer a wide and a
rich field for study; and in spite of the profound and extensive labours
of such scholars as Thomas, Checchetti, Barozzi, Berchet, Fulin,
Lamansky, Mas Latrie, and Rawdon Brown, it will be long before the
materials in the vast storehouse of the Frari are exhausted or even
adequately displayed.




Art. IV.--1. _Journal of a Residence in Norway during the years 1834,
1835 and 1836._ By Samuel Laing, Esq. London, 1837.

2. _Le Royaume de Norvège et le Peuple Norvègien._ Par le Dr. O. I.
Broch. Christiania, 1878.

3. _Official Reports of Prefects on the Economic Condition of the
Provinces of Norway in 1876-80._ Christiania, 1884.

4. _Publications of the Statistical Bureau, Christiania._


The advocates of a general redistribution of landed property in Ireland,
as well as those who are holding out to the agricultural labours of
other portions of the United Kingdom the Arcadian lure figuratively
known as the 'three acres and a cow,' will find in the work cited at the
head of this article the amplest materials for the justification of the
views they are pressing for adoption partly as a remedy for agricultural
distress, but essentially in application of the Socialist doctrine that
the people of a country have an inherent right to an absolute,
proportionate possession of its soil.

Mr. Laing's 'Journal' is, indeed, not a record of travel and adventure,
but a treatise, admirably written and replete with facts, in
demonstration of the great superiority of the Norwegian system of land
tenure over that of any other part of civilized Europe. His views have,
moreover, been to a great extent adopted in the numerous works that have
since been produced by British travellers who, after a rapid drive over
the main routes of Norway, have described in terms equally glowing the
happy and enviable condition of the _Bonde_ or yeoman farmer of that
country.

Considering there is much in common in regard to race, religion,
language, character, and civilization, between the inhabitants of that
interesting little country and its maritime neighbours--the populations,
more especially, of England and Scotland, it will be instructive, on the
eve of the agrarian revolution with which the United Kingdom is
threatened, to study and analyse the statements and conclusions of Mr.
Laing, and to trace the subsequent and present operation of the peculiar
land laws which he so highly extolled in the earlier part of this
century.

With that object we proceed to describe, almost in Mr. Laing's own
words, the condition of the peasant proprietors of Norway at a period
(1835) when, out of a population of 1,194,827, only about eleven per
cent. inhabited towns, the land in rural districts being held by 103,192
proprietors and tenants, the proportion of the two latter being
respectively seventy and thirty per cent.

     'The Norwegians,' wrote Mr. Laing, 'are the most interesting
     and singular group of people in Europe. They live under
     ancient laws and social arrangements totally different in
     principle from those which regulate society and property in
     the feudally constituted states. Their country is peculiarly
     interesting to the political economist. It is the only part
     of Europe in which property from the earliest ages has been
     transmitted upon the principle of partition among all the
     children. The feudal structure of society with its law of
     primogeniture, and its privileged class of hereditary
     nobles, never prevailed in Norway. In this remote corner of
     the civilized world we may therefore see the effects upon
     the condition of society of the peculiar distribution of
     property; it will exhibit, on a small scale, what America
     and France will be a thousand years hence.... Here are the
     Highland glens without the Highland lairds.... If there be a
     happy class of people in Europe it is the Norwegian _Bonde_,
     king of his own land, and landlord as well as king.'

This state of happiness is, according to Mr. Laing, the result of the
still existing _Odels ret_ or Allodial Right, under which, he asserts,
the land of Norway was always the property of the people, not of a
feudal class of high nobility. But although this assertion does not much
affect the main and practical object of our enquiry, it may be as well
to point out at once that, whatever might have been the inherent right
of every Norwegian to a portion of the soil on which he was born, Dr.
Broch, an eminent native authority, maintains that a considerable
portion of the land belonged anciently to the kings of Norway, and had
been acquired, as in other countries, partly by confiscation from
nobles. Those lands were leased and, gradually, to a certain extent,
sold. In the days of Roman Catholicism, the Church also held great
landed estates, which the State appropriated at the Reformation. No
inconsiderable part of the State domains was then leased, and, in short,
before the middle of the seventeenth century, leases comprised a little
more than half of the landed property of the country; while even in
1814, they constituted one-third of it. Later, the State lands, and
those which had been distributed among nobles at the Reformation, were
repartitioned among the bulk of the population or sold.

But to return to the _Odels ret_. It gives, Mr. Laing shows,

     'to all the kindred of the Odelsmand in possession, in the
     order of consanguinity, a certain interest in it. If the
     Odelsmand should sell or alienate his land, the next of kin
     is entitled to redeem it on paying the purchase-money; and
     should he decline to do so, it is in the power of the one
     next to him to claim his _Odelsbaarn ret._'

At the present time, the allodial right is acquired only by the
uninterrupted possession of the same person, his descendants or his
wife, during a period of at least twenty years, and it is lost if the
property has been in strange hands for three years. Testamentary
dispositions, in the case of persons leaving issue, are now limited to
one quarter of the testator's property; whereas before 1854, a testator
could not bequeath anything individually. Since the year 1860, also,
there is perfect equality between the two sexes in the division of real
and personal property. At the period when Mr. Laing visited Norway, the
division of land among children had

     'not had the effect of reducing properties to the minimum
     size that would barely support human existence. One sells to
     the other and turns his capital and industry to pursuits
     that would enable him to acquire the necessaries of life.
     The heirs who sell, very often, instead of a sum of money,
     which is seldom at the command of the parties, take a
     life-rent payment or annuity of so much grain, the keep of
     so many cows, so much firewood, a dwelling-house on the
     property, or some equivalent of that kind. Few properties
     have no such burthens.' He argued that 'in a country where
     land is held, not in tenancy merely, as in Ireland, but in
     full ownership, its aggregation by the death of co-heirs,
     and by the marriages of female heirs,[5] will balance its
     subdivision by the equal succession of children; and also,
     that in such a condition of society, the whole mass of
     property would be found in such a State to consist of as
     many estates of 1000l., as many of 100l., as many of 10l. a
     year, at one period as at another.'

     'Norway,' our author urges, 'affords a strong confutation of
     the dreaded excessive subdivision of land. Notwithstanding,
     the partition system, continued for ages, it contains farms
     of such extent that the owner possesses forty cows.'

On the whole, the farms appeared to him to be of various sizes: many so
large that a bell was used to call the labourers to or from their work;
while some were so small as to have only a few sheaves of corn, or a rig
or two of potatoes, scattered among the trunks of the trees. These,
however, were occupied by the farm servants, or cotters, paying for
their houses and land in work (_Husmoena_). Twenty to forty cows could
be counted on the large farms. In the district of Verdal
(Trondhjemsfiord) Mr. Laing saw beautiful little farms of forty to fifty
acres, each having a pasturage or grass tract in the mountains, where
the cattle were kept during the summer until the crops were taken in,
and upon each such out-farm, or _Soeter_, there was a house and
regular dairy, to which, he informs us, 'the whole of the cattle and
the dairy-maids, with their sweethearts, are sent to junket and to amuse
themselves for three or four months of the year.[6] We can well believe
that, in such circumstances, Mr. Laing found 'this class of _Bönder_ the
most interesting people in Norway,' and that 'there are none similar to
them in the feudal countries of Europe.' He appears to have been more
particularly impressed with

     'the farms large enough to keep a score of cows, six horses
     and a small flock of sheep and goats, and to maintain a
     family and servants in all that land usually produces,
     leaving a surplus for sale sufficient to pay taxes, wages,
     and to provide the comforts and necessaries of life to a
     fair extent,' all which could be bought 'for 1000l. or
     1200l., or even less.'

As regards the agricultural labourer, or cotter, Mr. Laing conceived
'his average condition to be that of holding land on which he could sow
three-quarters of an imperial quarter of corn and three imperial
quarters of potatoes, and which would enable him to keep two cows, or an
equivalent number of sheep or goats.' His wages are stated to have been
4-1/2d. to 6d. per diem, in addition to his food. It was consequently
'amusing to recollect the benevolent speculations in our Agricultural
Reports, of the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases in our midland counties of
England, for bettering the condition of labourers in husbandry, by
giving them, at a reasonable rent, a quarter of an acre of land to keep
a cow on, or by allowing them to cultivate the slips of land on the
roadside, outside of their hedges.' He also derides 'the agricultural
writers' who 'tell us, indeed, that labourers in agriculture are much
better off as farm servants, than they would be as small proprietors,'
for 'if property is a good and desirable thing, the very smallest
quantity of it is good and desirable.' It was obvious to Mr. Laing that
the forty families of two or three Norwegian highland glens, 'each
possessing and living on its own little spot of ground and farming well
or ill, as the case might be, were in a better and happier state, and
formed a more rationally constituted society, than if the whole belonged
to one of these families (and it would be no great estate), while the
other thirty-nine families were tenants and farmers.'

Mr. Laing found the happy agricultural population of Norway 'much
better lodged than our labouring and middling classes, even in the south
of Scotland;' and that no nation was at that period either better
housed, or so well provided with fuel. The standard of living appeared
to be higher in Norway than in most of our Scotch highland districts,
although the materials were the same, namely, oatmeal, barley meal,
potatoes, fish--fresh and salted--cheese, butter, and milk. He
understood that it was even usual for the yeoman farmers to have animal
food--'salt beef and black-puddings'--at least twice a week. At all
events, he says, four meals a day formed the regular fare, and with two
of those meals even the labourers had a glass of home-made brandy,
distilled from potatoes by the yeoman, who 'could malt and distil in
every way he pleased,' and thereby 'make free use of his agricultural
produce,' with the result of 'increasing the general prosperity,
improving the condition of the people, and promoting the increase of
their numbers.'[7]

There was, at the time of Mr. Laing's residence in Norway, 'small
difference in the way of living between high and low, because every man
lived from the produce of his farm, and observed the utmost simplicity
and economy with regard to everything that took money out of his
pocket.' Furniture and clothes, except the yeoman's Sunday hat, were all
home-made. 'Here was a whole population, in an old European country,
dealing direct with Nature, as it were, for every article, without the
intervention of money, or even of barter.' It was only the small yeomen
on the verge of the Fjeld, or in the glens, far above the level of the
land producing corn, and the inhabitants of districts less favoured by
nature, 'whose common bread consisted of the bark of trees, mixed and
ground up with ill-ripened oats; but even in their case, trout, dried
and salted for winter, was no inconsiderable part of their provision,
their houses being, at the same time, comfortable, though small, with
wooden floors and glass windows.

Apart from these exceptionally situated proprietors, Mr. Laing found
there really was 'no difference between the residence of a public
functionary, of a clergyman, or of a gentleman of larger property and
that of a _Bonde_, or peasant. The latter are as well, as commodiously
and even showily, lodged as the former can be, and the properties are as
good.' Mr. Laing, however, makes a reservation under this head in
respect of the 'cultivated classes,' as being indisputably superior in
mental acquirements to the yeoman farmer, and who lived in the same
manner as the corresponding classes in England.

Towards the end of his stay in Norway, Mr. Laing often heard 'from the
most intelligent men in the country' that the yeoman farmer lived too
high; indulged too much in expensive luxuries, as coffee and sugar; in
frequent and expensive entertainments at each other's houses; in
carrioles, sledges, and harness of a costly kind; and even in a horse or
two more than the farm work required; and he certainly thought this had
resulted in a general want of money among them to pay even the most
trifling taxes and other sums. A man with land worth three or four
thousand dollars, and with horses, cows, and all sorts of products in
abundance, was often at a loss for five or ten dollars. Nevertheless, he
was of opinion that 'the increase of the tastes and habits which belong
to property tended to keep population within the bounds of what can be
comfortably subsisted, and without which the increase of subsistence
would tend to evil rather than good.' It was, indeed, 'a good thing that
they all had the ideas, habits, and character of people possessed of
independent property upon which they were living without any care about
increasing it, and free from the anxiety and fever of money making or
money losing.'

Their subsistence, Mr. Laing exultingly and repeatedly points out, was
derived mainly from husbandry, carried on under less favourable
conditions of soil, climate, crops, and pasturage than in the Scotch
highlands;--

     'but on the simple Norwegian system, to live on the produce
     of the land being the main object, and the labourer (the
     cotter) being paid chiefly in land, a good crop would be an
     unmingled blessing; whereas in countries where agriculture
     is carried on as a manufacture, a succession of good crops
     may glut the markets, ruin the tenant, and even reduce the
     money wages of the labourer. In Norway neither good nor bad
     crops can affect the proportion of population to the land
     that could in ordinary seasons subsist on it. Paying no
     rent, the Norwegian yeoman farmer is not usually employed in
     prospective improvements, but simply in raising food, so
     that he can see at once whether the land is sufficient to
     produce subsistence for himself and his labourers. If grain
     and potatoes for the use of the farm, and a little surplus
     for sale to pay the land-tax and buy luxuries with, can be
     raised by the farm, all the purposes of farming in Norway
     are answered.

On the subject of pauperism, Mr. Laing alleges that 'the dread of
poverty was less influential in Norway, where extreme destitution is as
rare as great wealth, and where there is so much less difference in the
comforts and consideration of the richer and poorer classes.' The
indigent were farmed out for a week or so at a time among the yeomen
farmers, 'whose poor-rate like the tithes of the Church, was too
inconsiderable to mention.' The state of property, and its general
diffusion throughout the social body, had also, he had no doubt, a
beneficial effect on the moral condition of the people. 'The desire for
wealth being considerably blunted, it was not the same actuating,
engrossing principle of human action, the spring of much that was evil
and immoral being thus removed.' Only one case of downright
drunkenness--that of a Laplander--had come under his personal
observation, and it was only on special occasions that the yeoman farmer
could be seen a little elated. His theory, however (we may remark in
passing), respecting the influence of property on the moral condition of
the people is not supported by other facts which he quotes, namely, that
owing to the restraints upon marriage, 'exercised as in Paris or London,
by a high standard of living,' the 'proportion of illegitimate to
legitimate children in Norway was 1 in 5,' while in a parish he
specifies, it was (between 1826 and 1830) 'as high as 1 in 3-26/136.' He
mentions that engagements between couples lasted generally one, two, and
often several years, especially in the case of servants in husbandry
waiting for a house and land to settle in as cotters. In such cases, he
says, 'it too often happened that the privileged kindness between
betrothed parties was carried too far,' and 'the betrothed became a
mother before she was a wife.'

We quit this painful phase of peasant proprietorship with the
observation that, notwithstanding a still wider diffusion of property
and of moral qualities which, according to Mr. Laing, that diffusion is
calculated to engender, 8.38[8] per cent. of the live children born in
Norway between 1866 and 1870 were born out of wedlock, the corresponding
proportion in 1836 having been 7.07 per cent. It is natural to find,
under these circumstances, that the marriage rate was 6.84 per 1000 of
the population in 1866-75 against 7.31 per 1000 between 1834 and 1836,
with a fractional decrease of the total number of births in the former
period, the average per family remaining slightly over four.

The ancient Allodial Right and the happy social system based upon it,
Mr. Laing found jealously guarded by the yeomanry, 'who have not only
the legislative power and the election of the Storthing' (or Parliament)
'almost entirely in their own hands, but also the whole civil business
of the community.' He may, therefore, well say, without fear of
contradiction, that 'the Norwegian people enjoy a greater share of
liberty, have the framing and administering of their own laws more
entirely in their own hands, than any European nation of the present
time;' and, further, that 'it is not a little extraordinary that almost
the only result' of the universal delirium of 1790,[9] 'which approaches
in reality to the theories of that period, has been the Norwegian
Constitution.'

The paramount influence of the agrarian class over the destinies of the
kingdom may be judged by the circumstances that the rural districts are
permanently represented in the Storthing by two-thirds of the total
number of members, limited by the Constitution to 114; and that
practically the suffrage is now universal, the principal conditions of
its possession being, under recent legislation, a qualification of age
(25 years) and a residence of five years in the country. It is well
known that the Parliament thus elected (under a system of double
election), with its _de facto_ single Chamber, subdivided for the more
rapid and effective discharge of certain business into what Mr. Laing
chooses to call an 'Upper House' and a 'House of Commons,' has, within
very recent days, in virtue of the largely predominant rural, radical
vote, exercised its power of impeaching and punishing, by fine and
dismissal from office, an entire Cabinet, for the crime of having
advised the King that his veto was not merely suspensive, but absolute,
in the matter of any Bill affecting the principles of the Constitution,
and that the questions in dispute between the Sovereign and the
Storthing were of a constitutional character, involving indirectly not
only the stability of a monarchical form of government, but also that of
the personal union between the crowns of Norway and Sweden--a stability
pre-eminently essential in both respects to the highest interests of
Scandinavia, and in no small degree also to the maritime and political
interests of this country. It is this form of Parliament that Mr. Laing
extols 'as a working model of a constitutional government on a small
scale, and one which works so well as highly to deserve the
consideration of the people of Great Britain.'

We have at last done with Mr. Laing's remarkable statements, views, and
recommendations; and the principal question we now have to consider is:
What is the latest phase (after an interval of half a century) of the
development of the peculiar social organization of Norway, and
especially of its system of land tenure, differing, as both do, from the
organization and system evolved out of feudality in Great Britain and
Ireland? We therefore intend to enquire: (1) Has the system of land
tenure in Norway prevented, as foretold by Mr. Laing, an excessive
subdivision of land? (2) Has a dead level of ease and contentment been
maintained? (3) Has the diffusion of land by a natural process, under
the widest form of home rule, kept the rural population of Norway within
the bounds of possible modern existence? (4) Has no pauperism affected
the taxation of landed property? and (5) generally, Is the Norwegian
yeoman farmer in a more thriving condition at the present time than the
tenants and agricultural labourers elsewhere, from whom is still
withheld the freehold possession of land to which, it is alleged by a
certain school of politicians, they have a natural right, disputed only
by monopolists and land-grabbers?

These are the questions we shall endeavour to answer with the aid,
exclusively, of the latest publications of the Norwegian Government. We
must, however, preface our replies by sketching roughly the influences
that have sprung into operation since Mr. Laing published the Journal of
his residence in Norway.

In his time the towns contained only about eleven per cent. of the total
population of the kingdom, whereas at the present moment the proportion
is double that of 1835.[10] This urban agglomeration, Dr. Broch shows,
has been 'due principally to causes which have operated in the rest of
Europe. Facilitated means of communication promoted the migration of the
agricultural population towards the towns, where the development of
industry and commerce offered the lure of gains or salaries higher than
those in rural districts.' One of the causes, he justly adds, of the
displacement of the population has been the immense and laudable
progress of public instruction, 'and the growing taste for intellectual
and material enjoyments which gave a great force of attraction to the
towns.'

As in other advancing countries, the attraction of towns, and the
facilities for obtaining employment in them, operate also in Norway, to
the disadvantage of the yeomen farmers of the present day. Among the
causes of the economic decline of the Province of North Bergen, the
Prefect mentions that

     'the disinclination of young men of the yeoman farmer class
     to take permanent service is very general in this district,
     and is easily explained by the ease with which men in the
     prime of their strength obtain occupation as labourers in
     the fisheries. The great bulk of the day labourers do not
     seek with any great eagerness for work in the fields, so
     long as they hold previously acquired means sufficient to
     provide them with the necessaries of life, however scantily.
     As a rule, so long as want does not look in at the window,
     they will not engage themselves for such work, except at
     very good wages. The wages for a yearly labourer have
     doubled during the last twenty years.[11] At the same time
     the houseman has lost the command he previously had over his
     workmen, and consequently does not get the same amount of
     work out of them as formerly. Fishing attracts labour by a
     larger immediate return, acquired with less bodily exertion
     than in husbandry. It gives the population less taste for
     harder work.'

We leave Mr. Laing in doubt whether the steam-engine could 'ever be
brought to perfection.' That doubt was speedily removed, and in 1852
Norway followed in the wake of other European nations by building
railways, their total length in 1883 having reached very little short of
a thousand English miles. Nor did their construction, with capital
raised chiefly abroad and punctually repaid, arrest the improvement or
the laying down of ordinary roads, to the extent of 4000 miles, between
1845 and 1875. In addition to this extensive opening-out of
communication by rail and road, the introduction of steamers on inland
waters and their employment as coasters and sea-going vessels, the
construction of telegraphs, and development of fisheries, of ship
building, of banking and other companies, and generally of trade and
industry, produced gradually a wide disturbance in the social economy
found by Mr. Laing. The expansion and prosperity of the towns, as well
as the more refined habits of life adopted by the clergy and the
officials of Government, were viewed by the yeomen farmers with a
jealousy that was undoubtedly the original cause of their present
radical proclivities, the old conservatism being relegated to towns,
contrary to the experience of other European countries, and particularly
to that of Great Britain, until the metaphorical three acres and a cow
were dangled before the eyes of its rural population.

Under all these influences, and we may include among them the effect of
a constantly-increasing number of travellers, equipped with the modern
appliances of civilization, and demanding accommodation and other
material comforts of a more and more superior character, the Robinson
Crusoe existence of the yeoman farmer, as depicted by Mr. Laing, has
suffered so much invasion that it has well-nigh disappeared.

In the matter of clothing, an assimilation to general, central European
dress has for years past been noticeable even in districts the most
remote, to the prejudice of home-spinning and weaving. Ancient silver
ornaments have been largely discarded by the women, and converted, first
into money, and eventually into articles of modern use or embellishment,
to an extent that now renders travellers more and more suspicious of the
Brummagem origin of the objects that remain for sale. And it is the same
with old furniture and with the multifarious knicknacks which travellers
less recent delighted to find in the country at reasonable prices.

The value of money has become more generally appreciated since Mr. Laing
admired the absence of all incentive to 'money-making and money-losing,'
and the previously unambitious character of the yeoman and his sons has
undergone a tolerably complete change since education has opened out the
widest avenues to personal advancement, even from the plough. They no
longer live by bread alone, and therefore their artificial wants have
been increasing at a greater ratio than their means of satisfying them
out of the produce of the land. Without entering here upon the important
effect of the corn supplies from America, and of the depreciation of the
value of the Norwegian timber, owing to the increased competition of
America and other countries, we may sum up this imperfect prefatory
sketch by stating that, from a general point of view, the Gamle Norge
(Old Norway) of Mr. Laing's days has for many years been passing through
a process of transformation, the latest results of which we shall now
describe.[12]

Mr. Laing's contention, that when land is held in freehold, not as a
rule in tenancy, the relative size or value of the estates into which
the land is divided will remain the same at one period as at another, is
entirely refuted by the official statistics of Norway. In the first
place, the total number of properties, which was about 111,000 in 1838,
had grown, in 1870, to 149,000 (34-1/2 per cent.), and is still higher
at the present day, with a continued tendency to multiplication by
partition. Secondly, the proportion that existed in 1838 between the
various sizes of agricultural holdings has undergone a notable change,
marking a very considerable increase in the relative number of small
plots.

As it was found practically impossible to estimate the value of landed
property on the basis of its acreage (the physical conditions of the
country giving such great variety to the value of estates), the
'Cadastre' introduced in 1836, established, for purposes of assessment,
a classification based on 'skylddaler,' or taxable, value. This unit of
taxation was assumed to represent a mean capital value of about 89l.,
arrived at by estimating the net income derived at that period from the
working of land during an average year.

The following statement exhibits the cadastral classification of
properties,[13] and the changes that have occurred in the several groups
between 1838 and 1870.

                                              1838.      1870.
Estates below 0.2 skylddaler in value         8,866      26,048
   "    between 0.2 and 1      "             31,265      52,067
   "       "    1    "  2      "             28,652      33,427
   "       "    2    "  5      "             32,854      29,498
   "       "    5    " 10      "              7,043       6,012
   "       "   10    " 20      "              1,791       1,617
   "     above         20      "                315         344
                              Total         110,786     149,013

It is thus evident that, even fifteen years ago, the increase in the
total number of properties, as compared with the number in 1838, had
affected only the three groups of smaller holdings, and particularly the
group (below 0.2) which, according to Dr. Broch, 'includes the sites of
houses and cottages owned by labourers, fishermen, seamen, and artizans,
but estimated to yield an average of 5-1/2 bushels of corn, 8 bushels of
potatoes, and grass for half a cow. The holdings more purely
agricultural, and designated by the same authority as 'small
properties,' are those comprised in the two next categories, namely,
parcels of land over 0.2 and under 2 skylddaler in value. In 1870, we
find that a little more than one-half of the landed properties in Norway
and one-third of the total cadastral area, were included in those two
groups. The average yield of those small properties is estimated by Dr.
Broch at '55 bushels (20 hectol) of cereals, and 82-1/2 bushels (30
hectol) of potatoes, with fodder for four cows, seven sheep or goats,
and half a horse.' He states, nevertheless, that--

     'without subsidiary means of existence, the most frugal
     families cannot subsist on them, even when free from debt
     and other incumbrances. There can be no question of
     employing hired labour on such farms, although a domestic
     servant is sometimes kept. The owners or tenants of such
     small properties seek their principal means of existence in
     fishing, forest work, and a variety of other occupations.'

The group of properties more particularly admired by Mr. Laing is that
which is officially classed under 'Properties of medium size,' ranging
between two and ten skylddaler in cadastral value. They represented in
1870 only 24 per cent. of the total number of properties, but 59 per
cent. of the cadastral area of Norway. These are the farms which can, on
an average, feed fifteen head of cattle, thirty or forty sheep or goats,
and a couple of pigs, and yield 30 imperial quarters of cereals, 40
imperial quarters of potatoes, and fodder for a couple of horses.

     'Agriculture on these properties,' continues Dr. Broch, 'is
     not only the most important means of existence, but also in
     many cases the only resource. _They suffice for a family of
     simple habits, provided the proprietor is not crippled with
     debt, that he has not to pay too heavy "föderåa"_
     (annuities, incumbrances) _and on condition that he lives as
     a peasant, assisting personally in the work of the
     firm_,[14]

Estates of an assessed value of more than ten 'skylddaler' are
designated as 'Large Properties.' They cover 13.4 per cent. of the total
cadastral area, but represent only 1.3 per cent. of the total number of
properties; and it is exclusively these that afford, according to Dr.
Broch, 'easy circumstances to their possessors, who are not infrequently
ship-owners, forest-owners, engaged in the fishery-trade,' &c.

It is thus manifest that, in 1878, when Dr. Broch drew up his Report for
the Universal Exhibition at Paris, the diffusion of property in Norway
had left only about 25 per cent. of the yeomen farmers (excluding the
group of 'Large Properties') capable of maintaining themselves and their
families on their freeholds on conditions which, as we shall presently
show, no longer exist, and that the great bulk of the landed proprietors
were in occupation of such small patches of land that their subsistence
was entirely dependent upon other employments. This view is very fully
borne out by the 'Reports of the Norwegian Prefects for the Quinquennial
Period 1876-80.' Their observations on the growing subdivision of land
as one of the causes by which the agricultural economy has been
disturbed, to its great disadvantage, are well worth attention.

An increasing subdivision of land is reported from the provinces of
North Bergen, Romsdal, South Trondhjem, and Tromsö. The Prefect of North
Bergen points to it as one of the reasons of the unfavorable condition
of the province:--

     'It may,' he writes, 'with just cause be said to exist when
     the properties parcelled out are insufficient for the
     maintenance of a family, and when the farms are situated in
     a locality which does not afford the opportunity of some
     kind of subsidiary employment, or if the proprietor of such
     a small holding cannot attach himself to another man as a
     labourer for hire. When utilised, however, by the
     inhabitants of the coast, such subdivision cannot be
     regarded as excessive, for the owners of the small patches
     are able to obtain for themselves and their families the
     necessaries of life by fishing. When, however, a landowner,
     on account of the insignificant extent or the small
     productiveness of his farm, finds himself unable to subsist
     without seeking the wages of a labourer, his position is not
     better, or but little better, than that of the cotter
     (Husmand) alongside of him, notwithstanding that the latter
     is not owner of the land he cultivates. It is a matter of
     course that such farmers will be destitute of economical
     power, and unable to give the communal or the provincial
     exchequer any visible contribution towards the funds that
     have to be raised in order to meet the public expenditure.
     The existence of such small proprietors is not, on the
     whole, desirable.'

In the province of South Trondhjem the great increase of the
indebtedness of the landowners is ascribed in part to the subdivision of
property by the creation of _Myrmoend_, literally 'bogmen'
(bog-trotters?), or men supplied gratuitously, in recent times, with
small plots of waste land, for the purpose of qualifying them as voters.
Subdivision has likewise resulted from the partition of holdings in
common, which, according to Dr. Broch, formed, in 1870, 13.4 per cent.
of all the properties in Norway; principally in the Western Provinces,
from the Naze to the Fiord of Trondhjem, where they constituted at that
period, on the average as much as 30 per cent. of the landed property.
Under a law passed in 1857, those lands are now divisible or
exchangeable, and it appears from the report of the Prefects that the
demands in that direction cannot be satisfied by the Government
officials with sufficient promptness. In the province of South
Trondhjem, for instance, about 40 per cent. of the properties were still
held in common in 1875, but between 1876 and 1880 the partition of such
lands was advancing 'at the rate of about twenty farms per annum.'

The Prefect of Romsdal enumerates the causes of an increasing
subdivision of landed property as follows: 1. The clearing of land for
fields and meadows with the view of affording support to more families
than one. 2. The desire of a proprietor to let more of his children than
the nearest _Odelsberretige_[15] come into the possession of his estate.
3. In the case of an indebted proprietor, the necessity of parting with
a portion of his land in order to get clear of his creditors; and 4. The
desire on the part of persons who have no real property to come into the
possession of land, especially tenants and cotters. The yeomen farmers
themselves, he reports:

     'bring forward as a substantial reason for the increasing
     subdivision of land the fact that, owing to the growing
     difficulty of obtaining labourers, _it does not pay to
     remain in possession of a larger estate than can be worked
     by the family itself_.'

Consequently, the number of holdings was increased in that province by
nearly 10 per cent. between 1876 and 1880. A corroboration of this view
is to be found in other Reports, particularly in the Report from the
Province of North Trondhjem, in which the yeomen farmers are declared to
be compelled to 'cultivate the land with the resources of their own
households.' The effect of the conversion of cotters into small
proprietors may be estimated from the following opinion of another
Prefect: 'The burden of bad times is often felt more heavily by the
proprietor than by the cotter;' and all the Reports show that 'the
times' are as bad in Norway as they are in the United Kingdom, with this
aggravation, that 70 to 80 per cent. of the population of Norway is
settled on the land, and steeped in debt.

Most of the Prefects report unfavourably on the condition and prospects
of agriculture, and on the depressing influence of American competition
in corn, which began to make itself distinctly felt about the year
1875,[16] when also the forest industry, so intimately connected with
agriculture, first encountered the effects of a greatly increased
shipment of timber from America and other countries to Europe. But these
are not the only reasons, over and above the subdivision of property
already dwelt upon, to which they ascribe a very general decline in the
economic condition of the yeomen farmer. In one province, 'habits of
thrift and providence had been awakened and replaced by new habits of
life, with greater demands for comforts and enjoyments.' High prices
previously realized for timber had caused luxury to enter into all the
circumstances of life, stimulating in many quarters a reckless waste of
money earned.' In another, 'the demand for comforts of life has risen,
and it is not all that have found it easy to limit the satisfaction of
their wants,' and 'more has been consumed than means allowed.' The
female part, more particularly, of the population of North Bergen, is
reproached with an inability to withstand the temptation of buying the
wares of all kinds, 'neither useful nor necessary,' which the present
great number of country storekeepers insidiously placed before their
eyes. 'The improved mode of living introduced during a previous,
flourishing period, has also contributed to ruin the economic condition
of the people, who in the harder times that have succeeded have not
known how to cut their coats according to their cloth.' At the same
time, the Prefect adds, 'the mode of living, taking the rural population
as a whole, is very frugal; yes, far too frugal. It is very desirable
that they should have more substantial food than they have at present,
but they must first have the means to obtain it.' Even so far north as
the Provinces of Nordland and Tromsö, a similar tendency to live beyond
means, the absence of good economy, and the dissipation of money 'on no
particular system,' are reported to be the present characteristics of
the people who are largely engaged in the fisheries.

No one who has travelled in Norway can fail to endorse the assertion,
that the fare of the yeomen farmer, however many may be his cows, is of
a character which no English agricultural labourer would be satisfied
with. Oatmeal cakes, potatoes, porridge, butter and milk, and of late
years American pork (when within reach of the yeoman's means) are the
principal articles of food; and the hardiest traveller, whether native
or alien, would not venture to leave the main arteries of communication
without making his own provision of potted meats, or trusting for his
sustenance to the fish and game to be killed by himself. Mr. Laing's
'salted meat and black-puddings' are certainly not to be found, except
at farms that are few and far between. On the high roads, where
tourists' gold circulates, the traveller suffers no deprivation, and the
houses and stations are so comfortable and well-appointed, that only the
most exacting foreigner can find fault with the accommodation provided.
Mr. Laing's observations in this respect apply at present only to
establishments of this kind, and to the very few farms at which the
servants are still 'called to and from their work by means of a bell.'

Except, therefore, along the course of the tourists' gold stream, and in
the vicinity of towns, the mode of living is rude in the extreme, and
the lament of the Prefect of North Bergen is in reality applicable to
the great bulk of the yeomen farmers of Norway, as well as to their
tenants and cotters. Nor is there any trace of that equality in the mode
of living which Mr. Laing found in existence among the several classes
of the rural population--'the public functionary, the clergyman, the
gentleman of larger property, and the _Bonde_ or peasant.' Refinement
and culture, equal to what exists amongst corresponding classes of this
country, are wanting only to the yeomen farmers; and their efforts to
adopt a 'higher standard of living,' and to acquire the 'comforts of
life,' have in no small degree conduced to the encumbrance of their
estates. From the Reports of the Prefects it is evident that the gravest
symptom of the decline of the rural economy in Norway, and, at the same
time, one of its principle causes, is the heavy indebtedness of the
yeomen farmers, great and small. Its origin is traceable to the year
1816, when the Bank of Norway was founded, chiefly for the purpose of
'advancing on its own notes, upon first securities over land, any sum
not exceeding two-thirds of the value of the property' mortgaged to it.
Mr. Laing alludes to it as 'the peculiar, and for the wants of the
country, well-imagined, Bank of Norway,' which 'facilitates greatly the
family arrangements with regard to land.' Its capital was originally
raised by a forced loan or tax upon all landed property, and the
landholders became shareholders according to the amount of their
respective shares. The borrower repaid half-yearly to the Bank the
interest of the sum that might be to his debit at the rate of 4 per
cent. per annum, and was also bound to pay off 5 per cent. yearly of the
principal, which was thus liquidated in twenty years. Although Mr. Laing
was of opinion that 'a circulation of paper money on such a basis is
evidently next, in point of security, to that of the precious metals,'
he fails to mention that the Bank was forced to suspend specie payments
three years after its establishment, and that the resumption of those
payments was not commenced until 1823, when the notes of the Bank began
to be convertible at little over half their original value; the
operation of raising them to par, on a graduated scale, having been
completed only in 1842, a period since which the Bank, with an increased
Reserve Fund, has maintained an uninterrupted and unimpeachable
stability. But while the Bank still advances money on the security of
landed property, two-thirds of its resources are now employed in the
discount of mercantile bills. At the end of 1883, its loans to the
landed proprietors amounted only to 626,000l.

In 1852, however, the State had come again to the assistance of the
landowners for the extinction of private mortgages and the consolidation
of old debts by the creation of a special 'State Mortgage Bank,' with an
original capital of 291,000l., increased by successive issues of bonds
representing advances on the security of real property, bearing interest
at the rate of 4 per cent, (at present 4-1/2 per cent.), and repayable
by drawings over a period of thirty years. The amount of the bonds
issued up to 1884 was about 3,812,000l., and in 1878 about
three-quarters of the bonds were held in the country itself, their
market value being still almost at par.

It is principally into this Bank that the yeomen farmers have been
dipping their estates at a rapidly increasing rate. Thus, while the
loans on the security of real property in rural districts averaged
57,500l. per annum between 1853 and 1855, and 220,600l. between 1876 and
1880, the advances made in 1883 amounted to 396,500l. At the end of that
year the balance of outstanding loans had reached the sum of
3,752,000l., of which about 77 per cent., or 2,889,000l., represented
advances in rural districts, the remaining 23 per cent, having been
borrowed in towns. The interest payable on those loans is respectively
4-1/4 and 4-3/4 per cent., according to whether the borrowers have been
supplied with bonds bearing interest at the rate of 4 or 4-1/2 per cent.
per annum; and 3 per cent. of the capital is repayable per annum until
the extinction of the debt over a period of thirty years.

There is a third public source available to the landed proprietors for
loans on mortgages and on bonds or bills, namely the Savings Banks. In
1884, the savings-banks, in rural districts alone, held in 'mortgage
bonds' and in 'bonds and bills' a sum of about 3,553,000l.; but in what
proportion that debt was incurred by local traders and by farmers, it is
impossible to say. It is, however, clear that the yeomen farmers have
benefited largely by the deposits made in those banks by the
comparatively few who have been able to accumulate, instead of
borrowing, money. Thus, the Prefect of Hedemarken reports that, 'while
large amounts, realized by the sale of timber, were deposited in the
savings-banks, extensive loans were made by those establishments to
persons in less favourable circumstances,' and that 'the savings-banks,
to be found in so many parishes, have, by the easy access they afford to
loans, beguiled many into a needless borrowing of money, subsequently
squandered.'

Over and above these facilities for borrowing money from public
institutions, the yeomen farmers are undoubtedly heavily in debt to
local storekeepers, and to merchants and traders in the towns. In fact
the great bulk of the landed proprietors have been borrowing in every
direction as much as they could raise by mortgage or by bill. Owing to
the excellent system of registration that exists in Norway, there is no
difficulty in ascertaining the extent to which the charges on real
property in rural districts have increased between the years 1876 and
1880. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that, between those
dates, the balance of mortgages newly effected over those extinguished
in rural districts amounted to a sum of about four millions sterling.
The State Mortgage Bank is bound not to advance more than six-tenths of
the value of land and buildings (forests excepted), and it is supposed
that the loans have so far not exceeded four-tenths of the value of
mortgaged property; but as the yeomen farmers generally contrive to
borrow on second mortgages, it may safely be assumed, that their estates
are charged with interest at 4-1/4 to 6 per cent. on a considerable part
of the nominal value of what is not purely forest land, in addition to
an annual repayment of 3 per cent. of the capital borrowed from the
State Mortgage Bank. The forests, on the other hand, have been largely
used up in paying the interest and capital on those loans, either by
cutting them down, or by leasing or pawning them to traders, or to
yeomen who have been able to keep their heads above water and to profit
by the economic distress of the great majority of their
fellow-landowners. The difficulty experienced by that majority in
meeting the payment of interest and capital, especially at a time when
the value of agricultural produce has been considerably diminished by
American competition, and when also the competition of American and
Baltic timber has simultaneously reduced the profits of the forest
industry to a point that hardly repays the felling of trees, is clearly
shown from the statistics of forced sales, of auctions and of distraints
in the rural districts, and from an accompanying increase in the number
of lawsuits before Courts of First Instance. It appears from the
Reports of the Prefects that the sales of real property for debt have
increased in every Province between the two periods 1871-1875 and
1876-1880 to an extent that ranges from 30 per cent. to 600 per cent.,
the greatest increase having taken place in the Provinces of
Kristiansamt (600 per cent.), Norland, Nedenæs, Buskerud, Hedemarken and
Akershus, where it ranged between 600 per cent. and 146 per cent. From
another official source we obtain the following statement:--

1876-1880.

                               Number.    Amount.
1. Compulsory sales
    of real property
    in rural districts.        2513     563,000l. averaging 224l. per sale.
2. Do. of personal
    property.                  5136     134,000l. ditto 26l. per sale.
3. Distraints for arrears
    of taxes, &c.              --      1,089,000l.

But since real property is of comparatively low value in Norway, and
personal property limited mostly to the veriest necessities of life, it
is not so much the total of the amounts realized by forced sales, or the
sums for which 'executions' and 'distraints' were effected, that give
the measure of the depressed condition of the yeomen farmers, as the
great and steady increase that took place between 1876 and 1880 in the
number of those operations. Thus, while the number of forced sales of
real property in towns, as well as in rural districts, was 424 in 1876,
it had grown to 1378 in 1880. It is therefore not surprising to find in
the Reports of the Prefects from which we have so largely drawn our
figures that 'the means of meeting liabilities and of paying taxes at
the proper time have grown more feeble, and recourse to legal
enforcement of pecuniary claims has consequently become more frequent.'
'The condition of this Province' (Kristiansamt) 'is all the worse from a
pretty widespread misuse of credit during the previous period'
(1871-75). In another province (N. Bergen) we find that the depression
in 1879 and 1880 'compelled those who had claims to enforce them
rigorously. Mortgages, distraints, sales, &c., have therefore increased,
and there has been an exceptionally, large number of suits before the
Courts of Mutual Agreement. 'The value of agricultural produce has
fallen, owing to a great extent to a scarcity of money and to great
competition from a desire to convert as much produce as possible into
money.' In the northern province of Tromsö 'merchants have suffered from
the impoverishment of their customers' (mostly fishermen as well as
landowners), 'and have caused them to be made bankrupts. Credit has
been misused on a large scale. Its facility induces the population to
live beyond its means. It also encourages traders to set up in business
and get customers with ease, without having capital or means of their
own. The one misuse reacts on the other. All products are sunk
considerably in value, and this fall is even greater in the case of real
estate.'

The latter statement is not generally applicable to the remaining
provinces, for we find that while the average value of the 'skylddaler,'
or unit of assessment, was 153l.,[17] according to prices paid for land
in 1871-1875, it has risen to about 180l. in 1876-1880, thus confuting
Mr. Laing's theory, that the peculiar succession of property would tend
to keep land at a low value. It would not, however, be right to conclude
from these figures that landed property has, on the whole, increased of
late years in value, despite the general indebtedness of its owners.
Land in the vicinity of towns and railways must naturally become more
and more valuable, and the relatively much higher prices paid for such
land have no doubt had the effect of raising the total average deduced
from sales of every description of landed property. It may also be
assumed that the demand for land is artificially increased by the
facility with which it may be purchased, since at least one-half of the
purchase money generally remains on mortgage, in addition to other
encumbrances. At the same time, the financial institutions, to which so
large a proportion of the real property in Norway is mortgaged, are
interested in maintaining its value, and attain their object by
abstaining from offering at any one period too many defaulting
properties for sale; and it may also be suspected that the statistics of
forced sales represent only cases in which no compromise could be
effected, or in which it was expedient or possible to have recourse to
the ultimate means of recovery without sensibly deteriorating locally
the value of landed property. Cases are, in fact, not infrequent in
which the mortgagees find themselves compelled to retain the property of
the defaulter, and either to place it in the hands of caretakers, with
the hope of future realization on more favourable terms, or to sell it
in small lots as opportunity occurs. In any case, the full and exact
effect of the pawning of all the landed property of the country at a
time when its agriculture has to compete with American cereals, its
timber industry with supplies from America and the Baltic, and its
wooden ships with iron steamers transporting cargoes at an almost
nominal freight, is not yet to be found in statistical records.

The indisputable fact remains that, notwithstanding the existence of a
system of land tenure which, according to Mr. Laing, was so perfect
between 1834 and 1836 as to render its adoption in this country, and
especially in Ireland, highly desirable, the yeomen farmers of
Norway--framers of their own laws and absolute masters of their own
destinies--are not only at present suffering from the commercial and
agricultural depression that obtains in other countries of Europe, in
which the social state is more or less differently constituted, but also
find themselves, in face of that depression, with exceptionally heavy
burdens on their backs in the form of pecuniary indebtedness at a rate
of interest which mere agriculture, under the most favourable
circumstances, cannot possibly afford to pay.

This heavy indebtedness has not, as a rule, been incurred for productive
purposes, such as drainage, improved methods of agriculture, the
increase of stock, &c.; and although the use of simple agricultural
machinery is somewhat on the increase in Norway, yet agriculture remains
very much in the same primitive condition in which it was found by Mr.
Laing.[18] The Prefects attribute this backwardness to want of skill on
the part of the proprietors (Romsdal), to the poverty of the soil, to
the dearness of agricultural labour, and generally to the unremunerative
results of husbandry since the depreciation of the value of its
products. In a letter addressed last year to the 'Morgenblad,' the
leading Journal at Christiania, by a native authority on the subject of
agriculture, it is urged that the landed proprietors of Norway have 'for
some years past been going down hill;' the hopes of improving the
condition of agriculture, entertained about thirty years ago, when
efforts were first commenced in that direction, being now entirely
dissipated.

     'It is painful,' he says 'to see how the forests are
     decreasing and how land once under cultivation is lying
     unused. When asked the reason, the proprietors reply that
     the prices of corn and other agricultural products are so
     low and the wages of labour so high, owing to emigration,
     that they have not the means to cultivate a large portion of
     the land, and could derive no advantage from it even if the
     means were available.'

The yeomen farmers, being therefore in a distressed condition, and
their children and best hands forced to leave their homes in order to
cultivate the fruitful soil of America, to the growing detriment of
those who remain to till the soil of Norway--those farmers, he points
out with great force of argument, must have the same protection which is
accorded to the industrial classes, if agriculture is to be saved from
final ruin. In fact, this remarkable letter points to an agitation in
favour of the imposition of a 'fiscal duty,'[19] on corn, food of all
kind, cattle, dairy produce, &c.; and supports this conclusion with the
argument used by Prince Bismarck on the second reading of his recent
Corn Duties Bill:

     'The trade of the Baltic will suffer nothing from protective
     duties. As regards agriculture, I am opposed to all
     legislation against the subdivision of land ... but if you
     want to have small occupiers of land, you must vote for
     duties on corn.'

Account must at the same time be taken of the heavy and increasing
charges that fall on landed property for the administration of rural
districts in Norway. While the inhabitants of the rural communities
contribute towards the support of the Central Administration only in the
form of Customs and Excise duties, stamps, succession duties, and
contributions towards the construction of highways, the burthen of local
administration, justice, police, prisons, the Church, public
instruction, poor relief, sanitary service, parochial roads, posting
stations, interest on communal loans, &c., falls on their landed
property. This self-assessed and self-imposed burthen has naturally been
growing more heavy, from year to year, under the exigencies of modern
progress. Thus, while the total communal expenditure in 1853 was
167,000l., it had risen to 497,000l. in 1880, or 197-1/2 per cent. About
one half of the requisite resources is derived from a tax on the
cadastral value of real property; the remaining half is raised by a tax
on capital and income. In 1880 the communal impositions on land
represented a taxation of about 6s. 7d. per head of the rural
population. That the whole of the communal expenditure is not covered by
taxation is apparent from the fact, that in the same year the rural
districts had increased the amount of their total debts to about half a
million sterling, from 312,000l. in 1874.

In this respect it is certainly significant to discover that Poor
Relief, organized by a law passed in 1863, is the largest item of
communal expenditure, being indeed very little less than half of the
total annual liabilities of the rural districts, in a country in which,
in the halcyon days of Mr. Laing, only the infirm were supported for a
few days at a time by the yeomen farmers. He appears to have attributed
this to the absence of collieries, the introduction of coal as fuel
having, he argues, been coëval in England with the imposition of a rate
for the poor, deprived by that industry of the work of chopping up
firewood which gave so much employment to idle hands in Norway. However
that might be, in 1880 and 1881 the number of persons in receipt of
relief or maintained in hospital, at the charge of rural communities
alone, was respectively 109,688 and about 114,000, or in both years a
little over 7 per cent. of the total rural population. Inclusive of
urban districts the same totals amounted in those years to 81 and 83 per
1000, or above 8 per cent. of the population of the kingdom, the cost of
support having been about 3s. 10d. per head of the entire population,
which contributed 2s. 9d. per head in special taxation for that object,
and the balance in an indirect manner, apparently by housing paupers,
&c.

These paupers include cotters and labourers, as well as the ruined among
the smaller yeomen. Farmers who had previously been able to employ
labour, 'no longer find their advantage in it,' and consequently--

     'even able-bodied workmen (in Hedemarken) were compelled to
     seek relief from the Poor Fund when their families were
     large. The smaller farmers and the labourers are in the
     worst plight, since the falling off in the timber trade has
     made them feel the want of the usual steady demand for
     labour at high wages.' Further: 'it has become very
     difficult for the least affluent and for labourers to gain a
     livelihood in the prevailing money and timber crisis.... The
     depression must for a long time be felt by many.

We need only point out that, in the United Kingdom, the percentage of
persons in receipt of relief during the year 1881 was 3 per cent. in
England and Wales, 2.6 per cent. in Scotland, and 11 per cent. in
Ireland,[20] involving an expenditure at the rate respectively of 6s.
3d., 4s. 6d., and 3s. 9d. per head of population.

Obviously, the relatively greater cost of relieving the poor in Great
Britain is due to the more expensive character of the support afforded,
and to the very heavy sums paid for salaries and other establishment
charges; but it is unquestionably a damaging fact against the system of
land tenure in Norway, that the pauperism by which it is in the present
day accompanied, with a strong tendency to increase, is equalled only by
the state of things in Ireland, which certain legislators now desire to
remedy by the creation of peasant proprietors.

The relative state of matters in Great Britain and in Norway has
therefore greatly changed since Mr. Laing wrote:

     'The distribution of the wealth and employment of a country
     has much more to do, than the amount, with the well-being
     and condition of the people. The wealth and employment of
     the British nation far exceed those of any other nation; yet
     in no country is so large a proportion of the inhabitants
     sunk in pauperism and wretchedness.'

An increasing rate of pauperism is one of the symptoms of agricultural
distress in Norway, but the strong tide of emigration from rural and
urban districts marks with equal force the depression and congestion
from which the country is suffering in the same degree as the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Aided by improved and cheapened
means of transport, the number of emigrants from Norway ranged between
20,212 in 1880 and 22,167 in 1883, giving an average of 1.3 to 1.5 per
cent. of the total population, the contingent of the rural districts
being about 70 per cent. of the total number. As in the case of
pauperism, the corresponding rate of emigration from Ireland, namely 1.5
per cent., exhibits a remarkable similarity, and affords another
convincing proof that peasant proprietorship is no _panacea_ for rustic
indigence.

Those who have not studied the present economic condition of the yeoman
farmer and agricultural labourer in Norway, or who have not taken into
consideration the change that has come over the entire country, and the
ambition, as distinguished from previous apathy, which education and
communication with an outer world, no longer closed to them, has
awakened among the classes with which we are dealing, are inclined to
attribute a good part of this emigrating tendency to the influence and
the material assistance of those who have gone before. Indisputably, the
Norwegian emigrant, by his persevering labour and steady conduct, rarely
fails to succeed in Wisconsin and other States, in which he is always a
welcome settler; and consequently he soon finds himself able to transmit
money for the purpose of enabling his brothers and sisters, and not
seldom his father and mother, to join him. No State or other aid is
afforded for such purposes to Norwegians, although it is occasionally
the case, that the hard cash with which the emigrant leaves his home is
derived from the proceeds of a loan raised by the head of his family for
the purpose of buying out co-heirs under the _Odels ret_, adding
thereby, as we have already shown, to the indebtedness with which the
land is burdened. Others, also, maintain that many young men emigrate
from Norway in order to avoid military conscription, which, although
milder there in its demands than in most other European countries where
that system exists, undoubtedly diminishes the quantity and deteriorates
the quality of agricultural labour. The strongest incentive to
emigration, however, is the desire to escape from the misery and penury
which accompany in Norway, as in every other part of Europe, the
condition of a small landowner, cotter, or labourer who is unable to
find regular employment on adjoining estates that can be kept going, if
nothing more, with the aid of scientific knowledge, machinery and
capital.

There is, however, yet another proof of the prevalent material _malaise_
in Norway, particularly among its rural classes, and strangely enough it
bears the same character as that which has brought the 'three acres and
a cow' and Irish land bills, past and expected, into such prominent
relief in our country of lack-lands, namely political agitation.
Whatever may be its merits or demerits on this side of the North Sea,
our readers will scarcely be prepared to learn that a corresponding
ferment has been engendered of late years on the opposite shores. We are
told this by the Prefect of South Trondhjem, one of the most important
provinces of a country where, in the days of Mr. Laing, there was a
dead-level of contentment, where the widest form of home-rule has been
in operation since the early part of the present century, and where the
Crown Administration has all that time been more pure, blameless and
efficient than in any other country on the Continent of Europe. His
significant words are:

     'As everywhere else in Norway, particularly in rural
     districts, politicians (_i. e. agitators_) are here taking
     more and more hold over the minds of the people. Political
     unrest increases, and immature and extreme opinions are
     being advanced more than is desirable. The quiet, temperate,
     but progressive development to which Norway had previously
     been accustomed, and with which the great bulk of the nation
     had been well content, is in danger of being replaced by a
     progress in fits and starts, accompanied by leaps in the
     dark.'

No less painful and suggestive is it to find, in the Report from the
Prefect of Hedemarken, that 'the Christian earnestness of the people has
suffered under the influence of the many misleading writings and
tendencies which have in recent times found their way into every stratum
of society.' As at home, so in Norway, the question of Church
Disestablishment, with all its consequences, is approaching within
measurable distance of practical solution.[21]

Supported by official publications, we have now described the present
condition of the yeomen farmers of Norway, and from the facts and
figures we have marshalled, the following replies may confidently be
given to the Socialistic theories and conclusions of Mr. Laing:

1. Notwithstanding, or rather in part owing to, the existence of the
Allodial Right [which has proved in its results to be an exaggerated
form of primogeniture involving a greater multiplication of encumbrances
even than exists under the system of land tenure in the United Kingdom],
an excessive subdivision of the land has occurred and is still
proceeding in Norway, to the prejudice of estates which in 1836, and
even later, afforded moderate ease and contentment to their owners, and
relatively well remunerated labour to the workman and the cotter.

2. The dead-level of comfortable subsistence, attributed by Mr. Laing to
the parcelling-out of land into small estates, has been converted, by
the influence of irresistible economic laws, into one of general
distress and discontent among the rural classes.

3. The rates of pauperism and emigration prove that the agrarian
population has not, as prophesied by Mr. Laing, kept 'within the bounds
of possible modern existence.'

4. The taxation of landed property, for local purposes, has greatly
increased, particularly under the head of Poor Relief; and

5. The distressed condition of the yeoman farmer in Norway is strongly
attested by his heavy and growing indebtedness. He may now, in fact, be
classed with the proverbially derided Fife laird, owning 'A wee bit of
land, a great lump of debt, and a dookit.'[22]

Such being the result of our enquiries into the economic condition of
the great bulk of the yeoman farmers of Norway, the ideal fabric reared
by Mr. Laing at a time when the Norse old world was still asleep, falls
utterly to the ground, and there remains but one of his statements that
we can with any advantage submit to the earnest attention of our
readers, namely, that '_A single fact brought home from such a country
is worth a volume of speculations._' We go further and say, that facts
in relation to the question of land tenure collected in any other part
of Europe are of equally inestimable value; and they have already been
supplied in great abundance from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and
Switzerland.[23] Nothing can truly be more fatal to the successful
solution of such intricate problems than the relief of the agricultural
distress of England and Scotland, or the satisfaction of the alleged
earth-hunger of the Celtic population of Ireland, than to initiate
legislation on the hypothesis that circumstances alter cases, and that
our own country can with impunity be withdrawn from the operation of
economic laws that have asserted their supremacy throughout the entire
Continent of Europe.

As history repeats itself, so are the laws of civilized development both
general and inexorable. Even in the extreme case of Russia, it has been
proved, in an article we published a few years ago,[24] that a heavy and
ruinous price has been paid for the emancipation of the serfs on a
Socialistic and partly Communistic basis, and on the erroneous
assumption, that the continued existence of the 'Mir' (the ancient
village community even of India) was an institution indigenous to the
country itself, and therefore worthy of being perpetuated by
legislation. Millions of a rural population, freed from personal
servitude, were chained anew to the land by the indebtedness incurred in
the expropriation of the lords of the soil. The allotments, averaging
ten acres, parcelled out among them in 1861, were estimated to be
sufficiently large and productive to provide not only for their support,
but also, firstly, for the payment of the 'redemption dues' with which
the allotted lands were charged for a limited period of years at an
average rate of only 1s. 9d. per acre, and secondly, for the punctual
payment of the moderate poll-tax, which the exigencies of the State
required them to contribute. Those expectations began to vanish soon
after they had been formed, and at the present time we see the
previously rich agricultural plains of Russia, abandoned, as they almost
wholly are, to the slovenly husbandry of a rude and greatly demoralized
peasantry, deteriorating from year to year in the quality of their
produce, and thereby opposing less and less impediment to the successful
competition of other corn-growing countries.[25] The great fall that has
taken place in the value of Russian cereals is apparent from the fact
that, notwithstanding the depreciation of the paper currency of the
country to the extent of about 25 per cent. since the serfs were
emancipated (and nearly 37 per cent. from the par value of the standard
rouble), the corn-grower in Russia actually receives for his produce, in
paper money, some 40 per cent, less than he obtained for it when the
currency was less debased.

Despair, and the absence of that restraint which education, and the
moral elevation inseparable from it, are establishing in other European
countries, have driven the rural inhabitants of entire districts, and
even provinces, into habits of drunkenness stronger and more general
than those which existed before the autocratic creation of 'peasant
proprietors' in Russia.

Among the earliest measures adopted in Russia during the present reign
was that of a reduction and partial remission of the 'redemption dues,'
which, on the 1st of January, 1885, represented the interest and sinking
fund on nearly 113 millions sterling,[26] expended by the Government in
the partial expropriation of the now ruined landlords of the
country.[27]

During the year 1884, alone, those reductions and remissions inflicted a
loss of 1,135,000l.[28] on the Imperial Treasury. The most recent
measure of alleviation has been the total abolition of the poll-tax[29]
(to be completed by the end of the present year); and, consequently, the
State-contribution of at least 85 per cent. of the population of Russia
is being limited to the excise duty on drink, an item of revenue with
which the Imperial Government cannot possibly dispense, since it brings
in a sum more than adequate for the maintenance of the imposing military
forces of the Empire.

Simultaneously, 'Peasant Land Banks' have been established by the State
in order to facilitate the purchase of still more land by the ex-serfs.
The Minister of Finance was authorized in 1882 to issue annually for
that purpose a sum of 500,000l. in bonds, bearing 5-1/2 per cent.
interest. But, by the 1st of January, 1886, these banks had already
advanced over three millions sterling to 785 Communes, 1576
'partnerships,' and 359 individual peasants, representing an aggregate
number of 112,765 householders. On loans for 24-1/2 years the interest
and sinking fund, payable by the borrowers, amount to 8-1/2 per cent.,
and on those for 34-1/2 years, to 7-1/2 per cent., the lands purchased
by such means remaining inalienable until the extinction of the
mortgages, except with the consent of the mortgagees, _i. e._ the banks.
The effects of this new departure in the direction of providing small
landed proprietors with State funds, will no doubt soon be apparent.

Whether, therefore, we examine the experience of a civilized, orderly,
home-ruled country like Norway, with a steady, laborious, and, we may
almost say, abstemious, population in many respects akin to our own, or
that of a State still at an immensely distant stage of social
development,--and under a very different form of Government,--the
salient results of bolstering up, by means of State loans, or of
artificially creating, equally at the cost of the State, a numerous body
of small landed proprietors, have been strikingly identical in regard to
the ultimate economic condition of the agrarian classes.

Insisting, as we do, on the strength of the facts we have adduced, that,
in old Europe, the operation of economic laws affecting land tenure,
admits of no exceptions or extenuating circumstances in favour of their
violation, it appears impossible, without presumptuous sophistry or
political dishonesty, to resist the conclusion, that the infringement of
those laws in any part of the United Kingdom could only terminate,
infallibly and speedily, in damage to the State, after ruin to the
individual.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] The physical results of intermarriage with the object of
concentrating property, are very apparent in many of the older _Bonde_
families in Norway.

[6] It would not be right to allow this observation to pass without
mentioning, even at the cost of destroying so fascinating a picture of
pastoral felicity, that the hard-working dairy-maids of Norway are never
accompanied by their sweethearts to the soeters, where, except from
Saturday night until Monday morning, when the young men find time to
visit them, they lead the most solitary lives, and are busy all day in
milking cows and goats and making butter and cheese.

[7] In 1833 the total production of spirits in the rural districts
amounted to about 3-1/2 gallons per head of the population. The
demoralization that resulted from its increase necessitated the
enactment of restrictive measures, and at last, in 1848, the small
stills were purchased by the State, and private distillation was
prohibited. As in Great Britain, the vice of drunkeness is now
decreasing in Norway, owing partly to the reduced means of the
population, but chiefly to the influence of education and of temperance
societies.

[8] The average proportion of 1851-52 was 9.32 per cent. There is a
difference of only 1 per cent, between the rates of illegitimacy in
rural and urban districts, to the disadvantage of the latter.

[9] 'The French Constitution of 1791 is one of the principal sources of
the Fundamental Law of Norway. The suspensive veto has been derived from
it.'--O. I. Broch.

[10] At the end of 1882, the total population was estimated at
1,922,500, or a decrease 3900 as compared with 1881, when the increase
was only 1000 from the year preceding.

[11] In 1880, the average rate of wages for labourers engaged by the
year in agricultural districts was 8l. 10s. per annum, and that of daily
labour, without food, 1s. 9d. per diem; the corresponding rates in towns
having been 11l. 6s. 8d. and 2s.

[12] Our readers must, however, bear in mind that we are dealing only
with the rural economy of Norway, and that the facts we shall submit on
that subject affect but slightly the general financial condition of a
country which continues to derive its earnings mainly from the supply of
timber, fish, wood-pulp, ice, &c., to foreign countries, and from its
extensive carrying trade in sailing vessels and steamers. The prosperity
of the towns is influenced chiefly by the state of trade in the rest of
Europe, while being (to the extent of 122 out of 128) situated on the
seaboard, their successful development reacts but little on the
prosperity of the inland agricultural districts.

[13] In the 'Tables of Landed Property,' published in 1880, the holdings
(in 1865) are classified as follows:--

Properties under 5 acres                 34,224 or 15.5 per cent.
    "      between 5 and 12-1/2 acres    42,984  " 32.1    "
    "         "    12-1/2 and 50  "      48,575  " 36.2    "
    "      above 50 acres                 8,208  "  6.2    "

[14] The italics our own. The author states that it is the custom among
the peasants of Norway that when the eldest son or the daughter of the
house (when there is no son), marries, the parents surrender the
property, but retain a right of subsistence upon it. This, he shows,
explains the existence of the large number of detached dwellings on the
same estate, for very often cottages have to be built for the
accommodation of persons who have a right to subsistence, which is not,
however, limited to a dwelling-house, but frequently includes the
usufruct of a small plot of land and, almost always fodder for a certain
number of cows and goats. See also p. 386.

[15] The eldest of kin having allodial right.

[16] Between 1871 and 1875 Norway imported about 46 per cent. of the
cereals required for home consumption, in addition to pork, butter, and
other articles of food.

[17] From statistics recently published, it appears that between 1881
and 1883 the price of land, estimated on actual sales, has shown a
tendency to rise in the Provinces which have a coast line, populated by
fisherman, &c., and to fall in most of the inland, more purely
agricultural districts.

[18] Dr. Broch shows that in 1875, which was an average year for crops,
the production of cereals and potatoes (reduced to the value of barley)
was 3125 hectol. per 1000 inhabitants in Norway; whereas the average
crops in France yielded 7400 hectol. per 1000 of the population.

[19] In 1884 a motion to that effect was made in the Swedish Rigsdag by
a peasant proprietor. At present the duty on cereals imported into
Norway is merely nominal, averaging about 2-1/2 per cent. _ad valorem_.

[20] From special causes, the number of persons relieved in 1881 and
1882 was exceptionally high in Ireland. In 1879 it was 7-1/2 per cent.,
and in 1883 about 8 per cent. of the population.

[21] Hereditary nobility is already abolished. Under a law passed in
1821, all titles of nobility become extinct in the persons of those who
were born before 1822.

[22] _I. e._ dovecot.

[23] Lady Verney's 'Cottier-owners, Little Takes and Peasant
Proprietors,' published last year, is replete with facts drawn from
actual life, showing that small peasant-proprietorship is proving
ruinous on the Continent, even where the system has grown up naturally.

[24] In No. 302, April 1881.

[25] It is certainly remarkable to find that Australian tallow, Indian
linseed, and German barley are being imported at St. Petersburg, whence
those articles were, in the days of large landed properties, extensively
exported. The Minister of Finance, following the example of Prince
Bismarck, attempts to check this competition with the staple products of
the small landed proprietors by imposing protective duties.

[26] Rs. 846,068,368, at the exchange of 32d., current when the great
bulk of the expropriations were effected.

[27] In provinces of Russia Proper alone, the landed proprietors
(exclusive of the ex-serfs) have mortgaged their estates in various land
and other banks to the extent of 30-3/4 per cent. of their aggregate
acreage, the total remaining debt on such lands being about 49 millions
sterling at the present reduced value of the rouble, or 65 millions
sterling at the rate of exchange adopted in estimating the indebtedness
of the peasantry.

[28] At the same rate of exchange.

[29] This tax had previously given to the Imperial Treasury a sum of
about 5-1/2 millions sterling, at the depreciated rate of exchange. It
was assessed at rates that varied in the different Provinces between 2s.
7d. and 4s. 4d. per head of the male registered population, or 'per
soul.'




Art. V.--_A Collection of the State Papers of John Thurloe, Esq.;
Secretary, First to the Council of State, and afterwards to the Two
Protectors, Oliver and Richard Cromwell._ In Seven Volumes, containing
authentic Memorials of the English affairs from the year 1638 to the
Restoration of King Charles II. Vol. III. London, 1742.


The character of Oliver Cromwell might, for our part, have rested
undisturbed among the 'old, unhappy, far off things' of history, had it
been our intention to fight over again, on the old lines, the contention
whether he was a hero or a knave. On the contrary, towards the solution
of that question a method, as yet untried, has been adopted. Instead of
attempting a review of Cromwell's whole career, to gain an idea of what
manner of man he was, a single train of events, in which his hand was
visible throughout, has been subjected to some degree of scrutiny. A
man's words and deeds, although arising only on one occasion, may supply
an effectual test of his real self. There could, for instance, be hardly
any doubt regarding the leading bias of his disposition, if a supremely
able ruler, that he may procure his safety, consents to--

                              'play one scene
    Of excellent dissembling, and let it look
    Like perfect honour.'

These lines disclose our case. With prescient genius Shakspeare has
described the part that Cromwell took in an event which occurred under
his Protectorate, the so-called Insurrection of March 1655; and in our
examination into the secret history of that occurrence lies the test
that we have applied to Cromwell's character.

The revelation that we are attempting is not, however, free from
inherent difficulty. In these days of literature made easy, the products
of close research are not readily acceptable. To open up a new vista in
history, much has to be cut down, much put into new order; and the
reader must unavoidably share in the labours of the writer. And though
some curiosity may be aroused by the discovery of that which has
remained hidden, for over two centuries; still, to gratify that
curiosity, many an ingrained idea must be laid aside. Difficult as it
may seem to many, Cromwell at the outset must be regarded not as 'our
heroic One,' but as a man who sold himself to falsehood, that he might
'ride in gilt coaches, escorted by the flunkeyisms, and most sweet
voices.' Nor to appreciate the secret of our character-test, can the
assertion of any historian, from Clarendon down to Carlyle's last
imitator, be credited, that 'a universal rising of Royalists combined
with Anabaptists' broke out in March 1655. On the contrary, it must be
accepted as a preliminary condition in this investigation that England
was, at that time, in a state of immovable tranquillity, and that any
insurrectionary movement during the year 1655 sprang from a far-reaching
design, which Cromwell practised alike on friends, neutrals, and
enemies.

That this was the case has hitherto escaped notice. Every historian, who
has taken part in the Cromwelliad, regards that revolt as 'a very tragic
reality;' they all agree, that it was 'prevented from breaking into a
dangerous flame by vigilance, prompt action, and by necessary severity.'
That this event might be regarded in a very different light was an idea
far from every one of them. Proof, however, goes before disproof. The
historians should have their say first; and our readers must endure, for
a few moments, what may be termed the received version of the
Insurrection of March 1655.

According to Godwin, 'A general rising was meditated about the beginning
of March 1655, by the Royalist party in various parts of
England,--Yorkshire, Shropshire, Nottinghamshire, Devon and Wilts,' and
also in North Wales. 'Wilmot, about this time created Earl of Rochester,
came over to England' to head the enterprise, 'accompanied by Sir J.
Wagstaff. Charles II., who had spent the winter at Cologne, now came
privately to Middleburg in Holland, that he might be ready to pass over
to England, if the condition of affairs authorized such a measure. The
activity of Cromwell and his assistants speedily defeated these
multiplied intrigues. It does not appear that hostilities anywhere were
actually commenced, except in Yorkshire and the West of England.'

As historians persist that on Marston Moor, the scene of the
'hostilities' in Yorkshire, an actual affray occurred,--Carlyle throws
in 'a few shots fired';--we must turn to the 'Perfect Proceedings' News
Letter, of March 1655, for a truer description of that event:--

     'York. The 8th of March instant, there was a meeting
     appointed by the Malignants in Yorkshire to surprise York
     City. To that end a party was to come on the west side of
     the City, where Sir Richard Malliverer, with divers others,
     was on their March. About 100 horse came with a cart load of
     arms and ammunition to Hessey (i. e. Marston) Moor. And at
     the wynd-mill upon the Moor there came some intelligence,
     that a party, that sh'd' have come on the other side of the
     City, was not ready that night. And more company failing,
     which they expected to meet them that night upon the Moor
     they suddenly and disorderly retreated; some Pistols was
     scattered and found next morning, and a led horse, with a
     velvet saddle, left in Skipbrig Lane, which was found next
     day.'

In Wiltshire, however, the Royalists effected a brief revolt, an
incident which the following quotation from Carlyle will readily recall
to mind:--

     'Sunday, March 11th, 1655, in the City of Salisbury, about
     midnight, there occurs a thing worth noting. Salisbury was
     awakened from its slumbers by a real advent of Cavaliers.
     Sir John Wagstaff, "a jolly knight" of those parts, once a
     Royalist Colonel: he, with Squire, or Major Penruddock, "a
     gentleman of fair fortune," Squire, or Major Grove, and
     about two hundred others, did actually rendezvous in arms
     about the Big Steeple, that Sunday night, and ring a loud
     alarm in those parts. It was Assize time; the Judges had
     arrived the day before. Wagstaff seizes the Judges in their
     beds, seizes the High Sheriff, and otherwise makes night
     hideous;--proposes on the morrow to hang the Judges, as a
     useful warning; but is overruled by Penruddock and the rest.
     He orders the High Sheriff to proclaim King Charles; High
     Sheriff will not, not though you hang him; Town-crier will
     not, not even though you hang him. The Insurrection does not
     spread in Salisbury, it would seem. The Insurrection quits
     Salisbury on Monday night, marches with all speed towards
     Cornwall, hoping for better luck there. Marches;--but
     Captain Unton Crook marches also in the rear of it; marches
     swiftly, fiercely; overtakes it at South Molton in
     Devonshire, "on Wednesday about ten at night," and there, in
     a few minutes, put an end to it. We took Penruddock, Grove,
     and long lists of others; Wagstaff unluckily escaped ... and
     this Royalist conflagration, which should have blazed all
     over England, is entirely damped out. Indeed so prompt and
     complete is the extinction, thankless people begin to say
     there had never been anything considerable to extinguish.
     Had they stood in the middle of it,--had they seen the
     nocturnal rendezvous at Marston Moor, seen what Shrewsbury,
     what Rufford Abbey, what North Wales in general, would have
     grown to on the morrow,--in that case, thinks the Lord
     Protector, not without some indignation, they had
     known!--Carlyle's 'Cromwell,' vol. iv. pp. 129, 130.

If Carlyle had been more heedful he might have taken the hint furnished
by those 'thankless people.' Men are not usually thankless if preserved
from a real and obvious danger. Carlyle, however, thought that he knew
more about those transactions than the men who might have witnessed
them; and so we will accept his somewhat incautious invitation, and our
readers, if they choose to do so, shall perceive, perhaps, 'not without
some indignation,' what the Lord Protector 'had known' about the
insurrection of March 1655; they shall, to a certain extent at least,
regard that event from his point of view. And to enable them to do so
as promptly as possible, they may be at once informed, that the
Protector himself admitted the Earl of Rochester, Sir John Wagstaff, and
their associates into England, in order that they might, in his behalf,
play the part of the conspirator. The circumstance being appreciated,
the Protector's position becomes quite clear. It is obvious that he
wished his subjects to believe, in common with his historians, that
England was, during the opening months of 1655, 'from end to end of it,
ripe for an explosion.'

Taking then for granted, upon Cromwell's own showing, that he wanted an
insurrection, the assistance toward that end on which he could rely, and
the obstacles that stood in his way, must be considered. The assistance
which Cromwell had at hand, lay in the little band of courtiers who hung
in penury, and vexation of heart, round Charles II. Wanderers on the
Continent, in total ignorance of English opinion, acutely sensible of
their own discomfort, raging against their great Tormentor, the King's
'over sea' counsellors were, by irritation and by 'zeal, made so blind,'
that they were 'soon persuaded of good success' in any possible attempt
to overthrow the Protector.[30] The chief hindrance to Cromwell's
projected insurrection was his palpable prosperity. It was notorious
during the winter and spring of the year 1655, that he had appeased
discontent among his soldiery; had quieted, in prison, Harrison,
Wildman, and the leaders of the Anabaptists; that the Levellers were
reduced to inaction; and that therefore the Royalists were powerless.
And for this reason. Every Englishman, even the most 'Wildrake' among
the Cavaliers, knew full well, that they, unassisted, could not for a
moment stand before Cromwell's armies; and they knew equally well, that
if the King landed on our shores, at the head of a foreign army, all
England would meet him with passionate resistance. Even at the best, the
most confident Royalists knew that a young man, nurtured by a popish
mother, and amidst papists, would not be readily accepted as our King.

But one chance, therefore, remained to the Royalists, both at home and
abroad: and that was the possibility that Anabaptist fanaticism and army
discontent might unite together against the Protector. If that could be
reckoned on, and if a rising of the Royalists, all over England, could
be timed so as to explode, when the Levellers broke into action, that
would offer a chance indeed, especially if some of the mutineers could
be won over to the King. That chance was, at this season, wholly denied
to the Royalists. The King's most trusted English advisers, the Council
styled 'The Sealed Knot,' repeatedly warned him during January 1655,
that 'since no rising of the Army is to be hoped for, any rising of the
King's party would only be to their destruction.'[31]

To a person who desired to stimulate an insurrection against the
Protector the course was therefore clear. He must act on the impatient
credulity of those who shared in their King's exile. Far from the scene
of action, they might be persuaded that the Anabaptists and the
discontented soldiers had leagued together, and that the warnings of the
'Sealed Knot' might be set at naught. Charles was thus acted upon. As
the wicked King of Israel was lured on to his destruction by the cry of
false prophets bidding him to go up and prosper, the King was persuaded
to disregard his best counsellors, to believe that 30,000 Royalists were
armed and ready to join in an organized revolt, so skilfully planned
that it would break out, at one moment, all over England, with the
co-operation of the Levellers, and of a portion of Cromwell's army.
Charles was also assured, that if he would but fix the day, the
insurrection would immediately take place.

The King was hard to persuade; young as he was, his sagacity was not
wanting. He long remained incredulous: he did not believe the
'expresses' which reached him 'every day' from England: he felt sure
that those zealous emissaries were deceived. More messengers accordingly
crossed the water: they were confident that 'the rising would be
general, and many places seized upon, and some declare for the King
which were in the hands of the army, for they still pretended, and did
believe, "that a part of the army would declare against Cromwell, at
least, though not for the King."'

Those messengers, however, would promise nothing, if Charles did not,
when the Earl of Rochester and his associates started for England,
approve the reality of the plot, by stationing himself on the sea coast,
that he might 'quickly put himself into the head of the Army, which
would be ready to receive him.' And he was warned that this was his last
chance, and that 'if he neglected that opportunity,' his followers would
desert him, as one hopelessly apathetic. Besides these threats, the
persons, who dispatched those messengers from England, resorted to other
means to force Charles into the enterprise. They appointed the day for
the outbreak: he was not able 'to send orders to contradict it:' so he
felt constrained, 'with little noise,' to quit Cologne for Middleburg,
to await there the summons to England.

Whilst Charles was being thus cajoled, the bright anticipations of his
companions were suddenly saddened. In the midst of their preparations,
Cromwell arrested several noted Royalists in London: it was obvious that
he had discovered 'the design.' But that dark cloud had its silver
lining; it was even converted into an augury of success. The
conspirators at Cologne were 'cheered by letters' from their colleagues
in England, assuring them 'that none of their particular friends at the
intended sea-ports were known.'

Clarendon, and his associates, little knew how much was known by
Cromwell. He afterwards repeated in public, almost word for word, 'all
those particulars' which these 'expresses' 'communicated in confidence'
to the Royal Court 'to let them know in how happy condition the King's
affairs were in England;' he was forewarned of the very day when Charles
would 'with little noise' quit Cologne for Middleburg 'ten days before
he did stir;' and if so, even Clarendon would have perceived, that the
Protector felt quite assured about the safety of his sea-ports.[32]

That the project proved in the end, as Charles expected at the
beginning, a weak and improbable attempt, Clarendon admits, and that
they had been befooled; but he maintained, to the end, that those
messengers were 'very honest men, and sent by those who were such.'
Clarendon's opinion is not so indisputable, but that it may be
questioned. The utter failure of the promises that those messengers held
out, might have aroused his doubt as to their good faith. Who was it
then that instructed those false prophets? So improbable were the
expectations which they urged upon Charles, that it is impossible to
credit any true Royalist with the creation of those false hopes: to
dispel them, the King's wisest English advisers did their utmost. Those
encouragements then must have been the counsels of false friends. And
who could be, as we shall prove, a warmer, or a falser friend to the
enterprise of March 1655, than Cromwell?

Even without direct proof of Cromwell's guilty complicity in that
attempt, it is brought home to him by a variety of antecedent
circumstances. He knew precisely how to spread the only lure that could
ensnare the King; for the counsels of the 'Sealed Knot' were no secret
to Cromwell. He was aware that the King had, in consequence, written,
4th Jan. 1655, to Mr. Roles, 'his loving friend,' and probably also the
Protector's friend, in a tone of utter despair.[33] And who could set
against the King a stream of systematic false encouragement, sufficient
to dispel his just despair, except Cromwell, who had all the secret
agents at home and abroad at his command? or who would undertake so
difficult a task as the creation of such an elaborate scheme of
deception, but one who was anxious that the outbreak should take place?
And we know that such was his wish.

In every way this is apparent. Even though no actual assistance be
given, still complete foreknowledge of a coming mischief, unfollowed by
corresponding precautions, implies a sanction. And this form of sanction
Cromwell gave to the Insurrection. In a tone of triumphant cunning he
assured his Parliament, during the ensuing year, that he had possessed
'full intelligence of' the conspiracy; though, with characteristic
craft, he concealed the most effectual informant 'of these things,' the
clerk who wrote out the despatches in the King's closet; and poor
Manning, 'as he was dead,' was credited with the discovery; although his
term of espial was not commenced soon enough to supply that 'full
intelligence,' of which his employer boasted.[34]

Cromwell could even have informed his corps of informers, of the course
that the coming movement would pursue. Two months before they began to
reflect back to him an account of his own design, Cromwell's detection
office in Whitehall contained a report from a supposed Leveller, who had
passed from Essex to Cornwall, and then from Cornwall to Scotland, that
a rumour was afloat, that the republicans in the army who were 'resolved
to stand by their first principles, in opposition to the Government,'
had banded together, under noted leaders, and had chosen the very places
afterwards selected by the Royalists, namely, Salisbury Plain and
Marston Moor for the rendezvous where they might show their strength.
Other informers reported to Cromwell that the Royalists in London, and
in Northumberland, hoped, that if they appeared in arms, they would be
able to 'make use of a good part of the army;' and similar evidence
warned the Government that a man claiming to be a Royalist had been at
work, during February, journeying to and fro between Gloucestershire and
Wiltshire, tempting Royalists to join with him in an insurrection,
because 'the design was first put on foot by the Levellers, who were to
be aiding and assisting the Cavaliers.'[35]

This information reached Cromwell in ample time for action. A word from
him to his agents abroad, a hint to the editors of the News Letters, or
a proclamation, would have dispersed those mischievious rumours, and
would have reduced Charles to inaction. Although he knew that Charles
based his sole hope of success upon an Anabaptist revolt, and a mutiny
in the army, Cromwell did nothing of the kind. Not that he failed to
secure himself by some ostensible precautions. 'It having pleased God to
make some further notable discovery to Us of the Conspiracy, and the
particular Persons engaged therein,' Cromwell arrested some Royalists,
shortly before the outbreak, but, as we know on the best authority, he
touched none of those 'engaged therein.' He secured London: he moved
troops from Ireland to Liverpool, and may thereby have disconcerted the
Lancashire Cavaliers; but he did not forewarn the Customs House officers
at Dover, or guard that port; just as he, subsequently, somehow failed
to station soldiers near those obvious points of danger, Marston Moor
and Salisbury Plain.[36] 'Oliver, Protector,' evidently 'understood his
Protectorship moderately well, and what Plots and Hydra-Coils were
inseparable from it.'

Cromwell thus assisting us, we had before us the relative positions of
all engaged in the Insurrection, during the last weeks of February 1655.
Charles was on the Dutch coast awaiting a possible summons to England;
to that end he had despatched the expedition, composed of the Earl of
Rochester, Sir John Wagstaff, Major Armourer, Mr. O'Neale, and their
companions, about fourteen in number; and Cromwell was watching them,
and was preparing for their reception at Dover, not soldiers, but the
friendly assistance of his servant, Mr. Day, the Clerk of the Passage.
In true Cavalier fashion the Earl of Rochester and his comrades
approached our shores, with ostentatious contempt of danger. They came
not in a small party, dropping over one by one, selecting different and
out-of-the-way spots for landing, but almost in a body, in quick
succession, they alighted at Dover. That was the most public port they
could have chosen; and being courtier Cavaliers, long resident abroad,
they were, in dress and look, marked men, and most unfitted to play the
part they chose, of traders resident in France or Holland. Their
selection of Dover was not, however, so ill-advised as it seemed, for
they also reckoned on the help of Mr. Day, the Clerk of the Passage.

Thus in appearance, at least, the conspirators did everything they could
to get themselves into trouble. And, as might be anticipated, Major
Armourer, alias 'Mr. Wright,' and his man 'Morris,' that is to say, Mr.
O'Neale, the first of that company to set foot in Dover, were
immediately arrested. Armourer was imprisoned in the Castle, and O'Neale
in the Sergeant's house. Their detention, however, was of but brief
duration. Armourer at once sought for help through Mr. Day's agency; but
one greater than the Clerk interposed; and after about three days
captivity, Mr. Wright, together with some other captured suspects, was
released by the Dover Port Commissioners 'on receipt of a Commission
from H.H.' the Protector.[37]

That Commission from His Highness was no ordinary proceeding. By it
Cromwell disturbed order and discipline in the chief entrance-gate to
England, and drove the Port Commissioners into direct collision with the
officers of Dover Castle. Captain Wilson, the Deputy-Lieutenant, who had
charge over the Castle prisoners, was, as shown by his letters, a
straightforward servant of the Protector. Such a serious interference
with his duties, as the release of one of his own prisoners, disturbed
him; and the more so, as it was authorized by the Protector himself.
Accordingly he wrote to Thurloe, greatly troubled, to free himself from
any connection with so untoward an event as the escape of Mr. Wright,
who,--of all the men that Wilson 'had secured'--was the very one with
whom he was most unsatisfied.' Thurloe also felt that it was an awkward
affair; and to avert suspicion from his Master and himself, he reverted
to a mean trick, the causeless accusation of an innocent man. He
reproved Wilson for neglecting to warn Whitehall of the detention of
such a noted suspect as Mr. Wright; although Thurloe was in no ignorance
of that event, and knew all about the prisoner. For besides the
knowledge which he shared with Cromwell, of the near advent of the Earl
of Rochester and his associates, Thurloe held a letter signed 'N.
Wright,' dated 'Dover Castell, 14th February,' to Sir R. Stone, a
supposed friend, who, forwarding it to Thurloe, informed him that Morris
therein mentioned was a 'gentleman to the Princess Royal;' whilst it
was evidently presupposed by Stone, that the Secretary would know who it
was 'that writ' the enclosed letter; as, indeed, is proved by Thurloe's
indorsement, '_Nicholas Armourer to Sir Robert Stone_.' And
again, within seven days after Armourer's release, a similar
'cross-providence' occurred. A Mr. Broughton, evidently another
Royalist, was taken out of Captain Wilson's custody, much to his
surprise and vexation, and set free by the Mayor of Dover.

The release of one or two prisoners under a Commission from H.H. the
Protector does not, however, prove that he purposely admitted into
England that gang of conspirators. But even that can be proved. Thurloe
and Cromwell knew on the best authority that the Royalists regarded Mr.
Day as their ally; for Armourer, in that letter, mentions 'Mr. Robert
Day, Clarke of the Passage' as a man ready to do him service. Yet
Cromwell, knowing that Armourer and O'Neale were the precursors of even
more dangerous associates, who would also resort to Mr. Day, retained
him in his post; and in spite of prompt and repeated warnings from the
Continent, that Day was a traitor, he acted as Clerk of the Passage
until, during the following July, he had seen safe back across the
Channel the conspirators whom he had admitted in March. And as if the
more fully to trick the Royalists, Day was permitted by the Protector to
intervene actively in their behalf. The Clerk of the Passage obtained,
by his personal undertaking for Armourer's good conduct, the requisite
pass inward, and certified that he was, in truth, a merchant from
Rotterdam.[38]

It follows from the assistance which the Protector gave to Armourer,
that his man 'Morris' was restored to his master, and that the Earl of
Rochester, after repeated detention and examination, was set free. And
again Cromwell reappears as the patron of the conspiracy. According to
information imparted to the King by Cromwell's nephew, Colonel William
Cromwell, 'my Lord of Rochester was known to Cromwell to be in England
as soon as he landed,' and was met by pretended agents from the army,
Rochester's friends 'in show,' but the Protector's 'really,' who, to
make the Earl 'have the greater confidence' in the enterprise, gave him
false offers of co-operation, and assurances that Cromwell's soldiers
were ripe for mutiny.[39] And facts confirm Colonel Cromwell's words.

Immediately after his final escape from the custody of Captain Wilson,
the Earl of Rochester 'found Mr. Morton, who carries on their trade
there, ready to come, with some account of his business.'[40] If Morton
had been a true Royalist, in momentary fear for himself, and for the
success of an insurrection that was to overthrow the Protector, would he
have risked a meeting with the Earl of Dover, in a place where he had
been twice arrested, instead of awaiting his arrival in the security of
London? Such a strange course arouses strong suspicion that Morton was
the Protector's emissary referred to by Col. Cromwell; and assuredly a
Mr. Morton is mentioned to Thurloe, by one of his continental agents, as
a friend, and fellow sham-Royalist, who might assist him in enticing
some of the King's retinue into projects, such as the 'murther of H. H.
the Protector.'[41]

Nor was Mr. Morton the only agent busy in doing all he could 'to ripen
the design of a general rising.' During January and February, 1655,
messengers passed to and fro through the Northern and Western districts
of England to prepare the way for the Earl of Rochester and his
associates, who spread abroad rumours that the 'Levellers were to be
aiding and abetting the Cavaliers,' and that on the 8th of March, a
general rising would take place. Two men can be traced who thus prepared
Wiltshire for insurrection, one of whom was the chief instigator of
Wagstaff's rising at Salisbury.

Both of them were obscure men, not known in that part of England. An
unnamed emissary came from Yorkshire, passing through London, to
Dorsetshire, taking, on the way, the house, near Lewes, of Col. Bishop,
a Leveller, one of the Wildman faction.[42] The other, Mr. Douthwaite,
reached Wiltshire from Somersetshire. This circumstance, of itself,
aroused suspicion; and he was asked why, if the revolt, as he asserted,
was to be throughout all England, he did not choose Somersetshire,
instead of Wiltshire, for the scene of action. The reason he gave for
that choice had in it a strong dash of unreality. His motive was, he
declared, because 'if he did any mischief, or killed anybody,' he
preferred to do mischief 'among strangers, where he was not known.' So
unsatisfactory was his demeanour, that a recruit, whom he endeavoured to
cajole, refused to join the conspiracy, declaring that 'he was confident
this was a plot of my Lord Protector's own devising, and that he had
some of his own agents in it.' And as, during that winter, the
Dorsetshire Cavaliers had 'whispered that the plot' then 'so loudly
talked on at Court, is nothing but a trick of the great Oliver's,' this
idea seems to have been prevalent in the West of England. Some such
whisper, undoubtedly, had a marked influence on the Wiltshire revolt.
Not a single landowner of importance went out with Wagstaff. Though he
had been told off by the King expressly for that service, no Royalist of
eminent position answered the King's call. They, also, doubtless
suspected Douthwaite, an unknown, low-class stranger, who took upon
himself to summon them to arms against the Protector. And Douthwaite was
undoubtedly the chief instigator of that attempt, 'the very principal
verb' in the affair: a very capable witness, Major Butler, so described
him. In itself this was a suspicious circumstance. And another reason
may be urged for deeming that Cromwell, and not the King, was served by
Douthwaite. Like a shady witness, he proved too much. Antedating the
event by at least three weeks, he asserted in February, that Charles had
left Cologne for the Dutch coast, 'for an opportunity to sail for
England.' This was a startling piece of news, and most arousing to a
hearty Royalist: and the King did take that step on the 4th of March.
But it is noteworthy that a foreknowledge of the King's movements, which
was undoubtedly possessed by Cromwell and Thurloe in London, should have
been so speedily communicated to Douthwaite, in the depths of
Somersetshire.[43]

Whilst England was thus being prepared for the coming insurrection, the
Earl of Rochester went to London, where, although soldiers were
stationed at the ends of the streets, and extra precautions taken
against the Royalists, 'he consulted,' as Clarendon observes, 'with
great freedom with the King's friends.' Nor were he and his comrades
hindered from traversing England, and passing on into Wiltshire and
Yorkshire, that they might head the intended rendezvous of the Royalists
on Salisbury Plain and Marston Moor; the very places, it should be
remembered, that rumour had designated for a gathering of the Levellers.
Cromwell was powerless: he dared not touch the men he had passed into
England: the object for which he had admitted them must be fulfilled,
even to the end.

That the end, which Cromwell desired, followed the lines indicated by
his master hand, might be anticipated. But he could not allow the
project to become too real; a necessity that rather stood in his way.
His power of creating the semblance of an actual insurrection was
limited. Of the 'hidden works,' all over England, which he attributed
to the Royalists, but one mine actually exploded, one nearly went off,
and the rest remained dormant. The tameness of that shadowy meeting on
Marston Moor evidently caused Cromwell much vexation. As his dupes
refused to exhibit themselves, and as not a soldier was near at hand,
paragraphs in the News Letters, 'some pistols scattered' on the heath,
and 'a led horse, with a velvet saddle,' were all the proofs that
Cromwell could show that aught had happened on Marston Moor, during the
night of the 8th of March. Nor could he solemnize the event, as he
desired, by the appearance on the scaffold of a single Yorkshireman.

He sent, for that purpose, to York as Judges, Baron Thorpe, Mr. Justice
Newdigate, and Mr. Serjeant Hutton; but they refused to obey his
bidding. They declined to try upon a capital charge the men that had
been arrested by the Protector's informers, not in arms nor on
horseback, nor even on the highway, but in their own houses. The judges
were doubtful 'whether in point of law,' a possible midnight ride could
be declared by them 'to be treason.' It was in vain that Colonel
Lilbourne used 'diligence' to 'pick up such as are right,' to serve on
the jury. The judges even left York altogether, objecting that due
notice, under which they could try that 'great affair,' had not been
given.

Pressure was renewed upon Newdigate and Hutton; they were despatched
back to York, to undertake the trial of the Marston Moor prisoners.
Cromwell's law officer, however, found them at Doncaster, on their
return to London, and in a very contrary state of mind. They again
refused to act; and they based their refusal on an objection, which
affected not those prisoners alone, but all Cromwell's prisoners. They
asserted, evidently reckoning on Baron Thorpe's concurrence, that they
could not, as judges, put in force the Ordinance, by which Cromwell had
adapted the Statute Law of England to meet the crime of high treason
against himself, because it was of no validity! They thus anticipated,
in the most unpleasant way, Mr. Coney's refusal to pay taxes imposed,
not by an Act of Parliament, but by an 'Ordinance.' Cromwell was forced
to yield; the Yorkshiremen preserved their lives, but not their liberty
or their estates; and almost immediately, 'Judges Thorpe and Newdigate
were put out of their places, for not observing the Protector's pleasure
in all his commands.'[44]

Cromwell's 'pleasure' was, however, served by Mr. Serjeant Glyn and Mr.
Recorder Steele, and by the jurymen, 'such as were right,' over whom
they presided, in the trial of the Salisbury insurgents. Those poor
dupes pleaded what may be termed, Baron Thorpe's plea. They argued that
their indictment was not founded on an Act of Parliament, and that
'there can be no treason by an Ordinance.' They urged that a sentence
pronounced by the Serjeant and the Recorder, who were mere 'pleaders,
servants to the Lord Protector,' would be illegal; and they asserted
their right to be tried by Baron Thorpe, 'a sworn judge.' The prisoners,
who could not be convicted of high treason, were condemned to death as
horse stealers. They vainly pleaded, that to requisition a horse for a
warlike enterprise was not felony, and that 'the country knew we did not
intend to steal,' but acted 'as the soldiers did now at London, and
elsewhere, who came against us.'[45] About fourteen of those poor
fellows were put to death, with Grove and Penruddock; and seventy were
sold into West Indian slavery. Accordingly Cromwell was able, as Thurloe
exulted, to prove 'that the Plot was real,' as 'the persons were real,'
who, in consequence, lost their lives, or were condemned to lifelong
misery.

Thus Cromwell, by a deliberate course of fraud, compassed the death of
men, who might otherwise have lived void of offence against his
government. He next proceeded to delude all his subjects by means of the
sham conspiracy by which he had ensnared his victims on to the scaffold.
This development in Cromwell's course of deception brings us back to the
ordinary path of history. Every historical text-book mentions that
Cromwell, within a few months after the Insurrection of March 1655,
subjected England to the authority, almost unlimited, of twelve
Major-Generals. To each one a separate province was allotted, with power
to imprison, fine, or sell as slaves, all that he might select. The
Major-Generals also were directed by Cromwell to pay themselves, and the
soldiers under them, by the levy of a tax of ten per cent. on the
incomes of all but the poorest Royalists, which he imposed for that
purpose. As historians have believed in the reality of the Insurrection
of March 1655, they hold that Cromwell, therefore, 'found himself
compelled to divide England into districts, over which he set
Major-Generals,' and to inflict upon the Royalists the tax, 'known by
the name of the Decimation.' Yet, curiously enough, these hearty
believers in Cromwell have ignored that solemn confirmation of their
opinion, which he addressed to his subjects, namely, the 'Declaration of
his Highness, by the advice of his Council, showing the Reasons of their
Proceedings for Securing the Peace of the Commonwealth, upon occasion
of the late Insurrection and Rebellion,--October 31, 1655.'

Than this document, no more admirable illustration could be given of the
manner in which Cromwell carried on his Protectorate. By that
'Declaration' he engrafts into his policy the deception he had practised
on the Royalists, and adapts it to the benefit of the whole nation, by a
description of the pious uses to which it could be applied. And for our
purposes this document is especially convenient, for, whilst it proves
what Cromwell wished his people to believe about the Insurrection, it
enables us to disprove throughout the statements that he makes. But
before we can reach that portion of our disclosure, the operative
clauses of the 'Declaration' must be dealt with. It commences with a
justificatory recital of the misdeeds of the Royalists. As God, Cromwell
argues, 'by His gracious dispensation,' had 'subjected' the Royalists
'to the power of those whom they had designed to enslave and ruin,' 'the
Parliament's party' might, Cromwell asserts, have 'extirpated those men,
with designs of possessing their Estates and Fortunes.' Their
conquerors, however, refrained themselves, 'it having pleased God in his
providence, so to order things;' and the Royalists were allowed to live
and 'enjoy their freedom, and have equal protection in their persons and
estates, with the rest of the Nation.' But what return, the Protector
declares, has been made by the Malignants for the lenity thus extended
to them? 'The actings of that party' proves that 'neither the
dispensations of God, nor kindness of men, would work upon them;' that
'they were implacable in their malice and revenge'; and he cites 'the
late Insurrection and Rebellion,' 'as the greatest and most dangerous'
of all 'their hidden works of darkness.'

The Protector therefore announces, that as 'he knows by experience, that
nothing but the Sword will restrain the late King's party from blood and
violence,'--'We do now not only find Ourselves satisfied, but obliged in
duty, both towards God and this Nation, to proceed upon other grounds
than formerly,'--and that, to secure 'the Peace of this Commonwealth, We
have been necessitated to erect a new and standing Militia of Horse, in
all the Counties of England, under such Pay as might be a fitting
encouragement to the officers and soldiers. And We, therefore, have
thought fit, to lay the burthen of Maintaining those forces, upon those
who have been engaged in the late Wars against the State.' And Cromwell
declares, in conclusion, that 'We can with comfort appeal to God,
whether this way of proceeding with 'the Royalists' hath been the matter
of Our Choice, or that which We have sought occasion for; or whether
contrary to Our own inclinations, We have not been constrained and
necessitated hereunto, and without the doing whereof, We should have
been wanting to Our Duty to God and these Nations.'

Such words uttered by a man who, with utmost fervour, has claimed for
himself, that 'I have learned too much of God, to dally with Him, and to
make bold with Him in these things,' ought surely to be believed; and if
there be any one who is still unconvinced that Cromwell, of his own
'choice,' enticed the Earl of Rochester and his associates across the
Channel, and admitted them into England, that they might constrain and
necessitate him to appoint those Major-Generals, 'we can with comfort
appeal' to that 'Declaration' and ask such a believer in Cromwell to
follow us in a comparison between what he really did, with what he
declared he did, 'for securing the Peace of the Commonwealth upon the
occasion of the late Insurrection.'

In order that his subjects might appreciate the skill and vigilance, by
which the 'contrivements' of the 'cruel and bloody enemy had been
thwarted, Cromwell commenced the account of his execution of his duty as
England's Protecter by a general description of the projects of the
Royalists in March 1655. He asserted that they intended to surprise and
seize London, and all the principal ports and cities throughout England,
and that they reckoned on the support of more than 30,000 armed men.
This description of the projects and resources of the Royalists may be
at once, and contemptuously set aside: it was founded upon lies supplied
by such men as Manning, the spy, or Bamfield, the informer. Cromwell's
words were contradicted by the abortive and petty nature of the
insurrection, by the obvious refusal of all England to join in the
enterprise, and by the conduct of the Protector himself. For he would
not have placed England at the mercy of the Earl of Rochester and his
companions, had he thought that they could call 30,000 men to arms, or
that every important town from London to York, was in danger. Having
thus dealt out fiction by wholesale, and ascribed the overthrow of that
'great and general design' to 'The Lord,' Cromwell proceeds, according
to this method, to show how that was accomplished.

Beginning with the rising at Salisbury, he declared that

     'the Insurrection in the West was bold and dangerous in
     itself, and had in all likelihood increased to great Numbers
     of Horse and Foot by the conjunction of others of their own
     party, besides such Foreign forces, as in case of their
     success, and seizing upon some place of Strength, were to
     have landed in those parts, had they not been prevented by
     the motion of some troops, and diligence of the officers,
     in apprehending divers of that Party a few days before; and
     also been closely pursued by some of our Forces, and in the
     conclusion supprest by a handful of men, through the great
     goodness of God.'

As Charles had not at his disposal a single ship, or one soldier in the
pay of any foreign Power, the possibility of a foreign invasion needs no
disproof. And how did Cromwell deal with his enemies at home? Shortly
before the rising of the 11th of March, troops were undoubtedly moved
about in Wiltshire: their course can be traced from day to day. As the
Protector, according to his habit, bases his statements as far as he
can, on facts, so far we can agree with him. But as certainly as they
were marched about, Cromwell's soldiers were marched not towards, but
away from Salisbury.

During the latter part of February, Major Butler, the officer in charge
over Wiltshire, wrote to Thurloe, telling him that as Bristol was in 'a
peaceable state,' the Major intended to leave that city. He did so: just
eleven days before the outbreak he was on the march to his central
station, at Marlborough, when a messenger from the Protector, summoned
him back to Bristol. Butler was, in consequence, detained there, whilst
the event took place; nor did he reach Salisbury until the third day
after the insurgents had left the town. Cromwell knew what he was about:
on the very Sunday when Wagstaff took possession of Salisbury, Cromwell
occupied Chichester by horsemen, sent there at daybreak; and he
dispatched a warning to Portsmouth, that 'some desperate design was on
foot.' But he kept his soldiers away from Salisbury. He took this
course, although he knew that Salisbury Plain had been named as a
Levellers' rendezvous; and although he had received a report, about
three weeks before the 11th of March, from an officer sent to Salisbury
on police duty, 'that it would be convenient for some horse to be
quartered hereabouts,'[46] because the Royalists in the neighbourhood
were restless.

And Cromwell himself proves why Major Butler was detained at Bristol:
for when he did reach the scene of the revolt, though the insurgents had
been two days at large in the neighbourhood, and were disbanding,
drifting aimlessly towards Devonshire, Butler was withheld from active
operations by orders from Whitehall. He was directed to keep at a
distance from the insurgents for fear of a mishap. This is shown by the
opening words of Butler's letter of remonstrance to the Protector. 'Now,
my Lord,' Butler wrote, 'though I know it would be of sad consequence if
we assaulting them should be worsted,' still, he pleaded with much
earnestness that he, under 'the good providence of The Lord' would
assuredly be successful. So palpably absurd it was to suppose that his
four troops of horsemen could not make short work of that undisciplined,
badly armed, and disheartened band of men, that Butler declared, that he
could not 'with any confidence stay' here at Salisbury, 'nor look the
country in the face, and let them alone.''[47]

The Protector, however, was resolute. Butler was forced to let the enemy
alone; and, after four days' delay, they yielded at South Molton to one
troop of horse sent after them from Weymouth. Thus it was Cromwell, and
not Butler, as was surmised by a contemporary observer, who kept his
troopers 'at a distance in the rear' of the Royalists, 'to give them an
opportunity of increasing.'[48]

With this suspicion afloat, and Major Butler unable 'to look the country
in the face,' Cromwell felt that to ascribe the suppression of
Wagstaff's attempt mainly to the 'close' pursuit of the enemy 'by some
of Our Forces,' would hardly suffice. He accordingly also attributed
that happy result 'to the goodness of God,' and to 'the diligence of the
officers in apprehending some of the party.' In this statement Cromwell
made some approach to the truth. Butler had been diligent; and though he
failed to seize Douthwait, that mysterious 'principal verb', still,
during the last two weeks of February, he did arrest suspects in the
West of England, but none within the district round Salisbury.[49]
Wagstaff and his comrades were undisturbed, whilst preparing for their
attempt. Nor is it an unfounded assumption, if their security is
attributed to the same influence which sanctioned Wagstaff's repair to
the rendezvous, and which protected him from Major Butler's horsemen.

Having thus dealt with that 'bold and dangerous insurrection in the
West,' Cromwell turned northward, and took in hand that rather vague
affair at Marston Moor, on which, as he asserted, 'the enemy most
relied.' His account of that event was, that the Royalists who met there
dispersed and ran away in confusion, partly because of a failure among
the plotters; but also, 'in respect that Our Forces, by their marching
up and down in the country, and some of them providentially, at that
time, removing their Quarters, near to the place of Rendezvous, gave
them no opportunity to reassemble.' Again, Cromwell is, to a certain
extent, correct. Divided counsels did keep one of the principal
Yorkshire Royalists from the meeting, and he may have had followers;
and others were stayed, when on the march, by a timely warning that they
were on a fool's errand. But the assertion, that the Royalists were
dispersed by a providential movement of troops, and by 'Our Forces
marching up and down' Yorkshire, is utterly false. And, as before, the
witness against Cromwell is one of Cromwell's servants. An officer,
responsible for the peace of Yorkshire, reported to his chief in London
regarding himself and his comrades, that 'notwithstanding all our
frequent alarums from London of the certainty of this plot, carried on
with such secrecy on the traitor's part, though we were upon duty, and
in close quarters, we had no positive notice of it till the day was
past.' And no other soldiers were in that neighbourhood during the night
of the 8th of March. The only martial display that the occasion called
forth, was the march of two troops of horsemen into York about three or
four days subsequently; and the officer in command reported that if more
men were wanted, they must be drawn from Durham, Newark, or Hull.[50]

Thus it was that Cromwell dealt with 'the Insurrection of Yorkshire.' If
the Royalists had, in truth, 'reckoned on 8000 in the North,' or if York
had been in danger, soldiers, and not 'alarums' would have been sent
into Yorkshire. Nor was he mistaken in deeming that the Royalists relied
most on that attempt. Hoping to find a large gathering of Levellers in
arms against the Protector, many of the principal Yorkshire landowners,
of higher rank and more influential than poor Penruddock or any of his
comrades, met that night on Marston Moor. And probably it was owing to
their social position, that the trick was not fully played out, and
that, sorely to Cromwell's disappointment, they saved their lives.

Besides the insurrectionary displays at Salisbury and Marston Moor, it
was arranged that on the 8th of March similar symptoms should appear in
various other places, to create the idea that 'the Design was great and
general.' Cromwell was accordingly able to declare that 'the coming of
300 foot from Berwick' dispersed 'those who had rendezvoused near
Morpeth to surprise Newcastle:'--that in North Wales and Shropshire,
where they intended to surprise Shrewsbury, 'some of the chief persons
being apprehended, the rest fled:'--and that, 'at Rufford Abbey, Notts,
was another rendezvous, where about 500 horse met, and had with them a
cart load of horse-arms, to arm such as should come to them; but upon a
sudden, a great Fear fell upon them,' and they, also, dispersed
themselves, and 'cast their arms into the pond.' Nor did the Protector
omit to describe the action of 'other smaller Parties,' also in motion
during the night of the 8th of March, who, 'as in the Town of Chester
designed the surprise of the Castle there, but they, failing in their
expectations, were discouraged for that time.' 'And thus by the goodness
of God, these hidden works of darkness' were discovered. 'Fear' was 'put
into the hearts' of the cruel and bloody enemy, and their great and most
dangerous design was 'defeated, and brought to nothing.'

The depositions on which Cromwell based his description of the minor
passages of the Insurrection are all mere informers' tales, none rising
above the inanity of the story of a tobacco-pipe-maker's attack on
Chester Castle, of which more anon; and, from Carlyle's point of view,
this sample of Thurloe's papers might assuredly be classed among 'human
stupidities.' But Carlyle has overlooked the fact, that to Cromwell
these depositions were an important element in his government, and were
worked up into his speeches and the 'Declaration of October 1655. Hence
the greater the absurdity of those documents, the greater their
historical importance, as showing, not only how the Royalists were
duped, and how Cromwell duped his subjects, but also that the tricks of
his trepanners were so clumsy that, almost without exception' no
Cavaliers of any standing were drawn into the Protector's game.

An apt example of the kind of evidence on which Cromwell based his
statements, and also a comical illustration of his propensity to cling
to fact in the midst of fraud, is afforded by that alleged 'rendezvous'
of Royalists 'to surprise Newcastle.' If his spies are to be believed,
presumably with that object, on the 8th of March, 'about 3 score and 10
horsemen armed with swords and pistols' met by night 'at a place called
Duddo;' and then vanished, not, however, for fear 'of 300 foot coming
from Berwick,' but because the conspirators were warned 'that there was
300 sail of ships come into Newcastle, for fear of whom they durst not
fall upon Newcastle at that time.' Much in the same way, and during the
same night, a party of Royalist gentlemen and their servants, repaired
to the inn on Rufford Abbey Green; and a real cart was driven to the
door containing 'horse-arms,' fifty-six pair of pistols, two buff coats,
two suits of arms, &c., and was then driven away, and the party broke
up. So far the Protector's words are verified by the very full
information that Thurloe collected regarding the Rufford Abbey incident;
but if to the conspirators therein specifically mentioned, a large
addition be made for 'divers unnamed gentlemen,' seen 'coming in and
going out of the inn-door,' the plotters cannot be rated at much above
20, instead of at Cromwell's 500.

The Protector's concluding statements may be briefly disposed of.
Shrewsbury Castle was to have been taken by 'two men in the apparel of
gentlewomen,' acting in combination with their comrades, 'in certain
alehouses near unto the said castle;' and the determined purpose of
these plotters may be tested by the temper of their ringleader, who
urged his recruits to appear at the rendezvous, but refused for his
part, to join with them, 'because his wife was not well.'[51] The
Shropshire insurrection was, indeed, of so visionary a nature, that
zealous Commissary Reynolds could not manipulate it into any definite
shape. Though sent to Shrewsbury that he might develop the existence of
'a general plot of the malignants' in the West of England, he entirely
failed. And so annoyed was he at his failure, that he suggests to
Thurloe, that it would 'not to be unfit to make' the malignants 'speak
forcibly, by tying matches, or some kind of pain, whereby they may be
made to discover the plot;' and as he re-urges his craving to inflict
torture on his prisoners, the proposal had drawn no disapproval from the
Secretary.[52]

An account of the 'great and signal disappointment, as great as any this
age can produce,' which the 'goodness of God' inflicted upon that
'smaller party,' 'who' according to Cromwell, 'designed the surprise of
the castle' of Chester, forms an appropriate close to this portion of
our narrative. An 'exceeding poor' dupe, Francis Pickering, tells the
story, and the duper was a Colonel Worthing. After enticing Pickering
into the plot by assurances of a general rising against the Protector,
on the night of the 8th of March, Worthing announced that his part in
the design 'was principally to surprise the Castle of Chester;' and as
related by Pickering, while he and the Colonel remained quietly at home.

     'Accordingly that night three or four went, sent by Col.
     Worthing' to seize the Castle: they were all inhabitants of
     Chester, and one of them is commonly known by the name of
     Alexander, the tobacco-pipe-maker. These persons brought
     back word to Col. Worthing that at the place where they
     intended to raise a ladder to surprise the Castle, they
     heard a sentinel walk and cough. At which report Col.
     Worthing was very much startled! and sent them back again to
     seize any other convenient place; and they brought back word
     that they had centinels walking.'[53]

No third attempt was made by Mr. Alexander and his friends; and next day
Pickering was told by Worthing 'that he was much troubled, for that he
could not contrive how to take said Castle;' and, in due time, Pickering
found himself in custody.

In singular contrast to the vague and absurd stories told by 'exceeding
poor' and foolish men, such as Mr. Pickering and his fellow plotters,
are the numerous and positive assurances that Cromwell received from his
own officers, that all was well with England both before, during, and
after the Insurrection of March 1655. Headed by Thurloe, they are all
unanimous in reporting 'that the nation was much more ready to rise
against, than for Charles Stuart;' that, in the town of Leeds, 'not
thirty men were disaffected to the present Government;' and that 'there
was no design on foot' even in 'the most corrupt and rotten places of
the Nation,' such as Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Kent, and the Eastern
Counties. From Bristol to York all was quiet, or wished to be so, during
February, March, and April, 1655.[54]

Further illustration of this statement is needless. For, if Cromwell had
thought otherwise, even though he might in his wisdom have admitted the
Earl of Rochester and his associates into England, he certainly would
not have allowed them to remain here, apparently as long as they chose,
after their enterprise was over. That the Protector gave them this
freedom of action is made singularly clear by the Thurloe Papers': they
contain repeated indications of the 'whereabouts' of the Earl of
Rochester, the leader of the revolt. He and Major Armourer did not,
after the Marston Moor failure, fly to the coast, or seek separate
hiding-places. They journeyed together, with two servants, leisurely
through England towards London: and to guard his safety, Rochester would
not disturb his bedtime, or his dinner-hour. After the outbreak, people
were naturally anxious to pick up what they could, by arresting 'the
great ones.' Of these, Rochester was the greatest; and he and Armourer
were arrested at Aylesbury. The resident magistrate gave a warrant to
the constable, desiring him to keep safely the bodies of the Earl and
his three companions, 'in the name of my Lord Protector.' The warrant
was acted upon; the prisoners evidently were 'persons of great quality.'
Yet somehow, both magistrate and constable left the Earl and the Major
in charge of the innkeeper 'where they lay;' and naturally enough, 'when
the constable came in the morning, he found that the innkeeper had let
the two chiefs escape,' taking with them 'all their rich apparel.'[55]
Had this been merely a sample of Aylesbury carelessness, the incident
need not have been noticed. But the example of the magistrate and
constable was followed by Cromwell. Although the escape of Rochester and
Armourer was promptly known, and their course was closely tracked, and
though Cromwell was informed where they might be found, they 'wrote very
comfortably from London;' and they endeavoured 'to lay the foundation of
some new design.' And at last, as if he were an ordinary traveller,
sending his servants before him, Rochester left England for the
Continent, having been a resident here for about five months; and the
latter part of his stay in England was a season of extraordinary
severity against the Royalists. In like manner, every one of his
thirteen comrades returned 'weekly without difficulty' to their King's
presence, apparently at their pleasure; whilst Cromwell's continental
informers repeated their warnings that 'Day, the Clerk of the Passage,'
is 'a rogue,' and that if the Protector had 'been ruled' by them 'all
these had not escaped.'[56]

In this matter, and indeed throughout his connection with the
Insurrection of March 1655, Cromwell was not his own master. The
conditions under which he obtained the espial of one of the King's most
trusted friends, and a member of the 'Sealed Knot,' formed a complete
protection to the Earl of Rochester and his associates. Nor for his own
sake could he touch those conspirators. Their seizure would have
disclosed the fact, that 'persons in the very bosom of our enemies' gave
him 'intelligence;' and hence, if 'he once discovered the grounds, he
would destroy the intelligence.'[57] Anyhow, it is evident that Cromwell
could with entire safety allow his most determined enemies to remain in
England, and lay foundations for new projects against him.

Having seen Cromwell's conspirators safe home again, tribute must be
paid to his amazing dexterity. The Prince of Wire-Pullers, he made his
puppets perform what part he chose. Some jerked the royal doll Charles,
against his liking, from Cologne to Middleburg, and some warned him to
keep quiet, and others seemed to fight against the manager of the show,
though in reality they fought in his behalf: all played Cromwell's game,
whilst they thought they were playing their own; and even the most
innocent outsiders were pressed into his service. With comic audacity he
assured his audience that the more trivial was the scene at Salisbury,
the more they ought to recognize its dramatic force. 'Observe,' he said,
'when this Attempt was made--it was made when nothing but a well-formed
Power could hope to put us into disorder. Do you think that' such a
company of mean fellows 'would have attacked Us, if they had not been
supported by vast unseen forces behind the scenes.'[58] With what cruel
craft, but seeming indifference, the artful old showman treated his
manikins! He cut off the heads of some amongst those who responded most
vigorously to his touch; whilst others, not less free upon the wire,
were carefully packed up, and sent home safe. By seizing and boxing up
in the Tower mere bystanders, wholly unconcerned in the sport, he made
his 'little tin soldiers' fancy that he did not see their antics. The
only hitch in his 'knavish piece of work' arose when, too assured, he
placed upon the boards a real live judge, who refused to take the bench
in the manager's sham Court of Justice. In every other respect the
mystery play was a complete success; everybody was puzzled, players,
spectators, and the gentlemen of the press; not one even guessed at the
true meaning of the performance; though a few 'men of wicked spirits'
would try to peep behind the curtain. But they never found him out; they
all danced to Cromwell's tune, but none discovered that the pipe they
heard was in their Protector's mouth. Even Ludlow, with all the
proverbial opportunities of a bystander, though most anxious to know his
great opponent's game, never guessed that he had patched up the
Insurrection of March 1655, from the beginning to the end.

And such was Cromwell's power of deception, that though dead, he still
deceived; his works did follow him, as he desired, out of sight. He
seems to have anticipated that the records of his detective department
might remain as a witness against him, and to have cast over the
'Thurloe Papers' a spell, that has hitherto rendered them invisible. For
nearly 150 years these evidences of his 'hidden works of darkness' have
been before the world; but Cromwell has preserved his secret; he has
humbugged every historian as effectually as he hoodwinked his
contemporaries. The 'Thurloe Papers' were published in 1742, well
edited and indexed; they contain the documents which Cromwell himself
read and handled, the notes of his speeches, the information of his
spies, the letters of his enemies and of his clerks. Though called after
Thurloe, those papers are, in fact, Cromwell's own. Yet such is the
glamour that he has cast over all that has approached him, that they
have accepted his words without question, or, if they have read his
writings, they have read them according to his inspiration.

Yet there was much even in that Insurrection itself to arouse suspicion.
Cromwell, in January 1655, assured his Parliament that he had crushed
the various conspiracies which were then on foot against him, all most
'real dangers,' and that he had disarmed and rendered powerless those
conspirators; yet within six weeks they had organized a universal
revolt, and had secreted stores of arms and ammunition all over England.
This universal revolt broke out at Salisbury, 'bold and dangerous'; and
it was put down by a single troop of horsemen, after the rebels had
paraded, disheartened and deserted, across England. Except on that
occasion, the vast design was suppressed without the aid of a single
soldier or even a beadle. And, strangely enough, the Protector himself
supplied a hint which might have provoked some curiosity about the
nature of that 'Rebellion.'

For surely it is odd that 'such a terrible Protector this; no getting of
him overset!' should have been compelled to contend with the notorious
and obstinate incredulity of the members of his Parliament regarding the
late attempt to overset him? Yet Cromwell's speech of September 1656 is
pervaded with expressions such as these, regarding the 'bold and
dangerous Insurrection' of March 1655,--'I think the world must know and
acknowledge, that it was a general design,'--'I doubt if it be believed,
that there was any rising,' either in North Wales or at Shrewsbury, or
on Marston Moor, 'at the very time when there was an Insurrection at
Salisbury'--' therefore, how men of wicked spirits may traduce Us in
that matter--I leave it!'[59] Surely 'sluggish mortals, saved from
destruction,' not caused by secret agencies, but from an actual
'Rebellion,' which threatened to bring every one of them into 'blood and
confusion,' need not be required to believe in the very existence of so
great and conspicuous a danger!

And Cromwell felt that he could not afford to leave that 'matter'
untouched. A suspicion was prevalent, during the whole of Cromwell's
reign, that plots were manufactured to suit his purposes. He knew that
full well; he knew also the danger of such a suspicion. The surmises of
the 'men of wicked spirits,' were those 'half tales,' that 'be truths.'
It had been hoped that such a 'real plot' as 'the late Insurrection,'
would give that suspicion a quietus. When it was safely transacted,
Thurloe and his associates congratulated each other over that hope.[60]
But it was not fulfilled. Hence arises the tone of angered honesty,
which Cromwell so repeatedly assumed when he addressed his Parliament,
and Carlyle's indignant protest--'What a position for a hero, to be
reduced continually to say he does not lie!'

But what was Cromwell's motive in the fabrication of this Insurrection
of March, 1655? It was not, as might be suggested, a device to thwart by
a premature explosion, a dangerous conspiracy during a critical moment
in the Protectorate. Cromwell himself asserts in his 'Declaration,' that
'this Attempt was made, when nothing but a well-formed Power could hope
to put Us into disorder; Scotland and Ireland being perfectly reduced;
Differences with most Neighbour Nations composed; our Forces, both by
Sea and Land, in order and consistency.' Nay, he artfully converted the
very security of his Government into a proof that 'the pretended King'
would not have sent over his servants, and that the Royalists would not
'have actually risen' at Salisbury, had the insurrection been other than
'a general design,' based on a vast secret organization. No one in all
England possessed more certain knowledge, than did Cromwell, that such
was not the case, and that he could not plead in his behalf the poor
excuse, that the Nation as a Nation needed a severe lesson, or that it
was to save England from civil war that he had sacrificed the lives of
those fourteen victims of his deception, and consigned that band of
seventy or eighty Englishmen to the horrors of West Indian slavery.

But if Cromwell could not claim that excuse, what then was his motive?
Dark as was the light within him, he was not in such utter darkness as
to encompass himself about with written, spoken, and acted lies merely
to gratify caprice, or that he might indulge in causeless cruelty. His
motive was a very simple one. He was forced to obey his servant, the
Army. The men whom he had made, and who had made him, demanded a visible
share in the power and profit that he enjoyed. Reverting to the autumn
of 1654, much had then occurred to disquiet the Army. Cromwell had taken
a distinct step towards Kingship, by attempting to persuade Parliament
to make the Protectorate hereditary. Parliament had made a distinct
movement towards a large reduction in the Army and Navy. If rumour be
evidence, there was, during November, 'a great division in the army.'
And it is certain that, at the close of that month, Cromwell and his
military men came to terms. At a meeting held in St. James's Palace, the
staff of the army agreed 'to live and die with Cromwell.'[61] And a
train of events, occurring in direct sequence after that meeting, proves
that it was at this conjuncture that Cromwell agreed to parcel out his
Protectorship among the leading officers of the Army. Parliament was
dissolved 22nd January, 1655, on the pretext that under its shadow,
conspiracy and discontent had thriven; and Cromwell gave an alarming
account of the 'real dangers,' of imminent insurrection and anarchy,
that threatened England. That speech was the prologue; then came the
tragedy itself, the Insurrection of March, 1655; then came its
consequence, the appointment of the Major-Generals. And in the end, the
reason why they were appointed, was brought to light by a state of
affairs, very identical with that which had raised them to power.

Cromwell had renewed the attempt that he had made in the autumn of 1654,
and in his quest after Kingship he had come, during February 1657,
almost within sight of the throne. Again the army officers interfered;
and again Cromwell was forced to meet them face to face; to receive, on
this occasion, their protest against his acceptance of the Crown. He
made a compromise as he had done before; but in speech, he was not
conciliatory. If the Protectorate had been a failure, he told his former
comrades, it was their fault. It was they, and not he who had governed;
as for himself, 'they had made him their drudge upon all occasions: to
dissolve the Long Parliament,' and 'to call a Parliament or Convention
of their naming,' which proved so unsuccessful; and then another
Parliament, alike in unsuccess; and he concluded that catalogue of their
untoward interferences with his government, by reminding his hearers
that they thought it was necessary to have Major-Generals; adding that
so they 'might have gone on,' if they had not insisted on his calling
the Parliament of 1656, against his will, which had given them 'a
foil.'[62]


That speech is the most exceptional, in some respects the most
important, of all Cromwell's speeches. Spoken if not 'in haste,'
certainly 'out of the fulness of the heart,' that is caused by anger, it
is, though unusually brief, delightfully incautious. Being addressed to
men who could not well be deceived, the speech must be true, at least so
far as they are concerned, in every particular; it does not contain a
single appeal to God; and of no other among Cromwell's speeches, are the
original MS. notes in existence. This speech, of the utmost historic
importance, is essentially unheroic in tone and circumstance,--the
querulous complaint of a master against servants who have overmastered
him,--an assertion of supremacy made by a man, who felt that he was not
really supreme. But the singularity that attends the address to the
recalcitrant officers is not yet exhausted. Surprise may well be felt
that Carlyle, with this speech before him, ventured on the construction
of his false image of Cromwell, the Hero. Judged even as an ordinary
ruler, he must have been a very sorry Protector who, according to his
own showing, was only a sham supreme magistrate,--the minister, the
'drudge,' of his servants but real masters--who had compelled him to
call, and to dissolve Parliaments, and to impose on England those
military despots.

Carlyle has endowed his ideal Protector 'with the virtue to create
belief,' by the force of self-assertion, which still finds its
imitators, by pouring out contempt on all who differ from him, and by
implying that, as all other Cromwellian authorities are 'stupidities and
falsities,' he alone was wise and true. This was but a risky basis on
which to exhibit 'this Oliver' to the world, as the noblest Hero 'among
the noblest of Human Heroisms, this English Puritanism of ours,' and as
'not a Man of falsehoods, but a Man of truths.' But reading over these
words, and calling to mind the confidence with which Carlyle compels all
to join with him in his Cromwell-worship, it is impossible to resist the
conviction, that it was with good faith that he could see in Cromwell
'the glimpses,' even the revelation 'of the god-like,' and that he would
not attend to aught that disclosed Cromwell 'not' as 'august and divine,
but hypocritical, pitiable, detestable.' Even though he claimed a
familiar acquaintance with the 'Thurloe Papers,' he must have been
ignorant, it is impossible to think otherwise, of the black stories
which Cromwell's 'expertest of secretaries' could publish against his
master.

And passing from the worshipper to the Idol; surely it is but in
accordance with common sense and common charity to hope that, as with
Carlyle, so also with his Oliver, the real Cromwell was wholly shrouded
from Cromwell's sight. That hope might, indeed, be forbidden by some. It
might be argued that, although many a wrong-doing, such as bloodshed,
oppression, or even treachery, has been committed by men in the sincere
belief that they were doing God service, Cromwell cannot be placed among
that group of self-deceivers: that he stands by himself, and on a lower
level. It was to save himself, to propitiate a gang of mutinous
servants, that Cromwell contrived and wrought out the deception of
March, 1655, and obtained in the bloodshed that it produced, the
essential result that he desired. And then, to give validity to his
imposture, to grace it with the Divine sanction, he ascribed his course
of acted and uttered lies, and the cruelty and misery they had
engendered, to God himself.

Undoubtedly that statement is true. But yet on the other hand it may be
pleaded, that nothing but an intense living conviction, that God was
with him in all his ways, could have enabled Cromwell to make 'with
comfort' his 'appeal to God, whether' the Insurrection of March 1655
'hath been the matter of Our Choice' or 'according to Our own
inclinations?'

This is but a sorry plea to urge in Cromwell's behalf. The blackness and
the fury of the storm, which roared across England during his dying
hours, cannot have exceeded the blinding energy of that strong delusion,
that ever drove him onward, through his cruel and crooked devices, fully
persuaded that 'God was even such a one as' himself. Though all may
agree in believing that it was not from the lips, but truly from the
heart--not to cheat his hearers, but in a veritable ecstasy--that
Cromwell claimed to stand before God, as one who 'had learned too much
of God, to dally with him,' still it must be felt, that such an
assertion, coming from such a Protector, reveals a mental condition that
baffles the understanding. But as man, when he shrinks from passing
judgment on another, ever takes the better part; and as even with the
best amongst us, the relation of the soul to God is a question which, of
all others, should not be intermeddled with, assuredly we must leave
Cromwell, whose being is one of 'the deep things of God,' to His
judgment.--'Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then
the hearts of the children of men?'

FOOTNOTES:

[30] 'Report of French Ambassador in Holland.' Thurloe, iii. 322.

[31] 'Clarendon' (Bodleian Papers), iii. II.

[32] 'Clarendon,' ed. 1839, 871. 'Clarendon' (Bodleian Papers), Cal.
iii. 13 Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2535. fo. 637.

[33] We thus found this conjecture: Cromwell held an intercepted letter
from the King to Mr. Roles, addressed to him under his alias, Mr. Upton,
expressed in terms of entire confidence (Thurl. iii. 75); but Roles was
not arrested. And the suspicion inspired by the immunity which Cromwell
granted to such a conspicuous Royalist, was confirmed by finding that
Thurloe in a letter (dated 6th April, 1655) to Manning the spy, refers
to 'Mr. Upton' as their common friend. (Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2542.
fo. 166.)

[34] Masonet. See Note, 'Clarendon Papers' (Bodleian) Cal. iii. 14
Carlyle, iv. 108.

[35] Information of J. Dallington, R. Glover, J. Stradling, E. Turner.'
Thurloe iii. 35, 74, 146, 181, 222.

[36] Several Proceedings, &c. Thurs., 8th Feb.--15th Feb. 1655.
'Clarendon Papers' (Bodleian Cal.) iii. 16.

[37] Thurloe, iii. 164.

[38] Thurloe, iii. 137, 180, 190, 198, 224.

[39] Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus. 2535, fo. 637. This communication appears
in an anonymous letter addressed to Nicholas. Mr. Warner, with that
ready help that he and his department afford, by a comparison of the
handwriting, attributes that letter to Col. Price, who shared in
Rochester's expedition.

[40] 'Clarendon Papers' (Bodleian), Cal. iii. 23.

[41] Thurloe, iii. 573.

[42] Ibid., iv. 344.

[43] Thurloe, iii. 122, 182. Egerton MSS., Brit. Mus., 2535, fo. 627

[44] Whitlock, 625. Thurloe, iii. 359, 382.

[45] Thurloe, iii. 391.

[46] Thurloe, iii. 162 172, 177, 182, 219, 243, Rolls Cal. (1655), 73.

[47] Thurloe, iii. 238, 243.

[48] Heath's Chronicle, 367.

[49] Thurloe, iii. 176, 181, 191.

[50] 'Rolls Cal.' (1655), p. 216; Baynes Coll., Add. MSS. Brit. Mus.
21,424 fo. 50; Thurloe, iii. 226.

[51] Thurloe, iii. 210, 222, 228, 241, 253.

[52] Ibid., iii. 298, 356. In addition to constant terror of 'the
Barbadoes,' to which all Cromwell's prisoners were subject, a Royalist
in the Tower mentions, in a pencilled letter, that he had been
threatened with torture; and that the Protector himself used the menace
of the rack rests on the evidence of another prisoner's
brother.--'Clarendon Papers,' Bodleian Cal., iii. 82, 87.

[53] Thurloe, iii. 676.

[54] Pell Coll. Landsdowne MSS., 752. fo. 275, 282. Baynes Coll. Add.
MSS. 21, 423, fo. 74. Thurloe, iii. 170, 224, 246, 248, 253, 281, 284.
'Rolls Cal., 1655, 81, 84, 88, 99, 200.

[55] Thurloe, iii. 281, 335.

[56] 'Clarendon Papers,' Bodleian Cal., iii. 27, 34, 36. 'Rolls Cal'
(1655), 193, 245. Thurloe, iii. 358, 530, 561, 659.

[57] Whalley's Statement; Burton, iv, 155.

[58] Adapted from the 'Declaration' of Oct. 1655, and Speech. Carlyle,
iv. 107, Vol. 162.--_No. 324_

[59] Carlyle, iv. 108, 111.

[60] Pell Corresp., Landsdowne MSS. Brit. Mus. 752, fo 275, 289. Hist
Rec. Comn. 6th Report, 438.

[61] 1 Dec. 1654. Pell Corr., Lans. MSS. Brit. Mus., 752 fo. 215, 220.

[62] 27 Feb. 1657. Burton, i. 383. Carlyle, iv. 177.




Art. VI.--1. _Oceana, or England and her Colonies._ By James Anthony
Froude. London, 1886.

2. _Through the British Empire._ By Baron von Hübner. 2 vols. London,
1886.

3. _The Western Pacific and New Guinea._ By Hugh Hastings Romilly,
Deputy Commissioner of the Western Pacific. London, 1886.


In days when proposals for the dismemberment of the Empire can be put
forward by great leaders of public opinion without exciting either
indignation or surprise, it may be worth the while of Englishmen to
spend a few hours in making themselves acquainted with the volumes which
we have cited at the head of this article. Most men are so absorbed in
what is going on immediately under their eyes, that they seldom bestow a
thought upon the remoter portions of the vast territory which
acknowledge allegiance to the Queen. They have but the most vague ideas,
or none at all, concerning the thoughts, wishes, and purposes, of the
large and growing communities which sprung from these islands, and which
have hitherto been proud of their English origin. It is true that this
pride has not been increasing of late years. The neglect or contempt
with which the Colonies have been treated by successive Liberal
Administrations did much to estrange the people, especially of Canada
and Australasia, and the whole foreign policy of England under Mr.
Gladstone's rule served to strengthen the general impression that our
decadence had not only set in, but was advancing with a rapidity which
was palpable to all the world except to those who were chiefly concerned
in arresting it. Mr. Froude tells us that one of the shrewdest and most
eminent of all the colonists whom he met expressed his amazement at the
popularity in this country of Mr. Gladstone,--an amazement which, Mr.
Froude adds, is felt 'wherever the English language is spoken' outside
England itself. We can fully confirm this statement. The hold which Mr.
Gladstone retains upon the country, after the long series of
unparallelled mistakes which a faithful view of his career must forever
associate with his name--the mistakes abroad, the mistakes at home, the
crowning and almost incredible mistakes in Ireland; that he should still
keep his hold of power and popularity after all this, absolutely passes
the understanding of our fellow-subjects abroad, no matter what politics
they profess. To them, we appear to be a people controlled by some
Circean spell, having cast common-sense and prudence to the winds, and
decided to be ruled henceforth by the man who can tickle our ears with
the longest speeches and the smoothest words. Byron was accustomed to
say that he looked upon the opinion of America as the verdict of
posterity. It is certain that our own kinsfolk beyond the seas are
sometimes in a far better position to realize the consequences of what
we are doing here than those who are actually playing the game. We are
too much wrapped up in self-complacency to allow their opinions to have
any weight with us, but they have the satisfaction, such as it is, of
seeing all their prognostications verified one after the other, and of
knowing that a rude and stern awakening from our dreams is hanging over
us.

Of the three books to which we invite attention, Mr. Froude's is least
like the average book of travel, and undoubtedly is the most suggestive
of thought. Whether we agree with Mr. Froude or whether we do not, it is
always a pleasure to read him. The 'shoddy' work which extends to
everything in the present day, and which is eating into the very heart
of our new literature, has not corrupted the older handicraftsmen among
us. Not one record of travel in a hundred deserves to be mentioned in
the same breath with 'Oceana;' there are not very many books of the kind
in the language which excel it in variety, in vigour of style, in
picturesqueness of description, or in vivid glimpses of insight into
personal character. Baron Hübner is a more genial, discursive, and
garrulous traveller. He tells us everything that comes into his mind,
and has a note about everything he saw. We must add that these notes
are, generally speaking, of great interest, and often very amusing. He
undertook a journey over the greater part of the British Dominions, at a
somewhat advanced period of life, for his readers ought to be reminded
that he is the last survivor of the Congress of Paris, and that few men
have had more valuable experience in the diplomatic service. Before he
started, the Baron heard that his project was freely discussed at the
Traveller's Club. Some said, 'what a plucky old fellow he is!' His
comment upon this shows that he knows something of men as well as of
places: 'If any harm befals me, they will say, "what an old fool he
was!"' Happily, there was no occasion for pronouncing this judgment upon
him. He followed out his prescribed route with wonderful success, and he
has presented a graceful and highly interesting narrative of his
adventures. His observations may, in many respects, be usefully compared
with those of Mr. Froude, though it will not do to carry this comparison
much further. We must, however, do the Baron the justice to acknowledge,
that he always manifests an earnest desire to be fair and just. As for
the third book on our list, it has the advantage of being short and to
the point, and the additional advantage of being founded upon a
personal residence in one of the islands of the Western Pacific. Travels
based upon something more substantial than a mere flying visit are not
too common, and we are grateful to Mr. Romilly for making a very
entertaining addition to the number. We should be equally glad to
receive the account of North New Guinea which a Russian gentleman, Mr.
Miklaho Maclay, is so well able to furnish. It so chanced that he was
landed one night on the north coast of New Guinea, and in the morning
the natives found him sitting upon his portmanteau, like a man waiting
for a train. They took him for a being of supernatural origin, but by
way of making sure, they fired arrows at the stranger, tied him to a
tree, and forced spears down his throat. As he survived these injuries,
though by a narrow chance, the first impression of the natives was
confirmed, and Mr. Maclay was afterwards treated in a manner which seems
to have left him little ground for complaint. Thus far Mr. Maclay, as
Mr. Romilly informs us, has declined to commit any account of his
experience to paper; but a resolution of this kind is seldom unalterable
when a man has anything new to tell the world.

Mr. Froude, as we have already intimated, intersperses the records of
travel with weighty reflections, or with valuable information, no part
of which can be prudently ignored by the reader. We do not know, for
instance, where in a short compass the arguments for and against
Colonial Federation have been so clearly set forth. As a rule, the
colonists everywhere view with great aversion the idea of placing
themselves under the direct authority of Downing Street, and no one will
be surprised at this who recollects the treatment they have almost
invariably received from that quarter. On the other hand, they are by no
means impatient or eager to proclaim their independence. 'British they
are,' says Mr. Froude, 'and British they wish to remain.' It will not be
their fault, but ours, if total separation ever becomes a popular cry in
Australasia or in Canada. There have been projects of a purely _local_
colonial confederation, but they are not regarded with much favour by
the leading public men. Mr. Dalley of Sydney, expressed strongly his
disapproval of the scheme, and he also objected to the plan of having
the colonies represented in the Imperial Parliament by Colonial
Agents-general. The one thing which seems at present to be universally
desired is a better organization of the Navy. 'Let there be one Navy,'
Mr. Dalley said, 'under the rule of a single Admiralty--a Navy in which
the colonies should be as much interested as the mother country, which
should be theirs as well as ours, and on which they might all rely in
time of danger.' In these respects, the ideas of modern colonists differ
widely from those held in the last century. The great grievance of the
American colonists was that they were not represented in the British
Parliament. Had that demand been conceded, Mr. Froude is of opinion that
'Franklin and Washington would have been satisfied.' We do not quite
agree with him, for the party of Independence, though small at first,
was never likely to remain long contented with any compromise.
Originally, indeed, as we all remember, the leaders of the Revolution
disclaimed any intention of bringing about a separation. Franklin to the
last protested his desire to keep the colonies united to the mother
country; but Franklin was not the most sincere or straightforward of
men. Undoubtedly, however, the American colonists did not begin the
Revolution with the least desire to create a separate nationality, any
more than in the great civil war of 1861-65 there was at first, or for a
long time, any intention of effecting the abolition of slavery. Both
ideas were acquired by the people by slow degrees. Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Virginia, and other States gave emphatic instructions to
their delegates in 1774 to 'restore union and harmony between Great
Britain and her Colonies,' and the party of independence was thoroughly
unpopular down even to the close of the struggle. One of its leading
spirits gave emphatic testimony on this point. 'For my own part,' wrote
John Adams, 'there was not a moment in the Revolution when I would not
have given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state of
things before the contest began, provided we could have a sufficient
security for its continuance.' This feeling had no small share in
misleading George III. on the American question, and in deepening his
determination not to let the colonies go--a fact which was brought out
for the first time, we believe, by one of the ablest and most judicious
of modern historians--Mr. Lecky. He also was the first to show, in a
very striking manner, that the American Revolution was practically the
work of a small minority, who, as he remarks--and the remark has no
slight application to the other revolution now going on in our
midst--'succeeded in committing an undecided and fluctuating majority to
courses for which they had little love, and leading them step by step to
a position from which it was impossible to recede.'[63] Nearly one-half
of the Revolutionary army consisted of Irish, who have ever since played
so important a part in the politics of the United States.

In the present day, our colonists do not seek for separation,
neither--if Mr. Froude is right--do they ask for representation at
Westminster. They 'are passionately attached to their Sovereign,' and
they desire that their Governors 'should be worthy always of the great
person whom they represent.' They wish to have their trade encouraged,
as it might so easily have been a few years ago, if we had possessed
foresight enough to adopt a system of differential duties; they wish to
have good immigrants, and they see the growing necessity for a strong
navy. The information on these subjects which Baron Hübner acquired
should be considered in connection with Mr. Froude's statements. It will
be found that the two writers substantially agree. Baron Hübner found
that the Australian colonists fully comprehend the disadvantage which
complete independence would be to them. They are practically independent
now, but they are spared the political and social turmoil in which the
periodical election of a President would necessarily involve them. 'The
Queen,' said one of the Baron's friends, 'sends every five years a
Governor, who is not an autocrat like the President of the United
States, but the representative of constitutional royalty. In America
every four years, business is arrested, public order is disturbed, and
passions are let loose to the point sometimes of threatening even public
life itself. And why? In order that the nation may elect an absolute
master, irremovable by law during his period of office. Here every one
understands this, and every one knows how to leave well alone.' We do
not quite see how the President of the United States can be described as
an 'autocrat' or as an 'absolute master,' but the Australians are right
in their conclusion, that the American system would be a sorry
substitute for the arrangement which gives them a Governor without
inconvenience to themselves, and without any risk of infringement upon
their liberties.

In the Cape Colony, the problem presents itself in a different form. In
its origin--as everybody ought to know, but does not--it is not an
English, but a Dutch Colony, and the Boers have never been disposed to
render to English sovereignty more than a passive obedience. The chief
facts in their recent history are but too easily recalled. When the
Transvaal was annexed by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the people at first
submitted quietly; but the new Commissioner aroused first their fears,
and then their anger, by various encroachments which were regarded as
invasions of their rights. The Boers took up arms, English troops were
despatched from the Cape to suppress the rising, and these troops were
beaten at Lang's Neck. General Colley, who then commanded the forces at
Natal, hastened forward with more troops in the hope of retrieving this
disaster, but was himself beaten at Ingogo. He then, without waiting for
the reinforcements which were on their way to him, took up a new
position, was attacked by the Boers, and defeated in the memorable
disaster at Majuba Hill. Mr. Gladstone forthwith surrendered everything,
and since that time the Boers have been, as a matter of course, more and
more antagonistic to the English power. 'They came to Africa,' says
Baron Hübner, 'in 1652, with the intention of remaining there, and they
do remain there. The future and Africa belong to them, unless they are
expelled by a stronger power, the blacks or the English. They accept the
struggle with the blacks, and they avoid all contact with the English.'
Mr. Froude takes now, as he has always taken, a very strong view of our
own responsibility for all the difficulties which have arisen with the
Boers. We have, he says with some bitterness, 'treated them unfairly as
well as unwisely, and we never forgive those whom we have injured.' The
story is long, and it has been treated more than once, and we believe
with strict fairness and impartiality, in these pages. Mr. Froude
himself does not deny, that the effect of the surrender after Majuba
Hill 'was to diminish infallibly the influence of England in South
Africa, and to elate and encourage the growing party whose hope was and
is to see it vanish altogether.' The work was not half done. We insisted
upon a new Treaty, which was immediately broken by the Boers. Mr. Froude
once more recommends us to 'leave the Cape alone'--not to get out of it,
but to allow the Boers to manage their affairs in their own way. 'Our
interferences,' he tells us, 'have been dictated by the highest motives;
but experience has told us, and ought to have taught us, that in what we
have done or tried to do, we have aggravated every evil which we most
desired to prevent. We have conciliated neither person nor party.'

Baron Hübner arrived at his conclusions by a totally different road from
that pursued by Mr. Froude, but the burden of his story is much the
same. It is the indecision of the Central Government, the uncertainty in
which the Colony is always kept as to what will happen to them next,
which causes nearly all the mischief. We have treated the Cape Colony as
we have treated Ireland, and with every prospect of bringing about the
same results. First 'coercion,' then abject surrender, then coercion
again--'a process,' as Mr. Froude justly remarks, 'which drives nations
mad, as it drives children, yet is inevitable in every dependency
belonging to us which is not entirely servile, so long as it lies at the
will and mercy of so uncertain a body as the British Parliament.' Baron
Hübner, who stands beyond the influence of our party politics, tells us
the same thing in other words. We want a policy, he says, in effect,
which shall be permanent in its application, and therefore not affected
by changes in Ministries. The fact is that we want such a policy for
many parts of our Empire besides South Africa, and we are likely to want
it. With Parliaments elected at short and frequent intervals, and
depending largely on shifting caprices, there is not likely to be any
fixed principle in dealing with political problems arising either at our
own doors or thousands of miles away.

There is one question in which all the colonists take a deep interest,
and that is the condition and prospects of our trade. The Colonies are
now our best customers, and we sincerely hope they will continue to be
so, for with them we may possibly get, even yet, something like Free
Trade, whereas no chance of securing even an approach to it can be
looked for in the rest of the world. The Colonies will always raise at
the Custom House the greater part of the money they want for the
expenses of internal government, but they may be induced to offer
England more favourable terms than other nations receive. In Australia,
as elsewhere, it begins to be doubted whether 'England can trust
entirely to Free Trade and competition to keep the place she has
hitherto held.' If all our Colonies were bound with us in one commercial
federation, we could make sure of Free Trade over a large part of the
world's surface. 'We should have purchasers for our goods,' remarks Mr.
Froude, 'from whom we should fear no rivalry; we should turn in upon
them the tide of our emigrants which now flows away.' But at present,
and with the fiscal system of 1846 still regarded as sacred and
inviolable, nothing can be done. When we are prepared to acknowledge
that the world has moved since 1846, and that we must move with it,
there may be a possibility of widening the field of our
commerce--unless, indeed, we delay too long. Public opinion in England
is beginning to stir upon the subject. The demand for a great and
radical change will come, when it does come, from the working men, and
they are already showing signs of deep interest in a matter which
concerns the very means of their livelihood. They are in advance of
Parliament and Ministries on this subject. Mr. Froude is well within
bounds in asserting that 'those among us who have disbelieved all along
that a great nation can venture its whole fortunes safely on the power
of underselling its neighbours in calicoes and iron-work, no longer
address a public opinion entirely cold.' What, perhaps, has tended as
much as anything else to open our eyes is the discovery, that other
nations begin to be able to undersell us, not only in foreign markets,
but even in our own--here in England, at Sheffield, Birmingham, and
Manchester. Carlyle usually defined the Free Trade theory as the system
of 'cheap and nasty.' As we have never had Free Trade, and therefore as
it has never been properly tested, it is impossible to say what effects
it was capable of producing, properly worked out. The great fact which
confronts us to-day is that no other nation in the world, and not even
our own colonists, will have anything whatever to do with it on any
terms. This fact, at least, the English workingmen are beginning to see
and to understand, and results will flow from it at present not
anticipated by 'statesmen,' who know little or nothing about the hard
matter-of-fact conditions under which trade is carried on, and who are
assiduously primed by underlings with statistics which they repeat by
rote, and as to the real value or signification of which they are
completely and hopelessly in the dark.

According to Baron Hübner, the Australian colonists have not abandoned
the hope of forming a customs' union with the mother country, and they
are far from regarding the proposals for giving them representation in
Parliament with the indifference which Mr. Froude imagines that he
detected. No one yet seems to have made even an effort to settle the
details of a scheme by which a navy could be kept up for the defence of
the Colonies, and an Imperial Zollverein formed between England and her
foreign possessions. But the 'advanced men,' according to Baron Hübner,
feel convinced that the idea can be carried out, and they are desirous
of finding, as a preliminary, direct representation in some form at
Westminster. The growth of this idea, says Baron Hübner, 'of a grand
confederation, which would completely revolutionize Old England, or
rather, which would create a new England by the handiwork and after the
pattern of her children in Australia--the growth of this idea among the
masses is, to my mind, an indubitable fact.' More improbable things have
happened than that England, weakened at home by the selfish ambition of
her statesmen, and by the frenzy of party warfare, may be saved by the
patriotism of her descendants in other lands. The first opportunity
which the colonists have had of evincing their determination to stand by
the old country was promptly taken advantage of, and with a heartiness
of spirit that we hope is not yet forgotten, quickly as all events,
great or small, are nowadays crammed into 'the wallet of oblivion.' The
offers of colonial aid during the Egyptian war roused a feeling
throughout the Colonies which astonished all Europe, and probably took
many of the colonists themselves by surprise. 'When English interests
were in peril,' Mr. Froude tells us, 'I found the Australians, not cool
and indifferent, but _ipsis Anglicis Angliciores_, as if at the
circumference the patriotic spirit was more alive than at the centre.
There was a general sense that our affairs were being strangely
mismanaged.' The men who think and talk like this are not struggling for
place and power amid the demoralizing surroundings of modern
Parliamentary life. They are able to take a cool and dispassionate view
of us and our affairs, and they begin to think that public life has
degenerated into a mere scramble for the spoils of office. Their
indignation, when Gordon was deserted by the Government which he had
tried to serve, was far greater than we seem to have had any experience
of amongst ourselves. They looked upon him as 'the last of the race of
heroes who had won for England her proud position among the nations; he
had been left to neglect and death, and the national glory was sullied.'
They volunteered to come over and help us fight our battles. The
Colonial Office, then under Lord Derby, was for a few days disposed to
turn the cold shoulder to these efforts of assistance. But the feeling,
which had been aroused in the country by the first announcements in the
newspapers, was too deep to be mistaken. It broke through the ice in
which the Colonial Office is usually imbedded, and compelled Lord Derby
to make a warm and grateful response to the Colonies. In reality, the
people there are, as many travellers besides Mr. Froude have remarked,
more English than the English themselves in their sensitiveness as
regards the national honour. We talk very coolly here of 'standing
aside,' of 'having seen our best days,' and of giving up one part of our
inheritance after another; but the Englishmen abroad are animated by
very different sentiments. The love of the 'old home' is strong in them,
even though they may have been born in the Colonies. It shows itself in
a thousand different ways. At Ballarat, Mr. Froude seems to have been
struck with a garden which might have been attached to an old cottage in
Surrey or Devonshire. There were cabbage-roses, pinks, columbines,
sweet-williams, laburnums, and honey-suckle--all prized because they
were the flowers of Old England. The people everywhere speak the
language with remarkable purity. The aspirate is rarely misplaced,
unless by a recent immigrant. The misuse of the aspirate is, indeed, a
peculiar part of the birthright of an Englishman. No one ever yet heard
it from the poorest or most illiterate class in the United States. In
Australia, says Mr. Froude, 'no provincialism has yet developed itself.
The tone is soft, the language good.' The young people looked fresh and
healthy, 'not lean and sun-dried, but fair, fleshy, lymphatic.' Mr.
Froude could not see any difference between his countrymen at home and
those who had settled down in this new and wider field of industry. 'The
leaves that grow on one branch of an oak are not more like the leaves
that grow upon another, than the Australian swarm is like the hive it
sprung from.' Mr. Service, the Prime Minister of Victoria, fully shares
the English predilections of his fellow colonists, but he appears to
feel some irritation at the tone so frequently adopted by the Liberal
press and party in this country, and emphatically urged in their day by
Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright. This tone is founded upon the argument, 'The
Colonies are of no use to us; therefore the sooner they take themselves
off the better.' If some leaders and members of the Liberal party had
their way, we should be without a colony in the world, without India,
and with Ireland close to our own doors a hostile and an independent
Foreign Power.

With regard to India it is to Baron Hübner's records of a very
remarkable journey, that we must turn for the notes of the most recent
traveller. The work is not so exhaustive, especially as regards the
Native States, as M. Rousselet's 'L'Inde des Rajahs,' but it is
eminently readable and lively, and the author gives abundant evidence,
that he took with him everywhere an earnest desire to arrive at the
truth, and a determination to form his conclusions with strict
impartiality. It is evident that in India he soon began to feel the
influence of that peculiar spell which the country exercises over most
persons of a susceptible or imaginative temperament. 'India,' he says,
'has always fascinated me, 'and few who have travelled there will not be
ready to make the same confession. It is much to be hoped that the
Radicals will be induced to listen to Baron Hübner's testimony
concerning the way in which we carry on government in our great Eastern
dependency. Nowhere, strange as it may appear, but in our own country is
English rule misunderstood or misrepresented. Injustice is
systematically done to the purest, most conscientious, and most
industrious Civil Service in the whole world; and our countrymen who are
spending the best part of their lives in the effort to promote the
welfare and prosperity of India, are too often held up to opprobrium as
examples of merciless tyrants, whose only object is to grind down the
natives into the dust. We seem to be losing many of the characteristics
which formerly distinguished us in the world, but there is one which
marks us out very plainly from all other nations--the habit of
disparaging our own achievements and vilifying our own reputation. We do
not find the Germans pertinaciously seeking to bring into disrepute the
efforts now being made to extend their colonial possessions; the
Americans have a motto, upon which they invariably act: 'our
country--right or wrong.' This may be carrying a good principle a little
too far; but it is better than the course we pursue, of striving with
might and main to dishonour our past, and to place our country in the
most contemptible light before the rest of mankind. Instead of our
having any reason to be ashamed of what we have done in and for India,
we have every cause to be proud of it; and, if English people had an
adequate knowledge of that work, and were in a position to exercise
their common-sense on the question, untrammelled by agitators and
demagogues, they would acknowledge gladly that they were heartily proud
of it. We believe that the great body of Englishmen in India are
honestly endeavouring to do their duty, according to the measure of
their abilities, and that, if any event occurred to cause our removal
from the country, it would inflict the direst forms of suffering and
calamity upon the people. It is important to hear what a foreigner, not
unduly prejudiced in our favour, has to say upon these points. First,
then, in reference to the men who are engaged in the practical work of
government--the Civil Service--Baron Hübner says:--

     'I have met everywhere men devoted to their service, working
     from morning till evening, and finding time, notwithstanding
     the mutiplicity of their daily labours, to occupy themselves
     with literature and serious studies. India is governed
     bureaucratically, but this bureaucracy differs in more than
     one respect from ours in Europe. To the public servant in
     Europe one day is like another; some great revolution, some
     European war, is needed to disturb the placid monotony of
     his existence. In India it is not so. The variety of his
     duties enlarges and fashions the mind of the Anglo-Indian
     official; and the dangers to which he is occasionally
     exposed serve to strengthen and give energy to his
     character. He learns to take large views and to work at his
     desk while the ground is trembling beneath his feet. I do
     not think I am guilty of exaggeration in declaring that
     there is not a bureaucracy in the world better educated,
     better trained to business, more thoroughly stamped with the
     qualities which make a statesman; and, what none will
     dispute, more pure and upright than that which administers
     the government of India.'

Of late years, as everybody is aware, a demand has sprung up for 'local
self-government' in India--a demand not originating with natives
themselves, but with the sentimentalists and philosophers who are doing
their best and their worst to take all the manliness out of the English
character. Lord Ripon was the mechanical mouthpiece of this sect, and
there can be no doubt whatever that no Governor-General or Viceroy of
India ever did so much harm in so short space of time. He and his school
tried their utmost to persuade the natives that what they want is 'Home
Rule'--that panacea for all the evils of modern life which is likely to
entail so many new burdens and trials upon us. The natives of India
never suspected, until Lord Ripon strove to impress it upon them, that
Home Rule is indispensable to their happiness. They are perfectly well
aware that if our hold upon the country is ever relaxed, there will be
nothing but chaos all through the land,--internecine wars, rebellions,
and massacres, such as marked the history of India until our rule became
well established there. Lord Ripon closed his eyes to all
this--_doctrinaire_ at heart, he could see nothing but his own
crotchets. The native, he declared, must have local self-government. But
Baron Hübner found that the people did not understand or desire this
much vaunted contrivance. The native, he says, 'refuses to be elected by
his equals. He wishes to be chosen by his superiors, and his superiors
are the English officials, represented in this case by the district
officer or magistrate. In the North-Western Provinces, this opposition
was so strong that the Supreme Government have been obliged, much
against their own views, to give to the Governor of those Provinces the
power of constituting the municipalities.' The sentimentalists may try
to develop the 'native mind' as they please, but they will never
persuade Hindoos or Mussulmans to trust their own countrymen as they
trust us. We have a reputation among them for fairness and for justice
which no native would ever aim to deserve, although he is not incapable
of understanding and admiring it. An East Indian of any race or religion
will never speak the truth if he can possibly help himself, but he has a
certain respect for the man who can and does. No doubt, the very
earnestness, with which we seek to dispense equal justice among all
classes, is a stumbling-block in our path, and always has been so. The
native likes to deal with a judge who will wink at perjury, and who is
not above taking a bribe. Yet the Englishman is everywhere trusted. 'If
proof were needed,' says Baron Hübner, 'to show how deeply rooted among
the populations is English prestige, I would quote the fact that
throughout the peninsula the native prefers, in civil and still more in
criminal cases, to be tried by an English judge. It would be
impossible, I think, to render a more flattering testimony to British
rule.' But these are facts which had no signification for Lord Ripon. He
pursued a policy which, designedly or undesignedly, was calculated to
bring our rule to an end. 'Lord Ripon's resolution,' some one told
Baron Hübner, 'means nothing or means this: The Government foresees that
the time will come when we must leave India to herself.' Then there was
the Ilbert Bill, placing Europeans in the country districts under the
jurisdiction of native judges. How could the natives of all classes fail
to look upon this as another evidence that the reins of power were
dropping from our nerveless hands? The point of the whole matter was
thus put by one of the civilians to Baron Hübner:--'The principle, that
the jurisdiction over European subjects of the Crown must be reserved
for judges and magistrates who are also European subjects, has always
been maintained. And it has always been recognized that in this
principle lies the only possible effectual guarantee to Europeans living
in country districts against the perjury and false witness so common
among the rural populations.' The Ilbert Bill proposed to take away
these safeguards from the European, and would have left him at the mercy
of native judges and native witnesses, whose only idea of justice is to
make a few rupees out of its administration.

The school of Radicals represented only too numerously in the present
Parliament--unreasoning, ignorant of India, impulsive, narrow and
insular--is also represented among the more recent importations of
'competition wallahs.' Baron Hübner met with many of them. 'In their
opinion,' he says, 'the ideal of a sound English policy is the
dismemberment of the British Empire, and above all the abandonment of
India. To save England, it is necessary first to destroy her.' To the
shrewd and experienced Austrian diplomatist, these ideas seem to be
absolutely ruinous, but the oddity of it is that thousands of persons in
England cling to them with a sort of idolatry, as if within them was
compressed the sum and substance of human wisdom. The Radical party
to-day lives upon these theories of dismemberment, although it is
careful to keep its ultimate aim as much as possible in the background.
In India, its adherents are doing an immense amount of harm. Baron
Hübner seems to have been struck with amazement at the phenomenon. 'This
is, indeed,' he exclaims, 'a curious and perhaps a unique spectacle--an
immense administration, managed according to doctrines which are
repudiated by the large majority of those who compose it.' The natives
who are educated in our schools and colleges emerge from them filled
with ideas of Socialism and Atheism. We break down their faith in their
own creeds, without succeeding in inducing them to adopt Christianity.
They find themselves free to construct a religion of their own, or to do
without any religion. As regards the Government, they are led to
believe that it ought not to be where it is, and that India should be
ruled by its own people. The native press is full of sedition. Let us
hear what Baron Hübner has to say upon this subject, for it is worth
attention:--

     'Is there any public opinion in India? It is declared that
     there is none. And yet people agree in saying that the
     natives who have been educated in the State colleges have
     become singularly importunate of late years, that they are
     beginning to adopt a high tone, and that they take especial
     delight in criticising the acts of the Government, who,
     unwisely, as it seems to me, encourage if not provoke such
     criticism. These baboos and their newspapers, I am told,
     would only become dangerous at a crisis; and by a crisis is
     understood a disastrous European war. But the life of
     nations, like that of individuals, is nothing but a series
     of successes and reverses. Looked at from this point of
     view, the baboo is not such an insignificant being as he
     appears to be considered.'

No doubt our Radicals would contend that the Austrian's notion, that it
is unwise on the part of the Government to encourage criticism directed
against itself, is worthy of a man who has seen the Napoleonic _régime_,
and who perhaps admires the 'one man' form of government. But what is
the English Radical party itself living under now? Was ever the 'one man
form of government' carried out in so relentless a fashion as we see it
now in Parliament? Is there not one man in the Government, surrounded by
a crowd of nonentities--the one man filling the exact position for which
the Americans have invented the significant word 'Boss'? All liberty of
thought or freedom of action is gone. The principle insisted upon is 'do
whatever our leader tells us; go where he leads; give what he asks--all
without murmuring or discontent. The man who murmurs must be drummed out
of the ranks.' If we saw the French submitting to this system, no words
that we could use would be strong enough to express our contempt for
them. As we happen to be doing it ourselves, it must, of course, be good
and wise. Granted that it is so, we may fairly ask even the Radicals
whether they are quite sure that it is wise to think of giving up India?
With what do they propose to replace our government? The testimony of
every fair-minded man is that we have accomplished an incalculable
amount of excellent work there. Our magnificent highways and railroads,
our appliances for irrigation, would alone make our name immortal in the
country. The people thrive under our rule; every man is secure in the
possession of his property; war no longer devastates the country. We
recommend everybody who is unaware of these and similar facts to
consider well the evidence adduced by Baron Hübner:--

     'Materially speaking, India has never been as prosperous as
     she is now. The appearance of the natives, for the most part
     well clothed, and of their villages and well-furnished
     cottages, and of their well-cultivated fields, seems to
     prove this. In their bearing there is nothing servile; in
     their behaviour towards their English masters there is a
     certain freedom of manner, and a general air of
     self-respect; nothing of that abject deference which strikes
     and shocks new comers in other Eastern countries. I have no
     means of comparing the natives of to-day with the natives of
     former generations, but I have been able to compare the
     populations who owe direct allegiance to the Empress with
     the subjects of the feudatory princes. For example, when you
     cross the frontier of Hyderabad, the climate, the soil, the
     race, are the same as those you have just quitted, but the
     difference between the two States is remarkable, and
     altogether to the advantage of the Presidency of Madras or
     of Bombay.'

He goes on to say, that no one can deny that the British India of to-day
presents a spectacle that has no parallel in the history of the world:

     'What do we see? Instead of periodical, if not permanent,
     wars, profound peace firmly established throughout the whole
     Empire; instead of the exactions of chiefs always greedy for
     gold, and not shrinking from any act of cruelty to extort
     it, moderate taxes, much lower than those imposed by the
     feudatory princes; arbitrary rule replaced by even-handed
     justice; the tribunals, once proverbially corrupt, by
     upright judges whose example is already beginning to make
     its influence felt on native morality and notions of right;
     no more Pindarris, no more armed bands of thieves; perfect
     security in the cities as well as in the country districts,
     and on all the roads; the former bloodthirsty manners and
     customs now softened, and, save for certain restrictions
     imposed in the interests of public morality, a scrupulous
     regard for religious worship, and traditional usages and
     customs; materially, an unexampled bound of prosperity, and
     even the disastrous effects of the periodical famines, which
     afflict certain parts of the peninsula, more and more
     diminished by the extension of railways which facilitate the
     work of relief. And what has wrought all these miracles? The
     wisdom and the courage of a few directing statesmen, the
     bravery and the discipline of an army composed of a small
     number of Englishmen and a large number of natives, led by
     heroes; and lastly, and I will venture to say principally,
     the devotion, the intelligence, the courage, the
     perseverance, and the skill, combined with an integrity
     proof against all temptation, of a handful of officials and
     magistrates who govern and administer the Indian Empire.'

Such is the testimony of an Austrian. It ought to bring a flush of shame
to the faces of not a few Englishmen.

We have scarcely alluded to the lighter parts of Baron Hübner's
volumes--to the excellent touches of description or sketches of
character which enliven his pages, or to the numerous pleasantly-told
anecdotes of personal adventure. One of these anecdotes is worth
repeating, though the author must pardon us if we tell it in our own
way. It is too characteristic of life in New York--too full of valuable
hints for future travellers--to be lost sight of.

It appears that on his last morning in New York, the Baron found that
his note-book had been taken from his room in the hotel. His servant and
his baggage had already gone on to the steamer, and the Baron prepared
to follow. First, however, as he still had two hours to spare, he
thought he would take a final glimpse of Fifth Avenue. These are the
little accidents which generally decide our fate in life--the visit to
some friend, the call on a stranger, the unpremeditated walk. As the
Baron was passing along, a carriage suddenly stopped, a
'fashionably-dressed gentleman' jumped out, and ran up to the traveller
with a cordial salutation. He introduced himself as a guest who had
dined, with the Baron, at a dinner given by Lord Augustus Loftus in
Sydney. 'I am one of the admirers,' he said, 'of your "Promenade autour
du Monde," and I venture to ask you to do me the favour of writing your
name in my copy of that book. In return, pray accept a volume of
Longfellow's poems, with the author's autograph.' The fashionable
stranger had skilfully touched the weak place in an author's heart.
Baron Hübner consented to be driven back to his hotel, where his new
friend was also residing. On the way, the stranger suddenly bethought
himself that the two books were at the house of an acquaintance, 'two
steps from the hotel.' He put his head out of the window, gave some
fresh directions to the coachman, and the Baron soon found himself being
whirled along at a furious rate along streets which he did not
recognize. Still, the old traveller had no suspicion of anything wrong.
His voyages and adventures certainly seem to have left him in a more
than ordinarily unsophisticated condition. At last the carriage stopped,
our author was conducted into the dark passage of a small house, and
then into a little dirty room, where he found a tall man seated before a
table, with his back to a mirror. In that mirror, the Baron saw his dear
friend from Sydney gently lock the door, and put the key in his pocket.
Then he understood all about it.

Of course the tall man was polite, and after promising to go and fetch
the volume of Longfellow, he proposed to the gentleman from Sydney a
game at cards. While the two men played their sham game, the Baron had
time to reflect; he saw that he had been pounced upon very skilfully--in
less than two hours the 'Bothnia' would sail, all the people at the
hotel would think he had gone by her, no one would miss him, no one
would search for him. He might be murdered with impunity--with what
impunity the Baron would have fully realized if he had known a little
more of New York. No city in the world presents greater facilities for
getting rid of the evidences of foul play. We have not seen the recent
statistics of murders in New York, and doubt whether they have been
published; but in the five years between 1870 and 1875, we happen to
know that 281 'homicides' were committed there, and that only seven of
the murderers were hanged. Twenty-four were sent to prison--nominally
for life, although that is a mere form--and more than one-fourth of the
criminals were never brought to trial at all. If Baron Hübner had known
all this, he would have regarded his two new acquaintances with even
greater interest than he did.

How and why they let him go scot-free is to us a mystery. They invited
him to take a hand in the game, and he declined. They pretended to play
for him; won, and offered him the stakes. He told them he had no money
with him, that they would get nothing for their trouble, that the French
Consul was to meet him on board the 'Bothnia' to bid him adieu; if he
were not there a hue and cry at once would be raised. 'Then,' adds the
Baron, 'turning to my friend from Sydney, I said to him, "Open the
door." The ruffians gave in without further trouble. There was an
exchange of looks between them, and the tall man said to the other,
'show him out.' We have heard of many strange things happening in New
York, but never of one so strange as that.' When I stepped upon the deck
of the "Bothnia," says the Baron, 'a few minutes before departure, I
felt that I had had a narrow escape.' Very narrow; we should advise
Baron Hübner, if ever again he finds himself in New York, not to tempt
his good fortune by taking a drive with strangers who admire his
writings.

For the novel and stirring incidents of travel, we must turn to Mr.
Romilly's narrative of his experiences in the Western Pacific. He
transports us to a comparatively little known region, and it was his
good or ill fortune to come into contact with phases of life which must,
it is to be hoped, for ever remain unknown to most of us. Few living
men, for instance, have been present at a great feast on human flesh,
cannibalism being one of the habits of savage life which is found to
yield at the first touch of civilization. In New Ireland, however, Mr.
Romilly happened to be present at a sort of state banquet, given in
honour of a victory over the enemy. The enemy himself supplied the
materials of the repast. The details of the preparation of the horrible
food may be read in Mr. Romilly's pages by all who have a curiosity on
the subject. Some few particulars concerning a compound called 'Sak-sak'
may here be given:--

     'They, [the heads of the victims] were then disposed of in
     various ways, and when I asked what would be done with them,
     I was told, "They will go to improve the sak-sak." The
     natives on the East coast of New Ireland prepare a very
     excellent composition of sago and cocoa-nut, called sak-sak.
     I used to buy a supply of this every morning, as it would
     not keep, for my men. Now it appeared that for the next week
     or so, a third ingredient would be added to the sak-sak,
     namely, brains. I need hardly say that for the next two days
     of my stay I did not taste sak-sak, though my men made no
     secret of doing so. The flesh in the ovens had to be cooked
     for three days, or until the tough leaves in which it was
     wrapped were nearly consumed. When taken out of the ovens
     the method of eating it is as follows. The head of the eater
     is thrown back, somewhat after the fashion of an Italian
     eating macaroni. The leaf is opened at one end, and the
     contents are pressed into the mouth until they are finished.
     As Bill, my interpreter put it, "they cookum that fellow
     three day; by-and-by cookum finish, that fellow all same
     grease." For days afterwards, when everything is finished,
     they abstain from washing, lest the memory of the feast
     should be too fleeting.'

Mr. Romilly was informed by the natives that human flesh tastes even
better than pork. One is satisfied to take their word for it. In the New
Hebrides it appears that the people prefer to eat it dried, or 'jerked.'
At present, we are told,

     'the cannibals in the world may be numbered by millions.
     Probably a third of the natives of the country where I am
     now writing (New Guinea) are cannibals; so are about
     two-thirds of the occupants of the New Hebrides, and the
     same proportion of the Solomon Islanders. All the natives of
     the Santa Cruz group, Admiralties, Hermits, Louisiade,
     Engineer, D'Entrecasteaux groups are cannibals, and even
     some well-authenticated cases have occurred among the "black
     fellows" of Northern Australia. I do not know that the fact
     of a native being a cannibal makes him a greater savage.
     Some of the most treacherous savages on this coast are
     undoubtedly not cannibals, while most of the Louisiade
     cannibals are a mild-tempered, pleasant set of men.'

This testimony can do no harm in England, but it is to be hoped that Mr.
Romilly will not repeat it too often among his black friends, or the
moral of it might be misunderstood.

The Solomon Islands still form a part of the world of which very little
is known. They are rarely visited, and travellers who have gone for the
purpose of 'taking notes,' have either altered their minds in good
season, or never returned. Some years ago, Mr. Benjamin Boyd, a member
of the Royal Yacht Squadron went out in his yacht, the 'Wanderer,' and
was captured by the natives. Search was made for him from time to time,
and his initials were found carved on trees. A notice was placed on all
the goods sent to the natives to this effect: 'B. B., we are looking for
you'--but no tidings were ever heard of the missing man. Mr. Romilly was
told by the captain of a labour schooner that somewhere on the south
coast he had noticed a European skull in a sort of temple; he recognized
it as European from its size, and he also observed that one of the teeth
was stopped with gold. We take it for granted that the dentists among
the Solomon Islanders do not use gold for filling teeth. This, then, was
probably the skull of the hapless owner of the 'Wanderer.' The Solomon
Islanders now make a practice of killing white men, if it can be done
safely, in revenge for the way in which they have been 'kidnapped' for
the labour traffic. The diseases introduced by their treacherous white
friends have made terrible ravages among them, and their own habits tend
still further to reduce their numbers. There are several places,' says
Mr. Romilly, 'where it is the custom to kill all, or nearly all, of the
children soon after they are born.' This is the only region we ever
heard of where so frightful and unnatural a custom exists. Female
children are, or used to be, destroyed in many countries; but the
indiscriminate slaughter of all children is decidedly uncommon. These
islanders have another device which is supported by an argument not
entirely devoid of strength. 'In a battle the victorious party, if they
can surprise their enemies sufficiently to admit of a wholesale
massacre, kill not only the men, but also the women and children. "We
should be fools," say they, "if we did not. This must be revenged some
day, if there are any men to do it; but how can they get men if we kill
the women and children?"' The same thought has doubtless occurred to
modern conquerors elsewhere, though, happily, circumstances have not
enabled them to carry it into practical effect. Some other curious
details respecting this group of islands, are given by Mr. Romilly. The
old women it appears, become adepts in the occult sciences, and the men
occasionally find the trade of wizard lucrative. They are chiefly called
upon to bring about a change in the weather, and their plan of
operations is to gain time. It resembles, in some striking features, the
method adopted by the 'inspired statesman' of our own latitudes when he
is trying to feel his way towards the development of some scheme which
he is half afraid of himself, and which the public view with profound
suspicion. Surely the most of us could find a counterpart to the
individual described in the following passage:--

     'One old sorcerer of my acquaintance was a most interesting
     study. If he was asked for fine weather (which, by the way,
     in the Solomons is the usual request, the rainfall being
     enormous), he used to temporize in a truly masterly manner.
     First he would hold out for more payment. This policy he
     could continue for an indefinite length of time, as he would
     of course require payment in a form which he knew was
     difficult or impossible for the natives to comply with.
     Then, if he thought there was any likelihood of fine weather
     for a day or two, he would become possessed of a devil which
     would leave him at once if the sun made its appearance, but
     if the bad weather lasted the devil would last too; and
     finally, if the bad weather was very obstinate and would not
     come, he would hold out again for more payment. In this
     manner my old sorcerer was very seldom mistaken in his
     forecasts, and the influence he exerted over the clerk of
     the weather must have been very irksome to that functionary.

This leader of his tribe, we are further informed, had a 'great hold
over the imagination of his dupes.' We are more civilized--or _we_ think
so--than the islanders of the Western Pacific; but human nature is
pretty much the same there as here. As for the philosophy of such
matters, it is thus summed up by Mr. Romilly: 'I have often wondered
what the sorcerer thinks of himself; whether he really believes himself
to be a magician, or whether he realizes the fact that he is an arrant
old humbug. I think there is a mixture of both feelings.' It would be
useless to pursue this enquiry any further.

Another of the unexplored islands of these seas forms a part of the
Admiralty group, and is called Jesus Maria. It was visited by the
'Challenger' in 1875, and again by Mr. Romilly on two occasions, the
last in 1881, in H.M.S. 'Beagle.' The natives, a fierce and warlike
race, crowded round the vessel, eager to sell everything they had
including their babies. Bottles and hoop-iron were eagerly sought for.
While engaged in carrying on this simple traffic, the party on board
noticed, to their amazement a white man on shore who fired off a gun to
attract their attention. The next day a boat rowed to the beach, and
there stood the white man. He proved to be a Scotchman named David Dow,
who was collecting _béche de mer_, and found his trade prospects so good
that he desired to remain where he was. The Admiralty Islanders have
some 'very singular customs,' not to be met with anywhere else; but
after thus piquing our curiosity, Mr. Romilly ruthlessly balks it by
remarking 'that they are, unfortunately, of a nature which cannot be
described here.' We share his regret upon his being obliged to keep the
secret; for when a traveller has found out anything absolutely fresh and
startling, common humanity should, in these dull and overcast times,
induce him to disclose it. But no doubt Mr. Romilly has his reasons for
silence, and we must submit to them. The Germans have recently hoisted
their flag upon several of these islands, and we may trust them to tell
all that they can find out, and more.

In the Laughlan islands--a small group--the Germans are also to be
found. Indeed, they are spreading rapidly, over the Pacific Isles. As
the spirit of adventure is dying out among Englishmen, it appears to be
increasing in other nations. The genius for colonization appears to have
fled from us to Germany. Certain it is that Germans are everywhere
displaying that daring and enterprise in which we once shone above all
other people in the world. They will probably end by becoming masters of
the larger part of the Western Pacific. As for the Laughlan Islands, it
cannot be said that any one whose lot takes him there need be regarded
as an object of pity. The climate is good; food is abundant; life is
tolerably easy. True, there are no newspapers and no Parliament; but
existence has often been found supportable in the absence of these
things. The natives are friendly; and there are no animals anywhere, not
even rats. The men are decently clad, and the women wear a very
voluminous kilt, sometimes two or three of them, over each other. These
garments are made of grass, leaves, or fibre, stained various colours.
'In wearing two or three, care is taken to produce an æsthetic mixture
of colours--a little vanity which is met with sometimes at home amongst
ladies who like to display petticoats of many colours. It is considered
just as essential here to walk well as it is at home, but the two styles
are not quite the same. The Laughlan lady, in walking, at each step
gives a little twist to the hips, which has the effect of making the
kilts fly out right and left, in what is considered a highly fashionable
and beautiful manner. Though a somewhat similar effect to this may, I am
informed, occasionally be seen in petticoats at home, still I fear that
the firm stride of the Laughlan lady could hardly be reproduced in
English boots. To see ten or twelve of these ladies walking in the
unsociable formation of single file, which they adopt, with their
many-coloured kilts flying out on either side, is a very pretty sight.'
Evidently, a judicious traveller and observer might do worse than take a
tour to the Laughlans.

Two other interesting spots to visit are Thursday Island and Norfolk
Island, both British possessions, and the first a place of some
importance, as the centre of the Torres Straits pearl-shell fishery.
This trade has demoralized the natives, who now seem to spend a great
part of their time in getting drunk, the Europeans too often setting the
example, 'It is a common thing,' says Mr. Romilly, 'for a diver to go
down three-parts drunk. The dress is supposed to have a very sobering
effect.' Here is a little story which will produce a pang of regret in
the minds of the jewellers of Bond Street:--

     'The best pearl I ever saw was in the possession of a
     celebrated diver who was a shipmate of mine from Thursday
     Island to Brisbane. He was offered on board the ship two
     hundred pounds for it, which could not have been a third of
     its value. But he refused every offer, as he had just been
     paid off, and had plenty of money. I felt sure it would go
     the way of all pearls when his money was finished, and
     accordingly I informed a Sydney jeweller of it, and where he
     could see it. When I was in Sydney a few weeks later I made
     inquiries about it, and the jeweller told me that it was the
     finest pear-shaped pearl he had ever seen, but that it was
     unsaleable at its proper value in Australia, and he had
     therefore made no attempt to buy it.'

But the pearl fishery on these coasts is becoming less lucrative every
year, and it is now falling almost entirely into the hands of natives,
who can stay under water longer than men of our own race, and seem to be
endowed with greater powers of endurance. As for the 'labour trade' of
which we all have heard so much, Mr. Romilly gives us to understand that
it is dying out. It arose under the stimulus which the American war gave
to cotton growing, and to the sudden necessity for procuring assistance
for the planters. At first, the natives were found ready enough to
volunteer for the service, but the treatment they received was not
calculated to encourage the spirit of volunteering. Then all sorts of
artifices were tried to deceive them. Sometimes the labour-hunters
pretended to be missionaries. 'On the usual question being asked, "Where
shippy come?" they would reply, "Missionary." Perhaps they would all
pretend to sing a hymn very slowly, while the hatches would be left
open, and several tins of biscuits would be put into the hold.'
Curiosity would gradually draw the natives aboard, and then the hatches
would be clapped on, and the man-stealers made off for Queensland or
Fiji. It is to be hoped that Mr. Romilly is right in stating that these
practices have ceased, but unless we are mistaken, accounts have
appeared in colonial journals, within a very recent period, of organized
raids upon these coasts for the purpose of carrying off the natives. It
is needless to say, that a sentiment of hostility to all white men is
likely to remain as the permanent result of this abominable system.

The fact is, that the white men who had the run of these islands down to
a few years ago were chiefly the off-scourings of other countries. They
found among the savages far fewer vices than they brought with them from
the civilized world. Some of them had run away to escape from the
vengeance of the laws which they had outraged; others were attracted by
the freedom which an entirely new life opened up to them. From them have
sprung a brood of half-castes who are the curse of the islands--like
many other half-castes, they manage to combine the evil qualities of
both races. The chief traders along the Pacific are now becoming much
more respectable. Some of them, indeed, appear to emulate the style and
condition of the prosperous English merchant. Mr. Romilly knows such a
man, living 'within a day's march' of the wildest cannibals in the
Pacific, who keeps up an establishment of forty or fifty men, with a
French _chef_. 'In a hitherto almost unknown island, he will give you a
dinner, every night, which could not be equalled at any private house or
club in Australia.' He keeps a yacht for private exploring expeditions,
and is to-day the principal 'trader and pioneer in the Pacific.' A
narrative of his observations and experiences would be of very unusual
interest, but like the Russian settler before referred to, he reserves
for his own benefit the knowledge he has acquired. The Germans are
pushing us hard, and in many respects they are better fitted for their
work than English traders. There seems a fair prospect of a gradual
elevation of social as well as of commercial life throughout the
Pacific. Already, lawlessness is discouraged. Not so very many years
ago, piracy was carried on openly in these seas. Mr. Romilly gives a
very interesting and curious account of one of the last pirates, a
desperado known as 'Bully Hayes,' once a boatman on the Mississippi.
This man began life by robbing his father, and soon afterwards made his
appearance on the Pacific coast the proud proprietor of a fifty-ton
schooner. 'How he had obtained possession of this schooner,' says Mr.
Romilly, 'was a matter of surmise, but he had been seen at Singapore not
long before this time, and a fifty-ton schooner had mysteriously
disappeared from that port without the knowledge of her captain and
owner.' He carried on a bold career of plunder for many years, and only
came to grief at last by an accident which he could not have foreseen.
He had stolen another vessel, and was making for some of his favourite
haunts along the coast, when the cook, who was steering, happened to
give him some offence. At that time, Hayes was accustomed to settle all
disputes off-handed with his revolver, and in accordance with this plan
he ran below to get his 'shooting irons.' Mr. Romilly thus relates the
sequel:--

     'The cook objected, and, catching up the first piece of wood
     he saw, got on to the top of the little deck-house over the
     ladder, and, the moment Hayes showed his head above deck,
     gave him a blow which killed him on the spot. This cook
     seems to have been some what doubtful as to whether Hayes
     was even now dead, so he fetched the largest anchor the
     cutter possessed, and bound the body to it, after which he
     hove anchor and body overboard, remarking, "For sure Massa
     Hayes dead this time."'

Mr. Romilly, in the course of his wanderings, made a journey to New
Guinea, a portion of which has now been placed under British protection.
Little is known of the resources of this country, trading operations
having hitherto been almost entirely confined to the south coast. Mr.
Romilly's visit was brief, and he was not enabled to add much to our
previous stock of information. He does not seem to be aware of the
progress which the Germans are making in this island, or of the results
of the energetic support which Prince Bismarck invariably extends to his
adventurous countrymen.

Here, then, are three works which ought to have the effect of reviving
the interest of the English people in their possessions abroad, if they
have not sunk into a hopeless state of indifference and apathy on the
subject. We do not for a moment believe that the working men are
indifferent to the present and future welfare of our Colonies, but they
need to be instructed as to the true value of their great inheritance,
and therefore it is that we earnestly wish such books as these could be
made readily accessible to them. It would be difficult to exaggerate the
importance of convincing them that it is our duty as a nation to hold
fast to all that we have added, from time to time, to the dominions of
the Crown. The foreign policy of the country, no less than the domestic
policy, must henceforth be directed mainly in accordance with their
opinions; and if those opinions are left to be influenced and guided by
the hereditary dislike of the Colonies which infects all Radicalism, our
position in the world will soon be reduced to one of comparative
insignificance. Baron Hübner concludes his volumes with these words:
'Had I to sum up the impressions derived from my travels, I should say,
"British rule is firmly seated in India; England has only one enemy to
fear--herself."' That is the whole truth of the matter. We have to fear
our own party divisions, the want of true public spirit among too many
of our 'politicians,' the tendency of Radical leaders to teach the
doctrine that England ought to shut herself within her own island
boundaries, and cast off all outside responsibilities. Sentiments of
this kind may be, and are, loudly cheered in the House of Commons, but
very few Liberals are daring enough to advocate them in the country.
Lancashire knows how valuable India is to her, and the manufacturing
districts generally see the growing importance to them, merely from a
commercial point of view, of the Australian Colonies. The anti-Colonial
policy is growing less and less popular among the people. To discredit
it altogether, it is only necessary to distribute, far and wide among
the working men, facts and considerations of the kind furnished in the
works to which we have endeavoured to call attention.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] See Mr. Lecky's 'History of England in the Eighteenth Century,'
vol. ii, p. 443, &c.




ART. VII.--_The Apostolic Fathers: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp._ Revised
Texts, with Introductions, Notes, Dissertations, and Translations. By J.
B. Lightfoot, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Bishop of Durham. London, 1885. 2
vols.


This a great book, dealing principally with a great subject--the
'Ignatian Epistles.' The two volumes contain altogether 1849 Pages, 1311
being devoted to St. Ignatius, the remainder to St. Polycarp. It is no
exaggeration to say that they are full of the most valuable information,
dealing with matters of vital ecclesiastical importance, the whole
presented in the most lucid style, and marked by broad, strong,
scholarship. They are the result of 'a keen interest in the Ignatian
controversy conceived long ago' by the Bishop of Durham. 'The subject
has been before me,' he writes in his Preface, 'for nearly thirty years,
and during this period it has engaged my attention off and on in the
intervals of other literary pursuits and official duties.' The
conception, execution, and production of the work had therefore been
protracted. The volumes as they are issued to-day are not in the form
they were originally written. Thus, the 'Appendix Ignatiana' was in type
several years before the commentary on the genuine Epistles of Ignatius,
and the Introduction and texts of the 'Ignatian Acts of Martyrdom'
passed through the press in 1878. In 1879 Cambridge and London
surrendered their great teacher to Durham; and there in the intervals,
few enough, snatched from official duties, the first volume has been
written, and from thence sent forth. It is necessary to bear this in
mind; because it will, on the one hand, explain absence of reference to
some works published since 1878; and on the other hand it increases the
value of the Bishop's results, when reached in entire independence of,
and yet in entire accordance with, those of other scholars in the same
field.

This work testifies to the truth, that it is a mark of true greatness to
be modest. The most superficial examination of these volumes exhibits a
_Corpus Ignatianum_ superior to anything yet published. It is, says Dr.
Harnack,[64] 'without exaggeration the most learned and careful
Patristic monograph which has appeared in the nineteenth century.' It
exhibits 'a diligence and knowledge of the subject which show that Dr.
Lightfoot has made himself master of this department, and placed himself
beyond the reach of any rival.... There is nothing in it that is not up
to date, and the whole treatise forms a well-knit unity.' This is the
willing testimony of one of the ablest of the scholars of Germany who
have handled the great questions connected with Ignatius; the testimony,
moreover, of one who, as we shall see presently, finds himself at
variance with the Bishop upon two points, especially which, more than
any other, materially affect the genuineness of the Epistles and their
date. Such, however, is not the Bishop of Durham's thought. As he looks
back upon the work to which he has consecrated the prime of his life, he
speaks of it in language touching in its modesty--

     'I have striven to make the materials for the text as
     complete as I could.... Of the use which I have made of the
     critical materials I must leave others to judge. Of the
     introductions, exegetical notes, and dissertations, I need
     say nothing, except that I have spared no pains to make them
     adequate, so far as my knowledge and ability permitted. The
     translations are intended not only to convey to English
     readers the sense of the original, but also (where there was
     any difficulty of construction) to serve as commentaries on
     the Greek. My anxiety not to evade these difficulties forbad
     me in many cases to indulge in a freedom which I should have
     claimed, if a literary standard alone had been kept in
     view.'

He follows up such words by others, conveying his thanks to those who
have helped him in his work, and the generosity of his recognition of
their services does but enhance the reserveful simplicity with which he
comments upon his own. The 'English reader' and the 'others' whose
judgment he desires, will, at least in England, unite in rendering to
him a respectful and grateful homage. The subject treated by the Bishop
is in a very real sense an Englishman's subject. For three centuries
English critics have not only entered the literary arena, in which the
great historic and ecclesiastical questions connected with his subject
have been discussed, but they have contributed largely to the materials,
offensive and defensive, which the combatants have employed. Ussher,
Pearson, Churton, and Cureton, have been English champions whose merits
all have acknowledged. The Bishop of Durham has now entered the lists to
support what has been proved sound in their conclusions, to remove what
was weak, and do battle for the truth. An impartial English public will
appreciate the gravity of this challenge, and may be trusted to grant or
withhold the victory he puts forth his best powers to win.

The volumes lend themselves by their construction to an easy statement
of their contents, if those contents by their fulness must be of
necessity the despair of critic and reviewer. First there is the life of
the Saint, then the discussion of the manuscripts and versions which
delineate the Saint and his literary remains. These are followed by
exhaustive discussions upon all that tells for or against their
genuineness, the whole being treated both historically and critically.
Such will be found, briefly stated, the mode of discussing the life and
works both of St. Ignatius of Antioch and of St. Polycarp of Smyrna; and
two results will reward a patient persual of these volumes. The Bishop
has indeed limited these results to the study of the Ignatian Epistles,
but--under his guidance--the reader will find what is affirmed of one to
be true of both:--

     'The Ignatian Epistles are an exceptionally good
     training-ground for the student of early Christian
     literature and history. They present in typical and
     instructive forms the most varied problems, textual,
     exegetical, doctrinal, and historical. One who has
     thoroughly grasped these problems will be placed in
     possession of a master key which will open to him vast
     storehouses of knowledge.

     'But' (continues the Bishop) 'I need not say that their
     educational value was not the motive which led me to spend
     so much time over them. The destructive criticism of the
     last half century is, I think, fast spending its force. In
     its excessive ambition it has "o'erleapt itself." It has not
     indeed been without its use. It has led to a thorough
     examination and sifting of ancient documents. It has
     exploded not a few errors, and discovered or established not
     a few truths. For the rest, it has by its directness and
     persistency stimulated investigation and thought on these
     subjects to an extent which a less aggressive criticism
     would have failed to secure. The immediate effect of the
     attack has been to strew the vicinity of the fortress with
     heaps of ruins. Some of these were best cleared away without
     hesitation or regret; but in other cases the rebuilding is a
     measure demanded by truth and prudence alike. I have been
     reproached by my friends for allowing myself to be diverted
     from the more congenial task of commenting on St. Paul's
     Epistles; but the importance of the position seemed to me to
     justify the expenditure of much time and labour in
     "repairing a breach" not indeed in the "House of the Lord"
     itself, but in the immediately outlying buildings.'

St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp (together with St. Clement of Rome) are
the links which connect the Apostolic age proper with the Fathers of the
second and third centuries; and this fact has made them and their scanty
literature the hope and despair, the pride and the scorn, of opposing
factions. In the whirl and confusion of discordant criticisms it is
everything to study and to build up by the help of one who has caught
the spirit of the master-lives he expounds. There breathes throughout
the volumes of the Bishop of Durham the spirit of St. Ignatius's
counsel--

     'Speak to each man severally after the manner of God. Bear
     the maladies of all, as a perfect athlete. Where there is
     much toil, there is much gain. If thou lovest good scholars,
     this is not thankworthy in thee. Rather bring the more
     pestilent to submission by gentleness.... The season
     requireth thee, as pilots require winds, or as a
     storm-tossed mariner a haven, that it may attain unto God.
     Be sober, as God's athlete. The prize is incorruption and
     life eternal, concerning which thou also art
     persuaded.'--(Ep. of St. Ignatius to St. Polycarp, I, 2.)

Ignatius of Antioch: Men of old loved to find in his name (or its
Syriace quivalent, Nurono, [Greek: youra = phyr], _fire_) a prescience
of the torch of divine love which blazed in him. The fancy may pass, if
etymologically unsound; for Ignatius, 'the Inflamed,' was a true child
of the fiery East. Contrast him and his letters with St. Clement of Rome
and his Epistle to the Corinthians. Nothing is more notable in the Roman
'than the calm equable temper,' the 'sweet reasonableness.' He is
essentially a _moderator_. On the other hand, impetuosity, fire,
strong-headedness, are impressed on every sentence in the Epistles of
Ignatius. He is by his very nature an _impeller_ of men. Both are
intense, though in different ways. In Clement, the intensity of
moderation dominates and guides his conduct. In Ignatius it is the
intensity of passion--passion for doing and suffering--which drives him
onward. In Clement we listen to the voice of a judge delivering calmly
his sentence from his throne; in Ignatius we

     'are startled by the ringing cry of the trumpet-call--sharp,
     stirring, penetrating--sounding for the battle. The fire of
     the hot East bursts in, like a sun, strong and impassioned;
     a vivid personality, in flame with love, flashes in upon
     the world, quivering as a sword of the cherubim; a rhetoric
     in which the rapid, electric thought breaks out of the
     strained and formless chaos of the _imagination_, as
     lightning out of the rolling and dark thunder-cloud; a
     theology, which, by the intense passion of metaphor, forces
     an almost violent entrance into the secrets of the Most
     High; a morality which can carry forward into the heights of
     holiness the madness of faith, the extravagance of zeal, the
     recklessness of enthusiasm, the audacity of love, dragging
     them into the service of Christ at the chariot-wheels of
     God's triumph--such are the characteristics of Ignatius of
     Antioch.'[65]

The Roman name of Ignatius (or Egnatius) tells nothing as to his birth
or origin. It was not unknown in Syria and Palestine, and was sometimes
borne by Jews. But another and a second name--Theophorus--of regular
recurrence in the seven genuine Epistles records at least his spiritual
birth. Ignatius probably assumed the name of 'the God-bearer' at the
time of his conversion or his baptism; the precedent lay before him of a
Saul commemorating a critical incident in his career (Acts xiii. 9) by a
similar adoption of a name; and that assumed by Ignatius became in its
turn an epithet freely applied to the Fathers at the Oecumenical
councils. The name gave birth to more than one beautiful legend. Was not
Ignatius, according to the Eastern belief, the 'God-borne' [Greek:
theophoros], the very child whom the Lord took into His arms (St. Mark
ix. 36, 37)? Was he not the 'God-bearer' [Greek: theophoros] on the
fragments of whose heart according to Western tradition, was found
stamped in golden letters the name of Jesus Christ? Whether he were a
slave or not must remain uncertain. It is a more probable deduction from
his own language that he--the 'untimely birth,'[66]--the 'one born out
of due time' and 'the last' of the faithful, had been rescued from a
pagan life, such as Antioch on the Orontes, the home of panders and
dancing girls, and 'Daphnici mores' would have applauded.

     'His,' says Bishop Lightfoot, 'was one of those "broken"
     natures out of which God's heroes are made. If not a
     persecutor of Christ, if not a foe to Christ, as seems
     probable, he had at least been for a considerable portion of
     his life an alien from Christ. Like St. Paul, like
     Augustine, like Francis Xavier, like Luther, like John
     Bunyan, he could not forget that his had been a dislocated
     life; and the memory of the catastrophe, which had shattered
     his former self, filled him with awe and thanksgiving, and
     fanned the fervour of his devotion to a white heat.

There is no chronological inconsistency in supposing that Ignatius was a
disciple of some Apostle, if nothing can be affirmed as to the date of
his accession to the ministry or episcopate. On the supposition that he
was martyred, as an old man, about A. D. 110, his birth may be placed
about A. D. 40. When 25 years of age, or in A. D. 65, companionship
would still have been opened to him with St. Peter and St. Paul; or, if
his teacher were St. John, his conversion may be brought to A. D. 90,
when he would be about 50 years of age. Confessedly all this is
conjectural or traditional, as are also any details of episcopal
administration.' A 'pitchy darkness' envelopes the life and work of
Ignatius, till it is 'at length illumined by a vivid but transient flash
of light.' The story of Ignatius begins and ends with the story of his
death. 'If his martyrdom had not rescued him from obscurity, he would
have remained like his predecessor Euodius, a mere name.' His martyrdom
has made him a distinct and living personality, a true father of the
Church, a teacher and example to all time.'

Thrilling though the narrative of this martyrdom must ever be, the
barest outline only can be given here. The Martyrologies, if they are to
be set aside as not containing authentic history, will fascinate afresh
the student who turns to them to find in the notes and discussions light
cast upon many a critical and ecclesiastical problem. The genuine
Epistles have furnished the Bishop with the materials of a sketch of
terror which every one will read with the deepest interest.

For some unknown reason the Church of Antioch was by God's will deprived
of its venerable head; and with other 'convicts,' collected from the
provinces to be

    'Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday.'

Ignatius was led Romeward. His journey lay along a route which in part
had been traversed by Xerxes. The procession of the Persian, foremost
among his myriads of men for beauty and stature, halting near Sardis to
decorate a beautiful plane-tree with golden ornaments, and commit it to
the custody of an 'immortal'[67] is in vivid contrast to the procession
of 'criminals,' the Christian leader 'bound amidst ten leopards (or
soldiers) who wax worse when kindly treated,' halting also at Sardis,
his own decoration the 'bonds' which are to him 'spiritual pearls,' and
at Smyrna, writing letters which shall make him immortal.[68] At Troas,
like another St. Paul, he looked upon the shores of the Europe which was
in later ages to rise up and call them blessed; and from thence he
wrote how prepared, how eager he was to meet the 'fire, the sword, the
wild beasts,' how to be 'near to the sword was to be near to God; to be
encircled by wild beasts was to be encircled by God.' And then Rome at
last!--among those who thirsted for his blood, among those whose very
love he dreaded lest it should do him the injury of keeping him from
martyrdom. Touching is the appeal he had sent before him to the Church
'filled with the grace of God without wavering and filtered clear from
every foreign stain':--

     'Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can
     attain unto God. I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the
     teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of
     Christ. Entice the wild beasts that they may become my
     sepulchre and may leave no part of my body behind, so that I
     may not, when I am fallen asleep, be burdensome to any one.'

Into the colossal pile, erected for the display of the bloodiest of
inhuman crimes, he was led; and his own impassioned appeal was answered:

     'Come fire and cross, and grapplings with wild beasts! Come
     cuttings and manglings, wrenching of bones, hacking of
     limbs, crushings of my whole body! Come cruel tortures of
     the devil to assail me! Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus
     Christ!'

Men, with tear-stained faces, looked away from his death to 'form
themselves'--as he had bidden them--

     'into a chorus in love and sing to the Father in Jesus
     Christ. God had vouchsafed that the Bishop from Syria should
     be found in the West, having summoned him from the East.
     Good was it to set from this world unto God, that he might
     rise unto Him.'

Love is perhaps wrong in asserting that his remains were brought back to
Antioch: it is unerringly right in having raised the Epistle to the
Romans--'his pæan prophetic of his coming victory'--to be the martyr's
manual of a grateful posterity.

     'The glory of Ignatius as a martyr,' writes the Bishop of
     Durham, 'has commended his lessons as a doctor. His teaching
     on matters of theological truth and ecclesiastical order was
     barbed and fledged by the fame of his constancy in that
     supreme trial of his faith.'

If interest in the heresies he combated may be said to be confined
to-day to scholars who study them as a chapter in heresiology, or seek
in them a bone of contention, the interest in the points of
ecclesiastical order delineated by him was never more intense than now.
Only last year the testimony of the Ignatian Epistles to the burning
question of Apostolical succession was one point in the discussion
between Canon Liddon of St. Paul's and Dr. Hatch; this year, the view
presented by the Bishop of Durham meets with its ablest antagonist in
Dr. Harnack. In very truth the letters of the martyr have been the
battlefield of the controversy, which affirms or disallows the threefold
ministry of the Church of Christ.

It will be perceived at once how much turns, not first upon the
interpretation of the Epistles, but upon the genuineness of the text
presenting itself for interpretation. What is the text? Never before
have the lovers of textual criticism had the opportunity of examining
and answering this question as they have now in the Bishop of Durham's
volumes. He first describes at length the Manuscripts and Versions, on
which a true text may be reasonably founded, and then gives the text,
together with the Versions, accompanied by Introductions and Notes which
leave nothing to desire. The labour necessary for massing and bringing
together all this information is only equalled by the exactness and
orderliness with which it is presented. But the Bishop writes not only
for the scholar, but for the man of general culture and intelligence,
who can enter with interest into a problem historical and antiquarian,
as well as textual and critical. To many the battle of the giants, over
the 'long,' the 'middle,' and the 'short,' form or recension of the
Ignatian Epistles, will be an intellectual treat, as he watches the
fence and scholarship of the various disputants. He will see that in
literary as in political controversy the spirit of compromise is to-day
in the ascendant, and that 'middle'-men have for once their value.

To explain these terms. By the 'short' form is meant that which consists
of _three_ Epistles only--to St. Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the
Romans. This exists only in a Syraic version. By the second, 'the middle
form,' are understood these three Epistles, and four more, namely,
Epistles to the Smyrnæans, Magnesians, Philadelphians, and Trallians.
This form is originally Greek, and is found also in Latin, Armenian,
and--in a fragmentary state--in Syriac and Coptic. The third or 'long'
form, contains the seven already enumerated in a more expanded state,
together with six others, the recension being in a Greek and in a Latin
translation.[69]

Practically the contest as to the truest form has been reduced to a
duel between the 'short' and the 'middle.' The 'long' form can be shown
to be the work of an unknown author, probably of the latter half of the
fourth century, and constructed from the genuine Ignatian Epistles by
interpolation, alteration and omission. But the 'long' form died hard,
and mainly through the thrusts of our own Ussher.

     'The history of the Ignatian Epistles,' says the Bishop, 'in
     Western Europe before and after the revival of letters, is
     full of interest. In the Middle Ages the spurious and
     interpolated letters alone have any wide circulation.
     Gradually, as the light advances, the forgeries recede into
     the background. Each successive stage diminishes the bulk of
     the Ignatian literature, which the educated mind accepts as
     genuine; till at length the true Ignatius alone remains,
     divested of the accretions which perverted ingenuity has
     gathered about him.'

In the 'long' recension there is a letter to one Mary of Cassobola. This
was made the parent of a 'correspondence between St. John and the
Virgin,' bearing the name of Ignatius: and it is not improbably
connected with the outburst of Mariolatry in the eleventh and following
centuries. But with 'the first streak of intellectual dawn this Ignatian
spectre vanished into its kindred darkness.' The forgery was 'consigned
to the limbo of foolish and forgotten things.' This pretender set aside,
St. Ignatius was represented in Western Europe by the epistles of the
'Long' recension. The Latin text was printed in 1498, and the Greek in
1557. At first no doubt was felt about their genuineness. Gradually,
however, unwelcome critics pointed out gross anachronisms and blunders.
Men, with unpleasant habits of comparison, noted that Eusebius, the
Church historian (C. A. D. 310-25), quoted from only seven epistles, and
that the divergence of the 'long' text from that given by early
Christian writers[70] fully warranted the comment of Ussher, that it was
difficult to imagine 'eundem legere se Ignatium qui veterum ætate
legebatur.' Theological and ecclesiastical prejudice lent bitterness to
the rising strife. On the Continent, Reformer and Romanist ranged
themselves in opposite camps: the one quoting with delight passages
which favoured Roman supremacy, or advocated Episcopacy; the other
throwing them over as 'nursery stories' (or 'silly tales,' _nænia_), and
denouncing 'the insufferable impudence of those who equipped themselves
with ghosts like these for the purpose of deceiving' (Calvin). After the
publication of the edition of Vedelius, a Genevan Professor, in 1623,
Anglican writers, such as Whitgift, Hooker, and Andrewes, seem to have
accepted without hesitation the twelve (the seven named by Eusebius and
five others) contained in that edition; but in England as on the
Continent, the absence of so much, which could alone lead men to a right
conclusion, prevented the consideration of the question on its true
merits:--

     'Episcopacy was the burning question of the day; and the
     sides of the combatants in the Ignatian controversy were
     already predetermined for them by their attitude towards
     this question. Every allowance should be made for their
     following their prepossessions, where the evidence seemed so
     evenly balanced. On the one hand, external testimony was so
     strongly in favour of the genuineness of certain Ignatian
     letters; on the other hand, the only Ignatian letters known
     were burdened with difficulties. At the very eve of Ussher's
     revelation, a fierce literary war broke out on this very
     subject of Episcopacy--evoked by the religious and political
     troubles of the times.'

On the one side were Hall's (Bishop of Exeter) 'Episcopacy by Divine
Right asserted' (1639), and 'An Humble Remonstrance' on behalf of
Liturgy and Episcopacy (1641); Ussher's 'The original of Bishops and
Metropolitans,' and Jeremy Taylor's 'Of the Sacred Order and Offices of
Episcopacy' (1642); on the other, the five Presbyterian ministers whose
initials composed the monstrous name Smectymnuus,[71] issued their
'Answer to the Book entituled an Humble Remonstrance' (1641), and
Milton, in his short treatise 'Of Prelatical Episcopacy' (1641),
fulminated with 'fiery eloquence and reckless invective' against Ussher.

     'Had God,' wrote Milton, 'intended that we should have
     sought any part of useful instruction from Ignatius,
     doubtless He would not have so ill-provided for our
     knowledge as to send him to our hands in this broken and
     disjointed plight; and if He intended no such thing, we do
     injuriously in thinking to taste better the pure evangelic
     manna by seasoning our mouths with the tainted scraps and
     fragments from an unknown table, and searching among the
     verminous and polluted rags dropped overworn from the
     toiling shoulders of Time, with these deformedly to quilt
     and interlace the entire, the spotless, and undecaying robe
     of Truth. What impiety,' he added, 'the confronting and
     paralleling the sacred verity of St. Paul with the offals
     and sweepings of antiquity, that met as accidently and
     absurdly as Epicurus his atoms to patch up a Leucippean
     Ignatius.'

'Out of his own mouth,' says Bishop Lightfoot, 'he was soon convicted.'
The "better provision for knowledge" came full soon. To the critical
genius of Ussher belongs the honour of restoring the true Ignatius.
Ussher observed that the quotations from this Father in three English
writers, Robert (Grosseteste) of Lincoln (c. 1250), John Tyssington (c.
1381), and William Wodeford (c. 1396), agreed--not with texts hitherto
known (the Greek and Latin of the 'long' Recension), but--with the
quotations in Eusebius and Theodoret. He concluded that somewhere in the
libraries of England he ought to find MSS. of a version corresponding to
this earlier text of Ignatius: and he discovered two--(1.) _Caiensis_
395 [L1], a MS. given to Gonville and Cains College, Cambridge, in
1444 by Walter Crome; and (2.) _Montacutianus_ [L2], a parchment from
the library of Bishop Montague or Montacute, of Norwich. Of the first a
transcript was made for Archbishop Ussher, and is still in the library
of Dublin University (D.3.II), and is dated 20 June, 1631. It is full of
inaccuracies, arising sometimes from indifference to spelling on the
part of the transcriber, or to carelessness and inattention, but most
frequently from ignorance of the numerous and perplexing contractions.
The second has disappeared, probably on the day when Parliament ordered
the Archbishop's books to be seized and confiscated (1643). Bishop
Lightfoot has in part restored it by drawing attention to the collation
of this Montacute MS., which occurs between the lines or in the margin
of the Dublin transcript of the Caius MS. Archbishop Ussher's
examination of the Latin version, thus discovered, induced in his mind a
suspicion that Bishop Grosseteste was himself the translator. A marginal
note, for example, betrayed the nationality of its author; 'Incus est
instrumentum fabri; dicitur Anglice _anfeld_ [anvil].' Who so likely to
have had the ability to translate from a Greek version as Robert
Grosseteste, one of the very few Greek scholars of his age? Evidence is
not wanting that the Ignatian Epistles were imported from Greece, and
translated under the Bishop's direction by one or other of the Greek
scholars who were with him: and it is significant, in connection with
this point, that Tyssington and Wodeford belonged to the Franciscan
Convent at Oxford to which Grosseteste left his books.

The result of Ussher's discovery was to determine, that this Latin
translation--valuable for critical purposes on account of its extreme
literalness[72]--represented the Ignatius known to the Fathers of the
fourth and fifth centuries. The Greek text still remained unknown, and
Ussher attempted to restore it from the 'long' recension by the aid of
his newly discovered Latin version. This he did by bringing the former
as nearly as possible into conformity with the latter. Ussher's book
appeared in 1644. It was marred by one blot. Eusebius had mentioned
seven Epistles, but Ussher--deceived by a mistake on the part of St.
Jerome--exscinded the Epistle to Polycarp, and condemned it as spurious.
Two years later, Isaac Voss published the Greek of six Epistles from a
Florentine MS., the Epistle to the Romans having disappeared from the
copy; and this omission was finally rectified in 1689 by Ruinart. From
the middle of the seventeenth century disputants ceased to trouble
themselves about the 'long' form. Controversy, presently to be noted,
raged about the Vossian letters, Daillé (1666) attacking them, Pearson
defending them.

It is a great leap to the year 1845, but not till then did a new era
dawn upon the questions at issue. It was in that year that Cureton
published the 'Antient Syriac Version of the Epistles of St. Ignatius to
St. Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans.' This version was
discovered in two MSS. at the British Museum, and contained the Epistles
named in a shorter form than either of the Greek or Latin texts.[73]
Cureton's contention was that he had discovered the genuine Ignatius,
and that the remaining four Epistles of the Vossian collection, as well
as the additional portions of these three, were forgeries. Cureton was
opposed by Dr. Wordsworth, the late Bishop of Lincoln, then Canon of
Westminster, and defended by Bunsen. There followed quickly the
_Vindiciæ Ignatianæ_ (1846) and _Corpus Ignatianum_ (1849), in which
Cureton was considered to have not only refuted his adversary, but also
to have presented arguments which rallied to his standard Ritschl,
Lipsius, Pressensé, Ewald, Milman, and Böhringer. Opposition to
Cureton's view was not, however, wanting. The Orientalists, Petermann
and Merx, united with the Conservative critical school, represented by
Denzinger and Uhlhorn, in preferring the Vossian collection; while the
Tübingen school (Baur and Hilgenfeld) opposed itself to Ignatian
letters, short, middle, or long, as utterly subversive of their theories
of the growth of the Canon, and of the history of the Early Church. The
Bishop of Durham was himself, at that time on Cureton's side, 'led
captive' (as he says) 'for a time by the tyranny of this dominant
force.' We can but record the change in his opinions, and leave to the
reader to follow, in the Bishop's own pages, the reasons which induced
him to abandon a method and decline results that would not stand the
test of a searching criticism. Independent investigation of the
phenomena of the Armenian version and of the Syriac fragments led him to
regard the 'short' or Curetonian recension as an abridgment or
mutilation, rather than the nucleus, of the 'middle' or Vossian form;
and Zahn's monograph, _Ignatius von Antiochien_(1873), never yet
answered, dealt a fatal blow at the claims of the Curetonian letters.
Since then Lipsius has been convinced by Merx; Renan and Harnack are
agreed; and most scholars will come to the conclusion, that through the
Bishop of Durham's own serious investigation of the diction and style of
the 'short' form, 'the last sparks of its waning life have been
extinguished.' The collection was directed by no doctrinal, Eutychian or
Monophysite, motive, nor composed (as Hefele suggested) in support of
moral aim or monastic piety. It is simply a 'loose and perfunctory
curtailment of the middle form, neither epitome nor extract, but
something between the two,' and to be dated about the year A. D. 400 or
somewhat earlier.

The ground having been thus cleared from the accretions of the 'long'
form and the mutilations of the 'short,' the Bishop of Durham considers
in the next place the genuineness of the seven Epistles known to
Eusebius, and preserved to us not only in the original Greek, but also
in Latin and other translations. It is a bitter reflection, that
discussion on this subject was (and--in a less degree--is still) evoked,
not so much by critical and textual variations and difficulties, as by
the exigencies of party spirit and theological animosity. A dreary, if
necessary, page of ecclesiastical history has to be studied, when French
Protestant and English Puritan turned passionately against the discovery
of Ussher and Voss. It is small comfort to the charitably minded to be
told that, had no Daillé attacked[74] the Ignatian letters, Pearson
would not have stepped forward as their champion.

The consideration of the genuineness of the Seven Epistles falls
naturally under the head of external and internal evidence.

The Bishop gives his conclusion on the external evidence in the
following words:--

     '(1.) No Christian writings of the second century, very few
     writings of antiquity, whether Christian or pagan, are so
     well authenticated as the Epistles of Ignatius. If the
     Epistle of Polycarp be accepted as genuine, the
     authentication is perfect. (2.) The main ground of objection
     against the genuineness of the Epistle of Polycarp is its
     authentication of the Ignatian Epistles. Otherwise there is
     every reason to believe that it would have passed
     unquestioned. (3.) The Epistle of Polycarp itself is
     exceptionally well authenticated by the testimony of his
     disciple Irenæus. (4.) All attempts to explain the phenomena
     of the Epistle of Polycarp, as forged or interpolated to
     give colour to the Ignatian Epistles, have signally failed.'

These four propositions sum up an examination minute and masterful. Not
only is the testimony of the Epistle of Polycarp adduced, but also that
of Irenæus; that of the letter of the Smyrnæans, giving the account of
the martyrdom of Polycarp; that of Lucian, and that of Origen (middle of
third century). After the age of Eusebius (half a century later than
Origen) 'no early Christian writing outside the Canon is attested by
witnesses so many and so various in the ages of the Councils and
subsequently.' Dr. Harnack, however, is opposed to the Bishop's
conclusions, and considers that, 'if we do not retain the Epistle of
Polycarp, the external evidence on behalf of the Ignatian Epistles is
exceedingly weak, and hence is highly favourable to the suspicion that
they are spurious.' This is not the place to enter into the dispute. We
can but record our opinion, that in the Bishop's pages Dr. Harnack's
objections are met by anticipation.

       *       *       *       *       *

The internal evidence is treated by the Bishop under six heads.

1. The Historical and Geographical Circumstances dealing specially with
the condemnation and the journey to Rome. Under this section are
collected also the personal notices yielding their testimony to the
genuineness of the letters in a manner not less striking, because
incidental and allusive, than the testimony of the geographical section.
The reader wi