Chapter XI…

Chapter XI

During the two years which followed the Duke of Norfolk's death I did only see my Lady Surrey once, which was when she came to Arundel House, on a visit to her lord's grandfather; and her letters for a while were both scanty and brief. She made no mention of religion, and but little of her husband; and chiefly touched on such themes as Lady Margaret's nuptials with Mr. Sackville (Lord Dorset's heir) and Mistress Milicent's with Sir Hammond l'Estrange. She had great contentment, she wrote, to see them both so well married according to their degree; but that for herself she did very much miss her good sister's company and her gentlewoman's affectionate services, who would now reside all the year at her husband's seat in Norfolk; but she looked when my lord and herself should be at Kenninghall, when he left the university, that they might yet, being neighbors, spend some happy days together, if it so pleased God. Once she wrote in exceeding great joy, so that she said she hardly knew how to contain herself, for that my lord was coming in a few days to spend the long vacation at Lord Sussex's house at Bermondsey. But when she wrote again, methought--albeit her letter was cheerful, and she did jest in it somewhat more than was her wont--that there was a silence touching her husband, and her own contentment in his society, which betokened a reserve such as I had not noticed in her before. About that time it was bruited in London that my Lord Surrey had received no small detriment by the bad example he had at Cambridge, and the liberty permitted him.

And now, forsaking for a while the theme of that noble pair, whose mishaps and felicities have ever saddened and rejoiced mine heart almost equally with mine own good or evil fortune, I here purpose to set down such occurrences as should be worthy of note in the more obscure sphere in which my lot was cast.

When I was about sixteen, my cousin Kate was married to Mr. Lacy; first in a secret manner, in the night, by Mr. Plasden, a priest, in her father's library, and the next day at the parish church at Holborn. Methinks a fairer bride never rode to church than our Kate. Her mother went with her, which was the first time she had been out of doors for a long space of time, for she feared to catch cold if the wind did blow from the north or the east; and if from the south she feared it should bring noxious vapors from the river; and the west, infection from the city, and so stayed at home for greater safety. But on Kate's wedding day we did all protest the wind blew not at all, so that from no quarter of the sky should mischief arise; and in a closed litter, which she reckoned to be safer than a coach, she consented to go to church.

"Marry, good wife," cried Mr. Congleton, when she had been magnifying all the dangers she mostly feared, "thou dost forget the greatest of all in these days, which doth hold us all by the neck, as it were. For hearing mass, as we did in this room last night, we do all run the risk of being hanged, which should be a greater peril methinks than a breath of foul air."

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She, being in a merry mood, replied: "Twittle twattle, Mr. Congleton; the one may be avoided, the other not. 'Tis no reason I should get a cold to-day because I be like to be hanged to-morrow."

"I' faith," cried Polly, "my mother hath well parried your thrust, sir; and methinks the holy Bishop of Rochester was of the same mind with her."

"How so, Polly?" quoth her father; and she, "There happened a false rumor to rise suddenly among the people when he was in the prison, so I have heard Mr. Roper relate, that he should be brought to execution on a certain day; wherefore his cook, that was wont to dress his dinner and carry it daily unto him, hearing of his execution, dressed him no dinner at all that day. Wherefore, at the cook's next repair unto him, he demanded the cause why he brought him not his dinner. 'Sir,' said the cook, 'it was commonly talked all over the town that you should have died to-day, and therefore I thought it but vain to dress anything for you.' 'Well,' quoth the bishop merrily, 'for all that report, thou seest me yet alive; and therefore, whatsoever news thou shalt hear of me hereafter, prithee let me no more lack my dinner, but make it ready; and if thou see me dead when thou comest, then eat it thyself. But I promise thee, if I be alive, by God's grace, to eat never a bit the less.'"

"And on the day he was verily executed," said Mistress Ward, "when the lieutenant came to fetch him, he said to his man, 'Reach me my furred tippet, to put about my neck.' 'O my lord!' said the lieutenant, 'what need you be so careful of your health for this little time, being not much above in hour?' 'I think no otherwise,' said this blessed father; 'but yet, in he mean time, I will keep myself as well as I can; for I tell you truth, though I have, I thank our Lord, a very good desire and a willing mind to die at this present, and so I trust of his infinite mercy and goodness he will continue it, yet I will not willingly hinder my health one minute of an hour, but still prolong the same as long as I can by such reasonable ways as Almighty God hath provided for me.'" Upon which my good aunt fastened her veil about her head, and said the holy bishop was the most wise saint and reasonablest martyr she had yet heard of.

Kate was dressed in a kirtle of white silk, her head attired with an habiliment of gold, and her hair, brighter itself than gold, woven about her face in cunningly wrought tresses. She was led to church between two gentlemen--Mr. Tresham and Mr. Hogdson--friends of the bridegroom, who had bride-laces and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves. There was a fair cup of silver gilt carried before her, wherein was a goodly branch of rosemary, gilded very fair, and hung about with silken ribbons of all colors. Musicians came next; then a group of maidens bearing garlands finely gilded; and thus we passed on to the church. The common people at the door cheered the bride, whose fair face was a passport to their favor; but as Muriel crept along, leaning on my arm, I caught sound of murmured blessings.

"Sweet saint," quoth an aged man, leaning on his staff, near the porch, "I ween thine espousals be not of earth." A woman, with a child in her arms, whispered to her as she past, "He thou knowest of is dead, and died praying for thee." A man, whose eyes had watched her painfully ascending the steps, called her an angel; whereupon a beggar with a crutch cried out, "Marry, a lame angel!" A sweet smile was on her face as she turned toward him; and drawing a piece of silver from her pocket, she bestowed it on him, with some such words as these--that she prayed they might both be so happy, albeit lame, as to hobble to heaven, and get there in good time, if it should please God. Then he fell to blessing her so loud, that she hurried me into the church, not content to be thanked in so public a manner.

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After the ceremony, we returned in the same order to Ely Place. The banquet which followed, and the sports succeeding it, were conducted in a private and somewhat quiet fashion, and not many guests invited, by reason of the times, and Mr. Congleton misliking to draw notice to his house, which had hitherto been but little molested, partly for that Sir Francis Walsingham had a friendship for him, and also for his sister, Lady Egerton of Ridley, which procured for them greater favor, in the way of toleration, than is extended to others; and likewise the Portuguese ambassador was his very good friend, and his chapel open to us at all times; so that priests did not need to come to his house for the performance of any religious actions, except that one of the marriage, which had taken place the night before in his library. Howsoever, he was very well known to be a recusant, for that neither himself, nor any belonging to him, attended Protestant worship; and Sir Francis sometimes told him that the clemency with which he was treated was shown toward him with the hope that, by mild courses, he might be soon brought to some better conformity.

Mr. Lacy's house was in Gray's Inn Lane, a few doors from Mr. Swithin Wells's; and through this proximity an intimate acquaintanceship did arise between that worthy gentleman and his wife and Kate's friends. He was very good-natured, pleasant in conversation, courteous, and generous; and Mrs. Wells a most virtuous gentlewoman. Although he (Mr. Swithin) much delighted in hawking, hunting, and other suchlike diversions, yet he so soberly governed his affections therein, as to be content to deprive himself of a good part of those pleasures, and retire to a more profitable employment of training up young gentlemen in virtue and learning; and with such success that his house has been, as it were, a fruitful seminary to many worthy members of the Catholic Church. Among the young gentlemen who resided with him at that time was Mr. Hubert Rookwood, the youngest of the two sons of Mr. Rookwood, of Euston, whom I had seen at the inn at Bedford, when I was journeying to London. We did speedily enter into a somewhat close acquaintanceship, founded on a similarity of tastes and agreeable interchange of civilities, touching the lending of books and likewise pieces of music, which I did make fair copies of for him, and which we sometimes practiced in the evening; for he had a pleasant voice and an aptness to catch the trick of a song, albeit unlearned in the art, wherein he styled me proficient; and I, nothing loth to impart my knowledge, became his instructor, and did teach him both to sing and play the lute. He was not much taller than when I had seen him before; but his figure was changed, and his visage had grown pale, and his hair thick and flowing, especially toward the back of the head, discovering in front a high and thoughtful forehead. There was a great deal of good young company at that time in Mr. Wells's house; for some Catholics tabled there beside those that were his pupils, and others resorted to it by reason of the pleasant entertainment they found in the society of ingenuous persons, well qualified, and of their own religion. I had most days opportunities of conversing with Hubert, though we were never alone; and, by reason of the friendship which had existed between his father and mine, I allowed him a kindness I did not commonly afford to others.

Mr. Lacy had had his training in that house, and, albeit his natural parts did not title him to the praise of an eminent scholar, he had thence derived a great esteem for learning, a taste for books, of the which he did possess a great store (many hundred volumes), and a discreet manner of talking, though something tinctured with affectation, inasmuch as he should seem to be rather enamored of the words he uttered, than careful of the {751} substance. Hubert was wont to say that his speech was like to the drawing of a leaden sword out of a gilded sheath. He was a very virtuous young man; and his wife had never but one complaint to set forth, which was that his books took up so much of his time that she was almost as jealous of them as if they had been her rivals. She would have it he did kill himself with study; and, in a particular manner, with the writing of the life of one Thomas a Kempis, which was a work he had had a long time on hand. One day she comes into his library, and salutes him thus: "Mr. Lacy, I would I were a book; and then methinks you would a little more respect me." Polly, who was by, cried out, "Madam, you must then be an almanac, that he might change every year;" whereat she was not a little displeased. And another time, when her husband was sick, she said, if Mr. Lacy died, she would burn Thomas a Kempis for the killing of her husband. I, hearing this, answered that to do so were a great pity; to whom she replied, "Why, who was Thomas a Kempis?" to which I answered, "One of the saintliest men of the age wherein he lived." Wherewith she was so satisfied, that she said, then she would not do it for all the world.

Methinks I read more in that one year than in all the rest of my life beside. Mine aunt was more sick than usual, and Mistress Ward so taken up with the nursing of her, that she did not often leave her room. Polly was married in the winter to Sir Ralph Ingoldby, and went to reside for some months in the country. Muriel prevailed on her father to visit the prison with her, in Mistress Ward's stead, so that sometimes they were abroad the whole of the day; by reason of which, I was oftener in Gray's Inn Lane than at home, sometimes at Kate's house, and sometimes at Mistress Wells's mansion, where I became infected with a zeal for learning, which Hubert's example and conversation did greatly invite me to. He had the most winning tongue, and the aptest spirit in the world to divine the natural inclinations of those he consorted with. The books he advised me to read were mostly such as Mistress Ward, to whom I did faithfully recite their titles, accounted to be not otherwise than good and profitable, having learned so much from good men she consulted thereon, for she was herself no scholar; but they bred in me a great thirst for knowledge, a craving to converse with those who had more learning than myself, and withal so keen a relish for Hubert's society, that I had no contentment so welcome as to listen to his discourse, which was seasoned with a rare kind of eloquence and a discursive fancy, to which, also, the perfection of his carriage, his pronunciation of speech, and the deportment of his body lent no mean lustre. Naught arrogant or affected disfigured his conversation, in which did lie so efficacious a power of persuasion, and at times, when the occasion called for it, so great a vehemency of passion, as enforced admiration of his great parts, if not approval of his arguments. I made him at that time judge of the new thoughts which books, like so many keys opening secret chambers in the mind, did unlock in mine; and I mind me how eagerly I looked for his answers--how I hung on his lips when he was speaking, not from any singular affection toward his person, but by reason of the extraordinary fascination of his speech, and the interest of the themes we discoursed upon; one time touching on the histories of great men of past ages, at another on the changes wrought in our own by the new art of printing books, which had produced such great changes in the world, and yet greater to be expected. And as he was well skilled in the Italian as well as the French language, I came by his means to be acquainted with many great writers of those nations. He translated for me sundry passages from the divine play of Signor Dante Alighieri, in which {752} hell and purgatory and heaven are depicted, as it were by an eye-witness, with so much pregnancy of meaning and force of genius, that it should almost appear as if some special revelation had been vouchsafed to the poet beyond his natural thoughts, to disclose to him the secrets of other spheres. He also made me read a portion of that most fine and sweet poem on the delivery of the holy city Jerusalem, composed by Signor Torquato Tasso, a gentleman who resided at that time at the court of the Duke of Ferrara, and which one Mr. Fairfax has since done into English verse. The first four cantos thereof were given to Mr. Wells by a young gentleman, who had for a while studied at the University of Padua. This fair poem, and mostly the second book thereof, hath remained imprinted in my memory with a singular fixity, by reason that it proved the occasion of my discerning for the first time a special inclination on Hubert's side toward myself, who thought nothing of love, but was only glad to have acquired a friend endowed with so much wit and superior knowledge, and willing to impart it. This book, I say, did contain a narration which bred in me so great a resentment of the author's merits, and so quick a sympathy with the feigned subjects of his muse, that never before or since methinks has a fiction so moved me as the story of Olindo and Sophronisba.

Methinks this was partly ascribable to a certain likeness between the scenes described by the poet and some which take place at this time in our country. In the maiden of high and noble thoughts, fair, but heedless of her beauty, who stood in the presence of the soldan, once a Christian, then a renegade, taking on herself the sole guilt,--O virtuous guilt! O worthy crime!--of which all the Christians were accused, to wit, of rescuing sacred Mary's image from the hands of the infidels who did curse and blaspheme it, and, when all were to die for the act of one unknown, offered herself a ransom for all, and with a shamefaced courage, such as became a maid, and a bold modesty befitting a saint--a bosom moved indeed, but not dismayed, a fair but not pallid cheek--was content to perish for that the rest should live;--in her, I say, I saw a likeness in spirit to those who suffer nowadays for a like faith with hers, not at the hands of infidels, but of such whose parents did for the most part hold that same belief which they do now make out to be treason.

Hubert, observing me to be thus moved, smiled, and asked if, in the like case, I should have willed to die as Sophronisba.

"Yes," I answered, "if God did give me grace;" and then, as I uttered the words, I thought it should not be lawful to tell a lie, not for to save all the lives in the world; which doubt I imparted to him, who laughed and said he was of the poet's mind, who doth exclaim, touching this lie, "O noble deceit! worthier than truth itself!" and that he thought a soul should not suffer long in purgatory for such a sin. "Maybe not," I answered; "yet, I ween, there should be more faith in a sole commitment to God of the events than in doing the least evil so that good should come of it."

He said, "I marvel, Mistress Constance, what should be your thoughts thereon if the life of a priest was in your hands, and you able to save him by a lie."

"Verily," I answered, "I know not, Master Rookwood; but I have so much trust in Almighty God that he would, in such a case, put words into my mouth which should be true, and yet mislead evil-purposed men, or that he shall keep me from such fearful straits, or forgive me if, in the stress of a great peril, I unwittingly should err."

"And I pray you," Hubert then said, as if not greatly caring to pursue the theme, "what be your thought concerning the unhappy youth Olindo, who did so dote on this maiden that, fearful of offending there where above {753} all he desired to please, had, greatly as he loved, little hoped, nothing asked, and not so much as revealed his passion until a common fate bound both to an equal death?"

"I thought not at all on him," I answered; "but only on Sophronisba."

At which he sighed and read further: "That all wept for her who, albeit doomed to a cruel death, wept not for herself, but in this wise secretly reproved the fond youth's weeping: 'Friend,' quoth she, 'other thoughts, other tears, other sighs, do beseem this hour. Think of thy sins, and God's great recompense for the good. Suffer for his sole sake, and torment shall be sweet. See how fair the heavens do show, the sun how bright, as it were to cheer and lure us onward!'"

"Ah!" I exclaimed, "shame on him who did need to be so exhorted, who should have been the most valiant, being a man!" To the which he quickly replied:

"He willed to die of his own free will rather than to live without her whom he jewelled more than life: but in the matter of grieving love doth make cowards of those who should else have been brave."

"Me thinks, rather," I answered, "that in noble hearts love's effects should be noble."

"Bethink you, Mistress Constance," he then asked, "that Sophronisba did act commendably, insomuch that when an unlooked-for deliverance came, she refused not to be united in life to him that had willed to be united to her in death."

"You may think me ungrateful, sir," answered; "but other merits methinks than fondness for herself should have won so great a heart."

"You be hard to content, Mistress Constance," he answered somewhat resentfully. "To satisfy you, I perceive one should have a hard as well as a great heart."

"Nay," I cried, "I praise not hardness, but love not softness either. You that be so learned, I pray you find the word which doth express what pleaseth me in a man."

"I know not the word," he answered; "I would I knew the substance of your liking, that I might furnish myself with it."

Whereupon our discourse ended that day; but it ministered food to my thoughts, and I fear me also to a vain content that one so gifted with learning and great promise of future greatness should evince something of regard beyond a mutual friendship for one as ignorant and young as I then was.

Some months after Kate's marriage, matters became very troublesome, by reason of the killing of a great store, as was reported, of French Huguenots in Paris on St. Bartholomew's day, and afterward in many cities of France, which did consternate the English Catholics for more reasons than one, and awoke so much rage in the breasts of Protestants, that the French ambassador told Lady Tregony, a friend, of Mistress Wells, that he did scarce venture to show his face; and none, save only the queen herself, who is always his very good friend, would speak to him. I was one evening at the house of Lady Ingoldby, Polly's mother-in-law, some time after this dismal news had been bruited, and the company there assembled did for the most part discourse on these events, not only as deploring what had taken place, and condemning the authors thereof,--which, indeed, was what all good persons must needs have done,--but took occasion thence to use such vile terms and opprobrious language touching Catholic religion, and the cruelty and wickedness of such as did profess it, without so much as a thought of the miseries inflicted on them in England, that--albeit I had been schooled in the hard lesson of silence--so strong a passion overcame me then, that I had well nigh, as the Psalmist saith, spoken with my tongue, yea, young as I was, uttered words rising hot from my heart, in the midst of that adverse company, which I did know, them to be, if one had not at {754} that moment lifted up his voice, whose presence I had already noted, though not acquainted with his name; a man of reverent and exceedingly benevolent aspect; aged, but with an eye so bright, and silvery hair crowning a noble forehead, that so much excellence and dignity is seldom to be observed in any one as was apparent in this gentleman.

"Good friends," he said, and at the sound of his voice the speakers hushed their eager discoursing, "God defend I should in any way differ with you touching the massacres in France; for verily it has been a lamentable and horrible thing that so many persons should be killed, and religion to be the pretence for it; but to hear some speak of it, one should think none did suffer in this country for their faith, and bloody laws did not exist, whereby Papists are put to death in a legal, cold-blooded fashion, more terrible, if possible, than the sudden bursts of wild passions and civil strife, which revenge for late cruelties committed by the Huguenots, wherein many thousand Catholics had perished, the destruction of churches, havoc of fierce soldiery, and apprehension of the like attempts in Paris, had stirred up to fury; so that when the word went forth to fall on the leaders of the party, the savage work once begun, even as a fire in a city built of wood, raged as a madness for one while, and men in a panic struck at foes, whose gripe they did think to feel about their throats."

Here the speaker paused an instant. This so bold opening of his speech did seem to take all present by surprise, and almost robbed me of my breath; for it is well known that nowadays a word, yea a piece of a word, or a nod of the head, whereby any suspicion may arise of a favorable disposition toward Catholics, is often-times a sufficient cause for a man to be accused and cast into prison; and I waited his next words (which every one, peradventure from curiosity, did likewise seem inclined to hear) with downcast eyes, which dared not to glance at any one's face, and cheeks which burned like hot coals.

"It is well known," quoth he, "that the sufferings which be endured by recusants at this time in our country are such, that many should prefer to die at once than to be subjected to so constant a fear and terror as doth beset them. I speak not now of the truth or the falsity of their religion, which, if it be ever so damnable and wicked, is no new invention of their own, but what all Christian people did agree in, one hundred years ago; so that the aged do but abide by what they were taught by undoubted authority in their youth, and the young have received from their parents as true. But I do solely aver that Papists are subjected to a thousand vexations, both of bonds, imprisonments, and torments worse than death, yea and oftentimes to death itself; and that so dreadful, that to be slain by the sword, or drowned, yea even burned at the stake, is not so terrible; for they do hang a man and then cut him down yet alive, and butcher him in such ways--plucking out his heart and tearing his limbs asunder--that nothing more horrible can be thought of."

"They be traitors who are so used," cried one gentleman, somewhat recovering from the surprise which these bold words had caused.

"If to be of a different religion from the sovereign of the country be a proof of treason," continued the venerable speaker, "then were the Huguenots, which have perished in France, a whole mass and nest of traitors."

A gentleman seated behind me, who had a trick of sleeping in his chair, woke up and cried out, "Not half a one, sirs; not so much as half a one is allowed," meaning the mass, which he did suppose to have been spoken of.

"And if so, deserved all to die,' continued the speaker.

"Ay, and so they do, sir," quoth the sleeper. "I pray you let them all be hanged." Upon which every one {755} laughed, and the aged gentleman also; and then he said,

"Good my friends, I ween 'tis a rash thing to speak in favor of recusants nowadays, and what few could dare to do but such as cannot be suspected of disloyalty to the queen and the country, and who, having drunk of the cup of affliction in their youth, even to the dregs, and held life for a long time as a burden which hath need to be borne day by day, until the wished for hour of release doth come--and the sooner, the more welcome--have no enemies to fear, and no object to attain. And if so be that you will bear with me for a few moments, yea, if ye procure me to be hanged to-morrow" (this he said with a pleasant smile; and, "Marry, fear not, Mr. Roper," and "I' faith, speak on, sir," was bruited round him by his astonished auditors), "I will recite to you some small part of the miseries which have been endured of late years by such as cannot be charged with the least thought of treason, or so much as the least offence against the laws, except in what touches the secret practice of their religion. Women have, to my certain knowledge, been hung up by the hands in prisons (which do overflow with recusants, so that at this time there remaineth no room for common malefactors), and cruelly scourged, for that they would not confess by which priest they had been reconciled or absolved, or where they had heard mass. Priests are often tortured to force them to declare what they hear in confession, who harbor priests and Papists, where such and such recusants are to be found, and the like questions; and in so strenuous a manner, that needles have been thrust under their nails, and one man, not long since, died of his racking. O sirs and gentle ladies, I have seen with mine own eyes a youth, the son of one of my friends--young Mark Typper, born of honest and rich parents, skilful in human learning, having left his study for a time, and going home to see his friends--whipped through the streets of London, and burnt in the ear, because, forsooth, a forward judge, to whom he had been accused as a Papist, and finding no proof thereof, condemned him as a vagabond. And what think you, good people, of the death of Sir Robert Tyrwit's son, who was accused for hearing of a mass at the marriage of his sister, and albeit at the time of his arrest in a grievous fever, was pulled out of the house and thrust into prison, even as he then was, feeble, faint, and grievously sick? His afflicted parents entreat, make intercession, and use all the means they can to move the justices to have consideration of the sick; not to heap sorrow upon sorrow, nor affliction on the afflicted; not to take away the life of so comely a young gentleman, whom the physicians come and affirm will certainly die if he should be removed. All this is nothing regarded. They lay hold on the sick man, pull him away, shut him up in prison, and within two days next after he dies. They bury him, and make no scruple or regard at all. O sirs, bethink you what these parents do feel when they hear Englishmen speak of the murders of Protestants in France as an unheard of crime. If, in these days, one in a family of recusants doth covet the inheritance of an elder brother--yea, of a father--he hath but to conform to the now established religion (I leave you to think with how much of piety and conscience), and denounce his parent as a Papist, and straightway he doth procure him to be despoiled, and his lands given up to him. Thus the seeds of strife and bitter enmity have been sown broadcast through the land, the bands of love in families destroyed, the foundations of honor and beneficence blown up, the veins and sinews of the common society of men cut asunder, and a fiendly force of violence and a deadly poison of suspicion used against such as are accused of no other crime than their religion, which they yet adhere to; albeit their fortunes be ruined by fines and their lives in {756} constant jeopardy from strenuous laws made yet more urgent by private malice. My friends, I would that not one hair of the head of so much as one Huguenot had been touched in France; that not one Protestant had perished in the flames in the late queen's reign, or in that of her present majesty; and also that the persecution now framed in this country against Papists, and so handled as to blind men's eyes and work in them a strange hypocrisy, yea and in some an innocent belief that freedom of men's souls be the offspring of Protestant religion, should pass away from this land. I care not how soon (as mine honored father-in-law, and in God too, I verily might add, was wont to say),--I care not how soon I be sewn up in a bag and cast into the Thames, if so be I might first see religious differences at an end, and men of one mind touching God's truth."

Here this noble and courageous speaker ceased, and various murmurs rose among the company. One lady remarked to her neighbor: "A marvellous preacher that of seditious doctrines, methinks."

And one gentleman said that if such talk were suffered to pass unpunished in her majesty's subjects, he should look to see massing and Popery to rear again their heads in the land.

And many loudly affirmed none could be Papists, or wish them well, and be friends to the queen's government, and so it did stand to reason that Papists were traitors.

And another said that, for his part, he should desire to see them less mercifully dealt with; and that the great clemency shown to such as did refuse to come to church, by only laying fines on them, and not dealing so roundly as should compel them to obedience, did but maintain them in their obstinacy; and he himself would as lief shoot down a seminary priest as a wolf, or any other evil beast.

I noticed this last speaker to be one of those who had spoken with most abhorrence of the massacres in France.

One lady called out in a loud voice that Papists, and such as take their part, among which she did lament to see Mr. Roper, should be ashamed so much as to speak of persecution; and began to relate the cruelties practised upon Protestants twenty years back, and the burning at Oxford of those excellent godly men, the bishops of London and Worcester.

Mr. Roper listened to her with an attentive countenance, and then said:

"I' faith, madam, I cannot choose but think Dr. Latimer, if it be he you speak of, did somewhat approve of such a method of dealing with persons obstinate touching religion, when others than himself and those of his own way of thinking were the subjects of it, if we judge by a letter he wrote in 1538 to his singular good friend the Lord Privy Seal Cromwell, at the time he was appointed to preach at the burning at Smithfield of Friar Forest of Greenwich, a learned divine I often did converse with in my young years."

"What wrote the good bishop?" two or three persons asked; and the lady who had spoken before said she should warrant it to be something pious, for a more virtuous Protestant never did live than this holy martyr.

Whereupon Mr. Roper: "This holy bishop did open his discourse right merrily, for in a pleasant manner he thus begins his letter: 'And, sir, if it be your pleasure, as it is, that I shall play the fool in my customable manner when Forest shall suffer, I would wish my stage stood near unto Forest; for I would endeavor myself so to content the people that therewith I might also convert Forest, God so helping.' And further on he doth greatly lament that the White Friars of Doncaster had access to the prisoner, and through the fault of the sheriff or jailers, or both, he should be allowed to hear mass and receive the sacrament, by which he is rather comforted in his way than discouraged. And such is his foolishness, this good {757} doth humbly say, that if Forest would abjure his religion, he should yet (for all his past obstinacy) wish him pardoned. O sirs, think you that when at Oxford this aged man, seventeen years after, did see the flames gather round himself, that he did not call to mind what time he preached, playing the fool, as he saith, before a man in like agonies, and never urged so much as one word against his sentence?"

"Marry, if he did not," said one, whom I take to have been Sir Christopher Wray, who had been a silent listener until then, "if his conscience pricked him not thereon, it must needs have been by the same rule as the lawyer used to the countryman, who did put to him this question: 'Sir, if my cow should stray into your field and feed there one whole day, what should be the law touching compensation therefor?' 'Marry, friend, assuredly to pay the damage to the full, which thou art bounden at once to do.' 'Ay,' quoth the countryman; 'but 'tis your cow hath strayed into my field.' Upon which, 'Go to, go to,' cries the lawyer; 'for I warrant thee that doth altogether alter the law.'"

Some smiled, and others murmured at this story; and meanwhile one of the company, who from his dress I perceived to be a minister, and moreover to hold some dignity in the Protestant Church, rose from his place, and crossing the room, came up to Mr. Roper (for that bold speaker was no other than Sir Thomas More's son-in--law, whose great charity and goodness I had often heard of), and, shaking hands with him, said: "I be of the same mind with you, friend Roper, in every word you have uttered tonight. And I pray to God my soul may be with yours after this life, and our end in heaven, albeit I should not sail there in the same boat with thou."

"Good Mr. Dean," quoth Mr. Roper, "I do say amen to your prayer." and then he added somewhat in a low voice, and methinks it was that there is but one ship chartered for safety in such a voyage.

At the which the other shook his head and waved his hand, and then calling to him a youth not more than twelve or thirteen years old, his son, he did present him to Mr. Roper. I had observed this young gentleman to listen, with an eagerness betokening more keenness for information than is usually to be found in youths of his years, to the discourses held that evening. His father told Mr. Roper that this his son's parts and quick apprehension in learning did lead him to hope he should be one day, if it pleased God, an ornament to the church. Mr. Roper smiled as he saluted the youth, and said a few words to him, which he answered very readily. I never saw again that father or that son. The one was Dr. Mathews, whom the queen made Bishop of Durham; and the other, Toby Mathews, his son, who was reconciled some years ago, and, as I have heard from some, is now a Jesuit.

The venerable aspect of the good Mr. Roper so engaged my thoughts, that I asked Lady Tregony, by whose side I was sitting, if she was acquainted with him, and if his virtue was as great as his appearance was noble. She smiled, and answered that his appearance, albeit honorable and comely, was not one half so honorable as his life had been, or so comely as his mind. That he had been the husband of Sir Thomas More's never-to-be-forgotten daughter, Margaret, whose memory he so reverently did cherish that he had never so much as thought of a second marriage; and of late years, since he had resigned the office of sub-notary in the Queen's Bench to his son, he did give his whole substance and his time to the service of the poor, and especially to prisoners, by reason of which he was called the staff of the sorrowful, and sure refuge of the afflicted. Now, then, I looked on the face of this good aged man with a deeper reverence than heretofore. Now I longed to be favored with so {758} much of his notice as one passing word. Now I watched for an opportunity to compass my desire, and I thank God not without effect; for I do count it as a chief blessing to have been honored, during the remaining years of this virtuous gentleman's life, with so much of his condescending goodness, that if the word friendship may be used in regard to such affectionate feelings as can exist between one verging on four-score years of age and of such exalted merit, and a foolish creature yet in her teens, whom he honored with his notice, it should be so in this instance; wherein on the one side a singular reverence and humble great affection did arise almost on first acquaintance, and on the other so much benignity and goodness shown in the pains taken to cultivate such good dispositions as had been implanted in this young person's heart by careful parents, and to guard her mind against the evils of the times, that nothing could be greater.

Mr. Roper chancing to come near us, Lady Tregony said somewhat, which caused him to address me in this wise:

"And are there, then, maidens in these days not averse to the sight of gray hairs, and who mislike not to converse with aged men?"

This was said with so kindly a smile that timidity vanished, and confidence took its place.

"Oh, sir," I cried, "when I was not so much as five years old, my good father showed me a picture of Sir Thomas More, and told me he was a man of such angelic wit as England never had the like before, nor is ever like to have again, and of a most famous and holy memory; and methinks, sir, that you, being his son-in-law, who knew his doings and his mind so well, and lived so long in his house, must needs in many things resemble him."

"As to his doings and his mind," Mr. Roper replied, "no man living knoweth them so well, and if my mean wit, memory, and knowledge could serve me now, could declare so much thereof. But touching resemblance, alas! there was but one in all the world that represented the likeness of his virtues and perfections; one whom he loved in a particular manner, and who was worthiest of that love more than any creature God has made."

Here the good man's voice faltered a little, and he made a stop in his discourse; but in a little while said that he had thought it behoved him to set down in writing such matters concerning Sir Thomas's life as he could then call to remembrance, and that he would lend me the manuscript to read, which I did esteem an exceeding great favor, and one I could not sufficiently thank him for. Then he spoke somewhat of the times, which were waxing every day more troublesome, and told me he often called to mind a conversation he once had with Sir Thomas, walking along the side of the Thames at Chelsea, which he related in these words:

"'Now would to God, my son Roper,' quoth Sir Thomas, 'I were put in a sack, and presently cast into the Thames, upon condition that three things were well established throughout Christendom.' 'And what mighty things are those, sir?' I asked. Whereupon he: 'Wouldst thou know, son Roper, what they be?' 'Yea, marry, sir, with a good will, if it please you,' quoth I. 'I' faith, son, they be these,' he said: 'The first is that, whereas the most part of Christian princes are at mortal wars, they were all at peace; the second that, whereas the church of Christ is at present sorely afflicted with so many heresies, it were settled in perfect uniformity of religion; the third that, where the matter of the king's marriage is now come in question, it were, to the glory of God and the quietness of all parties, brought to a good conclusion.' 'Ay, sir,' quoth I, 'those were indeed three things greatly to be desired; but'--I continued with a certain joy--'where shall one see a happier state than in this realm, that has so Catholic a prince that no heretic {759} durst show his face; so virtuous and learned a clergy; so grave and sound a nobility; and so loving, obedient subjects, all in one faith agreeing together?' 'Truth it is indeed, son Roper,' quoth he; and in all degrees and estates of the same went far beyond me in commendation thereof. 'And yet, son Roper, I pray God,' said he, 'that some of us, as high as we seem to sit on the mountains, treading heretics under our feet like ants, live not the day that we would gladly be at league and composition with them, to let them have their churches quietly to themselves, so that they would be contented to let us have ours quietly to ourselves.' After I had told him many considerations why he had no cause to say so: 'Well,' said he, 'I pray God, son Roper, some of us will live not to see that day.' To whom I replied: 'By my troth, sir, it is very desperately spoken.' These vile terms, I cry God mercy, did I give him, who, perceiving me to be in a passion, said merrily unto me, 'It shall not be so; it shall not be so.' In sixteen years and more, being in the house conversing with him, I could not perceive him to be so much as once out of temper."

This was the first of many conversations I held, during the years I lived in Holborn, with this worthy gentleman, who was not more pleased to relate, than I to hear, sundry anecdotes concerning Sir Thomas More, his house, and his family.

Before he left me that day, I did make bold to ask him if he feared not ill consequences from the courageous words he had used in a mixed, yea rather, with few exceptions, wholly adverse, company.

"Not much," he answered. "Mine age; the knowledge that there are those who would not willingly see me roughly handled, and have power to prevent it; and withal no great concern, if it should be so, to have my liberty constrained, yea, my life shortened by a few years, or rather days,--doth move me to a greater freedom of speech than may generally be used, and a notable indifference to the results of such freedom."

Having whispered the like fears I had expressed to him to Lady Tregony, she did assure me his confidence was well based, and that he had connexions which would by no means suffer him to be thrown into prison, which should be the fate of any one else in that room who had spoken but one half, yea one tenth part, as boldly as he had ventured on.

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Chapter XII

It was some time before I could restore myself to my countenance, after so much moving discourse, so as to join with spirit in the sports and the dancing which did ensue among the young people that evening. But sober thoughts and painful themes after a while gave place to merriment; and the sound of music, gay tattle, and cheerful steps lured me to such enjoyment as youth is wont to take in these kinds of pastimes. It was too much my wont to pursue with eagerness the present humor, and drink deeply of innocent pleasure wherein no harm should exist if enjoyed with moderation. But like in a horse on whose neck the bridle is cast, what began in a gentle ambling ends in wild gallopping; so lawful merriment, if unrestrained, often ends in what is unbeseeming, and in some sort blameable. So this time, when dancing tired, a ring was formed for conversation, and the choice of the night's pastime yielded to my discretion; alack, rather to my imprudence and folly, methinks I might style it. I chose that arguments should be held by two persons of the company, turn by turn, and that a judge should be named to allot a reward to the worthiest, and a penance to the worst. This liked them all exceedingly, and by one consent they appointed me to be judge, and to summon such as should dispute. {760} There were there two young gentlemen which haunted our house, and Lady Ingoldby's also. One was Martin Tregony, Lady Tregony's nephew, an ill-favored young man, with manners worse than his face, and so apish and foppish in his dress and behavior, that no young woman could abide him, much less would receive his addresses, or if she did entertain him in conversation, it was to make sport of his so great conceit. He had an ill-natured kind of wit, more sharp than keen, more biting than sarcastic. He studied the art of giving pain, and oftentimes did cause shamefaced merit to blush. The other was Mr. Thomas Sherwood, who, albeit not very near in blood to my father, was, howsoever, of the same family as ourselves. He had been to the English College in Douay, and had brought me tidings a short time back of my father and Edmund Genings' safe arrival thither, and afterward came often to see us, and much frequented Lady Tregony's house. He had exceedingly good parts, but was somewhat diffident and bashful. Martin Tregony was wont to make him a mark, as it were, of his ill-natured wit, and did fancy himself to be greatly his superior in sharpness, partly because Mr. Sherwood's disposition was retiring, and partly that he had too much goodness and sense to bandy words with so ill-mannered a young man. I pray you who read this, could aught be more indiscreet than, in a thoughtless manner, to have summoned these two to dispute? which nevertheless I did, thinking some sport should arise out of it, to see Master Martin foisted in argument by one he despised, and also from his extravagant gestures and affected countenances. So I said:

"Master Tregony, your task shall be to dispute with Master Sherwood; and this the theme of your argument, 'The Art of Tormenting.' He who shall describe the nicest instances of such skill, when exercised by a master toward his servant, a parent to his child, a husband to his wife, a wife to her husband, a lover to his mistress, or a friend to his friend, shall be proclaimed victorious; and his adversary submit to such penance as the court shall inflict."

Master Sherwood shook his head for to decline to enter these lists; but all the young gentlemen and ladies cried, he should not be suffered to show contempt of the court, and forced him to stand up.

Master Martin was nothing loth, and in his ill-favored countenance there appeared a made smile, which did indicate an assurance of victory; so he began:

"The more wit a man hath, the better able he shall be at times to torment another; so I do premise, and at the outset of this argument declare, that to blame a man for the exercise of a talent he doth possess is downright impiety, and that to wound another by the pungency of home-thrusts in conversation is as just a liberty in an ingenious man, as the use of his sword in a battle is to a soldier."

Mr. Sherwood upon this replied, that he did allow a public disputation, appointed by meet judges, to come under the name of a fair battle; but even in a battle (he said) generous combatants aim not so much at wounding their adversaries, as to the disarming of them; and that he who in private conversation doth make a weapon of his tongue is like unto the man who provokes another to a single combat, which for Christians is not lawful, and pierces him easily who has less skill in wielding the sword than himself.

"Marry, sir," quoth Master Martin, "if you dobring piety into your discourse, methinks the rules of just debate be not observed; for it is an unfair thing for to overrule a man with arguments he doth not dare to reply to under pain of spiritual censures."

"I cry you mercy, Master Martin," quoth the other; "you did bring in _im_piety, and so methought piety should not be excluded." At the which we all applauded, and Martin began to perceive his adversary to be less {761} contemptible than he had supposed.

"Now to the point," I cried; "for exordiums be tedious. I pray you, gentlemen, begin, and point out some notable fashion wherewith a master might torment his servant."

Upon which quoth Martin: "If a man hath a sick servant, and doth note his fancy to be set on some indulgence not of strict necessity, and should therefore deny it to him, methinks that should be a rare opportunity to exercise his talent."

"Nay," cried Master Sherwood, "a nicer one, and ever at hand afterward, should be to show kindness once to a dependent when sick, and to use him ten times the worse for it when he is well, upbraiding him for such past favors, as if one should say: 'Alack, be as kind as you will, see what return you do meet with!'"

This last piece of ingenuity was allowed by the court to surpass the first. "Now," I cried, "what should be the greatest torment a parent could inflict on a child?"

Martin answered: "If it should be fond of public diversion, to confine it in-doors. If retirement suits its temper, to compel it abroad. If it should delight in the theatre, to take it to see a good play, and at the moment when the plot shall wax most moving, to say it must be tired, and procure to send it home. Or, in more weighty matters,--a daughter's marriage, for instance,--to detect if the wench hath set her heart on one lover, and if so, to keep from her the knowledge of this gentleman's addresses; and when she hath accepted another, to let her know the first had sued for her hand, and been dismissed."

Here all the young gentlewomen did exclaim that Master Sherwood could by no means think of a more skilful torment than this should prove. He thought for an instant, and then said:

"It should be a finer and more delicate torment to stir up in a young gentlewoman's mind suspicions of one she loved, and so work on her natural passions of jealousy and pride, that she should herself, in a hasty mood, discard her lover; and ever after, when the act was not recallable, remind her she herself had wrought her own unhappiness, and wounded one she loved."

"Yea, that should be worse than the first torment," all but one young lady cried out; who, for her part, could better endure, she said, to have injured herself than to be deceived, as in the first case.

"Then do come husbands," quoth Mr. Martin; "and I vow," he cried, "I know not how to credit there be such vile wretches in the world as should wish to torment their wives; but if such there be, methinks the surest method they may practise is, to loving wives to show indifferency; to such as be jealous, secrecy; to such as be pious, profaneness; and the like in all the points whereon their affections are set."

"Alack!" cried Mistress Frances Bellamy, "what a study the man hath made of this fine art! Gentlewomen should needs beware of such a one for a husband. What doth Master Sherwood say?"

Whereupon he: "Methinks the greatest torment a husband might inflict on a worthy wife should be to dishonor her love by his baseness; or if he had injured her, to doubt her proneness to forgive."

"And wives," quoth Mistress Southwell,--"what of their skill therein, gentlemen?"

"It be such," cried Martin, "as should exceed men's ability thereof to speak. The greatest instance of talent of this sort I have witnessed is in a young married lady, whose husband is very willing to stay in his house or go abroad, or reside in town, or at his seat in the country, as should most please her, so she would let him know her wishes. But she is so artful in concealing them, that the poor man can never learn so much as should cause him to guess what they may be; but with a meek voice she doth reply to his asking, 'An it please you, sir, let it {762} be as you choose, for you very well know I never do oppose your will.' Then if he resolve to leave town, she maketh not much ado till they have rode twenty or thirty miles out of London. Then she doth begin to sigh and weep, for that she should be a most ill-used creature, and her heart almost broken for to leave her friends, and be shut up for six months in a swamp, for such she doth term his estate; and if she should not have left London that same day, she should have been at the Lord Mayor's banquet, and seen the French princes, which, above all things, she had desired. But some husbands be so hard-hearted, if they can hunt and hawk, 'tis little count they make of their wives' pleasures. Then when she hath almost provoked the good man to swear, she hangeth down her head and saith, 'Content you, sir--content you; 'tis your good fortune to have an obedient wife.' And so mopes all the time of the journey."

Whilst Martin was speaking, I noted a young gentlewoman who did deeply blush whilst he spoke, and tears came into her eyes. I heard afterward she had been lately married, and that he counterfeited her voice in so precise a manner, so that all such as knew her must needs believe her to be the wife he spoke of; and that there was so much of truth in the picture he had drawn, as to make it seem a likeness, albeit most unjust toward one who, though apt to boast of her obedience, and to utter sundry trifling complaints, was a fond wife and toward lady to her dear husband; and that this malice in Mr. Tregony, over and above his wonted spite, was due to her rejection of his hand some short time before her marriage. Master Sherwood, seeing the ungracious gentleman's ill-nature and the lady's confusion, stood up the more speedily to reply, and so cut him short. "I will relate," he said, "a yet more ingenious practice of tormenting, which should seem the highest proof of skill in a wife, albeit also practised by husbands, only not so aptly, or peradventure so often. And this is when one hath offered to another a notable insult or affront, so to turn the tables, even as a conjuror the cards he doth handle, that straightway the offended party shall seem to be the offender, and be obliged to sue forgiveness for that wherein he himself is hurt. I pray you, gentlemen and ladies, can anything more ingenious than this practice be thought on?"

All did admit it to be a rare example of ability in tormenting; but some objected it was not solely exercised by wives and husbands, but that friends, lovers, and all sorts of persons might use it. Then one gentleman called for some special instance of the art in lovers. But another said it was a natural instinct, and not an art, in such to torment one another, and likewise their own selves, and proposed the behavior of friends in that respect as a more new and admirable theme.

"Ah," quoth Master Martin, with an affected wave of his hand, "first show me an instance of a true friendship betwixt ladies, or a sincere affection betwixt gentlemen; and then it will be time for to describe the arts whereby they do plague and torment each other."

Mr. Sherwood answered, "A French gentleman said, a short time since, that it should be a piece of commendable prudence to live with your friend as looking that he should one day be your enemy. Now we be warranted, by Master Tregony's speech, to conclude his friendships to be enmities in fair disguise; and the practices wherewith friends torment each other no doubt should apply to this case also; and so his exceptions need in no wise alter the theme of our argument. I pray you, sir, begin, and name some notable instance in which, without any apparent breach of friendship, the appearance of which is in both instances supposed, one may best wound his friend, or, as Mr. Tregony hath it, the disguised object of his hatred."

I noticed that Master Martin glanced {763} maliciously at his adversary, and then answered, "The highest exercise of such ability should be, methinks, to get possession of a secret which your friend, or disguised enemy, has been at great pains to conceal, and to let him know, by such means as shall hold him in perpetual fear, but never in full assurance of the same, that you have it in your power to accuse him at any time of that which should procure him to be thrown into prison, or maybe hanged on a gibbet."

A paleness spread over Master Sherwood's face, not caused, I ween, by fear so much as by anger at the meanness of one who, from envy and spite, even in the freedom of social hours, should hint at secrets so weighty as would touch the liberty, yea, the life, of one he called his friend; and standing up, he answered, whilst I, now too late discerning mine own folly in the proposing of a dangerous pastime, trembled in every limb.

"I know," quoth he,--"I know a yet more ingenious instance of the skill of a malicious heart. To hang a sword over a friend's head, and cause him to apprehend its fall, must needs be a well-practised device; but if it be done in so skilful a manner that the weapon shall threaten not himself alone, but make him, as it were, the instrument of ruin to others dearer to him than his own life,--if, by the appearance of friendship, the reality of which such a heart knoweth not, he hath been to such confidence as shall be the means of sorrow to those who have befriended him in another manner than this false friend, this true foe,--the triumph is then complete. Malice and hatred can devise naught beyond it."

Martin's eyes glared so fearfully, and his voice sounded so hoarse, as he hesitated in answering, that, in a sort of desperation, I stood up, and cried, "Long enough have these two gentlemen had the talk to themselves. Verily, methinks there be no conqueror, but a drawn game in this instance."

But a murmur rose among the company that Master Sherwood was victorious, and Master Tregony should do penance.

"What shall it be?" was asked; and all with one voice did opine Master Sherwood should name it, for he was as much beloved as Master Tregony was misliked. He (Sherwood), albeit somewhat inwardly moved, I ween, had restrained his indignation, and cried out merrily, "Marry, so will I! Look me in the face, Martin, and give me thy hand. This shall be thy penance."

The other did so; but a fiendly look of resentment was in his eyes; and methinks Thomas Sherwood must needs have remembered the grasp of his hand to forgive it, I doubt not, even at the foot of the scaffold.

From that day Martin Tregony conceived an implacable hatred for Master Sherwood, whom he had feigned a great friendship for on his first arrival in London, because he hoped, by his means and influence with his aunt, to procure her to pay his debts. But after he had thrown off the mask, he only waited for an opportunity to denounce him, being privy to his having brought a priest to Lady Tregony's house, who had also said mass in her chapel. So one day meeting him in the streets, he cried out, "Stop the traitor! stop the traitor!" and so causing him to be apprehended, had him before the next justice of the peace; where, when they were come, he could allege nothing against him, but that he suspected him to be a Papist. Upon which he was examined concerning his religion, and, refusing to admit the queen's church-headship, he was cast into a dungeon in the Tower. His lodgings were plundered, and L25, which he had amassed, as I knew, who had assisted him to procure it, for the use of his aged and sick father, who had been lately cast into prison in Lancaster, was carried off with the rest. He was cruelly racked, we heard, for that he would not reveal where he had heard mass; and kept {764} in a dark filthy hole, where he endured very much from hunger, stench, and cold. No one being allowed to visit him--for the Tower was not like some other prisons where Mistress Ward and others could sometimes penetrate--or afford him any comfort, Mr. Roper had, by means of another prisoner, conveyed to his keeper some money for his use; but the keeper returned it the next day, because the lieutenant of the Tower would not suffer him to have the benefit of it. All he could be prevailed upon to do was to lay out one poor sixpence for a little fresh straw for him to lie on. About six months after, he was brought to trial, and condemned to die, for denying the queen's supremacy, and was executed at Tyburn, according to sentence, being cut down whilst he was yet alive, dismembered, bowelled, and quartered.

Poor Lady Tregony's heart did almost break at this his end and her kinsman's part in it; and during those six months--for she would not leave London whilst Thomas Sherwood was yet alive--I did constantly visit her, almost every day, and betwixt us there did exist a sort of fellowship in our sorrow for this worthy young man's sufferings; for that she did reproach herself for lack of prudence in not sufficient distrust of her own nephew, whom now she refused to see, at least, she said, until he had repented of his sin, which he, glorying in, had told her, the only time they had met, he should serve her in the same manner, and if he could ever find out she heard mass, should get her a lodging in the Tower, and for himself her estate in Norfolk, whither she was then purposing to retire, and did do so after Master Sherwood's execution. For mine own part, as once before my father's apprehended danger had diverted my mind from childish folly, so did the tragical result of an entertainment, wherein I had been carried away by thoughtless mirth, somewhat sicken me of company and sports. I went abroad not much the next year; only was often at Mr. Wells's house, and in Hubert's society, which had become so habitual to me that I was almost persuaded the pleasure I took therein proceeded from a mutual inclination, and I could observe with what jealousy he watched any whom I did seem to speak with or allow of any civility at their hands. Even Master Sherwood he would jalouse, if he found me weeping over his fate; and said he was happier in prison, for whom such tears did flow, than he at liberty, for whom I showed no like regard. "Oh," I would answer, "he is happy because, Master Rookwood, his sufferings are for his God and his conscience' sake, and not such as arise from a poor human love. Envy him his faith, his patience, his hope, which make him cry out, as I know he doth, 'O my Lord Jesu! I am not worthy that I should suffer these things for thee;' and not the compassionate tears of a paltry wench that in some sort was the means to plunge him in these straits."

In the spring of the year which did follow, I heard from my father, who had been ordained at the English College at Rheims, and was on the watch, he advertised me, for an opportunity to return to England, for to exercise the sacred ministry amongst his poor Catholic brethren. But at which port he should land, or whither direct his steps, if he effected a safe landing, he dared not for to commit to paper. He said Edmund Genings had fallen into a most dangerous consumption, partly by the extraordinary pains he took in his studies, and partly in his spiritual exercises, insomuch that the physicians had almost despaired of his recovery, and that the president had in consequence resolved to send him into England, to try change of air. That he had left Rheims with great regret, and went on his journey, as far as Havre de Grace, and, after a fortnight's stay in that place, having prayed to God very heartily for the recovery of his health, so that he might return, and, without further {765} delay, continue his studies for the priesthood, he felt himself very much better, almost as well as ever he was in his life; upon which he returned to his college, and took up again, with exceeding great fervor, his former manner of life; "and," my father added, "his common expression, as often as talk is ministered of England and martyrdom there, is this: 'Vivamus in spe! Vivamus in spe!'"

This letter did throw me into an exceeding great apprehension that my father might fall into the hands of the queen's officers at any time he should land, and the first news I should hear of him to be that he was cast into prison. And as I knew no Catholic priest could dwell in England with out he did assume a feigned name, and mostly so one of his station, and at one time well noted as a gentleman and a recusant, I now never heard of any priest arrested in any part of England but I feared it should be him.

Hubert Rookwood was now more than ever at Mr. Lacy's house, and in his library, for they did both affection the same pursuits, albeit with very different abilities; and I was used to transcribe for them divers passages from manuscripts and books, taking greater pleasure, so to spend time, than to embroider in Kate's room, the compass of whose thoughts became each day more narrow, and her manner of talk more tasteless. Hubert seemed not well pleased when I told him my father had been ordained abroad. I gathered this from a troubled look in his eyes, and an increasing paleness, which betokened, to my now observant eyes, emotions which he gave not vent to in words at all, or leastways in any that should express strong resentment. His silence always frighted me more than anger in others. He had acquired a great influence over me, and, albeit I was often ill at ease in his company, I ill brooked his absence. He was a zealous Catholic, and did adduce arguments and proofs in behalf of his religion with rare ability. Some of his writings which I copied at that time had a cogency and clearness in their reasons and style, which in my poor judgment betokened a singular sharp understanding and ingenuity of learning; but in his conversation, and writings also, was lacking the fervency of spirit, the warmth of devout aims, the indifferency to worldly regards, which should belong to a truly Christian soul, or else the nobleness and freedom of speech which some do possess from natural temper. But his attainments were far superior to those of the young men I used to see at Mr. Wells's, and such as gave him an extraordinary reputation amongst the persons I was wont to associate with, which contributed not a little to the value I did set on his preference, of which no proofs were wanting, save an open paying of his addresses to me, which by reason of his young age and mine, and the poorness of his prospects, being but a younger son of a country gentleman, was easy of account. He had a great desire for wealth and for all kind of greatness, and used to speak of learning as a road to it.

In the spring of that year, my Lord Surrey left Cambridge, and came to live at Howard House with his lady. They were then both in their eighteenth years, and a more comely pair could not be seen. The years that had passed since she had left London had greatly matured her beauty. She was taller of stature than the common sort, and very fair and graceful. The earl was likewise tall, very straight, long-visaged, but of a pleasant and noble countenance. I could not choose but admire her perfect carriage, toward her lord, her relatives, and her servants; the good order she established in her house; the care she took of her sister's education, who in two years was to be married to Lord William Howard; and her great charity to the poor, which she then began to visit herself, and to relieve in all sorts of ways, and was wont to say the angels of that old house where God had been served by so many prayers and alms must needs assist her in her care for {766} those in trouble. My lord appeared exceedingly fond of her then. One day when I was visiting her ladyship, he asked me if I had read the life of that sweet holy Queen Elizabeth of Hungary; and as I said I had not met with it, he gifted me with a copy fairly printed and well ornamented, which Mr. Martin had left behind him when he went beyond seas, and said:

"Mistress Sherwood, see if in this book you find not the likeness of a lady which you mislike not any more than I do. Beshrew me, but I fear I may find some day strange guests in mine house if she do copy the pattern herein set down; and so I will e'en send the book out of the house, for my lady is too good for me already, and I be no fitting husband for a saint, which a very little more of virtue should make her."

And so he laughing, and she prettily checking his wanton speech, and such sweet loving looks and playful words passing between them as gladdened my heart to see.

Some time after, I found one day my Lady Surrey looking somewhat grave and thoughtful. She greeted me with an affectionate kiss, and said,

"Ah, sweet Constance, I be glad thou art come; for methinks we shall soon leave London."

"So soon?" I answered.

"Not too soon, dear Constance," she said somewhat sadly.

I did look wistfully in her sweet face. Methought there was trouble in it, and doubt if she should further speak or not; for she rested her head on her hand, and her dark eyes did fix themselves wistfully on mine, as if asking somewhat of me, but what I knew not. "Constance," she said at last, "I have no mother, no sister of mine own age, no brother, no ghostly father, to speak my mind to. Methinks it should not be wrong to unbosom my cares to thee, who, albeit young, hast a thoughtful spirit, and, as I have often observed, an aptness to give good counsel. And then thou art of that way of thinking wherein I was brought up, and though in outward show we now do differ, I am not greatly changed therein, as thou well knowest."

"Alack!" I cried, "too well I do know it, dear lady; and, albeit my tongue is silent thereon, my heart doth grieve to see you comfortless of that which is the sole source of true comfort."

"Tis not that troubles me," she answered, a little impatiently. "Thou art unreasonable, Constance. My duty to my lord shapes my outward behavior; but I have weighty cares, nevertheless. Dost thou mind that passage in the late duke our father's letter to his son and me?--that we should live in a lower degree, and out of London and from the court. Methinks a prophetic spirit did move him thus to write. My lord has a great heart and a generous temper, and loves to spend money in all sorts of ways, profitable and unprofitable, as I too well observe since we have been in London. And the queen sent him a store of messages by my Lord Essex, and others of his friends, that she was surprised not to see him at court; and that it was her highness's pleasure he should wait upon her, and she shall show him so much favor as he deserves, and such like inducements."

"And hath my lord been to court?" I asked.

"Yea, he hath been," she answered, sighing deeply. "He hath been forced to kiss the hand which signed his father's death-warrant. Constance, it is this which doth so pain me, that her majesty should think he hath in his heart no resentment of that mishap. She said to my Lady Berkeley some days since, when she sued for some favor at her hands, 'No, no, my Lady Berkeley; you love us not, and never will. You cannot forgive us your brother's death.' Why should her grace think a son hath less resentment of a father's loss than a sister?"

Willing to minister comfort to her touching that on which I did, nevertheless, but too much consent to her thinking, I said, "In my lord's case, he must have needs appeared to mislike {767} the queen and her government if he stayed away from court, and his duty to his sovereign compelleth him to render her so much homage as is due to her majesty."

"Yea," cried my lady, "I be of the same mind with thee, that if my lord do live in London he is in a manner forced to swim with the tide, and God only knoweth into what a flood of troubles he may thus be led. But I have prevailed on him to go to Kenninghall, and there to enjoy that retired life his father passionately wished him to be contented with. So I do look, if it please God, to happy days when we leave this great city, where so many and great dangers beset us."

"Have you been to court likewise, dear lady?" I asked; and she answered,

"No; her majesty doth deny me that privilege which the wife of a nobleman should enjoy without so much as the asking for it. My Lord Arundel and my Lord Sussex are mad thereon, and swear 'tis the gipsy's doing, as they do always title Lord Leicester, and a sign of his hatred to my lord. But I be not of their mind; for methinks he doth but aid my lord to win the queen's favor by the slights which are put on his wife, which, if he doth take patiently, must needs secure for him such favor as my Lord Leicester should wish, if report speaks truly, none should enjoy but himself."

"But surely," I cried, "my lord's spirit is too noble to stomach so mean a treatment of his lady?"

A burning blush spread over the countess's face, and she answered,

"Constance, nobility of soul is shaped into action by divers motives and influences. And, I pray thee, since his father's death and the loss of his first tutor, who hath my lord had to fashion the aims of his eager spirit to a worthy ambition, and teach him virtuous contentment with a meaner rank and lower fortunes than his birth do entitle him to? He chafes to be degraded, and would fain rise to the heights his ancestors occupied; and, alas! the ladder which those who beset him--for that they would climb after him--do ever set before his eyes is the queen's majesty's favor. 'Tis the breath of their nostrils, the perpetual theme of their discourse. Mine ears sometimes ache with the sound of their oft-repeated words."

Then she broke off her speech for an instant, but soon asked me if to consult fortune-tellers was not a sin.

"Yea," I answered, "the Church doth hold it to be unlawful."

"Ah!" she replied, "I would to God my lord had never resorted to a person of that sort, which hath filled his mind with an apprehension which will work us great evil, if I do mistake not."

"Alas!" I said, "hath my lord been so deluded?"

"Thou hast heard, I ween," my lady continued, "of one Dr. Dee, whom the queen doth greatly favor, and often charge him to cast her horoscope. Some time ago my lord was riding with her majesty and the most part of her court near unto this learned gentleman's house at Mortlake, which her highness, taking notice of, she must needs propose to visit him with all her retinue, in order, she said, to examine his library and hold conference with him. But learning that his wife had been buried only four hours, her majesty would not enter, but desired my Lord Leicester to take her down from her horse at the church-wall at Mortlake and to fetch the doctor unto her, who did bring out for her grace's inspection his magic-glass, of which she and all those with her did see some of the properties. Several of the noblemen thereunto present were greatly contented and delighted with this cunning witchery, and did agree to visit again, in a private manner, this learned man, for to have their nativities calculated; and my lord, I grieve to say, went with them. And this cheat or wizard, for methinks one or other of those names must needs belong to him, predicted to my lord that he should be in great danger to be overthrown by a woman. And, I {768} ween, good Constance, there was a craft in this most deep and deceptive, for doth it not tend, whichever way it be understood, to draw and urge onward my lord to a careful seeking to avoid this danger by a diligent serving and waiting on her majesty, if she be the woman like to undo him, or else to move him to the thought that his marriage--as I doubt not many endeavor to insinuate into his mind--should be an obstacle to her favor such as must needs mar his fortunes? Not that my lord hath breathed so much as one such painful word in my hearing, or abated in his kind behavior; but there are others who be not slow to hint so much to myself; and, I pray you, shall they not then deal with him in the same manner, albeit he is too noble and gentle to let me hear of it? But since that day he is often thoughtful when we are alone, and his mind ever running on means to propitiate her majesty, and doth send her many presents, the value of which should rather mark them as gifts from one royal person to another than from a subject to his prince. O Constance, I would Kenninghall were a thousand miles from London, and a wild sea to run between it and the court, such as could with difficulty be crossed; but 'tis vain wishing; and I thank God my lord should be willing to remove there, and so we shall be in quiet."

"God send it!" I answered; "and that you, my sweet lady, may find there all manner of contentment." Then I asked her ladyship if she had tidings of my Lady l'Estrange.

"Yea," she answered; "excellent good tidings, for that she was a contented wife to a loving husband. Sir Hammond," she said, "hath a most imperious temper, and, as I hear, doth not brook the least contradiction; so that a woman less mild and affectionate than Milicent should not, I ween, live at peace with him. But her sweet temper doth move her to such strict condescension to his humors, that she doth style herself most fortunate in marriage and a singular happy wife. Dost mind Master Chaucer's tale of the patient Grizzel, which Phil read to me some years back, soon after our first marriage, for to give me a lesson on wifely duty, and which I did then write to thee the story of?"

"Yea, well," I cried; "and that I was so angered at her patience, which methought was foolish, yea, wicked in its excess, that it did throw me into a passion."

My lady laughed and said, indeed she thought so too; but Milicent, in her behavior and the style of her letters, did mind her so much of that singular obedient wife, that she did sometimes call her Grizzel to her face. "She is now gone to reside with her husband," she said, "at a seat of his not very far from Lynn. 'Tis a poor and wild district; and the people, I hear, do resort to her in great numbers for assistance in the way of medicine and surgery, and for much help of various sorts. She is greatly contented that her husband doth in nowise impede her in these charitable duties, but rather the contrary. She is a creature of such natural good impulses and compassionate spirit that must needs show kindness to all who do come in her way."

Then my lady questioned me touching Muriel and Mistress Ward, and Kate and Polly, who were now both married; and I told her Kate had a fair son and Polly a little daughter, like to prove as sharp as her mother if her infant vivacity did not belie her. As to Muriel and her guide and friend, I told her ladyship that few were like to have speech with them, save such as were in so destitute a condition that nothing could exceed it. Now that my two elder cousins had left home, mine uncle's house was become a sort of refuge for the poor, and an hospital for distressed Catholics.

"And thou, Constance," my lady said, "dost thou not think on marriage?"

I smiled and answered I did sometimes; but had not yet met with any one altogether conformable to my liking.

{769}

"Not Mr. Hubert Rookwood?" she said smiling; "I have been told he haunts Mrs. Lacy's house, and would fain be admitted as Mistress Sherwood's suitor."

"I will not deny," I answered, "but that he doth testify a vast regard for me, or that he is a gentleman of such great parts and exceedingly winning speech that a gentlewoman should be flattered to be addressed by him; but, dear lady," I continued, opening my heart to her, "albeit I relish greatly his society, mine heart doth not altogether incline to his suit; and Mr. Congleton hath lately warned me to be less free in allowing of his attentions than hath hitherto been my wont; for, he said, his means be so scanty, that it behoveth him not to think of marriage until his fortunes do improve; and that his father would not be competent to make such settlements as should be needful in such a case, or without which he should suffer us to marry. As Hubert had never opened to me himself thereon in so pointed a fashion as to demand an answer from me, I was somewhat surprised at mine uncle's speech; but I found he had often ministered talk of his passion for me--for so he termed it--to Kate and her husband."

"And did it work in thee, sweet one, no regrets," my lady asked, "that the course of this poor gentleman's true love should be marred by his lack of wealth?"

"In truth no, dear lady," I replied; "except that I did notice, with so much of pain as a good heart must needs feel in the sufferings of another, that he was both sad and wroth at the change in my manner. And indeed I had always seen--and methinks this was the reason that my heart inclined not warmly toward his suit--that his affection was of that sort that doth readily breed anger; and that if he had occasion to misdoubt a return from me of such-like regard as he professed, his looks of love sometimes changed into a scowl, or something nearly resembling one. Yet I had a kindness toward him, yea, more than a kindness, an attachment, which methinks should have led me to correspond to his affection so far as to be willing to marry him, if mine uncle had not forbade me to think on it; but since he hath laid his commands upon me on that point, methinks I have experienced a freedom of soul and a greater peace than I had known for some time past."

"'Tis well then as it is," my lady said; and after some further discourse we parted that day.

It had been with me even as I had said to her. My mind had been more at ease since the contending would and would not, the desire to please Hubert and the fear to be false in so doing, had been stayed,--and mostly since he had urged me to entertain him as a friend, albeit defended to receive him as a lover. And that peace lasted until a day--ay, a day which began like other days with no perceptible presentiment of joy or sorrow, the sun shining as brightly, and no more, at its rise than on any other morning in June; and the thunder-clouds toward noon overshadowing its glory not more darkly than a storm is wont to do the clear sky it doth invade; nor yet evening smiling again more brightly and peacefully than is usually seen when nature's commotion is hushed, and the brilliant orb of day doth sink to rest in a bed of purple glory; and yet that day did herald the greatest joys, presage the greatest anguish, mark the most mighty beginnings of most varied endings that can be thought of in the life of a creature not altogether untried by sorrow, but on the brink of deeper waters than she had yet sounded, on the verge of such passages as to have looked forward to had caused her to tremble with a two-fold resentment of hope and of fear, and to look back to doth constrain her to lay down her pen awhile for to crave strength to recount the same.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

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{770}

From Chambers's Journal.

TERRENE PHOSPHORESCENCE.

It has been suggested that light, heat, magnetism, and electricity are only the effects of motion among the molecules of matter. Our earth is but an aggregation of atoms, and every substance upon which we lay our hands is in like manner formed of infinitesimal particles, so small as to baffle microscopic investigation. When we consider that animalcula have been discovered so minute that it would take a million of them to form a grain of sand, it is evident that motion as motion among the ultimate particles of matter is beyond man's powers of observation. Physical investigations have led us to believe that these atoms have an action or circulation of their own, and as this action of necessity escapes our eye, it is not irrational, when looking for some evidence of this disturbance, to attribute to it physical forces for which we cannot satisfactorily account, yet which appertain to the earth. Thus has arisen the hypothesis above stated; and intimately connected with those forces (heat, electricity, etc.) is phosphorescence, a power on which the examinations of twenty years have thrown little light, and which still remains of doubtful origin.

The power in minerals, plants, and animals of producing light is apparently a consequence of these objects being under the direct influence, permanently, or for a time, of heat, light, or electricity, as some substances become phosphorescent after insolation, or exposure to the sun's rays; others, from heat: others, by having an electric current passed through them; and lastly, some give forth a phosphoric light of their own, without any appreciable warmth. Whatever may be the cause of this property, it is found to pervade all parts of creation: the atmosphere, the common stones by the wayside, the flowers in cottage gardens, and the humble insects or worms crawling at our feet, can shed around a faint glimmer of light. The earth itself is occasionally, if not always, self-luminous, as are other of the heavenly bodies. Venus, Jupiter, the moon, and comets, are conjectured to have a certain portion of phosphoric light, which is independent of and unborrowed from the sun. The luminosity of the earth is made evident to us on starless, moonless nights. We may not have thought of it, but still it is certain that light surrounds us from some source or other in varying quantities, on such nights as are above described; for our movements are very different, even when walking in the open air on the darkest nights, from what they would be in a cave, or when groping in a room with closed shutters. This phase of phosphorescence, and also that of faint flickering clouds against the horizon, is distinct from meteorological phosphorescence, which branch of the subject includes luminous rain, fog, dust, ignis-fatuus, northern and southern lights. A shower of dust which fell during an eruption of Vesuvius in 1794, had a faint luminosity in the dark, distinctly visible on the sails of vessels on which it had fallen. Many instances are recorded of rain producing sparks as it touched the ground, and Arago collected the authentic accounts of this phenomenon. In June, 1731, an ecclesiastic near Constance described the rain during a thunder-storm as falling like drops of red-hot liquid metal; and it is observable that most of these sparkling showers seem to have occurred during thunder-storms, or when the air was highly charged with electricity.

But complete mystery still surrounds the cause of luminous fogs and mists, {771} which are of rare occurrence. Of these there are few well founded accounts, and the most recent instance of one was, we believe, in 1859, continuing for a succession of nights. It lasted from then 18th to the 26th of November, and, in the absence of any moon, so illuminated the heavens as to render small objects distinctly visible in the sitting room of M. Wartenan of Geneva, whose description of it will be found in the Comptes Rendus of the Academy of Sciences, Paris, for December, 1859. It was not a wet fog, but a sort of dry mist, so impenetrable as to render invisible the banks of the river Leman, but at the same time diffusing sufficient phosphoric light to make small objects clear as on a moonlight night. This was also testified by persons travelling on foot from Geneva to Annemasse, between the hours of 10 and 12 P.M. Another famous instance was in 1783, when a dry fog, lasting for a month, covered the northern parts of America, and Europe from Sweden to Africa. It resembled moonlight through a veil of clouds, and was equally diffused on all sides, making objects visible at a distance of six hundred yards. Being, as it were, a deep mass of phosphoric vapor, reaching to the summit of the highest mountains, no storms of rain or wind seemed to affect it; but in Europe it was thought to emit an unpleasant sulphurous smell.

Another feature of meteorological phosphorescence is that of luminous appearances at sea, quite distinct from the luminosity of the ocean itself as produced by marine animalcula. Mrs. Somerville gives the following interesting description of one of these phosphoric phenomena: "Captain Bonnycastle, coming up the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the 7th of September, 1826, was roused by the mate of the vessel in great alarm from an unusual appearance. It was a starlight night, when suddenly the sky became overcast in the direction of the highland of Cornwallis country, and an instantaneous and intensely vivid light, resembling the aurora, shot out of the hitherto gloomy and dark sea on the lee-bow, which was so brilliant that it lighted every thing distinctly, even to the mast-head. The light spread over the whole sea between the two shores, and the waves, which before had been tranquil, now began to be agitated. Captain Bonnycastle describes the scene as that of a blazing sheet of awful and most brilliant light. A long and vivid line of light, superior in brightness to the parts of the sea not immediately near the vessel, showed the base of the high, frowning, and dark land abreast; the sky became lowering and more intensely obscure. Long tortuous lines of light showed immense numbers of very large fish darting about, as if in consternation. The sprit-sail-yard and mizzen-boom were lighted by the glare, as if gas-lights had been burning directly below them; and until just before daybreak, at four o'clock, the most minute objects were distinctly visible. Day broke very slowly, and the sun rose of a fiery and threatening aspect. Rain followed. Captain Bonnycastle caused a bucket of this fiery water to be drawn up: it was one mass of light when stirred by the hand, and not in sparks, as usual, but in actual coruscations. A portion of the water preserved its luminosity for seven nights. On the third night, scintillations of the sea reappeared; in the evening the sun went down very singularly, exhibiting in its descent a double sun; and when only a few degrees high, its spherical figure changed into that of a long cylinder, which reached the horizon. In the night the sea became nearly as luminous as before; but on the fifth night the appearance entirely ceased. Captain Bonnycastle does not think it proceeded from animalcula, but imagines it might be some compound of phosphorus, suddenly evolved, and disposed over the surface of the sea; perhaps from the exuviae or secretions of fish connected with the oceanic salts, muriate of soda and sulphate of magnesia."

{772}

Quite distinct from luminous mists is another species of phosphoric phenomenon in the shape of luminous bodies of considerable size and brilliancy. We find Arago saying, in 1838, "that great luminous meteors, similar to lightning in their nature, show themselves sometimes at the surface of the globe, even when the sky does not appear stormy." An instance of this is given by a Mr. Edwards, as having been seen by him when crossing Loch Scavig in a boat at night. In this instance, a light swept rapidly over the face of the water, resembling the light in a cabin window, but moving with great rapidity. It passed near the boat, and caused much consternation among the boatmen, who viewed it as something supernatural; but it was soon out of sight, following a curved course. A far more startling occurrence was seen by the ship Montague when "a few minutes before mid-day, and in perfectly serene weather, a large bluish globe of fire rolled up to the ship, the Montague, and exploded, shattering one of the masts. This globe of fire appeared as large as a millstone." This appearance does not seem to have had the swiftness of motion we should expect if it had been a species of globular lightning, but rather resembled a gigantic ignis-fatuus, which sometimes takes a globular form, and although generally attributed to the combustion of phosphuretted hydrogen gas, may and does arise from certain electrical conditions of the atmosphere. A remarkable ignis-fatuus is described by Dr. Shaw in his travels in the Holy Land. He observed it on Mount Ephraim, and it followed him for more than an hour. "Sometimes it appeared globular, at others it spread itself to such a degree as to involve the whole company in a pale inoffensive light; then it contracted itself, and suddenly disappeared, but in less than a minute would appear again; sometimes running swiftly along, it would expand itself over two or three acres of the adjacent mountains."

We will not dwell on other instances of ignis-fatuus, a phenomenon so common as to be known to all. But although this form of gas--phosphuretted hydrogen--has been long known as luminous, it is only since 1859 that gases in general have been discovered to possess phosphoric qualities when exposed to the sun's light. It is a remarkable fact, but one which has been proved, that, with the exception of metals, nearly all terrestrial bodies appear luminous when taken into the dark after insolation or exposure to the sun. They absorb so much light as to give it back again when removed from its influence, and this property is opposed to electricity, for we find that good conductors of that fluid are not liable to insolated phosphorescence. The first discovery of this property was made by Viscenzo Cascariolo, a shoemaker of Bologna, who, loving alchemy, and seeking gold, found in his ramble a heavy stone, from which he hoped and longed to produce the precious metal. Failing in this, he found what till then was unknown, that sulphuret of baryta would "absorb the sun's rays by day, to emit them by night." From him this substance has received the name of Bologna stone; and this first discovery has been followed by others, which prove that phosphoric light may be produced by heat, friction, cleavage, and many other forces beside insolation. Some diamonds shine in the dark after a few minutes' exposure to the sun; others cannot be made phosphorescent by heat if uncut, but when polished, or submitted to two or three electric discharges, easily become luminous. So slight a heat is required to call forth this light-giving property in some substances, that rare kinds of clorophane shine in a dark room from the mere warmth of the hand; and other substances are phosphorized by the slightest friction. Thus Dana says: "Merely the rapid motion of a feather across some specimens of sulphuret of zinc will often elicit light more or less intense from this metal."

Several simple and amusing experiments may be made to show the {773} phosphorescence of minerals. The power of cleavage to produce light is seen when sugar is broken in a mortar. If a sufficient quantity is ground rapidly in the dark, the whole will appear a mass of fire. If phosphuretted hydrogen is evolved by throwing phosphuret of calcium into water, each bubble as if rises will fire spontaneously on combining with the air. But the most elegant production of light is the result of an experiment by Professor Pontus in 1833: "He showed that a vivid spark is produced when water is made to freeze rapidly. A small glass, terminating in a short tube, is filled with water; the whole is covered with a sponge or cotton-wool imbibed with ether, and placed in an air pump. As soon as the experimenter begins to produce a vacuum, the ether evaporates, and the sponge or cotton-wool descends, the temperature of the water rises rapidly. But some instants before congelation takes place, a brilliant spark, perfectly visible in the daytime, is suddenly shot out of the little tube that terminates the glass globe."

Before passing on to the consideration of animal phosphorescence, let us glance at the luminosity of plants. This is found in many phanerogams and cryptogams. In the latter, it is well known, from being found frequently in mines, where the fungus mycelium is seen spreading its web-like growth, and diffusing a tranquil light, sufficiently strong to read by, as some have affirmed. The most beautiful instance of this is found in the mines in Hesse, where the galleries for supplying air are illumined with this soft phosphoric light. No example of phosphorescence among sea-weed has been known, but the delicate little moss Schistostega osmundacea is luminous. Among phanerogams, or ordinary plants, are many examples of phosphorescence. Several kinds of garden nasturtiums, sun-flowers, French and African marigolds, yellow lilies, and poppies, have been seen to emit either sparks or a steady light. By some it is thought that it is produced when the pollen flies off and is scattered over the petals, but it is invariably noticed on warm tranquil evenings, when there is electricity in the atmosphere. It is observed that nearly all the flowers proved to be phosphoric are of a yellow color, but the cause of this has not been ascertained. The leaves of an American plant (OEnothera macrocapa) have been seen, during a severe storm of thunder and lightning, to emit brilliant flashes of light, and this is, we believe, the only plant as yet discovered with phosphoric foliage. M. Martins of Montpellier has noticed that the juice of the Euphorbia phosphorea, when rubbed on paper, appears luminous in the dark, or when heated. But the most remarkable instance is that of the common potato emitting a brilliant light: Mr. Phipson states that a soldier of Strasburg thought that the barracks were, on one occasion, on fire, from the light which was found to proceed from a cellar full of potatoes. It is a question whether they were in a state of decomposition, and if so, it differs slightly from the luminosity of decaying wood, which is usually caused by the presence of phosphoric fungi.

To attempt to enumerate the animals of inferior organism which are phosphoric would be impossible, as almost every known zoophyte is possessed of this light-giving quality; and perhaps no branch of the subject has received so much attention as that which concerns animals, from the fact of the phosphorescence of dead animal matter and insects being phenomena of daily occurrence. On the former, very early observations were made. In 1592, Fabricius d'Acquapendente relates the astonishment of three Roman youths who found the remains of their Easter lamb shining like candles in the dark. Nearly a century later, Robert Boyle described the phosphorescence of a neck of veal "as a very splendid show," and in a paper in the Philosophical Transactions tried to {774} account for it. It is found that flesh will continue luminous about four days.

Among the insect-world there are numerous light-giving members. The common glowworm needs no description, and the lantern flies of the tropics are almost as well known. Tropical regions abound with these fire-flies, seventy kinds of which are found in South America and the southern states of the northern continent. Some of them emit the light from the abdomen, others from the head. The famous Fulgora lanternaria, or lantern-fly of Linnaeus, produces the light from the long transparent horn or proboscis curving upward from the head. The light of one of these is sufficiently bright to read a newspaper by, and two or three of them in a bottle is the common form of lamp. The natives also light their way on a dark night by tying one or two at the end of a stick. The Noctua psi, a little gray night-flying moth, is luminous, as also are some kinds of caterpillars; and the cricket and "daddy long-legs" have the same property attributed to them by some naturalists. The reader cannot fail to have noticed that there is no instance recorded of any larger animal producing phosphoric light. Invisible animalcula and insects are numerous, and of late years the common earthworm, or Lambricus, has been proved beyond doubt to have a phosphoric power; but beyond this, and the crawling centipede (Scolopendra), there is no animal with light-giving power. The gleaming light seen in the eyes of cats, dogs, and wild animals has been called phosphoric; but this is doubtful, and more nearly resembles some phase of reflected light. Humboldt, and later the natural historian, Reuger, speak of a monkey, Nyctipithecus trivirgatus as having eyes so brilliant as to illumine objects some inches off.

But this is the only case of at all probable phosphoric light. Perhaps, in this very instance, it arose from some peculiar physical condition of the animal; in the same way as the scintillation in the eyes of one or two human beings was found connected with extreme delicacy of constitution. The phenomenon of brilliant colors being perceived on a person pressing his eye, or on the injury of the optic nerve, is called by Mr. Phipson subjective phosphorescence, but this is only an undeveloped hypothesis.

Old dames and superstitious northerners speak of Elf-candles as preceding death; and of the fact of human bodies during life exhibiting phosphoric light there is no doubt, but it also depends on the state of the body, and does not signify the sure approach of death. A lady in Italy is described by Bartholin as producing phosphoric radiation when her body was gently rubbed with dry linen, and more than one instance of pale light surrounding sick persons is recorded on good authority. This portion of the science of phosphorescence is involved in the same mystery as the previously described branches; theories are suggested; but no real satisfactory explanation is found for the different kinds of luminosity. We will close this article with an account given by Dr. Kane of an extraordinary case of phosphorescence on the human body which occurred in the polar regions. It was on the night of January 2, 1854, that the party sought shelter from an icy death-dealing wind in an Esquimaux hut. Exhaustion, added to the intense cold, induced sleep, but as the doctor was composing himself for the night, he was aroused by an exclamation that the fire was out. To try and relight it was the instant endeavor of Dr. Kane and his man. The latter failing, the doctor, in despair, sought to do so himself. "It was so intensely dark," says he, "that I had to grope for it (the pistol with which they strove to produce a spark), and in doing so touched his hand. At that instant, the pistol became distinctly visible. A pale bluish light, slightly tremulous, but not broken, covered the metallic parts of it--the barrel, lock, and trigger. The {775} stock, too, was clearly discernible, as if by the reflected light, and to the amazement of both of us, the thumb and two fingers with which Petersen was holding it, the creases, wrinkles, and circuit of the nails clearly defined upon the skin. The phosphorescence was not unlike the ineffectual fire of the glowworm. As I took the pistol, my hand became illuminated also, and so did the powder-rubbed paper when I raised it against the muzzle. The paper did not ignite at the first trial; but the light from it continuing, I was able to charge the pistol without difficulty."

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From The Month.

CIVILIZATION IN THE FIFTH CENTURY.

The name of Ozanam was already celebrated in the world of letters, and he had published some portions of his historical course, when he died, in the midst of his unfinished labors. His early death is a fresh proof of the truth of the old adage, Ars longa, vita brevis, and the interest of his short autobiography is intense. He tells us of himself: "In the midst of an age of scepticism God gave me the blessing of having a Christian father and a religious mother; and he gave me for my first instructress a sister full of intelligence, and devout, like the angels whom she has gone to join. But, in the course of time, the rumors of an infidel world reached even to me, and I knew all the horror of those doubts which weigh down the heart during the day, and which return at night upon the pillow moistened with tears. The uncertainty of my eternal destiny left me no repose. I clung with despair to the sacred dogmas, and I thought I felt them give way in my grasp. It was then that I was saved by the teaching of a priest well versed in philosophy. He arranged and cleared up my ideas. I believed from that time with a firm faith, and, penetrated with the sense of so rare a blessing, I vowed to God that I would devote my life to the service of that truth which had given me peace. Twenty years have passed away since that time. Providence has done everything to snatch me from business and to fix me in intellectual labors. The combination of circumstances has led me to study chiefly religion, law, and letters. I have visited the places which could afford me information. The historian Gibbon, as he wandered on the capitol, beheld issuing from the gates of the basilica of Ara Coeli a long procession of Franciscans, who marked with their sandals the pavement trodden by so many triumphs. It was then that, inspired by indignation, he formed the design of avenging antiquity thus outraged by Christian barbarism, and he conceived the plan of a History of the Fall of the Roman Empire. I too have seen the monks of Ara Coeli tread the ancient pavement of Jupiter Capitolinus, and I rejoiced at it, as the victory of love over strength; and I resolved to write the history of progress in those ages where philosophy finds only decadence; the history of civilization in barbarous times, the history of thought escaping the shipwreck of letters, forti tegente brachio" (Pref., pp. 2, 5.)

The professor relates himself, with all the vigor of his intellect, the great and glorious plan of history which was the object of his life, in a letter dated Jan. 25, 1848: "This will be the literary history of barbarous times, the history of letters, and consequently {776} of civilization, from the Latin decadence, and the first beginning of Christian genius, to the end of the thirteenth century. I shall make it the subject of my lectures during ten years, if it is necessary, and if God prolongs my life. The subject would be admirable, for it would consist in making known this long and laborious education which the Church bestowed on modern nations." He then marks the salient points of his picture--the intellectual state of the world at the commencement of Christianity--the monde barbare and its irruption into civilized society, and met by the labors of Boethius, Isidore of Seville, Ven. Bede, and St. Boniface, who carried the torch of learning from one country to another, and handed it down to Charlemagne. Then follow the crusades, and then the three glorious centuries of the middle ages, when St. Anselm, St. Bernard, Peter Lombard, Albert the Great, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventure achieved for the world of intellect all that the Church and state acquired from Gregory VII., Alexander III., Innocent III. and IV., Frederic II., St. Louis, and Alfonso X. He gives a resume of the events which influenced modern history, and ends by saying, "My labors would be completed by la Divina Commedia, the greatest monument of a period, of which it may be called an abridgment, and of which it is the glory." "This is proposed to himself by a man who was near dying, a year and a half ago, and who is not yet wholly recovered. But I depend entirely on the goodness of God, in case he is pleased to restore my health and preserve to me the love for these noble studies with which he has inspired me." (Pref., pp. 3-6.)

Such was the object and occupation of his life from the age of eighteen, when he was an obscure student, to the time when he pronounced, as professor, the lectures which contained the labors of twenty years. Happily for himself, he had learnt early the result of labor. When he was twenty years of age, he wrote, "We exist on earth only to accomplish the will of God. This will is fulfilled day by day; and he who dies, leaving his task unfinished, is, in the sight of the divine maker, as far advanced as he who has had time to bring his to completion."

It was at Pisa, April 23, 1853, that M. Ozanam wrote a prayer so solemn, as well as so touching, that his friend, Father Ampere, seems to hesitate whether it ought to be laid before the public. His hesitation was conquered by the desire of making what is so excellent known, and he publishes the soliloquy of the dying man:

"I have said, 'In the midst of my days I shall go down to the gates of death,' etc. (Canticle Ezek.)

"This day is completed my fortieth year: more than half the ordinary span of life. I am, however, dangerously ill. Must I, then, quit all these possessions which thou thyself hast given me, my God? Wilt thou not, O Lord, accept a part of the sacrifice? Which of my ill-regulated affections shall I offer up to thee? Wilt not thou accept the holocaust of my literary self-love, my academical ambition, my prospects for study, in which, perhaps, there is mingled more pride than zeal for truth? If I sold the half of my books and gave the price of them to the poor, and if I restricted myself to fulfilling the duties of my office, and consecrated the rest of my life to visiting the poor and instructing apprentices and soldiers, Lord, would this be a sufficient satisfaction, and wouldst thou leave me the happiness of living to old age with my wife, and completing the education of my child? Perhaps, O my God, this is not thy will. Thou wilt not accept these selfish offerings. Thou rejectest my holocaust and my sacrifices. It is myself whom thou requirest. It is written in the commencement of the book that I must do thy will, and I have said, O Lord, I come."

It is with a solemn interest that we turn to the fragments of that work to which Ozanam devoted his life and {777} energies, and we find it to be the history of modern Europe. He himself lays down the three elements of history. "First, chronology, which preserves the general succession of events; then legend, which gives them life and color; and then philosophy, which fills them, as it were, with soul and intelligence."

In the childhood of the world, when the desire of knowledge was fresh and strong, all pagan histories began with the siege of Troy, and all Christian histories from Adam and Eve. Authors gained fame by chronicles of all past events, because it satisfied the natural curiosity of man to know the antecedents of his country or race. As time went on, history became the expression of popular feelings; and what took place generally may be inferred from what we know of our own country. The British monk, Geoffrey of Monmouth, wrote of Arthur, the champion of the faith and the model of chivalry; and the Venerable Bede wrote of the saints among his own Saxon countrymen; then came, with the evils of the reformation, a reverence for what was ancient, and Stow wrote of Catholic England with a fidelity which ranked him among the benefactors of his country. But then also egotism began. Each must think for himself, and appropriate the results of former labors; each must analyze, or generalize, or criticise; and perhaps it is true that the original writer is he who gives to the world his own view of things, and not the things themselves. If he is unselfish and loves truth for itself, he is a poet; if he subjects truth to his own views, he writes of history, but he does not write history; facts become subservient to theories, and he mentions only a few, as necessary illustrations of his own system. The reader yawns over the succession of kings and events, and chooses for his guide the infidel Hume, the philanthropic Mackintosh, or the Hanoverian Macaulay. The fashion of the present day is the idolization of nature. This has made art pre-Raphaelite, and poetry euphuistic. History, too, is perhaps becoming a laborious restoration of the past. With a taste for detail which is truly Gothic, the popular historian must reproduce his characters with their own features, costume, and entourage, and the long forgotten personages, as if restored to life by the genius of Sir Walter Scott, must walk about the stage in mediaeval garb. History has gone through nearly the same phases on the continent until the period of the reformation. Then in Catholic countries--as France, Spain, and Italy--arose a more reasoning but a grave and instructive school of history, which preserved past events as a deposit of the ages of faith; and latterly, since excitement is become necessary to all, and the speculations of German literature have taught almost all to think, the French and German historians have adopted the philosophy of history. The German school takes a naked problem and proves it by a series of abstractions. We read Schlegel and Guizot, and we find, instead of facts or dates or persons, a sort of allegorical personification of civilization, liberty, progress, etc. This is rather declamation than narration, and those among the learned who value antiquity have found the art of realizing not the externals but the spirit of the past. Thus when Ozanam, as the professor of foreign literature at Paris, writes of the middle ages, the persons whom he names are, for the moment, living, not petrified, as in the stereoscope, but thinking, speaking, and acting, as if the writer could open a bright glimpse into the eternal world, where St. Denys, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas still contemplate the author and giver of all they knew. And when he speaks of the succession of events, it seems as if we passed from the midst of a crowded procession, jostling along the dusty highway, to an eminence from which we see the points of its departure and arrival, the distinguished persons, the great objects, and the direction of the march, and that we {778} not only see but understand and sympathize with the spirit of the undertaking. The thought is from above, but it becomes our own. For he not only classifies and generalizes, but he christianizes his glimpses into history. His pictures are indeed only illustrative of his principles; but when he introduces a person or a fact, he speaks of them with such intimacy of knowledge that it creates a keen curiosity as well as a consciousness of ignorance in the reader. But the reader of Ozanam must be already a historian before he can appreciate the benefit of having his knowledge classified and animated by a living principle, as well as vivified and rendered distinct, as the objects in a dull landscape by a beam of sunshine.

The mission of Ozanam seems to be the destruction of those errors as to the value of the knowledge possessed in the middle ages, which have existed since the renaissance.

It was natural that when the calamities of Europe were so far past as to permit the development of the intellectual faculties, men should be elated by their new powers, and undervalue the painful labors of men interrupted by violence and crime. Maitland, by the evidence of his own reading, saw the injustice of this, and said wittily, that "by the dark ages were meant the ages about which we are in the dark." But he could see only the outward face of mediaeval knowledge, and missed its vivifying spirit--the faith of the Church. Ozanam had the gift of faith, and traces with a firm hand the progress of human intellect, often concealed and limited, but always advancing, and often breaking out in power and glory when some sainted pope or doctor of the Church explained the principles of religion and philosophy.

But it would be presumptuous to anticipate Ozanam himself, whose own words as well as his very life itself have given a resume of his great object. It is at the conclusion of a lecture that he thus addresses the students:

"It is not my intention to follow out into its minor details the literary history of the fifth century. I only seek in it that light which will clear up the obscurity of the following ages. Travellers tell us of rivers which flow underneath rocks, and which reappear at a distance from the place where they were lost to the view. I trace up the stream of these traditions above the point where it seems to be lost, and I shall endeavor to descend with the stream into the abyss, in order to assure myself that I really behold the same waters at their outlet. Historians have opened a chasm between antiquity and barbarism. I have attempted to replace the connections which Providence has never suffered to fail in time any more than in space, etc. I should not brave the difficulties of such a study, gentlemen, if I were not supported, nay, urged onwards, by you. I call to witness these walls, that if ever, at rare intervals, I have been visited by inspiration, it was within their circuit; whether they have given back some of the glorious echoes with which they have formerly rung, or whether I have felt myself carried away by your ardent sympathies. Perhaps my design is rash; but you must share the responsibility. You will make up the deficiency of my strength. I shall grow old and gray-haired in the labor, if God permits; but the coldness of age shall not gain upon me so far as that I shall not be able to return, as this day, in order to renew the young vigor of my heart in the warmth of your youthful days."

It is in his lecture on pagan empires that Ozanam lays down the principle on which his views of mediaeval history are based: "Each epoch has a ruin and a conquest--a decadence and a renaissance." The greatest epoch of the world's history is that when all that was given to man at his creation was exchanged for a better nature at his redemption. This truth of destruction and regeneration is repeated over and over again through all created things--the seed must die before the {779} new grain can live. As each individual must be changed from the excellence of what he is still by nature to a heavenly model, so nations must be changed, and institutions perish and revive, and the great republic of letters, founded before the flood and perfected in Greece and Rome, must die and be regenerated in the Christian Church. The first decadence is that of pagan Rome.

It is impossible to represent by quotations the grand but terrible picture which Ozanam draws of paganism, in its glory, its worldly splendor, and its spiritual darkness. He does full justice to the excellence of every art and science which the heathens attained; but he shows that while the court of Augustus was the model of refinement and civilization, the altars were smoking with incense to devils, who were the personifications of every vice, and the rites of the temples were incantations and abominations. An audience of Christian students could not bear the too revolting details.

His object was the same as that of the great author of "Callista"--to destroy the prestige which still invests all that is classical. Rome was in truth a majestic empire, and even St. Jerome trembled at its fall: "Elle est captive la cite qui mit en captivite le monde."

St. Augustin was not a Roman, and was less overpowered by the terror of its fall. In the midst of the outcries which accused Christianity as the cause of the ruin which involved the world by the evident vengeance of heaven, the saint wrote his "City of God," and developed from the creation of the world to the times in which he lived the great Christian law of progress. A new empire--that of conscience--was to rule all nations. In this new empire strength and courage were of no avail, and women were as powerful as men in converting the world. Clotilde converted the heathen Franks, and Theodolind the Arian Lombards. The holy bishop St. Patrick converted in his lifetime the whole Irish nation; and the holy monk St. Benedict founded in the desert of Cassino the monastic armies of the Church; while St. Gregory, from his bed of sickness, headed the battle of civilization against barbarism. The victory was complete, and every converted country sent forth its missionaries to form Christian colonies.

Thus fell the power of Rome, but not her influence, for the great influence of paganism was the excellence of its literature. Though the Augustan writers were no more, yet Ammianus Marcellinus wrote history with the spirit of a soldier, and Vegetius wrote the precepts of the art of conquering. Symmachus was thought to rival Pliny in his letters; and, at the same time, Claudian, the last and not the least of Latin poets, succeeded Lucan in those historical epics so popular at Rome. He celebrated the war of Gildo and the victories of Stilicho over the Goths in verses equal to the "Pharsalia;" and his invectives against Eutropius and Rufinus, in defense of Stilicho his patron, are still considered masterpieces. He ignored not only Christianity but Christian writers, though St. Ambrose was at Milan and St. Augustin at Carthage, and wrote gravely of mythology in an age when few pagans believed its fables. He was an Egyptian by birth, and trained in the schools of Alexandria, and was patronized by the Christian emperor Honorius, who erected to him--as to the best of poets-- a statue in Trajan's Forum. Yet Claudian had truly pagan morals; he praised the vices of his patron Stilicho, and when he was murdered he wrote a poem to his enemy; "he misused both panegyric and satire, the powers of a good understanding and a rich fancy and flowing versification, which place him, after an interval of three hundred years, among the poets of ancient Rome." But while Claudian celebrated the conflict of Rome with the barbarians, he perceived not the mighty war between Christianity and paganism; and while our Lord and his blessed Mother {780} triumphed over the idols and their temples, he wasted his poetry in their praise; and when he recited a poem in the presence of Honorius and the senate, he spoke to them as if they believed in mythology. Ozanam gives one remarkable proof of the hold over men's minds retained by paganism. When Honorius took possession of the palace of Augustus on Mount Palatine, he assembled the senate, and in the presence of all these great persons, many of whom were Christian, Claudian unrolled the parchment whereon his verses were written in letters of gold, and addressed Honorius as resembling Jupiter conquering the giants. And again, when he had the office of showing the splendors of Rome to Honorius, when he visited it for the first time (404), he spoke of the city as a pagan in the language of idolatry. And the poet Rutilius, though born in Gaul, idolized Rome. "Rome was the last divinity of the ancients. Mother of men and gods" (he calls her, as he wrote his "Itinerary to Gaul"), "the sun rises and sets in thy dominions; thou hast made one country of many nations--one city of the world. Thy year is an eternal spring; the winter dares not stay thy joy." So powerful was the influence of pagan Rome over a foreigner; and that influence may be yet better perceived in the Christian poet Sidonius Apollinaris, who, though brought up, like Ausonius, in the Gallic schools, and sound in faith, could not write hexameters without mythology. The only language of poetry was pagan; and when he wrote to St. Patient, bishop of Lyons (who fed his people in famine), he compared him to Triptolemus.

The first antagonist of the Church, in her task of regenerating society, was paganism; the second, barbarism. Charlemagne constructed, on the ruins of the Roman empire, an empire of enlightened Christianity; but another decadence followed. The Normans sacked monasteries, and burned the Holy Scriptures, together with Aristotle and Virgil. The Huns destroyed the very grass of the fields. The Lombards seemed to be sent for the destruction of all that was left of human kind. Ozanam says, "Providence loves to surprise." The monks who escaped the Norman pirates preached to them amidst the ashes of their monasteries, and the Normans became Christians. Then arose the basilicas of Palermo and Monreale in Sicily, and the churches of Italy, Normandy, and England. St. Adalbert converted the Huns, and they defended Christendom against the vices of Byzantium and the invasions of Mohammedans. On the ruins of the Roman empire arose the kingdoms of France, Germany, and Italy. Of this new empire, feudality and chivalry were the opposite elements. Feudality was the principle of division, chivalry that of fraternity; and these remodelled society.

The calamities attending this final disruption of the empire interrupted study, and learning was confined to the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, from whence missionaries carried not only religion but learning into the countries where they were almost extinguished by the Goths. Germany had three great monasteries--Nouvelle Corbie, Fulda, and St. Gall. At this last monastery was preserved the classic literature. Monks studied grammar and wrote AEneids. The royal Hedwige introduced the study of Greek at St. Gull; and Ozanam relates it in one of those graphic incidents which are worth volumes. A new period began with Gregory VII. When he said, "Lord, I have loved justice, and hated iniquity; wherefore I die in exile," a bishop replied, "You cannot die in exile, because God has given you the earth for your jurisdiction, and the nations for your inheritance." Then followed the crusades, that wonderful and providential means by which the civilization of the East was brought into the service of the Western Church. They destroyed feudalism; for all who fought gained glory, whether serf or noble. {781} Chivalric poetry arose. Germany had its Niebelungen, Spain its Cid. Then arose the arts around Giotto and the tomb of St. Francis. Christian architecture was not Roman. The small temples and large amphitheatres, etc., were replaced by large churches, public halls, schools and hospitals, a small town round a large cathedral. There were three capitals: Rome, the seat of the Papacy; Aix-la-Chapelle, the seat of empire; and Paris, of the schools.

How paganism perished is perhaps one of the most useful lectures in the course, as it bears upon the doubts which are still felt by some as to the use of pagan books in Christian education. Ozanam shows that the monks preserved by transcribing the works of Seneca and Cicero, and that St. Augustin brought Plato and Aristotle into Christian schools; that St. Augustin, St. Jerome, and St. Basil preserved the heathen poets till Christian poets had learnt their art; nay, how the Church protected the Gallic bards and German scalds, and taught them to sing the praises of God. St. Gregory preserved the Saxon temples, and even adapted their rites and festivals to be used in Christian worship, that what had been perverted to the service of devils might be restored to God.

The contrast--the abyss--between the middle ages and the renaissance has been exaggerated. There was literary paganism in the ages of faith. The troubadours sang of mythology, and the language of idolatry was purified by its application to the praises of the martyrs, as is shown in the poems of St. Paulinus. When the Church emerged from persecution, the Roman schools became Christian; and when the Lombards threatened to plunge Christendom in darkness, there were two lamps still burning in the night--episcopal and monastic teaching; and in these, by degrees, the pagan books and pagan literature were replaced by Christian works, in which, however, there were still abundant traces of their pagan masters.

It is in a fragment that Ozanam speaks of the way in which the valuable part of antiquity was preserved. "When winter begins, it seems as if vegetation would perish. The wind sweeps away the flowers and leaves; but the seeds remain. The providence of God watches over them. They are defended by a husk against the cold, and have wings which bear them to congenial places, where they spring again. So, when the ages of barbarism came, the winter of human nature, it seems as if poetry and all the vegetation of thought would perish; but it was preserved in the dry questions of the schools through three or four centuries; and when the time and place came, the man of genius was raised up, and in his hands they grew again. Such was St. Thomas of Aquin, the champion of dogmatism; and St. Bonaventure, of mysticism; and Christendom had its own philosophy." Perhaps we do not realize sufficiently the despair which was the lot of reflecting heathens. They sought the aid of philosophy to console them "for hopeless deterioration from a golden to an iron age; but philosophy could only teach that the world was perishing, and that the pride of man must preserve him from erring and perishing with its possessions. The heathens knew not the idea of progress; but the gospel teaches and commands human perfectibility, and says to each, Be ye perfect; and to all, Let the Church grow into the fulness of Christ." It was faith, hope, and charity which produced progress.

And, first, faith set free the human mind from the ignorance of God. Idolatry was not only that men gave to devils the worship which they owed to God; it was the love of what is mortal and perishable, instead of what is spiritual and eternal; it sunk mankind into materialism and sensuality. "Painters and sculptors represented only corporeal beauty: there was no expression in the figures of Phidias or Parrhasius." Ozanam shows how Christian art used what is material {782} only as symbolism, and expressed by form and color what is invisible and celestial; while poetry was rescued from degradation, and became what it really is, the noblest aspiration after truth of which man in his present state is capable. Philosophy was freed from the trammels of false systems, and speculated securely and deeply on the divine and human nature. "Origen formed in the Catechetical schools of Alexandria the science of theology," and in "the golden age of this new science St. Jerome taught exegesis, St. Augustin dogmatic, and St. Ambrose moral theology. St. Anselm was tormented by the desire of finding a short proof that God exists, and with him began metaphysics." These were the rich treasures which lay concealed in the scholastic teaching of the middle ages.

As theology and Christian philosophy had sprung from faith, so hope extended knowledge, because men labored with fresh vigor in improving science. "The course of ages offers no grander spectacle than that of man taking possession of nature by knowledge." In the seventh century the Byzantine monks pierced the steppes of Central Asia, and passed the wall of China; monks took the message of the Pope to the Khan before Marco Polo visited the East; and monks, in the eighth century, visited Iceland and even America. It was the calculations of the middle ages which emboldened Columbus to discover a new world and new creation; and when Magellan sailed round the globe, "man was master of his abode." He goes on: "When man had conquered the earth, he could not rest; Copernicus burst through the false heavens of Ptolemy; the telescope discovered the secrets of the stars, and calculation numbered their laws and orbits in the abyss of heaven. Woe be to those who are led away by such a sight from God! The stars told his glory to David, and so they did also to Kepler and to Newton."

It was by the third and greatest of the theological virtues, charity, that the moral as well as the intellectual nature of man was regenerated, though the change was wrought, perhaps, by slower degrees. Slavery of the most revolting kind--that slavery which ignores the soul and the reason, as well as the social rights of the slave, was replaced by liberty, oppression and injustice by laws which are still based upon the letter of the Roman laws; but administered with the equity of the Christian code. Cruelty and indifference to human life, as shown in the national passion for gladiatorial games, was replaced by gentleness and all good works; and the luxury of palaces, baths, etc., was replaced by gorgeous churches and hospitals. Education, which had been restricted to the few, was thrown open to all by free schools and by Christian preaching. Above all, the daughters of Eve, who were degraded below the condition of the very slaves, were raised to be helps-meet for Christians, either by the sacrament of marriage or by the holiness of virginity.

In speaking of the reconstruction of intellectual action in the civilization of Western Christendom, Ozanam has a grand and striking thought, that the first step to this was uniformity of language. The confusion of tongues which began at Babel was silenced throughout the world by the universal use of the Latin language, which was adopted by the Church; and that language, which was formed to express all the passions and vices, as well as the strength and intelligence of man, conveyed, by the words of St. Gelasius and St. Gregory, the most sublime devotion; by those of St. Jerome, the deep senses of the Holy Scriptures; and when the Christian intellect was free to develop itself, there arose that Christian eloquence in preaching the gospel which influenced, for the first time, all ranks and all dispositions of men.

The present edition of the author's works is conducted by friends who understood and valued his object, and {783} who were able to fill up, without blemishing, the unfinished parts of his lectures. Nothing can be done more faithfully, or in better taste; but there are many blanks too wide to be filled even by such skilful hands. Ozanam says himself, that the two poles of his work are the "Essays on the Germans before Christianity," and that on Dante. These form the third and fourth volumes. In the fifth volume is his "Essay on the Franciscan Poets;" and that on Dante closes the series. We have confined ourselves to the subject-matter of the first and second volumes, which contain the lectures on the civilization of the fifth century, and which suffice to show the lofty Christian philosophy with which Ozanam beholds the course of modern history. More than this it would be difficult to show. The lectures themselves are fragments; ideas snatched from the rapid flow of his eloquence, and that eloquence itself could feebly express the thoughts which visited his mind, and the impressions of glory which left no trace but sensation. There is no chronology, no succession. He fixes his eyes on the fifth century--he penetrates its mysteries, and the secret influences which it sends forth to after times. He speaks of what he sees; and we learn that the world of Christendom has had its decadence and renaissance, yet that progress continues. The crimes of the middle ages conceal that progress, and so do the troubles of the present time. O passi graviora, dabit Deus hic quoque finem.

------

From Chambers's Journal.

THE BELLS OF AVIGNON.

Avignon was a joyous city, A joyous town with many a steeple, Towers and tourelles, roofs and turrets, Sheltering a merry people. In each tower, the bells of silver, Bronze or iron, swayed so proudly, Tolling deep and swinging cheerly, Beating fast and beating loudly.

One! Two! Three! Four! ever sounding; Two! Four! One! Three! still repeating; Five! Seven! Six! Eight! hurrying, chasing; Bim-bom-bing-bang merry beating. All the day the dancing sextons Dragged at bell-ropes, rising, falling; Clanging bells, inquiring, answering, From the towers were ever calling.

Cardinals, in crimson garments, Stood and listened to the chiming; And within his lofty chateau Sate the pope, and beat the timing. Minstrels, soldiers, monks, and jesters Laughed to hear the merry clamor, As above them in the turrets Music clashed from many a hammer.

{784}

Avignon was a joyous city: Far away across the bridges, 'Mong the vine-slopes, upward lessening, To the brown cliffs' highest ridges, Clamored those sonorous bells; In the summer's noontide wrangling, In one silver knot of music All their chimes together tangling.

Showering music on the people Round the town-house in the mornings; Scattering joy and jubilations, Hope and welcome, wrath and scornings; Ushering kings, or mourning pontiffs; Clanging in the times of thunder, And on nights when conflagrations Clove the city half asunder.

Nights and nights across the river, Through the darkness starry-dotted, Far across the bridge so stately. Now by lichens blurred and blotted, Came that floating, mournful music, As from bands of angels flying, With the loud blasts of the tempest Still victoriously vieing.

Who could tell why Avignon All its bells was ever pealing? Whether to scare evil spirits, Still round holy cities stealing. Yet, perhaps, that ceaseless chiming, And that pleasant silver beating, Was but as of children playing, And their mother's name repeating.

One! Two! Three! the bells went prattling, With a music so untiring; One! Two! Three! in merry cadence, Rolling, crashing, clanging, firing. Hence it was that in past ages, When 'mid war those sounds seemed sweeter, La Ville Sonnante people called it, City sacred to Saint Peter.

Years ago! but now all silent, Lone and sad, the grass-grown city, Has its bell-towers all deserted By those ringers--more's the pity. Pope and cardinal are vanished, And no music fills the night-air; Gone the red robes and the sable; Gone the crosier and the mitre.

------

{785}

From The Lamp.

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.

BY ROBERT CURTIS.

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Chapter X

It is not to be wondered at that two persons, equally clever in all respects, and having a similar though not identical object in view, should have pretty much the same thoughts respecting the manner of carrying it out, and finally pursue the same course to effect their purpose. But the matter involves some nicety, if not difficulty, when it so happens that those two persons have to work upon each other in a double case. It is then a matter of diamond cut diamond; and if, as I have suggested, both are equally clever, the discussion of the subject between them would make no bad scene in a play. Winny wanted to find out something from Kate Mulvey, and at the same time to hide something from her. Kate Mulvey was on precisely the same intent with Winny Cavana in both ways; so that some such tournament must come off between them the first time they met, with sufficient opportunity to "have it out" without interruption.

You have seen that Winny had determined to sound her friend Kate, as to how her land lay between these two young men. If Kate had not made a like determination as to sounding Winny, she was, at all events, ready for the encounter at any moment, and had discussed the matter over and over in her own mind. Their mutual object, then, was to find out which of the young men was the real object of the other's affections; and up to the present moment each believed the other to be a formidable rival to her own hopes.

Winny was not one who hesitated about any matter which she felt to require immediate performance; and as she knew that some indefinite time might elapse before an opportunity could occur to have her chat out with Kate Mulvey, she was resolved to make one.

Her father's house, as the reader has seen in the commencement, was not on the roadside. There was no general pass that way; and except persons had business to old Cavana's or Mick Murdock's, they never went up the lane, which was common to both the houses of these rich farmers. It was not so with the house where Kate Mulvey resided. Its full front was to the high-road, with a space not more than three perches between. This space had been originally what is termed in that rank of life "a bawn," but was now wisely converted into a cabbage-garden, with a broad clean gravel-walk running through the centre of the plot, from the road to the door. It was about half a mile from Cavana's, and there was a full view of the road, for a long stretch, from the door or window of the house--that is, of Mulvey's.

It was now a fine mild day toward the end of November. Old Mick Murdock's party had ceased to be spoken of, and perhaps forgotten, except by the few with whom we have to do. Winny Cavana put on her everyday bonnet and her everyday cloak, and started for a walk. Bully-dhu capered round her in an awkward playful manner, with a deep-toned howl of joy when he saw these preparations, and trotted down the lane before her. As may be anticipated, she bent her steps down the road toward Mulvey's house. She knew she could be seen coming for some distance, and hoped that Kate might greet her from the door as she passed. She {786} was not mistaken; Kate had seen her from the first turn in the road toward the house, and was all alive on her own account. She had tact and vanity enough, however,--for she had plenty of time before Winny came alongside of the house,--to slip in and put on a decent gown, and brush her beautiful and abundant hair; and she came to the door, as if by mere accident, but looking her very best, as Winny approached. Kate knew that she was looking very handsome, and Winny Cavana, at the very first glance, felt the same fact.

"Good morrow, Kate," said Winny; "that's a fine day."

"Good morrow kindly, Winny; won't you come in and sit down awhile?"

"No, thank you; the day is so fine, I'm out for a walk. You may as well put on your bonnet, and come along with me; it will do you good, Kitty."

"With all my heart; step up to the house, and I'll be ready in two twos." But she was not so sure that it would do her good.

The girls then turned up to the house, for Kate had run down in her hair to shake hands with her friend. Winny would not go in, but stood at the door, ordering Bully-dhu not to growl at Captain, and begging of Captain not to growl at Bully-dhu. Kate was scarcely the "two twos" she gave herself until she came out ready for the road; and the two friends, and the two dogs, having at once entered into most amicable relations with each other, went off together.

Winny was resolved that no "awkward pause" on her part should give Kate reason to suppose there was anything unusual upon her mind, and went on at once, as if from where she had left off.

"The day was so fine, Kate," she continued, "that I was anxious to get some fresh air. I have been churning, and packing butter, every day since Monday, and could not get out. Biddy Murtagh is very clean and honest, but she is very slow, and I could not leave her."

"It is well for you, Winny, that has the butter to pack."

"Yes, Kate, I suppose it will be well for me some day or other; but as long as my poor father lives--God between him and harm!--I don't feel the want of anything."

"God spare him to you, Winny mavourneen! He's a fine hale old man, and I hope he'll live to be at the christening of many a grandchild. If report speaks thrue, Winny dear, that same is not unlikely to come round."

"Report does not always speak the truth, Kate; don't you know that?"

"I do; but I also know that there's seldom smoke without fire, and that it sometimes makes a good hit. And sure, nothin's more reasonable than that it's right this time. Tom's a fine young fellow; an' like yourself, sure, he's an only child. There wasn't such a weddin' this hundred years--no, nor never--in the parish of Rathcash, as it will be--come now!"

"Tom is a fine young man, Kate; I don't deny it--"

"You couldn't--you couldn't, Winny Cavana! you'd belie yoursel' if you did," said Kate, with a little more warmth of manner than was quite politic under the circumstances.

"But I don't, Kate; and I can't see why you need fly at me in that way."

"I beg your pardon, Winny dear; but sure everybody sees an' knows that you're on for one another; an' why not?--wasn't he as cross as a bag of cats at his father's party because he let 'that whelp' (as he called him) Edward Lennon take you out for the first dance?"

"Emon-a-knock is no whelp; he couldn't call him a whelp. Did he call him one?"

"Didn't you hear him? for if you didn't you might; it wasn't but he spoke loud enough."

"It is well for him, Kate, that Emon did not hear him. He's as good a man as Tom Murdock at any rate. {787} He didn't fall over the poker and tongs as Tom did."

"That was a mere accident, Winny. I seen the fung of his pump loose myself; didn't I help to shut it for him, afther he fell?"

"You were well employed indeed, Kate," said Winny sneeringly.

"You would have done it yourself if he axed you as he did me," replied Kate.

"Certainly not," said Winny.

So far they seemed both to have the worst of it, in spite of all their caution. What they wanted was to find out how the other's heart stood between these two young men, without betraying their own--which latter they had both nearly done.

There was a pause, and Kate was the next to speak.

"Not but I must admit that Emon-a-knock is a milder, better boy in some respects than Tom. He has a nicer way with him, Winny, and I think it is easier somehow to like him than to like Tom."

"Report says you do, Kate dear."

"But you know, Winny, report does not always spake thrue, as you say yourself."

"Ay, but as you said just now, Kate, it sometimes makes a good hit."

"Well, Winny, I wish you joy at all events, with all my heart. Both your fathers is anxious for your match; an' sure, when the two farms is joined in one, with you an' Tom, you can live like a lady. I suppose you'll hould your head too high for poor Kate an' Emon-a-knock then."

There was a sadness in Kate's tone as she said this, which, from ignorance of how matters really stood, was partly genuine, and, from anxiety to find it out, was partly assumed.

But she had turned the key and the door flew open. Winny could fence with her feelings no longer.

"Kate Mulvey," she exclaimed, "do not believe the reports you hear about me and Tom Murdock. I'm aware of what you say about his father and mine being anxious to unite the farms by our marriage. I don't want to say anything against Tom Murdock; but he'll never call me wife. There now, Kate jewel, you have the truth. I'll be well enough off, Kitty, without Tom Murdock's money or land; and when I really don't care for him, don't you think it would be much better and handsomer of him to bestow himself and it upon some nice girl without a penny" (and she glanced slyly at Kate, whose cheeks got rosy red), "than to be striving to force it upon one that doesn't want it--nor wish for it? And don't you think it would be much better and handsomer for me, who has a nice little fodeen, and must come in for my father's land,--God between him and harm!--to do the same, if I could meet with a nice boy that really cared for myself, and not for my money? Answer me them questions, Kate."

Kate was silent; but her eyes had assumed quite a different expression, if they had not altogether turned almost a different color. The weight of Winny's rich rivalry had been lifted from her heart, and so far as that obstacle had been dreaded, the coast was now clear. Of course she secretly agreed in the propriety of Winny's views, and it was only necessary that she should now do so openly.

"You didn't answer me them questions yet, Kate."

"Well I could, Winny, if I liked it; but I don't wish to have act, hand, or part in setting you against your father's wishes."

"You need not fear that, Kitty; my father won't force me to do what I really do not wish to do. He never put the matter to me plainly yet, but I expect it every day. He's always praising Tom Murdock, and hinting at the business, by saying he wishes he could see me comfortably settled; that he is growing old and is not the man he used to be; and all that. I know very well, Kate, what he means, both ways; and, God between him and harm! I say again; but he'll never see me Tom Murdock's wife. {788} I have my answer ready for them both."

"Well, Winny, as you seem determined, I suppose I may spake; and, to tell you the truth, I always thought it would be a pity to put them two farms into one, and so spoil two good establishments; for sure any one of them is lashings, Winny, for any decent boy and girl in the parish; an' what's more, if they were joined together tomorrow, there is not a gentleman in the county would think a bit the better of them that had them."

"Never, Kitty, except it was some poor broken-down fellow that wanted to borrow a couple of hundred pounds, and rob them in the end. And now, Kitty, let us be plain and free with one another. My opinion is that Tom could raise you--I won't say out of poverty, Kate; for, thanks be to God, it is not come to that with you, and that it never may--but into comfort and plenty; and that I could, some day, do the same, if I could meet with a nice boy that, as I said, would care for myself and not for my money. If Tom took a liking to you, Kitty, you might know he was in earnest for yourself; I know he's only put up to his make-belief liking for me by his own father and mine. But, Kitty dear, I'm afraid, like myself, you have no fancy for him."

"Well, Winny, to tell you the truth, I always believed what the neighbors said about you an' him; an' I tried not to think of him for that same reason. There's no doubt, Winny dear, but it would be a fine match for me; but I know he's out an' out for you: only for that, Winny, I could love every bone in his body--there now! you have it out."

"He'll soon find his mistake, Kate dear, about me. I'm sure the thing will be brought to a point before long between us, and between my father and me too. When Tom finds I'm positive, he can't be blind to your merits and beauty, Kitty--yes, I will say it out, your beauty!--you needn't be putting your hand to my mouth that way; there's no mistake about it."

"Ah, Winny, Winny dear, you're too lenient to me entirely; sure I couldn't sit or stand beside you in that respect at all, an' with your money; sure they'll settle it all between themselves."

"They may settle what they like, Kitty; but they can't make me do what I am determined not to do; so as far as that goes, you have nothing to fear."

"Well, Winny dear, I'm glad I know the truth; for now I won't be afeard of crossing you, at any rate; and I know another that wouldn't be sorry to know as much as I do."

"Who, Kitty? tell us."

"Ah, then now, Winny, can't you guess? or maybe it's what you know better than I do myself."

"Well, I suppose you mean Emon-a-knock; for indeed, Kitty, he's always on the top of your tongue, and the parish has it that you and he are promised. Come now, Kitty, tell us the truth. I told you how there was no truth in the report about me and Tom Murdock, and how there never could be."

If this was not leading Kate Mulvey to the answer most devoutly wished for, I do not know what the meaning of the latter part of the sentence could be. It was what the lawyers would call a "leading question." The excitement too of Winny, during the pause which ensued, showed very plainly the object with which she spoke, and the anxiety she felt for the result.

Kate did not in the least misunderstand her. Perhaps she knew more of her thoughts than Winny was aware of, and that it was not then she found them out for the first time; for Kate was a shrewd observer. She had gained her own object, and it was only fair she should now permit Winny to gain hers.

"Ah, Winny dear," she said, after a contemplative pause, "there never was a word of the kind between us. {789} You know, Winny, in the first place, it wouldn't do at all--two empty sacks could never stand; and in the next place, neither his heart was on me, nor mine on him. It was all idle talk of the neighbors. Not but Emon is a nice boy as there is to be found in this or any other parish, and you know that, Winny; don't you, now?"

"Kitty dear, there's nobody can deny what you say, and for that self-same reason I believed what the neighbors said regarding you and him."

"Tell me this now, Winny,--you know we were reared, I may say, at the door with one another, and have been fast friends since we were that height" (and she held her hand within about two feet of the ground, at the same time looking fully and very kindly into her friend's face),-- "tell me now, Winny dear, did it fret you to believe what you heard? Come now."

"For your sake, and for his, Kitty, it could not fret me; but for my own sake--there now, don't ask me."

"No, avourneen, I won't; what need have I, Winny, when I see them cheeks of yours,--or is it the sun that cum suddenly out upon you, Winny asthore?"

"Kate Mulvey, I'll tell you the truth, as I believe you have told it to me. For many a long day I'm striving to keep myself from liking that boy on your account. I think, Kate, if I hadn't a penny-piece in the world no more than yourself, I would have done my very best to take him from you; it would have been a fair fight then, Kitty; but I didn't like to use any odds against you, Kitty dear; and I never gave him so much as one word to go upon."

"I'm very thankful to you, Winny dear; an' signs on the boy, he thought you were for a high match with rich Tom Murdock; an' any private chat Emon an' I ever had was about that same thing."

"Then he has spoken to you about me! O Kitty, dear Kitty, what used he to be saying of me? do tell me."

"The never a word I'll tell you, Winny dear. Let him spake to yourself; which maybe he'll do when he finds you give Tom the go-by; but I'm book-sworn; so don't ask me."

"Well, Kitty, I'm glad I happened to come across you this morning; for now we understand each other, and there's no fear of our interrupting one another in our thoughts any more."

"None, thank God," said Kitty.

By this time the girls had wandered along the road to nearly a mile from home. They had both gained their object, though not in the roundabout sounding manner which we had anticipated, and they were now both happy. They were no longer even the imaginary rivals which it appears was all they had ever been; and as this light broke upon them the endearing epithets of "dear" and "jewel" became more frequent and emphatic than was usual in a conversation of the same length.

Their mutual confidences, as they retraced their steps, were imparted to the fullest extent. They now perfectly "understood each other," as Winny had said; and to their cordial shake-hands at the turn up to Kate Mulvey's house was added an affectionate kiss, as good as if they swore never to interfere with each other in love-affairs.

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Chapter XI

Winny Cavana, as far as her own feelings and belief were concerned, had not made a bad morning's work of it. Hitherto she had supposed that Kate Mulvey had forestalled her in the affections of Emon-a-knock. The neighbors had given them to each other, and she feared that Emon was not free from the power of her charms. With these doubts, or almost with this belief, upon her mind, she could not have met her father's {790} importunities about Tom Murdock with the same careless and happy determination which matters, as they now stood, would enable her to do. Being assured, from her conversation with Kate, that there was nothing between her and Emon, she could "riddle" more easily some circumstances and expressions which, to say the least of it, were puzzling, with a belief that these two persons were mutually attached. Winny knew now how to reconcile them; and the view she took of them was anything but favorable to her father's wishes or Tom Murdock's hopes.

She could not hope, however,--perhaps she did not wish,--for any interview with Emon just then, when her change of manner, emanating from her knowledge of facts, might draw him out, for her heart now told her that this would surely come. She had some fears that her father might sound her about Emon, and she wished to be able to say with a clear conscience that he had never spoken, or even hinted at the subject, to her; but she was determined, nevertheless, to act toward her father, and subsequently toward Tom Murdock, as if her troth and Emon's had been already irrevocably plighted. She was in hopes that if she had an interview with her father upon the subject of Tom Murdock in the first instance, the unalterable dislike which she would exhibit to the match might save her the horrible necessity of going through the business with the man himself. But poor Winny had settled matters in her own mind in an order in which they did not occur; and it so happened that, although she thought her heart had gone through enough excitement for one day, and that she would, for the rest of that evening, hide beneath the happiness which was creeping over her, yet she was mistaken.

Tom Murdock had seen her pass down the road; and hastily putting on one of his best coats and his very best hat, he followed her, determined to have good news in return for his father's advice; but he was disappointed. Before he could overtake her, he perceived that she had been joined by Kate Mulvey, and that they went coshering away together. Of course he saw that it was "no go," as he said, for that time; but he would watch her returning, when he could not fail to meet her alone.

"Hang me," said he, as he saw them walking away, "if I don't think Kate Mulvey is the finest girl of the two, and very nearly as handsome as ever she was--some people say handsomer. If it was not for her money, and that grand farm she'll have, I'd let her see how soon I could get a girl in every other respect as good, if not better, than she is. Look at the two of them: upon my faith, I think Kate is the lightest stepper of the two."

Tom paused for a few moments, if not in his thoughts, at least in the expression of them; for all the above had been uttered aloud. Then, as if they had received a sudden spur which made him start, he muttered with his usual scowl, "No, no; I'll follow it up to the death if necessary. That whelp shall never have it to say that Tom Murdock failed, and perhaps add, where he did not. I'll have her, by fair means if I can; but if not, by them five crosses," and he clasped his hands together, "she shall be mine by foul. Sure it is not possible they are going to meet that whelp this blessed moment!" And he dogged them at so long a distance behind that, even if their conversation had been less interesting, they would not have been aware of his stealthy espionage.

When they turned to return, he turned also, and was then so far before them that, with the bushes and the bends in the road, he could not be perceived. Thus he watched and watched, until, to his great satisfaction, he saw them part company at Kate's house. Winny Cavana, as we have seen, had still some distance to walk ere she reached the lane turning up to her father's; and Kate having gone in and shut the {791} door, Tom strolled on, as if by mere accident, until he met Winny on the road.

Tom was determined to be as mild and as bland, as cordial and good-natured, as possible. He felt there had always been a sort of undefined snappish battle between him and Winny; and he had the honesty of mind, as well as the vanity, to blame his own harsh and abrupt manner for this. Perhaps it arose no less from a consciousness of his personal advantages than from a belief that in his position as an only son, and heir to his father's interest in a rich and profitable farm, he had no great need of those blandishments of expression so generally requisite in making way to a young and unhackneyed heart. He resolved, therefore, upon this occasion to give Winny no cause to accuse him of uncouthness of manner; neither was he inclined to be uncouth when he beheld the glowing beauty of her face, heightened, as he thought, solely by the exercise of her walk; but not a little increased, without his knowledge of the fact, by the new light which had just dawned upon the horizon of her hopes.

Her heart bounced in her bosom as she saw him approach.

"Good morning, Winny," he said, holding out his hand.

"Good morrow kindly, Tom," she replied, wishing to be civil, and taking it. She knew she was "in for it," as she expressed it to herself; but encouraged "by the hope within her springing," and softened by the anticipation of its fulfilment, she was determined to be kind but firm.

"Have you been walking far, Winny? Upon my life, it seems to agree with you. It has improved your beauty, Winny, if that was possible."

"Tom, don't flatter me; you're always paying me compliments, and I often told you that I did not like it. Beside, you did not let me answer your question until you begin at your old work. I walked about a mile of the road with Kate Mulvey."

"Kate Mulvey is a complete nice girl. You are not tired, Winny, are you?"

"Ah, then, what would tire me? is it a mile of a walk, and the road under my feet? I could walk to Boher-na-Milthiogue and back this minute."

By this time they had come to the end of the lane turning up to Rathcash House.

"I'm glad to find you are not tired, Winny. You may as well come on toward the cross; I have something to say to you."

"And welcome, Tom; what is it?"

Winny felt that the thing was coming, and she wished to appear as careless and unconscious as possible. When she recollected all Kate Mulvey had said to her, she was just in the humor to have it over. Upon reflection, too, she was not sorry that it should so happen before the grand passage between her and her father upon the same subject. She could the more easily dispose of the case with him, having already disposed of it with Tom himself. She therefore went on, past the end of her own lane; and Tom, taking this for an unequivocal token in his favor, was beginning to get really fond of her--at least he thought so.

"Well, Winny, I'm very glad I happened to meet you, and that you seem inclined to take a walk with me; for to tell you the truth, Winny, I can't help thinking of you."

"Perhaps you don't try, Tom."

"True for you, Winny dear; I wouldn't help thinking of you if I could, and I couldn't if I would."

"Is that the way with you, Tom?"

But Winny did not smile or look at him, as he had hoped she would have done.

"You know it is, Winny dear; but I can keep the truth, in plain English, from you no longer."

"See that now! Ah, then, Tom, I pity you."

And Tom could not tell from her manner, or from the tone of her voice, whether she was in earnest or {792} only joking. He preferred the former.

"Well, Winny Cavana, if you knew how much I love you, you would surely take pity on me, my own colleen dhass."

"Faith, Tom, I believe it's in earnest you are, sure enough."

"In earnest! Yes, Winny, by the bright sky over me--and it is not brighter than your own eyes--I am in earnest! It is a long day now since I first took to loving you, though it was only of late you might have picked it out of my looks. Ah, Winny dear, if you hadn't a penny-piece but yourself, I would have spoken to you long ago. But there was a great deal of talk among the neighbors about the joining of them two farms together, and I was afraid you might think--"

"I understand. You were afraid I might think it was my money and the farm you were after, and not myself. Was not that it, Tom?"

"Just so, Winny. But I am indeed in earnest, and for yourself alone, Winny dear; and I'm willing to prove my words by making you my wife, and mistress of all I have coming Shraftide, God willing." And he took her by the hand.

She withdrew it at once, after a slight struggle, and replied, "Tom Murdock, put such a thing totally out of your head, for it can never be--never, by the same oath you swore just now, and that is the blue heaven above me!" And she turned back toward the lane.

"I cross, Winny. Don't say that. I know that your father and mine would both be willing for the match. As to what your father would do for you, Winny mavourneen, I don't care a boughalawn lui; for I'm rich enough without a cross of his money or his land. My own father will make over to me by lawful deed, the day you become my wife, his house and furniture, together with the whole of his land and cattle. Your father, I know, Winny, would do the same for you, for he has but yourself belonging to him; and although your fortune or your land has nothing to say to my love, yet, Winny, dear, between us, if you will consent to my prayer, for it is nothing less, there's few grandees in the country could compare to you,--I'll say nothing for myself, Winny dear, only say the word."

"No, Tom, I'll say no word but what I'm after saying; and you are only making matters worse, talking of grandeur and riches that way. You would only be striving at what you would not be able for, nor allowed to keep up, Tom, and as for myself, I'd look well, wouldn't I? stuck up on a new sidecar, and a drawn bonnet and feathers, coming down the lane of a Sunday, and the neighbors thronging to mass,--aping my betters, and getting myself and yourself laughed at. Devil a one, Tom, but they'd call you Lord Boher-na-Milthiogue. No, Tom; put it out of your head; that is my first and last word to you." And she hastened her step.

"No, Winny, you won't leave me that way, will you? By all the books that were ever shut and opened, you may make what you please of me. I'll never ask to put yourself or myself a pin's-point beyond what we always were, either in grandeur or anything else. But wouldn't it be a fine thing, Winny dear, to have our children able to hold up their heads with the best in the county, in a manner?"

"Ay, in a manner, indeed. No, Tom; they would never be anything but the Murdocks of Rathcashmore--grandchildren of ould Mick Murdock and ould Ned Cavana, the common farmers."

"And what have you to say against old Mick Murdock?" exclaimed Tom, beginning to feel that his suit was hopeless, and flaming up inwardly in the spirit which was most natural to him.

"Nothing indeed, Tom; you need not be so angry, I meant no offence; I said as much against my own father as against yours, if there was anything against either. But we must soon {793} part now, Tom, and let us part friends at all events, living as we do within a stone's-throw of each other." She held out her hand, but he took it coldly and loosely. He felt that his game was up.

"Take my advice, Tom Murdock"--this was the second time she had found it necessary to overcome her antipathy to pronounce the name--"take my advice, and never speak to me again upon the subject. Sure, there's many a fine handsome girl would be glad to listen to you; and I'll now ask you one question before we part. Wouldn't it be better and fitter for you to bestow yourself and your land upon some handsome young girl who has nothing of her own, and was, maybe, well inclined for you, and to rise her up to be independent, than to be striving to force yourself and it upon them that doesn't want your land, and cannot care for yourself? Why don't you look about you? There's many a girl in the parish as handsome, and handsomer, than I am, that would just jump at you."

Winny had no sooner uttered these latter words than she regretted them. She did not wish Tom Murdock to know that she had overheard him. She was glad however to perceive that, in his anger, he had not recognized them as a quotation from his conversation with his father at the gate.

There was a silence now for a minute or two. Tom's blood was 'up; his hopes of success were over, and he was determined to speak his mind in an opposite direction.

"Have I set you thinking, Tom?" said Winny, half timidly.

"I'm d--d but you have, Winny Cavana; and I'll answer your question with one much like it. And would not it be better and fitter for you--of course it would--to bestow yourself and your fortune and your land upon some handsome young fellow that has nothing but his day's wages, and was well inclined for you, and to rise him up out of poverty, than to spoil a good chance for a friend by joining yours to them that has enough without it? Why didn't you follow up your first question with that, Winny Cavana?" And he stopped short, enjoying the evident confusion he had caused.

Winny thought, too, for a few moments in silence. She was considering the probability of Tom Murdock's having overheard her conversation with Kate Mulvey from behind some hedge. But the result of her calculations was that it was impossible.

She was right. It was a mere paraphrase of her own question to him, and only shows how two clever people may hit upon the same idea, and express it in nearly the same language. And the question was prompted by his suspicions in the quarter already intimated.

"Yes, I see how it is," he exclaimed, breaking the silence, and giving way to his ungovernable temper. "But, by the hatred I bear to that whelp, that shall never be, at all events. I'll go to your father this moment, and let him know what's going on--"

"And who do you dare to call 'a whelp,' Tom Murdock? If it be Edward Lennon, let me tell you that his little finger is worth your whole head and heart--body and bones together."

"There, there--she acknowledges it. But I'll put a spoke in that whelp's wheel,--for it was him I called a whelp, since you must know,--see if I don't; so let him look out, that's all."

"I have acknowledged nothing, Tom Murdock. A word beyond common civility never passed between Edward Lennon and myself; and take care how you venture to interfere between my father and me. You have got your answer, and I have sworn to it. You have no right to interfere further."

By this time they had reached the end of the lane again; and Winny, with her heart on fire, and her face in a flame, hurried to the house. Fortunately, her father had not returned {794} from the fields, and rushing to her own room, she locked the door, took off her bonnet and cloak, and "threw herself" (I believe that is the proper expression) upon the bed. Perhaps a sensation novelist would add that she "burst into an agony of tears."

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