Introduction…

Introduction

ON THE DIVINE IDEA.

The Divine Idea, the Exemplar or Pattern, in conformity with which the intellect and free will of man, and whatever is their combined work, finds its perfection.

All persons are familiar with the expression “beau ideal,” and in judging of matters of taste nothing is more common than to appeal to the standard of an “ideal”; as, for instance, the statue of the “Apollo Belvedere” would be, and is commonly said to realize, the “ideal” of the human form. Of course the ideal thus appealed to, as existing generally in the minds of persons of education, is nothing in itself absolutely certain or determinate. But, as far as it goes, it is a natural indication that the standard and measure of all perfection is an “ideal.” For we see that an ideal which is generally recognized and acknowledged by persons of taste and refinement does, in point of fact, come to be a standard, the authority of which is accepted to a great extent by others.

What is, then, in a measure true of an “ideal” subsisting in the mind of persons of education, as a standard of perfection, must be infinitely true of the idea of creation subsisting in the mind of God from all eternity. But as this leads to a speculative portion of Christian philosophy which can scarcely be deemed popular, and might perhaps give rise in some minds to the feeling “parturiunt montes,” if they found that an abstruse foundation had been formally laid only for the superstructure of a discussion upon plain chant, the few remarks that have seemed necessary to explain and justify the ground on which the ensuing essay proceeds have been collected together, and are here given in the form of an introduction, for the sake of burdening the discussion as little as possible with reasoning that does not properly belong to it.

All creation, according to Catholic theology, is the work of the ever-blessed Trinity. For only inasmuch as the Godhead subsisting in a Trinity of persons is for itself a perfect and undivided whole (κοσμος τελειος) can God bring into being a creation external to himself, without becoming himself the world which he creates.

To God the Father theologians assign the eternal idea, or the conception from all eternity of the idea or form of creation;

To God the Son, the realization of the idea of the Father, or the act of bringing created things into being out of nothing, in conformity with the idea of the Father;

To God the Holy Ghost, the bringing creation to its perfection through the period of its development or growth.

S. Basil speaks to this effect in the following passage: “In the creation I regard the Father as the first cause of created being, the Son as the creating cause, and the Holy Ghost as the perfecting cause. So that spirits, through the will of the Father, are called into actual being through the operation of the Son, and are brought to perfection by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Let no one, however, think either that I assume the existence of three original substances or that I call the operation of the Son imperfect. For there is but one first principle (αρχη), which creates through the Son and brings to perfection through the Holy Ghost” (De Spiritu Sancto, c. 16).

The work, then, of God the Father was the eternal idea of all creation; in the language of S. Gregory Nazianzen, εννοει ὁ πατηρ--και το εννοημα (idea) ἐργον ην, λογῳ συμπληρουμενον και πνευματι τελειουμενον (Orat. xxxviii. n. 9); and this thought or idea was a work brought into reality by the Word, and brought to perfection by the Spirit.

The eternal idea of creation is thus explained by S. Thomas, Summa, p. i. quæst. xv. art. 1 (Utrum ideæ sint):

“I answer that it is necessary to suppose ideas in the mind of God. Idea is a Greek word, and answers to the Latin forma, form. Whence by the term ideas we understand the forms of things that exist external (præter) to the things themselves. The form of a thing existing external to it may serve two purposes: 1. That it should be the exemplar (ideal) of that of which it is said to be the form, or that it should be, as it were, the principle of knowledge itself, according to which the forms of things that may be known are said to exist in the understanding. And in either point of view it is necessary to suppose ideas, as will be at once manifest. In all things that are not generated by chance, it is necessary that the production of some form should be the result of the act of generation. For an agent would not act with reference to a particular form, except so far as he was already in possession of the likeness of the form in question. In some agents the form of the thing to be produced already pre-exists in a natural manner (secundum esse naturale), as in those things which act by natural laws; but in others the form pre-exists in the intellect (secundum esse intelligibile). Thus the likeness or form of a house already exists in the mind of the builder, and this may be called the idea of a house; for the architect intends to make the house resemble the form which he has conceived in his mind. As, then, the world is not made by chance, it follows that there must exist a form (idea) in the mind of God, after the likeness of which the world was made.”

Quite similar to these words of S. Thomas are the statements of S. Augustine, Dionysius, and other fathers, who had to deal on the one hand with the philosophy of Plato, which taught that God created the world out of eternal matter, and according to an exemplar or ideal existing externally to himself (κοσμος νοητος); and on the other with the Gnostic Pantheism, which taught that the divine idea after which the world was created was identical with God, and creation consequently no more than an extension or manifestation of the Godhead.

Similar also is the following passage of the Abate Rosmini:

“‘Fide intelligimus aptata esse secula verbo Dei, ut ex invisibilibus visibilia fierent’ (Heb. xi. 3). What ever are these invisible things from which the things that are visible have been drawn? They are the conceptions of the Almighty, which subsisted in his mind before the creation of the universe; they are the decrees which he has framed from all eternity, but which remained invisible to all creatures, because these latter were not yet formed and the former not yet carried into execution. These decrees and conceptions are the design of the wise Architect, according to which the building has to be formed. But this design was never at any time drawn out on any external material, on paper or stone, but existed only in his own mind” (Rosmini, Della Divina Providenza, ed. Milano, 1846, p. 57).

Creation proceeds from the thought and will of God jointly exercised, and is something external to God, which he has brought into being out of absolute nothing, to quote Professor Staudenmaier: “The world is God’s idea of the world brought into being, and the perfection of the original world consisted in the fact that it absolutely corresponded to the divine idea” (Die Lehre von der Idee, p. 914). “Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum” (Gen. i. 10).

The creation which we see, and of which we are ourselves immediately a part, bears the appearance of being an organized system, far outreaching the powers of our intelligence; and we conclude intuitively that not only as an organized whole it answers to the idea of God, which contemplated system, order, harmony, and subordination of parts, but, further, that every several part, as it came forth from the hand of the Creator, was found good. In creation there are two principal parts, the material world and the world of spirits. Matter, from the first instant of creation, being without free will or mind, necessarily obeys the laws of its Creator, and at once absolutely answers to the divine idea. But spirits were created in the image of God, and were endowed with the likeness of his power of thought and will, and with a personality resulting from the possession of these gifts. To them, therefore, there is a moral trial or probation to be passed through before they finally correspond to the idea of their Creator. It is indeed true that from the instant of their creation they realize the divine idea, in so far as that idea contemplates them, about to enter upon probation; but their passing through this trial or probation to the attainment of their perfection is also contemplated, and of this perfection the divine idea is the exemplar or form.

Spirits, then, formed in the image of God, and endowed with created being, intellect, and will, in the present system of creation, pass through probation; and their probation consists in learning to possess these gifts in subordination to their Creator, who is absolute being, intellect, and will; and this trial is necessary to the perfection of their nature and to their passing into the possession of their permanent place (ταξις) in the great order and harmony of the universe. There is not, and cannot be, in the mind of God, any idea of evil. Evil has its sole origin in the rebellion of the created spirit when it refuses to possess and use its power of thought and will in subordination to the law and majesty of its Creator. And hence, although the rebel spirit answered equally with others at the first moment of its creation to the divine idea, yet, inasmuch as in its subsequent career it has placed itself against its Creator, it has ceased to answer to the divine idea; it has become a contradiction to it, and henceforward its existence is evil.

The case as regards the human creation does not differ at all in principle. Man is also a spirit, though his spirit be united to a body, and he is possessed of the same trinity of gifts--being, thought, and will--although from the circumstance of his coming into the world in the form of an infant, with his intellect and will in a state of germ, appointed to acquire their natural maturity only in process of time, his probation would seem to require a longer period than that of the angels, and to be subject to the fluctuation of rebellions, succeeded by repentances, and vice versâ--all which hardly seems probable in their case. Still man, like the angels, passes through his probation; and when he has passed through it, he is found either realizing the idea of his Creator, and happy, or fallen from it, and henceforward in contradiction with it, for an eternity of misery. The idea of the Creator is to man, as well as to the angels, the exemplar, or pattern, of his perfection.

Analogous to the first creation of the world is the second great work of God--the redemption or new creation. Its decree is from God the Father; the carrying into effect the Father’s decree is the work of God the Eternal Son; and the conducting it to perfection during the period of its growth and probation is the work of the Holy Ghost.

Nor is this work of redemption based upon any fundamental change in the eternal idea of God, after which man was created. The eternal idea of God is incapable of change, and the work of grace or redemption is the restoration to a state of grace of the whole race, which, in the person of Adam, fell into a condition of helpless although not total contradiction with the divine idea; and in his restored state of redemption the power has been again given to him of issuing out of his probation through the aid and guidance of the Holy Ghost, conformable to the unchanged, eternal idea of the Father.

To prevent misconception, it may be further remarked, in the words of Professor Staudenmaier, “The second creation (or scheme of redemption) builds itself, on the one side, on all that is indestructible in the divine idea of man, as intelligence and freedom, and at the same time labors to restore again that which was really lost by the original transgression, viz., the supernatural principle and the justice and holiness of life which stands in connection with it. Hence under the scheme of redemption man comes to the perfection of his nature, in the manner in which that perfection was contemplated in the divine idea (in der Idee gesetz war), viz., as the union of grace and free will (in der Einheit von Freiheit und Gnade).” (Die Lehre von der Idee, p. 923).

The divine idea, then, is the exemplar or pattern of perfection (προορισμος παραδειγμα, forma seu exemplar, das Musterbild) which, under the scheme of redemption, man is called to realize. And his term of probation, under the guidance and influence of God the Holy Ghost, is so constituted as to be the trial of both his intellect and will, which in man, as in God, are mutually co-operating and co-ordinate springs of action. But though in man intellect and will must ever move hand in hand and in mutual concert to determine his actions, yet it is possible for him to go astray through the special fault of one or the other, and to be found at the end of his probation not to be what he might and ought to have been, as well through some special error of the understanding as through some vicious act of the will. Hence, after that the sacrifice had been paid which purchased man’s restoration to a state of grace, God the Father, in the Son and through the Eternal Spirit, went on to provide the aid that was found absolutely necessary to protect the erring intellect and the infirm will, in order that men might be preserved in the state of grace, be guided in it onward to their perfection, and be furnished with the medicinal means of restoration in case they might fall from it.

To this end the great society of the Catholic Church was instituted by God the Son, and the command given to the Apostolic College to go forth to collect and organize it out of all the nations of the earth: “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you”; while the work of God the Holy Ghost is the invisible imparting of spiritual gifts to the baptized members of this society, according to the needs of their rank, position, ministry, and functions; and the whole work is directed to the end that man may issue out of his probation fulfilling and realizing the divine idea.

Now, as God recognizes, in the probation of man, the trial of both intellect and will, and wills that not without the free exercise of these he should attain the perfection of his nature, our first parents, in the state of innocence, would, from their then enjoying a communication with heaven, possess, perhaps, partly through intuition, partly from revelation, a knowledge of the divine Exemplar, into conformity with which they were called to bring themselves. But when man fell and lost the illumination of sanctifying grace, then the perception of the divine ideal would be obscured and would cease to exist, except in the way of the few mercifully-surviving glimpses of their higher destination, which the history of our fallen race seems to indicate were never wholly lost.

It must be obvious, then, that a clear and practical view of the divine Exemplar, which we are required to resemble, is as much the natural guide of the intellect in its probation as the view of the moral attributes of God is that which wins the heart and leads captive the will. It was, among other reasons, in order to place this Exemplar before us, that the Eternal Son became man, and thus laid before the intellect of man, in his own most sacred humanity, the incarnate Exemplar of that which humanity was to aim at becoming during the course and at the issue of its probation. And if a doubt could for a moment cross the mind as to the question, What is the likeness or ideal that a Christian, as far as the power is given to him, should seek to aim at bringing himself to resemble? it is answered by the fact of the Incarnation of the Son of God. He is the incarnate Exemplar, or Pattern, for our study. His sacred humanity absolutely answers to the idea of God the Father; and they who, through the aid of God the Holy Ghost, succeed in acquiring a resemblance to this incarnate Pattern, will be found at the issue of their probation so far to realize the end for which they were created.

The sacred humanity of the Eternal Son being now no longer visible in the same manner as in the days when he taught with his apostles in Judæa, the church which he has founded has come to supply his place, and, by her varied means of instruction, to bring the knowledge of this divine Exemplar home to the minds of all. In the words of an author quoted by Professor Möhler, the church is a continuation of Christ (ein fortgesetzer Christus).

And thus with the question of Christian song. The intellect must at once feel that it needs a guide, and cannot be safely entrusted to itself. Nor can this guide be any other than the divine idea. And here, of course, it would be a manifest impiety for a human mind to attempt to construct, à priori, an idea of music, and then to call its own work the divine idea; for the whole value of the inquiry that is to follow is built on the truth that the main features and the subsequently-detailed constituent parts of the divine idea, as they have been laid down, are what they claim to be; and so far as these are capable of being disputed, the comparison will of course fail of its effect. Professor Staudenmaier justly observes, in treating of the creation, “Both ideas, the divine and the human, stand in this relation to each other: that God realizes his own eternal idea of the world in the act of creation, while man has to acquire his idea of the world from reasoning and an experimental examination of the world as it exists after creation. As the idea, then, to God is the first, and the world last, so, on the contrary, to man the world is first and the idea last, as that, namely, which he has had to gain for himself, as the result of a scientific examination of the divine work” (Die Christliche Dogmatik, vol. iii. part 1, p. 42.)

But if it be possible for the human mind to obtain a view of the divine idea of the creation from the study of the world as it exists, it must be also possible, in an analogous manner, to gain a view of the divine idea of Christian music from the history of the church and the legislation of councils, from the doctrine of the apostles and fathers of the church, and, lastly, from the reason of the thing. The contrary supposition would involve the inadmissible alternative that our divine Redeemer, who had done so much to furnish our understanding with its needed measure of guidance in the fact of his Incarnation and his living example, has left us without any principle at all to serve as our guide in the choice and employment of sacred music. This cannot be. The divine Teacher of mankind cannot, for his mercy’s sake, have left us to ourselves in so important a matter, that so much concerns the adoration he has himself taught us to pay to his Father and the Holy Spirit. It must be possible, from his own sacred words, from those of his inspired apostles, from the doctrine of the fathers, from the history and legislation of the church, as well as from our own Christian reason and instinct, as has been humbly and imperfectly attempted in the ensuing inquiry, to gather a view of the divine idea sufficiently clear and intelligible, sufficiently trustworthy and decisive, to serve as a guide for the understandings of those who feel the deep and dear interest of the question and their own liability to fatal error, with all its destructive consequences.

And if the means of acquiring such a view be open, it need not be said how great a duty there is to search for it; and in whatever proportion there be ground for believing that it has been, even though imperfectly, attained, it becomes so far a duty--an element in our probation, as well as a sacred and meritorious work, by every tender, considerate, legitimate, and untiring endeavor, to seek to bring Catholic Church music into conformity with it.

I.

GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE BASIS OF THE COMPARISON.

It would be surely a superfluous labor at the outset of an inquiry which it is desirable should be as short and condensed as possible to prove, in a learned manner, the great practical importance of the question, What, under our present circumstances, is the wisest, the best, and the most effectual use of music in the Catholic Church? The œcumenical and provincial councils that have made ritual chant the subject of their legislation; the authors, such as Cardinal Bona and Abbot Gerbertus, subsequent to the Council of Trent, not to speak of those who lived before it, who spent their lives in the study of all that Christian antiquity has thought and written upon it; the line of illustrious Roman pontiffs who made it their study, with a view to the true direction of its use in the church, need but to be recalled to mind to place in its true light the exceedingly practical importance of any controversy which affects its efficiency or mode of employment in the Catholic Church.[113] Moreover, if there were no such evidence of the importance of the question at issue to be found in the history of the past, still the mere obvious fact that vocal music enters so naturally into all the feelings of humanity, and domesticates itself so easily in every people, would be sufficient to explain its importance. People in any society are so insensibly moulded by all that surrounds them, are so much the creatures of the system in which they move, and grow up so naturally in conformity with it, that in such a society as the Catholic Church, organized by a divine wisdom, with a view to the training and instruction of its members, it is simply impossible that an agency such as music, possessed of such power for good or evil, could ever be regarded with indifference, or that there should be no definite views with regard to it, and its employment be abandoned to the indiscretion and caprice of individuals.

A question of individual taste, then, the present inquiry cannot for an instant be considered. Indeed, from the moment it were thus regarded it would have lost its whole value. Persons are no doubt to be found who would take a long journey and pay a large sum to hear Beethoven’s music for the Ordinary of the Mass sung among the performances of a music-meeting, who, as far as music was concerned, and setting aside the miracle, would hardly care to go across the street to hear S. Gregory sing Mass with his school of cantors, were they all to rise from the dead. So that if music in the Catholic Church could for a moment be considered as belonging of right to the dominion of individual taste, further controversy, it is plain, would be so far quite out of the question. The tastes of individuals, if not only devoid of rule, still do not go by any rule sufficiently clear to be made the subject of a formal controversy.

But in the Catholic Church the question is not, and cannot be, one of individual taste. When the divine Redeemer called his church to the work of training every nation and people under heaven, and gave to it the gift of sacred song, to be used as a powerful auxiliary agency in their work, we are bound to conceive that there existed in his divine mind a clear and definite intention, both relatively to the end it was intended to accomplish in the midst of Christian society, and to its application to this end as time should advance.

Sacred song has certainly a mission to accomplish upon earth, as well as the proper manner of its application to its proposed end; and both alike have been, in common with the whole work of creation, from the beginning contemplated and intended by Almighty God.

Now, the end intended by Almighty God, in his work of redemption in this world, as say theologians, is primarily the manifestation of his own glory; and, secondarily, the re-establishment of order and virtue, piety and sanctity, in human society, with a view to the life to come, or, in other words, with a view to the true and eternal, as distinguished from the false and fleeting, happiness of his creatures. From whence it would seem to result that the true character of the ecclesiastical song and its true application will be that in which it tends, in its own proper degree, to become an auxiliary in the accomplishment of this great end. Nor is it a second or a third rate efficaciousness that should be deemed sufficient. For if Almighty God, as many theologians seem with so much justice to say, not from any external necessity, but from his own perfections, in virtue of which he is a law to himself, freely chooses only those means that are most efficacious to the end he proposes, so, in like manner, the Catholic Church, filled as she is with the outpouring of the divine Spirit, and called to the imitation of the divine perfections, cannot but in like manner feel constrained to choose that alone for her music which tends, with the best and most certain efficacy, to the attainment of the end which God has designed in the gift.

The foregoing remarks have, I hope, now laid the foundation on which the proposed inquiry may be conducted. And I think I may be allowed to say in the outset that an inquiry which has for its object to ascertain what that may be in music and in the manner of its use which answers best to the idea existing in the mind of God, unless it very much belie its pretensions and profession, may justly claim respect; and that the whole investigation is thus at once raised beyond the horizon of anything like human partisanship, as well as the sphere of those little irritabilities with which discussions upon music may so easily be disfigured. And without at all presuming that the views here advocated ought necessarily to be adopted, the inquiry is still not a valueless service rendered to religion, if it succeed no further than in impressing upon the minds of those into whose way it may fall the fundamental idea upon which it is built, viz., that the mission of sacred song in the Catholic Church is to realize, not the ideas of men, which may and do differ in each individual, but the idea of the merciful and good God, who gave it for his own purposes of mercy and benevolence.

And since the idea, as it subsists in the mind of God, relative to the use of song in the Catholic Church, is made the sole keystone of the whole inquiry, as well to guard an avenue against possible misconceptions as also the more clearly to lay the basis of the discussion, it will be necessary to state, at a somewhat greater length, what the divine idea of sacred song, in its first broad outline, may be taken to be.

Sacred song, it has been said, is to be regarded as the musical associate and auxiliary of the work of Christian instruction and sanctification in the church. It cannot be anything or everything that is luscious or pleasing in music; moreover, it is an idea that goes beyond the notion of mere tune or melody, or even of the richest combination of sound that art ever produced. Sacred song, in the divine idea, must be more than mere music. For though it be true that tunes and other works of art in music are so far things by themselves as to be capable of being written in notation, and thus preserved, still it seems impossible that mere tunes and mere music should answer to the divine idea of sacred song.

When music has ceased to be mere sound; when it has been taken up by the feelings and living intelligence of the human heart and mind; when these have wedded it to themselves, have created in it a dwelling-place and a home, and out of it have formed for themselves a second language and range of expression; when the charm of melody has become the organ of a living soul and an energetic intelligence, then there results the birth of an element of the utmost power for good or evil in the heart of human society; and it is in this power, Christianized and reduced to subservience to the church, that there may be seen the first outline of the divine idea of sacred song.

This principle is thus stated by Mgr. Parisis, Bishop of Langres:

“To preserve the true character of the ecclesiastical chant it is necessary to recall to mind the following essential maxim:

‘Music for words, and not words for music.’

This is not the principle of worldly music, in which the words are often nothing but the unperceived and insignificant auxiliary of the sound.

“In religion this cannot be, because articulate language is the essential basis of all outward worship, especially public worship. This is a certain truth of both reason and tradition. It is a truth of reason; for language, that marvellous faculty which the Creator has given to man alone, is exclusively capable of finding an adequate expression for a worship of spirit and truth. It is also a truth of tradition; for the Catholic divine Offices have always been composed of words either drawn from the Sacred Scriptures or consecrated by tradition and chosen by the church. It is superfluous to press the demonstration of a principle that has never even been contested by any sect of separatists and does not admit of serious doubt” (Pastoral Instruction on the Song of the Church, part ii.)

The three great social convulsions of France have given a remarkable proof of the above-mentioned power of song. Each called into being, and was furthered in its rise and progress, by a song, La Marseillaise, La Parisienne, and that whose well-known burden runs thus:

“C’est le plus beau sort, le plus digne d’envie Que de mourir pour la patrie.”

Separate the words of these songs from their melodies, and the result would probably be the insignificance of both. But unite them, see them pass into the mouths and hearts of convulsed multitudes, observe men, under the delirium of their influence, march up to the cannon’s mouth and plunge themselves headlong into eternity, and we have an instance of what is meant by saying that music, united to intelligence, is an agent of nearly unlimited power for good or evil in human society.

This, then, is the sense in which sacred song is to be viewed as contemplated in the divine idea, viz., as the union of music with thought, feeling, and intelligence; in the words of the apostle (1 Cor.), I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also--not, of course, as taking the understanding out of its natural medium, language, but as clothing this its natural expression with a superadded charm, and a charm too, as will be afterwards seen, which has the gift of absorbing and, to a certain extent, of reproducing the idea annexed to it. The church music which the divine idea contemplates is that vocal song which Christian truth, in all its varied range, has appropriated, has taken from the sphere of music and wedded to herself, with the view of using the song thus associated to herself as the instrument by which she may pass into the mouths of men, and in this way find a home in their hearts. Analytically, then, in the sacred song contemplated by the divine idea, two separate elements are to be acknowledged--song and truth--but practically only one; for in practice they are indissolubly linked together, and constitute one moral whole, as body and soul together make up but one living being, to which, even more than to the sacred architecture of a church, the beautiful sentiment of the Ritual may be applied:

“O sorte nupta prospera, Dotata Patris gloria, Respersa sponsi gratia, Regina formosissima, Christo jugata principi.”

De Ded. Eccl.

Turning now, with this view of sacred song, to inquire what the Catholic Church possesses, after 1800 years of labor with the people of every variety of race and climate, in realization of the idea above stated, her various rituals, now for the most part withdrawn to make way for the beautiful Ritual of the Roman Church, present themselves to view. These rituals and their chant[114] have, we may be sure, at least in their day, been in the church the fulfilment, imperfect indeed and inadequate, as all that man does in this world necessarily is, yet still the fulfilment of the divine idea with respect to song. More cannot be necessary in support of this statement than the fact of the innumerable churches that have overspread Christendom, and the innumerable companies of saintly men whose lives were spent in the choirs of these churches--not, of course, to the exclusion of other duties and spheres of labor, yet mainly spent in the choral celebration of the offices of the Ritual and in all that accessory labor of musical study and tuition which the organization of a choir and the becoming celebration of the divine Office imply. The divine idea, in accordance with which sacred song has a fixed and determinate end to realize in the church, is the only way to account for this vast phenomenon in the history of Christendom. Nothing but an idea in the mind of God that sacred song is the living adjunct of the living truth, which the Catholic Church was sent to teach, could have had the power to call into being, not alone the rituals themselves and their song, but the innumerable choirs of Christendom which have been gathered together and governed by a more than human wisdom of organization for the purpose of their celebration.

Bearing in mind, then, that sacred song is the combination of music with the words of inspired truth, I propose, in the ensuing inquiry, to draw a detailed comparison between the Roman liturgy and its traditional chant, on the one hand, and the works of the modern art of music, which constitute the corps de musique, if I may use the expression now in use, adapted as they are to parts of the liturgy, and in their own way contributing to supply the want that is felt for sacred music; and this with the view to ascertain, as far as may be, from the result of the comparison, in which of the two the divine idea and intention is best answered and fulfilled. The human mind will not, and indeed ought not to, submit to any mere human idea, but ought willingly to accept the idea of God; and hence nothing but the divine idea, and this alone, is or can be the key to the present inquiry.

II

THE COMPARISON CARRIED INTO ITS DETAILS.

It has been already laid down that sacred song is the union of music to the words of inspired truth, with the view of its thus becoming an auxiliary in the work of Christian instruction and sanctification.

Before passing on to the approaching details let us stop for a moment fairly to consider the result of this principle as it affects the comparison generally.

Here, on the one hand, we have the Canto Fermo, with its vast variety of music, embracing an equally varied range in the stores of divine revelation, inasmuch as it is the counterpart in song of the entire Ritual; on the other hand we have the works of modern music, of which I am speaking, embracing scarcely more than a fraction of the Ritual. With a vast numerical rather than a real variety in point of the one constitutive element of sacred song--viz., music--they are poverty itself as regards the other--viz., inspired truth--the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, from the Ordinary of the Mass, and a small number of hymns, antiphons, and scattered verses from the Holy Scriptures, in the form of motets, being literally the sum-total of their possession in this element.

And now to carry the comparison into its details. The divine idea of sacred song could not have been known to us without a revelation, the very gift itself being, from its nature, the companion of a revelation. We are not, therefore, as has been remarked in the introduction, thrown upon our own natural powers of speculation either for our general knowledge of the divine idea itself or for gaining an insight into its constituent details; indeed, without revelation this would have been altogether beyond our natural capacities. But since God became man and founded his own society, the Catholic Church, and both taught himself and placed inspired teachers in it to succeed him, the ideas of God as to questions that concern the welfare of his church have, through the Incarnation of the Son, been brought to the level of our capacities, and are to be found in the Scripture and in Christian theology, and are there to be sought for as occasion may require. Thus examined, then, by the light of the Christian revelation, the divine idea of sacred song will, without urging that these are co-extensive with it, admit of being resolved into the ensuing points; the truth of which will be proved separately, as they come forward successively in the course of the comparison. They are as follows:

I. Authority: 1, ecclesiastical; 2, moral.

II. Claim to the completeness and order of a system.

III. Moral fitness: 1, as a sacrificial song; 2, as a song for the offices of the church.

IV. Fitness for passing among the people as a congregational song.

V. Moral influence in the formation of character.

VI. The medium or vehicle for divine truth passing among the people.

VII. Medicinal virtue.

VIII. Capacities for durable popularity.

IX. Security against abuse.

X. Catholicity, or companionship of the Catholic doctrines over the globe.

Upon these, then, the comparison may be now conducted.

TO BE CONTINUED.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE INTERNAL MISSION OF THE HOLY GHOST. By Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

Those who have read the most eminent prelate’s Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost will know what a spiritual and intellectual feast is before them in the present work, “which traces,” says the author, in his dedicatory preface to the Oblates of S. Charles, “at least the outline of the same subject.”

“The former book,” he explains, “was on the special office of the Holy Ghost in the one visible church, which is the organ of his divine voice. The present volume deals with the universal office of the Holy Ghost in the souls of men. The former or special office dates from the Incarnation and the day of Pentecost; the latter or universal office dates from the Creation, and at this hour still pervades by its operations the whole race of mankind. It is true to say with S. Irenæus, ‘Ubi Ecclesia, ibi Spiritus--Where the church is, there is the Spirit’; but it would not be true to say, Where the church is not, neither is the Spirit there. The operations of the Holy Ghost have always pervaded the whole race of men from the beginning, and they are now in full activity even among those who are without the church; for God ‘will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’”

“I have, therefore,” he continues, “in this present volume, spoken of the universal office of which every living man has shared and does share at this hour; and I have tried to draw the outline of our individual sanctification.”

And then, after expressing a hope that the Oblate Fathers may be “stirred up to edit in one volume” certain great treatises, patristic and scholastic, on the Holy Ghost and his gifts, as “a precious store for students and for preachers”--a wish in which we most heartily concur--he goes on to say:

“My belief is that these topics have a special fitness in the XIXth century. They are the direct antidote both of the heretical spirit which is abroad and of the unspiritual and worldly mind of so many Christians. The presence of the Holy Ghost in the church is the source of its infallibility; the presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul is the source of its sanctification. These two operations of the same Spirit are in perfect harmony. The test of the spiritual man is his conformity to the mind of the church. Sentire cum Ecclesia, in dogma, discipline, traditions, devotions, customs, opinions, sympathies, is the countersign that the work in our hearts is not from the diabolical spirit nor from the human, but from the divine.”

And again:

“It would seem to me that the development of error has constrained the church in these times to treat especially of the third and last clause of the Apostles’ Creed: ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints.’ The definitions of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, of the Infallibility of the Vicar of Christ, bring out into distinct relief the twofold office of the Holy Ghost, of which one part is his perpetual assistance in the church; the other, his sanctification of the soul, of which the Immaculate Conception is the first-fruits and the perfect examplar.

“The living consciousness which the Catholic Church has that it is the dwelling place of the Spirit of Truth and the organ of his voice seems to be still growing more and more vividly upon its pastors and people as the nations are falling away.”

The work consists of seventeen chapters. The first two are headed respectively “Grace the Work of a Person,” and “Salvation by Grace.” Then follow three on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The sixth treats of “The Glory of Sons.” From the seventh to the fourteenth we have the “Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost.” The fifteenth is on “The Fruits of the Spirit”; the sixteenth on “The Beatitudes.” The last chapter deals with “Devotion to the Holy Ghost.” We must refrain from making citations from these chapters; for if we once began, we should find it very difficult to stop. But we would draw special attention to the ninth chapter, on the “Gift of Piety,” and again to the seventeenth, on “Devotion to the Holy Ghost.” This devotion is one we have very much at heart; for none, we are persuaded, can so help us to realize the presence of God with and in us, and also the intimacy and tenderness of his love. We believe, with the Ven. Grignon de Montfort, that devotion to the Holy Ghost is to have a special growth, in union with devotion to his spouse, Our Lady, in these last times of the church.

We commend, then, this beautiful book to our readers as one of the most valuable and at the same time delightful it can ever be their lot to study. The happy language and luminous style of the author make his works intelligible to the ordinary mind beyond those of most theological writers. We trust that every encouragement will be given to the circulation of this work in America.

We have but to add that this is the only authorized American edition of the work, having been printed from duplicate sets of the stereotype plates of the London publishers.

MARY, STAR OF THE SEA; or, A Garland of Living Flowers Culled from the Divine Scriptures and Woven to the Honor of the Holy Mother of God. A Story of Catholic Devotion. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

It is scarcely necessary to say aught in praise of so old and well-established a favorite as this, further than to mention that the above is identical with the new and handsome London edition containing the corrections and additions of the author. The original edition, published in 1847, has been some time out of print, and the English market was supplied from this country until the American plates were consumed in the Boston fire.

This is not like the common run of stories; the story is only a slender thread, on which the garland of flowers culled by the pious and gifted author in honor of the Most Holy Virgin Mary is strung. The style is subdued, poetic, and devout, and there is just enough of dramatic personality and incident to relieve the mind and interest the imagination, while the reader follows the current of thought and reflection and pious sentiment which chiefly demands his attention.

We are now authorized to state that this work, which has heretofore appeared anonymously, was written by Edward Healy Thompson, A.M., so favorably known by the Library of Religious Biography, embracing Lives of SS. Aloysius and Stanislaus Kostka, Anna Maria Taigi, etc., published under his editorial and authorial supervision.

This work is admirably adapted, both in matter and mechanical execution, for premium purposes at the coming examinations.

ADHEMAR DE BELCASTEL; or, Be Not Hasty in Judging. Translated from the French by P. S., Graduate of S. Joseph’s, Emmettsburg. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

Here is another book fit for a prize for those who win examination honors, for which the youthful recipients will doubtless be duly grateful. It is brought out in the usual tasteful style of the Society’s publications.

A TRACT FOR THE MISSIONS, ON BAPTISM AS A SACRAMENT IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. By Rev. M. S. Gross. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

The author’s design in this publication is to “treat, first, of the valid manner of baptizing and the effect of baptism, as a sacrament of the Catholic Church; and, secondly, of the necessity of baptism for all persons, infants as well as adults.”

THE VATICAN DECREES AND CIVIL ALLEGIANCE.

THE TRUE AND FALSE INFALLIBILITY.

The Catholic Publication Society has collected into two volumes the most prominent pamphlets written in answer to Mr. Gladstone’s Expostulation and Vaticanism, and of those having a bearing on the controversy. The first-named of these volumes embraces Cardinal Manning’s The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance; Dr. Newman’s A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, and the Postscript to the same; together with the Decrees and Canons of the Vatican Council. The second includes The True and False Infallibility of Bishop Fessler; Mr. Gladstone’s Expostulation Unravelled, by Bishop Ullathorne; Submission to a Divine Teacher, by Bishop Vaughan; The Syllabus for the People: a review of the propositions condemned by his Holiness Pius IX., with text of the condemned list, by a monk of S. Augustine’s, Ramsgate. The works composing these volumes have already been separately noticed in our pages. The present editions are printed on superior paper and are very convenient in form for preservation and reference.

PAPARCHY AND NATIONALITY. By Dr. Joseph P. Thompson. Pamphlet. Reprinted from the British Quarterly Review.

It is a very repulsive spectacle to behold when an American citizen prostrates himself before a perfidious, unscrupulous brutal tyrant like Bismarck. For a descendant and representative of the Puritans it is an utter denial and abandonment of his own cause and the historical position of his own sect. The noble attitude and language of some of the distinguished Protestants of Prussia ought to put to shame this recreant American.

CRITERION; or, How to Detect Error and Arrive at Truth. By Rev. J. Balmes. Translated by a Catholic Priest. New York: P. O’Shea. 1875.

We wish our reverend friend had told us his name, that we might know whom to thank for this excellent translation of a work written by one who is high in rank among the modern glories of the priesthood in Catholic Spain and Europe. Balmes had his mind saturated with S. Thomas, and he possessed an admirable gift for rendering the doctrine of the Angelical Philosopher of Aquin intelligible and attractive to ordinary readers. The Criterion is an eminently intellectual and at the same time a most practical treatise. The study and practice of its maxims and instructions are fitted to make one wise both in the affairs of this life and those connected more immediately with the perfection and salvation of the soul. We beg of the translator to give us some more choice reading of the same quality.

THE LIFE OF FATHER BERNARD. By Canon Claessens, of the Cathedral of Malines. Translated from the French. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1875.

The many persons who remember the celebrated Father Bernard, Provincial of the Redemptorists in the United States, and director of a great many of the missions given by his subjects from the year 1851, will be pleased to read this biography. Father Bernard was a man of remarkable gifts and very thorough, solid learning, but still more eminent for apostolic zeal and personal sanctity. The late Archbishop Hughes had a very great veneration for him, and said of him, in his terse, emphatic style, which had more weight as he very seldom employed it in the praise of men: “Father Bernard is a man of God.” Besides the labors of a long life, he devoted a large fortune which he inherited to the service of religion. He was more celebrated in the Low Countries, as a preacher in the French and Flemish languages, than in the United States and Ireland, where he was obliged to make use of German and English. The biography is very interesting, and gives a full account of the earlier and later periods of Father Bernard’s life and his holy death, which occurred at Wittem, September 2, 1865, at the age of 58. The history of his administration of the province of the United States is meagre, although this was the most distinguished and useful portion of his public career. The appendix contains an amusing letter describing the voyage of Father Bernard and a band of Redemptorists from Liverpool to New York. Father Hecker and Father Walworth came back on this occasion; and immediately afterwards, during the Lent of 1851, the mission of S. Joseph’s, New York, was given, which is famous and remembered even now. Father Bernard’s American friends will be specially interested in the history of the closing scenes of his life. His death was like that of the saints; and we may say without exaggeration that he was in every way one of the worthiest of the sons of his great father, S. Alphonsus, who have adorned the annals of the Congregation he founded. The portrait at the head of the volume, though not admirable as a work of art, is strikingly faithful to the original.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES. English Statesmen. Prepared by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. New York: Putnams. 1875.

We all know the charm of Col. Higginson’s style, and are familiar with his many spirited sketches of scenes and men. Of course we expect a treat when we open a book which bears his name, and the readers of the very choice, elegant little volume before us will not be disappointed. Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Cairns, and a number of other prominent English statesmen, are drawn to the life, and numbers of sparkling anecdotes, bits of eloquent speech, and witticisms are interspersed. It is a very readable book and extremely lively and piquant.

A LECTURE ON SCHOOL EDUCATION AND SCHOOL SYSTEMS. Delivered before the Catholic Central Association of Cleveland, Ohio, by Rt. Rev. B. J. McQuaid, D.D., Bishop of Rochester. Cleveland: Catholic Universe office. 1875.

OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS; ARE THEY FREE FOR ALL, OR ARE THEY NOT? A lecture delivered by Hon. Edmund F. Dunne, Chief-Justice of Arizona, in the Hall of Representatives, Tucson, Arizona. San Francisco: Cosmopolitan Printing Co. 1875.

The Catholic Association of Cleveland, we have heard, is an energetic body, and exercised an active influence in securing the passage of the bill lately passed by the Ohio Legislature securing the rights of Catholics to the free exercise of religion in prisons and State institutions. The Bishop of Rochester and his immediate neighbor, the Bishop of Buffalo, are among the most efficient of our prelates in promoting Catholic education; and the pamphlet of the first-mentioned prelate, the title of which is given at the head of this notice, is a new proof of his zeal and ability in this important controversy.

The lecture of Chief Justice Dunne is a well-reasoned document, written in a plain, direct, and popular style--that of a lawyer who both understands his subject and the way of presenting it to an audience which will make them understand it.

HOW TO MAKE A LIVING. Suggestions upon the Art of Making, Saving, and Using Money. By George Carey Eggleston. New York: Putnams. 1875.

This very small and neat book contains a great many practical and sensible suggestions.

THE STORY OF A CONVERT. By B. W. Whitcher, A.M. New York: P. O’Shea. 1875.

Those who have read the Widow Bedott Papers have not forgotten that humorous and extremely satirical production. The authorship of this clever jeu d’esprit was in common between Mr. Whitcher and his former wife, a lady who died many years ago. Something of the piquant flavor of that early work is to be found in The Story of a Convert. It is, however, in the main, serious, argumentative, and remarkably plain and straightforward. Mr. Whitcher was an Episcopalian minister. He became a Catholic from reading, conviction, and the grace of God, which, unlike many others, he obeyed at a great sacrifice. He has, since that time, lived a laborious, self-denying, humble life as a Catholic layman; and his arguments have therefore the weight of his good example to increase their force. The fidelity to conscience of such men is a severe reproach to the dilettanti and amateur theologians who dabble for amusement in pseudo-Catholicism, and are ready to sacrifice their consciences and to mislead others to their eternal perdition for the sake of worldly advantages. This little book is one well worthy of circulation, and likely to do a great deal of good. We notice that the author mentions the name of McVickar among the converts from the General Theological Seminary. We have never heard of any convert of that name who was ever a student at this seminary, and we think Mr. Whitcher’s memory must have deceived him in this instance. We trust that this excellent little book will find an extensive sale and the honesty of the author at least a few imitators.

THE ORPHAN’S FRIEND, ETC. By A. A. Lambing, late Chaplain to S. Paul’s Orphan Asylum, Pittsburg. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.

This series of plain, simple instructions in religion and morals is intended, by a kind friend of the orphans, to be a guide to them when they are sent forth into the world. The poor orphans certainly need all the friends and all the sympathy and help they can get, and it was a good thought in the pious author to prepare this excellent little book.

THE OLD CHEST; or, The Journal of a Family of the French People from the Merovingian Times to Our own Days. Translated from the French by Anna T. Sadlier. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1875.

THE STRAW-CUTTER’S DAUGHTER, and THE PORTRAIT IN MY UNCLE’S DINING-ROOM. Two Stories. Edited by Lady Georgiana Fullerton. Translated from the French. Same publishers.

The first of these pretty little volumes is quite unique in its idea. A picture is given of French life and manners at the different epochs of history, by a series of supposed narratives preserved and handed down from father to son in an old chest, which was bequeathed by the last of the family to a friend, who published its contents. It is not so good in execution as in conception; for, indeed, it would require the hand of a master to carry out such an idea successfully. Nevertheless it is quite interesting and instructive reading.

The two stories of the second volume are romantic, tragic, vividly told, and quite original in conception.

ESSAYS ON CATHOLICISM, LIBERALISM, AND SOCIALISM, considered in their fundamental principles. By J. D. Cortes, Marquis of Valdegamas. Translated from the Spanish by Rev. W. McDonald, A.B., S.Th.L., Rector of the Irish College, Salamanca. Dublin: W. B. Kelly. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

We do not ordinarily feel called upon to speak of new editions, but in the present instance the book under notice is also a new translation of a valuable work. These Essays were translated by an accomplished lady in this country several years since; but as the work was not issued by a Catholic house, it may have escaped the attention of many of our readers who would be glad to make its acquaintance. We perceive that the original work was submitted to the approval of one of the Benedictine theologians at Solesmes, and that Canon Torre Velez has, in an appreciative introduction, discussed the plan and analysis of the work, so that the reader is pretty well certified of the value and correctness of the opinions advanced.

The title of the first chapter, “How a great question of theology is always involved in every great political question,” shows what a direct bearing the work has on topics of permanent interest.

We have a special reason for wishing that this and similar works may be widely known, in the fact that Spain--intellectually, more, perhaps, than physically--is so much a terra incognita to the rest of the world.

DOMUS DEI: A Collection of Religious and Memorial Poems. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham & Son. 1875.

This volume is published “for the benefit of the Church of S. Charles Borromeo,” in course of erection at Philadelphia. The authoress is already before the public.

Among the “religious” poems is one entitled “Bernadette at the Grotto of Lourdes.” They are all pleasant reading. The “memorial” poems, again, will be considered by many the choicest part of the book.

We wish the volume an extensive patronage.

THE IRISH WORLD.

It is not customary nor ordinarily proper for a magazine to engage in controversies which are waged among newspapers. Nevertheless, the one in which the Irish World is engaging itself with a considerable number of our Catholic newspapers is of such unusual importance and violence that we trust we may be permitted to make a few remarks upon it. Disunion, division of sentiment founded on differences of nationality and race, extreme partisan contests on any pretext whatever, and violent hostilities, among those who profess the Catholic religion, especially just at this time and in this country, are to be deprecated as more injurious to the cause of the faith and church of God than any amount of opposition from professed enemies of the Catholic religion. These can only be avoided by adopting and following out pure and perfect Catholic principles In all things whatsoever, and making the Catholic rule of submission to lawful authority, and conformity to the Catholic tradition, the Catholic spirit, and the common-sense which pervades the whole body of sound, loyal, hearty Catholics everywhere, without any exception or reservation, the standard of judgment and the law of action. It is necessary to be first a Catholic and afterwards French, German, American, English, or Irish, as the case may be; to be first of all sure that we understand and receive the teaching and the spirit of the Catholic Church, in theology, philosophy, morals, politics, and that we make her rights and interests, her advancement and glory, the spiritual and eternal good of the whole human race, the triumph of Jesus Christ, and the glory of God, paramount to everything. Secondary interests, and ideas, opinions, projects, which spring merely from private conviction or characterize nationalities, schools, parties, associations of human origin, should always be subordinate and be kept under the control of the higher principles of Catholic unity, charity, and enlightened regard for the rights of all men. This is the only true liberality. Liberalism, as it is called, which is nothing else than the detestable, anti-Christian Revolution, destroys all this by subverting the principle of order, which alone secures harmony, a just equality, and the rights of all. What is called Catholic liberalism, and has been denounced by Pius IX. as more dangerous and mischievous among Catholics than any open heresy could be, is a system of independence of Catholic authority, and of separation from the Catholic common doctrine and sentiment, of disrespect, disloyalty, irreverence, disobedience, and opposition to the hierarchy and the Holy See, in those things which are not categorically defined as articles of faith, yet, nevertheless, are doctrinally or practically determined by authority.

We have not been in much danger in this country from any clique of ecclesiastical and theological liberals. But the line adopted by the Irish World shows an imminent danger from another quarter. The editor professes submission to the authority of the Catholic Church in respect to the faith, and those precepts of religion and morals which are essential. We give him credit for sincerity and honesty and for good intentions. These are not, however, sufficient guarantees against principles and opinions which are erroneous, logically incompatible with doctrines of faith, tending to subvert faith in the minds of his readers, and producing an irreverent and disloyal spirit contrary to the true Christian and Catholic submission and respect to the prelates and the priesthood which is commanded by the law of God. If the respected gentleman who edits the Irish World desires to employ his talents and zeal to a really noble and useful purpose, with success and honor, for the spiritual and temporal welfare of men of his own race and religion, we recommend to him, in a friendly spirit, to modify some of his ideas in a more Catholic sense, and to take counsel from those who understand thoroughly the doctrine and spirit of the Catholic Church. Much greater men than any of us--Jansenius, De Lamennais, Döllinger, and a host of others--began by professing to be Catholics in faith. But they preferred their own private notions in respect to certain reforms in doctrine, discipline or morals, and politics, which they considered to be necessary and important, to the judgment of their spiritual rulers and the common Catholic sense. Their end was in heresy or apostasy, and they misled to their ruin those who followed them. We trust we shall be spared the misfortune of seeing a falling away from the faith of any part of the Catholic race of Ireland, either at home or in other countries. They are in no danger of perversion to Protestantism, nor are they at present assailable by open and avowed enemies of religion. It is by hidden poison only that they can be gradually infected and destroyed. This poison must disguise itself in some way as Liberal Catholicism. This is precisely the lurking poison which the unerring Catholic instinct has detected in the specious, pseudo-Christian, pseudo-Scriptural, pseudo-Catholic, and pseudo-Irish communism into which the conductors of the Irish World have been unwittingly betrayed. A journal so extensively circulated must necessarily, unless purged from this foreign and noxious element, do a great deal of harm. If the good sense, honesty, and Catholic faith of its editors are strong enough to free them from the specious illusions of Liberalism, the Irish World is in a condition to exert a very great and extensive influence for good, and we shall heartily wish it success. We approve of the free and generous activity of laymen in associations and through the press. Nevertheless, the great liberty enjoyed by them is liable to misdirection, and it is very necessary to guard against disorders which may spring from its abuse.

* * * * *

“Sacerdos” is requested to send his address to the editor of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, who will be happy to answer his note in a private letter.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.

From G. P. PUTNAM’S Sons: The Maintenance of Health. By J. M. Fothergill, M.D. 12mo, pp. 362. Protection and Free Trade. By Isaac Butts, 12mo, pp. 190. Religion as affected by Modern Materialism. 18mo, pp. 68.

From KELLY, PIET & CO.: Meditations of the Sisters of Mercy, before the Renewal of Vows. By the late Rt. Rev. Dr. Grant, Bishop of Southwark (Reprinted from an unpublished edition of 1863.) 18mo, pp. 116.

From R. WASHBOURNE, London: Rome and Her Captors. Letters collected by Count Henry D’Ideville. 1875. 12mo, pp. 236.

From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York: The Month of S. Joseph; or, Exercises for each day of the month of March. By the Rt. Rev. M. de Langalerie, Bishop of Belley. 1875.

From BURNS & OATES, London: Jesus Christ, the Model of the Priest. From the Italian, by the Rt. Rev. Mgr. Patterson. 24mo, pp. 103.

From MCGLASHAN & GILL, Dublin: The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847. By the Rev. J. O’Rourke. 12mo, pp. xxiv., 559.

From LEE & SHEPARD, Boston: The Island of Fire. By Rev. P. C. Headley. 12mo, pp. 339.

From THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY, New York: The Spirit of Faith; or, What must I do to Believe? Five Lectures, delivered at S. Peter’s, Cardiff, by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Hedley. O.S.B. 12mo, pp. 104.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XXI., No. 124.--JULY, 1875.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875. by Rev. I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

SPACE.

I.

Mathematicians admit three kinds of continuous quantities, viz., the quantity of space measured by local movement, the quantity of time employed in the movement, and the quantity of change in the intensity of the movement. Thus all continuity, according to them, depends on movement; so that, if there were no continuous movement, nothing could be conceived as continuous. The ancient philosophers generally admitted, and many still admit, a fourth kind of continuous quantity, viz., the quantity of matter; but it is now fully demonstrated that bodies of matter are not, and cannot be, materially continuous, even in their primitive molecules, and that therefore the quantity of matter is not continuous, but consists of a discrete number of primitive material units. Hence, matter is not divisible in infinitum, and gives no occasion to infinitesimal quantities, except inasmuch as the volumes, or quantities of space, occupied (not filled) by matter are conceived to keep within infinitesimal dimensions. We may, therefore, be satisfied that space, time, and movement alone are continuous and infinitely divisible, and that the continuity of space and time, as viewed by the mathematicians, is essentially connected with the continuity of movement. But space measured by movement is a relative space, and time--that is, the duration of movement--is a relative duration; and since everything relative presupposes something absolute which is the source of its relativity, we are naturally brought to inquire what is absolute space and absolute duration; for, without the knowledge of the absolute, the relative can be only imperfectly understood. Men of course daily speak of time and of space, and understand what they say, and are understood by others; but this does not show that they know the intimate nature, or can give the essential definition, of either time or space. S. Augustine asks: “What is time?” and he answers: “When no one asks me, I know what it is; but when you ask me, I know not.” The same is true of space. We know what it is; but it would be hard to give its true definition. As, however, a true notion of space and time and movement cannot but be of great service in the elucidation of some important questions of philosophy, we will venture to investigate the subject, in the hope that by so doing we may contribute in some manner to the development of philosophical knowledge concerning the nature of those mysterious realities which form the conditions of the existence and vicissitudes of the material world.

Opinions of Philosophers about Space.--Space is usually defined “a capacity of bodies,” and is styled “full” when a body actually occupies that capacity, “void,” or “empty,” when no body is actually present in it. Again, a space which is determined by the presence of a body, and limited by its limits, is called “real,” whilst the space which is conceived to extend beyond the limits of all existing bodies is called “imaginary.”

Whether this definition and division of space is as correct as it is common, we shall examine hereafter. Meanwhile, we must notice that there is a great disagreement among philosophers in regard to the reality and the essence of space. Some hold, with Descartes and with Leibnitz, that space is nothing else than the extension of bodies. Others hold that space is something real, and really distinct from the bodies by which it is occupied. Some, as Clarke, said that space is nothing but God’s immensity, and considered the parts of space as parts of divine immensity. Fénelon taught that space is virtually contained in God’s immensity, and that immensity is nothing but unlimited extension--which last proposition is much criticised by Balmes[115] on the ground that extension cannot be conceived without parts, whereas no parts can be conceived in God’s immensity.

Lessius, in his much-esteemed work on God’s perfections, after having shown (contrary to the opinion of some of his contemporaries) that God by his immensity exists not only within but also without the world, puts to himself the following objection: “Some will say, How can God be in those spaces outside the skies, since no spaces are to be found there which are not fictitious and imaginary?” To which he answers thus: “We deny that there are not outside of the whole world any true intervals or spaces. If air or light were diffused throughout immensity outside of the existing world, there would certainly be true spaces everywhere; and in the same manner, if there is a Spirit filling everything outside of this world, there will be true and real spaces, not corporeal but spiritual, which, however, will not be really distinct from one another, because a Spirit does not extend through space by a distribution of parts, but fills it, so to say, by its totalities.… Hence, when we say that God is outside of the existing world, and filling infinite spaces, or that God exists in imaginary spaces, we do not mean that God exists in a fictitious and chimerical thing, nor do we mean that he exists in a space really distinct from his own being; but we mean that he exists in the space which his immensity formally extends, and to which an infinite created space may correspond.… We may therefore distinguish space into created, uncreated, and imaginary. Created space embraces the whole corporeal extension of the material world. Uncreated space is nothing less than divine immensity itself, which is the primitive, intrinsic, and fundamental space, on the existence of which all other spaces depend, and which by reason of its extension is equivalent to all possible corporeal spaces, and eminently contains them all. Imaginary space is that which our imagination suggests to us as a substitute for God’s immensity, which we are unable to conceive in any other wise. For, just as we cannot conceive God’s eternity without imagining infinite time, so neither can we conceive God’s immensity without imagining infinite space.”[116]

Boscovich, in his Theory of Natural Philosophy, defines space as “an infinite possibility of ubications,” but he does not say anything in regard to the manner of accounting for such a possibility. Others, as Charleton, were of opinion that real space is constituted by the real ubication of material things, and imaginary space by the actual negation of real ubications.

Among the modern authors, Balmes, with whom a number of other philosophers agree on this subject, gives us his theory of space in the following propositions:

“1st. Space is nothing but the extension of bodies themselves.

“2d. Space and extension are identical notions.

“3d. The parts which we conceive in space are particular extensions, considered as existing under their own limits.

“4th. The notion of infinite space is the notion of extension in all its generality--that is, as conceived by the abstraction of all limits.

“5th. Indefinite space is a figment of our imagination, which strives to follow the intellectual process of generalization by destroying all limits.

“6th. Where no body exists, there is no space.

“7th. Distance is the interposition of a body, and nothing more.

“8th. If the body interposed vanishes, all distance vanishes, and contiguity, or absolute contact, will be the result.

“9th. If there were two bodies only, they would not be distant; at least, we could not intellectually conceive them as distant.

“10th. A vacuum, whether of a large or of a small extent, whether accumulated or scattered, is an absolute impossibility.”[117]

These assertions form the substance of Balmes’ theory of space. But he wisely adds: “The apparent absurdity of some of these conclusions, and of others which I shall mention hereafter, leads me to believe either that the principle on which my reasonings rest is not altogether free from error, or that there is some latent blunder in the process of the deduction.”[118]

Lastly, to omit other suppositions which do not much differ from the ones we have mentioned, Kant and his followers are of opinion that space is nothing but a subjective form of our mind, and an intuition a priori. Hence, according to them, no real and objective space can be admitted.

Amid this variety and discord of opinions, we can hardly hope to ascertain the truth, and satisfy ourselves of its reality, unless we settle a few preliminary questions. It is necessary for us to know, first, whether any vacuum is or is not to be admitted in nature; then, we must know whether such a vacuum is or is not an objective reality. For, if it can be established that vacuum is mere nothingness, the consequence will be that all real space is necessarily and essentially filled with matter, as Balmes and others teach; if, on the contrary, it can be established that vacuum exists in nature, and has an objective reality, then it will follow that the reality of space does not arise from the presence of bodies, and cannot be confounded with their extension. In this case, Balmes’ theory will fall to the ground, and we shall have to borrow from Lessius and Fénelon, if not the whole solution of the question, at least the main conceptions on which it rests.

Existence of Void Space.--The first thing we must ascertain is the existence or non-existence of vacuum in nature. Is there any space in the world not occupied by matter?

Our answer must be affirmative, for many reasons. First, because without vacuum local movement would be impossible. In fact, since matter does not compenetrate matter, no movement can take place in a space full of matter unless the matter which lies on the way gives room to the advancing body. But such a matter cannot give room without moving; and it cannot move unless some other portion of matter near it vacates its place to make room for it. This other portion of matter, however, cannot make room without moving; and it cannot move unless another portion of matter makes room for it; and so on without end, or at least till we reach the outward limits of the material world. Hence, if there is no vacuum, a body cannot begin to move before it has shaken the whole material world throughout and compelled it to make room for its movement. Now, to make the movement of a body dependent on such a condition is absurd; for the condition can never be fulfilled. In fact, whilst the movement of the body cannot begin before room is made for it, no room is made for it before the movement has begun; for it is by moving that the body would compel the neighboring matter to give way. The condition is therefore contradictory, and can never be fulfilled, and therefore, if there is no vacuum, no local movement is possible.

Secondly, it has been proved in one of our articles on matter[119] that there is no such thing in the world as material continuity, and that therefore all natural bodies ultimately consist of simple and unextended elements. It is therefore necessary to admit that bodies owe their extension to the intervals of space intercepted between their primitive elements, and therefore there is a vacuum between all the material elements. This reason is very plain and cannot be questioned, as the impossibility of continuous matter has been established by such evident arguments as defy cavil.

Thirdly, bodies are compressible, and, when compressed, occupy less space--that is, their matter or mass is reduced to a less volume. Now, such a reduction in the volume of a body does not arise from material compenetration. It must therefore depend on a diminution of the distances, or void intervals, between the neighboring particles of matter.

Fourthly, it is well known that equal masses can exist under unequal volumes, and vice versa--that is, equal quantities of matter may occupy unequal spaces, and unequal quantities of matter may occupy equal spaces. This shows that one and the same space can be more or less occupied, according as the density of the body is greater or less. But the same space cannot be more or less occupied if there is no vacuum. For, if there is no vacuum, the space is entirely occupied by the matter, and does not admit of different degrees of occupation. It is therefore evident that without vacuum it is impossible to account for the specific weights and unequal densities of bodies.

Against this, some may object that what we call “vacuum” may be full of imponderable matter, say, of ether, the presence of which cannot indeed be detected by the balance, but is well proved by the phenomena of heat, electricity, etc. To which we answer, that the presence of ether between the molecules of bodies does not exclude vacuum; for ether itself is subject to condensation and rarefaction, as is manifest by its undulatory movements; and no condensation or rarefaction is possible without vacuum, as we have already explained.

Another objection against our conclusion may be the following: Simple elements, if they be attractive, can penetrate through one another, as we infer from the Newtonian law of action. Hence, the possibility of movement does not depend on the existence of vacuum. We answer, that the objection destroys itself; for whoever admits simple and unextended elements, must admit the existence of vacuum, it being evident that no space can be filled by unextended matter. We may add, that natural bodies and their molecules do not exclusively consist of attractive elements, but contain a great number of repulsive elements, to which they owe their impenetrability.

The ancients made against the existence of a vacuum another objection, drawn from the presumed necessity of a true material contact for the communication of movement. Vacuum, they said, is contra bonum naturæ--that is, incompatible with the requirements of natural order, for it prevents the interaction of bodies. This objection need hardly be answered, as it has long since been disposed of by the discovery of universal gravitation and of other physical truths. As we have proved in another place that “distance is an essential condition of the action of matter upon matter,”[120] we shall say nothing more on this point.

Objective Reality of Vacuum.--The second thing we must ascertain is whether space void of matter be a mere nothing, or an objective reality. Though Balmes and most modern philosophers hold that vacuum is mere nothingness, we think with other writers that the contrary can be rigorously demonstrated. Here are our reasons.

First, nothingness is not a region of movement. But vacuum is a region of movement. Therefore, vacuum is not mere nothingness. The minor of this syllogism is manifest from what we have just said about the impossibility of movement without vacuum, and the major can be easily proved. For, the interval of space which is measured by movement may be greater or less, whilst it would be absurd to talk of a greater or a less nothing; which shows that vacuum cannot be identified with nothingness. Again, void space can be really occupied, whilst it would be absurd to say that nothingness is really occupied, for occupation implies the presence of that which occupies in that which is occupied; hence, the occupation of nothingness would be the presence of a thing to nothing. But presence to nothing is no presence at all, just as relation to nothing is no relation. And therefore, the occupation of void space, if vacuum were a mere nothing, would be an evident contradiction. Moreover, nothingness has no real attributes, whereas real attributes are predicated of void space. We find no difficulty in conceiving void space as infinite, immovable, and virtually extended in all directions; whilst the conception of an extended nothing and of an infinite nothing is an utter impossibility. Whence we conclude that space void of matter is not a mere nothing.

Secondly, a mere nothing cannot be the foundation of a real relation: space void of matter is the foundation of a real relation; therefore, space void of matter is not a mere nothing. In this syllogism the major is quite certain; for all real relation has a real foundation, from which the correlated terms receive their relativity. Now, all real foundation is something real. On the other hand, nothingness is nothing real. Therefore, a mere nothing cannot be the foundation of a real relation. The minor proposition is no less certain, because space founds the relation of distance between any two material points, which relation is certainly real. In fact, that on account of which a distant term is related to another distant term, is the possibility of movement from the one to the other--that is, the possibility of a series of successive ubications between the two terms, without which no distance is conceivable. But the possibility of successive ubications is nothing else than the successive occupability of space, or space as occupable. And therefore, occupable space, or space void of matter, is the foundation of a real relation, and accordingly is an objective reality.

Thirdly, if vacuum were mere nothingness, no real extension could be conceived as possible. For, since all bodies are ultimately composed of elements destitute of extension, as has been demonstrated at length in our articles on matter, and since the primitive elements cannot touch one another mathematically without compenetration, the extension of bodies cannot be accounted for except by the existence of void intervals of space between neighboring elements. But, if vacuum is a mere nothing, all void intervals of space are nothing, and nothing remains between the neighboring elements; and if nothing remains between them, all the elements must be in mathematical contact, and therefore unite in a single indivisible point, as even Balmes concedes. Whence it is evident that the existence of real extension implies the objective reality of vacuum. We conclude, therefore, that space void of matter is not a mere nothing, but an objective reality.

Against this proposition some objections are made by the upholders of a different doctrine. In the first place, distance, they say, is a mere negation of contact; and since a mere negation is nothing, there is no need of assuming that vacuum is a reality.

We answer, that, if distance were a mere negation of contact, there would be no different distances; for the negation of contact does not admit of degrees, and cannot be greater or less. Distances may be, and are, greater or less. Therefore, distance is not a mere negation of contact. The negation of contact shows that the terms of the relation are distinct in space; for distinction in space is the negation of a common ubication. But the distinction of the terms, though a necessary condition for the existence of the relation, does not constitute it. Hence, the relation of distance presupposes, indeed, the distinction of the terms and the negation of contact, but formally it results from a positive foundation by which the terms are linked together in this or that determinate manner. If the interval between two material points were nothing, a greater interval would be a greater nothing, and a less interval a less nothing. We presume that no philosopher can safely admit a doctrine which leads to such a conclusion.

A second objection is as follows: It is possible to have distance without any vacuum between the distant terms. For, if the whole space between those terms were full of matter, their distance would be all the more real, without implying the reality of vacuum.

We answer, first, that, to fill space, continuous matter would be needed; and, as continuous matter has no existence in nature, no space can be filled with matter so as to exclude real vacuum. We answer, secondly, that, were it possible to admit continuous matter, filling the whole interval of space between two distant terms, the reality of that interval would still remain independent of the matter by which it is assumed to be filled; for matter is not space; and, on the other hand, if all the matter which is supposed to fill the interval be removed, the distance between the terms will not vanish; which shows that the filling of space, even if it were not an impossible task, would not in the least contribute to the constitution of real distances. Hence, space, even if it were assumed to be full of matter, would not found the relation of distance by its fulness, but only by its being terminated to distinct terms, so as to leave room between them for a certain extension of local movement.

A third objection may be the following: True though it is that real attributes are predicated of void space, it does not follow that void space is an objective reality. For, when we say that space, as such, is infinite, immovable, etc., we must bear in mind that we speak of a potential nature, and that those predicates are only potential. Again, though we must admit that void space can be measured by movement, we know that such a mensuration is not made by terms of space, but by terms of matter. Lastly, although space is the capacity of receiving bodies, it does not follow that there is in space any receptive reality; for its capacity is sufficiently accounted for by admitting that space becomes real by its very occupation.[121]

To the first point of this objection we answer, that space may, perhaps, be called a “potential nature” in this sense, that it is susceptible of new extrinsic denominations; but if by “potential nature” the objector means to express a potency of being, and to convey the idea that such a nature is not real, then it is absolutely wrong to say that void space is a potential nature. Space is not in a state of possibility, and never has been, as we shall presently show. Hence the predicates, infinite, immovable, etc., by which the nature of space is explained, express the actual attributes of an actual reality. The author from whom we have transcribed this objection says that such predicates of space are real, not objectively, but only subjectively. He means, if we understand him aright, that the reality of such predicates must be traced to the bodies which occupy space, not to space itself, and that, though we conceive those predicates to be real owing to the real bodies we see in space, yet they are not real in space itself. As for us, we cannot understand how “to be infinite, to be immovable, to be occupable, etc.,” can be the property of any body which occupies space, or be the property of space, by reason of its occupation and not by reason of its own intrinsic nature. Space must be really occupable before it is really occupied; and nothing is really occupable which is not real, as we have already established. Whence we conclude that this part of the objection, as confounding the possibility of occupation with the possibility of being, has no weight.

To the second point we answer, that the thing mensurable should not be confounded with that by which it can be measured. Whatever may be the nature of the measure to be employed in measuring, no mensuration is possible unless the mensurable is really mensurable. Hence, no matter by what measure space is to be measured, it is always necessary to concede that, if it is really measured, it is something real. The assertion that space is measured “by terms of matter” can scarcely have a meaning. Terms, in fact, measure nothing, but are merely the beginning and the end of the thing measured. Space is measured by continuous movement, not by terms of matter; but before it is thus measured, it is mensurable; and its mensurability sufficiently shows its objective reality.[122]

To the third point of the objection we reply, that space is not a subject destined to receive bodies; and therefore it is not to be called “a capacity of receiving bodies.” Hence, we admit that space has no “receptive” reality. But there are realities which are not receptive, because they are not intrinsically potential; and such is the reality of space, as we shall hereafter explain. With regard to the assertion that “space becomes real by its very occupation,” we observe that, if space void of matter is nothing, as the objection assumes, it is utterly impossible that it become a reality by the presence of bodies in it. The presence of a body in space is a real relation of the body to the space occupied; and such a relation presupposes two real terms--that is, a real body and a real space. If space, as such, is nothing, bodies were created in nothing, and occupy nothing. Their volumes will be nothings of different sizes, their dimensions nothings of different lengths, and their movements the measurement of nothing. It is manifest that real occupation presupposes real occupability, and real mensuration real mensurability; and, since mensurability implies quantity (virtual quantity, at least), to say that occupable and mensurable space is nothing, is to pretend that nothingness implies quantity--a thing which we, at least, cannot understand. Moreover, to consider void space as a potency of being, destined to become a reality through the presence of bodies, is no less a blunder than to admit that the absolute is nothing until it becomes relative, or to admit the relative without the absolute. In fact, the space occupied by a body is a relative space, as its determination depends on the relative dimensions of the body. On the other hand, the relative dimensions of the body are themselves dependent on space, for without space there are no dimensions; and the space on which such relative dimensions depend must be a reality in itself, independently of the same dimensions, it being evident that the dimensions of the body cannot bestow reality upon that which is the source of their own reality. To say the contrary is to destroy the principle of causality, by making the absolute reality of the cause dependent on the reality of its effects. The assertion that “the absolute is nothing until it becomes relative,” leads straight to Pantheism. If you say that absolute space is nothing until it is occupied by bodies, and thus actuated and exhibited under determinate figures, the Pantheist will say, with as much reason, that the absolute being is nothing until it is evolved in nature, and thus actuated and manifested under different aspects. If you say that absolute space, as such, is but an imaginary conception, he will draw the inference that absolute being, as such, is similarly a mere figment of our brains. If you say that the only reality of space arises from its figuration and occupation, he will claim the right of concluding, in like manner, that the only reality of the absolute arises from its evolution and manifestation. We might dilate a great deal more on this parallel; for everything that the deniers of the reality of void space can say in support of their view can be turned to account by the deniers of a personal God, and be made to serve the cause of German Pantheism--the manner of reasoning of the latter being exactly similar to that of the former. This is a point of great importance, and to which philosophers would do well to pay a greater attention than was done in other times, if they admit, in the case of space, that “the absolute is nothing until it becomes relative,” they will have no right to complain of the Pantheistic applications of their own theory.

Vacuum unmade.--The third thing we have to ascertain is, whether void space, absolutely considered as to its reality, be created or uncreated. This point can be easily settled. Those who say that vacuum has no objective reality have, of course, no alternative. For them, vacuum must be uncreated. But they are probably not prepared to hear that we too, who defend the reality of void space, do not differ from them in the solution of this question.

To prove that space void of matter is not created, the following plain reasons may be adduced. First, space void of matter is neither a material nor a spiritual creature. It is no material creature; for it excludes matter. It is no spiritual creature; for, whether there be spiritual creatures or not, it is necessary to admit occupable space.

Secondly, no created thing is immovable, unchangeable, and unlimited. Absolute space is evidently immovable, unchangeable, and unlimited. Therefore, absolute space is not a product of creation.

Thirdly, space considered absolutely as it is in itself, exhibits an infinite and inexhaustible possibility of real ubications. But such a possibility is to be found nowhere but in God alone, in whom all possible things have their formal possibility. And therefore, the reality of absolute space is all in God alone; and accordingly, such a reality not only is not, but could never be, created.

Fourthly, whatever is necessary, is uncreated and eternal. Space considered absolutely as it is in itself is something necessary. Therefore, absolute space is uncreated and eternal. The major of this syllogism is evident; the minor is thus proved: Space absolutely considered is nothing else than the formal possibility of real ubications; but the possibility of things contingent is necessary, uncreated, and eternal; for all contingent things are possible before any free act of the creator, since their intrinsic possibility does not depend on God’s volition, as Descartes imagined, but only on his essence as distinctly and comprehensively understood by the divine intellect.

Our next proposition will afford a fifth proof of this conclusion. Meanwhile, we beg of our reader not to forget the restriction by which we have limited our present question. We have spoken of space absolutely considered as it is in itself--that is, of absolute space. Our conclusion, if applied to relative space, would not be entirely true; for relative space implies the existence of at least two contingent terms, and therefore involves something created. We make this remark because men are apt to confound relative with absolute space, owing to the sensible representations which always accompany our intellectual operations, and also because we think that the philosophical difficulties encountered by many writers in their investigation of the nature of space originated in the latent and unconscious assumption that their imagination of relative space was an intellectual concept of absolute space. It is thus that they were led to consider all space void of matter as imaginary and chimerical.

Quiddity of Absolute Space.--It now remains for us to ascertain the true nature of absolute space, and to point out its essential definition. Our task will not be difficult after the preceding conclusions. If absolute space is an uncreated, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable reality, it must be implied in some of the attributes of Godhead. Now, the divine attribute in which the reason of all possible ubications is contained, is immensity. Hence, absolute space is implied in God’s immensity, and we shall see that it is nothing else than the virtuality or the extrinsic terminability of immensity itself.

Before we prove this proposition, we must define the terms virtuality and terminability. “Virtuality” comes from virtus as formality from forma. Things that are actual owe their being to their form; hence, whatever expresses some actual degree of entity is styled “a formality.” Thus, personality, animality, rationality, etc., are formalities exhibiting the actual being of man under different aspects. Things, on the contrary, that have no formal existence, but which may be made to exist, owe the possibility of their existence to the power (virtus) of the efficient cause of which they can be the effect, or to the nature of the sufficient reason from which they may formally result. In both cases, the things in question are said to exist virtually, inasmuch as they are virtually contained in their efficient cause or in their sufficient reason. Hence, every efficient cause or sufficient reason, as compared with the effects which it can produce or with the results of which it may be the foundation, is said to have “virtuality”; for, the virtuality of all producible effects, as of all resultable relations, is to be found nowhere but in their efficient cause and in their formal reason. Thus all active power has a virtuality extending to all the acts of which it may be the causality, and all formal reason has a virtuality extending to all the results of which it may be the foundation. God’s omnipotence, for instance, virtually contains in itself the reality of all possible creatures, and therefore possesses an infinite virtuality. In a similar manner, God’s immensity has an infinite virtuality, as it virtually contains all possible ubications, and is the reason of their formal resultability. Omnipotence has an infinite virtuality as an efficient principle; immensity has an infinite virtuality as a formal source only.

These remarks about virtuality go far to explain the word “terminability.” Whenever an efficient cause produces an effect, its action is terminated to an actuable term; hence, so long as the effect is not produced, the power of the efficient cause is merely terminable. In the same manner, whenever a formal reason gives rise to an actual result, and whenever a formal principle gives being to a potential term, there is a formal termination; and therefore, so long as the result, or the actual being, has no existence, its formal reason is merely terminable. Hence, terminability has the same range as virtuality; for nothing that is virtually contained in an efficient or in a formal principle can pass from the virtual to the actual state except by the termination of an efficient or a formal act to a potential term.

We have said that absolute space is nothing else than the virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of God’s immensity. The first proof of this conclusion is as follows. Absolute space is the possibility of all real ubications. But such a possibility is nothing else than the infinite virtuality of God’s immensity. Hence our conclusion. The major of our syllogism is obviously true, and is admitted by all, either in the same or in equivalent terms. The minor needs but little explanation; for we have already seen that absolute space is an uncreated reality, and therefore is something connected with some divine attribute; but the only attribute in which the possibility of all real ubications is contained, is God’s immensity. Hence, the possibility of real ubications is evidently nothing else than the extrinsic terminability of divine immensity. In other terms, God’s immensity, like other divine attributes, is not only an immanent perfection of the divine nature, by which God has his infinite ubication in himself, but also the source and the eminent reason of all possible ubications, because it contains them all virtually in its boundless expanse. Hence, the infinite virtuality of God’s immensity is one and the same thing with the possibility of infinite ubications. And, therefore, absolute space is nothing but the virtuality of divine immensity.

Let the reader take notice that divine immensity is, with regard to absolute space, the remote principle, or, as the Schoolmen would say, the principium quod, whilst the virtuality or extrinsic terminability of divine immensity is the proximate principle, or the principium quo. Hence, it would not be altogether correct to say that absolute space is nothing but God’s immensity; for, as we call “space” that in which contingent beings can be ubicated, it is evident that the formal notion of space essentially involves the connotation of something exterior to God; and such a connotation is not included in divine immensity as such, but only inasmuch as it virtually pre-contains all possible ubications. And for this reason the infinite virtuality of God’s immensity constitutes the formal ratio of absolute space. It is in this sense that we should understand Lessius when he says: “The immensity of the divine substance is to itself and to the world a sufficient space: it is an expanse capable of all producible nature, whether corporeal or spiritual. For, as the divine essence is the first essence, the origin of all essences and of all conceivable beings, so is the divine immensity the first and self-supporting expanse or space, the origin of all expanse, and the space of all spaces, the place of all places, and the primordial seat and basis of all place and space.”[123]

The second proof of our conclusion may be the following. Let us imagine that all created things be annihilated. In such a case, there will remain nothing in space, and there will be an end of all contingent occupation, presence, or ubication. Yet, since God will remain in his immensity, there will remain that infinite reality which contains in its expanse the possibility of infinite contingent ubications; for there will remain God’s immensity with all its extrinsic terminability. In fact, God would not cease to be in those places where the creatures were located; the only change would be this, that those places, by the annihilation of creatures, would lose the contingent denominations which they borrowed from the actual presence of creatures in them, and thus all those ubications would cease to be formal, and would become virtual. It is plain, therefore, that the reality of void space must be accounted for by the fact that, after the annihilation of all creatures, there remains God’s immensity, whose infinite virtuality is equivalent to infinite virtual ubications. Hence, space void of matter, but filled with God’s substance, can be nothing else than the infinite virtuality of divine immensity.

A third proof of our conclusion, and a very plain one, can be drawn from God’s creative power. Wherever God is, he can create a material point; and wherever a material point can be placed, there is space; for space is the region where material things can be ubicated. Now, God is everywhere by his immensity; and therefore, everywhere there is the possibility of ubicating a material point--that is, absolute space has the same range as God’s immensity. On the other hand, there is no doubt that a material point, by being ubicated in absolute space, is constituted in God’s presence, and is thus related to God’s immensity; and this relation implies the extrinsic termination of God’s immensity. Therefore, the ubication of a material point in space is the extrinsic termination of divine immensity; whence it follows that the possibility of ubications is nothing but the extrinsic terminability of the same immensity.

The fourth proof of our conclusion consists in showing that none of the other known opinions about space can be admitted. First, as to the subjective form imagined by Kant, we cannot believe that it has any philosophical claim to adoption, as it evidently defies common sense, and is supported by no reasons. “Kant,” says Balmes, “seems to have overlooked all distinction between the imagination of space and the notion of space; and much as he labored in analyzing the subject, he did not succeed in framing a theory worthy of the name. While he considers space as a receptacle of natural phenomena, he at the same time despoils it of its objectivity, and says that space is nothing but a merely subjective condition, … an imaginary capacity in which we can scatter and arrange the phenomena.”[124] “To say that space is a thing merely subjective,” continues Balmes, “is either not to solve the problems of the outward world, or to deny them, inasmuch as their reality is thereby denied. What have we gained in philosophy by affirming that space is a merely subjective condition? Did we not know, even before this German philosopher uttered a word, that we had the perception of exterior phenomena? Does not consciousness itself bear witness to the existence of such a perception? It was not this, therefore, that we wished to know, but this only: whether such a perception be a sufficient ground for affirming the existence of the outward world, and what are the relations by which our perception is connected with the same outward world. This is the whole question. He who answers that in our perception there is nothing but a merely subjective condition, Alexander-like, cuts the knot, and denies, instead of explaining, the possibility of experimental knowledge.”[125]

As to Descartes’ and Leibnitz’ opinion, which makes the reality of space dependent on material occupation, we need only observe that such an opinion, even as modified by Balmes, leads to numerous absurdities, presupposes the material continuity of bodies, which we have shown to be intrinsically repugnant,[126] and assumes, by an evident petitio principii, that space void of matter is nothing. The same opinion is beset by another very great difficulty, inasmuch as it assumes that the reality of space lies in something relative, whilst it recognizes nothing absolute which may be pointed out as the foundation of the relativity. This difficulty will never be answered. In all kind and degree of reality, before anything relative can be conceived, something absolute is to be found from which the relative borrows its relativity. On the other hand, it is obvious that real space, as understood by Descartes, and by Balmes too, is something purely relative; for “space,” says Balmes, “is nothing but the extension of bodies themselves”; to which Descartes adds, that such a space “constitutes the essence of bodies.” But the extension of bodies is evidently relative, since it arises from the relations intervening between the material terms of bodies. The three dimensions of bodies--length, breadth, and depth--are nothing but distances, and distances are relations in space. Hence, no dimension is conceivable but through relations in space; and therefore, before we can have real dimensions in bodies, we must have, as their foundation, real space independent of bodies. Finally, since the opinion of which we are speaking affirms that relative space is a reality, while it denies that space without bodies is real, the same opinion lays down the foundation of real and of ideal Pantheism, as we have already remarked. This suffices to show that such an opinion must be absolutely rejected.

Nothing therefore remains but to accept the doctrine of those who account for the reality of absolute space either by divine immensity or by the possibility of real ubications. But these authors, as a little reflection will show, though employing a different phraseology, teach substantially the same thing; for it would be absurd to imagine the possibility of infinite real ubications as extraneous to God, in whom alone all things have their possibility. We must, therefore, conclude that space, considered absolutely as to its quiddity, may be defined to be the infinite virtuality, or extrinsic terminability, of divine immensity.

A Corollary.--Absolute space is infinite, eternal, immovable, immutable, indivisible, and formally simple, though virtually extended without limits--that is, equivalent to infinite length, breadth, and depth.

Solution of Objections.--It may be objected that absolute space, being only a virtuality, can have no formal existence. In fact, the virtuality of divine immensity is the mere possibility of real ubications; and possibilities have no formal existence. Hence, to affirm that absolute space has formal being in the order of realities, is to give body to a shadow. It would be more reasonable to say that space is contained in divine immensity just as the velocity which a body may acquire is contained in the power of an agent; and that, as the power of the agent is no velocity, so the virtuality of immensity is no space.

This objection may be answered thus: Granted that the virtuality of divine immensity is the mere possibility of real ubications, it does not follow that absolute space has only a virtual existence, but, on the contrary, that, as the virtuality of divine immensity is altogether actual, so also is absolute space. The reason alleged, that “possibilities have no formal existence,” is sophistic. A term which is only possible, say, another world, has of course no formal existence; but its possibility--that is, the extrinsic terminability of God’s omnipotence--is evidently as actual as omnipotence itself. And in the same manner, an ubication which is only possible has no formal existence; but its possibility--that is, the extrinsic terminability of God’s immensity--is evidently as actual as immensity itself. If absolute space were conceived as an array of actual ubications, we would readily concede that to give it a reality not grounded on actual ubications would be to give a body to a shadow; but, since absolute space must be conceived as the mere possibility of actual ubications, it is manifest that we need nothing but the actual terminability of God’s immensity to be justified in admitting the actual existence of absolute space.

Would it be “more reasonable” to say, as the objection infers, that space is contained in divine immensity just as velocity is contained in the power of the agent? Certainly not, because what is contained in divine immensity is the virtuality of contingent ubications, not the virtuality of absolute space. There is no virtuality of absolute space; for there is no virtuality of possibility of ubications; as the virtuality of a possibility would be nothing else than the possibility of a possibility--that is, a chimera. Hence, the words of the objection should be altered as follows: “Contingent ubications are contained in divine immensity just as velocity is contained in the power of an agent; for, as the power of the agent is no actual velocity, so the virtuality of immensity is no actual contingent ubication.” And we may go further in the comparison by adding, that, as the formal possibility of actual velocity lies wholly in the power of the agent, so the possibility of actual ubications--that is, absolute space--lies in the virtuality of divine immensity.

Thus the objection is solved. It will not be superfluous, however, to point out the false assumption which underlies it, viz., the notion that the extrinsic terminability of divine immensity has only a virtual, not a formal, reality. This assumption is false. The terminability is the formality under which God’s immensity presents itself to our thought, when it is regarded as the source of some extrinsic relation, ut habens ordinem ad extra. Such a formality is not a mere concept of our reason; for God’s immensity is not only conceptually, but also really, terminable ad extra; whence it follows that such a terminability is an objective reality in the divine substance. Terminability, of course, implies virtuality; but this does not mean that such a terminability has only a virtual reality; for the virtuality it implies is the virtuality of the extrinsic terms which it connotes, and not the virtuality of its own being. Were we to admit that the extrinsic terminability of God’s immensity is only a virtual entity, we would be compelled to say also that omnipotence itself is only a virtual entity; for omnipotence is the extrinsic terminability of God’s act. But it is manifest that omnipotence is in God formally, not virtually. In like manner, then, immensity is in God not only as an actual attribute, but also as an attribute having an actual terminability ad extra, which shows that its terminability is not a virtual, but a formal, reality.

A second objection may be made. Would it not be better to define space as the virtuality of all ubications, rather than the virtuality of God’s immensity? For when we think of space, we conceive it as something immediately connected with the ubication of creatures, without need of rising to the consideration of God’s immensity.

We answer that absolute space may indeed be styled “the virtuality of all ubications;” for all possible ubications are in fact virtually contained in it. But such a phrase does not express the quiddity of absolute space; for it does not tell us what reality is that in which all ubications are virtually contained. On the contrary, when we say that absolute space is “the virtuality of divine immensity,” we point out the very quiddity of space; for we point out its constituent formality which connects divine immensity with all possible ubications.

True it is that we are wont to think of space as connected with contingent ubications; for it is from such ubications that our knowledge of place and of space arises. But this space thus immediately connected with existing creatures is relative space, and its representation mostly depends on our imaginative faculty. Hence, this manner of representing space cannot be alleged as a proof that absolute space can be intellectually conceived without referring to divine immensity.

A third objection may be the following. Whatever has existence is either a substance or an accident. But absolute space is neither a substance nor an accident. Therefore, absolute space has no existence, and is nothing. The major of this argument is well known, and the minor is proved thus: Absolute space does not exist in any subject, of which it might be predicated; hence, absolute space is not an accident. Nor is it a substance; for then it would be the substance of God himself--an inference too preposterous to be admitted.

This objection will soon disappear by observing that, although everything existing may be reduced either to the category of substance or to some of the categories of accident, nevertheless, it is not true that every existing reality is formally a substance or an accident. There are a great many realities which cannot be styled “substances,” though they are not accidents. Thus, rationality, activity, substantiality, existence, and all the essential attributes and constituents of things, are not substances, and yet they are not accidents; for they either enter into the constitution, or flow from the essence, of substance, and are identified with it, though not formally nor adequately. Applying this distinction to our subject, we say that absolute space cannot be styled simply “God’s substance,” notwithstanding the fact that the virtuality of divine immensity identifies itself with immensity, and immensity with the divine substance. The reason of this is, that one thing is not said simply to be another, unless they be the same not only as to their reality, but also as to their conceptual notion. Hence, we do not say that the possibility of creatures is “God’s substance,” though such a possibility is in God alone; and in the same manner, we cannot say that the possibility of ubication is “God’s substance,” though such a possibility has the reason of its being in God alone. For the same reason, we cannot say simply that God’s eternity is his omnipotence, nor that his intellect is his immensity, nor that God understands by his will or by his goodness, though these attributes identify themselves really with the divine substance and with one another, as is shown in natural theology. It is plain, therefore, that absolute space is not precisely “God’s substance”; and yet it is not an accident; for it is the virtuality or extrinsic terminability of divine immensity itself.

A fourth objection arises from the opinion of those who consider God’s immensity as the foundation of absolute space, but in such a manner as to imply the existence of a real distinction between the two. Immensity, they say, has no formal extension, as it has no parts outside of parts; whereas, absolute space is formally extended, and has parts outside of parts; for when a body occupies one part of space, it does not occupy any other--which shows that the parts of space are really distinct from one another; and therefore absolute space, though it has the reason of its being in God’s immensity, is something really distinct from God’s immensity.

To this we answer, that it is impossible to admit a real distinction between absolute space and divine immensity. When divine immensity is said to be the foundation, or the reason of being, of absolute space, the phrase must not be taken to mean that absolute space is anything made, or extrinsic to God’s immensity; its meaning is that God’s immensity contains in itself virtually, as we have explained, all possible ubications of exterior things, just as God’s omnipotence contains in itself virtually all possible creatures. And as we cannot affirm without error that there is a real distinction between divine omnipotence and the possibility of creatures which it contains, so we cannot affirm without error that there is a real distinction between divine immensity and the possibility of ubications which it contains.

That immensity has no parts outside of parts we fully admit, though we maintain at the same time that God is everywhere formally by his immensity. But we deny that absolute space has parts outside of parts; for it is impossible to have parts where there are no distinct entities. Absolute space is one simple virtuality containing in itself the reason of distinct ubications, but not made up of them; just as the divine essence contains in itself the reason of all producible essences, but is not made up of them.

As to the formal extension of immensity, Lessius seems to admit it when he says that “God exists in the space which his immensity formally extends.” Fénelon also holds that “immensity is infinite extension”; whilst Balmes does not admit that extension can be conceived where there are no parts. The question, so far as we can judge, is one of words. That God is everywhere formally is a plain truth; on the other hand, to say that he is formally extended, taking “extension” in the ordinary signification, would be to imply parts and composition; which cannot be in God. It seems to us that the right manner of expressing the infinite range of God’s immensity would be this: “God through his immensity is formally everywhere, though by a virtual, not a formal, extension.” In the same manner, space is formally everywhere, though it is only virtually, not formally, extended. And very likely this, and nothing more, is what Lessius meant when saying that immensity “formally extends” space. This phrase may, in fact, be understood in two ways; first, as meaning that immensity causes space to be formally extended--which is wrong; secondly, as meaning that immensity is the formal, not the efficient, reason of the extension of space. This second meaning, which is philosophically correct, does not imply the formal extension of space, as is evident, unless by “formal extension” we understand the “formal reason of its extending”; in which case the word “extension” would be taken in an unusual sense.

Lastly, when it is objected that “bodies occupying one part of space do not occupy another,” and that therefore “space is composed of distinct parts,” a confusion is made of absolute space, as such, and space extrinsically terminated, or occupied by matter, and receiving from such a termination an extrinsic denomination. Distinct bodies give distinct names to the places occupied by them; but absolute space is not intrinsically affected by the presence of bodies, as we shall see in our next article; and, therefore, the distinct denominations of different places refer to the distinct ubications of matter, not to distinct parts of absolute space. As we cannot say that the sun and the planets are parts of divine omnipotence, so we cannot say that their places are parts of divine immensity or of its terminability; for as the sun and the planets are only extrinsic terms of omnipotence, so are their places only extrinsic terms of immensity. Such places, therefore, may be distinct from one another, but their possibility (that is, absolute space) is one, and has no parts. But this subject will receive a greater development in our next article, in which we intend to investigate the nature of relative space.

TO BE CONTINUED.

CORPUS CHRISTI.

Not lilies here, their vesture is too pale, Nor will they crush to fragrance ’neath the tread Where every step must rapturous thought exhale Of the triumphant King whose thorn-crowned head Dripped crimson life-drops but a while ago. Not lilies here, to-day the roses know It is Love’s feast, and sacred banquet-hall And holy table should be decked and strewn With Love’s bright flowers, the perfumed gifts of June. Oh! that our hearts might lie beneath his feet Even as the drifting petals, pure and sweet! Joy, drooping soul! His peace is over all. Gethsemane is past, Golgotha’s darkness fled: To-day the guests are bidden, the heavenly banquet spread.

ARE YOU MY WIFE?

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.

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VI. THE DEBUT

The three days had expanded to ten when Admiral de Winton opened the breakfast-room door on Monday morning, and, standing on the threshold, said in his most emphatic manner: “Harness, I’m going up by the 3.20 this afternoon. Now, not a word, or I’ll bolt this minute. … I can bear a good deal, but there is a limit to everything. You’ve wheedled me and bullied me into neglecting my business for a whole week, in spite of myself; and I’m off to-day by the 3.20.”

“Well, depart in peace whatever you do,” said Sir Simon, “and I suppose you had better have some breakfast before you start? It’s struck nine already, but you will have time to swallow a cup of tea between this and then.”

“The fact is it serves me right,” continued the admiral, advancing to his accustomed seat at the table; “hard-worked drudges of my kind ought never to trust themselves in the clutches of idle swells like you--they never know when they’ll get out of them. Here’s a letter from the Admiralty, blowing me up for not sending in that report I was to have drawn up on the Russian fleet; and quite right, too--only it’s you who ought to get the blowing up, not me.”

“But, uncle, I thought you had settled to remain till Thursday,” said Clide; “you said you would yesterday.”

“One often says a thing yesterday that one has to unsay to-day,” retorted the admiral, clearing for action by sweeping his letters to one side; “I’m going by the 3.20. I tell you I am, Harness!”

“Well, I’ve not said anything to the contrary, have I?”

“But you needn’t be trying to circumvent me, to make me late for the train, or that sort of thing. I’m up to your dodges now. Ryder will be on the look-out; he’s packing up already.”

“I must say its rather shabby behavior to Lady Anwyll,” observed the baronet; “the dinner and dance on Wednesday are entirely for you and Clide.”

“Clide must go and make the best of it for me; an old fellow like me is no great loss at a dinner, and I don’t suppose she counted much on me for the dance. How much longer do you intend to stay here, eh?” This was to his nephew.

“What’s that to you?” said Sir Simon, interrupting Clide, who was about to answer; “you’d like him to do as you are doing--set the county astir to entertain him, and then decamp before anything comes off.”

But the admiral was not to be moved from his determination by any sense of ill-behavior to the county. He started by the 3.20. Sir Simon and Clide went to see him off, and called at The Lilies on their way back.

“It’s perfectly useless, he never would consent to it; and in any case it’s too late now,” Sir Simon remarked, with his hand on the wicket; “it’s for Wednesday, and this is Monday. We should have thought of it sooner.”

“Well, you’ll speak to him anyhow; it may serve for next time,” urged Clide in a low voice; “it’s cruel to see her cooped up in this way.”

It was as Sir Simon guessed. M. de la Bourbonais would not hear of Franceline’s going to Lady Anwyll’s. Why should he? He did not know Lady Anwyll, and he was not likely to accept an invitation that had clearly been sent at somebody else’s request, at the eleventh hour. But quite apart from this he would never have allowed his daughter to go. He never went out himself, and his paternal French instinct repelled as a monstrous inconvenance the idea of letting her go without him--above all, for a first appearance.

“But, happily, Franceline does not care about those things,” he said; “she has never been to a party, as you know. She is happier without amusements of the sort; her doves are all the amusement she wants.”

“Hem!… I’m not so sure of that, Bourbonais,” said Sir Simon; “we take for granted young people don’t care for things because we have ceased to care for them; we forget that we were young once upon a time ourselves. Why should Franceline not enjoy what other young girls enjoy?”

“She is not like other young girls,” replied her father, in a tone of gentle sadness.

“Unfortunately for other girls and for mankind in general,” assented Sir Simon.

Raymond smiled.

“I meant that their circumstances are not alike. You know they are not, mon cher.”

“You make mountains out of mole-hills, Bourbonais,” said the baronet; “however, I give in about this hop of Lady Anwyll’s. It wouldn’t quite do to bring Mlle. de la Bourbonais out in that fashion; she must be presented differently; those youngsters don’t consider these important points.” And he nodded at Clide, who had sat listening with none the less interest because he was silent. “But something must be done about it; the child can’t be thrown any longer on her doves for society; she must have a little amusement; it will tell on her health if she has not.”

It was not without intention that he pointed this arrow at Raymond’s shield. Sir Simon knew where his vulnerable spot lay, and that it was possible to make him do almost anything by suggesting that it might affect his child’s health. He had, so far, no grounds for alarm, or even anxiety about it; but the memory of her mother, to whom she bore in many ways so strong a resemblance, hung over him like the shadow of an unseen dread. It was this that conquered him in the riding scheme, reducing him into acquiescence with what he felt was not frankly justifiable. Sir Simon had indeed assured him that Lord Roxham had declined to take Rosebud; but he did not explain the circumstances. Clide had taken a fancy to the spirited bay mare, and on the very morning after the letter was despatched he announced his intention of riding her while he remained; whereupon the baronet, more keenly alive to the courtesies of a host than the obligations of a debtor, instead of telling him how matters stood, wrote a second letter on receipt of Lord Roxham’s accepting the offer, to say he could not let him have the horse for a week or so, and as Lord Roxham wanted her immediately as a present for his intended bride, he could not wait, and thus £1,000 slipped out of Sir Simon’s hands. Mr. Simpson, his incomparable man of business, had, however, stopped the gap by some other means, and the rascally architect was quieted for the present.

Raymond observed that Lord Roxham was not the only person in England who was open to the offer of a mare like Rosebud, though it might be difficult to meet with any one willing to give such an exorbitant price for her; one does not light on a wealthy, infatuated bridegroom every day. “Yes, that’s just it,” replied Sir Simon, grasping at any excuse for procrastination, “one must bide one’s time; it’s a mistake selling for the sake of selling; if you only have patience you’re sure to find your man by-and-by.” And Raymond, feeling that he had done all that he was called upon to do in the case, recurred to it no more, and was satisfied to let Franceline use the horse. There was no doubt the exercise was beneficial to her. Angélique said her appetite had nearly doubled, and the child slept like a dormouse since she had taken the riding; and as to the enjoyment it afforded her, there could be no mistake about that.

Sir Simon had promised to think over what next should be done to amuse his young favorite, and he was as good as his word. He gave the matter, in ministerial parlance, his most anxious consideration, and the result was that he made up his mind to give a ball at the Court, where Franceline should make her début with the éclat that became her real station and the hereditary friendship of the two families. He owed this to Raymond. It was only fitting that Franceline should come out under his roof, and be presented by him as the daughter of his oldest and most valued friend. He was almost as fond of the child, too, as if she were his own; and besides, it was becoming desirable at this moment that her position in society should be properly defined. He came down to breakfast big with this mighty resolution, and communicated it to Clide, who at once entered into the plan with great gusto, and had many valuable hints to give in the way of decorations; he had seen eastern pageants, and Italian and Spanish festas, and every description of barbaric gala in his travels, and his ideas were checked by none of the chains that are apt to hamper the flights of fancy in similar cases. Sir Simon had never hinted in his presence at such a thing as pecuniary embarrassments, and there was nothing in the style and expenditure at the Court to suggest their existence there. Sir Simon winced a little as Clide unwittingly brought his practical deception home to him by speaking as if money were as plentiful as blackberries with the owner of Dullerton; but he was determined to keep strictly within the bounds of reason, and not to be beguiled into the least unnecessary extravagance.

“Bourbonais would not like it, you see; and we must consider him first in the matter. It will be better on the whole to make it simply a sort of family thing, just a mustering of the natives to introduce Franceline. It would be in bad taste to make a Lord Mayor’s day of it, as if she were an heiress, and so on. We’ll just throw all the rooms open, and make it as jolly as we can in a quiet way. I’ll invite everybody--the more the merrier.”

So they spent a pleasant hour or so talking it all over; who were to be asked to fill their houses, and what men were to be had down from London as a reserve corps for the dancing. They had got the length of fixing the date of the ball, when Sir Simon remembered that there was the highly important question of Franceline’s dress to be considered.

“I must manage to get her up to London, and have her properly rigged out by some milliner there. I dare say your stepmother would put us up to that part of the business, eh?” And Clide committed his stepmother to this effect in a most reckless way. It had already been mooted with Raymond by Sir Simon that Franceline should go to London for a few days to see the sights, and he could fall back on this now for the present purpose. He was surprised to find that Raymond consented to the proposal, not merely without reluctance, but almost with alacrity.

“If you really think the change will do her good, I shall be only too grateful to you for taking her,” he said; “but does it strike you she wants it?”

Sir Simon felt a slight shock of compunction at this direct question, and at the glance of timid inquiry that accompanied it. He had never intended to distress or alarm his friend; he only made the remarks about Franceline’s health as a means of compassing his own ends towards amusing and pleasing her.

“Not a bit of it!” he answered contemptuously; “what could have put such a notion into my head? When I say a little change of one sort or another will do her good, I only judge from what I hear all the mothers say; when their daughters are come to Franceline’s age they’re constantly wanting change, and if they are too long without it they begin to droop, and to look pale, and so forth, and the doctor orders them off somewhere. I don’t imagine Franceline is an exception to the general rule; and as prevention is better than cure, it’s as well to give her the change before she feels the want of it. It’s a good plan always to take time by the forelock; you see yourself that the riding has done her good.”

“Yes, mon cher, yes,” said M. de la Bourbonais, tilting his spectacles, “it certainly has strengthened her. She has lost that pain in her side she used to suffer from, though I never knew it--I only heard of it when it was gone. Angélique should not have concealed it from me,” he added, a little nervously, and with another of those inquiring looks at Sir Simon.

“Pooh, pooh, nonsense! What would she have worried you about it for? All young people have pains in their sides,” returned the baronet oracularly. “She’s not done growing yet. Well, then, it’s settled that I carry her off on Monday. We will start early, so as to be there to receive Mrs. de Winton, who arrives at Grosvenor Square by the late afternoon train.”

“But there is one thing you must promise me,” said Raymond, going up to him and laying a hand impressively on his arm; “you will go to no unnecessary expense. You must give me your word for that.”

“There you are, as usual, harping on the old string,” laughed the baronet, with a touch of impatience. “What expense do you expect me to go to? The house is there, and the servants are there and whether I’m there or not the expenses go on. You don’t suppose Franceline will add very heavily to them, or Mrs. de Winton either?”

“But you talked about taking her to the operas, and so on, and I am sure she would not care for amusements of that sort; they would be too exciting for her. The change of scene and the sights of the city will be quite enough.”

“Make your mind easy about all that. Mrs. de Winton will take care the child doesn’t overdo herself. She’s a very sensible woman, and not at all fond of excitement.”

As the baronet pronounced Mrs. de Winton’s name, it occurred to him for the first time to wonder if it suggested nothing to Raymond, and whether Clide’s assiduity at The Lilies, and prolonged stay at Dullerton after his announcement that he was only to remain three days, awoke no suspicion in his mind. The thing would have been impossible in the case of any other father; but Raymond was so absorbed in his studies, in hunting out and analyzing the Causes of the Revolution, the proposed title of the work that was to be Franceline’s dot, and so altogether unlearned in the common machinery of life, that he was capable of seeing the house on fire, and not suspecting it concerned him until it singed his pen. He knew that Clide’s meeting with him had been a turning-point in the young man’s life; that it was Raymond’s advice and influence that determined him to return to Glanworth, and enter on his duties there with a vigorous desire to fulfil them at the sacrifice of his own plans and inclinations. He was already acting the part of mentor to Clide, who carried him his agent’s letters to read, and consulted him about the various philanthropic schemes he had in his head for the improvement of the people on his estate--notably the repression of drunkenness, which Raymond impressed on him must be the keystone of all possible improvement among the humbler classes in England. Was it possible that this demeanor and the son-like tone of respect which Clide had adopted toward him suggested no ulterior motive on Clide’s part, or awoke no parental fear or suspicion in Raymond? Sir Simon was turning this problem up and down in his mind, and debating how far it might be advisable to sound his friend, when Raymond said abruptly:

“Mr. de Winton is not going with you, of course?”

“No; he is to run down to his own place while we are away. I expect him back when we return.”

Their eyes met. Sir Simon smiled a quizzical, complaisant smile, but it died out quickly when he saw the alarmed expression in Raymond’s face.

“The idea never struck me before,” he exclaimed. “How should it? There was nothing to suggest it; the disparity is too great.”

“How so? They are pretty well matched in age--eighteen and eight-and-twenty--and as to Clide’s family, he cannot certainly count quarterings with the De Xaintriacs, or perhaps even the Bourbonais; but the De Wintons are…”

“Enfantillage,[127] enfantillage!” broke in Raymond with a gesture of wild impatience; “as if it signified in a foreigner living in exile whether his family be illustrious or not, when it is decayed and without the smallest actual weight or position! The disparity I allude to is in fortune. With such a barrier between my daughter and Mr. de Winton, how could any arrangement have entered into my imagination?”

“And you have actually lived all these years in England without getting to understand Englishmen and their ideas better than that!” said Sir Simon. “As if it mattered that”--snapping his fingers--“about any difference in fortune! Why half the wealthiest men I know have married girls without a penny. I did it myself,” added the baronet, with a change from gay to grave in his tone; “my wife had no fortune of her own, and if she had, I wouldn’t have taken a penny with her. No man of spirit, who has a fortune large enough to support his wife properly, likes to take money with her. Clide de Winton has £15,000 a year, and no end of money accumulating in the funds; he hasn’t spent two years’ income these last eight years, I’ll lay a wager; it would be a crying shame if he were to marry a wife with money; but he’s not the man to do it.”

M. de la Bourbonais had risen, and was walking up and down with his hands behind his back and his chin on his breast, his usual attitude when he was thinking hard. It was the first time that the idea of Franceline’s marriage had come home to him in any practical form--indeed, in any form but that of a remote and shadowy abstraction that he might or might not be some day called upon to discuss. He had not discussed his own marriage, and there was no precedent in his mind for discussing hers. As far as his perceptions carried him, those things were entirely arranged by outsiders; when everything was made ready in the business department, the parties concerned were brought together, and the wedding took place. But what business was there to arrange in Franceline’s case? If Mr. de Winton had been a high-born young gentleman without a penny to bless himself with, there would have been some sense in his being proposed as a candidate for Mlle. de la Bourbonais; but it was against all law and precedent that a millionnaire should dream of marrying a girl without a dot.

“This is very foolish” he said, taking another turn up the long room--they were in the library--“if it occurred to you before, you should have told me.”

“Told you what? That Mlle. de la Bourbonais was a deuced pretty girl, and Mr. de Winton a remarkably good-looking young man, neither blind nor devoid of understanding. I should think you might have found that out for yourself.”

“It is not a thing to joke about, Simon. I cannot understand your joking about it.” And Raymond halted before Sir Simon, who was lounging back in his chair, his coat thrown back, and his thumbs stuck into his waistcoat, while he surveyed his friend’s anxious face with a look of comical satisfaction. “Has Mr. de Winton spoken to you on the subject?”

“No.”

“Have you said anything to him about it?”

“Not I!”

“And yet you speak as if you had something to go upon.”

“And so I have. I have my eyes and my intelligence. I have been making use of both during the last ten days.”

“Then am I expected to speak to him?”

“You are expected to do nothing of the sort,” said the baronet, starting from his listless attitude, and speaking in a determined manner; “it does not concern you at this stage of affairs. If you interfere you may just put your foot in it. Leave the young people to manage their own affairs; they understand it better than we do.”

“Not concern me!” echoed Raymond, protruding his eyebrows an inch beyond his nose; “and if this idea, that seems so clear to you, should seem clear to others, and nothing comes of it, how then? My child is compromised, and I am not to interfere, and it does not concern me?”

“You talk like an infant, Bourbonais!” said Sir Simon, changing his bantering tone to one of resentment. “Am I likely to encourage De Winton if I did not know him; if I were not certain that he is incapable of behaving otherwise than as a gentleman!”

“But you confess that he has not said anything to you; suppose he should never have thought of it at all?”

“Suppose that he’s a blind idiot! Is it likely that a young fellow like Clide should be thrown into daily society with a girl like Franceline and not fall in love with her? Tell me that!”

But that was precisely what Raymond could not see. His mental vision was not given to roaming beyond the narrow horizon of his own experience: this furnished him with no precedent for the case in point--a young man falling in love and choosing a wife without being told to do so by his family.

“If it were suggested to him,” he replied, dubiously, “no doubt he might; but no one has put it into his head; even you have not given him a hint to that effect.”

Sir Simon threw back his head and roared.

“Really, Bourbonais, you’re too bad! ’Pon my honor you are. To imagine that a man of eight-and-twenty waits for a hint to fall in love when he has the temptation and the opportunity! But you know no more about it than the man in the moon. You live in the clouds.”

“I have lived in them perhaps too long,” replied Raymond, humbly and with a pang of self-reproach. “I should have been more watchful where my child was concerned; but I fancied that her poverty, which hitherto has cut her off from the enjoyments of her age, precluded all possibility of marriage--at least until the fruit of my toil should have given her a right to think of it. It seems I was mistaken.”

“And are you sorry for it?”

Raymond walked to the window, and looked out for a moment before he answered.

“Admitting that the immense disparity in fortune were not an insuperable barrier, there is another that nothing would overcome in Franceline’s eyes--he is not a Catholic.”

“Yes, he is. At least he ought to be; his mother was a Catholic, and he was brought up one.

“Strange that he should not have mentioned that to me!” said Raymond, musing; “but then how is it that we did not see him in church last Sunday?”

“Hem!… I’m not quite sure that he went; it was my fault. I kept them both up till the small hours of the morning talking over business, and so on,” said Sir Simon, throwing the mantle of friendship over Clide’s delinquency. “You know it does not do to draw the rein too tight with a young fellow. He’s been so much abroad, and unhappy, and that sort of thing, you see; but a wife would bring him all right again, and keep him up to the collar.”

“Franceline would attach paramount importance to that, Harness,” said the father, with a certain accent of humility; he did not dare insist on it in his own name.

“Of course she would, dear little puss, and quite right; but she won’t be too hard on him for all that.”

It required all Sir Simon’s powers of persuasion to make Raymond promise that he would leave things alone, and not speak either to Clide or Franceline on the subject of this conversation. He gave the promise, however, feeling in some intangible way that the possibility of Franceline’s marriage under such unprecedented, such unnatural circumstances, in fact, was a phenomenon too far beyond his ken for him to meddle with in safety. It was decided that she should go to London on the day appointed, as if nothing had transpired between the friends since the proposed visit had been agreed to.

* * * * *

A ball anywhere at Dullerton was always a momentous occasion, stirring the stagnant waters with pleasurable agitation; but a ball at the Court was an event of such magnitude that it set the neighborhood in movement like a powerful electric shock. It was, compared to ordinary entertainments of the kind, what a Royal coronation is to a Lord Mayor’s show. Wonderful reports were afloat as to the magnificence of the preparations that were going on. Nobody had been allowed to see them; but conjecture was busy, and enough transpired to excite expectation to the highest pitch. It was known that men had been brought down from London with vans full of all sorts of appliances for transforming the solemn Gothic mansion into a fairy palace. How the transformation was to be effected no one had the vaguest idea, and this made expectation all the more thrilling.

It was indeed but too true that Sir Simon had abandoned his first wise intention of making it no more than a gay mustering of the clans. Fate so ordained that just at this time he got news of the rapidly declining health of his interesting relative, Lady Rebecca Harness. “She cannot possibly hold out over the autumn; her physician allowed as much to transpire to a professional friend of mine, so we must be prepared for the worst,” wrote Mr. Simpson; “it is certainly providential that the £50,000 and the reversion of her ladyship’s jointure should fall in at this moment.” And Sir Simon felt that he could not better express his grateful sense of the providential coincidence, and at the same time cheer himself up under the impending bereavement, than by giving for once full play to the oriental element of hospitality and magnificence, so long pent up in him by a sordid bondage to economy.

“Clide, that idea of yours about turning the Medusa gallery into a moonlight walk, with palms and ferns, and so on, was really too good to be lost. I think we must have the Covent Garden people down to do it. And then the Diana gallery would make a capital pendant in the Chinese style. It’s really a pity to do the thing by halves; I owe it to Bourbonais to do it handsomely on an occasion like this; and, hang it! a couple of hundreds more or less won’t break a man, eh?”

And Clide being decidedly of opinion that it would not, the Covent Garden people were had down, and preparations went on in right royal style.

M. de la Bourbonais had been informed that a dance was in view for the purpose of introducing Franceline, and accepted the intelligence as a part of the mysterious web that was being woven round him by unseen hands. Perhaps he vaguely connected the event with something like a soirée de contrat, or a forerunner of it, and this would account for his passive acquiescence, and the tender, preoccupied air that marked his manner during the foregoing week. Sir Simon, like a wily diplomatist as he was, managed to keep Clide from going to The Lilies for nearly the entire week, by throwing the whole burden of overseer on him, filling his hands so full of commissions for London, and shifting the responsibility of everything so completely on his shoulders that he had scarcely time to eat or sleep, being either on the railroad or in a state of workmanlike déshabillé that made it impossible for him to show himself beyond the precincts of the scene of action until dinner-hour, when Sir Simon was always abnormally disinclined for a walk, and insisted on being read to or otherwise entertained by his young friend till bed-time.

Franceline, meanwhile, had her own preoccupations. Not about her dress--that had been settled to her utmost satisfaction, being aided by the combined action of Mrs. de Winton and that lady’s French milliner. But there was another important matter weighing heavily upon her mind. It was just three days before the great day. Mr. de Winton had rushed down with the Edinburgh Review for M. de la Bourbonais, apologizing profusely to Franceline, who was sitting in the summer-house, for presenting himself in such a state of undress, and saying something to the effect that it was the servants’ dinner-hour, and they were so much engaged, etc. But he could not keep the count waiting for the book, which ought to have been sent several days ago. No, he would not disturb the count at that hour, if Mlle. Franceline would be kind enough to take the book and explain about the delay. Franceline promised to do so; which was rash, considering that she did not understand a word about it, or that there was any delay whatever.

“Oh! I may as well profit by the opportunity to ask if you are engaged for the first waltz on Thursday?” said Mr. de Winton, turning back after he had gone a few steps, as if struck by a happy thought.

No, Franceline was not engaged.

“Then may I claim the privilege of the first-comer, and ask you for it?”

“Yes, thank you. I shall be very happy.”

And she began immediately to be very miserable, remembering that she did not know how to waltz, never having had a dancing lesson in her life. She shut up her book, and set out toward the vicarage. She never felt quite at home with the Langrove girls; but they were the essence of good nature, and perhaps they could help her out of this difficulty. She was ashamed to say at once what had brought her, and went on listening to them chattering about their dresses, which were being manufactured out of every shade of tarlatan in the rainbow. Suddenly Godiva exclaimed: “I wonder if you’ll have any partners, Franceline? Do you think you will? You know you don’t know anybody? You’ve never even spoken to Mr. Charlton.” And Franceline, crushed under a sense of this and another inferiority, blushed, and said “No.”

“Perhaps Mr. de Winton will ask you? Oh, I should think he’s sure to. Hasn’t he asked you already?” And Franceline, painfully conscious of ten eyes staring at her, blushed deep crimson this time, and answered “Yes”; and then, suddenly recollecting that she had something important to do, she said good-by and hurried away. She had not closed the gate behind her when the five Misses Langrove who were “out” had rushed up to the nursery and informed the five who were not “out” that Franceline de la Bourbonais was engaged to that handsome, rich young Mr. de Winton, who had £60,000 a year and the grandest place in Wales. Only fancy!

“How stupid I was to get red like that, instead of telling the truth and asking Isabella to teach me how to do it!” was Franceline’s vexed exclamation to herself, as she entered the garden, and, swinging her sunshade, looked up at her doves perched on a branch just behind the chimney that was curling its blue rings up against the deeper purple of the copper-beech.

“What is my child meditating on so solemnly?” said M. de la Bourbonais, meeting her at the door; and taking her face between his hands, he looked into the dark, deep eyes that had never had a secret from him. Had they now? He had watched her walking up the garden, and noticed that fold in the smooth, white brow; he was always watching her of late, though Franceline did not perceive it.

“I am worried, petit père. I wish I were not going to this ball!” And she leaned her cheek against his with a sigh.

Raymond started as if he had been stabbed.

“My child! my cherished one! what is it? What has happened?”

“O petit père! it’s nothing,” she cried eagerly, smitten with remorse by his look of anguish. “It’s not worth being unhappy about; only I never thought of it before, and now I’m afraid it can’t be helped. They will ask me to dance, and I don’t know how.”

“Mon Dieu! it is true. We should have thought of that. It was very heedless of us all. But there must be a master here who could give thee some lessons, my child. We will speak to Miss Merrywig. Stay, where’s my hat? There is no time to be lost.”

But Franceline checked him. “Petit père, I should be ashamed to get a master now; every one would know about it and laugh at me; all the young girls would make such fun of me.”

“What dances dost thou want to dance?” inquired her father, knitting his brows, as if searching some forgotten clew in the background of memory; “I dare say I could recall the minuet de la cour a little, if that would help thee.”

“I never hear them speak of it. I don’t think they dance that now; only quadrilles and waltzes,” said Franceline.

“Ah! quadrilles were after my day; but the valse à trois temps I knew once upon a time. Come and let us see if I cannot remember it.”

They went into the dining-room, pushed the table and chairs into a corner, and M. de la Bourbonais, fixing his spectacles as a preliminary step, put himself into position; his right foot a little in advance, his eye-brows very much protruded, and his head bent forward; he made the first steps with hesitation, then more boldly, assisting his memory by humming the tune of an old waltz.

Angélique, who was spinning in the room overhead, came down to see what the table and chairs were making all this clatter about, and burst in on a singular spectacle: her master pirouetting to the tune of un, deux, trois! round the eight-feet square apartment, while Franceline, squeezed against the wall, held up her skirt so as to afford a full view of her shabby little boots, and tried to execute the same evolutions in a space of one foot square.

“Papa is teaching me to waltz,” explained the pupil, not looking up, but keeping her eyes stuck on the professor’s feet lest she should miss the thread of their discourse.

“Well, to be sure! To think of Monsieur le Comte’s remembering his steps at this time of day! What a wonderful memory monsieur has!” was Angélique’s admiring comment.

“Now, then, shall we try it together?” said M. de la Bourbonais, and placing his arm round Franceline, the two glided round the room, the professor whistling his accompaniment with as much emphasis as possible, while the pupil counted one, two, three, and Angélique kept time by clapping her hands.

“Oh, petit père, I shall do it beautifully!” cried Franceline, suspending the performance to give him an energetic kiss that nearly sent his spectacles flying across the room. “Now if you only could teach me the quadrille!”

But this recent substitute for the art of dancing was beyond the scope of Raymond’s abilities; quadrilles, as he said, had come into fashion long after his time. It was a grand thing, however, to have accomplished so much, and Franceline felt a sense of triumphant security in her newly-acquired possession that cleared away all her tremors. She spent the rest of the afternoon practising the valse à trois temps, so as to be quite perfect in it. Sir Simon found her thus profitably employed when he came down just before his dinner with a newspaper.

“What were we all thinking about not to have remembered that?” was his horrified exclamation. “Why, of course you must know the quadrille; you will have to open the ball, child. You must come up this evening to the Court, and we’ll have a private little dancing lesson, all of us, and put you through the figures.”

And so they did; and the result was so successful that, when the great day came, Franceline felt quite sure of being able to behave like everybody else. Her dress came down with Mrs. de Winton on the eve of the ball, and she was, in accordance with that lady’s desire, to dress at the Court under her supervision.

It was a new era in Franceline’s life, finding herself arrayed in a fairy robe of snow-white tulle, with wild roses creeping up one side of it, and a cluster of wild roses in her hair. Angélique stood by, surveying the process of transformation with arms a-kimbo, too much impressed by the splendors of the whole thing to vindicate her rights as bonne, and quite satisfied to see her natural functions usurped by nimble Croft, Mrs. de Winton’s maid. But when that experienced person whipped up the gossamer garment and shook it like an apple-tree, and tossed it with a sweep over Franceline’s head, it fairly took away her breath, for the pink petals stuck on in spite of the shock, and the soft flounces foamed all round just in the right place, rippling down from the neck and shoulders, and flowing out behind like a sea-wave. Then Croft crowned it all by planting the pink cluster in the hair just as if it grew there. Mrs. de Winton came in at this crisis, however, and suggested that they would be more becoming a little more to the front.

“Well, ma’am, if you’ll take the responsibility,” demurred the abigail with pinched lips, and stepping aside as if to get clear of all participation in the rash act herself, “in course you can; but my maxiom always was and is, as modesty is the most becoming ornament of youth; if you put them roses forwarder, anybody’ll see as how it was meant to be a set-off to the complexion--as you might say, putting a garding rose alongside of a wild one, to see which was the best pink.”

“Oh! indeed, it’s very nicely done; it could not possibly be better,” said Franceline earnestly. She was rather in awe of the fine lady’s maid, and looked up appealingly to Mrs. de Winton not to gainsay her; but that serene lady paid no more heed to the abigail’s protest than she might have done to the snarling of her pet pug. With deft and daring fingers she plucked out the flowers, pushed the rich, bright coils to one side so as to make room for them, and then planted them according to her fancy. If the change were done with a view to the effect foretold by Mrs. Croft, there was no denying it to be a complete success. Angélique, by way of doing something, took up a candle and held it at arm’s length over Franceline’s head, making short chuckling noises to herself which the initiated knew to be expressive of the deepest satisfaction.

“Now, my dear, I think you will do,” said Mrs. de Winton, looking up and down the young girl with a smile of placid assent, while she washed her long, tapering hands with the old Lady-Macbeth movement; “let us go down.”

Sir Simon and the Admiral and M. de la Bourbonais were assembled in the blue drawing-room, where the guests were to be received, when the two ladies entered. Mrs. de Winton, in the mellow splendor of purple velvet, old point, and diamonds, looked like the protecting divinity of the cloud-clad nymph tripping shyly after her. An involuntary murmur of admiration burst from the Admiral and Sir Simon, while M. de la Bourbonais, all smiles and joy, came forward to embrace Franceline.

“O my dear child!…”

“Count, take care of her roses!” cried Mrs. de Winton, ruffled into motherly alarm as she saw Franceline, utterly oblivious of her headgear, nestling into her father’s neck.

Raymond started, and looked with deep concern to see if he had done any mischief. Happily not.

“Come here and let me look at you!” said Sir Simon, holding her at arm’s length out before him. “They’ve not made quite a fright of you, I see--eh, admiral?”

“Dear Sir Simon, it’s all a great deal too pretty. It’s like being in a story-book, my lovely dress and everything?” said Franceline, standing on tip-toe to be kissed.

Mr. de Winton came in at this juncture.

“I say, Clide, it’s rather hard on us to have to stand by and not follow suit,” grumbled the admiral.

Franceline crimsoned up; the bare suggestion of such a possibility as the words implied made her heart leap up with a wild throb. She did not mean to look at Clide, but somehow, involuntarily, as if moved by some mesmeric force, their eyes met. It was only for a moment, but that rapid, mutual glance sent the life-current coursing through her young veins with strange thrills of joy. Clide had turned quickly to point out something in the decorations to his uncle, and Franceline slipped her arm into her father’s, and began to admire the beauty of the long vista of parlors leading on to the ball-room, where the orchestra was already inviting them to the dance with abrupt flashes of music, one instrument answering another in sudden preludes, or chords of sweetness “long drawn out.”

“You have not seen the galleries yet,” said Sir Simon; “come and look at them before the crowd arrives.”

They followed him into the Medusa gallery, and the transition from the brilliant glare of wax-lights to the subdued twilight of the blue dome, where mimic stars were twinkling round a silver crescent, was so solemn and unexpected that Raymond and Franceline stood on the threshold with a kind of awe, as if they had come upon sacred precincts. Tall ferns and palms nodded gently in the blue moonlight, swayed by some invisible agent. The change from this to the gaudy brilliancy of the Diana gallery was in its way as striking; myriads of Chinese lanterns were swinging from the ceiling; some peeped through flowers and plants, and some were held by Chinese mandarins with pig-tails and embroidered bed-gowns.

“Are they real Chinamen?” enquired Franceline in a whisper, as she passed close by one of them and met his eyes fixed on her with the appreciating glance of an outer barbarian.

“Real! To be sure they are. I imported a small cargo of them from Hong Kong, pig-tails and all, for the occasion,” replied Sir Simon.

But a twinkle in his eye, and a broad grin on the face of the genuine John Chinaman, belied this audacious assertion. Franceline laughed merrily.

“How clever of you to have invented it, and how exactly like real Chinamen they are!” she cried, intending to be complimentary to all parties; which the mandarin under consideration acknowledged by a slow bend of his skull-capped head and a movement of the left hand towards the tip of his nose, supposed to represent a native salutation.

“Bestow your commendation where it is due,” said Sir Simon; “it’s all that young gentleman’s doing,” pointing with a jerk of his head towards Clide, who had sauntered in after them. “But here comes somebody; we must be under arms to receive them.”

The baying of the bloodhounds chained in the outer court announced the arrival of a carriage; they reached the reception-room in time to hear it wheeling up the terrace.

And now the master of Dullerton Court was in his element. The tide of guests poured in quickly, and were greeted with that royal courtesy that was his especial attribute. No matter what the worries and cares of life might be elsewhere, they vanished as if by enchantment in the sunshine of Sir Simon’s hospitality. He forgot nobody; the absent ones had their tribute of regret, and he remembered the precise cause of the absence: the daughter who had an inopportune toothache, the son forced to remain in town on business, and the father pinned to his bed by the gout; Sir Simon was so sorry for each individual absentee that while he was expressing it you would have imagined this feeling must have damped his joy for the evening; but the cloud passed off when he shook hands with the next arrival, and he was radiantly happy in spite of sympathetic gout and toothache.

Mrs. de Winton seconded her host well in doing the honors. If she was a trifle stiff, it was such a graceful, well-bred stiffness that you could not quarrel with it, and she neglected no one.

“There are Mr. Langrove and the girls!” exclaimed Franceline, in high excitement, as if that inevitable spectacle were an extraordinary surprise.

“Oh! how gorgeous you are, Franceline,” was Godiva’s awe-stricken sotto voce, as if she feared that loud speech might blow away the bubble.

“And what a delicious fan! Do let me look at it!” panted Arabella in the same subdued tone.

“Oh! but look at her shoes,” cried Georgiana, clasping her hands and looking down, amazed, at the white satin toe, with its dainty pink rosette, that protruded from under the skirt.

“I’m so glad you like it all,” said Franceline, delighted at the naïve and good-natured expressions of admiration. They were all as artless as birds, the Langrove girls, and had not a grain of envy in their composition.

“Oh! there’s Mr. Charlton,” whispered Matilda, nudging Alice to look as the observed-of-all-observers in Dullerton appeared in the doorway.

The room was now full to overflowing, and the crowd, swayed by one of those spontaneous movements that govern crowds, suddenly poured out of the blue drawing-room into the adjoining ones, leaving the former comparatively empty. Franceline was following the stream when Sir Simon called out to her:

“Don’t run away; come here to me. I want to introduce you to my friend Lady Anwyll. Mlle. de la Bourbonais--I was going to say, my daughter, but unfortunately she is only the daughter of my oldest friend and second self, the Comte de la Bourbonais; you have met him, I believe?”

Lady Anwyll had had that distinction, and was charmed now to make his daughter’s acquaintance. She had none of her own to dispose of, which the wily Sir Simon perhaps remembered when he singled her out for this introduction.

“You’ll see that she has a few partners. I dare say they won’t be very reluctant to do their duty with a little pressing.”

“It’s the only duty young men seem equal to nowadays,” said the plump old lady, nodding in the direction of a group of the degenerate race; and she drew Franceline’s hand through her arm, and bore her off like a conquest.

“Who’s that girl? She’s awfully pretty! What color are her eyes--black, blue, or brown? I’ve not seen such a pair of eyes this season, by Jove!” drawled a blasé young gentleman from the metropolis.

“You’re a luckier man than your betters if you have ever seen a pair like them,” retorted Mr. Charlton, superciliously; “that’s the belle of the evening, Mlle. de la Bourbonais.”

“You’ll be a good fellow, and introduce me--eh, Charlton?” said his friend.

But Mr. Charlton turned on his heel without committing himself further than by a dubious “I’ll see about it.” His position as native gave him the whip-hand over all interlopers, and he meant to let them know it.

And now the orchestra has burst out in full storm, and engaged couples are hunting for each other amidst the vortex of tarlatan and dress-coats. Clide has found his partner and led her to the top of the room, where Sir Simon and Lady Anwyll are waiting for their vis-à-vis. A little lower down, Miss Merrywig is standing up with Mr. Charlton.

“How very absurd of him, my dear,” the old lady is protesting to Arabella Langrove, who made their dos-à-dos; “but he will have me dance the first quadrille with him. Was there ever anything so absurd!”

Arabella was too polite to contradict her; and Mr. Charlton bent down to assure Miss Merrywig there was no one in the room he could have half as much pleasure in opening the evening’s campaign with; a speech which was overheard by several neighboring young ladies, who commented on it in their own way, while Franceline, who beheld with surprise the ill-assorted couple stand up together, thought it showed very nice feeling on the part of Mr. Charlton to have selected the dear old lady for such a compliment, and that she looked very pretty in her lavender watered silk and full blonde cap with streamers flying. But it was quite clear that Miss Bulpit thought differently. That estimable and zealous Christian had with much difficulty been persuaded by Sir Simon to condescend so far to sanction the vanities of the unconverted as to be present at the ball, and she had discarded her funereal trappings of black bombazine for the mitigated woe of black satin; but the cockade of limp black feathers that sprouted from some hidden recess where her back hair was supposed to be protested sorrowfully against the glossy levity of her dress, and bobbed with a penitential expression that was really affecting. Mr. Sparks was hawking her about like a raven in a carnival. He entered into her feelings; it was chiefly the desire to support her by his countenance and sympathy that had brought him to this scene of ungodly dissipation.

Franceline was terribly nervous in the first figure, and Clide felt it incumbent on him to give her his utmost help in the way of prompting beforehand, and commendation when the feat was over. They got on swimmingly until the third figure, when she became hopelessly entangled in the ladies’-chain, giving her hand to Lady Anwyll instead of Sir Simon, and then rushing back to Clide, while Sir Simon rushed after her and made everything inextricable.

“Really, governor, you’re too bad!” protested Mr. de Winton; “why don’t you mind what you’re about? You’re putting my partner out disgracefully!”

Sir Simon bore the broadside with heroic magnanimity, apologized to everybody all round, except Clide, who ought to have called him to order in time, and not let him go bungling on, confusing everybody. By the time he had done scolding and they had all got into position again, the figure was over. The rest of the quadrille was got through without any mishaps to speak of, and when Clide carried his partner off for a promenade in the moonlit gallery, assuring her that she had done it all beautifully, Franceline felt that the praise, for being a trifle strained, was none the less due. Other couples followed them in amongst the ferns and palms, and Franceline was soon besieged by entreating candidates for the next dances. Mr. Charlton came up with the graceful self-possession that belongs to six thousand pounds a year and a decidedly handsome and rather effeminate face, and requested the favor of a quadrille. It was promised, and he stood by her side and in that earnest tone that was acknowledged to be so captivating by all the young ladies of Dullerton asked Mlle. de la Bourbonais if this was her first ball.

“Ah! I thought so. One can always tell by the freshness with which people enjoy it. For my own part, I confess I envy every one their first experience of this kind; it so soon wears off--the pleasure, I mean--and one feels the insipidity of it. Perhaps you already anticipate that?” There was a depth of expression in her face that suggested this remark. Mr. Charlton considered himself a reader of character--a physiognomist, in fact.

“Oh! no,” exclaimed Franceline, with artless vehemence; “I don’t think I should ever get tired of it; it’s far more enjoyable than I imagined!”

“Ah, indeed! Well, just so; it’s as people feel; for my part I think it’s a mistake--I mean getting blasé of things;” and he ran a turquoise and diamond finger through his curly straw-colored hair.

“I hate people who are blasé,” was the unconventional rejoinder; “they are always so tiresome and woe-begone. Papa always says he feels under a personal obligation to people for being happy; they do him good--like dear little Miss Merrywig, for instance. I’m sure she’s not blasé of anything; how she did enjoy herself in the quadrille! And it was so pretty to see her dancing her demure little old-fashioned steps.”

“She’s a very old friend of yours, is she not, Charlton?” said Clide.

“Oh! yes; since before I was born. She’s a dear old girl, if she would only not bother one to guess what she gave for her buttons,” replied Mr. Charlton. “But just see here! Is our Christian friend trying to deal with Roxham?”

Miss Bulpit was coming across the conservatory out of the Diana gallery, leaning on Lord Roxham, with whom she was conversing in an earnest manner.

“Oh! here you are, Roxham. I’ve been hunting for you this quarter of an hour,” called out Sir Simon, appearing from behind a mandarin who was holding a tray full of tea-cups to the company. “Franceline, my friend Lord Roxham has threatened to shoot me if I don’t get him a dance from you; so in self-defence I had to make over my right to the first waltz. I couldn’t do more, or less. What do you say, Miss Bulpit?”

Miss Bulpit considered Sir Simon was behaving very handsomely.

“It’s easy to be generous at other people’s expense,” observed Mr. de Winton, tightening his grasp on the light arm that was obediently slipping from him; “it so happens that Mlle. de le Bourbonais has promised the first waltz to me.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, my dear fellow, but you might have had a little thought for other people’s rights. You won’t deny that I deserve an early favor?” said the baronet, with playful peremptoriness.

“Dear Sir Simon, I never thought of your asking me,” said Franceline penitently.

“Oh! that’s it,” said the baronet, shaking his head; “that’s sure to be the way of it; we poor old fogies get shoved out of the way by the youngsters. Well, you see I’m letting you off easier than you deserve. Roxham, we’ll change partners, if Miss Bulpit does not object to taking an old man instead of a young one.”

Franceline was again going to draw her arm away, but again the tightening grasp prevented her. She looked up at Clide; but he was looking away from her, his mouth set in a rigid expression, and an angry fold divided the straight brows that lay like bars across his forehead.

“Mlle. de la Bourbonais promised me this dance,” he said, coldly, to Lord Roxham.

“But I overrule the promise; she had no business to give it without consulting me, naughty, unfeeling little person! Come, De Winton, make way for my deputy!” And with a nod and a laugh that were clearly not to be trifled with, he beckoned Clide to follow him.

Franceline looked up with the beseeching glance of a frightened fawn as Clide released her arm, and with a low bow walked away. She was ready to cry; but there was nothing for it but to accept Lord Roxham’s proffered arm, and go into the ball-room where in a moment she was caught up and was whirling mechanically along with the waltzers. She was too preoccupied to be nervous about the performance that she had looked forward to with so much trepidation, and so she acquitted herself admirably. Her partner stopped after the first round to let her take breath.

“Yes, thank you, I am a little giddy; I am not accustomed to dancing.”

So they stood under the colonnade. Lord Roxham would have been a pleasant partner if Franceline had been in a mood to enjoy his lively talk on all sorts of subjects. He saw there were likely to be breakers ahead between Clide and some one about this dance; but he had had nothing to say to that. He felt rather aggrieved than otherwise, being forced, as it were, on a girl against her will, or at any rate without her being consulted. And it was hard on De Winton, whether he particularly held to his pretty partner or not. What the dickens did Harness mean by meddling in it at all? He was not given to putting spokes in other people’s wheels. Lord Roxham was very intelligent, but though furnished with an average share of masculine conceit, it never occurred to him to think that the falling through of his marriage lately, and the fact of his being the eldest son of a peer with a fine estate--a good deal encumbered, but what of that?--might afford any clue to Sir Simon’s odd behavior.

“No, I did not mean in the political issue of the contest; ladies are not expected to take much interest in that part of the business,” he was saying to his partner; “but they are apt to get up very warm partisanship for the candidates, irrespective of politics.”

“Who are the candidates?” inquired Franceline.

Lord Roxham laughed.

“Poor wretches! They are to be pitied. Sir Ponsonby Anwyll on the Conservative side and Mr. Charlton for the Liberals.”

“Mr. Charlton! He is then clever? Can he make speeches?”

Lord Roxham laughed again, and hesitated a little before he replied: “It’s rather a case, I fancy, of the man who could not say whether he could play the fiddle, because he had never tried. We none of us know what we can do till we try. Charlton does not strike you as having the making of an orator in him, I see.”

“Oh! I don’t know. I spoke to him to-night for the first time; he did not give me the idea of a person who could make speeches and laws; one must be very clever to get into Parliament, must he not?”

“If elections were conducted on the competitive examination system, one might assume that; but I’m afraid we successful candidates can hardly take our success as the test of merit,” said her companion. “I see you have rather a high standard about electioneering.”

Franceline had no standard at all, and was full of curiosity to hear about the mysteries of canvassing and constituents, and the poll, from some one who had gone through the various stages of the battle, from being pelted with rotten eggs on the hustings to the solemn taking possession of a legislator’s seat in the Imperial Parliament. A legislator must be a kind of hero. She was glad to have met one. Lord Roxham, who liked to hear himself talk, proceeded to enlighten her to the best of his ability; he had no end of droll electioneering stories to tell, and scandalous tales of corruption through the medium of gin-shops, etc.; he opened her eyes in horror by his account of the rotten-borough system, and the rottenness of the law-making machine in general, touching the heroes of the Liberal party with a light dash of satire and caricature that brought the dimples out in full force in Franceline’s cheeks, and made her laugh merrily; in short, he was so lively and entertaining that she was quite sorry when he held out his arm for them to start off again in the dance. As they stepped from under the colonnade, she saw Clide leaning against a pillar at the other side, with his eyes fixed on her.

“Oh! stop, please,” pleaded Franceline, after one turn over the spacious floor, and they rested for a moment; just as they did so, a couple flew past--Mr. de Winton and a very beautiful girl, as tall as Franceline, but in no other way resembling her; her hair was black as ebony, with black eyes and a clear olive complexion.

“Who is that lady?”

“Lady Emily Fitznorman, a cousin of mine.”

“How beautiful she is! I never saw any one so handsome!”

“Did you not?” with an incredulous smile, then looking quickly away. “She is a very striking person; she is the belle of our county. You look warm; shall we take a turn in the galleries?”

Franceline assented. Passing through the conservatory, they came upon two persons seated in a recess, partly screened by a large fan-leaved plant. It was Clide and Lady Emily; she was talking with great animation, gesticulating with her fan, while he sat in an attitude of deep attention, his elbows resting on his knees, and his head bent forward. Franceline felt a sudden shock at her left side, as if her heart had stopped, while a spasm of pain shot through her, making every fibre tingle. What was this olive-skinned beauty saying to Clide that he was listening to with such rapt attention? He did not even look up, though he must have seen who was passing. Poor Franceline! what tremor is this that shakes her from head to foot, convulsing her whole being with one fierce throb of angry emotion! Poor human heart! the demon of jealousy had but to blow one breath upon it, and she whose life had hitherto been a sort of inverse metempsychosis of a lily and a dove, was transformed into a woman fired with passionate vindictiveness, longing to snatch at another human heart and crush it. But the woman’s pride, that woke up with the pain, came instinctively to her assistance. She began talking rapidly to Lord Roxham, sinking her voice to the sotto voce of confidence and intimacy, so that he had to lower his head slightly to catch what she was saying; thus they swept by the two in the recess, without glancing towards them.

Clide meantime had seen it all. He had been straining every nerve to catch what Franceline was saying, and was voting his friend Roxham a confounded puppy, whose conceited head he would have much pleasure in punching on the first opportunity. He could not punch Sir Simon’s, though he deserved it more than Roxham.

“May I ask you for an explanation of your behavior to me just now, Sir Simon?” he had said to his host as soon as Miss Bulpit had set him free; “what did you mean by interfering with me in that manner?”

“Did I interfere with you?” was the supercilious retort, with a bland smile. “I’m very sorry to hear it; but I think I had a right to the second dance from a young lady whom I consider my adopted daughter.”

“If it had been for yourself I should have yielded without a word; but it was for Roxham you shoved me aside.”

“Well, suppose I choose to elect a deputy to do my duty? I had a right to choose Roxham.”

“I fancied I might have had a prior claim.”

“Indeed! Then you should have told me so. How was I to know it?--Well, vicar, I see your young ladies are in great request; how does Miss Godiva happen to be in your company?”

“What can he be driving at?” muttered Clide, as his host turned away to get a partner for Godiva Langrove; “has he been fooling me all this time--is he playing me off against Roxham? And is she--” He walked into the ballroom, and there saw, as we know, Lord Roxham and Franceline very happy in each other’s society.

He went straight to Lady Emily Fitznorman, and asked her for the waltz that was going on. She was fiancée to a friend of his, he knew; so he was safe so far, and she had plenty to say for herself, and he must talk to some one. He was not a man to show the white feather, whatever he might feel. He kept steadily aloof from Franceline after this, and Lord Roxham, taking for granted that he had been mistaken in his first impressions, secured her for three more dances, which was all he dared do in the face of Dullerton.

Franceline was grateful to him. She felt suddenly forsaken in the midst of the gay crowd, as if some protecting presence had been withdrawn. Her father was playing piquet in some distant region where there were card-tables. But even if he had been within reach, there was something stirring in her newly-awakened consciousness that would have prevented her seeking him. Clide should not see that he had grieved her. She could enjoy herself and be merry without him, and she would let him see it!

“Has the honor of taking you in to supper been already secured, mademoiselle?” said Mr. Charlton, making sure at this early stage that it had not, and coming up to claim it with the air of elaborate grace that springs from the habit of easy conquest.

“Yes, it has,” replied Lord Roxham, quickly taking the answer out of Franceline’s mouth. “I was before you in the field, Charlton, I am happy to say.”

“How could you tell such a story?” whispered Franceline, with an attempt to look shocked when Mr. Charlton had gone away.

“I told you everything was considered fair in electioneering,” replied the member of Parliament.

“Then electioneering must be very bad for everybody who has to do with it, if it teaches them to tell stories and call it fair.”

But she promised, nevertheless, to act as accomplice in this particular case of badness, and to let him take her in to supper. He came to claim his privilege in due time, and they went in together. But the tables were already so crowded that they could not find two contiguous seats. Some one beckoned to Lord Roxham that there was a vacant chair higher up, on a line with where they stood. He elbowed his way through the crowd, and seized the chair, and placed Franceline in it. She was sitting down before she noticed that her next neighbor was Clide de Winton. He was busily attending to the wants of Lady Emily, but turned round quickly on feeling the chair taken, and moved his own an inch or so to make more space. At the same moment he looked up to see who Franceline’s attendant was. “Can’t you find a seat, Roxham? I’ll make way for you presently. We have nearly done.” There was not a trace of vexation in his manner, or in his face.

“No hurry! I can bear up for ten minutes more,” replied his friend, good-humoredly; “but help me to attend to Mlle. de la Bourbonais. What will you begin with?” bending over her chair.

Franceline did not care. Anything that was at hand.

“Then let me recommend some of this jelly; it is pronounced excellent by my partner,” said Clide, politely, and scanning the well-garnished table to see what else he could suggest.

“Thank you. I will take some of these chocolate bonbons.”

“Nothing more substantial?”

“Bonbons are always nourishment enough for me. I think I could live on them without anything stronger; I have quite a passion for them--my French nature coming out, you see.”

She spoke very gayly. He helped her without looking at her. She made a feint of nibbling the pralines, but she could not swallow; her heart was beating so hard and loud she fancied Clide must hear it.

“Roxham, suppose you made yourself useful and get a glass of champagne for these ladies,” said Clide. “Waylay that fellow with the bottle there.”

Lord Roxham charged valiantly through the crowd, snatched the bottle from the astonished flunky, and bore it away in triumph over the heads of the multitude.

“Well done! That’s what I call a brilliant manœuvre,” said Clide, laughing. “No, you must help them yourself; you deserve that reward after such a feat of arms, and Mlle. de la Bourbonais, who has a great admiration for heroes, will drink to your health I daresay.”

“I’ve been trying to excite her admiration by the recital of my heroic exploits at the last elections; but I’m afraid I rather scandalized her instead,” said the young man, as he poured the sparkling wine into her glass.

“Served you right,” said Lady Emily, with cousinly impertinence; “when people fish for compliments they generally catch more snakes than eels.”

“Roxham, will you reach me those sandwiches?” cried a gentleman struggling with a lady on his arm beyond arm’s length of the table. Lord Roxham immediately went to his assistance, and some one else instantly pressed into his place behind Franceline.

“We had better go now, if you have quite finished,” said Clide to Lady Emily.

Franceline made a movement to rise, but sat down again; Clide’s chair was on her dress.

“Oh! I beg your pardon. Have I done any mischief?” he exclaimed, starting up and lifting his chair; the foot had caught in the tulle and made a slight rent.

“Oh! I am so sorry. I beg your pardon a thousand times!” he said with great warmth and looking deeply distressed.

“It’s of no consequence; it will never be noticed,” she answered, gently.

“I am so sorry!” Clide repeated. Their eyes met at last; he was disarmed in an instant.

“Will you dance with me now?” he said almost in a whisper.

“Yes.”

They were soon in the ball-room again.

“Why did you turn me off in that way? Was it that you preferred dancing with Roxham?”

“O Clide!” The words escaped her like the cry of a wounded bird, and, with as little sanction of her free will, the tears rose.

He made no answer--no audible one at least; but there is a language in a look sometimes that is more eloquent than speech. Franceline and Clide dwelt for a moment in that silent glance, and felt that it was drawing their hearts together as flame draws flame.

She never knew how long the dance lasted; she only knew that she was being borne along, treading on air, it seemed to her, and encompassed by sweet sounds of music as in a dream. But the dream was over, and she was being steadied on her feet by the strong protecting arm, and Clide was looking down upon her from his six feet of height, the frown that had made the dark bars over his eyes look so formidable a little while ago quite vanished.

“Is Sir Simon angry with us?” she asked, looking up into his face.

“Not he! Why should he be angry with us? And if he were, what does it matter?” he added, in a voice of low-toned tenderness; “what does anything matter so long as we are not angry with each other?”

He drew her hand within his arm, and they walked on in silence. Franceline’s heart was too full for words. Was it not part of her happiness that this new-found joy should be overshadowed by a vague and nameless fear?

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE CARDINALATE.

SECOND AND CONCLUDING PAPER.

The manner of creating Cardinals has differed in different ages. Moroni[128] (Dizionario, ix. p. 300, et seq.) gives a description of the ancient, the mediæval, and the modern ceremonies used on the occasion. In the earliest period of which there are details we know that the pope created the cardinals on the ember-days of Advent in the churches of the Station. There were three stages in the proceeding: the first on Wednesday at S. Mary Major’s, the second in the Twelve Apostles’, and the third in S. Peter’s. The subjects of the cardinalate were called out in the first two churches by a lector after the pope had read the Introit and Collect of the solemn Mass; but in the last one, the pope himself declared such an one to be elected cardinal-priest, or deacon, by a formula the beginning and essential words of which were: “Auxiliante Domino Deo et Salvatore Nostro Jesu Christo, eligimus in ordinem diaconi Sergium (for instance) subdiaconum.” The cardinal-elect then received from the pope “inter missarum solemnia,” the necessary Order of the diaconate or priesthood. In those days there was a much stricter connection required between the (sacred) character of a subject and his order in the cardinalate than there now is, when a bishop often belongs to the presbyterial and a priest to the diaconal order. In the Middle Ages, cardinals were no longer created during Mass or in church in presence of the people; but at the pope’s residence of the Lateran, before the Sacred College. The season was still the same and the custom of creating them only on a fast-day of December lasted for over six hundred years.

In the mediæval creations three consistories were held in the Apostolic Palace, of which two were secret and one was public. In the first consistory the pope deputed two cardinals to go around to the house of every sick or legitimately-absent cardinal and get his opinion on these points: Ought there to be a creation? And if so, of how many?

On the return of the deputies the pope asked the cardinals present the same questions. All voted thereon; and after the votes had been counted, if the pope saw fit he pronounced that he followed the advice of those who were in favor--“Nos sequimur consilium dicentium, quod fiant.” Then the cardinals voted on the number to be created, and after the counting of the votes, the pope said that he followed the advice of those who proposed that six (for instance) should be created--“Nos sequimur consilium dicentium, quod fiant sex.” After a recommendation to reflect maturely, and deliberate upon the persons proper to be elected, the consistory broke up. On the Friday following it assembled again, and when two cardinals, sent out for the purpose as on the first day, had returned with the names of those suggested by the absent ones, the pope commanded an empty chair to be brought--“Portetur nuda cathedra.” Then the cardinals all stood up behind the two rows of benches that ran down the great aula consistorialis, and the senior advanced and, sitting down beside the pope, was made acquainted in a low voice with the names of those whom the pope wished to create, and was asked his opinion. “Quid tibi videtur?” As soon as the cardinal had answered, the next one went up, and so on until all had been heard. The pope then announced the result of this auricular consultation and declared such and such persons created cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. The next day a public consistory was held in which they were solemnly published; after which the elect were introduced and heard an allocution addressed to them by the pope on the duties and dignity of their office, and received from his hands the large hat, with the designation of their churches. All the cardinals dined that day with the pope, and in the afternoon the new ones went in grand cavalcade to take possession of their Titles or Deaconries, as the case might be.

In more recent times, that is, about 1646, when Lunadoro wrote his celebrated account of the Roman court,[129] the manner of creating was almost as at present, except that the now unheard-of Cardinal Nephew (who was called in Italian--vae, vae!--Il cardinale Padrone) had a large share in the ceremonies, as he doubtless had a decided influence in the nominations, and that the red beretta, or cap, was placed on the head of the elect by the pope himself, with the words Esto cardinalis, and the sign of the cross. According to the modern ceremonial, the pope summons a consistory, and, after delivering an appropriate address, asks the cardinals their opinion with the customary (but, since the XVth century, rather perfunctory) formula, “What think ye?” Then they rise, take off their caps, and bow assent; whereupon the pope proceeds to create the new cardinals in the words: “By the authority of Almighty God, of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and of our own, etc.”

On account of the present Piedmontese occupation of Rome, the subsequent ceremonial has to be dispensed with in the case of those cardinals who may be there at the time of their elevation to the dignity. Those who are absent receive the lesser insignia of their rank from two papal messengers; one of whom is a layman and member of the Noble Guard, carrying the zucchetto, or skull-cap, the other an ecclesiastic of some minor prelatic rank in the pope’s household, bringing the beretta. If the head of the state be a Catholic, he is permitted to place the cap (brought by the ablegate) upon the new cardinal, the function taking place in the royal chapel; but in other countries a bishop or archbishop is appointed by the pope for the purpose.

At one period, particularly during the XVIth century, many serious scandals were occasioned by the practice of betting on or against the advancement of certain individuals to the cardinalate, and some who had staked heavily were convicted of resorting to infamous calumnies to hinder the nomination of those against whom they had betted. Things finally became so outrageous that Gregory XIV., in 1591, issued a bull in which excommunication, already declared, was pronounced against any one who should presume to wager on the promotion of cardinals (Bul. 4, Gregory XIV. cogit nos).

The expression applied to a cardinal of being or having been reserved in petto, means to be created but (for reasons known only to the pope) not published or promulgated as such. It is not certainly known when this practice began, and the subject has been so often confounded with that of secret creation that it is difficult to assign a precise date. The secret creation was simply the creation of a cardinal without the usual ceremonial. It originated with Martin V. (Colonna), probably urged thereto by the jealousies and dangers that still lingered after the great schism of the West was happily ended. The other cardinals were consulted, and notice was given to the honored individual, who was not, however, allowed to assume the distinctive ornaments or the station of his rank. In the in petto appointments, only the pope and perhaps his Uditore, or some extremely confidential person bound to secrecy, know the names of those reserved. It is related of a certain prelate, Vannozzi, who was much esteemed by Gregory XIV. for his varied learning and long services, that having been commissioned one day to take note of the names of a few cardinals to be created in the next consistory, he had the satisfaction to be ordered to write his own name in the list. Although bound to secrecy, he was weak enough to give in to the importunate solicitations of the Cardinal Nephew and show him the paper, which coming to the pope’s ears, he called the prelate and made him erase his name--and that was the end of Vannozzi.

A cardinal created, but reserved in petto, if he be subsequently published, takes precedence of all others (in his order) created subsequently, notwithstanding the reservation. If the pope wish to create and reserve in this manner, after publishing the names of the cardinals created in the ordinary way, he uses the formula: “Alios autem duos (for example) in pectore reservamus arbitrio nostro quandocumque declarandos.” It is believed that Paul III. (Farnese, 1534-49) was the first to reserve in petto; and we think that he may have done so to reward attachment to faith and discipline in that heretical age without seeming to do so too openly, to avoid its having an interested look. The celebrated Jesuit (himself a cardinal) and historian of the Council of Trent, Sforza Pallavicini, gives a curious reason--that certainly shows how great was the idea entertained in his day, the middle of the XVIIth century, of the Roman cardinalate--why the expression creation of a cardinal is officially used; and says (vol. 1. p. xiii.) that it is meant to intimate by the word that the excellence of the dignity is so exalted that all degrees of inferior rank are as though they were not; so that when the pope makes a man a cardinal, it is as if in the sphere of honors he called him out of non-existence into being.

In the first consistory held, in which the newly-created cardinals appear, the pope performs on them the ceremony of Sealing the Lips (more literally of Closing the Mouth). It is done in the following formula: “Claudimus vobis os, ut neque in consistoriis neque in congregationibus aliisque functionibus cardinalitiis sententiam vestram dicere valeatis.” At the end of the consistory, when the junior cardinal-deacon rings a little bell, the pope unseals their lips by saying (in Latin): “We open your mouths, that in consistories, congregations, and other ecclesiastical functions, ye may be able to speak your opinion. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen”; making over them meanwhile three times the sign of the cross. This custom must be pretty old, for it is mentioned in the XIIIth century by Cardinal (Stefaneschi) Gaetani, nephew of Pope Boniface VIII., as already in existence. It has been conjectured that the intention of such a ceremony was to pass the newly-created cardinals through a kind of novitiate before receiving what is called, in canon law, the active and passive voice, i.e., the right of electing and of being elected to the pontificate; but it may also have been intended to impress upon them the necessity of prudence and modesty of speech in such august assemblies.

The College of Cardinals is the seed and germ of the papacy, and the greatest act that one of its members can perform is to take part in a papal election. This is done in a convention called the Conclave, which is subject to many regulations, as becomes so important an occasion. The present order of this assembly dates from the pontificate of Gregory XV., in 1621. When Rome was not occupied by some sacrilegious invader, it took place in the Quirinal Palace by secret voting, the votes being opened and counted in a chapel called, from the circumstance, Capella Scrutinii. When the election was complete, the senior cardinal-deacon, whose office corresponds to that of the ancient archdeacons of the Roman Church, announced it to the people. Originally, however, the cardinals were not the only electors of the pope, but any foreign bishop in communion with the Holy See, who happened to be present during a vacancy, was permitted to take part in the election. Thus, when Cornelius was exalted to the Chair of Peter, in 254, sixteen such bishops, of whom two were from Africa, concurred in the act. The rest also of the Roman clergy had some voice in the election, but it was greatly weakened by Pope Stephen III. alias IV., in a council held at the Lateran in the year 769, who made it obligatory to elect a member of the Sacred College. Alexander III., by the advice and with the approval of the eleventh General Council (third of Lateran), in 1179, considering the difficulties arising out of a great number of electors (no less than thirty-three schisms having already been occasioned thereby), solemnly decreed that in future the cardinals alone should have the right to choose, confirm, and enthrone the pope, and that two-thirds of the votes cast would be necessary for a canonical election. Lucius III., his successor in 1181, was the first pope elected in this manner by the exclusive action of the Sacred College. This wise provision was confirmed for the edification of the faithful, and to show that the bishops dispersed throughout the church did not claim any share in the election of its head, by the general councils of Lyons (IId) in 1274, and Vienne in 1311. But once since have any others had an active voice in the matter, which was at Constance, when the twenty-three cardinals, to put an end to the schism, opened the conclave for this time only to thirty prelates, six from each of the five great nations represented there. This resulted in the election of Martin V. (Colonna) on November 11, 1417. Since the year 1378 no one not a cardinal has been elected pope; but before that time a good many, despite the decree of Stephen III. (or IV.), were elected without being cardinals; six in the XIth, two in the XIIth, three in the XIIIth, and three in the XIVth century. Of these were S. Celestine V. and, before him, Blessed Gregory X. A curious circumstance attended the election of the latter, in which the cardinals were treated as jurymen who are locked up until they agree upon a verdict. After the death of Clement IV., in 1268, the Holy See was vacant longer than ever before, viz., two years nine months and two days, on account of the dissensions of the eighteen cardinals who composed the Sacred College. The conclave was held at Viterbo; but, although King Philip III. of France and Charles I. of Sicily went there to hasten the election, and S. Bonaventure, general of the Franciscans, induced the towns-people to keep the fathers close prisoners in the episcopal palace, nothing availed, until the happy thought struck Raniero Gatti, captain of the city, to take off the roof, so that the rain would pour in on wet, and the sunshine on hot days.[130] This had the desired effect, and after S. Philip Beniti, general of the Servites, had refused the offer of election, the cardinals promptly agreed upon Theobald Visconti, archdeacon of Liege, and apostolic legate in Syria. It was on this occasion that an episcopal quasi-poet improvised the leonine verses:

“Papatus munus tulit Archidiaconus unus, Quem Patrem Patrum fecit discordia Fratrum.”

About this time it became customary for the cardinals to act as “protectors” of nations, religious orders, universities, and other great institutions, which were liable to be brought into relations with the Holy See more frequently then than at present; but Urban VI., in 1378, without absolutely prohibiting this species of patrocination, forbade cardinals to accept gifts or any kind of remuneration from those whose interests they guarded. Martin V. in 1424, Alexander VI. in 1492, and Leo X. in 1517, issued various decrees to moderate or entirely abolish such an use of their influence by the cardinals for private parties, because it might easily, under certain circumstances, stand in the way of that impartial counsel to the pope and equity of action to which they were bound before all things. Yet it shows the immense importance of the cardinalate in the XIVth and XVth centuries, that powerful sovereigns gave to individuals in the Sacred College the high-sounding title of protectors of their kingdoms. At the present day, cardinals are allowed to assume, gratuitously, a care of the interests of religious orders, academies, colleges, confraternities, and other institutions, mostly in Rome, which may choose to pay them the compliment of putting themselves under their patronage.

In the IXth century, S. Leo IV. made a rule that the cardinals should come to the apostolic palace twice a week for consistory, and John VIII., towards the end of the same century, furthermore ordered them to meet together twice a month to treat of various affairs appertaining to their office. We find here the beginning of those later celebrated assemblies called Roman Congregations, which are permanent commissions to examine, judge, and expedite the affairs of the church throughout the world. Each cardinal is made a member of four or more of these congregations, and a cardinal is generally at the head--with the name of prefect--of each of those the presidency of which the pope has not reserved to himself. It is always from among the cardinals that the highest officials of the Church in Rome and of the Sacred College are chosen. The former are the palatine cardinals, so called because they are lodged in some one of the pontifical palaces and enjoy the fullest share of the sovereign’s confidence and favor. They are at present four in number, viz., the pro-datary, secretary of briefs, of memorials, of state. Next come the cardinal vicar, grand penitentiary, chamberlain, vice-chancellor, librarian. The cardinal-archpriests are at the head of the three great patriarchal basilicas of S. John of Lateran, S. Mary Major, and S. Peter. The officials of the Sacred College number five, who are all, except one, ex-officio; these are: the dean, who is always Bishop of Ostia and Velletri, is head of the Sacred College, and represents it on certain occasions of state, as when he receives the first visit of princes and ambassadors, and expresses to the Holy Father any sentiments that he and his colleagues may wish to announce in a body. The sub-dean supplies his place when absent, or incapacitated from whatever cause. The First Priest and First Deacon, who were anciently called the Priors of their order, have precedence, other things being equal, over those of the same class, besides certain rights and privileges of particular importance during a vacancy of the See. The chamberlain is appointed annually in the first consistory held after Christmas. His office is not so venerable or so significant as the others are in times of extraordinary occurrences; but in days of peace it is of the highest practical importance. It was instituted under Leo X., but received its present development under Paul III., in 1546. Each cardinal habitually residing in Rome must serve in his turn, beginning with the dean and ending with the junior deacon. From this arrangement it may be imagined that few cardinals live long enough in the dignity to have to assume more than once the rather onerous duties of the office.

The pope gives the chamberlain possession in the same consistory at which he has been named, by handing him a violet silk purse fringed with gold and containing certain consistorial papers and the little balls used by the cardinals to vote with in the committees in which they treat of their corporate affairs. The principal duties of the chamberlain are of a two-fold character: as chancellor, to sign and register all cardinalitial acts, and as treasurer, to administer any property that may be held in common by the cardinals. He is assisted in his office by a very high prelate, who is secretary of the Sacred College and consistory. The archives are in a chamber of the Vatican palace assigned for the purpose by Urban VIII., in 1625. The chamberlain is also charged to sing the Mass at the solemn requiem of a cardinal dying during his tenure of office, and on November 5 for all deceased cardinals. But if he be of the order of deacons, even if he have received the priesthood, he must invite a cardinal of the higher order to officiate. This anniversary was established by Leo X. in 1517.

On account of the great antiquity of the cardinalate, there are many things of minor importance connected with it that are buried in the obscurity of ages. Such are appellations of honor and distinctions in dress; but all writers agree that after the IXth century there was a remarkable increase in what we might call the accessories of this great office. Passing over a decree which Tamagna (who yet is an authority on cardinalitial matters) ascribes to the Emperor Constantine, in which the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church were put on the same footing before the state with senators and consuls, and received other marks of imperial favor, it is certain that during the Middle Ages they were frequently called senators, were styled individually Dominus, and addressed as Venerande Pater, as we learn from a memorandum drawn up by a Roman canonist in 1227. In the accounts of the Sacred College from the beginning of the XIVth century up to the year 1378, the cardinals are called Reverendi Patres et Domini. But from this period they assumed the superlative, and up to the whole of the XVth century were styled Reverendissimi.[131] Urban VIII., on the 10th of June, 1630, gave them the title of eminence, which was not, however, unknown to the early Middle Ages, when it was given to certain great officers of the Byzantine Empire in Italy. Urban’s immediate successor, Innocent X., forbade cardinals to use any other designation than that of cardinal, or title than that of eminence, or to put any crown, coronet, or crest above their arms, which were to be overarched by the hat alone. When Cardinal de’ Medici read the decree, with what was then in such a personage considered exemplary submission, he requested his friends and the members of his household never to call him highness any more, and immediately had the grand-ducal crown removed from wherever it was blazoned. In course of time, however, cardinals of imperial or royal lineage were allowed to assume a style expressive of their birth; thus the last of the Stuarts, the Cardinal Duke of York, etc., was always called Royal Highness at Rome. The pope writes to a cardinal-bishop as “Our venerable brother,” but to a cardinal-priest or deacon as “Our beloved son”; and a cardinal writing to the pope who has raised him to the purple should add at the end of his letter, after all the other formulas of respectful conclusion, the words, et creatura. Although the cardinals hold a rank so exalted, they are in many ways made to remember their complete dependence in ecclesiastical matters upon the sovereign pontiff. There is a peculiar act of homage due by them to the pope, which is called Obedience, and consists in going up publicly one by one in stately procession, with cappa magna of royal ermine, and outspread trailing scarlet robe, to kiss the ring after making a profound inclination to the pontiff sitting on his throne. This is surely the grandest sight of the Sistine Chapel, and we have often thought in seeing it what a good reminder it was to those most eminent spiritual princes that, how great soever they might be, they were after all but the rays of a greater luminary without which they would have no existence. The obedience is done at Mass and Vespers; but never twice on the same day, nor in services for the dead.

The color of a cardinal’s dress is red, unless he belong to a religious order, in which case he retains that of his habit, but uses the same form of dress as the others. In 1245, Innocent IV. conferred upon the cardinals at the first Council of Lyons the famous distinction of the red hat, which is so peculiarly the ornament of their rank that, in common parlance, to “receive the hat” is the same as to be raised to the cardinalate. The special significance of the hat is, that it is placed by the hands of the pope himself upon the dome of thought and seat of that intellect by which the cardinal will give learned and loyal counsel in the government of the church; and its color signifies that the wearer is prepared to lose the last drop of his blood rather than betray his trust. Our readers will be reminded here of that angry vaunt of Henry VIII. about Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who was lying in prison because he would not acknowledge the royal supremacy in matters of religion. When news came to England that Paul III. had raised him to the purple, the king exclaimed, “The pope may send him the hat, but I will take care that he have no head to wear it on”; in fact, the bishop was shortly afterwards beheaded. This hat is now one of ceremony only, and serves but twice: once, when the cardinal receives it in consistory, and next when it rests upon the catafalque at his obsequies. It is then suspended from the ceiling of the chapel or aisle of the church in which he may be buried. The form is round, with a low crown and wide, stiff rim, from the inside of which hang fifteen tassels attached in a triangle from one to five. At the ceremony of giving the hat the pope says, in Latin: “Receive for the glory of Almighty God and the adornment of the Holy Apostolic See, this red hat, the sign of the unequalled dignity of the cardinalate, by which is declared that even to death, by the shedding of thy blood, thou shouldst show thyself intrepid for the exaltation of the blessed faith, for the peace and tranquillity of the Christian people, for the increase and prosperity of the Holy Roman Church. In the name of the Father ✠; and of the Son ✠; and of the Holy ✠ Ghost. Amen.” Paul II., in 1464, added other red ornaments, and among them the red beretta or cap to be worn on ordinary occasions; but cardinals belonging to religious orders continued to use the hood of their habit or a cap of the same color, until Gregory XIV. made them wear the red. This point of costume is illustrated by an anecdote which we have heard from an eye-witness; it also shows that one should not be sure of promotion--until it comes.

Pope Gregory XVI. was a great admirer of a certain abbot in Rome, whose habit was white, and rumor ran that he would certainly be made a cardinal. Some time before the next consistory, the pope, with a considerable retinue--it was thought significantly--went to visit the monastery, the father of which was this learned monk, and there refreshments were served in the suite of apartments called, in large Roman convents, the cardinal’s rooms, because reserved for the use of that dignitary, should one be created belonging to the order. When the trays of delicious pyramidal ice-creams were brought in, the pope deliberately took the white one presented to him on bended knee by a chamberlain and handed it to the Lord Abbot sitting beside and a little behind him, then took a red one for himself. No one, of course, began until Gregory had tasted first, and while all eyes were on him he took the top off his own ice-cream, turned and put it on his neighbor’s, saying with a smile as he looked around him, “How well, gentlemen, the red caps the white!” Alas! the poor abbot; he understood it as doubtless was meant he should, but he was foolish enough to act upon it, and procure his scarlet outfit. This came to the ears of the pope, who was so displeased that he scratched him off the list, nor could any friends ever get him reinstated; and it was only when Cardinal Doria said that he was positively wasting away with the disappointment and mortification, that the pope consented to make him an archbishop in partibus.

In the greater chapels, in the grand procession on Corpus Christi, and on other occasions the cardinal-bishops wear copes fastened by a pectoral jewel called Formale, which is of gold ornamented with three pine cones of mother-of-pearl, the priests (even though they may have the episcopal character) wear chasubles, and the deacons dalmatics, but all use white damask mitres with red fringes at the extremity of the bands. In their Titles and Deaconries, also elsewhere, when they officiate, the cardinals have the use of pontificals. The custom of wearing mitres is said to have begun for cardinals of the two lower orders only in the XIth century. One of the distinctive ornaments of a cardinal is the gold ring set with a sapphire, and engraved on the metal surface of the inside with the arms of the pope who has created him. It is put on his finger by the Sovereign Pontiff with these words, some of which are omitted in the case of deacons: “For the honor of Almighty God, of the holy apostles SS. Peter and Paul, and of the blessed N. N. (naming the Title) we commit unto thee the church of ---- (naming it), with its clergy, people, and succursal chapels.” The actual value of this ring is only twenty-five dollars, but for many centuries the newly-created cardinal has been expected to give a large sum of money for some pious purpose, which was different under different popes, but was perpetually allotted by Gregory XV., in 1622, to the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Students of the Propaganda will remember the elegant tablet and commemorative inscription originally set up in the college church, but now encased in the wall near the library. For a long time the sum was larger than at present and was paid in gold, but in consideration of the general distress in the early part of this century Pius VII. reduced it to six hundred scudi of silver, equal to about seven hundred and fifty dollars of our paper money. The last cardinal who gave the full amount before the reduction was Della Somaglia, in 1795.

The Roman ceremonial shows the singular importance of the cardinalate, by the disposition ordered to be made of its members even after death. It is prescribed that when life has departed a veil be thrown over the face, and the body, dressed in chasuble if bishop or priest, otherwise in dalmatic, shall lie in state.

The hat used in his creation must be deposited at his feet, and after his funeral be suspended over his tomb. His body must be laid in a cypress-wood coffin in presence of a notary and his official family, a member of which--the major-domo--lays at his feet a little case containing a scroll of parchment on which has been written a brief account of the more important events of his life. Then the first coffin is enclosed in another of lead, and the two together in a third one of some kind of precious wood, each coffin having been sealed with the seals of the dead cardinal and the living notary. The body thus secured is borne by night with funeral pomp of carriages and torches and long array of chanting friars to the church of requiem, where it remains until the day appointed for the Mass, at which the cardinals and pope are present, and the latter gives the final absolution.

When carriages first came into use in Italy, which was about the year 1500, they were considered effeminate and a species of refined luxury, so much so that Pius IV., at a consistory held on November 27, 1564, in a grave discourse exhorted the cardinals not to use a means of conveyance fit only for women, but to continue to come to the palace in the virile manner that had been so long the custom--that is, on horseback; and reminded them that when the Emperor Charles V. returned into Spain from his visit to Italy, he had said that no sight pleased him there so much as the magnificent cavalcade of the cardinals on their way to the chapels and consistories. After this they always rode or were carried in litters or sedan-chairs, until the beginning of the XVIIth century, when it became impossible any longer to hinder them from using the new and more convenient style which had become general for all people of means. Urban VIII., in 1625, by ordering cardinals to put scarlet head-gear on their horses, seemed to sanction the change; but it appears to have been abused, by some at least, in a manner described by Innocent X. (1676), in a pathetic address, as ill becoming those who had renounced the pomps and vanities of the world. We may get an idea of the ostentation, when we know that but a few years previously Maurice of Savoy (who afterwards by permission renounced the cardinalate for reasons of state) used to go to the Vatican with a following of two hundred splendid equipages and a numerous escort of horsemen in brilliant uniforms. The modern custom (which has been interrupted by the Italian usurpers) is certainly very modest.

The cardinals proceed to the minor functions with a single carriage and two on gala days, but princes by birth have three.

Each carriage is red, finished with gilt ornaments, and drawn by a pair of superb black horses from a particular breed of the Campagna. The scarlet umbrella carried by one of the somnolent footmen behind is seldom taken out of its cover, being merely a reminiscence of the old fashion when their eminences rode, and it might be of service against the rain or the sun.

Cardinals belonging to a religious order of monks or friars who wear beards retain them after their exaltation; but others must be clean shaven. There have been considerable changes in this matter, and cardinals wore no beards in the XVth century. In fact, the long, silky, and well-cultivated beard of Bessarion (a Greek) lost him the election to the papacy after the death of Nicholas V., in 1455. It was also the occasion of his death with chagrin at an atrocious insult offered him by Louis XI. of France; for being on an embassy to compose the differences between that monarch and the Duke of Burgundy, he wrote to the latter stating the object of his mission before having made his visit to the former, which so enraged that punctilious king that when the legate came the first thing he did was to pull his magnificent beard and say:

“Barbara graeca genus retinent quod habere solebant.”

Under the pontificate of Julius II., who gave the example, cardinals wore long beards; but in the next century only mustaches and la barbetta (the “goatee”)--varied among the more rigid by just a little bit beneath the under lip, and called a mouche by the French--were retained until, in the year 1700, Clement XI. introduced the perfectly beardless face, which now shows itself under the beretta (Cancellieri, Possessi de’ Papi, page 327).

Not to mention S. Lawrence, who is generally reckoned an archdeacon (i.e., cardinal first deacon) of the Roman Church, or S. Jerome, in vindication of whose cardinalate Ciacconius wrote a special treatise (Rome, 1581), the Sacred College counts among its members fifteen saints either canonized or beatified. The first is S. Peter Damian, in 1058, and the last Blessed Pietro-Maria Tommasi, in 1712. The cardinals have the privilege of a Proprium for these in the Office. There are besides nine others popularly venerated as Blessed, but without warrant from the Holy See that we are aware of. The noblest families of Europe, imperial, royal, and of lower rank, have been represented in the Sacred College, those of Italy, of course, preponderating: and no other one, we believe, has had so many cardinals as that of Orsini, which claims over forty-two, beginning with Orsino, cardinal-priest A.D. 500. Yet merit has never been refused a place among its members because it made no “boast of heraldry” or other pretension to social superiority. Where so many have been distinguished in a very high degree, it is difficult to select half a dozen names from as many different nations that have been represented in the Sacred College, and that stand out above all the rest in their several countries. Among the Germans, Nicholas de Cusa, in 1448, is superior to all others for his intrepid defence of the Holy See and his immense learning, especially in mathematics. He discovered the annual revolution of the earth around the sun before Copernicus or Galileo were born. Among the Spaniards, Ximenes, in 1507, is easily chief, as a minister of state and encourager of education. In England, Wolsey, created by Leo X., in 1515, although Panvinius (Epitome, p. 377) insolently calls him “the scum and scandal of the human race,” is the greatest figure, and needs no praise. In Scotland, Beaton is first as state minister and patron of learning. He was put to death in hatred of the faith which could not be subverted while he lived. Among the Italians, Bellarmine may be placed first; certainly no other cardinal has filled so often and so long the minds of the adversaries of the faith. Clement VIII., in 1599, when he created him, said that there was no one his equal for learning in all the church. In France, Richelieu, the greatest prime minister that ever lived, and the savior of the government and the church by effectually putting down the rebellious Huguenots. Everything that is good and very little comparatively that is bad has been represented in the Sacred College; but lest we should be thought to flatter we will give a few examples that show how no body of men is entirely above reproach. Moroni has a special article on pseudo-cardinals and another on cardinals who have been degraded from their high and sacred office. We say nothing of the former, or we would be led into an interminable article on the ambition, intrigue, and schisms that have disgraced individuals and injured the church. Boniface VIII. was obliged to degrade and excommunicate the two turbulent Colonnas, uncle and nephew; but doing penance under his successor, they were restored. Julius II. and Leo X. had difficulties with some of their cardinals, and one of them, Alfonso Petrucci, for conspiring against the sovereign, was decapitated in Castle Sant’ Angelo on July 6, 1517. Odet de Coligni, who had been made a cardinal very young at the earnest request of Francis I., afterwards embraced Calvinism, and, as usual with apostates, embraced something else besides. Although he had thrown off his cassock, yet when Pius IV. pronounced him degraded and excommunicated, he resumed it, out of contempt, long enough to get married in his red robes. Cardinals Charles Caraffa[132] and Nicholas Coscia[133] in Italy; de Rohan[134] of the Diamond Necklace affair, and de Loménie de Brienne[135] in France, if, on the one hand, they have not been what we would expect from those so highly honored, on the other, they give us proofs of the impartial justice of the popes, and that no one in their eyes is above the law. Among the curiosities of the cardinalate is that of Ferdinand Taverna, Bishop of Lodi, who was raised to the purple in 1604, and died of joy. This reminds us that Cancellieri, with his usual singularity of research, has a passage in his work on the Enthronement of the Popes, about “persons who have gone mad or died of grief because they were not made cardinals,” and tells of one in particular who hoped to make his way by his reputation for learning, and had a little red hat hung up above his desk to keep himself perpetually in mind of the prize he was ambitiously seeking--and, of course, never found. Poor human nature! The importance of the telegraph as a means of avoiding inconvenient nominations is shown by a good many cases of men elevated to the cardinalate when they were already dead. Three occurred in the XIVth century; but as late as 1770 Paul de Carvalho, brother of the infamous Pombal, was published (having been reserved in petto) on January 20, three days after he had expired.

The Orsini are noted for their longevity, and it has shown itself in the cardinals as well as in others of the family. Giacinto Bobò Orsini was made a cardinal at twenty by Honorius II., and after living through sixty-five years of his dignity and eleven pontificates, was himself elected pope (being only a deacon) at the age of eighty-five, and reigned for nearly seven years as Celestine III. (1191-1198). Another one, Pietro Orsini, after having three times refused the honor, was at length induced to accept it, wore the purple for fifty-four years and finally became Benedict XIII. (1724-1730).

Gregory XI., who brought back the See from Avignon, was made a cardinal by his uncle at seventeen; Paul II. by his, at twenty-one; Pius III. by his, at twenty; and Leo X. by his, at fourteen--but not allowed to wear his robes until three years later. The last example, we believe, of a very young cardinal is that of a Spanish Bourbon, Don Luis, created at twenty-three by Pius VII., in 1810; he was permitted afterwards to renounce it. Although exceptions may occasionally be made in future, a mature age has for many pontificates come to be considered absolutely necessary before being raised to the dignity. Artaud de Montor has an anecdote in his Life of Pius VIII., about the inexorable Leo XII. in connection with the young Abbé Duc de Rohan-Chabot, a Montmorency, and as such, one would think, quite the equal of an Orsini, Colonna, or the son of any other great Italian family. Whenever Leo was pressed on the subject, and he was urged by many and very influential persons, to confer the dignity upon the princely, learned, and virtuous priest, he had a new Latin verse ready in praise of him, but always ending with his inevitable youth, as this one for example: Sunt mores, doctrina, genus--sed deficit ætas (Artaud, i. p. 205). He was thirty-seven at the time.

We conclude with a few words the bibliography of the cardinalate. Not to mention the almost innumerable separate lives of cardinals which have been published in all countries, particularly Italy, the greatest work or series of works connected with the subject is undoubtedly that of the Spanish Dominican, Chacon, who wrote a History of the Popes and Cardinals up to Clement VIII. His work was corrected and continued by the Italian Jesuit, Oldoini, up to Clement IX. inclusive, all with beautiful portraits and arms. At the request of Benedict XIV., a learned prelate named Guarnacci continued this work to the pontificate of Clement XII. inclusive. It was sumptuously brought out in 1751. There is a continuation of this, containing the whole of Benedict XIV.’s pontificate, and later matter from MSS. left by Guarnacci and from other sources, that appeared in 1787, and is actually (if our memory does not deceive us) rarer at Rome than the other parts of the work, although published so much later. We have understood that there are still some precious MS. collections on the same subject in the possession of the noble Del Cinque family, which are probably waiting for a Mæcenas to accept the dedication before being published. These are the full titles of the works referred to:

Alphonsi Ciacconii, Vitæ et res gestæ Pontificum romanorum, et S. R. E. Cardinalium ab initio nascentis Ecclesiæ, usque ad Clementem IX., ab Augustino Oldoino recognitæ. Romæ: 1677 (3d ed., 4 vols. fol.) Mario Guarnacci, Vitæ et res gestæ Pontificum romanorum, et S. R. E. Cardinalium a Clemente IX. usque ad Clementem XII. Romæ: 1751 (2 vols. fol.)

Vitæ et res gestæ summorum Pontificum et S. R. E. Cardinalium ad Ciacconii exemplum continuatæ, quibus accedit appendix, quæ vitas Cardinalium perfecit, a Guarnaccio non absolutas. Auctoribus Equite Joh. Paulo de Cinque, et Advocato Raphaele Fabrinio. Romæ: 1787.

The best work in Italian is Lorenzo Cardella’s Memorie storiche de’ Cardinali della S. Romana Chiesa, in comminciando da quelli di S. Gelasio I., sino ai creati da Benedetto XIV. Roma: 1792.

A recent and probably very excellent work in French is Etienne Fisquet’s Histoire générale des Papes et des Cardinaux. Chez Etienne Repos, 70 rue Bonaparte, Paris (5 vols. 8vo).

The principal work on the cardinalate in general is by Plati: De Cardinalis dignitate et officio, of which a sixth edition was published at Rome in 1836; and an exquisite monograph, small in size (one little volume) but full of research, is Cardinal Nicholas Antonelli’s De Titulis quos S. Evaristus Romanis Presbyteris distribuit, dissertatio. Published at Rome in 1725; rather rare.

The Calcografia Camerale, near the Fountain of Trevi at Rome, used to have for sale at a reasonable price the engraved portraits of all the cardinals from the pontificate of Paul V. (1605-21) to that of Pius IX.; but being an establishment belonging to the papal government, the present occupiers of the city in their zeal for the fine arts may have turned it upside down.

A collection of portraits in oil colors of all the British Cardinals was begun at the English College in Rome in 1864.

HORN HEAD.

(COUNTY OF DONEGAL.)

Sister of Earth, her sister eldest-born, Huge world of waters, how unlike are ye! Thy thoughts are not as her thoughts: unto thee Her pastoral fancies are as things to scorn: Thy heart is still with that old hoary morn When on the formless deep, the procreant sea, God moved alone: of that Infinity, Thy portion then, thou art not wholly shorn. Scant love hast thou for dells where every leaf Boasts its own life, and every brook its song; Thy massive floods down stream from reef to reef With one wide pressure; thy worn cliffs along The one insatiate Hunger moans and raves, Hollowing its sunless crypts and sanguine caves.

AUBREY DE VERE.

STRAY LEAVES FROM A PASSING LIFE.

CONCLUDED.

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