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 • 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 
 
 By JxVMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 
 
 BEING 
 
 Selections from ''Short Studies 
 on Great Subjects.'''' 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER 
 
 188G. 
 
 136460
 
 H '-? ^ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Erasmus luid Luther, - - . o 
 
 Spinoza, . - - . - 99 
 
 The Dissolution of the Monasteries, - - 153 
 
 England's Forgotten Worthier, - - 187 
 
 Homer, --»--- 237 
 
 Society in Italy in the Lust Days of the Roman 
 
 Republic, - - - - 273 
 
 Lucian, ------ 299 
 
 Divus Caesar, - - - - 833
 
 TIMES OF 
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 
 
 THREE LECTURES. 
 
 DELIVERED AT NEWCASTLE, 1SG7. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — I do not know 
 whether I have made a very wise selection in 
 the subject which I have chosen for these Lec- 
 tures. There was a time — a time which, 
 measured by the years of our national life, was 
 not so very long ago — when the serious thoughts 
 of mankind were occupied exclusively by relig- 
 ion and politics. The small knowledge which 
 they possessed of other things was tinctured by 
 their speculative opinions on the relations of 
 heaven and earth ; and, down to the sixteenth 
 century, art, science, scarcely even literature, 
 existed in this country, except as, in some way 
 or other, subordinate to theology. Philoso- 
 phers — such philosophers as these were — ob- 
 tained and half deserved the reputation of 
 quacks and conjurers. Astronomy was con- 
 fused with astrology. The physician's medi- 
 cines were supposed to be powerless, unless the 
 priests said prayers over them. The great 
 lawyers, the ambassadors, the chief ministers 
 of state, were generally bishops ; even the fight- 
 ing business was not entirely secular. Half-a- 
 dozen Scotch prelates were killed at Flodden ;
 
 6 IIISTOK/CAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and, laic in the reign of Henry the Eighth, no 
 fitter person could be found than Rowland Lee, 
 Lishop of Coventry, to take command of the 
 Welsh Marches, and harry the freebooters of 
 Llangollen. 
 
 Every single department of intellectual or 
 practical life was penetrated with the beliefs, 
 or was interwoven with the interests, of the 
 clergy ; and thus it was that, when differences 
 of religious opinion arose, they split society to 
 its foundations. The lines of cleavage pene- 
 trated everywhere, and there were no subjects 
 whatever in which those who disagreed in 
 theology possessed any common concern. 
 When men quarrelled, they quarrelled alto- 
 gether. The disturbers of settled beliefs were 
 regarded as public enemies who had placed 
 themselves beyond the pale of humanity, and 
 were considered fit only to be destroyed like 
 wild beasts, or trampled out like the seed of a 
 contagion. 
 
 Three centuries have passed over our heads 
 since the time of which I am speaking, and the 
 world is so changed that we can hardly recog- 
 nize it as the same. 
 
 'J'he secrets of nature have been opened out 
 to us on a thousand lines ; and men of science 
 of all creeds can pursue side by side their 
 common investigations. Catholics, Anglicans, 
 Presbyterians, Lutherans, Calvinists, contend 
 with each other in honorable rivalry in arts, 
 and literature, and commerce, and industry. 
 They read the same books. They study at the 
 same academies. They have seats in the same 
 senates. Tliey preside together on the judicial 
 bench, and carry on, without jar or difference, 
 the ordinary business of the countr}-. 
 
 Those who share the same pursuits are drawn 
 in spite of themselves into sympathy and good- 
 will. When they are in harmony in so large a 
 part of their occupations, the points of remain- 
 ing difference lose their venom. Those who 
 thought they haled each other, unconsciously
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. -j 
 
 find themselves friends ; and as far as it affects 
 the world at large, the acrimony of controversy 
 has almost disappeared. 
 
 Jma,p;inc, if you can, a person being now put 
 to death for a speculative theological opinion. 
 You feel at once, that in the most bigoted 
 country in the world such a thing has become 
 impossible ; and the impossibility is the meas- 
 ure of the alteration which we have all under- 
 gone. The Formulas remain as they were on 
 either side — the very same formulas which were 
 once supposed to require these detestable mur- 
 ders. But we have learnt to know each other 
 better. The cords which bind together the 
 brotherhood of mankind are woven of a thou- 
 sand strands. We do not any more fly apart or 
 become enemies, because, here and there, in 
 one strand out of so many, there are still un- 
 sound places. 
 
 If I were asked for a distinct proof that 
 Europe was improving and not retrograding, I 
 should find it in this phenomenon. It has not 
 been brought about by controversy. Men are 
 fighting still over the same questions which 
 they began to fight about at the Reformation. 
 Protestant divines have not driven Catholics 
 out of the field, nor Catholics, Protestants. 
 Each polemic writes for his own partisans, and 
 makes no impression on his adversary. 
 
 Controversy has kept alive a certain quantity 
 of bitterness ; and that, I suspect, is all that it 
 would accomplish if it continued till the day of 
 judgment. I sometimes, in impatient moments, 
 wish the laity in Europe would treat their con- 
 troversial divines as two gentlemen once treated 
 their seconds, when they found themselves 
 forced into a duel without knowing what they 
 were quarrelling about. 
 
 As the principals were being led up to their 
 
 places, one of them whispered to the other, ' If 
 
 you will shoot your second, I will shoot mine.' 
 
 The reconciliation of parties, if I may use 
 
 such a word, is no tinkcred-up truce, or con-
 
 3 jnSTORIC.lL JCSSAVS. 
 
 venient Interim. It is the healthy, silent 
 spontaneous growth of a nobler order of con- 
 viction, which has conquered our prejudices 
 even before we knew that they were assailed. 
 This better spirit especially is represented in 
 institutions like the present, which acknowledge 
 no differences of creed — which are constructed 
 on the broadest principles of toleration — and 
 which, therefore, as a rule, are wisely protected 
 from the intrusion of discordant subjects. 
 
 They exist, as I understand, to draw men 
 together, not to divide them — to enable us to 
 share together in those topics of universal in- 
 terest and instruction which all can take pleas- 
 ure in, and which give offence to none. 
 
 If you ask me, then, why I am myself depait- 
 ing from a practice which I admit to be so ex- 
 cellent, I fear that I shall give you rather a 
 lame answer. I might say that I know more 
 about the history of the sixteenth century than 
 I know about anything else. I have spent the 
 best years of my life in reading and writing 
 about it ; and if I have anything to tell you 
 worth your hearing, it is probably on that sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Or, again, I might say — which is indeed most 
 true — that to the Reformation we can trace, 
 indirectly, the best of those very influences 
 which I have been describing. The Reformation 
 broke the theological shackles in which men's 
 minds were fettered. It set them thinking, 
 and so gave birth to science. The reformers 
 also, without knowing what they were about, 
 taught the lesson of religious toleration. They 
 attempted to supersede one set of dogmas by 
 another. They succeeded with half the world 
 — they failed with the other half. In a little 
 while it became apparent that good men — 
 without ceasing to be good — could think differ- 
 ently about theology, and that goodness, there- 
 fore, depended on something else than the 
 holding orthodox opinions. 
 
 It is not, however, for either of these reasons
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 9 
 
 that I am going to talk to you about Martin 
 Luther : nor is toleration of differences of opin- 
 ion, however excellent it be, the point on which 
 I shall dwell in these Lectures. 
 
 Were the Reformation a question merely of 
 opinion, I for one should not have meddled 
 with it, either here or anywhere. I hold that, 
 on the obscure jnysteries of faith, every one 
 should be allowed to believe according to his 
 conscience, and that arguments on such mat- 
 ters are either impertinent or useless. 
 
 But the Reformation, gentlemen, beyond the 
 region of opinions, was a historical fact — an 
 objective something which may be studied like 
 any of the facts of nature. The Reformers 
 were men of note and distinction, who played a 
 great part for good or evil on the stage of the 
 world. If we except the Apostles, no body of 
 human beings ever printed so deep a mark in- 
 to the organization of society ; and if there be 
 any value or meaning in history at all, the lives, 
 the actions, the characters of such men as 
 these can be matters of indifference to none 
 of us. 
 
 We have not to do with a story which is 
 buried in obscure antiquity. The facts admit 
 of being learnt. The truth, whatever it was, 
 concerns us all equally. If the divisions cre- 
 ated by that great convulsion are ever to be ob- 
 literated, it will be when we have learnt, each 
 of us, to see the thing as it really was, and not 
 rather some mythical or imaginative version of 
 the thing — such as from our own point of view 
 we like to think it was. Fiction in such mat- 
 ters may be convenient for our immediate 
 theories, but it is certain to avenge itself in 
 the end.- We may make our own opinions, but 
 facts were made for us ; and if we evade or 
 deny them, it will be the worse for us. 
 
 Unfortunately, the mythical version at present 
 very largely preponderates. Open a Protestant 
 history of the Reformation, and you will find a 
 picture of the world given over to a lying
 
 lO HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 tyranny — the Christian population of Europe 
 enslaved by a corrupt and degraded priesthood, 
 and the Reformers, ^vith the Bible in their 
 Jiands, coming to the rescue like angels of light. 
 All is black, on one side — all is fair and beauti- 
 ful on the other. 
 
 Turn to a Catholic history of the same events 
 and the same men, and we have before us the 
 Church of the Saints fulfilling quietly its 
 blessed mission in the saving of human souls. 
 Satan a second time enters into Paradise, and 
 a second time with fatal success tempts miser- 
 able man to his ruin. He disbelieves his ap- 
 pointed teachers, he aspires after forbidden 
 knowledge, and at once anarchy breaks loose. 
 The seamless robe of the Saviour is rent in 
 pieces, and the earth becomes the habitation 
 of fiends. 
 
 Each side tells the story as it prefers to have 
 it ; facts, characters, circumstances, are melted 
 in the theological crucible, and cast in moulds 
 diametrically opposite. Nothing remains the 
 same except the names and dates. Each side 
 chooses its own witnesses. Evervthing is 
 credible which makes for what it calls the truth. 
 Everything is made false which will not fit in- 
 to its place. * Blasphemous fables ' is the 
 usual expression in Protestant controversial 
 books for the accounts given by Catholics. 
 ' Protestant tradition,' says an eminent modern 
 Catholic, ' is based on lying — bold, wholesale, 
 unscrupulous lying.' 
 
 Now, depend upon it, there is some human 
 account of the matter different from both these 
 if we could only get at it, and it will be an ex- 
 cellent thing for the world when that human 
 account can be made out. I am not so pre- 
 sumptuous as to suppose that I can give it to 
 you; still less can you expect me to try to do 
 so within the compass of two or three lectures. 
 If I cannot do everything, however, I believe 
 I can do a little ; at any rate I can give you a 
 sketch, such as you may place moderate con'
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. ii 
 
 fidencc in, of the state of the Church as it was 
 before the Rcforinatioii began. 1 will not ex- 
 pose myself more than 1 can help to the cen- 
 sure of the divine who was so hard on Protest- 
 ant tradition. Most of what I shall have to say 
 to you this evening will be taken from the ad- 
 missions of Catholics themselves, or from offi- 
 cial records earlier than the outbreak of the 
 controversy, when there was no temptation to 
 pervert the truth. 
 
 Here, obviously, is the first point on which 
 we required accurate information. If all was 
 going on well, the Reformers really and truly 
 told innumerable lies, and deserve all the re- 
 probation which we can give them. If all was 
 not going on well — if, so far from being well, 
 the Church was so corrupt that luirope could 
 bear with it no longer — then clearly a Reform: 
 ation was necessary of some kind ; and we 
 have taken one step towards a fair estimate of 
 the persons concerned in it. 
 
 A fair estimate — that, and only that, is what 
 we want. I need hardly observe to you, that 
 opinion in England has been undergoing lately 
 a very considerable alteration about these per- 
 sons. 
 
 Two generations ago, the leading Reformers 
 were looked upon as little less than saints ; 
 now a party has risen up who intend, as they 
 frankly tell us, to un-Protestantize the Church 
 of England, who detest Protestantism as a 
 kind of infidelity, who desire simply to reverse 
 everything which the Reformers did. 
 
 One of these gentlemen, a clergyman writ- 
 ing lately of Luther, called him a heretic, a 
 heretic fit only to be ranked with — whom, do 
 you think ?— foe Smith, the Mormon Prophet, 
 Joe Smith and Luther— that is the combination 
 with which we are now presented. 
 
 The book in which this remarkable state- 
 ment appeared was presented by two bishops 
 to the tipper House of Convocation. It was 
 received with gracious acknowledgments by
 
 12 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was placed 
 solemnly in the library of reference, for that 
 learned body to consult. 
 
 So, too, a professor at Oxford, the other day, 
 spoke of Luther as a Philistine — a Philistine 
 meaning an oppressor of the chosen people ; 
 the enemy of men of culture and intelligence, 
 such as the professor himself. 
 
 One notices these things, not as of much im^ 
 portance in themselves, but as showing which 
 way the stream is running ; and, curiously 
 enough, in quite another direction we may see 
 the same phenomenon. Our liberal philos- 
 ophers, men of high literary power and reputa- 
 tion, looking into the history of Luther, and 
 Calvin, and John Knox, and the rest, lind 
 them falling far short of the philosophic ideal 
 — wanting sadly in many qualities which the 
 liberal mind cannot dispense with. They are 
 discovered to be intolerant, dogmatic, narrow- 
 minded, inclined to persecute Catholics as 
 Catholics had persecuted them ; to be, in fact, 
 little if at all better than the popes and cardi- 
 nals whom they were fighting against. 
 
 Lord I\Licaulay can hardly find epithets 
 strong enough to express his contempt for 
 Archbishop Cranmer. Mr, Buckle places 
 Cranmer by the side of Bonner, and hesitates 
 which of the two characters is the more detes- 
 table. 
 
 An unfavorable estimate of the Reformers, 
 whether just or unjust, is unquestionably gain- 
 ing ground among our advanced thinkers. A 
 greater man than either ALacaulay or Buckle 
 — the German poet, Goethe — says of Luther, 
 that he threw back the intellectual progress of 
 mankind for centuries, by calling in the pas- 
 sions of the multitude to decide on subjects 
 which ought to have been left to the learned, 
 (ioethe, in saying this, was alluding especially 
 to Erasmus. Goethe thought that Erasmus, 
 and men like lOrasmus, had struck upon the 
 right track ; and if they could have retained
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 13 
 
 the direction of tiie mind of Europe, there 
 would have been more trulh,and less falsehood, 
 among us at this present time. The party 
 hatreds, the theological rivalries, the persecu- 
 tions, the civil wars, the religious animosities 
 which have so long distracted us, would have 
 been all avoided, and the mind of mankind 
 would have expanded gradually and equally 
 with the growth of knowledge. 
 
 Such an opinion, coming from so great a 
 man, is not to be lightly passed over. It will 
 be my endeavor to show you what kind of man 
 Erasmus was, what he was aiming at, what he 
 was doing, and how Luther spoilt his work — if 
 spoiling is the word which we are to use for it. 
 
 One caution, however, I must in fairness 
 give you before we proceed further. It lies 
 upon the face of the story, that the Reformers 
 imperfectly understood toleration ; but you 
 must keep before you the spirit and temper of 
 the men with whom they had to deal. For 
 themselves, when the movement began, they 
 aimed at nothing but liberty to think and speak 
 their own way. They never dreamt of inter- 
 fering with others, although they were quite 
 aware that others, when they could, were likely 
 to interfere with them. Lord Macaulay might 
 have remembered that Cranmer was working 
 all his life with the prospect of being burnt 
 alive as his reward — and, as we all know, he 
 actually was burnt alive. 
 
 When the Protestant teaching began first to 
 spread in the Netherlands — before one single 
 Catholic had been ill-treated there, before a 
 symptom of a mutinous disposition had shown 
 itself among the people, an edict was issued by 
 the authorities for the suppression of the new 
 opinions. 
 
 The terms of this edict I will briefly describe 
 to you. 
 
 The inhabitants of the United Provinces 
 were informed that they were to hold and be- 
 lieve the doctrines of the Holy Roman Catho-
 
 14 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 lie Church. * Men and women,' says the edict, 
 ' who disobey this command shall be punished 
 as distnrbers of public order. Women who 
 have fallen into heresy shall be buried alive. 
 Men, if they recant, shall lose their heads. If 
 they continue obstinate, they shall be burnt at 
 the stake. 
 
 ' If man or woman be suspected of heresy, 
 no one shall shelter or protect him or her; and 
 no stranger shall be admitted to lodge in any 
 inn or dwelling-house unless he bring with him 
 a testimonial of orthodoxy from the priest of 
 his parish. 
 
 'The Inquisition shall inquire into the pri- 
 vate opinions of every person, of whatever 
 degree ; and all officers of all kinds shall assist 
 the Inquisition at their peril. Those who 
 know where heretics are concealed, shall 
 denounce them, or they shall suffer as heretics 
 themselves. Heretics (observe the malignity 
 of this paragraph) — heretics who will give up 
 other heretics to justice, shall themselves be 
 pardoned if they will promise to conform for 
 the future.' 
 
 Under this edict, in the Netherlands alone, 
 more than fifty thousand human beings, first 
 and last, were deliberatelv murdered. And, 
 gentlemen, I must say that proceedings of this 
 kind explain and go far to excuse the subsequ- 
 ent intolerance of Protestants. 
 
 Intolerance, Mr Gibbon tells us, is a greater 
 crime in a Protestant than a Catholic. Criminal 
 intolerance, as I understand it, is the intoler- 
 ance of such an edict as that which I have read 
 to you — the unprovoked intolerance of differ- 
 ence of opinion. I conceive that the most en- 
 lightened philosopher might have grown hard 
 and narrow-minded if he had suffered under 
 the administration of the Duke of Alva. 
 
 Dismissing these consideration, I will now 
 go on with my subject. 
 
 Never in all their history, in ancient times 
 or modern, never that we know of, have man-
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTJIEK. 
 
 ^5 
 
 kind thrown out of themselves anything so 
 grand, so useful, so beautiful, as the Catholic 
 Church once was. In, these time of ours, 
 well-regulated selfishness is the recognized 
 rule of action — every one of us is expected to 
 look out first for himself, and take care of his 
 own interests. At the time I speak of, the 
 Church ruled the State with the authority of a 
 conscience ; and self-interest, as a motive of 
 action, was only named to be abhorred. The 
 bishops and clergy were regarded freely and 
 simply as the immediate ministers of the Al- 
 mighty ; and they seem to me to have really 
 deserved that high estimate of their character. 
 It was not for the doctrines which they taught 
 only, or chiefly, that they were held in honor. 
 Brave men do not fall down before their fellow- 
 mortals for the words which they speak, or 
 for the rites which they perform. Wisdom, 
 justice, self-denial, nobleness, puril}-, high- 
 mindedness, — these are the qualities before 
 which the free-born races of Europe have beeh 
 contented to bow ; and in no order of men 
 were such qualities to be found as they were 
 found six hundred years ago in the clergy of 
 the Catholic Church. They called themselves 
 the successors of the Apostles. They claimed 
 in their Master's name universal spiritual au- 
 thority, but they made good their pretensions 
 by the holiness of their own lives. They were 
 allowed to rule because they deserved to rule, 
 and in the fulness of revenge kings and nobles 
 bent before a power which was nearer to God 
 than their own. Over prince and subject, 
 chieftain and serf, a body of unarmed defence- 
 less men reigned supreme by the magic of 
 sanctity. They tamed the fiery northern war- 
 riors who had broken in pieces the Roman 
 Empire. They taught them — they brought 
 them really and truly to believe — that they 
 had immortal souls, and that they would one 
 day stand at the awful judgment bar and give 
 account for their lives there. With the brave.
 
 I (3 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the honest, and the good — with those whc had 
 not oppressed the poor nor removed their 
 neighbor's landmark — with those who had 
 been just in all their dealings — with those who 
 had fought against evil, and had tried valiantly 
 to do their Master's will, — at that great day, it 
 would be well. For cowards, for profligates, 
 for those who lived for luxury and pleasure 
 and self-indulgence, there was the blackness of 
 eternal death. 
 
 An awful conviction of this tremendous kind 
 the clergy had effectually instilled into the 
 mind of Europe. It was not a perhaps ; it 
 was a certainty. It was not a form of words 
 repeated once a week at church ; it was an 
 assurance entertained on all days and in all 
 places, without any particle of doubt. And 
 the effect of such a belief on life and con- 
 science was simply immeasurable. 
 
 I do not pretend that the clergy were per- 
 fect. They were very far from perfect at the 
 best of times, and the European nations were 
 never completely submissive to them. It 
 would not have been well if they had been. 
 The business of human creatures in this planet 
 is not summed up in the most excellent of 
 priestly catechisms. The world and its con- 
 cerns continued to interest men, though priests 
 insisted on their nothingness. They could not 
 prevent kings from quarrelling with each other. 
 They could not hinder disputed successions, 
 and civil feuds, and wars, and political con- 
 spiracies. What they did do was to shelter 
 the weak from the strong. 
 
 In the eves of the clergv, the serf and his 
 lord stood on the common level of sinful hu- 
 manity. Into their ranks high birth was no 
 passport. They were themselves for the most 
 part children of the people ; and the son of 
 the artisan or peasant rose to the mitre and 
 the triple crown, just as now-a-davs the rail- 
 spliiter and the tailor become Presidents of the 
 Kepublic of the West.
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 17 
 
 The Church was essentially democratic, 
 while at the same time it had the monopoly of 
 learning ; and all the secular power fell to it 
 which learning, combined with sanctity and 
 assisted by superstition, can bestow. 
 
 The privileges of the clergy were extraor- 
 dinary. They were not amenable to the 
 common laws of the land. While they governed 
 the laity, the laity had no power over them. 
 From the throne downwards, every secular 
 office was dependent on the Church. No king 
 was a lawful sovereign till the Church placed 
 the crown upon his head : and what the Church 
 bestowed, the Church claimed the right to take 
 away. The disposition of property was in 
 their hands. No will could be proved except 
 before the bishop or his officer ; and no will was 
 held valid if the testator died out of commun- 
 ion. There were magistrates and courts of 
 law for the offences of the laity. If a priest 
 committed a crime, he was a sacred person. 
 The civil power could not touch him ; he was 
 reserved for his ordinary. Bishops' commis- 
 saries sat in town and city, taking cognizance of 
 the moral conduct of every man and woman. 
 Offences against life and property were tried 
 here in England, as now, by the common law ; 
 but the Church Courts dealt with sins — sins of 
 word or act. If a man was profligate or a 
 drunkard ; if he lied or swore ; if he did not 
 come to communion, or held unlawful opin- 
 ions ; if he was idle or unthrifty ; if he was 
 unkind to his wife or his servants ; if a child 
 was disobedient to his father, or a father cruel 
 to his child ; if a tradesman sold adulterated 
 wares, or used false measures or dishonest 
 weights, — the eye of the parish priest was 
 everywhere, and the Church Court stood always 
 open to examine and to punish. 
 
 Imagine what a tremendous power this must 
 have been ! Yet it existed generally in Catho- 
 lic Europe down to the eve of the Reforma- 
 tion. It could never have established itself at
 
 l8 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 all unless at one time it had worked benefici- 
 ally — as the abuse of it was one of the most 
 fatal causes of tlie Church's fall. 
 
 I know notliing in Kngiish history much 
 more striking than the answer given by Arch- 
 bishop Warham to the complaints of the Eng- 
 lisli House of Commons after the fall of Cardi- 
 nal Wolsey. The House of Commons com- 
 plained that the clergy made laws in Convoca- 
 tion which the laity were excommunicated if 
 they disobeyed. Yet the laws made by the 
 clergy, the Commons said, were often at vari- 
 ance with the laws of the realm. 
 
 What did Warham reply ? He said he was 
 sorry for the alleged discrepancy ; but inas- 
 much as the laws made by the clergy were 
 always in conformity with the will of God, the 
 laws of the realm had only to be altered and 
 then the difficulty would vanish. 
 
 What must have been the position of the 
 clergy in the fulness of their power, when they 
 could speak thus on the eve of their prostra- 
 tion ? You have only to look from a distance 
 at any old-fashioned cathedral city, and you 
 will see in a moment the mediaival relations 
 between Church and State, The cathedral is 
 the city. The first object you catch sight of 
 as you approach is the spire tapering into the 
 sky, or the huge towers holding possession of 
 the centre of the landscape — majestically 
 beautiful — imposing bv mere size amidst the 
 large forms of Nature herself. As you go 
 nearer the vastness of the building impresses 
 you more and more. The puny dwelling- 
 places of the citizens creep at its feet, the 
 pinnacles are glittering in the tints of the sunset, 
 when down below among the streets and lanes 
 the twilight is darkening. And even now, 
 when the towns are thrice their ancient size, 
 and the houses have stretched upwards from 
 two stories to five ; when the great chimneys 
 are vomiting their smoke among the clouds, 
 and the temples of modern industry — the work-
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 19 
 
 shops and the factories— spread their long 
 fronts before the eye, the cathedral is still the 
 governing form in the picture — the one object 
 which possesses the imagination and refuses 
 to be eclipsed. 
 
 As that cathedral was to the old town, so 
 was the Church of the middle ages to the 
 secular institutions of the world. Its very- 
 neighborhood was sacred ; and its shadow, 
 like the shadow of the Apostles, was a sanctu- 
 ary. When I lock at the new Houses of 
 Parliament in London, I see in them a type of 
 the change which has passed over us. The 
 House of Commons of the Plantngenets sat in 
 the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. 
 The Parliament of the Reform Bill, five-and- 
 thirty years ago, debated in St. Stephen's 
 Chapel, the Abbey's small dependency. Now, 
 by the side of the enormous pile which has 
 risen out of that chapel's ashes, the proud 
 Minster itself is dwarfed into insignificance. 
 
 Let us turn to another vast feature of the 
 middle ages — I mean the monasteries. 
 
 Some person of especial and exceptional 
 holiness has lived or died at a particular spot. 
 He has been distinguished by his wisdom, by 
 his piety, by his active benevolence ; and in 
 an age when conjurers and witches were sup- 
 posed to be helped by the devil to do evil, he, 
 on his part, has been thought to have pos- 
 sessed in larger measuie than common men 
 the favor and the grace of heaven. Blessed 
 influences hang about the spot which he has 
 hallowed by his presence. Plis relics— his 
 household possessions, his books, his clothes, 
 his bones, retain the shadowy sanctity which 
 they received in having once belonged to him. 
 We all set a value, not wholly unreal, on any- 
 thing which has been the property of a remark- 
 able man. At worst, it is but an exaggeration 
 of natural reverence. 
 
 Well, as novv-a-days we build monuments to 
 great men, so in the middle ages they built
 
 20 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 shrines or chapels on the spots which saints 
 lind made holy, and communities of pious 
 jieople gathered together there — beginning 
 with the personal friends the saint had left 
 behind him — to trv to live as he had lived, to 
 do good as he had done good, and to die as 
 he had died. Thus arose religious fraternities 
 — companies of men who desired to devote 
 themselves to goodness — to give up pleasure, 
 and amusement, and self-indulgence, and to 
 spend their lives in prayer and works of 
 charity. 
 
 These houses became centres of pious bene- 
 ficence. The monks, as the brotherhoods were 
 called, were organized in different orders, with 
 sorrie variety of rule, but the broad principle 
 was the same in all. They were to live for 
 others, not for themselves. They took vows 
 of poverty, that they might not be entangled 
 in the pursuit of money. They took vows of 
 chastitv, that the care of a familv might not 
 distract them from the work which they had 
 undertaken. Their efforts of charity were not 
 limited to this world. Their days were spent 
 in hard bodily labor, in study, or in visiting 
 the sick. At nisrht thev were on the stone- 
 floors of their chapels, holding up their withered 
 hands to heaven, interceding for the poor 
 souls who were suffering in purgatory. 
 
 The world, as it always will, paid honor to 
 exceptional excellence. The system spread to 
 the furthest limits of Christendom. The religi- 
 ous houses became places of refuge, where men 
 of noble birth, kings and queens and emperors, 
 warriors and statesmen, retired to lay down 
 their splendid cares, and end their days in 
 peace. Those with whom the world had dealt 
 hardly, or those whom it had surfeited with 
 its unsatisfying pleasures, those who were dis- 
 appointed with earth, and those who were filled 
 with passionate aspirations after heaven, alike 
 found a haven of rest in the quiet cloister. 
 And, gradually, lands came to them, and
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 21 
 
 wealth, and social dii^nity — all gratefully ex- 
 tended to men who deserved so well of their 
 fellows ; while no landlords were more popu- 
 lar than they, for the sanctity of the monks 
 sheltered their dependents as well as them- 
 selves. 
 
 Travel now through Ireland, and you will 
 Bee in the wildest parts of it innumerable re- 
 mains of religious houses, which had grown 
 up among a people who acknowledged no rule 
 among themselves except the sword, and where 
 every chief made war upon his neighbor as 
 the humor seized him. The monks among 
 the O's and the Mac's were as defenceless as 
 sheep among the wolves; but the wolves 
 spared them for their character. In such a 
 country as Ireland then was, the monasteries 
 could not have survived for a generation but 
 for the enchanted atmosphere which surrounded 
 them. 
 
 Of authority, the religious orders were prac- 
 tically independent. They were amenable 
 only to the Pope and to their own superiors. 
 Here in England, the king could not send a 
 commissioner to inspect a monastery, nor even 
 send a policeman to arrest a criminal who 
 had taken shelter within its walls. Arch- 
 bishops and bishops, powerful as they were, 
 found their authority cease when they entered 
 the gates of a lienedictine or Dominican 
 abbey. 
 
 So utterly have times changed, that 
 with your utmost exertions you will hardly be 
 able to picture to 3'ourselves the Catholic 
 Church in the days of its greatness. Our 
 school-books tell us how the Emperor of 
 Germany held the stirrup for Pope Gregory the 
 Seventh to mount his mule ; how our own 
 English Henrv Plantagenet walked barefoot 
 through the streets of Canterbury, and knelt 
 in the Chapter House for the monks to flog 
 him. The first of these incidents, I was 
 brought up to believe, proved the Pope to be
 
 2 2 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the man of Sin. Anyhow, they are both facts, 
 and not romances; and you may form some 
 notion from them how high in the World's eyes 
 the Church must have stood. 
 
 And be sure it did not achieve that proud 
 position without deserving it. The Teutonic 
 and Latin ])rinces were not credulous fools; 
 ind when they submitted, it was to something 
 stronger than themselves^ — stronger in limb and 
 muscle, or stronger in intellect and character. 
 
 So the Church was in its vigor : so the 
 Church was not at the opening of the sixteenth 
 century. Power — wealth — security — men are 
 more than mortal if they can resist the temp- 
 tations to which too much of these expose them. 
 Nor were they the only enemies which under- 
 mined the energies of the Catholic clergy. 
 Churches exist in this world to remind us of 
 the eternal laws which we are bound to obey. 
 So far as they do this, they fulfil their end, and 
 are honored in fulfilling it. It would have 
 been better for all of us — it would be better 
 for us now, could Churches keep this their 
 peculiar function steadily and singly before 
 them. Unfortunately, they have preferred in 
 later times the speculative side of things to the 
 practical. They take up into their teaching 
 opinions and theories which are merely ephem- 
 eral ; which would naturally die out with the 
 progress of knowledge ; but, having received 
 a spurious sanctity, prolong their days un- 
 seasonably, and become first unmeaning, and 
 then occasions of superstition. 
 
 It matters little whether I say a paternoster 
 in English or Latin, so that what is present to 
 my mind is the thought which the words express, 
 and not the words themselves. In these and 
 all languages it is the most beautiful of prayers. 
 ]5ut you know that people came to look on a 
 Latin pateniosler as the most powerful of 
 spells — potent in heaven, if said straight- 
 forward if repeated backward, a charm which no 
 in hell could resist.
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER.' 2' 
 
 o 
 
 So it is in my opinion with all forms — forms 
 of words, or forms of ceremony and ritualism. 
 While the meaning is alive in them, they are 
 not only harmless, but pregnant and life-giving. 
 When we come to think that they possess in 
 themselves material and magical virtues, then 
 ,the purpose which they answer is to hide God 
 from us and make us practically into Atheists. 
 
 This is what I believe to have gradually 
 fallen upon the Catholic Church in the gener- 
 ations which preceded Luther. The body 
 remained ; the mind was gone away : the 
 original thought which its symbolism repre- 
 sented was no longer credible to intelligent 
 persons. 
 
 The acute were conscious unbelievers. In 
 Italy, when men went to mass they spoke of it 
 as going to a comedy. You may have heard 
 the story of Luther in his younger days saying 
 mass at an altar in Rome, and hearing his 
 fellow-priests muttering at the consecration of 
 the Eucharist, ' Bread thou art, and bread thou 
 wilt remain.' 
 
 Part of the clergy were profane scoundrels 
 like these ; the rest repeated the words of the 
 service, conceiving that they were working a 
 charm. Religion was passing through the 
 transformation which all religions have a ten- 
 dency to undergo. They cease to be aids and 
 incentives to holy life ; they become contriv- 
 ances rather to enable men to sin, and escape 
 the penalties of sin. Obedience to the law is 
 dispensed with if men will diligently profess 
 certain opinions, or punctually perform certain 
 external duties. However scandalous the 
 moral life, the participation of a particular rite, 
 or the profession of a particular belief, at the 
 moment of death, is held to clear the score. 
 
 The powers which had been given to the 
 clergy required for their exercise the highest 
 wisdom and the highest probity. They had 
 fallen at last into the hands of men who pos- 
 sessed considerably less of these qualities than
 
 2 4 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the laity whom tliey undertook to govern. 
 They had degraded their conceptions of God ; 
 and, as a necessary consequence, they had 
 degraded their conceptions of man and man's 
 duty. The aspirations after sanctity had dis- 
 appeared, and instead of them there remained 
 the practical reality of the {y\-Q. senses. The 
 high i^relates, the cardinals, the great abbots, 
 were occupied chiefly in maintaining their 
 splendor and luxury. The friars and the 
 secular clergy, following their superiors with 
 shorter steps, indulged themselves in grosser 
 pleasures; while their spiritual powers, their 
 supposed authority in this world and the next, 
 were turned to account to obtain from the laity 
 the means for their self-indulgence. 
 
 The Church forbade the eating of meat on 
 fast days, but the Church was ready with dis- 
 pensations for those who could afford to pay 
 for them. The Church forbade marriage to 
 the fourth degree of consanguinity, but loving 
 cousins, if they were ricii and open-handed, 
 could obtain the Church's consent to their 
 union. There were toll-gates for the priests at 
 every halting-place on the road of life — fees at 
 weddings, fees at funerals, fees whenever an 
 excuse could be found to fasten them. Even 
 when a man was dead he was not safe from 
 plunder, for a mortuary or death present was 
 exacted of his family. 
 
 And then those Bishops' Courts, of which I 
 spoke just now : they were founded for the 
 discipline of morality — they were made the 
 instruments of the most detestable extortion, 
 if an impatient layman spoke a disrespectful 
 word of the clergrv, he was cited before the 
 bishop's commissary and fined. If he refused 
 to pay he was excommunicated, and excom- 
 munication was a poisonous disease. When a 
 poor wretch was under the ban of the Church 
 no tradesman might sell him clothes or food — 
 no friend might relieve him — no human voice 
 might address him, under pain of the same
 
 ERASMUS AN J) LUTIIEK. 
 
 25 
 
 sentence ; and if he died unreconciled, he died 
 like a dog, without- the sacraments, and was 
 refused Christian burial. 
 
 The records of some of these courts survive : 
 a glance at their pages will show the principles 
 on which ihcy were worked. When a layman 
 offended, the single object was to make him 
 pay for it. The magistrates could not protect 
 him. If he resisted, and his friends supported 
 him, so much the better, for they were now all 
 in *je scrape together. The next step would 
 h J to indict them in a body for heresy; and 
 then, of course, there was nothing for it but to 
 give way, and compound for absolution by 
 money. 
 
 It was money — ever money. Even in case 
 of real delinquency, it was still money. Money, 
 not charity, covered the multitude of sins. 
 
 I have told you that the clergy were exempt 
 from secular jurisdiction. They claimed to be 
 amenable only to spiritual judges, and they 
 extended the broad fringe of their order till the 
 word clerk was construed to mean any one w^ho 
 could write his name or read a sentence from a 
 book. A robber or a murderer at the assizes 
 had but to show that he possessed either of 
 these qualifications, and he was allowed what 
 was called benefit of clergy. His case was 
 transferred to the Bishop's Court, to an easy 
 judge, who allowed him at once to compound. 
 
 Such were the clergy in matters of this 
 world. As religious instructors they appear in 
 colors if possible less attractive. 
 
 Practical religion throughout Europe at the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century was a very 
 simple affair. I am not going to speak of the 
 mysterious doctrines of the Catholic Church. 
 The creed which it professed in its schools and 
 theological treatises was the same which it 
 professes now, and which it had professed at 
 the time when it was most powerful for good. 
 I do not myself consider that the formulas 
 in which men express their belief are of much
 
 26 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 consequence. The question is rather of the 
 thing expressed ; and so long as we find a liv- 
 ing consciousness that above the world and 
 above human life there is a righteous God, 
 who will judge men according to their words, 
 whether they say their prayers in Latin or 
 English, whether they call themselves Protes- 
 tant or call themselves Catholics, appears to me 
 of quite secondary importance. But at the time 
 I speak of, that consciousness no longer ex- 
 isted. The formulas and ceremonies were all 
 in all ; and of God it is hard to say what con- 
 ceptions men had formed, when they believed 
 that a dead man's relations could buy 'him out 
 of purgatory — buy him out of purgatory, — for 
 this was the literal truth — by hiring priests to 
 sing masses for his soul. 
 
 Religion, in the minds of ordinary people, 
 meant that the keys of the other world were 
 held by the clergy. If a man confessed reg- 
 ularly to his priest, received the sacrament, 
 and was absolved, then all was well with him. 
 His duties consisted in going to confession and 
 to mass. If he committed sins, he was pre- 
 scribed penances, which could be commuted 
 for money. If he was sick or ill at ease in his 
 mind, he was recommended a pilgrimage — a 
 pilgrimage to a shrine or a holy well, or to 
 some wonder-working image — where, for due 
 consideration, his case would be attended to. 
 It was no use to go to a saint empty-handed. 
 The rule of the Church was, nothing for noth- 
 ing. At a chapel in Saxony there was an image 
 of a Virgin and Child. If the worshipper came 
 to it with a good handsome offering, the child 
 bowed and was gracious : if the present was 
 unsatisfactory, it turned away its head, and 
 withheld its favors till the purse-strings were 
 untied again. 
 
 There was a great rood or crucifix of the 
 same kind at Boxley, in Kent, where the pil- 
 grims went in thousands. This figure used to 
 bow, too, when it was pleased ; and a goo*^'
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 27 
 
 sum of money was sure to secure its good 
 will. 
 
 When the Reformation came, and the police 
 looked into the matter, the images were found 
 to be worked with wires and pulleys. The 
 German lady was kept as a curiosity in the 
 cabinet of the Elector of Saxony. Our Boxley 
 rood was brought up and exhibited in Cheap- 
 side, ar i was afterwards torn in pieces by the 
 peopi -. 
 
 Nor here again was death the limit of ex- 
 tor ion : death was rather the gate of the sphere 
 which the clergy made peculiarly their own. 
 When a man died, his friends were naturally 
 anxious for the fate of his soul. If he died in 
 communion, he was not in the worst place of 
 all. He had not been a saint, and therefore 
 he was not in the best. Therefore he was in 
 purgatory — Purgatory Pickpurse, as our Eng- 
 lish Latimer called it — and a priest, if properly 
 paid, could get him out, 
 
 To be a mass priest, as it was called, .was a 
 regular profession, in which, with little trouble, 
 a man could earn a comfortable living. He 
 had only to be ordained and to learn by heart 
 a certain form of words, and that was all the 
 equipment necessary for him. The masses, 
 were paid for at so much a dozen, and for 
 every mass that was said, so many years were 
 struck off from the penal period. Two priests 
 were sometimes to be seen muttering away at 
 the opposite ends of the same altar, like a 
 couple of musical boxes playing different parts 
 of the same tune at the same time. It made 
 no difference. The upper powers had what 
 they wanted. If they got the masses, and the 
 priests got the money, all parties concerned 
 were satisfied. 
 
 I am speaking of the form which these 
 things assumed in an age of degradation and 
 iirnorance. The truest and wisest words ever 
 spoken by man might be abused in the same way. 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount or the Apostles'
 
 28 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Creed if recited mechanicallv, and relied on 
 to work a mechanical effort would be no less 
 perniciously idolatrous. 
 
 You can see something of the same kind in 
 a milder form in Spain at the present day. 
 The Spaniards, all of them, high and low, are 
 expected to buy annuall}', a Pope's Bula or 
 Bull — a small pardon, or indulgence, or plenary 
 remission of sins. The exact meaning of 
 these things is a little obscure ; the high au- 
 thorities themselves do not universally agree 
 about them, except so far as to say that they 
 are of prodigious value of some sort. The 
 orthodox explanation, I believe, is something 
 of this kind. With every sin there is the moral 
 guilt and the temporal penalty. The pardon 
 cannot touch the guilt ; but when the guilt is 
 remitted, there is still the penalty. I may 
 ruin m)'' health by a dissolute life ; I may re- 
 pent of my dissoluteness and be forgiven ; but 
 the bad health will remain. For bad health, 
 substitute penance in this world and purgatory 
 in the next ; and in this sphere the indulgence 
 takes effect. 
 
 Such as they are, at any rate, everybody in 
 Spain has these bulls ; you buy them in the 
 shops for a shilling apiece. 
 
 This is one form of the thing. Again, at 
 the door of a Spanish church you will see 
 hanging on the wall an intimation that who- 
 ever will pray so many hours before a partic- 
 ular image shall receive full forgiveness of his 
 sins. Having got that, one might suppose he 
 would be satisfied ; but no — if he prays so 
 many more hours, he can get off a hundred 
 years of purgatory, or a thousand, or ten thou- 
 sand. In one place I remember observing 
 that for a very little trouble a man could escape 
 a hundredand fifty thousand years of purgatory. 
 
 What a prospect for the ill-starred Protes- 
 tant, who will be lucky if he is admitted into 
 purgatory at all. 
 
 Again, if you enter a sacristy, you will sec a
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 29 
 
 small board like the notices addressed to par- 
 ishioners in our vestries. On ])articular days 
 it is taken out and hung up in the church, and 
 little would a stranger, ignorant of the lan- 
 guage, guess the tremendous meaning of that 
 commonplace appearance. On these boards 
 is written ' Hoy se sacan animas,' — ' This day, 
 souls ar'^ taken out of purgatory.' It is an 
 iutima^'.on to everyone with a friend in distress 
 that .low is his time. You put a shilling in a 
 plat^, you give your friend's name, and the 
 thing is done. One wonders why, if purgatory 
 can be sacked so easily, any poor wretch is left 
 to suffer there. 
 
 Such practices now-a-days are comparatively 
 innocent, the money asked and given is trifling, 
 and probably no one concerned in the business 
 believes much about it. They serve to show, 
 however, on a small scale, what once went on 
 on an immense scale ; and even such as they 
 are, pious Catholics do not much approve of 
 them. They do not venture to say much on 
 the subject directly, but they allow themselves 
 a certain good-humored ridicule. A Spanish 
 novelist of some reputation tells a story of a 
 man coming to a priest on one of these occa- 
 sions, putting a shilling in the plate, and giving 
 in the name of his friend. 
 
 ' Is my friend's soul out "i ' he asked. The 
 priest said it was. 'Quite sure?' the man 
 asked. 'Quite sure,' the priest answered. 
 ' Very well,' said the man, ' if he is out of pur- 
 gatory they will not put him in again : it is a 
 bad shilling." 
 
 Sadder than all else, even as the most beau- 
 tiful things are worst in their degradation, was 
 the condition of the monasteries. I am here 
 on delicate ground. The accounts of those 
 institutions, as they existed in England and 
 Germany at the time of their suppression, is so 
 shocking that even impartial writers have 
 hesitated to believe the reports which have 
 come down to us. The laity, we are told,
 
 30 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 determined to appropriate the abbey lands, and 
 maligned the monks to justify the spoliation. 
 Were the charge true, the religious orders 
 would slill be without excuse, for the whole 
 education of the country was in the hands of 
 the clergy ; and thev had allowed a whole 
 generation to grow up, which, on this hypothe- 
 sis, was utterly depraved. 
 
 But no such theory can explain away the 
 accumulated testimony which comes to us — 
 exactly alike — from so many sides and wit- 
 nesses. We are not dependent upon evidence 
 which Catholics can decline to receive. In the 
 reign of our Henry the Seventh the notorious 
 corruption of some of the great abbeys iri 
 England brought them under the notice of the 
 Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal 
 Morton. The Archbishop, unable to meddle 
 with them by his own authority, obtained the 
 necessary powers from the Pope. He insti- 
 tuted a partial visitation in the neighborhood 
 of London ; and the most malignant Protestant 
 never drew such a picture of profligate brutality 
 as Cardinal Morton left behind him in his 
 Ivegister, in a description of the great Abbey 
 of St Albans. I cannot, in a public lecture, 
 give you the faintest idea of what it contains. 
 The monks were bound to celibacy — that is to 
 say, they were not allowed to marry. They 
 were full-fed, idle, and sensual; of sin they 
 thought only as something extremely pleasant, 
 of which they could cleanse one another with 
 a few mumbled words as easily as they could 
 wash their faces in a basin. And their I must 
 leave the matter. Anybody who is curious for 
 particulars may see the original account in 
 Morton's Register, in the Archbishop's library 
 at TyanibctI). 
 
 A tjuaitcr uf a cenlury after this there ap- 
 peared in Germany a book, now called by 
 Catholics an infamous libel, the ' Kpistola; 
 Obscurorum Virorum.' 'The obscure men,' 
 supposed to be the writers of these epistles,
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 31 
 
 are monks or students of theology. The let- 
 ters themselves are written in dog-Latin — a 
 burlesque of the language in which ecclesias- 
 tical people then addressed each other. They 
 are sketches, satirical, but not malignant, of 
 the moral and intellectual character of these 
 reverend personages. 
 
 On the moral, and by far the most impor- 
 tant, sid' of the matter I am still obliged to be 
 silent : out I can give you a few specimens of 
 the furniture of the theological minds, and of 
 the subjects with which they were occupied. 
 
 A student writes to his ghostly father in an 
 agony of distress because he has touched his 
 hat to a Jew. He mistook him for a doctor of 
 divinity ; and on the w-hole, he fears he has 
 committed mortal sin. Can the father absolve 
 him ? Can the bishop absolve him ? Can the 
 Pope absolve him ? His case seems utterly 
 desperate. 
 
 Another letter describes a great intellectual 
 riddle, which was argued for four days at 
 the School of Logic at Louvaine. A certain 
 Master of Arts had taken out his degree at 
 Louvaine, Leyden, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, 
 Padua, and four other universities. He was 
 thus a member of ten universities. But how 
 could a man be a member of ten universities ? 
 A university was a body, and one body might 
 have manv members : but how one member 
 could have many bodies, passed comprehension. 
 In such a monstrous anomaly, the member 
 would be the body, and the universities the 
 member, and this would be a scandal to such 
 grave and learned corporations. The holy 
 doctor St. Thomas himself could not make him- 
 self into the body of ten universities. 
 
 The more the learned men argued, the deeper 
 they floundered, and at length gave up the 
 problem in despair. 
 
 Again : a certain professor argued that 
 Julius Caisar could not have written the book 
 which passed under the name of 'Ca:sar's
 
 32 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Commentaries,' because that book is written in 
 Latin, and Latin is a difficult language ; and a 
 man whose life is spent in marching and fight- 
 ing has notoriously no time to learn Latin. 
 
 Here is another fellow — a monk this one — ■ 
 describing to a friend the wonderful things 
 which he has seen in Rome. 
 
 'You may have heard,' he says, 'how the 
 Pope did possess a monstrous beast called an 
 Elephant. The Pope did entertain for this 
 beast a very great affection, and now behold it 
 is dead. When it fell sick, the Pope called 
 his doctors about him in great sorrow, and said 
 to them, " If it be possible, heal my elephant." 
 Then they gave the elephant a purge, which 
 cost five hundred crowns, but it did not avail, 
 and so the beast departed ; and the Pope 
 grieves much for his elephant, for it was indeed 
 a miraculous beast, with a long, long, prodigious 
 long nose ; and when it saw the Pope it kneeled 
 down before him and said, with a terrible voice, 
 " Bar, bar, bar ! " ' 
 
 I will not tire you with any more of this non- 
 sense, especially as I cannot give you the really 
 characteristic parts of the book. 
 
 I want you to observe, however, what Sir 
 Thomas More says of it, and nobody will question 
 that Sir Thomas More was a good Catholic and 
 a competent witness. ' These epistles,' he says, 
 are the delight of every one. The wise enjoy 
 the wit ; the blockheads of monks take them 
 seriously, and believe that they have been 
 written to do them honor. When we laugh, 
 they think we are laughing at the style which 
 they admit to be comical. ]>ut they think the 
 style is made up for by the beauty of the senti- 
 ment. The scabbard, they say, is tough, but 
 the blade within it is divine. The deliberate 
 idiots would not have found out the jest for 
 themselves in a hundred years," 
 
 Well might Erasmus exclaim, ' What fungus 
 could he more stupid ? yet these are the At- 
 lases who are to uphold the tottering Church 1 '
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 33 
 
 ' The monks had a pleasant lime of it,' says 
 Luther. ' Kvery brother had two cans of beer 
 and a quart of wine for his supper, with ginj^er- 
 bread, to make him take to his licjuor kindly. 
 Thus the poor things came to look like liery 
 angels.' 
 
 And more gravely, ' In the cloister rule the 
 seven dep lly sins — covetousness, lascivious- 
 ness, unr'eanness, hate, envy, idleness, and the 
 loathin^ of the service of God.' 
 
 Consider such men as these owning a third, 
 a half, sometimes two-thirds of the land in every 
 country in Europe, and, in addition to their- 
 other sins, neglecting all the duties attaching 
 to this property — the woods cut down and sold, 
 the houses falling to ruin — unthrift, neglect, 
 waste everywhere and in everything — the shrewd 
 making the most of their time, which they had 
 sense to see might be a short one — the rest 
 dreaming on in sleepy sensuality, dividing their 
 hours between the chapel, the pothouse, and 
 the brothel. 
 
 I do not think that, in its main features, the 
 truth of this sketch can be impugned ; and if 
 it be just even in outline, then a reformation of 
 some kind or other was overwhelmingly neces- 
 sary. Corruption beyond a certain point be- 
 come unendurable to the coarsest nostril. The 
 constitution of human things cannot away with 
 it. 
 
 Something was to be done ; but what, or 
 how? There were three possible courses. 
 
 Either the ancient discipline of the Church 
 might be restored by the heads of the Church 
 themselves. 
 
 Or, secondly, a higher tone of feeling might 
 gradually be introduced among clergy and laity 
 alike, by education and literary culture. The 
 discoverv of the printing press had made pos- 
 sible a diffusion of knowledge which had been 
 unattainable in earlier ages. The ecclesiasti- 
 cal constitution, like a sick human body, might
 
 34 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 recover its tone if a better diet were prepared 
 for it. 
 
 Or, lastly, the common sense of the laity 
 mi<rht take the matter at once into their own 
 hands, and make free use of the pruning knife 
 and tlie sweeping brush. There might be much 
 partial injustice, much violence, much wrong- 
 headedness ; but the people would, at any rate, 
 go direct to the point, and the question was 
 whether any other remedy would serve. 
 
 The first of these alternatives may at once be 
 dismissed. The heads of the Church were the 
 last persons in the world to discover that any- 
 thing was wrong. People of that sort always 
 are. For them the thing as it existed answered 
 excellently well. They had boundless wealth, 
 and all but boundless power. What could they 
 ask for more ? No monk drowsing over his 
 winepot was less disturbed by anxiety than nine 
 out of ten of the high dignitaries who were liv- 
 ing on the eve of the Judgment Da)^, and be- 
 lieved that their seat was established for them 
 forever. 
 
 The character of the great ecclesiastics of 
 that day you may infer from a single example. 
 The Archbishop of Mayence was one of the 
 most enlightened Churchmen in Germany. He 
 was a patron of the Renaissance, a friend of 
 Erasmus, a liberal, an intelligent, and, as times 
 went, and considering his trade, an honorable, 
 liigh-minded man. 
 
 When the Emperor Maximilian died, and 
 the imperial throne was vacant, the Archbishop 
 of Mayence was one of the seven electors who 
 had to choose a new emperor. 
 
 There were two competitors — Francis the 
 First and Maximilian's grandson, afterwards 
 the well-known (Jharles the Fifth. 
 
 Well, of tlie seven electors six were bribed. 
 John Frederick of Saxony, Euther's friend and 
 protector, was the only one of the party who 
 came out of the l:)usincss with clean hands. 
 
 But the Archbishop of Mayence took bribes
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 35 
 
 six times alternately from both the candidates. 
 He took money as coolly as the most rascally 
 ten-pound householder in Yarmouth or Totnes. 
 and finally drove a hard bargain for his actual 
 vote. 
 
 The grape does not grow upon the black- 
 thorn ; nor does healthy reform come from high 
 dignitarif o like the Archbishop of Mayence. 
 
 The jther aspect of the problem I shall con- 
 sider in the following Lectures. 
 
 liv 
 
 In the year 1467 — the year in which Charles 
 the Bold became Duke of Eurgundy — four 
 years before the great battle of Barnet, which 
 established our own fourth Edward on the 
 English throne — about the time when William 
 Caxton was setting up his printing press at 
 Westminster — there was born at Rotterdam, 
 on the 28th of October, Desiderius Erasmus, 
 His parents, who were middle-class people, 
 were well-to-do in the world. For some reason 
 or other they were prevented from marrying 
 by the interference of relations. The father 
 died soon after in a cloister ; the mother was 
 left with her illegitimate infant, whom she 
 called first, after his father, Gerard ; but after- 
 wards, from his beauty and grace, she chatiged 
 his name — the words Desiderius Erasmus, one 
 with a Latin, the other with a Greek, deriva- 
 tion, meaning the lovely or delightful one. 
 
 Not long after, the mother herself died also. ■ 
 The little Erasmus was the heir of a moderate •" 
 fortune ; and his guardians desiring to appro- 
 priate it to themselves, endeavored to force 
 him into a convent at Brabant. 
 
 The thought of living and dying in a house 
 of religion was dreadfully unattractive; but an
 
 36 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 orphan boy's resistance was easily overcome. 
 He was bullied into yielding, and, when about 
 twenty, took the vows. 
 
 The life of a monk, which was uninviting on 
 the surface, was not more lovely when seen 
 from within. 
 
 'A monk's holy obedience,' Erasmus wrote 
 afterwards, ' consists in — what ? In leading 
 an honest, chaste, and sober life ? Not the 
 least. In acquiring learning, in study, and in- 
 dustry ? Still less. A monk may be a glutton, 
 a drunkard, a whoremonger, an ignorant, 
 stupid, malignant, envious brute, but he has 
 broken no vow, he is within his holy obedience. 
 He has only to be the slave of a superior as 
 good for nothing as himself, and he is an ex- 
 cellent brother.^ 
 
 The misfortune of his position did not check 
 Erasmus's intellectual growth, He was a bril- 
 liant, witty, sarcastic, mischievous youth. He 
 did not trouble himself to pine and mope ; but, 
 like a young thoroughbred in a drove of asses, 
 he used his heels pretty freely. 
 
 While he played practical jokeS upon the 
 unreverend fathers, he distinguished himself 
 equally by his appetite for knowledge. It was 
 the dawn of the kcnaissance-^the revival of 
 learning. The discovery. of printing was re- 
 opening to modern Europe the great literature 
 of Greece and Rome, and the writings of the 
 Christian fathers. For studies of tiiis kind, 
 P^rasmus, notwithstanding the disadvantages of 
 cowl and frock, displayed extraordinary apti- 
 tude. He taught himself Greek, when Greek 
 was the language which, in the opinion of the 
 monks, only the devils spoke in the wrong 
 place. His Latin was as polished as Cicero's ; 
 and at length the Archbishop of Cambray 
 heard of him, and sent him to the University 
 of Paris. 
 
 At Paris he found a world where life could 
 be sufficiently pleasant, but where his religious 
 habit was every moment in his way. He was a
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTJIER. 37 
 
 priest, and so far could not help himself. That 
 ink-spot not all the waters of tho German Ocean 
 could wash away. But he did not care for the 
 low debaucheries, where the frock and cowl 
 were at home. His place was in the society 
 of cultivated men, who were glad to know him 
 and to pat' jnize him ; so he shook off his or- 
 der, let nis hair grow, and flung away his 
 livery. 
 
 The Archbishop's patronage was probably 
 now withdrawn. Life in Paris was expensive, 
 and Erasmus had for several years to struggle 
 with poverty. We see him, however, for the 
 most part— in his early letters — carrying a bold 
 front to fortune ; desponding one moment, and 
 larking the next with a Paris grisette ; making 
 friends, enjoying good company, enjoying es- 
 pecially good wine when he could get it ; and, 
 above all, satiating his literary hunger at the 
 library of the University. 
 
 In this condition, when about eight-and- 
 twenty, he made acquaintance with two young 
 English noblemen who were travelling on the 
 Continent, Lord Mountjoy and one of the 
 Greys. 
 
 Mountjoy, intensely attracted by his bril- 
 liance, took him for his tutor, carried him over 
 to England, and introduced him at the court of 
 Henry the Seventh, At once his fortune was 
 made. He charmed every one, and in turn he 
 was himself delighted with the country and the 
 people. English character, English hospitality, 
 English manners — everything English except 
 the beer — equally pleased him. In the young 
 London men — the lawyers, the noblemen, even 
 in some of the clergy — he found his own pas- 
 sion for learning. Sir Thomas More, who was 
 a few years younger than himself, became his 
 dearest friend ; and Warham, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury — Fisher, afterwards 
 Bishop of Rochester — Colet, the famous dean 
 of St Paul's — the great Wolsey himself — recog- 
 
 -* e^s ^Ti
 
 38 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 nized and welcomed the rising star of Euro- 
 i^ean literature. 
 _— Money tiowed in upon him. Warham gave 
 him a benefice in Kent, which was afterwards 
 changed to a pension. Prince Henry, when 
 he became King, offered him — kings in those 
 days were not bad friends to literature — Henry 
 oitered him, if he would remain in England, a 
 house large enough to be called a palace, and 
 a pension which, converted into our money, 
 would be a thousand pounds a year. 
 
 Erasmus, however, was a restless creature, 
 and did not like to be caged or tethered. He 
 declined the King's terms, and Mountjoy set- 
 tled a pension on him instead. He had now a 
 handsome income, and he understood the art 
 of enjoying it. He moved about as he pleased 
 ' — now to Cambridge, now to Oxford and, as 
 the humor took him, back again to Paris ; now 
 staying with Sir Thomas More at Chelsea, now 
 going a pilgrimage with Dean Colet to Becket's 
 tomb at Canterbury — but always studying, 
 always gathering knowledge, and throwing it 
 out again, steeped in his own mother wit, in 
 shining P>ssays or Dialogues, which were the 
 delight and the despair of his contemporaries. 
 
 Everywhere, in his love of pleasure, in his 
 habits of thought, in his sarcastic scepticism, 
 you see the healthy, clever, well-disposed, 
 tolerant, epicurean, intellectual man of the 
 world. 
 
 He went, as I said, with Dean Colet to 
 Jacket's tomb. At a shrine about Canterbury 
 he was shown an old shoe which tradition 
 called the Saint's. At the tomb itself, the 
 great sight was a handkerchief which a monk 
 took from among the relics, and offered it to 
 the crowd to kiss. The worshippers touched 
 it in pious adoration, with clasped hands and 
 upturned eyes. If tiie thing was genuine, as 
 Erasmus observed, it had but served for the 
 archbishop to wipe his nose with — and Dean 
 Colet, a i^uritan before his time, looked on
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 
 
 39 
 
 with eyes flashing scorn, and scarcely able to 
 keep his hands off the exhibitors. Ikit Eras- 
 mus smiled kindly, reflecting that mankind 
 were fools, and in some form or other would 
 remain fools. He took notice only of the pile 
 of gold and jewels, antl concluded that so much 
 wealth nr^ht prove dangerous to its possess- 
 ors. 
 
 The peculiarities of the English people in- 
 terest'_d and amused him, ' You are going to 
 P^ngland,' he wrote afterwards to a friend ; 
 *you will not fail to be pleased. You will find 
 the great people there most agreeable and 
 gracious ; only be careful not to presume upon 
 their intimacy. They will condescend to your 
 level, but do not you therefore suppose that 
 you stand upon theirs. The noble lords are 
 gods in their own eyes.' 
 
 ' P'or the other classes, be courteous, give 
 your right hand, do not take the wall, do not 
 push yourself. Smile on whom you please, 
 but trust no one that you do not know ; above 
 all, speak no evil of England to them. They 
 are proud of their country above all nations 
 in the world, as they have good reason 
 to be.' 
 
 These directions might have been written 
 yesterday. The manners of the ladies have 
 somewhat changed. ' English ladies,' says 
 Erasmus, ' are divinely pretty, and too good- 
 natured. They have an excellent custom 
 among them, that wherever you go the girls 
 kiss you. They kiss you when you come, they 
 kiss vou when vou go, thev kiss vou at inter- 
 vening opportunities, and their lips are soft, 
 warm, and delicious.' Pretty well that for a 
 priest ! 
 
 The custom, perhaps, was not quite so uni- 
 versal as Erasmus would have us believe. His 
 own coaxing wavs mav have had something to 
 do with it At any rale, he found I'.ngland a 
 highly agreeable place of residence. 
 
 Meanwhile, his reputation as a writer spread
 
 40 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 over the world. Latin — the language in which 
 he wrote — was in universal use. It was the 
 vernacular of the best society in Europe, and 
 no living man was so perfect a master of it. 
 His satire flashed about among all existinsf in- 
 stitutions, scathing especially his old enemies 
 the monks ; while the great secular clergy, who 
 hated the religious orders, were delighted to 
 see them scourged, and themselves to have the 
 reputation of being patrons of toleration and 
 reform. 
 
 Erasmus, as he felt his ground more sure 
 under him, obtained from Julius the Second a 
 distinct release from his monastic vows ; and, 
 shortly after, when the brilliant Leo succeeded 
 to the tiara, and gathered about him the mag- 
 nificent cluster of artists who have made his 
 era so illustrious, the new Pope invited 
 Erasmus to visit him at Rome, and become 
 another star in the constellation which sur- 
 rounded the Papal throne. 
 
 Erasmus was at this time forty years old — 
 the age when ambition becomes powerful in 
 men, and takes the place of love of pleasure. 
 He was received at Rome with princely distinc- 
 tion, and he could have asked for nothing — 
 bishoprics, red hats, or red stockings — which 
 would not have been freely given to him if he 
 would have consented to remain. 
 
 Put he was too considerable a man to be 
 tempted by finery ; and the Pope's livery, gor- 
 geous though it might be, was but a livery 
 after all. Nothing which Leo the Tenth could 
 do for Erasmus could add lustre to his coronet. 
 More money he might have had, but of money 
 he had already abundance, and outward dignity 
 would have been dearly bought by gilded 
 chains. He resisted temptation ; he preferred 
 the northern air, where he could breathe at 
 liberty, and he returned to England, half in- 
 clined to make his home there. 
 
 But his own sovereign laid claim to his ser- 
 vices ; the future emperor recalled him to the
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 41 
 
 Low Countries, settled a handsome salary 
 upon him, and established him at the Univer- 
 sity of Louvaine. 
 ^^ He was now in the zenith of his greatness. 
 He had an income as large as many an Eng- 
 lish noblenan. We find him corresponding 
 with por^s, cardinals, kings, and statesmen; 
 and as .le grew older, his mind became more 
 fixed upon serious subjects. The ignorance 
 and brutality of the monks, the corruption of 
 the spiritual courts, the absolute irreligion in 
 whicn the Church was steeped, gave him seri- 
 ous alarm. He had no enthusiasms, no doc- 
 trinal fanaticisms, no sectarian beliefs or super- 
 stitions. The breadth of his culture, his clear 
 understanding, and the worldly moderation of 
 his temper, seemed to qualify him above living 
 men to conduct a temperate reform. He saw 
 that the system around him was pregnant with 
 danger, and he resolved to devote what re- 
 mained to him of life to the introduction of a 
 higher tone in the minds of the clergy. 
 
 The revival of learning had by this time 
 alarmed the religious orders. Literature and 
 education, beyond the code of the theological 
 text-books, appeared simply devilish to them. 
 When Erasmus returned to Louvaine, the 
 battle was raging over the north of Europe. 
 
 The Dominicans at once recognized in Eras- 
 mus their most dangerous enemy. At first 
 they tried to compel him to re-enter the order, 
 but, strong in the Pope's dispensation, he was 
 so far able to defy them. They could bark at 
 his heels, but dared not come to closer quar- 
 ters : and with his temper slightly rufiled, but 
 otherwise contented to despise them, he took 
 up boldlv the task which he had set himself. 
 . ' We kiss the old shoes of the saints,' he said, 
 ' but we never read their works.' He under- 
 took the enormous labor of editing and trans- 
 lating selections from the writings of the 
 Fathers. The New Testament was as little 
 known as the lost books of Tacitus — all that
 
 42 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the people knew of the Gospels and the Epistles 
 were the passages on which theologians had 
 built up the Catholic formulas. Erasmus pub- 
 lished the text, and with it, and to make it in- 
 telligible, a series of paraphrases, which rent 
 away the veil of traditional and dogmatic in- 
 terpretation, and brought the teaching of 
 Christ and the Apostles into their natural rela- 
 tion with reason and conscience. 
 
 In all this, although the monks might curse, 
 he had countenance and encouragement from 
 the great ecclesiastics in all parts of Europe — 
 and it is highly curious to see the extreme 
 freedom with which they allowed him to pro- 
 pose to them his plans for a Reformation — we 
 seem to be listening to the wisest of modern 
 broad Churchmen. 
 
 To one of his correspondents, an archbishop 
 he writes : — 
 
 ' Let us have done with theological refine- 
 ments. There is an excuse for the Fathers, 
 because the heretics forced them to define 
 particular points ; but every definition is a mis- 
 fortune, and for us to persevere in the same 
 way is sheer follv. Is no man to be admitted 
 to grace who does not know how the Father 
 differs from the Son, and both from the Spirit .'* 
 or how the nativity of the Son differs from the 
 procession of the Spirit ? Unless I forgive my 
 brother his sins against me, God will not for- 
 give me for my sins. Unless I have a pure 
 heart — unless I put away envy, hate, pride, 
 avarice, lust, I shall not see God. But a man 
 is not damned because he cannot tell whether 
 the Spirit has one principle or two. Has he 
 the fruits of the Spirit } That is the question. 
 Is he patient, kind, good, gentle, modest, 
 temperate, chaste? Inquire if you will, but do 
 not define, 'i'rue religion is peace, and we 
 cannot have peace unless we leave the con- 
 science unshackled on obscure points on which 
 certainty is impossible. We hear now of ques- 
 tions being referred to the next CEcumenical
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 
 
 43 
 
 Council — better a great deal refer them to 
 doomsday. Time was, when a man's faith was 
 looked for in his life, not in the Articles which he 
 professed. Necessity first brought Articles upon 
 us, and, ever since, we have refined and refined 
 till Christianity has become a thing of words and 
 creeds. Articles increase — sincerity vanishes 
 away — contention grows hot, and charity grows 
 cold. Then comes in the civil power, with 
 stake and gallows, and men are forced to pro- 
 fess what they do not believe, to pretend to 
 love what in fact they hate, and to say that 
 they understand what in fact has no meaning 
 for them.' 
 
 Again, to the Archbishop of Mayence : — 
 ' Reduce the dogmas necessary to be believ- 
 ed, to the smallest possible number ; you can 
 do it without danger to the realities of Chris- 
 tianity. On other points, either discourage in- 
 quiry, or leave every one free to believe what 
 he pleases — then we shall have no more 
 quarrels, and religion will again take hold of 
 life. When you have done this, you can correct 
 the abuses of which the world with good reason 
 complains. The unjust judge heard the widow's 
 prayer. You siiould not shut your ears to the 
 cries of those for whom Christ died. He did 
 not die for the great only, but for the poor and 
 for the lowly. There need be no tumult. Do 
 you only set human affections aside, and let 
 kings and princes lend themselves heartily to 
 the public good. But observe that the monks 
 and friars be allowed no voice ; with these 
 gentlemen the world has borne too long. They 
 care only for their own vanity, their own stom- 
 achs, their own power ; and they believe that 
 if the people are enlightened, their kingdom 
 cannot stand.' 
 
 Once more, to the Pope himself: — 
 
 ' Let each man amend first his own wicked 
 
 life. When he has done that, and will amend 
 
 his neighbor, let him put on Christian charity, 
 
 which is severe enough when severity is needed.
 
 44 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 If your Holiness give power to men wlio neithei 
 believe in Christ nor care for you, but think 
 only of their own appetites, I fear there will 
 be danger. We can trust your Holiness, but 
 there are bad men who will use your virtues as 
 a cloak for their own malice.' 
 
 That the spiritual rulers of Europe should 
 have allowed a man like Erasmus to use lan- 
 guage such as this to them is a fact of supreme 
 importance. It explains the feeling of Goethe, 
 that the world would have gone on better had 
 there been no Luther, and that the revival of 
 theological fanaticism did more harm than 
 good. 
 
 But the question of questions is, what all this 
 latitudinarian philosophizing, this cultivated 
 epicurean gracefulness, would have come to if 
 left to itself; or rather, what was the effect 
 which it was inevitably producing ? If you 
 wish to remove an old building without bring- 
 ing it in ruins about your ears, you must begin 
 at the top, remove the stones gradually down- 
 wards, and touch the foundation last. But 
 latitudinarian ism loosens the elementary prm- 
 ciples of theology. It destroys the premises 
 on which the do2:matic system rests. It would 
 beg the question to say that this would in itself 
 have been undesirable; but the practical effect 
 of it, as the world then stood, would have only 
 been to make the educated into infidels, and to 
 leave the multitude to a convenient but debas- 
 ing superstition. 
 
 The monks said that Erasmus laid the ^g^^ 
 and Luther hatched a cockatrice. Erasmus 
 resented deeply such an account of his work ; 
 but it was true after all. The sceptical philo- 
 sophy is the most powerful of solvetits, but it 
 has no principle of organic life in it ; and what 
 of truth there was in Erasmus's teaching had 
 to assume a far other form before it was avail- 
 able for the reinvigoration of religion. He 
 himself, in his clearer moments, felt his own 
 incapacity, and desj^aired of making an im-
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 
 
 45 
 
 prcssion on the mass of ignorance with which 
 he saw himself siirroundcd. 
 
 * The stupid monks,' he writes, * say mass as 
 a cobbler makes a shoe ; they come to the altar 
 reeking from their filthy pleasures. Confession 
 with the monks is a cloak to steal the people's 
 money, to rob girls of their virtue, and commit 
 other crimes too horrible to name ! Yet these 
 people are the tyrants of Europe, The Pope 
 himself is afraid of them.' 
 
 ' Beware ! ' he says to an impetuous friend, 
 * beware how you offend the monks. You have 
 to do with an enemy that cannot be slain ; an 
 order never dies, and they will not rest till they 
 have destroyed you,' 
 
 The heads of the Church might listen politely, 
 but Erasmus had no confidence in them. 
 'Never,' he says, 'was there a time when 
 divines were greater fools, or popes and pre- 
 lates more worldly,' Germany was about to 
 r'eceive a signal illustration of the improvement 
 which it was to look for from liberalism and 
 intellectual culture. 
 
 We are now on the edge of the great con- 
 flagration. Here we must leave P>asmus for 
 the present. I must carry you brietiy over 
 the history of the other great person who was 
 preparing to play his part on the stage. You 
 have seen something of what Erasmus was ; 
 you must turn next to the companion picture 
 of Martin Luther. You will observe in how 
 many points their early experiences touch, as 
 if to show more vividly the contrast between 
 the two men. 
 
 Sixteen years after the birth of Erasmus, 
 therefore in the year 1483, Martin Luther 
 came into the world in a peasant's cottage, at 
 Eisleben, in Saxony. By peasant, you need not 
 understand a common boor. Hans Luther, 
 the father, was a thrifty, well-to-do man for 
 his station in life — adroit with his hands, and 
 able to do many useful things, from farm work 
 to digging in the mines. The family life was
 
 ^6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Strict and stern — rather too stern, as Marti j* 
 thouglit in later life. 
 
 ' ]Je tem])erate with your children,' he saicS, 
 long after, to a friend ; * punish them if they lie 
 or steal, but be just in what you do. It is a 
 "lighter sin to take pears and apples than to 
 take money. 1 shudder when I think of what 
 I went through myself. My mother beat me 
 about some nuts once till the blood came. I 
 had a terrible time of it, but she meant well.' 
 
 At school, too, he fell into rough hands, and 
 the recollection of his sufferings made him 
 tender ever after with young boys and girls, 
 
 ' Never be hard with children,' he used to 
 say. ' Many a fine character has been ruined 
 by the stupid brutality of pedagogues. The 
 parts of speech are a boy's pillory. I was 
 myself flogged fifteen times in one forenoon 
 over the conjugation of a verb. Punish if you 
 will, but be kind too, and let the sugar-plum go 
 with the rod.' This is not the language of a 
 demagogue or a fanatic ; it is the wise thought 
 of a tender, human-hearted man. 
 
 At seventeen, he left school for the University 
 at Erfurt. It was then no shame for a poor 
 scholar to maintain himself by alms. Young 
 Martin had a rich noble voice and a fine ear, 
 and bv sinijing ballads in the streets he found 
 ready friends and help. He was still uncertain 
 with what calling he should take up, when it 
 happened that a young friend was killed at his 
 side by lightning. 
 
 Erasmus was a philosopher. A powder 
 magazine was once blown up by lightining in 
 a town where Erasmus was staying, and a 
 house of infamous character was destroyed. 
 The inhabitants saw in what had happened 
 the Divine anger against sin. Erasmus told 
 them that if there was any anger in the matter, 
 it was anger merely with the folly which had 
 stored powder in an exposed situation. 
 
 Luther possessed no such premature intelli- 
 gence. He was distinguished from other boys
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 47 
 
 only by the greater power of his feelings and 
 the vividness of his imagination. He saw in 
 his friend's death the immediate hand of the 
 great Lord of the universe. His conscience 
 was terrified. A life-long penitence seemed 
 necessary to atone for the faults of his boyhood. 
 He too, like Erasmus, became a monk, not 
 forced into it — for his father knew better what 
 the holy men were like, and had no wish to 
 have son of his among them — but because the 
 Monk of Martin's imagination spent his nights 
 and days upon the stones in prayer ; and 
 Martin, in the heat of his repentance, longed 
 to be kneeling at his side. 
 
 In this mood he entered the Augustine mon- 
 astery at Erfurt, He was full of an overwhelm- 
 ing sense of his own wretchedness and sinful- 
 ness. Like St. Paul, he was crying to be 
 delivered from the body of death which he 
 carried about him. He practiced all possible 
 austerities. He, if no one else, mortified his 
 flesh with fasting. He passed nights in the 
 chancel before the altar, or on his knees on 
 the floor of his cell. He weakened his body 
 till his mind wandered, and he saw ghosts and 
 devils. Above all, he saw the flaming image 
 of his own supposed guilt. God required that 
 he should keep the law in all points. He had 
 not so kept the law — could not so keep the law 
 — and therefore he believed that he was damned. 
 One morning, he was found senseless and 
 seeminglv dead ; a brother played to him on a 
 flute, and soothed his senses back to conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 It was long since any such phenomenon had 
 appeared among the rosy friars of Erfurt. Tj^py 
 could not tell what to make of him. Staupitiz, 
 the prior, listened to his accusations of him- 
 ■ self in confession. ' My good fellow.' he said, 
 ' don't be so uneasy; you have committed no 
 sins of the lenst consequence ; you have not 
 killed anvbody, or committed adultery, or 
 things of that sort. If you sin to some purpose,
 
 48 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 it is right that you should be uneasy about it, 
 but don't make mountains out of trifles." 
 
 Very curious : to the commonplace man the 
 uncommonplace is forever unintelligible. What 
 was the good of all that excitement — that agony 
 of self-reproach for little things .'' None at all, 
 if the object is only to be an ordinary good 
 sort of man — if a decent fulfilment of the round 
 of common duties is the be-all and the end- 
 all of human life on earth. 
 
 The plague came by-and-by into the town. 
 The commonplace clergy ran away — went to 
 their country-houses, went to the hills, went 
 anywhere — and they wondered in the same way 
 why Luther would not go with them. They 
 admired him and liked him. They told him 
 his life was too precious to be thrown away. He 
 answered, quite simply, that his place was with 
 the sick and dying. A monk's life was no great 
 matter. The sun he did not doubt would con- 
 tinue to shine, whatever became of him. ' I 
 am no St. Paul,' he said, ' I am afraid of death ; 
 but there are things worse than death, and if 
 I die, I die.' 
 
 Even a Staupitz could not but feel that he 
 had an extraordinary youth in his charge. To 
 divert his mind from feeding upon itself, he 
 devised a mission for him abroad, and brother 
 Martin was despatched on business of the con- 
 vent to Rome. 
 
 Luther too, like Erasmus, was to see Rome ; 
 but how different the figures of the two men 
 there ! Erasmus goes with servants and horses, 
 the polished, successful man of the world. 
 Martin Luther trudges penniless and barefoot 
 across the Alps, helped to a meal and a night's 
 rest at the monasteries along the road, or beg- 
 ging, if the convents fail him, at the farmhouses. 
 
 He was still young, and too much occupied 
 with his own sins to know much of the world 
 outside him. Erasmus had no dreams. He 
 knew the hard truth on most things. But Rome, 
 to Luther's eager hopes, was the city of the
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. ^q 
 
 saints, and the court and palace of the Pope 
 fragrant with the odors of Paradise. ' Blessed 
 Rome,' he cried, as he entered the gate — 
 'Blessed Rome, sanctified with the blood of 
 martyrs ! ' 
 
 Alas ! the Rome of reality was very far from 
 blessed. He remained long enough to complete 
 his disenchantment. The cardinals, with their 
 gilded chariots and their parasols of peacocks' 
 plumes, were poor representatives of the apos- 
 tles. The gorgeous churches and more gorgeous 
 rituals, the pagan splendor of the paintings, 
 the heathen gods still almost worshipped in the 
 adoration of the art which had formed them, to 
 Luther, whose heart was heavy with thoughts 
 of man's depravity, were utterly horrible. The 
 name of religion was there : the thinnest veil 
 was scarcely spread over the utter disbelief 
 with which God and Christ were at heart re- 
 garded. Culture enough there was. It was 
 the Rome of Raphael and Michael Angelo, of 
 Perugino, and Benvenuto ; but to the poor 
 German monk, who had come there to find 
 help for his suffering soul, what was culture ? 
 
 He fled at the first moment that he could. 
 * Adieu ! Rome,' he said ; ' let all who would 
 lead a holy life depart from Rome. Everything 
 is permitted in Rome except to be an honest 
 man.' He had no thought of leaving the Roman 
 Church. To a poor monk like him to talk of 
 leaving the Church was like talking of leaping 
 off the planet. But perplexed and troubled he re- 
 turned to Saxony; and his friend Staupitz, 
 seeing clearly that a monastery was no place 
 for him, recommended him to the Elector as 
 Professor of Philosophy at Wittenberg. 
 
 The senate of Wittenberg gave him the pul- 
 pit of the town church, and there at once he 
 had room to show what was in him. ' This 
 Monk,' said some one who heard him, ' is a 
 marvellous fellow. He has strange eyes, and 
 will give the doctors trouble by-and-by.' 
 
 He had read deeply, especially he had read
 
 so 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 that rare and almost unknown book, the ' New 
 Testament.' He was not cultivated like Erasmus. 
 Erasmus spoke the most polished Latin. Luther 
 spoke and wrote liis own vernacular German. 
 The latitudinarian philosophy, the analytical 
 acuteness, the sceptical toleration of Erasmus 
 were alike strange and distasteful him. In all 
 things he longed only to know the truth — to 
 shake off and hurl from him lies and humbug. 
 Superstitious he was. He believed in witches 
 and devils and fairies — a thousand things with- 
 out basis iq fact, which Erasmus passed by in 
 conternptuous indifference. But for things 
 which were really true — true as nothing else in 
 this world, or any world, is true — the justice of 
 God, the infinite excellence gf good, the infinite 
 hatefulness of evil — these things he believed 
 and felt with a power of passionate conviction 
 to which the broader, feebler mind of the other 
 was forever a stranger. 
 
 We come no\y to the memorable year 1517, 
 when Luther was thirty-five years old. A new 
 cathedral was in progress at Rome. Michael An- 
 gelo had furnished Leo the Tenth the design of 
 St Peter's ; and the question of questions was to 
 find money to complete the grandest structure 
 which had ever been erected bv man. 
 
 ]-*ope Leo was the most polished and cultivat- 
 ed of mankind. * The work to be done was to 
 be the most splendid w^hich art could produce. 
 The means to which the Pope ha4 recourse 
 will serve to show us how much all that would 
 have done for us. 
 
 You remember what I told you about indul- 
 gences. The notable device of his Holiness 
 was to send distinguished persons about Europe 
 with sacks of indulgences. Indulgences and 
 dispensations ! Dispensations to eat meat on 
 fast-days — dispensations to marry one's near 
 relation — dispensations for anything and every- 
 thing which the faithful might wish to purchase 
 who desired forbidden pleasures. The dis- 
 pensations were simply scandalous. The indul-
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. rt 
 
 gcnccs — well, if a pious Catholic is asked now- 
 a-days what they were, he will say that they 
 were the remission of the penances which the 
 Church inflicts upon earth ; but it is also cer- 
 tain that they would have sold cheap if the 
 people had thought that this \Yas all that they 
 were to get by them. As the thing was rep- 
 resented by the spiritual hawkers who dis- 
 posed of these wares, they, were letters of 
 credit on heaven. When the great book was 
 opened, the people believed that these papers 
 would he found entered on the right side of the 
 account. Debtor — so many murders, so many 
 robberies, lies, slanders, or debaucheries. 
 Creditor — the merits of the saints placed to 
 the account of the delinquent by the Pope's 
 letters in consideration of value received. 
 
 This is the way in which the pardon system 
 was practically worked. This is the way in 
 which it is worked siill, where the same super* 
 stitions remain. 
 
 If one had asked Pope Leo whether he 
 really believed m these pardons of his, he would 
 have said officiallv that the Church had alwavs 
 held that the Pope had power to grant them 
 
 Had he told the truth, he would have added 
 privately that if the people chose to be fools, 
 it was not for him to disappoint them. 
 
 The collection went on. The money of the 
 faithful came in plentifully ; and the pedlers 
 going their rounds appeared at least in Sax- 
 ony. 
 
 The Pope had bought the support of the 
 Archbishop of Mayence, Erasmus's friend, by 
 promising him half the spoil which was gather- 
 ed in his province. The agent was the Dom- 
 inican monk Tetzel, whose name has acquired 
 a forlorn notoriety in European history. 
 
 His stores were opened in town after town. 
 He entered in state. The streets everwhere 
 were hung with flags. Bells were pealed ; nuns 
 and monks walked in procession before and 
 after him, while he himself sat in a chariot,
 
 52 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 with the Papal Bull on a velvet cushion in 
 front of him. The sale-rooms were the 
 churches. The altars were decoraied, the 
 candles lighted, the arms of St Peter blazoned 
 conspicuously on the roof. Tetzel from the 
 pulpit explained the efficacy of his medicines ; 
 and if any profane person doubted their power, 
 he was threatened with excommunication. 
 
 Acolytes walked through the crowds, clink- 
 ing their plates and crying, ' Buy ! buy ! ' The 
 business went as merry as a marriage bell till 
 the Dominican came near to Wittenberg. 
 
 Half a century before such a spectacle would 
 have excited no particular attention. The few 
 who saw through the imposition would have 
 kept their thoughts to themselves ; the many 
 would have paid their money, and in a month j 
 all would have been forgotten. 
 
 But the fight between the men of letters and 
 the monks, the writings of Erasmus and 
 Reuchlin, the satires of Ulric von Hutten, had 
 created a silent revolution in the minds of the i 
 younger laity. ■ 
 
 A generation had grown to manhood of whom 
 the Church authorities knew nothing ; and the 
 whole air of Germany, unsuspected by pope or 
 prelate, was charged with electricity. 
 
 Had Luther stood alone, he, too, would j 
 probably have remained silent. What was he, 
 a poor, friendless, solitary monk, that he should 
 set himself against the majesty of the triple i 
 crown ? 
 
 However hateful the walls of a dungeon, a 
 man of sense confined alone there docs not 
 dash his hands against the stones. 
 
 But Luther knew that his thoughts were the 
 thoughts of thousands. Many wrong things, 
 as we all know, have to be endured in this | 
 world. Authority is never very angelic ; and 
 moderate injustice, and a moderate quantity of 
 lies, are more tolerable than anarchy. 
 
 But it is with human things as it is with the 
 great icebergs which drift southward out of the |
 
 EKASMUS AND LUTHER. 53 
 
 frozen seas. They swim two-thirds under 
 water, and one-third above ; and so long as the 
 equilibrium is sustained, you would think that 
 they were as stable as the rocks. But the sea- 
 water is warmer than the air. Hundreds of 
 fathoms down, the tepid current washes the 
 base of the berg. Silently in those far deeps 
 the centre of gravity is changed ; and then, in 
 a moment, with one vast roll, the enormous 
 mass heaves over, and the crystal peaks which 
 had been glancing so proudly in the sunlight 
 are buried in the ocean forever. 
 
 Such a process as this had been going on 
 in Germany, and Luther knew it, and knew 
 that the time was come for him to speak. 
 Fear had not kept him back. The danger to 
 himself would be none the less because he 
 would have the people at his side. The fiercer 
 the thunderstorm, the greater peril to the 
 central ficjure who stands out above the rest 
 exposed to it. But he saw that there was hope 
 at last of a change ; and for himself — as he 
 said in the plague — if he died, he died. 
 
 Erasmus admitted frankly for himself that 
 he did not like danger. 
 
 * As to me,' he wrote to Archbishop Warham, 
 ' I have no inclination to risk my life for truth. 
 We have not all strength for martyrdom ; and 
 if trouble come, I shall imitate St Peter. Popes 
 and emperors must settle the creeds. If they 
 settle them well, so much the better ; if ill, I 
 shall keep on the safe side.' 
 
 That is to say, truth was not the first nec- 
 essity to Erasmus. He would prefer truth, if 
 he could have it. If not, he could get on 
 moderately well upon falsehood. Luther could 
 not. No matter what the danger to himself, if 
 he could smite a lie upon the head and kill it, 
 he was better pleased than by a thousand lives. 
 We hear much of Luther's doctrine about faith. 
 Stripped of theological verbiage, that doctrine 
 means this. 
 
 Reason says that, on the whole, truth and
 
 54 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 juslicc are desirable things. They make men 
 happier in themselves, and make society more 
 prosperous. But there reason ends, and men 
 will not die for principles of utility. Faith says 
 that between truth and lies there is an infinite 
 difference : one is of God, the other of Satan ; 
 one is eternally to be loved, the other eternally 
 to be abhorred. It cannot say why, in language 
 intelligible to reason. It is the voice of the 
 nobler nature in man speaking out of his 
 heart. 
 
 While Tetzel, with his bull and his gilt car, 
 was coming to Wittenberg, Luther, loyal still 
 to authority while there was a hope that author- 
 ity would be on the side of ri2;ht, wrote to the 
 Archbishop of Mayence to remonstrate. 
 
 The Archbishop, as we know, was to have a 
 share of Tetzel's spoils ; and what were the 
 complaints of a poor insignificant monk to a 
 supreme archbishop who was in debt and 
 wanted money ? 
 
 The Archbishop of Mayence flung the letter 
 into his waste-paper basket ; and Luther made 
 his solemn appeal from earthly dignitaries to 
 the conscience of the German people. He set 
 up his protest on the church door at Witten- 
 berg ; and, in ninety-five propositions he 
 challenged the Catholic Church to defend 
 Tetzel and his works. 
 
 The Pope's indulgences, he said, cannot take 
 away sins. God alone remits sins ; and He 
 pardons those who are penitent, without help 
 from man's absolutions. 
 
 The Church may remit penalties which the 
 Church inflicts. But the Church's power is 
 in this w'orld only, and does not reach to purga- 
 tory. 
 
 If God has thought fit to place a man in 
 purgatory, who sliall say that it is good for him 
 to be taken out of purgatory ? who shall say 
 that he himself desires it ? 
 
 True repentance does not shrink from chas-
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 
 
 55 
 
 tiscment. True repentance rather loves chas- 
 tisement. 
 
 The bishops are asleep. It is better to give 
 to the poor than to buy indulgences ; and he 
 who sees his neighbor in want, and instead of 
 helping his neighbor buys a pardon for him- 
 self, is doing what is displeasing to God. Who 
 is this man who dares to say that for so many 
 crowns the soul of a sinner can be made whole. 
 
 These, and like these, were Luther's propo- 
 sitions. Little guessed the Catholic prelates 
 the dimensions of the act which had been done. 
 The Pope, when he saw the theses, smiled in 
 good-natured contempt. ' A drunken German 
 wrote them,' he said ; ' when he has slept off 
 his wine, he will be of another mind.' 
 
 Tetzel bayed defiance ; the Dominican friars 
 took up the quarrel , and Hochstrat of Cologne, 
 Rcuchlin's enemy, clamored for iire and 
 faggot. 
 
 Voice answered voice, The religious houses 
 all Germany over were like kennels of hounds 
 howling to each other across the spiritual waste. 
 If souls could not be sung out of purgatory^ 
 their occupation was gone. 
 
 Luther wrote to Pope Leo to defend himself ; 
 Leo cited him to answer for his audacity at 
 K-Ome ; while to the young laymen, to the 
 noble spirits all Europe over, Wittenberg 
 became a beacon of light shining in the univer- 
 sal darkness. 
 
 It was a trving time to Luther. Had he 
 been a smaller man, he would have been swept 
 away by his sudden popularity — he would have 
 placed himself at the head of some great demo- 
 cratic movement, and in a few years his name 
 would have disappeared in the noise and smoke 
 of anarchy. 
 
 But this was not his nature, Plis fellow- 
 townsmen were heartily on his side. He' re- 
 mained quietly at his post in the Augustine 
 Church at Wittenberg. If the powers of the 
 world came down upon him and killed him, be
 
 56 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 was ready to be killed. Of himself at all times 
 he thought infinitely little ; and he believed 
 that his death would be as serviceable to truth 
 as his life. 
 
 Killed undoubtedly he would have been if 
 the clergy could have had their way. It hap- 
 I^ened, however, that Saxony just then was 
 governed by a prince of no common order. 
 Were all princes like the Elector Frederick, we 
 should have no need of democracy in this world 
 — we should never have heard of democracy. 
 The clergy could not touch Luther against the 
 will of the Wittenberg senate, unless the 
 Elector would help ihcm ; and, to the astonish- 
 ment of everybody, the Elector was disinclined 
 to consent. The Pope himself wrote to exhort 
 him to his duties. The Elector still hesitated. 
 His professed creed was the creed in which 
 the Church had educated him ; but he had a 
 clear secular understanding outside his for- 
 mulas. When he read the propositions, they 
 did not seem to him the pernicious things 
 which the monks said they were. 'There is 
 much in the Bible about Christ,' he said, ' but 
 not much about Rome.' He sent for Erasmus 
 and asked him what he thought about the 
 matter. 
 
 The Elector knew to whom he was speaking. 
 He wished for a direct answer, and looked 
 Erasmus full and broad in the face. Erasmus 
 pinched his thin lips together. ' Luther,' he 
 said at length, 'has committed two sins : he 
 has touched the Pope's crown and the monks' 
 bellies.' 
 
 He generously and strongly urged Frederick 
 not to yield for the present to Pope Leo's im- 
 portunacy; and the Pope was obliged to try 
 less hasty and more formal methods. 
 
 He had wished Luther to be sent to him to 
 Rome, where his process would have had a 
 rapid end. As this could not be, the case was 
 transferred to Augsburg, and a cardinal legate 
 was sent from Italy to look into it.
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTIIEK, 57 
 
 There was no clanger of violence at Augs- 
 burg. The towns-people tliere and everywhere 
 ■were on the side of freedom ; and Luther went 
 cheerfully to defend himself. He walked from 
 Wittenberg. You can fancy him still in his 
 monk's brown frock, with all his wardrobe on 
 his back — an apostle of th.e old sort. The 
 citizens, high and low, attended him to the 
 gates, and followed him along the road, crying 
 ' Luther forever! ' ' Nay,' he answered, ' Christ 
 forever ! ' 
 
 The cardinal legate, being reduced to the 
 necessity of politeness, received him civilly. 
 He told him however, simply and briefly, that 
 the Pope insisted on his recantation, and would 
 accept nothing else. Luther requested the 
 cardinal to point out to him where he was 
 wrong. The cardinal waived discussion. ' He 
 was conic to command,' he said, ' not to argue.' 
 And Luther had to tell him that it could not be. 
 
 Remonstrances, threats, entreaties, even 
 bribes were tried. Hopes of high distinction 
 and reward were held out to him if he would 
 only be reasonable. To the amazement of the 
 proud Italian, a poor peasant's son — a miser- 
 able friar of a provincial German town — was 
 prepared to defy the power and resist the 
 prayers of the Sovereign of Christendom. 
 
 ' What ! ' said the cardinal at last to him, 
 'do you think the Pope cares for the opinion 
 of a German boor.^ The Poj^e's little finger is 
 stronger than all Germany. Do you expect 
 your princes to take up arms to defend jy?// — 
 you, a wretched worm like you; I tell you, 
 No ! and where will you be then ? 
 
 Luther answered, ' then, as now, in the hands 
 of Almighty God.' 
 
 The court dissolved. The cardinal carried 
 back his report to his master. The Pope, so 
 defied, brought out his thunders ; he excom- 
 municated Lutiier ; he wrote 'again to the 
 Elector, entreating him not to soil his name 
 and lineage by becoming a protector of heretics;
 
 jg HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 and he required him, without further ceremony, 
 to render up the criminal to justice. 
 
 The Elector's power was limited. As yet, 
 the quarrel was simply between Luther and the 
 Pope. The Elector was by no means sure that 
 his bold subject was right — he was only not 
 satisfied that he was wrong — and it was a 
 serious question with him how far he ought to 
 go. The monk might next be placed under 
 the ban of the empire ; and if he persisted in 
 protecting him afterwards, Saxony might have 
 all the power of Germany upon it. He did not 
 venture any more to refuse absolutely. He 
 temporized and delayed ; while Luther himself, 
 probably at the Elector's instigation, made 
 overtures for peace to the Pope. Saving his 
 duty to Christ, he promised to be for the future 
 an obedient son of the Church, and to say no 
 more about indulgences if Tetzel ceased to 
 defend them. 
 
 •My being such a small creature,' Luther 
 said afterwards, ' was a misfortune for the Pope. 
 He despised me too much ! What, he thought, 
 could a slave like me do to him — to him, who 
 was the greatest man in all the world ? Had 
 he accepted my proposal, he would have extin- 
 guished me.' 
 
 But the infallible Pope conducted himself 
 like a proud, irascible, exceedingly fallible 
 mortal. To make terms with the town preacher 
 of Wittenberg was too preposterous. 
 
 Just then the imperial throne fell vacant ; 
 and the pretty scandal I told you of, followed 
 at the choice of his successor. Frederick of 
 Saxony might have been elected if he had liked 
 — and it would have been better for the world 
 perhaps if Frederick had been more ambitious 
 of high dignities — but the Saxon Prince did 
 not care to trouble himself with the imperial 
 sceptre. The election fell on Maximilian's 
 grandson Cliarles — grandson also of Ferdinand 
 the Catholic — Sovereign of Spain ; Sovereign 
 of Burgundy and the Low Countries ; Sovereign
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 59 
 
 of Naples and Sicily ; Sovereign beyond the 
 Allanlic, of the New Empire of the Indies. 
 
 No fitter man could have been found to do 
 ihe business of the Pope. With the empire of 
 Germany added to his inherited dominions, 
 who could resist him ? 
 
 To the new Emperor, unless the Elector 
 yielded, Luther's case had now to be referred. 
 The Elector, if he had wished, could not 
 interfere. Germany was attentive, but motion- 
 less. The students, the artisans, the tradesmen, 
 were at heart with the Reformer; and their 
 enthusiasm could not be wholly repressed. 
 The press grew fertile with pamphlets; and it 
 was noticed that all the printers and compos- 
 itors went for Luther. The Catholics could 
 not get their books into type without sending 
 them to France or the Low Countries. 
 
 Yet none of the princes except the Elector 
 •had as yet shown him favor. The bishops 
 were hostile to a man. The nobles had given 
 no sign ; and their place would be naturally on 
 the side of authority. They had no love for 
 bishops — there was hope in that ; and they 
 looked with no favor on the huge estates of 
 the religious orders. But no one could expect 
 that they would peril their lands and lives for 
 an insignificant monk. 
 
 There was an interval of two years before 
 the Emperor was at leisure to take up the 
 question. The time was spent in angry alter- 
 cation, boding no good for the future. 
 
 The Pope issued a second bull condemning 
 Luther and his works, Luther replied by burn- 
 ning the bull in the great square at Wittenberg. 
 At length in April 152 1, the Diet of the 
 Empire assembled at Worms, and Luther was 
 called to defend himself in the presence of 
 Charles the Fifth. 
 
 That it should have come to this at all, in 
 days of such high-handed authority, was suffi- 
 ciently remarkable. It indicated something 
 growing in the minds of men, that the so-called
 
 6o HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Church was not to carry things any longer in 
 the old style. Popes and bishops might order, 
 but the laity intended for the future to have 
 opinions of their own how far such orders 
 should be obeyed. 
 
 The Pope expected anyhow that the Diet, 
 by fair means or foul, would now rid him of his 
 adversary. The Elector, who knew the eccles- 
 iastical ways of handling such matters, made it 
 a condition of his subject appearing that he 
 should have a safe-conduct, under the Emperor's 
 hand ; that Luther, if judgment went against 
 him, should be free for the time to return to 
 the place from which he had come ; and that 
 he, the Elector, should determine afterwards 
 what should be done with him. 
 
 When the interests of the Church were con- 
 cerned, safe-conducts, it was too well known, 
 were poor security. Pope Clement the Seventh, 
 a little after, when reproached for breaking a- 
 promise, replied with a smile, ' The Pope has 
 power to bind and to loose.' Good, in the 
 eyes of ecclesiastical authorities, meant what 
 was good for the Church ; evilj whatever was 
 bad for the Church ; and the highest moral 
 obligation became sin when it stood in St. 
 Peter's way. 
 
 There had been an outburst of free thought 
 in Bohemia a century and a half before. Jolin 
 Huss, Luther's forerunner, came with a safe- 
 conduct to the Council of Constance ; but the 
 bisliops ruled that safe-conducts could not pro- 
 tect heretics. They burnt John Huss for all 
 their promises, and they hoped now that so 
 good a Catholic as Charles would follow so 
 excellent a precedent. Pope Leo wrote him- 
 self to beg that Luther's safe-conduct should 
 not be observed. The bishops and archbish- 
 ops, when Charles consulted them, took the 
 same view as the Pope. 
 
 'There is something in the office of a 
 bishop,' Luther said, a year or two later, ' which 
 is dreadfully demoralizing. Even good men
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 6 1 
 
 change their natures at their consecration ; 
 Satan enters into them as he entered into 
 Judas, as soon as they have taken the sop.' 
 
 It was most seriously lii<ely that, if Luther 
 trusted himself at the Diet on the faith of his 
 safe-conduct, he would never return alive. Ru- 
 mors of intended treachery were so strong, 
 that if he refused to go, the Elector meant to 
 stand by him at any cost. Should he appear, 
 or not appear ? It was for himself to decide. 
 If he stayed away< judgment would go against 
 him by default. Charles would call out the 
 forces of the empire, and Saxony would be in- 
 vaded. 
 
 Civil war would follow, with insurrection all 
 over Germany, with no certain prospect except 
 bloodshed and misery. 
 
 Luther was not a man to expose his country 
 to peril that his own person might escape. He 
 had provoked the storm ; and if blood was to 
 be shed, his blood ought at least to be the first. 
 He went. On his wa}-, a friend came to warn 
 him again that foul play was intended, that he 
 was condemned already^ that his books had 
 been burnt by the hangman, and that he was a 
 dead man if he proceeded. 
 
 Luther trembled — he owned it — but he an- 
 swered, 'Go to Worms! I will go if there are 
 as many devils in Worms as there are tiles 
 upon the roofs of the houses/' 
 
 The roofs, when he came into the city, were 
 crowded, not with devils, but with the inhab- 
 itants, all collecting there to see him as he 
 passed. A nobleman gave him shelter for the 
 night ; the next day he was led to the Town 
 Hall. 
 
 No more notable spectacle had been wit- 
 nessed in this planet for many a century — not, 
 perhaps, since a greater than Luther stood be- 
 fore the Roman Procurator. 
 
 There on the raised dais sat the sovereign of 
 half the world. There on either side of him 
 stood the archbishops, the ministers of state,
 
 62 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the princes of the empire, gathered together to 
 hear and judge the son of a poor miner, who 
 had made the world ring with his name. 
 
 The body of the hall was thronged with 
 knights and nobles — stern hard men in dull 
 gleaming armor. Luther, in his brown frock, 
 was led forward between their ranks. The 
 looks which greeted him were not all un- 
 friendly. The first Article of a German credo 
 was belief in cojirage. Germany had had its 
 feuds in times past with Popes of Rome, and 
 they were not without pride that a poor coun- 
 tryman of theirs should have taken bv the 
 beard the great Italian priest. They had set- 
 tled among themselves that, come what would, 
 there should be fair play; and they looked on 
 half admiring, and half in scorn. 
 
 As Luther passed up the hall, a steel baron 
 touched him on the shoulder with his gauntlet. 
 
 * Pluck up thy spirit, little monk,' he said ; 
 ' some of us here have seen warm work in our 
 time, but, by my troth, nor I nor any knight in 
 this company ever needed a stout heart more 
 than thou needest it now. If thou hast faith 
 in these doctrines of thine, little monk, go on, 
 in the name of God.' 
 
 ' Yes, in the name of God,' said Luther, 
 throwing back his head, ' in the name of God, 
 forward ! ' 
 
 As at Augsburg, one only (juestion was 
 raised. Luther had broken the laws of the- 
 (Church. He had taught doctrines which the 
 Pope had declared to be false. Would he or 
 would he not retract .? 
 
 As at Augsburg, he replied briefly that he 
 would retract when his doctrines were not de- 
 clared to be false merely, but were proved to 
 be false. Then, but not till then. That was 
 his answer, and his last word. 
 
 There, as you understand, the heart of the 
 matter indeed rested. In tliose words lay the 
 whole meaning of the Reformation. Were men 
 to go on forever saying that this and that was
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 63 
 
 true, because the Pope affirmed it ? Or wore 
 Pope's decrees thenceforward to be tried like 
 the words of olhcr men — by the ordinary laws 
 of evidence ? 
 
 It required no great intellect to understand 
 that a Pope's pardon, which you could buy for 
 five shillings, could not really get a soul out of 
 purgatory. It required a quality much rarer 
 than intellect to look such a doctrine in the 
 face — sanctioned as it was by the credulity of 
 ages, and backed by the pomp and pageantry 
 of earthly power — and say to it openly, ' You 
 are a lie.' Cleverness and culture could have 
 given a thousand reasons — they did then and 
 they do now — why an indulgence should be be- 
 lieved in ; when honesty and common sense 
 could give but one reason for thinking other- 
 wise. Cleverness and imposture get on excel- 
 lently well together — imposture and veracity, 
 never. 
 
 Luther looked at those wares of Tetzel's, 
 and said, ' Your pardons are no pardons at all 
 — no letters of credit on heaven, but flash notes 
 of the Bank of Humbug ; and you know it. 
 They did know it. The conscience of every 
 man in Europe answered back, that what Lu- 
 ther said was true. 
 
 Bravery, honesty, veracity, these were the 
 qualities which were needed — which were 
 needed then, and are needed alv/ays, as the 
 root of all real greatness in man. 
 
 The first missionaries of Christianity, when 
 they came among the heathen nations, and 
 found them worshipping idols, did not care 
 much to reason that an image which man had 
 made could not be God. The priests might 
 have been a match for them in reasoning. 
 They walked up to the idol in the presence of 
 its votaries. They threw stones at it, spat 
 upon it, insulted it. ' See, they said, ' I do this 
 to your God. If he is God, let him avenge 
 himself.' 
 
 It was a simple argument ; always effective ;
 
 64 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 easy, and yet most difficult. It required merely 
 a readiness to be killed upon the spot by tlie 
 superstition which it outraged. 
 
 And so, and only so, can truth make its way 
 for us in any such matters. The form changes 
 — the thing remains. Superstition, folly, and 
 cunning will go on to the end of time, spinning 
 their poison webs around the consciences of 
 mankind. Courage and veracity — these qual- 
 ties, and only these, avail to defeat them. 
 
 From the moment that Luther left the Em- 
 peror's presence a free man the spell of Abso- 
 lutism was broken, and the victory of the Re- 
 formation secured. The ban of the Pope had 
 fallen ; the secular arm had been called to in- 
 terfere ; the machinery of authority strained as 
 far as it would bear. The Emperor himself 
 was an unconscious convert to the higher 
 creed. The Pope had urged him to break his 
 word. The Pope had told him that honor was 
 nothing, and morality was nothing, where the 
 interests of orthodoxy were compromised. The 
 Emperor had refused to be tempted into per- 
 jury; and, in refusing, had admitted that there 
 was a spiritual power upon the earth, above the 
 Pope, and above him. 
 
 The party of the Church felt it so. A plot 
 was formed to assassinate Luther on his return 
 to Saxon)'. The insulted majesty of Rome 
 could be vindicated at least by the dagger. 
 
 But this, too, failed. The Elector heard 
 what was intended. A party of horse, disguised 
 as banditti, waylaid the Reformer upon the 
 road, and carried him off to the castle of Wart- 
 burg, where he remained out of harm's way till 
 the general rising of Germany placed him be- 
 yond the reach of danger. 
 
 At Wartburg for the present evening we leave 
 him. 
 
 The Emperor Charles and Luther never met 
 again. The monks of Yuste, who watched on 
 the death-bed of Charles, reported that at the 
 last hour he repented that he had kept his
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTIIEK. 65 
 
 word, and reproached himself for having al- 
 lowed the arch-heretic to escape from his 
 hands. 
 
 It is possible that, when the candle of life 
 was burning low, and spirit and flesh were fail- 
 ing together, and the air of the sick room was 
 thick and close with the presence of the angel 
 of death, the nobler nature of the P^mperor 
 might have yielded to the influences which were 
 around him. His confessor might have thrust 
 into his lips the words which he so wished to 
 hear. 
 
 But Charles the Fifth, though a Catholic al- 
 ways, was a Catholic of the old grand type, to 
 whom creed and dogmas were but the robe of 
 a regal humanity. Another story is told of 
 Charles — an authentic story this one — which 
 makes me think that the monks of Yuste mis- 
 took or maligned him. Six and twenty years 
 after this .scene at Worms, when the then 
 dawning heresy had become broad day ; when 
 Luther had gone to his rest — and there had 
 gathered about his name the hate which mean 
 men feel for an enemy who has proved too 
 strong for them — a passing vicissitude in the 
 struggle brought the Emperor at the head of 
 his army to Wittenberg. 
 
 The vengeance which the monks could not 
 inflict upon him in life, they proposed to wreak 
 upon his bones. 
 
 The Emperor desired to be conducted to 
 Luther's tomb ; and as he stood gazing at it, 
 full of many thoughts, some one suggested that 
 the body should be taken up and burnt at the 
 stake in the Market-place. 
 
 There was nothing unusual in the proposal ; 
 it was the common practice of the Catholic 
 Church with the remains of heretics, who were 
 held unworthy to be left in repose in hallowed 
 ground. There was scarcely, perha^^s, another 
 Catholic prince who would have hesitated to 
 comply. But Charles was one of nature's 
 gentlemen ; he answered, ' I war not with the 
 dead.'
 
 66 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 III. 
 
 We have now entered upon the movement 
 which broke the power of the Papacv — which 
 swept Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, 
 England, Scotland, into the stream of revol- 
 ution, and gave a new direction to the spiritual 
 history of mankind. 
 
 You would not thank me if I were to take 
 you out into that troubled ocean. I confine 
 myself, and I wish you to confine your attention, 
 to the two kinds of men who appear as leaders 
 in times of change — of whom Erasmus and 
 Luther are respectiveh'' the types. 
 
 f)n one side there are the larc:e-minded 
 latitudinarian philosophers — men who have no 
 confidence in the people — who have no passion- 
 ate convictions ^moderate men, tolerant men, 
 who trust to education, to general progress in 
 knowledge and civilization, to forbearance, to 
 endurance, to tinier-men who believe that all 
 wholesome reforms proceed downwards from 
 the educated to the multitudes ; who regard 
 with contempt, qualified by terror, appeals to 
 the popular conscience or to popular intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 Opposite to these are the men of faith — and 
 by faith I do not mean belief in dogmas, but 
 belief in goodness, belief in justice, in right- 
 eousness, above all, belief in truth. Men of 
 faith consider conscience of more importance 
 than knowledgeH-or rather as a first condition 
 — without which'allthe knowledge in the world 
 is no use to a man — if he wishes to be indeed 
 a man in any high and noble sense of the word. 
 They are not contented with looking for what 
 may be useful or pleasant to themselves; they 
 look by quite other methods for what is honor- 
 able — for what is good — for what is just. They 
 believe that if they can find out that, then at
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 67 
 
 all hazards, and in spite of all present con- 
 sequences to themselves, that is to be preferred. 
 If, individually and to themselves, no visible 
 good ever came from it, in this world or in any- 
 other, still they would say, " Let us do that and 
 nothing else. Life will be of no value to us if 
 we are to use it only for our own gratification.' 
 
 The soldier before a battle knows that if he 
 shirks and pretends to be ill, he may escape 
 danger and make sure of his life. There are 
 very few men, indeed, if it comes to that, who 
 would not sooner die ten times over than so 
 dishonor themselves. Men of high moral 
 nature carry out the same principle into the 
 details of their daily lite ; they do not care to 
 live unless they may live nobly. Like my uncle 
 Toby, they have but one fear — the fear of 
 doing a wrong thing. 
 
 I call this faith, because there is no proof, 
 such as will satisfy the scientific inquirer, that 
 there is any such thing as moral truth — any 
 such thing as absolute right and wrong at all. 
 As the Scripture says, ' Verily, thou art a God 
 that hidest thyself.' The forces of nature pay 
 no respect to what we call good and evil. 
 Prosperity does not uniformly follow virtue ; 
 nor are defeat and failure necessary con- 
 sequences of vice. 
 
 Certain virtues — temperance, industry, and 
 things within reasonable limits — command 
 their reward. Sensuality, idleness, and waste 
 commonly lead to ruin. 
 
 But prosperity is consistent with intense 
 worldliness, intense selfishness, intense hard- 
 ness of heart ; while the grander features of 
 human character — self-sacrifice, disregard of 
 pleasure, patriotism, love of knowledge, de- 
 votion to any great and good cause — these 
 have no tendency to bring men what is called 
 fortune. They do not even necessarily promote 
 their happiness ; for do what they will in this 
 way, the horizon of what thev desire to do per- 
 petually flies before them. High hopes and
 
 68 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 enthusiasms are generally disappointed in 
 results ; and the wrongs, the cruellies, the 
 wretchednesses of all kinds which for ever pre- 
 vail among mankind — the shortcomings in 
 himself of which he becomes more conscious 
 as he becomes really better — these things, vou 
 may be sure, will prevent a noble-minded man 
 from ever being particularly happy. 
 
 If you see a man happy, as the world goes 
 — contented with himself and contented with 
 what is round him — such a man may be, and 
 probably is, decent and respectable ; but the 
 highest is not in him, and the highest will not 
 come out of him. 
 
 Judging merely by outward phenomena — 
 judging merely by what we call reason — you 
 cannot prove that there is any moral govern- 
 ment in the world at all, except what men, for 
 their own convenience, introduce into it. Right 
 and wrong resolve themselves into principles 
 of utility and social convenience. Enlightened 
 selfishness prescribes a decent rule of conduct 
 for common purposes ; and virtue, by a large 
 school of philosophy, is completely resolved 
 into that. 
 
 True, when nations go on long on the selfish 
 hypothesis, they are apt to find at last that they 
 have been mistaken. They find it in bank- 
 ruptcy of honor and character — in social wreck 
 and dissolution. All lies in serious matters 
 end at last, as Carlyle says, in broken heads. 
 That is the final issue which they are sure to 
 come to in the long run. The Maker of the 
 world does not permit a society to continue 
 which forgets or denies the nobler principles 
 of action. But the end is often long in coming ; 
 and these nobler principles are meanwhile 7iot 
 provided for us by the inductive philosophy. 
 
 Patriotism, for instance, of which we used 
 to think something — a readiness to devote our 
 energies while we live, to devote our lives, if 
 nothing else will serve, to what we call our 
 country — what are we to say of that?
 
 ERASMUS AN J) LUTHER. Cx) 
 
 I once asked a distinguished philosopher 
 what he thought of patriotism. He said he 
 thought it was a compound of vanity and super- 
 stition ; a bad kind of prejudice, which would 
 die out with the growth of reason. My friend 
 believed in the progress of humanity — he could 
 not narrow his sympathies to so small a thing as 
 his own country. I could but say to myself, 
 'Thank God, then, we are not yet a nation of 
 philosophers.'' 
 
 A man who takes up with philosophy like 
 that, may write fine books, and review articles 
 and such like, but at the bottom of him he is a 
 poor caitiff, and there is no more to be said 
 about him. 
 
 So when the air is heavy with imposture, 
 and men live onlv to make monev, and the 
 service of God is become a thing of words and 
 ceremonies, and the kingdom of heaven is 
 bought and sold, and all that is higli and pure 
 in man is smothered by corruption — fire of the 
 same kind bursts out in higher natures with a 
 fierceness which cannot be controlled ; and, 
 confident in truth and right, they call fearlessly 
 on the seven thousand in Israel who have not 
 bowed the knee to Baal to rise and stand by 
 them. 
 
 They do not ask whether those whom they 
 address have wide knowledge of history, or 
 science or philosophy ; they ask rather that 
 thev shall be honest, that thev shall be brave, 
 that they shall be true to the common light 
 which God has given to all His children. 
 They know well that conscience is no excep- 
 tional privilege of the great or the cultivated, 
 Uiat to be generous and unselfish is no pre- 
 rogative of rank or intellect. 
 
 Erasmus considered that, for the vulgar, a 
 lie might be as good as truth, and often better. 
 A lie, ascertained to be a lie, to Luther was 
 ilcadly poison — poison to all who meddled with. 
 
 In his own genuine greatness, he was too 
 humble to draw insolent distinctions in his own
 
 yo HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 favor; or to believe that any one class on 
 earth is of more importance than another in 
 the eyes of the Great Maker of them all. 
 
 Well, then you know what I mean by faith, 
 and what I mean bv intellect. It was not that 
 Luther was without intelllect. He was less 
 subtle, less learned, than Erasmus ; but in 
 mother wit, in elasticity, in force, and imagin- 
 ative power, he was as able a man as ever lived. 
 Luther created the German language as an 
 instrument of literature. His translation of 
 the Bible is at rich and grand as our own, and 
 his table talk as full of matter as Shakespeare's 
 plays. 
 
 Again ; you will mistake me if you think I 
 represent Erasmus as a man without con- 
 science, or belief in God and goodness. But in 
 Luther that belief was a certainty ; in Erasmus 
 it was only a high probability — and the differ- 
 ence between the two is not merely great, it is 
 infinite. In Luther, it was the root ; in Eras- 
 mus, it was the flower. In Luther, it was the 
 first principle of life ; in Erasmus, it was an 
 inference which might be taken away, and yet 
 leave the world a very tolerable and habitable 
 place after all. 
 
 You see the contrast in their early lives. 
 You see Erasmus — light, bright, sarcastic, fond 
 of pleasure, fond of society, fond of wine and 
 kisses, and intellectual talk and polished com- 
 pany. You see Luther throwing himself into 
 the cloister, that he might subdue his will to 
 the will of God ; prostrate in prayer, in nights 
 of agony, and distracting his easy-going con- 
 fessor with the exaggerated scruples of his 
 conscience. 
 
 You see it in the effects of their teaching. 
 You see P'^rasmus addressing himself with 
 persuasive eloquence to kings, and popes, and 
 prelates ; and for answer, you see Pope Leo 
 sending Te'izel over Germany with his carriage 
 load of indulgences. You see Erasmus's dear- 
 est friend, our own gifted admirable Sir
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHEK. 71 
 
 Thomas More, taking his seat beside the 
 bishops and sending poor Protestant artisans 
 to the stake. 
 
 You see Luther, on llie other side, standing 
 out before tiie world, one lone man, with all 
 authority against him — taking lies by the tin oat, 
 and Europe thrilling at his words, and saying 
 after him, 'The reign of Imposture shall end.' 
 
 Let us follow the course of Erasmus after 
 the tempest had broken. 
 
 He knew Luther to be right. Luther had 
 but said what Erasmus liad been all his life 
 convinced of, and Luther looked to see him 
 come forward and take his place at his side. 
 Had Erasmus done so, the course of things 
 would have been far happier and better. His 
 prodigious reputation would have given the 
 Reformers the influence with the educated 
 which they had won for themselves with the 
 multitude, and the Pope would have been left 
 without a friend to the north of the Alps. 
 But there would have been some danger — 
 danger to the leaders, if certainty of triumph 
 to the cause — and Erasmus had no gift for 
 martyrdom. 
 
 His first impulse was generous. He en- 
 couraged the Elector, as w-e have seen, to pro- 
 tect Luther from the Pope. ' I looked on 
 Luther,' he wrote to Duke George of Saxe, 
 ' as a necessary evil in the corruption of the 
 Church ; a medicine, bitter and drastic, from 
 which sounder health would follow.' 
 
 And again, more boldly : ' Luther has taken 
 up the cause of honesty and good sense against 
 abominations which are no longer tolerable. 
 His enemies are men under whose worthless- 
 ness the Christian world has groaned too 
 long.' 
 
 So to the heads of the Church he wrote, 
 pressing them to be moderate and careful : — 
 
 ' I neither approve Luther nor condemn 
 him,' he said to the Archljishop of Mayence ; 
 'if he is innocent, he ought not to be oppress-
 
 72 
 
 HISTORICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 ed by the factions of the wicked ; if he is in 
 error, he should be answered, not destroyed. 
 The theologians ' — observe how true they re- 
 main to the universal type in all times and in 
 all countries — ' the theologians do not try to 
 answer him. They do but raise an insane and 
 senseless clamor, and shriek and curse. 
 Heresy, heretic, heresiarch, schismatic. Anti- 
 christ — these are the words which are in the 
 mouths of all of them ; and, of course, they 
 condemn without reading. I warned them 
 what they were doing. I told them to scream 
 less, and to think more. Luther's life they 
 admit to be innocent and blameless. Such a 
 tragedy I never saw. The most humane men 
 are thirsting for his blood, and they would 
 rather kill him than mend him. The Domini- 
 cans are the worst, and are more knaves than 
 fools. In old times, even a heretic was quietly 
 listened to. If he recanted, he was absolved ; 
 if he persisted, he was at worst excommuni- 
 cated. Now they will have nothing but blood. 
 Not to agree with them is heresy. To know 
 Greek is heresy. To speak good Latin is 
 heresy. Whatever they do not understand is 
 heresy. Learning, they pretend, has given 
 birth to Luther, though Luther has but little of 
 it. Luther thinks more of the Gospel than of 
 scholastic divinity, and that is his crime. This 
 is plain at least, that the best men everywhere 
 are those who are least offended with him.' 
 
 Even to Pope Leo, in the midst of his fury, 
 Erasmus wrote bravely ; separating himself 
 from Luther, yet deprecating violence. ' Noth- 
 ing,' he said, ' would so recommend the new 
 teaching as the howling of fools : ' while to a 
 member of Charles's council he insisted that 
 ' severity had been often tried in such cases 
 and had always failed ; unless Luther was en- 
 countered calmly and reasonably, a tremendous 
 convulsion was inevitable.' 
 
 Wisely said all this, but it ])resumed that 
 those whom he was addressing were reasonable
 
 ERASMUS AND LU'lIIRR. 
 
 73 
 
 men : and high officials, touched in their pride, 
 are a class of persons of whom Solomon may 
 have been thinking when he said, ' Let a bear 
 robbed of her whelps meet a man ralher than 
 a fool in his folly.' 
 
 So to Luiher, so to the people, Erasmus 
 preached moderation. It was like preaching 
 to the winds in a hurricane. The typhoon it- 
 self is not wilder than human creatures when 
 once their passions are stirred. You cannot 
 check them ; but, if you are brave, you can 
 guide them wisely. And this, Erasmus had 
 not the heart to do. 
 
 He said at the beginning, ' I will not coun- 
 tenance revolt against authority. A bad 
 government is better than none.' But he said 
 at the same time, ' You bishops, cease to be 
 corrupt : you popes and cardinals, reform your 
 wicked courts : you monks, leave your scandal- 
 ous lives, and obey the rules of your order, so 
 you may recover the respect of mankind, and 
 be obeyed and loved as before.' 
 
 When he found that the case was desperate ; 
 that his exhortations were but words addressed 
 to the winds ; that corruption had tainted the 
 blood ; that there was no hope except in revo- 
 lution — as, indeed, in his heart he knew from 
 the first that there was none — then his place 
 ought to have been with Luther. 
 
 But Erasmus, as the tempest rose, could but 
 stand still in feeble uncertainty. The respon- 
 sibilities of his reputation weighed him down. 
 
 The Lutherans said, ' You believe as we do.' 
 The Catholics said 'You are a Lutheran at 
 heart; if you are not, prove it by attacking 
 Luther.' 
 
 He grew impatient. He told lies. He 
 said he had not read Luther's books, and had 
 no time to read them. What was he, he said, 
 that he should meddle in such a quarrel ? He 
 was the vine and the fig tree of the book of 
 Judges. The trees said to them, Rule over us. 
 The vine and the fig tree answered, they would
 
 74 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 not leave their sweetness for such a thankless 
 office. ' I am a poor actor,' he said ; ' I per- 
 fer to be a spectator of the display.' 
 
 But he was sore at lieart, and bitter with dis- 
 appointment. All had been going on so 
 smoothly — literature was revivins;, art and 
 science were spreading, the mind of the world 
 was being reformed in the best sense by the 
 classics of Greece and Rome, and now an 
 apple of discord had been flung out into Eu- 
 rope. • 
 
 The monks who had fought against enlight- 
 enment could point to the confusion as a fulfil- 
 ment of their prophecies ; and he, and all that 
 he had done, was brought to disrepute. 
 
 To protect himself from the Dominicans, he 
 was forced to pretend to an orthodoxy which 
 he did not possess. Were all true which 
 Luther had written, he pretended that it ought 
 not to haye been said, or should have been ad- 
 dressed in a learned language to the refined 
 and educated. 
 
 He doubted whether it was not better on the 
 whole to teach the people lies for their good, 
 when truth was beyond their comprehension. 
 Yet he could not for all that wish the Church 
 to be successful. 
 
 ' I fear for that miserable Luther,' he said, 
 ' the popes and princes are furious with him. 
 His own destruction would be no great matter, 
 but if the monks triumph there will be no 
 bearing them. They will never rest till they 
 have rooted learning out of the land. The 
 Pope expects vie to write against Luther. The 
 orthodox, it appears, can call him names — call 
 him blockhead, fool, heretic, toadstool, schis- 
 matic, and Antichrist — but they must come to 
 me to answer his arguments.' 
 
 'Oh ! that this had never been,' he wrote to 
 our own yVrchbishop Warham. 'Now there is 
 no hope for any good. It is all over with quiet 
 learning, thought, piety and progress ; violence 
 is on one side and folly on the other ; and they
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 
 
 75 
 
 accuse me of having caused it all. If I joined 
 Luther 1 could only perish with him, and I do 
 not mean to run my neck into a halter. Popes 
 and emperors must decide matters. I will ac- 
 cept what is good, and do as I can with the 
 rest. Peace on any terms is better than the 
 justest war.' 
 
 Erasmus itever stooped to real baseness. He 
 was too clever, too genuine — he had too great 
 a contempt for worldly greatness. They offer- 
 ed him a bishopric if he would attack Luther. 
 He only laughed at them. What was a bishop- 
 ric to him.'' He preferred a quiet life among 
 his books at Louvaine. 
 
 But there was no more quiet for Erasmus at 
 Louvaine pr anywhere. Here is a scene be- 
 tween him and the Prior of the Dominicans in 
 the presence of the Rector of the University. 
 
 TRe Dominican had preached at Erasmus 
 in the University pulpit. Erasmus complained 
 to the Rector, and the Rector invited the 
 Dominican to defend himself, Erasmus tells 
 the story. 
 
 ' I sat on one side and the monk on the 
 other, the Rector between us to prevent our 
 scratching. 
 
 ' The monk asked what the matter was, and 
 said he had done no harm. 
 
 ' I said he had told lies of me, and that was 
 harm. 
 
 ' It was after dinner. The holy man was 
 flushed. He turned purple. 
 
 ' " Why do you abuse monks in your books ?" 
 he said. 
 
 ' " I spoke of your order," I answered. " I 
 did not mention you. You denounced me by 
 name as a friend of Luther." 
 
 ' He raged like a madman. " You are the 
 cause of all this trouble," he said ; " you are a 
 chameleon, you can twist everything." 
 
 '"You see what a fellow he is," said I, turn- 
 ing to the Rector. " If it comes to calling
 
 76 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 names, why I can do that too ; but let us be 
 reasonable." 
 
 ' He still roared and cursed ; he vowed he 
 would never rest until he had destroyed 
 Luiher, 
 
 ' .1 said he might curse Luther till he burst 
 himself if he pleased. I complained of his 
 cursing me, 
 
 ' He answered, that if I did not agree with 
 Luther, I ought to say so, and write against 
 him. 
 
 ' " Why should I .> " urged L " The quarrel 
 is none of mine. Why should I irritate Luther 
 against me when he has horns and knows how 
 to use them .'' " 
 
 * " Well, then," said he, " if you will not 
 write, at least you can say that we Dominicans 
 have had the best of the argument." 
 
 ' " How can I do that } " replied L " You 
 have burnt his books, but I never heard that 
 you had answered them," . 
 
 ' He almost spat upon me, I understand 
 that there is to be a form of prayer for the 
 conversion of Erasmus and Luther,' 
 
 But Erasmus was not to escape so easily. 
 Adrian the Sixth, w-ho succeeded Leo, was his 
 old school-fellow, and implored his assistance 
 in terms which made refusal impossible. 
 Adrian wanted Erasmus to come to him to 
 Rome. He was too wary to walk into the 
 wolf's den. But Adrian required him to write, 
 and reluctantly he felt that he must comply. 
 
 What was he to say ? 
 
 ' If his Holiness will set about reform in 
 good earnest,' he wrote to the Pope's secre- 
 tary, ' and if he will not be too hard on Luther, 
 I may, perhaps, do good ; but what Luther 
 writes of the tyranny, the corruption, the cov- 
 etness of Roman court, would, my friend, that 
 it was not true.' 
 
 To Adrian himself, Erasmus addressed a 
 letter really remarkable. 
 
 ' I cannot go to your Holiness,' he said, ' King
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 77 
 
 Calculus will not let me. I have dreadful 
 health, which this tornado has not improved. 
 I, who was the favorite of everybody, am now 
 cursed by everybody — at Louvaine by the 
 monks ; in Germany by the Lutherans. I have 
 fallen into trouble in my old age, like a mouse 
 into a pot of pitch. You say, Come to Rome ; 
 you might as well say to the crab. Fly. The 
 crab says, Give me wings ; I say. Give me back 
 my health and my youth. If I write calmly 
 against Luther I shall be called lukewarm ; if 
 I write as he does, I shall stir a hornets' nest. 
 People think he can be put down by force. 
 The more force you try, the stronger he will 
 grow. Such disorders cannot be cured in that 
 way. The WicklifTites in England were put 
 down, but the fire smouldered. 
 
 ' If you mean to use violence you have no 
 need of me ; but mark this — if monks and 
 theologians think only of themselves, no good 
 wi',1 come of it. Look rather into the causes 
 ot all this confusion, and apply your remedies 
 vihere. Send for the best and wisest men from 
 all parts of Christendom and take their ad- 
 vice.' 
 
 Tell a crab to fly. Tell a pope to be rea- 
 sonable. You must relieve him of his infalli- 
 bility if you want him to act like a sensible man. 
 Adrian could undertake no reforms, and still 
 besought Erasmus to take arms for him. 
 
 Erasmus determined to gratify Adrian with 
 least danger to himself and least injury to 
 Luther. 
 
 'I remember Uzzah, and am afraid,' he said, 
 in his quizzing way ; ' it is not every one who 
 is allowed to uphold the ark. Many a wise 
 man has attacked Luther, and what has been 
 effected .'' The Tope curses, the Emperor 
 threatens ; there are prisons, confiscations, 
 faggots ; and all is vain. What can a poor 
 
 pigmy like me do .'' 
 
 ******* 
 
 * The world has been besotted with ceremo-
 
 78 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 nies. Miserable monks have ruled all, entang- 
 ling men's consciences for their own benefit. 
 Dogma has been heaped on dogma. The 
 bishops have been tyrants, the Pope's commis- 
 saries have been rascals. Luther has been an 
 instrument of God's displeasure, like Pharaoh 
 or Nebuchadnezzar, or the Caesars, and I shall 
 not attack him on such grounds as these.' 
 
 Erasmus was too acute to defend against 
 Luther the weak points of a bad cause. He 
 would not declare for him — but we would not 
 go over to his enemies. Yet, unless he quar- 
 relled with Adrian, he could not be absolutely 
 silent ; so he chose a subject to write ujxin on 
 which all schools of theology, Catholic or Prot- 
 estant — all philosophers, all thinkers of what- 
 ever kind, have been divided from the begin- 
 ning of time : fate and free will, predestination 
 and the liberty of man — a problem which has 
 no solution — which may be argued even from 
 eternity to eternity. 
 
 The reason of the selection was obvious. 
 Erasmus wished to please the Pope and not 
 exasperate Luther. Of course he pleased 
 neither, and offended both. 
 
 Luther, who did not comprehend his motive, 
 was needlessly angry. Adrian and the monks 
 were openly contemptuous. Sick of them and 
 their quarrels, he grew weary of the world, and 
 began to wish to be well out of it. 
 
 It is characteristic of Erasmus that, like 
 many highly-gifted men, but unlike all theo- 
 logians, he expressed a hope for sudden death, 
 and declared it to be one of the greatest bless- 
 ings which a human creature can receive. 
 
 I)o not suppose that he broke down or 
 showed the white feather to fortune's buffets. 
 'J'lirough all storms he stuck bravely to his own 
 ))ropcr work; editing classics, editing the Fa- 
 thers, writing paraphrases — still doing for 
 pAiropc what no other man could have done. 
 
 The Dominicans hunted him away from 
 Louvaine. There was no living for him in
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 
 
 79 
 
 Germany for the Protestants. He suffered 
 dreadfully from the stone, too, and in all ways 
 had a cruel time of it. Yet he continued, for 
 all that, to make life endurable. 
 
 He moved about in Switzerland and on the 
 Upper Rhine. The lakes, the mountains, the 
 waterfalls, the villas on the hill slopes, de- 
 lighted Erasmus when few people else cared 
 for such things. He was particular about his 
 wine. The vintage of Burgundy was as new 
 blood in his veins, and quickened his pen into 
 brightness and life. 
 
 The German wines he liked worst — for this 
 point among others, which is curious to observe 
 in those days. The great capitalist wine- 
 growers, anti-Reformers all of them, were 
 people without conscience and humanity, and 
 adulterated their liquors. Of course they did. 
 They believed in nothing but money, and this 
 was the way to make money* 
 
 ' The water they mix with the wine,* Erasmus 
 says, ' is the least part of the mischief. They 
 put in lime, and alum, and resin, and sulphur, 
 and salt — and then they say it is good enough 
 for heretics.' 
 
 Observe the practical issue of religious cor- 
 ruption. Show me a people where trade is dis- 
 honest, and I will show you a people where re- 
 ligion is a sham. 
 
 ' We hang men that steal monev.' Erasmus 
 exclaimed, writing doubtless with the remem- 
 brance of a stomach-ache. ' These wretches 
 steal our money and our lives too, and get off 
 scot free.' 
 
 He settled at last at Basle, which the storm 
 had not yet reached, and tried to bury himself 
 among his books. The shrieks of the conflict, 
 however, still troubled his ears. He heard his 
 own name still cursed, and he could not bear 
 it or sit quiet under it. 
 
 His correspondence continued enormous. 
 The high powers still appealed to him for ad- 
 vice and help : of open meddling he would
 
 go HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 have no more ; he did not care, he said, to 
 make a post of himself for every dog of a 
 theologian to defile. Advice, however, he con- 
 tinued to give in the old style. 
 
 ' Put down the preachers on both sides. Fill 
 the pulpits with men who will kick contro- 
 versy into the kennel, and preach piety and 
 good manners. Teach nothing in the schools 
 but what bears upon life and duty. Punish 
 those who break the peace, and punish no one 
 else ; and wherever the new opinions have 
 taken root, allow liberty of conscience.' 
 
 Perfection of wisdom ; but a wisdom which, 
 unfortunately, was three centuries at least out 
 of date, which even now we have not grown 
 big enough to profit by. The Catholic princes 
 and bishops were at work with fire and faggot. 
 The Protestants were pulling down monas- 
 teries, and turning the monks and nuns out 
 into the world. The Catholics declared that 
 Erasmus was as much to blame as Luther. The 
 Protestants held him responsible for the per- 
 secutions, and insisted, not without reason, that 
 if Erasmus had been true to his conscience, 
 the whole Catholic Church must have accepted 
 the Reformation. 
 
 He suffered bitterly under these attacks 
 upon him. He loved quiet — and his ears were 
 deafened with clamor. He liked popularity 
 — and he was the best abused person in 
 Europe. Others who suffered in the same way 
 he could advise to leave the black-coated jack- 
 daws to their noise-^but he could not follow 
 his own counsel. When the curs were at his 
 heels, he could not restrain himself from lash- 
 ing out at them ; and, from his retreat at Basle, 
 his sarcasms flashed out like jagged points of 
 lightning. 
 
 ]3escribing an emeute, and the burning of an 
 age of a saint, ' They insulted the poor image 
 so,' he said, 'it is a marvel there was no mira- 
 cle. The saint worked so many in the good 
 old times.'
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 8 1 
 
 When Luther married an escaped nun, the 
 Catholics exclaimed that Antichrist would be 
 born from such an incestuous intercourse. 
 ' Nay,' Erasmus said, ' if monk and nun ])ro- 
 duce Antichrist, there must have been legions 
 of Antichrists these many years.' 
 
 More than once lie was tempted to go over 
 openly to Luther — not from a noble motive, 
 but, as he confessed, ' to make those furies 
 feel the difference between him and them.' 
 . He was past sixty, with broken health and 
 failing strength. He thought of going back to 
 England, but England had by this time caught 
 fire, and Basle had caught fire. There was no 
 peace on eartli. 
 
 'The horse has his heels,' he said, when ad- 
 vised to be quiet, ' the dog his teeth, the 
 hedgehog his spines, the bee his sting. I iny- 
 self have my tongue and my pen, and why 
 should I not use them ? ' 
 
 Yet to use them to any purpose now he 
 must take a side, and, sorely tempted as he 
 was, he could not. 
 
 With the negative part of the Protestan\ 
 creed he sympathized heartily ; but he did iiot 
 understand Luther's doctrine of faith, because 
 he had none of his own, and he disliked it as 
 a new dogma. 
 
 He regarded Luther's movement aai an out- 
 burst of commonplace revolution, caused by 
 the folly and wickedness of the authorities, but 
 with no organizing vitality in itself; and his 
 chief distress, as we gather from his later 
 letters, was at his own treatment. He had 
 done his best for both sides. He had failed, 
 and was abused by everybody. 
 
 Thus passed away the last years of one of the 
 most gifted men that Europe has ever seen. I 
 have quoted many of his letters. I will add 
 one more passage, written near the end of his 
 life, very touching and patnetic : — 
 
 ' Hercules,' he said, ' could not fight two 
 monsters at once ; while I, poor wretch, have
 
 82 IIISTOKICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 lions, cerberuses, cancers, scorpions every day 
 at my sword's point ; not to mention smaller 
 vermin — rats, mosquitoes, bugs, and fleas. My 
 troops of friends are turned to enemies. At 
 dinner-tables or social gatherings in churches 
 and kings' courts, in public carriage or public 
 llyboat, scandal pursues me, and calumny de- 
 files my name. Every goose now hisses at 
 Erasmus ; and it is worse than being stoned, 
 once for all, like Stephen, or shot with arrows 
 like Sebastian. 
 
 ' They attack me now even for my Latin 
 style, and spatter me with epigrams. Fame I 
 would have parted with ; but to be the sport 
 of blackguards — to be pelted with potsherds 
 and dirt and ordure — is not this worse than 
 death .? 
 
 " There is no rest for me in my age, unless 
 I join Luther ; and I cannot accept his doc- 
 trines. Sometimes I am stung with a desire 
 to avenge my wrongs ; but I say to myself, 
 " Will you, to gratify your spleen, raise your 
 hand against your mother the Church, who be- 
 got you at the font and fed you with the word 
 of God ? " I cannot do it. Yet I understand 
 now how Arius, and Tertullian, and Wickliff 
 were driven into schism. The theologians say 
 I am their enemy. Why ? Because I bade 
 monks remember their vows ; because I told 
 parsons to leave their wranglings and read the 
 jjible ; because I told popes and cardinals to 
 look at the Apostles, and make themselves 
 more like to them. If this is to be their enemy, 
 then indeed I have injured them.' 
 
 This was almost the last. The stone, ad- 
 vancing years, and incessant toil had worn him 
 to a shred. The clouds grew blacker. News 
 came from England that his dear friends More 
 and Fisher hatl died upon the scaffold. He 
 had long ceased to care for life ; and death, 
 almost as sudden as he had longed for, gave 
 him peace at last. 
 
 So ended Desidcrius Erasmus, the world's
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. Zt, 
 
 idol for so many years ; and dying heaped with 
 undeserved but too intelligible anathemas, 
 seeing all that he had labored for swept away 
 by the whirlwind. 
 
 Do not let me lead you to undervalue him. 
 Without Erasmus, Luther would have been im- 
 possible ; and Erasmus really succeeded — so 
 much of him as deserved to succeed — in Lu- 
 ther's victory. 
 
 He was brilliantly gifted. His industry never 
 tired. His intellect was true to itself ; and 
 no worldly motives ever tempted him into insin- 
 cerity. He was ever far braver than he pro- 
 fessed to be. Had he been brought to the 
 trial, he would have borne it better than many 
 a man who boasted louder of his courage. 
 
 And yet, for his special scheme for remodel'- 
 ling the mind of Europe, he failed hopelessly — 
 almost absurdly. He believed, himself, that his 
 work was spoilt by the Reformation ; but, in 
 fact, under no conditions could any more have 
 come of it. 
 
 Literature and cultivation will feed life when 
 life exists already : and toleration and latitudi- 
 narianism are well enough when mind and con- 
 science are awake and energetic of them- 
 selves. 
 
 When there is no spiritual life at all ; when 
 men live only for themselves and for sensual 
 pleasure ; when religion is superstition, and 
 conscience a name, and God an idol half feared 
 and half despised — then, for the restoration of 
 the higher nature in man, qualities are needed 
 different in kind from any which ICrasmus pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 And now to go back to Luther. I cannot 
 tell you all that Luther did; it would be to tell 
 you all the story of the German Reformation. 
 I want you rather to consider the kind of man 
 that Luther was, and to see in his character 
 how he came to achieve what he did. 
 
 You remember that the Elector of Saxony, 
 after the Diet of Worms, sent him to the Castle
 
 84 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of Wartburg, to prevent him from being mur- 
 dered or kidnapped. He remained there many 
 months ; and during that time the old eccles- 
 iastical institutions of Germany were burning 
 like a North American forest. The monas- 
 teries were broken up ; the estates were ap- 
 propriated by the nobles ; the monks were sent 
 wandering into the world. The bishops looked 
 helplessly on while their ancient spiritual do- 
 minion was torn to pieces and trodden under 
 foot. The Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave 
 of Hesse, and several more of the princes, de- 
 clared for the Reformation. The Protestants 
 had a majority in the Diet, and controlled the 
 force of the empire. Charles the Fifth, busy 
 with his French ^yars, and in want of money, 
 dared not press questions to a crisis which he 
 had not power to cope with • and he was ob- 
 liged for a time to recognize what he could not 
 prevent. You would have thought Luther 
 would have been well pleased to see the seed 
 which he had sown bear fruit so rapidly ; yet 
 it was exactly while all this was going on 
 that he experienced those temptations of the 
 devil of which he has left so wonderful an ac- 
 count* 
 
 We shall have our own opinions on the nat- 
 ure of these ajiparitions. Ilyt Luther^Jt is 
 quite_-ceftain, believed- that Sat:in"iTTTnself at- 
 tackedJiixiX44vpefscm-. Satan, he telTs us, came 
 oTten to him, and said, ' See what you have 
 done. Behold this ancient Church — this 
 inothcr of saints-^polluted and defiled by 
 brutal violence. And it is you — you, a poor 
 ignorant monk, that have set the people on to 
 their unholy work. Are you so much wiser 
 than the saints who approved the things which 
 you have denounced ? Popes, bishops, clergy, 
 kings, emperors — are none of these — are not 
 all these together — wiser than Martin Luther 
 the monk ? ' 
 
 The devil, he says, caused him great agony 
 by these suggestions. He fell into deep fits
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 85 
 
 of doubt and humiliation and despondency. 
 And wherever these thoughts came from we can 
 only say that they were very natural thoughts 
 — natural and right. He called them tempta- 
 tions; yet these were temptations which would 
 not have occurred to any but a high-minded 
 man. 
 
 He had, however, done only what duty had 
 forced him to do. His business was to trust 
 to God, who had begun the work and knew 
 what He meant to make of it. His doubt 
 and misgivingSj therefore, he ascribed to Satan 
 and his enormous imaginative vigor gave body 
 to the voice which was speaking in him. 
 
 He tells many humorous stories — not always 
 producible — of the means with which he en- 
 countered his offensive visitor. 
 
 * The devil,' he says, ' is very proud, and 
 what he least likes is to be laughed at.' One 
 night he was disturbed by something rattling 
 in his room ; the modern unbeliever will sup- 
 pose it was a mouse. He got up, lit a candle, 
 searched the apartnient through, and could 
 find nothing — the Evil One was indisputably 
 there. 
 
 'Oh!' he said, 'it is you, is it? He re- 
 turned to bed, and went to sleep. 
 
 Think as you please about the cause of the 
 noise, but remember that Luther had not the 
 least doubt that he was alone in the room with 
 the actual devil, who, if he could not overcome 
 his soul, could at least twist his neck in a 
 moment — and then think what courage there 
 must have been in a man who could deliber- 
 ately sleep in such a presence ! 
 
 During his retirement he translated the 
 Bible. The confusion at last became so des- 
 perate that he could no longer be spared: and 
 believing that he was certain to be destroyed, 
 he left WarLburg and returned to Wittenberg. 
 Death was always before him as supremely 
 imminent. He used to say that it would be a 
 great disgrace to the Pope ii he died in his bed.
 
 86 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 He was wanted once at Leipsic. His friends 
 said if he went there Duke George would kill 
 him. 
 
 * Duke George ! ' he said ; ' I would go to 
 Leipsic if it rained Duke Georges for nine 
 days ! ' 
 
 No such cataclysm of Duke George happily 
 took place. The single one there was would 
 have gladly been mischievous if he could ; but 
 Luther outlived him — lived for twenty-four 
 years after this, in continued toil, re-shaping 
 the German Church, and giving form to its new 
 doctrine. 
 
 Sacerdotalism, properly so called, was utter- 
 ly abolished. The corruptions of tiie Church 
 had all grown out of one root — the notion that 
 the Christian priesthood possesses mystical 
 power, conferred through episcopal ordina- 
 tion. 
 
 •Religion, as Luther conceived it, did not 
 consist in certain things done to and for a man 
 by a so-called priest. It was the devotion of 
 each individual soul to the service of God. 
 Masses were nothing, and absolution was 
 nothing ; and a clergyman differed only from a 
 layman in being set apart for the especial duties 
 of teaching and preaching. 
 
 I am not concerned to defend Luther's view 
 in this matter. It is a matter of fact only, 
 that in getting rid of episcopal ordination, he 
 dried up the fountain from which the mechan- 
 ical and idolatrous conceptions of religion had 
 sprung ; and, in consequence, the religious 
 life of Germany has expanded with the prog- 
 ress of knowledge, while priesthoods every- 
 where cling to the formulas of the past, in 
 which they live, and move, and have their 
 being. 
 
 Enough of this. 
 
 The peculiar doctrine which has passed into 
 Europe under Luther's name is known as 
 Justification by Faith. Bandied about as a 
 watchword of party, it has by this time hardened
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 87 
 
 into a formula, and has become barren as the 
 soil of a trodden foot-path. As originally 
 proclaimed by Luther, it contained the deepest 
 of moral truths. It expressed what was, and. 
 is, and must be, in one language or another, 
 to the end of time, liie conviction of every 
 generous-minded man. 
 
 The service of God, as Luther learnt it from 
 the monks, was a thing of desert and reward. 
 So many good works done, so much to the 
 right page in the great book ; where the stock 
 proved insufficient, there was the reserve fund 
 of the merits of the saints, which the Church 
 dispensed for money to those who needed. 
 
 ' Merit ! ' Luther thought. ' What merit can 
 there be in such a poor caitiff as man ? The 
 better a man is — the more clearly he sees how 
 little he is good for, the greater mockery it 
 seems to attribute to him the notion of having 
 deserved reward.' 
 
 ' Miserable creatures that we are ! ' he said ; 
 * we earn our bread in sin. Till we are seven 
 years old, we do nothing but eat and drink 
 and sleep and play ; from seven to twenty-one 
 we studv four hours a dav, the rest of it we 
 run about and amuse ourselves ; then we work 
 till fifty, and then we grow again to be children. 
 We sleep half our lives ; we give God a tenth 
 of our time : and yet we think that with our 
 good works we can merit heaven. What have 
 I been doing to-day? I have talked for two 
 hours ; I have been at meals three hours ; I 
 have been idle four hours! Ah, enter not into 
 judgment with thy servant, O Lord ! ' 
 
 A perpetual struggle. Forever to be falling, 
 yet to rise again and stumble forward with eyes 
 turned to heaven — this was the best which 
 would ever conie of man. It was accepted in 
 its imperfection by the infinite grace of God, 
 who pities mortal weakness, and accepts the 
 intention for the deed — who, when there is a 
 sincere desire to serve Him, overlooks the 
 shortcomings of infirmity.
 
 88 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Do you say such teaching leads to disregard 
 of duty? All doctrines, when petritied into 
 formulas, lead to that. But, as Luther said, 
 ' where real faith is, a good life follows, as light 
 follows the sun ; faint and clouded, yet ever 
 struggling to break thiough the mist which en- 
 velopes it, and welcoming the roughest disci- 
 pline which tends to clear and raise it. 
 
 ' The barley,' he says, in a homely but ef- 
 fective image — ' the barley which we brew, the 
 flax of which we weave our garments, must be 
 bruised and torn ere they come to the use for 
 which they are grown. So must Christians 
 suffer. The natural creature must be combed 
 and threshed. The old Adam must die, for 
 the higher life to begin. If man is to rise to 
 nobleness, he must first be slain.' 
 
 In modern language, the poet Goethe tells 
 us the same truth. 'The natural man,' he 
 says, * is like the ore out of the iron mine. It 
 is smelted in the furnace; it is forged into bars 
 upon the anvil. A new nature is at last forced 
 upon it, and it is made steel.' 
 
 It was this doctrine — it was this truth rather 
 (the word doctrine reminds one of quack 
 medicines) — which, quickening in Luther's 
 mind, gave Europe its new life. It was the 
 (lame which, beginning with a small spark, 
 kindled the heart-fires in every German house- 
 hold. 
 ^- Luther's own life was a model of quiet sim- 
 ]:)Iicity. He remained poor. He might have 
 had money if he had wished ; but he chose 
 rather, amidst his enormous labor, to work 
 at a turning-lathe for his livelihood. 
 
 He was sociable, cheerful, fond of innocent 
 amusements, and delighted to encourage them. 
 His table-talk, collected by his friends, makes 
 one of the most brilliant books in the world. 
 He had no monkish theories about the nec- 
 essity of abstinence ; but he was temperate 
 from habit and principle, A salt herring and 
 a hunch of bread was his ordinary meal ; and
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 89 
 
 he was once four clays without food of any sort, 
 having emptied his larder among the poor. 
 
 All kinds of people thrust themselves on 
 Luther for help. Flights of nuns from the dis- 
 solved convents came to him to provide for 
 them — naked, shivering creatures, with scarce 
 a rag to cover them. Eight florins were want- 
 ed once to provide clothes for some of them. 
 ' Eight florins ! ' he said ; ' and where am I to 
 get eight florins ? ' Great people had made him 
 presents of plate : it all went to market to be 
 turned into clothes and food for the wretched. 
 
 Melancthon says that, unless provoked, he 
 was usually very gentle and tolerant. He 
 recognized, and was almost alone in recogniz- 
 ing, the necessity of granting liberty of con- 
 science. No one hated Popery more than he 
 did, yet he said : — 
 
 ' The Papists must bear with us, and we with 
 them. If they will not follow us, w^e have no 
 right to force them. Wherever they can, they 
 will hang, burn, behead, and strangle us. I, 
 shall be persecuted as long as I live, and most 
 likely killed. But it must come to this at last 
 — every man must be allowed to believe ac- 
 cording to his conscience, and answer for his 
 belief to his Maker.' 
 
 Erasmus said of Luther that there were two 
 natures in him : sometimes he wrote like an 
 apostle — sometimes like a raving ribald. 
 
 Doubtless, Luther could be impolite on oc- 
 casions. When he was angry, invectives 
 rushed from him like boulder rocks down a 
 mountain torrent in flood. We need not ad- 
 mire all that ; in quiet times it is hard to 
 understand it. 
 
 Here, for instance, is a specimen. Our 
 Henry the P^ighth, who began life as a highly 
 orthodox sovereign, broke a lance with Luther 
 for the Papacy. 
 
 Luther did not credit Henry with a composi- 
 tion which was probably his own after all. 
 He thought the king was put forward by some
 
 go HISTORICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 of the English bishops — 'Thomists' he calls 
 them, as men who looked for the beginning 
 and end of wisdom to the writings of Thomas 
 Aquinas. 
 
 ' Courage,' he exclaimed to them, ' swine 
 that vou are ! burn me then, if vou can and 
 dare. Here I am ; do your worst upon me. 
 Scatter my ashes to all the winds — spread 
 them through all seas. My spirit shall pursue 
 you still. Living, I am the foe of the Papacy; 
 and dead, I will be its foe twice over. Hogs 
 of Thomists ! Luther shall be the bear in 
 your way — the Hon in your path. Go where 
 you will Luther shall cross you. Luther shall 
 leave you neither peace nor rest till he has 
 crushed in your brows of brass and dashed out 
 your iron brains.' 
 
 Strong expressions ; but the times were not 
 gentle. The prelates whom he supposed him- 
 self to be addressing were the men who filled 
 our Smithfield with the reek of burning human 
 flesh. 
 
 Men of Luther's stature are like the violent 
 forces of Nature herself — terrible when roused, 
 and, in repose, majestic and beautiful. Of 
 vanity he had not a trace. ' Do not call your- 
 selves Lutherans,' he said ; ' call yourselves 
 Christians. Who and what is Luther .'' Has 
 Luther been crucified for the world .'' ' 
 
 I mentioned his love of music. His songs 
 and hymns were the expression of the very in- 
 most heart of the German people. ' Music ' he 
 called ' the grandest and sweetest gifts of God 
 to man.' ' Satan hates music,' he said ; ' he 
 knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.' 
 
 He was extremely interested in all natural 
 things. Ucfore the science of botany was 
 dreamt of, Luther had divined the principle 
 of vegetable life. 'The principle of marri- 
 age runs through all creation,' he said ; 'and 
 flowers as well as animals are male and 
 female.' 
 
 A garden called out bursts of eloquence from
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTIIEK. 91 
 
 him ; beautiful sometimes as a finished piece 
 of poetry. 
 
 One April day as he was watching the swel- 
 ling buds, he exclaimed : — 
 
 ' Praise be to God the Creator, who out of a 
 dead world makes all alive again. See those 
 shoots how they burgeon and swell. Image of 
 the resurrection of the dead ! Winter is death 
 —summer is the resurrection. Between them 
 lie spring and autumn, as the period of uncer- 
 tainty and change. The proverb says — 
 
 Trust ntit a day 
 Ere birth of May. 
 
 Let US pray our Father in heaven to give us 
 this day our daily bread.' 
 
 'We are in the dawn of a new era,' he said 
 another time ; ' we are beginning to think some- 
 thing of the natural world which was ruined in 
 Adam's fall. We are learning to see all round 
 us the greatness and glory of the Creator. We 
 can see the Almighty hand — the infinite good- 
 ness — in the humblest flower. We praise Him 
 — we thank Him — we glorify Him — we recog- 
 nize in creation the power of His word. He 
 spoke and it was there. The stone of the 
 peach is hard ; but the soft kernel swells and 
 bursts it when the time comes. An egg — 
 what a thing is that! If an egg had never 
 been seen in Europe, and a traveller had 
 brought one from Calcutta, how would all the 
 world have wondered!' 
 
 And again : — 
 
 ' If a man could make a single rose, we 
 should give him an empire ; yet roses, and 
 flowers no less beautiful, are scattered in pro- 
 fusion over the world, and no one regards 
 them.' 
 
 There are infinite other things which I 
 should like to tell von about Luther, but time 
 wears on. I must confine what more I have 
 to say to a single matter — for which more than
 
 g2 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 any other he has been blamed — I mean his 
 marriage. 
 
 He himself, a monk and a priest, had taken 
 a vow of celibacy. The person whom he 
 married had been a nun, and as such had taken 
 a vow of celibacy also. 
 
 The marriage was unquestionably no affair 
 of passion. Luther had come to middle age 
 when it was brought about, when temptations 
 of that kind lose their power ; and among the 
 many accusations which have been brought 
 against his early life, no one has ventured to 
 charge him with inconiinence. His taking a 
 wife was a grave act deliberately performed ; 
 and it was either meant as a public insult to 
 established ecclesiastical usage, or else he con- 
 sidered that the circumstances of the time 
 required it of him. 
 
 Let us see what those circumstances were. 
 The enforcement of celibacy on the clergy was, 
 in Luther's opinion, both iniquitous in itself, 
 and productive of enormous immorality. The 
 impurity of the religious orders had been the 
 jest of satirists for a hundred years. It had 
 been the distress and perplexity of pious and 
 serious persons. Luther himself was impressed 
 with profound pity for the poor men, Avho were 
 cut off from the natural companionship which 
 nature had provided for them — who were thus 
 exposed to temptations which they ought not 
 to have been called upon to resist. 
 
 The dissolution of the religious houses had 
 enormously complicated the problem. Ger- 
 many was covered with friendless and home- 
 less men and women adrift upon the world. 
 They came to Luther to tell them what to do ; 
 and advice was of little service without example. 
 
 Tl)e world had grown accustomed to 
 immorality in such persons. They might have 
 lived together in concubinage, and no one 
 would have thought much about it. Their 
 marriage was regarded with a superstitious 
 terror as a kind of incest.
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHRN. 
 
 93 
 
 Luther, on the other hand, regarded mar- 
 riage as the natural and healthy state in which 
 clergy as well as laity were intended to live. 
 Iniinorality was luiLei'ul to him as a degradation 
 of a sacrament — impious, loathsome, and dis- 
 honored. Marriage was the condition in 
 which humanity was at once purest, best, and 
 happiest. 
 
 For himself, he had become inured to a 
 single life. He had borne the injustice of 
 his lot, when the burden had been really heavy. 
 
 But time and custom had lightened the load ; 
 and had there been nothing at issue but his 
 own personal happiness, he would not have 
 given further occasion to the malice of his 
 enemies. 
 
 But tens of thousands of poor creatures 
 were looking to him to guide them — guide them 
 by pre.cept, or guide them by example. He 
 had satisfied himself that the vow of celibacy 
 had been unlawfully imposed both on him and 
 them — that, as he would put it, it had been a 
 gnare devised by the devil. He saw that all 
 eyes were fixed on him, that it was no use to 
 tell others that they might marry, unless he 
 himself led the way, and married first. And 
 it was characteristic of him that, having resolved 
 to do the thing, he did it in the way most likely 
 to show the world his full thought upon the 
 matter. 
 
 That this was his motive, there is no kind 
 of doubt whatever. 
 
 ' We may be able to live unmarried,' he said ; 
 '■ but hi these days we must protest in deed as 
 well as word, against the doctrine of celibacy. 
 It is an invention of Satan. Before I took my 
 wife, I had made up my mind that I must marry 
 some one ; and had I been overtaken by illness, 
 I should have betrothed myself to some pious 
 maiden.' 
 
 He asked nobody's advice. Had he let his 
 intention be suspected, the moderate respec- 
 table people — the people who thought like
 
 94 
 
 HJSl'ORICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 Erasmus — those who wished well to what was 
 good, but wished also to stand well with the 
 world's opinion — such persons as these would 
 have overwhelmed him with remonstrances. 
 
 ' When you marry,' he said to a friend in a 
 similar situation, ' be quiet about it, or moun- 
 tains will rise between you and your wishes. 
 If I had not been swift and secret I should 
 have had the whole world in mv wav.' 
 
 Catherine Bora, the lady whom he chose 
 for his wife, was a nun of good famil}', left 
 homeless and shelterless by the breaking-up of 
 her convent. She was an ordinary, unimagin- 
 ative body — plain in person and plain in mind, 
 in no sense whatever a heroine of romance-r 
 but a decent, sensible, commonplace Hans Frau. 
 
 The age of romance was over with both 
 of them ; yet for all that, never marriage 
 brought a plainer blessing with it. They 
 began with respect and ended with steady 
 affection. 
 
 The happiest life on earth Luther used to 
 say, is with a pious good wife : in peace and 
 quiet, contented with a little, and giving God 
 thanks. 
 
 He spoke from his own experience. His 
 Katie, as he called her, was not clever, and he 
 had numerous stories to tell of the beginning 
 of their adventures together. 
 
 ' The first year of married life is an odd 
 business he says. * At meals, where you used 
 to be alone, you are yourself and somebody 
 else. When you wake in the morning, there 
 are a pair of tails close to you on the pillow. 
 My Katie used to sit with me when I was at 
 work. She thought she ought not to be silent. 
 She did not know what to say, so she would 
 ask me. 
 
 '"Herr Doctor, is not the master of the 
 ceremonies in Prussia the brother of the Mar- 
 grave ? " ' 
 
 She was an old woman. 
 
 'Doctor,' she said to him one day, 'how is it
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER, g^ 
 
 that under Popery we prayed so often and so 
 earnestly, and now our prayers are cold and 
 seldom ? ' 
 
 Katie might have spoken for herself. Lulher, 
 to the last, spent hours of every day in prayer. 
 Pie advised her to read the Bible a little more. 
 She said she had read enough of it, and knew 
 half of it by heart. 'Ah!' he said, "here 
 begins weariness of the word of God. One 
 day new light will rise up, and the Scriptures 
 will be despised and be flung away into the 
 corner.' 
 
 His relations with his children were singu- 
 larly beautiful. The recollection of his own 
 boyhood made him especially gentle with them, 
 and their fancies and imaginations delighted 
 him. 
 
 Children, to him, were images of unfallen 
 nature. ' Children,' he said, ' imagine heaven 
 a place where rivers run with cream, and trees 
 are hung with cakes and plums. Do not blame 
 them. They are but showing their simple, 
 natural, unquestioning, all-believing faith.' 
 
 One day, after dinner, when the fruit was 
 on the table, the children were watching it 
 with longing eyes. ' That is the way,' he said, 
 'in which we grown Christians ought to look 
 for the Judgment Day.' 
 
 His daughter Magdalen died when she was 
 fourteen. He speaks of his loss with the un- 
 affected simplicity of natural grief, yet with 
 the faith of a man who had not the slightest 
 doubt into whose hands his treasure was 
 passing. Perfect nature and perfect piety. 
 Neither one emotion nor the other disguised 
 or suppressed. 
 
 You will have gathered something, I hope, 
 from these faint sketches, of what Luther was ; 
 you will be able to see how far he deserves to 
 be called by our modern new lights, a Philistine 
 or a heretic. We will now return to the subject 
 with which we began, and resume, in a general 
 conclusion, the argument of these Lectures.
 
 ^6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 In part, but not wholly, it can be done in 
 Luther's words. 
 
 One regrets that Luther did not know 
 Erasmus better, or knowing him, should not 
 have treated him with more forbearance. 
 
 Erasmus spoke of him for the most part with 
 kindness. He interceded for him, defended 
 him, and only with the utmost reluctance was 
 driven into controversy with him. 
 
 Luther, on the other hand, saw in Erasmus 
 a man who was false to his convictions ; who 
 played with truth ; who, in his cold, sarcastic 
 scepticism, believed in nothing — scarcely even 
 in God. He was unaware of his own obliga- 
 tions to him, for Erasmus was not a person 
 who would trumpet out his own good deeds. 
 
 Thus Luther says : — 
 
 ' All you who honor Christ, I pray you hate 
 Erasmus. He is a scoffer and a mocker. He 
 speaks in riddles ; and jests at Popery and 
 Gospel, and Christ and God, with his uncertain 
 speeches. He might have served the Gospel 
 if he would, but, Hke Judas, he has betrayed 
 the Son of Man with a kiss. He is not with 
 us, and he is not with our foes ; and I say with 
 Joshua, Choose whom ye will serve. He thinks 
 we should trim to the times, and hang our 
 cloaks to the wind. He is himself his own 
 first object ; and as he lived, lie died. 
 
 ' I take Erasmus to be the worst enemy that 
 Christ has had for a thousand years. Intellect 
 does not understand religion, and when it 
 comes to the things of God, it laughs at them. 
 He scoffs like Lucian, and by-and-by he will 
 say. Behold, how are these among the saints 
 whose life we counted for folly. 
 
 ' I bid you, therefore, take heed of Erasmus. 
 He treats theolpgy as a fool's jest, and the 
 Gospel as a fable good for the ignorant to 
 believe.' 
 
 Of Erasmus personally, much of this was 
 unjust and untrue. Erasmus knew many 
 things which it would have been well for
 
 ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 
 
 97 
 
 Luther to linve known ; and, as a man, he was 
 better than his principles. 
 
 But if for the name of Erasmus we substitute 
 the theory of human things which Erasmus rep- 
 resented, between that creed and Luther 
 there is, and must be, an eternal antagonism. 
 
 If to be true in heart and just in act are the 
 first qualities necessary for the elevation of 
 humanity — if without these all else is worthless, 
 intellectual culture cannot give what intellectual 
 culture does not require or imply. You cultivate 
 the plant which has already life ; you will 
 waste your labor in cultivating a stone. The 
 moral life is the counterpart of the natural, 
 alike mysterious in its origin, and alike visible 
 only in its efTects. 
 
 Intellectual gifts are like gifts of strength, 
 or wealth, or rank, or worldly power — splendid 
 instruments if nobly used — but requiring 
 qualities to use them nobler and better than 
 themselves. 
 
 The rich man may spend his wealth on vulgar 
 luxury. The clever man may live for intellectual 
 enjoyment — refined enjoyment it may be — but 
 enjoyment still, and still centering in self. 
 
 If the spirit of Erasmus had prevailed, it 
 would have been with modern Europe as with 
 the Roman Empire in its decay. The educated 
 would have been mere sceptics ; the multitude 
 would have been sunk in superstition. In both 
 alike all would have perished which deserves 
 the name of manliness. 
 
 And this leads me to the last observation 
 that I have to make to you. In the sciences, 
 the philosopher leads ; the rest of us take on 
 trust what he tells us. The spiritual progress 
 of mankind has followed the opposite course. 
 Each forward step has been made first among 
 the people, and the last converts have been 
 among the learned. 
 
 The explanation is not far to look for. In 
 the sciences there is no temptation of self- 
 hiterest to mislead. In matters which affect
 
 98 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 life and conduct, the interests and prejudices 
 of the cultivated classes are enlisted on the 
 side of the existing order of things, and their 
 better trained faculties and larger acquire- 
 ments serve only to find them argument for be- 
 lieving what they wish to believe. 
 
 Simpler men have less to lose ; they come 
 more in contact with the realities of life, and 
 they learn wisdom in the experience of suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 Thus it was that when the learned and the 
 wise turned away from Christianity, the fisher- 
 men of the Galilean lake listened, and a new 
 life began for mankind. A miner's son con- 
 verted Germany to the Reformation, The 
 London artisans and the peasants of Bucking- 
 hamshire went to the stake for doctrines which 
 were accepted afterwards as a second revela- 
 tion. 
 
 So it has been ; so it will be to the end, 
 When a great teacher comes again upon the 
 earth, he will find his first disciples where 
 Christ found them and Luther fopnd them. 
 Had Luther written for the learned, the words 
 which changed the face of Europe would have 
 slumbered in impotence on the bookshelves. 
 
 In appealing to the German nation, you will 
 agree, I think, with me, that he did well and 
 not ill ; you will not sacrifice his great name to 
 the disdain of a shallow philosophy, or to the 
 grimacing of a dead superstition^ whose ghost 
 is struggling out of its gravo.
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 Bencdicti de Sfiiioza Tractattis de Deo et Homine ejusqm 
 Eelicitate Lhieainctnit, atipie Annotationes ad Tracta- 
 turn Thcolo^ico-Polilictt7n, edidit ct illustravit Edwar- 
 DUS BoEHMER. Halae ad Salam. J. F. Lippert.-i852. 
 
 This little volume is one evidence- among 
 many of the interest which continues to be felt 
 by the German students in Spinoza. The actual 
 merit of the book itself is little or nothing ; but 
 it shows the industry with which they are glean- 
 ing among the libraries of Holland for any 
 traces of him which they can recover ; and the 
 smallest fragments of his writings are acquir- 
 ing that factitious importance which attaches 
 to the most insignificant relics of acknowledged 
 greatness. Such industry cannot ^e otherwise 
 than laudable, but we do not think it at present 
 altogether wisely directed. Nothing is likely 
 to be brought to light which will further illus- 
 trate Spinoza's philosophy. He himself spent 
 the better part of his life in clearing his lan- 
 guage of ambiguities ; and such earlier sketches 
 of his system as are supposed still to be exfant 
 in MS., and a specimen of which M. JBoehmer 
 believes himself to have discovered, contribute 
 only obscurity to what is in no need of addi- 
 tional difficulty. Of Spinoza's private history, 
 on the contrary, rich as it must have been, and 
 abundant traces of it as must be extant some- 
 where in his own and his friends' correspond- 
 ence, we know only enough to f.eel how vast a 
 
 * Weslminster Kevieiii, 1854.
 
 lOO HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 chasm remains to be filled. It is not often 
 that any man in this world lives a life so well 
 worth writing as Spinoza lived ; not for strik- 
 ing incidents or large events connected with it, 
 but because (and no sympathy with his peculiar 
 opinions disposes us to exaggerate his merit) 
 he was one of the very best men whom these 
 modern times have seen, Excommunicated, 
 disinherited, and thrown upon the world when 
 a mere boy to seek his livelihood, he resisted 
 the inducements which on all sides were urged 
 upon him to come forward in the world. He 
 refused pensions, legacies, money in many 
 forms ; he maintained himself with grinding 
 glasses for optical instruments, an art which 
 he had been taught in early life, and in which 
 he excelled the best workmen in Holland ; and 
 when he died, which was at the early age of 
 forty-four, the affection with which he was re- 
 garded showed itself singularly in the endorse- 
 ment of a tradesman's bill which was sent in 
 to his executors, in which he was described as 
 M. Spinoza of ' blessed memory.' 
 
 The account which remains of him we owe, 
 not to an admiring disciple, but to a clergy-- 
 man to whom his theories were detestable ; 
 and his biographer allows that the most malig- 
 nant scrutiny had failed to detect a blemish in 
 his character — that, except so far as his opin- 
 ions were blamable, he had lived to outward 
 appearance free from fault. We desire, in what 
 we are going to say of him, to avoid offensive 
 collision with popular prejudices ; still less 
 shall we place ourselves in antagonism with 
 the earnest convictions of serious persons : our 
 business is to relate what Spinoza was, and 
 leave others to form their own conclusions. 
 But one lesson there does seem to lie in such 
 a life of such a man, — a lesson which he taught 
 equally by example and in word, — that wher- 
 ever there is genuine and thorough love for 
 good and goodness, no speculative superstruct- 
 ure of opinion can be so extravagant as to for-
 
 SPINOZA. 1 01 
 
 feit those graces which are promised, not to 
 clearness of intellect, but to purity of heart. 
 In Spinoza's own beautiful language, — ' Justilia 
 et caritas unicum et certissinnnn vera; fidei 
 Catholicai signuni est, et veri Spiritiis Sancti 
 fructus : et ubicumque haic reperiuntur, ibi 
 Chrislus re vera est, et ubicumque h;x;c desuut 
 deest Christus : solo namque Christi Spiritu 
 duci possumus in amorem justilia^ et caritatis.' 
 We may deny his conclusions ; we may con- 
 sider his system of thought preposterous and 
 even pernicious; but we cannot refuse him the 
 respect which is the right of all sincere and 
 honorable men. Wherever and on whatever 
 questions good men are found ranged on oppo- 
 site sides, one of three alternatives is always 
 true : either the points of disagreement are 
 purely speculative and of no moral importance 
 — or there is a misunderstanding of language, 
 and the same thing is meant under a difference 
 of words — or else the real truth is something 
 different from what is held by any of the dis- 
 putants, and each is representing some impor- 
 tant element which the others ignore or forget. 
 In either case, a certain calmness and good 
 temper is necessar}-, if we would understand 
 what we disagree with, or would oppose it with 
 success ; Spinoza's influence over European 
 thought is too great to be denied or set aside ; 
 and if his doctrines be false in part, or false al- 
 together, we cannot do their work more surely 
 than by calumny or misrepresentation — a niost 
 obvious truism, which no one now living will 
 deny in words, and which a century or two 
 hence perhaps will begin to produce same effect 
 upon the popular judgment. 
 
 Ucaring it in mind, then, ourselves, as far as 
 we are able, we propose to examine the Pan- 
 theistic philosophy in the first and only logical 
 form which as yet it has assumed. Whatever 
 may have been the case with Spinoza's disci- 
 ples, in the author of this system there was no 
 unwillingness ; to look closely at it, or to follow
 
 I02 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 it out its conclusions and whatever other merits 
 or .demerits belong to him, at least he has done 
 as much as with language can be done to make 
 himself thoroughly understood. 
 
 And yet, both in friend and enemy alike, 
 there has been a reluctance to see Spinoza as 
 he really was. The Herder and Schleierma- 
 cher school have claimed him as a Christian — 
 position which no little disguise was necessary 
 to make tenable ; the orthodox Protestants 
 and Catholics have called him an Atheist — 
 which is still more extravagant ; and even a 
 man like Novalis, who, it might have been ex- 
 pected, would have had something reasonable 
 to say, could find no better name for him than 
 a Gott trunkner Mami — a God intoxicated 
 man : an expression which has been quoted 
 by everybody who has since written upon the 
 subject, and which is about as inapplicable as 
 those laboriously pregnant sayings usually are. 
 With due allowance for exaggeration, such a 
 name would describe tolerably the Transcen- 
 dental mystics, a Toler, a Boehmen, or a Swe- 
 denborg ; but with what justice can it be ap- 
 plied to the cautious, methodical Spinoza, who 
 carried his thoughts about with him for twenty 
 years, deliberately shajDingthem, and who gave 
 them at last to the world in a form more severe 
 than with such subjects had ever been so much 
 as attempted before .'' With him, as with all 
 great men, there was no effort after sublime 
 emotions. He was a plain, practical person ; 
 his object in philosophy was only to find a rule 
 by which to govern his own actions and his 
 own judgment; and his treatises contain no 
 more than the conclusions at which he arrived 
 in this purely personal search, with the grounds 
 on which he rested them. 
 
 We cannot do better than follow his own ac- 
 count of himself as he has given it in the open- 
 ing of his unfinished Tract, ' Dc Emendatione 
 Intellcctus.* His language is very beautiful, 
 but it is elaborate and full ; and, as we have a.
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 103 
 
 long journey before us, we must be content to 
 epitomize it. 
 
 Looking round him on his entrance into life, 
 and asking himself what was his place and 
 business there, he turned for examples to his 
 fellow-men, and found little that he could 
 venture to imitate. He observed them all in 
 their several ways governing themselves by 
 their different notions of what they thought 
 desirable ; while these notions themselves were 
 resting on no more secure foundation than a 
 vague, inconsistent experience : the experience 
 of one was not the experience of another, and 
 thus men were all, so to say, rather playing ex- 
 periments with life than living, and the larger 
 portion of them miserably failing. Their mis- 
 takes arose, as it seemed to Spinoza, from in- 
 adequate knowledge ; things which at one time 
 looked desirable disapi^ointed expectation when 
 obtained, and the wiser course concealed itself 
 often under an uninviting exterior. He de- 
 sired to substitute certainty for conjecture, and 
 to endeavor to find, by some surer method, 
 where the real good of man actually lay. We 
 must remember that he had been brought up 
 a Jew, and had been driven out of the Jews' 
 communion ; his mind was therefore in con- 
 tact wilh the bare facts of life, with no creed 
 or system lying between them and himself as 
 the interpreter of experience. He was thrown 
 on his own resources to find his way for him- 
 self, and the question was, how to find it. Of 
 all forms of human thought, one onh^, he re- 
 flected, would admit of the certainty which he 
 required. If certain knowledge were attain- 
 able at all, it must be looked for under the 
 matliematical or demonstrative method ; by 
 tracing from ideas clearly conceived the con- 
 sequences which were formally involved in 
 them. What, then, were these ideas — these 
 vcrcc idea;., as he calls them — and how were 
 lf"_y to be obtained ? If they were to serve as
 
 I04 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the axioms of his system, they must be self- 
 evident truths, of which no proof was required; 
 and the illustration which he gives of the char- 
 acter of such ideas is ingenious and Platonic. 
 In order to produce any mechanical instru- 
 ment, Spinoza says, we require others with 
 which to manufacture it ; and others again to 
 manufacture those ; and it would seem thus as 
 if the process must be an infinite one, and as 
 if nothing could ever be made at all. Nature, 
 however, has provided for the difficulty in creat- 
 ing of her own accord certain rude instruments 
 with the help of which we can make others 
 better ; and others again with the help of those. 
 And so he thinks it must be with the mind; 
 there must be somewhere similar original in- 
 struments provided also as the first outfit of 
 intellectual enterprise. To discover these, he 
 examines the various senses in which men are 
 said to know anything, and he finds that they 
 resolve themselves into three, or, as he else- 
 where divides it, four. 
 We know a thing — 
 
 i. Ex mero auditu : because we have 
 heard it from some ])erson or persons 
 whose veracity we have no reason to 
 question. 
 ^ ii. Ab experietitia vaga : from general 
 experience : for instance, all facts or 
 phenomena which come to us through 
 our senses as phenomena, but of the 
 causes of which we are ignorant. 
 
 2. We know a thing as we have correctly 
 convinced the laws of its phenomena, and see 
 them following in their sequence in the order 
 of nature. 
 
 3. Finally, we know a thing, ex scieiitia in- 
 iiiiiivdi which alone is absolutely clear and 
 certain. 
 
 To illustrate these divisions, suppose it be 
 required to find a fourth proportional which 
 shall stand to the third of three numbers as
 
 SPINOZA. 105 
 
 the second does to the first. The merchant's 
 clerk knows his rule ; he multiplies the second 
 into the third and divides by the first. He 
 neither knows nor cares to know why the restdt 
 is the number which he seeks, but he has 
 learnt the fact that it is so, and he remembers 
 it. 
 
 A person a little wiser has tried the experi- 
 ment in a variety of simple cases ; he has dis- 
 covered the rule by induction, but still does 
 not understand it. 
 
 A third has mastered the laws of proportion 
 mathematically, as he has found them in Euclid 
 or other geometrical treatise. 
 
 A fourth, with the plain numbers of 1,2, and 
 3, sees for himself by simple intuitive force that 
 I : 2=3 :6. 
 
 Of these several kinds of knowledge, the 
 third and fourth alone deserve to be called 
 knowledge, the others being no more than 
 opinions more or less justly founded. The last 
 is the only real insight, although the third, 
 being exact in its form, may be depended upon 
 as a basis of certainty. Under this last, as 
 Spinoza allows, nothing except the very sim- 
 plest truths, 71011 nisi simpiicissimce vcritates^ can 
 be perceived ; but, such as they are, they are 
 the foundation of all after-science ; and the 
 true ideas, the vcrcs idece, which are appre- 
 hended by this faculty of intuition, are the 
 primitive instruments with which nature has 
 furnished us. If we ask for a test by. which 
 to distinguish them, he has none to give us. 
 ' Veritas,' he says to his friends, in answer 
 to their question, ' Veritas index sui est et 
 falsi. Veritas se ipsam patefacit.' All orig- 
 inal truths are of such a kind that they cannot 
 without absurdity even be conceived to be 
 false ; the opposites of them are contradictions 
 in terms. — ' Ut sciam me scire, necessario 
 (lebeo prius scire. Hinc [latet quod certitude 
 nihil est proiter ipsam essentiam objectivam. 
 . . . Cum itaque Veritas nuUo egeat signo, sed
 
 lo6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 sufficiat habere essentiam rerum objectivam, 
 aut, quod idem est, ideas, ut omne tollatur 
 dubium ; bine sequitur quod vera non est 
 methodus, signum veritatis quajrere post ac- 
 quisitionem idearum ; sed quod vera methodus 
 est via, ut ipsa Veritas, aut essentia objective 
 rerum, aut ide.ne (omnia ilia idem significant) 
 debito ordine qurerantur.' {De Emend. Inidl.) 
 Spinoza will scarcely carry with him the 
 reasoner of the nineteenth century in arguments 
 like these. When we remember the thousand 
 conflicting opinions, the truth of which their 
 several advocates have a*s little doubted as they 
 have doubted their own existence, we require 
 some better evidence than a mere feeling of 
 certainty ; and Aristotle's less pretending canon 
 promises a safer road. ""O Trao-t Sokci, ' what all 
 men think,' says Aristotle, rovro etvai c/xi/Acy, 
 ' this we say is,' — ' and if you will not have this 
 to be a fair ground of conviction, you will 
 scarcely find one which will serve you better. 
 We are to see, however what these idcce are 
 which are offered to us as self-evident. Of 
 course, if they are self-evident, if they do 
 produce conviction, nothing more is to be 
 said; but it does, indeed, appear strange to 
 us that Spinoza was not staggered as to the 
 validity of his canon, when his friends, every 
 one of them, so floundered and stumbled 
 among what he regarded as his simplest pro- 
 positions ; when he found them, in spite of all 
 that he could say, requiring endless signa veri- 
 tatis, and unable for along time even to under- 
 stand their meaning, far less to ' recognize them 
 as elementary certainties.' Modern readers 
 may, perhaps, be more fortunate. We pro- 
 duce at length the definitions and axioms of 
 the first book of the ' Ethica,' and they may 
 judge for themselves : — 
 
 DKFINiriONS. 
 
 I. Uy a thing whicli is ouis.i siii, its own cniisc, I mean 
 a thing the essence ot which involves the existence of it,
 
 SPINOZA. 107 
 
 or a thing which cannot be conceived except as exist- 
 
 iiic. 
 
 2. I call a thing finite, siio genere, when it can be lim- 
 ited by another (or others) of the same nature— ^. .i^. a 
 given body is called finite, because we can always con- 
 ceive another body enveloping it ; but body is not 
 limited bv thought, nor thought by body. 
 
 3. I?y substance I mean what exists in itself and is 
 conceived bv itself , the conception of which, that is, 
 does not involve the conception of anything else as the 
 
 cause it. ... 
 
 4. By attribute I mean whatever the intellect perceives 
 of substance as constituting the essence of substance. 
 
 5. Mode is an affection of substance, or is that which 
 is iii something else, by and through which it is con- 
 ceived. 
 
 6. God is a being absolutely infinite ; a substance con- 
 sisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses 
 His eternal and infinite essence. 
 
 EXPLANATION. 
 
 I say absolutely infinite, not infinite s7to geiiere—iox of 
 what is infinite sno genere only, the attributes are not in- 
 finite but finite ; whereas what is infinite absolutely 
 contains in its own essence everything by which sub- 
 stance can be expressed, and which involves no im- 
 possibility. 
 
 7. That thing is ' free ' which exists by the sole neces- 
 sity of its own nature, and is determined in its opera- 
 tion by itself only. That is ' not free ' which is called 
 into existence by something else, and is determined in 
 its operation according to a fixed and definite method. 
 
 8. Eternity is existence itself, conceived as following 
 necessarily and solely from the definition of the thing 
 which is eternal. 
 
 EXPLANATION. 
 
 Because existence of this kind is conceived as an 
 eternal verity, and, therefore, cannot be explained by 
 duration, even though the duration be without begin- 
 ning or end. 
 
 'o 
 
 So far the definitions ; then follow the 
 
 AXIOMS. 
 
 1. All things that exist, exist either themselves or in 
 virtue of something else. 
 
 2. What wc cannot conceive of as existing m virtue of 
 something else, we must conceive through and in itself.
 
 lo8 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 3. From a given cause an effect necessarily follows, 
 and if tliere be no given cause no effect can follow. 
 
 4. Things which have notliing in common with each 
 other cannot be understood through one another — i. e. 
 the conception of one does not involve the conception of 
 the other. 
 
 5. To understand an effect implies that we under- 
 stand the cause of it. 
 
 6. A true idea is one which cortesponds with its 
 ideate. 
 
 7. The essence of anything which can be conceived 
 as non-exislent does not involve existence. 
 
 Such is btir metaphysical outfit of simple 
 ideas with which to start upbn olir enterprise 
 of learning. The larger number of them, so 
 far from being simple, must be absolutely with- 
 out meaning to persons whose minds are un- 
 disciplined in metaphysical abstraction ; they 
 become only mtelligible propositions as we 
 look back upon them with the light of the sys- 
 tem which they are supposed to contain. 
 
 Although, however, we may justly quarrel 
 with siich unlooked-for difficulties, the import- 
 ant question, after all, is not of the obscurity 
 of these axioms, but of their truth. Many 
 things in all the sciences are obscure to an un- 
 practised understanding, which are ttue enough 
 and clear enough to people acquainted with the 
 subjects, and they may be fairly made the 
 foundations of a scientific system, although 
 rudimentary students must be contented to ac- 
 cept them upon faith. Of course, also, it is 
 entirely competent to Spinoza, or to any one, 
 to define the terms which he intends to use 
 just as he pleases, provided it be understood 
 that any conclusions which he derives out of 
 them apply only to the ideas so defined, and 
 not to any supj)osed object existing which cor- 
 responds with them. Euclid defines his trian- 
 gles and circles, and discovers that to figures 
 so described, certain properties previously un- 
 known may be proved to belong. But as in 
 nature there are no such things as triangles 
 and circles exactly answering the definition, his
 
 SPINOZA. log 
 
 conclusions, as applied to actually existing ob- 
 jects, are either not true at all or only proxi- 
 mately so. Whether it be possible to bridge 
 over the gulf between existing things and the 
 abstract conception of them, as Spinoza at- 
 tempts to do, we shall presently see. It is a 
 royal road to certainty if it be a practicable 
 one; but we cannot say that we ever met any 
 one who could say honestly Spinoza's reason- 
 ings had convinced him ; and power of demon- 
 stration, like all other pov.'crs, can be judged 
 only by its effects. Does it prove ? does it 
 produce conviction ? If not, it is nothing. 
 
 We need not detain our readers among these 
 abstractions. The power of Spinozism does 
 not lie so remote from ordinary appreciation 
 or we should long ago have heard the last of it. 
 Like all other systems which have attracted 
 followers, it addresses itself, not to the logical 
 intellect, but to the imagination, which it 
 affects to set aside. We refuse to submit to 
 the demonstrations by which it thrusts itself 
 upon our reception ; but regarding it as a 
 whole, as an attempt to explain the nature of 
 the world of which we are a part, we can still 
 ask ourselves how far the attempt is success- 
 ful. Some account of these things we know 
 that there must be, and the curiosity which 
 asks the question regards itself, of course, as 
 competent in some degree to judge of the an- 
 swer to it. 
 
 Before proceeding, however, to regard this 
 philosophy in the aspect in which it is really 
 powerful, we must clear our wny through the 
 fallacy of the method. 
 
 The system is evolved in a series of theo- 
 rems in severely demonstrative order out of 
 the definitions and axioms which we have 
 translated. To propositions i — 6 we have 
 nothing to object ; they will not, probably, 
 convey any very clear ideas, but they are so 
 far purely abstract, and seem to follow (as 
 far as we can speak of ' following ' in such
 
 no HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 subjects) by fair reasonins^. * Substance 
 is prior in nature to its al'fections.' ' Sub- 
 stances with different attributes have noth- 
 notlrlng in common,' and, therefore, ' one can- 
 not be the cause of the other.' ' Things really 
 distinct are distinguished bv difference either of 
 attribute or mode (there being nothing else by 
 which they can be distinguished), and, there- 
 fore, because things modally distinguished do 
 not qucc substance dilTer from one another, 
 there cannot be more than one substance of 
 the same attribute. Therefore (let us remind 
 our readers that we are among what Spinoza 
 calls notio?ics siinplicissimas), since there can- 
 not be two substances of the same attribute, 
 and substances of different attributes cannot 
 be the cause one of the other, it follows that 
 no substance can be produced by another 
 substance.' 
 
 The existence of substance, he then con- 
 cludes, is involved in the nature of the thing 
 itself. Substance exists. It does and must. 
 We ask, why ? and we are answered, because 
 there is nothing capable of producing it, and 
 therefore it is self-caused — /. e. by the first de- 
 finition the essence of it implies existence as 
 part of the idea. It is astonishing that Spinoza 
 should not have seen that he assumes the fact 
 that substance does exist in order to prove 
 that it must. If it cannot be produced and 
 exists, then, of course, it exists in virtue of its 
 own nature. But supposing it does not exist, 
 supposing it is all a delusion, the proof falls to 
 pieces. We have to fall back on the facts of 
 experience, on the obscure and unscientific 
 certainty that the thing which we call the 
 world, and the personalities which we call our- 
 selves, are a real substantial something, be- 
 fore we find ground of any kind to stand upon. 
 Conscious of the infirmity of his demonstra- 
 tion, Spinoza winds round it and round it, add- 
 ing proof to proof, but never escaping the 
 same vicious circle : substance exists because it
 
 SPINOZA. 1 1 1 
 
 exists, and the ultimate experience of existence, 
 so far from being of that clear kind which can 
 be accepted as an axiom, is the most confused 
 of all our sensations. What is existence ? and 
 what is that something which we say exists ? 
 Thinsrs — essences — existences ! these are but 
 the vague names with which faculties, con- 
 structed only to deal with conditional pheno- 
 mena, disguise their incapacity. The world in 
 the Hindoo legend was supported upon the 
 back of the tortoise. It was a step between 
 the world and nothingness, and served to cheat 
 the imagination with ideas of a fictitious rest- 
 ing-place. 
 
 If any one affirms (says Spinoza) that he has a clear, 
 distinct — that is to say, a true— idea of substance, but 
 that nevertheless he is uncertain whether any such sub- 
 stance exist, it is the same as if he were to affirm that 
 he had a true idea, but yet was uncertain whether it was 
 not false. Or if he says that substance can be created, 
 it is like saying that a false idea can become a true 
 idea — as absurd a thing as it is possible to conceive; and 
 therefore the existence of substance, as well as the 
 essence of it, must be acknowledged as an eteranl 
 verity. 
 
 It is again the same story. Spinoza speaks 
 of a clear idea of substance ; but he has not 
 proved that such an idea is within the compass 
 of the mind. A man's own notion that he sees 
 clearly, is no proof that he really sees clearly ; 
 and the distinctness of a definition in itself is 
 no evidence that it corresponds adequately 
 with the object of it. No doubt a man who 
 professes to have an idea of substance as an 
 existing thing, cannot doubt, as long as he has 
 it, that substance so exists. This is merely to 
 say that as long as a man is certain of this or 
 that fact, he has no doubt of it. But neither 
 his certainty nor Spinoza's will be of any use 
 to a man who has no such idea, and who can- 
 not recognize the lawfulness of the method by 
 which it is arrived at. 
 
 From the self-existing substance it is a short
 
 1 1 2 HISTORICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 Step to the existence of God. After a few more 
 propositions, following one another with the 
 same kind of coherence, we arrive successively 
 at the conclusion that there is but one sub- 
 stance ; that this substance being necessarily 
 existent, it is also infinite ; that it is there- 
 fore identical with the Being who had been 
 previously defined as the ' Ens absolute per- 
 fectum.' 
 
 Demonstrations of this kind were the charac- 
 teristics of the period. Descartes had set the 
 example of constructing them, and was followed 
 by Cudworth, Clarke, Berkeley, and many 
 others besides Spinoza. The inconclusiveness 
 of the method may perhaps be observed most 
 readily in the strangely opposite conceptions 
 formed by all these writers of the nature of 
 that Being whose existence they nevertheless 
 agreed, by the same process, to gather each 
 out of their ideas. It is important, however, 
 to examine it carefully, for it is the very key- 
 stone of the Pantheistic system. 
 
 As stated by Descartes, the argument 
 stands something as follows : — God is an all- 
 perfect lieing, — perfection is the idea which we 
 form of him : existence is a mode of perfection, 
 and therefore God exists. The sophism we 
 are told is only apparent. Existence is part of 
 the idea — as much involved in it as the equality 
 of all lines drawn from the centre to the cir- 
 cumference of a circle is involved in the idea 
 of a circle, A non-existent all-perfect Being is 
 as inconceivable as a quadrilateral triangle. 
 
 It is sometimes answered that in this way we 
 may prove the existence of anything — Titans, 
 Chima;ras, or Olympian Gods ; we have but to 
 define them as existing, and the proof is com- 
 plete. But, this objection summarily set aside ; 
 none of those beings are by hypothesis abso- 
 lutely perfect, and, therefore, of their existence 
 we can conclude nothing. With greater justice, 
 however, we may say, that of such terms as 
 perfection and existence we know too little to
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 "3 
 
 speculate. Existence may be an imperfection 
 for all we can tell ; we know nothing about 
 the matter. Such arguments are but endless 
 pditioncs principii — like the self-devouring ser- 
 pent, resolving themselves into nothing. We 
 wander round and round them, in the hope of 
 finding some tangible point at which we can 
 seize their meaning ; but we are presented 
 everywhere \\\\.\\ the same impracticable sur- 
 face, from which our grasp glides off in- 
 effectual. 
 
 Spinoza himself, however, obviously felt an 
 intense conviction of the validity of his argu- 
 ment. His opinion is stated with sufficient 
 distinctness in one of his letters. ' Nothing is 
 more clear,' he writes to his pupil De Vries, 
 ' than that, on the one hand, everything which 
 exists is conceived by or under some attribute 
 or other ; that the more reality, therefore, a 
 being or thing has, the more attributes must be 
 assigned to it ; ' ' and conversely ' (and this he 
 calls his argHmc7itu7n palmarium in proof of the 
 existence of God), ' the more attributes I assign 
 to a thing, the more I am forced to conceive it as 
 existing.' Arrange the argument how we 
 please, we shall never get it into a form clearer 
 than this : — The more perfect a thing is, the 
 more it must exist (as if existence could admit 
 of more or less) ; and therefore the all-perfect 
 Being must exist absolutely. There is no flaw, 
 we are told, in the reasoning ; and if we are 
 not convinced, it is from the confused habits 
 of our own minds. 
 
 Some persons may think that all arguments 
 are good when on the right side, and that it is 
 a gratuitous impertinence to quarrel with the 
 proofs of a conclusion which it is so desirable 
 that all should receive. As yet, however, we 
 are but inadequately acquainted with the idea 
 attached by Spinoza to the word perfection ; 
 and if we commit ourselves to his logic, it may 
 lead us out to unexpected consequences. All 
 such reasonings presume, as a first condition,
 
 114 
 
 IIISTOKJCAL ESSAYS. 
 
 that we men possess faculties capable of deal- 
 ing with absolute ideas ; that we can under- 
 stand the nature of thinsrs external to ourselves 
 as they really are in their absolute relation to 
 one another, independent of our own concep- 
 tion. The question immediately before us is 
 one which can never be determined. The 
 truth which is to be proved is one which we 
 already believe ; and if, as we believe also, our 
 conviction of God's existence is like that of 
 our own existence, intuitive and immediate, 
 the grounds of it can never adequately be 
 analyzed ; we cannot say exactly what they 
 are, and therefore we cannot say what they are 
 not. Whatever we receive intuitive]}^ we 
 receive without proof ; and stated as a naked 
 proposition, it must involve a petitio principii. 
 We have a right, however, to object at once to 
 an artrument in which the conclusion is more 
 obvious then the premises ; and if it lead on 
 to other consequences which we disapprove in 
 themselves, we reject it without difficulty or 
 hesitation. We ourselves believe that God is, 
 because we experience the control of a ' power ' 
 which is stronger than we ; and our instincts 
 teach us so much of the nature of that power 
 as our own relation to it requires us to know. 
 God is the being to whom our obedience is 
 due ; and the perfections which we attribute 
 to Him are those moral perfections which are 
 the proper object of our reverence. Strange 
 to say, the perfections of Spinoza, which appear 
 so clear to him, are without any moral character 
 whatever : and for men to speak of the justice 
 of God, he tells us, is but to see in Him a re- 
 flection of themselves ; as if a triangle were 
 to conceive of Him as anincJitcr triaJii:^ularis, 
 or a circle to give Him tiie property of circu- 
 larity." 
 
 Having arrived at existence, we next find 
 ourselves among ideas, which at least are in- 
 telligible, if the character of them is as far re- 
 moved as before from the circle of ordinary
 
 SPINOZA. 115 
 
 thought. Nothing exists except substance, 
 the attributes under which substance is ex- 
 pressed, and the modes or affections of those 
 attributes. There is but one substance self- 
 existent, eternal, necessary, and that is the 
 absolutely Infinite all-perfect Being. Sub- 
 stance cannot produce substance, and there- 
 fore there is no such thing as creation ; and 
 everything which exists is either an attribute 
 of God, or an alTection of some attribute of 
 Him, modified in this manner or in that. Be- 
 yond Him there is nothing, and nothing like 
 Him or equal to Him ; He therefore alone in 
 Himself is absolutely free, uninfluenced by any- 
 thing, for nothing is except Himself ; and from 
 Him and from His supreme power, essence, in- 
 telligence (for these words mean the same 
 thing), all things have necessarily fiowed, and 
 will and must flow forever, in the same man- 
 ner as from the nature of a triangle it follows, 
 and has followed, and will follow from eternity 
 to eternity, that the angles of it- are equal to 
 two right angles. It would seem as if the an- 
 alogy were but an artificial play upon words, 
 and that it was only metaphorically that in 
 mathematical demonstration we speak of one 
 thing as following from another. The proper- 
 ties of a curve or a triangle are what they are 
 at all times, and the sequence is merely in the 
 order in which they are successively known to 
 ourselves. But .according to Spinoza, this is 
 the only true sequence ; and what we call the 
 universe, and all the series of incidents in earth 
 or planet, are involved formally and mathemat- 
 ically in the definition of God. 
 
 Each attribute is infinite suo getierc ; and it 
 is time that we should know distinctly the 
 meaning which Spinoza attaches to that impor- 
 tant word. Out of the infinite number of the 
 attributes of God, two onl)', he says, are known 
 to us — 'extension,' and 'thought,' or ' mind.' 
 Duration, even though it be without beginning 
 or end, is not an attribute ; it is not even a real
 
 Ii6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 thing. Time has no relation to Being, con- 
 ceived mathematically ; it would be absurd to 
 speak of circles or triangles as any older to- 
 day than they were at the beginning of the 
 world. These and everything of the same kind 
 are conceived, as Spinoza rightly says, sub 
 quadam specie ceteniitatis. But extension, or 
 substance extended, and thought, or substance 
 perceiving, are real, absolute, and objective. 
 We must not confound extension with body; 
 for though body be a mode of extension, there 
 is extension which is not body, and it is infinite 
 because we cannot conceive it to be limited 
 except by itself — or, in other words, to be lim- 
 ited at all. And as it is with extension, so it 
 is with mind, which is also infinite with the in- 
 finity of its object. Thus there is no such 
 thing as creation, or no beginning or end. All 
 things of which our faculties are cognizant un- 
 der one or other of these attributes are pro- 
 duced from God, and in Him they have their 
 being, and without Him they would cease to 
 be. 
 
 Proceeding by steps of rigid demonstration 
 (and most admirably indeed is the form of the 
 philosophy adapted to the spirit of it), we learn 
 that God is the only causa libera ; that no 
 other thing or being has any power of self-de- 
 termination ; all moves by fixed laws of causa- 
 tion, motive upon motive, act upon act ; there 
 is no free will, and no. contingency ; and how- 
 ever necessary it may be for our incapacity to 
 consider future things as in a sense contingent 
 (see Iraclat. Thcol. l^olit. cap. iv. sec. 4), this 
 is but one of the thousand convenient de- 
 ceptions which v/e are obliged to employ with 
 ourselves. God is \\\(t causa immanens omnium ; 
 lie is not a personal being existing apart from 
 the universe ; but Himself in His own reality, 
 He is expressed in the universe, which is His 
 living garment. Keeping to the philosophical 
 language of the time, Spinoza preserves the 
 distinction between natura naturans and natura
 
 SPINOZA. 1 1 7 
 
 naturata. The first is being in itself the at- 
 tributes of substance as they are conceived 
 simply and alone ; the second is the infinite 
 series' of modifications which follow out of the 
 properties of these attributes. And thus all 
 which is, is what it is by an absolute necessity, 
 and could not have been other than it is. God 
 is free, because no causes external to Himself 
 have power over Him ; and as good men are 
 most free when most a law to themselves, so it 
 is no infringement on (iod's freedom to say 
 that He must have acted as he has acted, but 
 rather He is absolutely free because absolutely 
 a law Himself to Himself. 
 
 Here ends the first book of Spinoza's Ethics 
 — the book which contains, as we said, the no- 
 tioncs simplicissivias, and the primary and rudi- 
 mental deductions from them. His Dei natu- 
 ram, he says, in his lofty confidence, ej usque pro- 
 pridates cxplicui. But, as if conscious that his 
 method will never convince, he concludes this 
 portion of his subject with an analytical appen- 
 dix ; not to explain or apologize, but to show 
 us clearly, in practical detail, the position into 
 which he has led us. The root, we are told, 
 of all philosophical errors lies in our notion of 
 final causes ; we invert the order of nature, and 
 interpret God's action through our own ; we 
 speak of His intentions, as if He were a man ; 
 we assume that we are capable of measuring 
 them, and finally erect ourselves, and our own 
 interests, into the centre and criterion of all 
 things. Hence arises our notion of evil. If 
 the universe be what this philosophy has de- 
 scribed it, the perfection which it assigns to 
 God is extended to everything, and evil is of 
 course impossible ; there is no shortcoming 
 either in nature or in man ; each person and 
 each thing is exactly what it has the power to 
 be, and nothing more. But men imagining that 
 all things exist on their account, and perceiv- 
 ing their own interests, bodily and spiritual, 
 capable of being variously affected, have con-
 
 ii8 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ceived these opposite influences to result from 
 opposite and contradictory powers, and call 
 what contributes to their advantage good, and 
 whatever obstructs it, evil. For our conven- 
 ience we form generic conceptions of human 
 excellence, as archetypes after which to strive ; 
 and such of us as approach nearest to such 
 archetypes are supposed to be virtuous, and 
 those who are most remote from them to be 
 wicked, But such generic abstractions are but 
 entia imaginationis, and have no real existence. 
 In the eyes of God each thing is what it has 
 the means of being. There is no rebellion 
 against Him, and no resistance of His will ; 
 in truth, therefore, there neither is nor can be 
 such a thing as a bad action in the common 
 sense of the word. Actions are good or bad, 
 not in themselves, but as compared with the 
 nature of the agent ; what we censure in men, 
 we tolerate and even admire in animals ; and 
 as soon as we are aware of our mistake in as- 
 signing to man a power of free volition, our 
 notion of evil as a positive thing will cease to 
 exist. 
 
 If I am asked (concludes Spinoza) why then all man- 
 kind were not created by God, so as to be governed 
 solely by reason ? it was because, I reply, there was to 
 God no lack of matter to create all things from the 
 highest to the lowest grade of perfection ; or, to speak 
 more properly, because the laws of God's nature were 
 ample enough to suffice for the production of all tilings 
 which can be conceived by an Infinite Intelligence. 
 
 It is possible that readers who have followed 
 us so far will now turn away from a philosophy 
 which issues in such conclusions ; resentful, 
 perhaps, that it should have been ever laid 
 before them at all, in language so little ex- 
 pressive of aversion and . displeasure. We 
 must claim, however, in Spinoza's name, the 
 right which he claims for himself. His system 
 must be judged as a whole ; and whatever we 
 may think ourselves would be the moral effect
 
 SPTNOZA. J I (J 
 
 of such doctrines if they were generally re- 
 ceived, in his hands and in his heart they are 
 worked into maxims of the purest and loftiest 
 morality. And at least we are bound to re- 
 member that some account of this great mys- 
 tery of evil there must be , and although famili- 
 arity with commonly-received explanations may 
 disguise from us the difficulties with which 
 they too, as well as that of Spinoza, are em- 
 barrassed, such difhculties none the less exist. 
 The fact is the grand perplexity, and for our- 
 selves we acknowledge that of all theories 
 about it Spinoza's would appear to us the least 
 irrational, setting conscience, and the voice of 
 conscience, aside. The objections, with the 
 replies to them, are well drawn out in the cor- 
 respondence with William de Blyenburg. It 
 will be seen at once with how little justice the 
 denial of evil as a positive thing can be called 
 equivalent to denying it relatively to man, or 
 to confusing the moral distinctions between 
 virtue and vice. 
 
 We speak (writes Spinoza, in answer to Elyenburg, 
 who had urged something of the kind), we speak of this 
 or that man having done a wrong thing, when we com- 
 pare him with a general standard of humanity ; but in- 
 asmuch as God neither perceives things in such abstract 
 manner, nor forms to Himself such generic definitions, 
 and since there is no more reality in anything than God 
 has assigned to it, it follows, surely, that the absence of 
 good exists only in respect of man's understanding, not 
 in respect of God's. 
 
 If this be so, then (replies Blyenburg), bad men fulfil 
 God's will as well as good. 
 
 It is true (Spinoza answers) they fulfil it, yet not as 
 the good nor as well as the good, nor are they to be 
 compared with them. The better a thing or a person 
 be, the more there is in him of God's spirit, and the 
 more he expresses God's will ; while the bad, being 
 without that divine love which arises from the knowl- 
 edge of God, and through which alone we are called tin re- 
 spect of our understandings) his servants, are but as in- 
 struments in the hand of the artificer — they serve uncon- 
 sciously, and are consumed in their service. 
 
 Spinoza, after all, is but stating in philosoph-
 
 I20 HISTORICAL ESSAVS, 
 
 ical language the extreme doctrine of Grace; 
 and St. Paul, if we interpret his real belief by 
 the one passage so often quoted, in which he 
 compares us to ' clay in the hands of the potter, 
 who maketh one vessel to honor and another 
 to dishonor,' may be accused with justice of 
 having held the same opinion. If Calvinism 
 be pressed to its logical consequences, it either 
 becomes an intolerable falsehood, or it resolves 
 itself into the philosophy of Spinoza. It is 
 monstrous to call evil a positive thing, and to 
 assert, in the same breath, that God has pre- 
 determined it — to tell us that He has ordained 
 what He hates, and hates what He has or- 
 dained. It is incredible that we should be 
 without power to obey Him except through 
 His free grace, and yet be held responsible 
 for our failures when that grace has been 
 withheld. And it is idle to call a philosopher 
 sacrilegious who has but systematized the faith 
 which so many beieve, and cleared it of its 
 most hideous features. 
 
 Spinoza flinches from nothing, and disguises 
 no conclusions either from himself or from his 
 readers. We believe for ourselves that logic 
 has no business with such questions ; that the 
 answer to them lies in the conscience and not 
 in the intellect. Spinoza thinks otherv.'ise ; 
 and he is at least true to the guide which he 
 has chosen. JMyenburg presses him with in- 
 stances of monstrous crime, such as bring home 
 to the heart the natural horror of it. He speaks 
 of Nero's murder of Agripplna, and asks if God 
 can be called the cause of such an act as that. 
 
 God (replies Gpinoza, calmly) is the cause of all things 
 which have reality. If you can show that evil, errors, 
 crimes express any real things, I agree readily that God 
 is the cause of them ; but I conceive myself to have 
 proved that what constitutes the essence of evil is not a 
 real thing at all, and therefore that God cannot be the 
 cause of it. Nero's matricide was not a crime, in so far 
 :v:> it was a positive outward act. Orestes also killed his 
 mother; and we do not judge Orestes as we judge Nero. 
 The crime of the latter lay in his being without i)ity,
 
 SPINOZA 12 1 
 
 without obedience, without natural affection — none of 
 whicii things express any positive essence, but the al)- 
 sence of it ; and therefore God was not the cause of 
 these, although He was the cause of the act and the in- 
 tention. 
 
 Lut once for all (he adds), this aspect of things will 
 remain intolerable and unintelligible as long as the com- 
 mon notions of free will remain unremoved. 
 
 And of course, and we shall all confess it, if 
 these notions are as false as Spinoza supposes 
 them — if we have no power to be anything but 
 what we are, there neither is nor can be such 
 a thing as moral evil ; and what we call crimes 
 will no more involve a violation of the will of 
 God, they will no more impair His moral 
 attributes if we suppose Him to have willed 
 them, than the same actions, whether of lust, 
 ferocity, or cruelty, in the inferior animals. 
 There will be but, as Spinoza says, an infinite 
 gradation in created things, the poorest life be- 
 ing more than none, the meanest active dispo- 
 sition something better than -inertia, and the 
 smallest exercise of reason better than mere 
 ferocity. ' The Lord has made all things for 
 Himself, even the wicked for the day of evil.' 
 
 The moral aspect of the matter will be more 
 clear as we proceed. We pause, however, to 
 notice one difficulty of a metaphysical kind, 
 which is best disposed of in passing. What- 
 ever obscurity may lie about the thing which 
 we call Time (philosophers not being able to 
 agree what it is, or whether properly it is any- 
 thing), the words past, present, future, do un- 
 doubtedly convey some definite idea with them : 
 things will be which are not yet, and have 
 been which are no longer. Now, if everything 
 which exists be a necessary mathematical con- 
 sequence from the nature or definition of the 
 One Being, we cannot see how there can be 
 any time but the present, or how past and 
 future have room for a meaning. God is, and 
 therefore all properties of Him are, just as 
 every property of a circle exists in it as soon 
 as the circle exists. We may if we- like for
 
 122 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 convenience, throw our theorems into the 
 future, and say, e. g: that if two lines in a 
 circle cut each other, the rectangle under the 
 parts of the one ?<:'/// equal tliat under the parts 
 of the other. But we only mean in reality that 
 these rectangles are equal ; and the/ufure re- 
 lates only to our knowledge of the fact. Al- 
 lowing, however, as much as we please, that 
 the condition of England a hundred years 
 hence lies already in embryo in existing causes, 
 it is a paradox to say that such condition exists 
 already in the sense in which the properties of 
 the circle exist ; and yet Spinoza insists on the 
 illustration. 
 
 It is singular that he should not have noticed 
 the difficulty ; not that either it or the answer 
 to it (which no doubt would have been ready 
 enough) are likely to interest any person except 
 metaphysicians, a class of thinkers, happily, 
 which is rapidly diminishing. 
 
 We proceed to more important matters — to 
 Spinoza's detailed theory of nature as exhibited 
 in man and in man's mind. His theory for its 
 bold ingenuity is by far the most remarkable 
 which on this dark subject has ever been pro- 
 posed. Whether we can believe it or not, is 
 another question ; yet undoubtedly it provides 
 a solution for every difficulty ; it accepts with 
 equal welcome the extremes of materialism and 
 of spiritualism : and if it be the test of the 
 soundness of a philosophy that it will explain 
 phenomena and reconcile contradictions, it is 
 hard to account for the fact that a system which 
 bears such a test so admirably, should neverthe- 
 less be so incredible as it is. 
 
 Most people have heard of the ' Harmonic 
 Prddtablie ' of Leibnitz ; it is borrowed without 
 acknowledgment from Spinoza, and adapted 
 to the Leibnitzian philosophy. 'Man,' says 
 Leibnitz, ' is composed of mind and body ; but 
 what is mind and what is bodv, and what is 
 their union } Substances so o]5posite in kind 
 cannot effect one another ; mind cannot act on
 
 SPINOZA. 1 23 
 
 matter, or matter upon mind ; and the appear- 
 ance of their reciprocal operation is an appear- 
 ance only and a delusion." A delusion so 
 general, however, required to be accounted 
 for; and Leibnitz accounted for it by suppos- 
 ing that God, in creating a world composed of 
 material and spiritual phenomena, ordained 
 that these several phenomena should proceed 
 from the beginning in parallel lines side by 
 side in a constantly corresponding harmony. 
 The sense of seeing results, it appears to us, 
 from the formation of a picture upon the 
 retina. The motion of the arm or the leg ap- 
 pears to result from an act of will ; but in 
 either case we mistake coincidence for causa- 
 tion. Between substances so wholly alien 
 there can be no intercommunion ; and we 
 only suppose that the object seen produces 
 the idea, and that the desire produces the 
 movement, because the phenomena of matter 
 and the phenomena of spirit are so contrived 
 as to flow always in the same order and 
 sequence. This hypothesis, as coming from 
 Leibnitz, has been, if not accepted, at least 
 listened to respectfully ; because while taking 
 it out of its proper place, he contrived to graft 
 it upon Christianity ; and succeeded, with a 
 sort of speculative legerdemain, in making it 
 appear to be in harmony with revealed religion. 
 Disguised as a philosophy of Predestination, 
 and connected with the Christian doctrine of 
 Retribution, it steps forward with a air of un- 
 conscious innocence, as if interfering with 
 nothing which Christians generally believe. 
 And yet, leaving as it does no larger scope for 
 liberty or responsibility than when in the 
 hands of Spinoza,* Leibnitz, in our opinion, 
 
 * Since these words were written a l)ook has ap- 
 peared in Paris bv an able disciple of Leibnitz, which al- 
 though it docs not lead us to modify the opinion ex- 
 pressed in them, yet obliges us to give our reasons for 
 speaking as we do, M. de Careil t has discovered in- 
 
 t Refutation I)udi!e de Spinoza. Par Leibnitz. /';-/- 
 cedce d'une Memoin; par Foucher r''^ <"arcil. Paris. 1854^
 
 124 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 has only succeeded in making it infinitely 
 more revolting. Spinoza could not regard the 
 bad man as an object of Divine anger and a 
 subject of retributory punishment. He was 
 
 the library at Hanover, a MS, in the handwriting of 
 Leibnitz, containing a scries of remarks on the book of 
 a certain John Wachter. It does not appear who this 
 John Wachter was, nor by what accident he came to 
 have so distinguished a critic. If we may judge by the 
 extracts at present before us, he seems to have been an 
 absurd and extravagant person, who had attempted to 
 combine the theology of the Cabbala with the very little 
 which he was able to understand of the philosophy of 
 Spinoza; and, as far as he is concerned, neither his 
 writings nor the reflections upon them are of interest to 
 any human being. The extravagance of Spinoza's fol- 
 lowers, however, furnished Leibnitz with an opportunity 
 of noticing the points on which he most disapproved of 
 Spinoza himself; these few notices M, de. Careil has 
 now for the first time published as The Refutation of 
 Spitiozii, by Leibnitz. They are exceedingly brief and 
 scanty ; and the writer of them would assuredly 
 have hesitated to describe an imperfect criticism by so 
 ambitious a title. The modern editor, however must 
 be alhiwed the privilege of a worshipper, and we will 
 iiot quarrel with him for an exaggerated estimate of 
 what his master had accomplished. We are indebted 
 to his enthusiasm for what is at least a curious dis- 
 covery, and we will not qualify the gratitude which he 
 has earned by industry and good will. A' the same 
 time, the notes themselves confirm the opinion whicl^ 
 we have always entertained, that Leibnitz did not un- 
 derstand Si)inoza. Leibnitz did not understand him, 
 and the followers of Leibnitz do not understand him 
 now. If he were no more than what he js described in 
 the book before us — if his metaphysics were ' miserable,' 
 if his philosophy was absurd, and he himself nothing 
 more than a second-rate disciple of Pescartcs — we can 
 assure M. dc Careil that we should long ago have heard 
 the last of him. 
 
 Tlicre must be something else, something very differ- 
 ent from this, to explain the position which he holds in 
 Germany, or the fascination which his writings exerted 
 over such minds as those of Lessing or of Gothe; 
 the fact of so enduring an influence is more than 
 a sufficient answer to mere depreciating criticism. 
 This, however, is not a point which there is any us 
 in pressing. Our present business is to justify the 
 two assertions which we have made. First, that 
 Leibnitz borrowed his TltcoryofthellnrmonieVreetablie 
 from Spinoza, without acknowledgment ; and, secondly, 
 that this theory is quite as inconsistent with religion as
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 »2S 
 
 not a Christian, and made no pretension to be 
 considered such ; and it did not occur to him 
 to rep^ard the actions of a being which, both 
 with Leibnitz aiul himself, is (to use liis own 
 
 is that of Spinoza, and only ditfers from it in disguish- 
 ing its real cliaractcr. 
 
 First for the Harmonic Prcetahlic. Spinoza's Ethics 
 ajjpcared in 1677-; and we know that they were read by 
 Leibnitz. In 1696, Leibnitz announced as a discovery 
 of his own, a Theory of The Com?nti)iication of Sub- 
 stances, which lie illustrates in the following manner : — 
 
 ' Vous ne comprcncz pas, dites-vous, comment jeponr- 
 roisi^rouvc, ceqne j'ai avance touchant la communication 
 ou i'iiarmonie de deux substances aussi differentes que 
 I'amc ct le corps ? II est vrai que je crois en avoir 
 trouve lemoven; et voici comment je pretends vous 
 satisfairc. Figurez-vous deux horlogcs ou montrcs qui 
 s'accordent parfaitement. Or cela se pent fairc de trois 
 manieres. La le consiste dans une influence mutuelle. 
 La 2(; est d'y attachcr un ouvricr habile qui les redressc, 
 ct les mette d'accord i tons moments. La 32 est de fabri- 
 quer ces deux j^endules avec tant d'art ct de justcssc, 
 qu'on sc ))uissc assurer de leur accord dans la suite. 
 Mettez maintenant I'tme et le corps 'e la place de ces 
 deux pendules; Icur accord pent arriver Tunc de ces 
 trois manieres. La voye d'influcnce est celle de la 
 philosophic vulgaire; mais comme Ton nesauroit conce- 
 voir des jiarticulcs matcrielles qui ])uissent passer d'une 
 de ces substances dans I'autrc, il faut aliandonner ce 
 sentiment. La voye de I'assistance continuelle du Crea- 
 teur est celle du systeme des causes occasionnelles; mais 
 je liens que c'est faire intcrvenir Deus ex machinfi dans 
 une chose naturelle et ordinaire, on selon la raison il ne 
 doit concourir, que de la maniere qu'il concourt a toutes 
 les autrcs choscs naturelles. Ainsi il ne reste que men 
 hypothese; e'cst-a-dire que la voye de I'harmonic. Dien 
 a fait des le commencement chacunc de ces deux sul>- 
 stances de telle nature, qu'en ne suivant que ces propres 
 loix qu'elle a re9ues avec son ctre, elle s'accorde pour- 
 tant avec I'autre tout comme s'il y avoit une influence 
 mutuelle, ou comme si Dieu y mettoit toujours la main 
 au-delu de son concoursgem-ral. y\pres cclajc n'ai pas 
 besoin de ricn proUver a niuins qu'on ne vcuille cxiger 
 que je prouve que Dieu est assez habile pour sc servir 
 de ceite artifice/ etc. — Leibnitz, Opera, p. 133. lier- 
 )in edition, 1840. 
 
 Iieibnitz, as we have said, attempts to reconcile his 
 system with Christianity, and therefore, of course, this 
 theory of the relation f>f mind and bndv wears a very 
 different aspect under his treatment, from what it wears 
 under that of Spinoza. But Spinoza and Leibnitz both 
 agree in this one peculiar conception in which they differ
 
 126 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 expression) an automaton spirituals, as deserv- 
 ing a fiery indignation and everlasting ven- 
 geance. 
 
 ' Deus,' according to Spinoza's definition, 
 
 from .ill other philosophers before or after them — that 
 iniml and body liavc no direct communication with each 
 other, and that the ])lienomena of them merely corre- 
 spond. M. de Careil s.iys they both borrowed it from 
 Descartes; but that is impossible. Descartes held no 
 snch opinion ; it was the precise point of disagreement 
 at which Spinoza parted from him; and therefore, since 
 in i)oint of date Spinoza had the advantage of Leibnitz, 
 and we know that Leibnitz was acquainted with his 
 writings, we must either suppose that he was directly 
 indebted to Spinoza for an obligation which he ought to 
 have acknowledged, or else, which is extremely improb- 
 able, that having re.id Spinoza and forgotten him, he 
 afterwards re-originated for himself one of the most 
 singular and ])cculiar notions which was ever offered to 
 the belief of mankind. 
 
 So much for the first point, which, after all, is but 
 of little moment. It is more important to ascertain 
 whether, in the hands of Leibnitz, this theory can be any 
 better reconciled with what is commonly meant by re- 
 ligion; whether, that is, the ideas of obedience and dis- 
 oijcdiencc, merit and demerit, judgment and retribution, 
 have any proper place under it. .Spinoza makes no pre- 
 tension to anything of the kind, and openly declares that 
 these ideas are ideas merely, and human mistakes. 
 Leibnitz, in opposition to him, endeavors to re-establish 
 them in the following manner. He conceives that the 
 system of the universe has been arranged and predeter- 
 mined from the moment at which it was launched into 
 ])eing ; from the moment at which God selected it, with 
 all its details, as the best which could exist ; but that it 
 is carried on by the action of individual creatures (mo- 
 nads as he calls them) which, though necessarily obey- 
 ing the laws of their existence, yet obey them with a 
 character of spont.ineity,' which although '.automata,' 
 are yet voluntary agents; and therefore, by the consent 
 of their hearts to their acti(jns, entitle themselves to 
 moral jiraise or moral censure. The question is, 
 whether by the mere assertion of the co-existence of 
 these opposite qualities in the monad man, he has 
 l)roved that such qualities can co-exist. In our opinion, 
 it is like speaking of a circular ecli])sc, or of a quadrila- 
 teral triangle, 'i'here is a plain dilemma in llitse mat- 
 ters from which nr> ])hilosopliy can extricate itself. If 
 men can incur guilt, their actions might be other than 
 they are. If they cannot act otherwise than they do, 
 they cannot incur guilt. So at le.ist it appears to us; 
 yet, in the darkness of our knowledge, we would not
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 127 
 
 'est ens constans infinitis attributis quorum 
 ununiquodquc aiternam et infinitam essentiam 
 exprirnit.' Under each of these attributes in- 
 finita scqiiuntur, and everything which an in- 
 finite intelligence can conceive, and an infinite 
 power can produce, — everything which follows 
 as a possibility out of the Divine nature, — all 
 things which have been, and are, and will be, 
 — find expression and actual existence, not 
 under one attribute only, but under each and 
 every attribute. I^anguage is so ill adapted to 
 
 coni])lain merely of a theor)', and if our earthly life were 
 all in all, and the grave remained the extreme horizon 
 of our hopes and fears, the J/armoiiie J'reeial'lic' might 
 be tolerated as credible, and admired as ingenious and 
 beautiful. It is when forcibly attached to a creed of the 
 future, with which it has no natural connection, that it 
 assumes its repulsive features. The world may be in 
 the main good; while the good, from the unknown con- 
 dition of its existence, may be impossible withf)ut somfe 
 intermixture of evil; and although Leibnitz was at times 
 staggered even himself by the misery and wickedness 
 which he witnessed, and was driven to comfort Ixjmself 
 with the reflection that this earth might be but onfe 
 world in the midst of the universe, and perhaps the sin- 
 gle chequered exception in an infinity of stainless globes, 
 yet we would not quarrel with a hypothesis l)ecause it 
 was imperfect; it might pass as a possible conjecture on 
 a dark subject, when nothing better than conjecture was 
 attainable. 
 
 But as soon as wc are told that the evil in these hu- 
 man ' automata' being a necessary condition of this 
 world which (led has called into being, is yet infinitely 
 detestable to God; that the creatures who suffer under 
 the accursed necessity of committing sin are infinitely 
 guilty in (rod's eyes, for doing what they have no 
 power to avoid, and may therefore be justly punished 
 in everlasting fire; we recoil against the paradox. 
 
 No disciple of Leibnitz will maintain, that unless he 
 had found this belief in an eternity of penal retribution 
 an article of the popular creed, such a doctrine would 
 liave formed a natural appendage of his system; and if 
 M. de Careil desires to know why the influence of 
 Spinoza, whose genius he considers so insignificant, has 
 been so deep and so enduring, while Leibnitz has only 
 secured for himself a mere admiration of his talents, it 
 is because Spinoza was not afraid to be consistent, even 
 at the price of the world's reprobation, and refused to 
 ]nirchase the applause of his own age at the sacrifice of 
 sincerity.
 
 128 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 explain such a system, that even to state it 
 accurately is all but impossible, and analogies 
 can only remotely suggest what such expres- 
 sions mean. But it is as if it were said that the 
 same thought might be expressed in an inlinite 
 variety of languages ; and not in words only, 
 but in action, in painting, in sculpture, in 
 music, in any form of any kind which can be 
 employed as a means of spiritual embodiment. 
 Of all these infinite attributes, two only, as we 
 said, are known to us — extension and thought. 
 Material phenomena are phenomena of exten- 
 sion ; and to every modification of extension 
 an idea corresponds under the attribute of 
 thought. Out of such a compound as this is 
 formed man, composed of body and mind ; two 
 parallel and correspondent modifications eter- 
 nally answering one another. And not man 
 only, but all other beings and things are 
 similarly formed and similarly animated ; the 
 anima or mind of each varying according to 
 the complicity of the organism of its material 
 counterpart. Although body does not think, 
 nor affect the mind's power of thinking, and 
 mind does not control body, nor communicate 
 to it either motion or rest or anv influence from 
 itself, yet body with all its properties is the 
 object or ideate of mind : whatsoever body 
 does, mind perceives ; and the greater the en- 
 ergizing power of the first, the greater the 
 perceiving power of the second. And this is 
 not because they are adapted one to the other 
 by some inconceivable preordinating power, 
 but because mind and body are iinaet eadcfn res, 
 the one absolute being affected in one and the 
 same manner, but expressed under several at- 
 tributes ; the modes and affections of each at- 
 tribute having that being for their cause, as he 
 exists under that attribute of which they arc 
 modes, and no other ; idea being caused by 
 idea, and body affected by body ; the image on 
 the retina being produced by the object re-
 
 SPINOZA. i2c) 
 
 fleeted upon it, the idea or image in our minds 
 by the idea of tiiat oliject, (S:c. &C. 
 
 A solution too remote from all ordinary ways 
 of thinking on these matters is so difficult to 
 grasp, that one can hardly speak of it as being 
 probable, or as being improbable. Probability 
 extends only to what we can imagine as possible, 
 and Spinoza's theory seems to lie beyond the 
 range within which our judgment can exercise 
 itself. In our own opinion, indeed, as we have 
 already said, the entire subject is one with 
 which we have no business ; and the explana- 
 tion of our nature, if it is ever to be explained to 
 us, is reserved till we are in some other state 
 of existence. We do not disbelieve Spinoza 
 because what he suggests is in itself incredible. 
 The chances may be millions to one against 
 his being right ; yet the real truth, if we knew 
 it, would be probably at least as strange as his 
 conception of it. But we are firmly convinced 
 that of these questions, and of all like them, 
 practical answers only lie within the reach of 
 human faculties ; and that in ' researches into 
 the absolute ' we are on the road which ends 
 nowhere. 
 
 Among the difficulties, however, most prop- 
 erly, akin to this jDhilosophy itself, there is 
 one most obvious, viz., that if the attributes of 
 God be infinite, and each particular thing is 
 expressed under them all, then mind and body 
 express but an infinitesimal .portion of the 
 nature of each of ourselves ; and this human 
 nature exists, (/. e., there exists corresponding 
 modes of substance) in the whole infinity of 
 the Divine nature under attributes differing 
 each from each, and all from mind and all 
 from body. That this must be so follows 
 from the definition of the Infinite Being, and 
 the nature of the distinction between the two 
 attributes which are known to us ; and if this 
 be so, why does not the mind ^^erceive some- 
 thing of all these other attributes ? The ob- 
 jection is well expressed by a correspondent
 
 130 
 
 IIISTOKICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 (Letter 67) : — *It follows from what you say,' 
 a friend writes to Spinoza, ' that the modifica- 
 tion which constitutes my mind, and that which 
 constitutes my body, although it be one and 
 the same modification, yet must be expressed 
 in an infinity of ways : one way by thought, a 
 second way by extension, a third by some 
 attribute unknown to me, and so on to infinity ; 
 the attributes being infinite in number, and the 
 order and connection of modes beincr the same 
 in them all. Why, then, does the mind perceive 
 the modes of but one attribute only ? ' 
 
 Spinoza's answer is curious : unhappily, a 
 fragment of his letter only is extant, so that it 
 is too brief to be satisfactory : — 
 
 In reply to your difficulty (he says), although each 
 particular thing be truly in the Infinite mind, conceived 
 in Infinite modes, the Infinite idea answering to all 
 these cannot constitute one and the same mind of any 
 single being, but must constitute Infinite minds. No 
 one of all these Infinite ideas has any connection with 
 another. 
 
 He means, we suppose, that God's mind only 
 perceives, or can perceive, things under their 
 Infinite expression, and that the idea of each 
 several mode, under whatever attribute, con- 
 stitutes a separate mind. 
 
 We do not know that we can add anything 
 to this explanation ; the difficulty lies in the 
 audacious sweep of the speculation itself ; we 
 will, however, attempt an illustration, although 
 we fear it will be to illustrate obscurum per 
 obscurius. Let A B C D be four out of the 
 Infinite number of the Divine attributes. A 
 the attribute of mind ; B the attribute of ex- 
 tension : C and I) other attributes, the nature 
 of which is not known to us. Now, A, as the 
 attribute of mind, is that which perceives all 
 which takes place under B C and D, but it 
 is only as it exists in God that it forms the 
 universal consciousness of all attributes at 
 once. In its modifications it is combined
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 131 
 
 separately with the modifications of each, con- 
 stituting in combination with the modes of each 
 attribute a separate being. As forming the 
 mind of B, A perceives what takes place in 
 15, but not what takes place in C or D. Com- 
 bined with B, it forms the soul of the human 
 body, and generally the soul of all modification 
 of extended substance ; combined with C, it 
 forms the soul of some other analogous being ; 
 combined with D, again of another; but the 
 combinations are only in pairs, in which A is 
 constant. A and B make one being, A and 
 C another, A and D a third ; but B will not 
 combine with C, nor C with D ; each attribute 
 being, as it were, conscious only of itself. And 
 therefore, although to those modifications of 
 mind and extension which we call ourselves, 
 there are corresponding modifications under C 
 and D, and generally each of the Infinite attri- 
 butes of God, each of ourselves being in a sense 
 Infinite — nevertheless, we neither have nor can 
 have any knowledge of ourselves in this Infinite 
 aspect, our actual consciousness being limited 
 to the phenomena of sensible experience. 
 
 English readers, however, are likely td care 
 little for all this ; they will look to the general 
 theory, and judge of it as its aspect affects 
 them. And first, perhaps, they will be tempted 
 to throw aside as absurd the notion that their 
 bodies go through the many operations which 
 they experience them to do, undirected by their 
 minds. It is a thing, they may say, at once 
 preposterous and incredible. It is, however, 
 less absurd than it seems ; and, though we 
 could not persuade ourselves to believe it, 
 absurd in the sense of having nothing to be ' 
 said for it, it certainly is not. It is far easier, 
 for instance, to imagine the human soul capa- 
 ble by its own virtue, and by the laws of ma- 
 terial organization, of building a house, than of 
 t/i inking ; and yet men are allowed to say that 
 the body thinks, without being regarded as 
 candidates for a lunatic asylum. VVe see the
 
 132 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 seed shoot up into stem and leaf and throw out 
 flowers; we observe it fulfilling processes of 
 chemistry more subtle than were ever executed 
 in Liebig's laboratory, and producing structures 
 more cunning than man can imitate. The bird 
 builds her nest, the spider shapes out its deli- 
 cate web, and stretches it in the path of his 
 prey ; directed not by calculating thought, as 
 we conceive ourselves to be^ but by some mo- 
 tive influence, our ignorance of the nature of 
 which we disguise from ourselves, and call it 
 instinct, but which we believe at least to be 
 some property residing in the organization. 
 We are not to suppose that the human body, 
 the most complex of all material structures, has 
 slighter powers in it than the bodies of a seed, 
 a bird, or an insect. Let us listen to Spinoza 
 himself: 
 
 There can be no doubt (he says) that this hypothesis 
 is true ; but unless I can prove it from experience, men 
 will not, I fear, be induced even to reHect uponit calmly, 
 so persuaded afe tlicy that it is by the mind only that 
 their bodies are set in motion. And yet what body can 
 or cannot do no one has yet determined ; body, i. e , by 
 the law of its own nature, and without assistance from 
 mind. No one has so probed the human frame as to 
 have detected all its functions and exhausted the list of 
 them ; there are powers exhibited by animals far ex- 
 ceeding human sagacity ; and, again, feats are performed 
 by somnambulists on wliich in the waking state the same 
 persons would never venture — itself a jjroof that body is 
 able to accomplish what mind can only admire. Med 
 say that mind moves body, but how it moves it they 
 cannot tell, or what degree of motion it can impart to it ; 
 so that, in fact, they do not know what they say, and are 
 only confessing their own ignorance in specious lan- 
 guage. They will answer nie, that whether or not they 
 understand how it can be, yet that they are assured by 
 plain experience that unless mind could perceivey body 
 would be altogether inactive; they know that it depends 
 on the mind whether the tongue speaks 6r is silent. 
 I5ut do they not ccjuallv experience that if thcif bodies 
 are' paralyzed their minds cannot think? — that if their 
 bodies are asleep their minds are without power .' — that 
 their minds are not at all times equally able to exert 
 themselves even on the same subject, but depend on the 
 state of their bodies ? And as for experience proving 
 that the members of the body can be controlled by the
 
 SPINOZA. 133 
 
 mind, I fear experience proves very much the reverse. 
 But it is absurd (they rejuin) to attempt to explain from 
 the mere hiws of body such things as pictures, or paLaccs, 
 or works of art ; the body could not build a church un- 
 less mind directed it. I have shown, however, that we 
 do not yet know what body can or cannot do, or what 
 would naturally follow froni the structure of it; that we 
 experience in the feats of somnambulists something 
 which antecedently to that experience would have seemed 
 incredible. This fabric of the human body exceeds in- 
 finitely anv contrivance of human skill, and an infinity of 
 things, as I have already proved, ought to follow from 
 it. 
 
 We are not concerned to answer this reason- 
 ing, although if the matter were one the debating 
 of which could be of any profit, it would un- 
 doubtedly have its weight, and would require 
 to be patiently considered. Life is too serious, 
 however, to be wasted with impunity over 
 speculations in which certainty is impossible, 
 and in which we are trifling with what is 
 inscrutablcj 
 
 Objections of a far graver kind were anti- 
 cipated by Spinoza himself; when he went on 
 to gather out of his philosophy ' that the mind 
 of man being part of the Infinite intelligence, 
 when we say that Such a mind perceives this 
 thing or that, we are, in fact, saying that God 
 perceives it, not as he is Infinite, but as he is 
 represented by the natiu'e of this or that idea ; 
 and similarly, when we say that a man does 
 this or that action, we say that God does it, not 
 qua he is Infinite, but qua he is expressed in 
 that man's nature.' ' Here,' he says, ' many 
 readers will no doubt hesitate, and many diffi- 
 culties will occur to them in the way of such a 
 supposition.' 
 
 We confess that we ourselves are among 
 these hesitating readers. As long as the Being 
 whom Spinoza so freely names remains sur- 
 rounded with the associations which in this 
 country we bring with us out of our childhood, 
 not all the lojiic in the world would make us 
 listen to language such as this. It is not so — 
 we know it, and that is enough. We arc well
 
 J34 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 aware of the phalanx of difficulties which lie 
 about our theistic conceptions. They are quite 
 enough, if religion depended on speculative 
 consistency, and not in obedience of life, to 
 perplex and terrify us. What are we? what is 
 anything ? If it be not Divine — what is it then ? 
 If created — out of what is it created ? and how 
 created — and why ? These questions, and 
 others far more momentous which we do not 
 enter upon here, may be asked and cannot be 
 answered ; but we cannot any the more consent 
 to Spinoza on the ground that he alone consis- 
 tently provides an answer; because, as we have 
 said again and again, we do not care to have 
 them answered at all. Conscience is the single 
 tribunal to which we choose to be referred, and 
 conscience declares imperatively that what he 
 says is not true. It is painful to speak of all 
 this, and as far as possible we designedly 
 avoid it. Pantheism is not Atheism, but the 
 Infinite Positive and the infinite Negative are 
 not so remote from one another in their prac- 
 tical bearings ; only let us remember that we 
 are far indeed from the truth if we think that 
 God to Spinoza was nothing dse but that world 
 which we experience. It is but one of infinite 
 expressions of him — a conception which makes 
 us giddy in the effort to realize it. 
 
 We have arrived at last at the outwork of 
 the whole matter in its bearings upon life and 
 human duty. It was in the search after this 
 last, that Spinoza, as we said, travelled over so 
 strange a country, and we now expect his con- 
 clusions. 'J'o discover tiic true good of man, 
 to direct his actions to such ends as will secure 
 to him real and lasting felicity, and, by a com- 
 parison of his powers with the objects offered 
 to them, to ascertain how far they are capable 
 of arriving at these objects, and by what means 
 they can best be trained towards them — is the 
 aim which Spinoza assigns to philosophy. 
 'Most people,' he adds, 'deride or vilify their 
 nature ; it is a better thing to endeavor to
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 135 
 
 understand it; and however extravagant my 
 proceeding may be thought, I propose to 
 analyze the properties of that nature as if it 
 were a mathematical figure.' Mind being, as 
 he conceives himself to have shown, nothing 
 else than the idea corresponding to this or that 
 affection of body, we are not, therefore, to 
 think of it as a faculty, but simply and merely 
 as an act. There is no general power called 
 intellect, any more than there is any general 
 abstract volition, but only hie et ilk intcllcctus 
 et Jucc et ilia volitio. 
 
 Again, by the word IStind is understood not 
 merely an act or acts of will or intellect, but all 
 forms also of consciousness of sensation or 
 emotion. The human body being composed of 
 many small bodies, the mind is similarly com- 
 posed of many minds, and the unity of body 
 and of mind depends on the relation which the 
 component portions maintain towards each 
 other. This is obviously the case with body ; 
 and if we can translate metaphysics into com- 
 mon experience, it is equally the case with 
 mind. There are pleasures of sense and pleas- 
 ures of intellect; a thousand tastes, tendencies, 
 and inclinations form our mental composition ; 
 and since one contradicts another, and each has 
 a tendency to become dominant, it is only in 
 the harmonious equipoise of their several 
 activities in their due and just subordination, 
 that any unity of action or consistency of feel- 
 ing is possible. After a masterly analysis of 
 all these tendencies (the most complete by far 
 which has ever been made by any moral phil- 
 osopher), Spinoza arrives at the principles 
 under which unity and consistency can be 
 obtained as the condition upon which a being 
 so composed can look for any sort of happiness ; 
 and these principles, arrived at as they are by 
 a route so different, are the same, and are pro- 
 posed by Spinoza as being the same, as those 
 of the Christian religion. 
 
 It might seem impossible in a system which
 
 136 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 binds together in so inexorable a sequence the 
 relations of cause and effectj to make a place 
 for the action of self-control ; but consideration 
 will show that, however vast the difference 
 between those who deny and those who affirm 
 the liberty of the will (in the sense in which 
 the expression is usually understood), it is not 
 a difference which affects the conduct or alters 
 the practical bearings of it. Conduct may be 
 determined by laws — laws as absolute as those 
 of matter ; and yet the one as well as 
 the other may be brought under control by a 
 proper understanding of those laws. Now, 
 experience seems plainly to say that while all 
 our actions arise out of desire— that whatever 
 we do, we do for tlie sake of something which 
 we wish to be or to obtain- — we are differently 
 affected towards what is proposed to us as an 
 object of desire, in proportion as we understand 
 the nature of such object in itself and its 
 consequences. The better we know, the better 
 we act ; and the fallacy of all common argu- 
 ments against necessitarianism lies in the 
 assumption that it leaves no room for self-direc- 
 tion : it merely insists, in exact conformity with 
 experience, on the conditions under which self- 
 determination is possible. Conduct, according 
 to the necessitarian, depends on knowledge. 
 Let a man certainly know that there is poison 
 in the cup of wine before him, and he will not 
 drink it. By the law of cause and effect, his 
 desire for the wine is overcome by the fear of 
 the pain or the death which will follow. So 
 with everything which comes before him. Let 
 the consequences of any action be clear, 
 definite, and inevitable, and tiiough Spinoza 
 would not say that the knowledge of them v/ill 
 be absolutely sufficient to determine the con- 
 duct (because the clearest knowledge may be 
 overborne by violent passion, yet it is the best 
 which we have to trust to, and will do much if 
 it cannot do all.
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 137 
 
 On this hypothesis, after a diagnosis of the 
 various tendencies of human nature, called com- 
 monly the passions and affections, he returns 
 jpon the nature of our ordinary knowledge to 
 derive out of it the means for their subordina- 
 tion. All these tendencies of themselves seek 
 their own objects — seek them blindly and im- 
 moderately ; and the mistakes and the unhap- 
 pinesses of life arise from the want of due un- 
 derstanding of these objects, and a just moder- 
 ation of the desire for them. His analysis is 
 remarkably clear, but.it is too long for us to 
 enter upon it ; the important thing being the 
 character of the control which is to be ex- 
 erted. To arrive at this, he employs a distinc- 
 tion of great practical utility, and which is 
 peculiarly his own. 
 
 Following his tripartite division of knowl- 
 edge, he finds all kinds of it arrange them- 
 selves under one of two classes, and to be 
 either adequate or inadequate. By adequate 
 knowledire he does not mean what is exhaus- 
 tive and complete, but what, as far as it goes, 
 is distinct and unconfused : by inadequate, he 
 means what we know merely as fact either de- 
 rived from our own sensations or from the author- 
 ity of others, while of the connection of it with 
 other facts, of the causes, effects, or meaning 
 of it we know nothing. We may have an ade- 
 quate idea of a circle, though we are unac- 
 quainted with all the properties which belong 
 to it ; we conceive it distinctly as a figure gen- 
 erated bv the rotation of a line, one end of 
 which is stationary. Phenomena, on the other 
 hand, however made known to us — phenomena 
 of the senses, and phenomena of experience, 
 as long as they remain phenomena merely, 
 and unseen in any higher relation — we can 
 never know except as inadequately. We can- 
 not tell what outward things are by coming in 
 contact with certain features of them. We 
 have a very imperfect acquaintance even with 
 our own bodies, and the sensations which we
 
 138 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 experience of various kinds rather indicate to 
 us the nature of these bodies themselves than 
 of the objects which affect them. Now, it is 
 obvious that the greater part of mankind act 
 only upon knowledge of this latter kind. The 
 amusements, even the active pursuiis, of most 
 of us remain wholly within the range of uncer- 
 tainty, and, therefore, are full of hazard and 
 precariousness : little or nothing issues as we 
 expect. We look for pleasure and we find 
 pain ; we shun one pain and find a greater ; 
 and thus arises the ineffectual character which 
 we so complain of in life — the disappointments, 
 failures, mortifications which form the material 
 of so much moral meditation on the vanity of 
 the world. Much of all this is inevitable from 
 the constitution of our nature. The mind is 
 too infirm to be entirely occupied with higher 
 knowledge. The conditions of life oblige us to 
 act in many cases which cannot be understood 
 by us except with the utmost inadequacy ; and 
 the resignation to the higher will which has de- 
 termined all things in the wisest way, is imper- 
 fect in the best of us. Yet much is possible, 
 if not all ; and, although through a large tract 
 of life ' there comes one event to all, to the 
 wise and to the unwise,' ' yet wisdom excelleth 
 folly as far as light excelleth darkness.' The 
 phenomena of experience, after inductive ex- 
 periment, and just and careful consideration, 
 arrange themselves under laws uniform in their 
 operation, and furnishing a guide to the judg- 
 ment ; and over all things, although the inter- 
 val must remain unexplored forever, because 
 what we would search into is Infinite, may be 
 seen the beginning of all things, the absolute 
 eternal Goil. ' Mens humana,' Spinoza con- 
 tinues, ' qua'dam agit, qua:dam vero patitur.' 
 In so far as it is influenced by inadequate ideas 
 — ' catenus patitur ' — it is passive and in bond- 
 age, it is the sport of fortune and caprice : in 
 so far as its ideas are adequate — 'eatenus agit * 
 — it is active, it is itself. While we are gov-
 
 SPINOZA. 13Q 
 
 erncd by outward temptations, by the casual 
 pleasures, by the fortunes or the misfortunes 
 of life, we are but instruments, yielding our- 
 selves to be acted upon as the animal is acted 
 on by its appetites, or the inanimate matter 
 by the laws which bind it ; we are slaves 
 — instruments, it may be, of some higher 
 purpose in the order of nature, but in our- 
 selves nothing; instruments which are em- 
 ployed for a special work, and which are con- 
 sumed in effecting it. So far, on the contrary, 
 as we know clearly what we do, as we under- 
 stand what we are, and direct our conduct not 
 by the passing emotion of the moment, but by 
 a grave, clear, and constant knowledge of what 
 is really good, so far we are said to act — we 
 are ourselves the spring of our own activity — 
 we pursue the genuine well-being of our entire 
 nature, and that we can always find, and it 
 never disappoints us when found. 
 
 All things desire life ; all things seek for 
 energy, and fuller and ampler being. The 
 component parts of man, his various appetites 
 and passions, are seeking larger activity while 
 pursuing each its immoderate indulgence ; and 
 it is the primary law of every single being that 
 it so follows what will give it increasedvitality. 
 Whatever will contribute to such increase is 
 the proper good of each ; and the good of man 
 as a united being is measured and determined 
 by the effect of it upon his collective powers. 
 'Pile appetites gather power from their several 
 objects of desire ; but the power of the part is 
 the weakness of the whole ; and man as a col- 
 lective person gathers life, being, and self-mas- 
 tery only from the absolute good, — the source 
 of all real good, and truth, and energ\-, — that 
 is, God. The love of God is the extinction of 
 all other loves and all other desires. To know 
 God, as far as man can know him, is power, 
 self-government, and peace. And this is vir- 
 tue, and this is blessedness. 
 
 Thus, by a formal process of demonstration,
 
 140 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 we are brought round to the old conclusions 
 of theology ; and Spinoza protests that it is n'o 
 new doctrine which he is teaching, but that it 
 is one which in various dialects has been 
 believed from the beginning of the w'orld. 
 Happiness depends on the consistency and 
 coherency of character, and that coherency 
 can only be given by the knowledge of the 
 One Being, to know whom is to know all things 
 adequately, and to love whom is to have con- 
 quered every other inclination. The more en- 
 tirely our minds rest on Him — the more dis- 
 tinctly we regard all things in their relation to 
 Him, the more we cease to be under the 
 dominion of external things ; we surrender 
 ourselves consciously to do His will, and 
 as living men and not as passive things 
 we become the instruments of His power. 
 When the true nature and true causes of our 
 affections become clear to us, they have no 
 more power to influence us. The more we 
 understand, the less can feeling swaying us ; we 
 know that all things are what they are, because 
 they are so constituted that they could not be 
 otherwise, and we cease to be angry with our 
 brother, because he disappoints us ; we shall 
 not fret" at calamity, nor complain of fortune, 
 because no such thing as fortune exists ; and 
 if we fail it is better than if we had succeeded, 
 not perhaps for ourselves, yet for the uni- 
 verse. We cannot fear, when nothing can 
 befall us except what God wills, and we shall 
 not violently hope, when the future, whatever 
 it be, will be the best which is possible, See- 
 ing all things in their place in the everlasting 
 order, Past and Future will not affect us. The 
 temptation of present pleasure will not over- 
 come the certainty of future pain, for the pain 
 will be as sure as the pleasure^ and we shall 
 see all things under a rule of adamant. The 
 foolish and tl)e ignorant are led astray by the 
 idea of contingency, and expect to escape the 
 just issues of their actions ; the wise man will
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 141 
 
 know that each action brinjrs with it its incvi- 
 
 &■' 
 
 table consequences, which even God cannot 
 change without ceasing to be Himself. 
 
 In such a manner, tiirough all the conditions 
 of life, Spinoza pursues the advantages which 
 will accrue to man from the knowledge of God, 
 God and man being what his philosophy has de- 
 scribed them. His practical teaching is sin- 
 gularly beautiful ; although much of its beauty 
 is perhaps due to associations which have 
 arisen out of Christianitv, and which in the 
 system of Pantheism have no proper abiding 
 plnce. Retaining, indeed, all that is beautiful 
 in Christianity, he even seems to have relieved 
 himself of the more fearful features of the gen- 
 eral creed. He acknowledges no hell, no devil, 
 no positive and active agency at enmity with 
 God ; but sees in all things infinite gradations 
 of beings, all in their way obedient, all fulfil- 
 ling the part allotted to them. Doubtless a 
 pleasant exchange and a grateful deliverance, 
 if only v.-e could persuade ourselves that a hun- 
 dred pages of judiciously arranged demon- 
 strations could really and indeed have worked 
 it for us ; if we could indeed believe that we 
 could have the year without its winter, day with- 
 out night, sunlight without shadow. Evil is un- 
 happily too real a thing to be so disposed of. 
 
 But if we cannot believe Spinoza's system 
 taken in its entire completeness, yet we may 
 not blind ourselves to the disinterestedness and 
 calm nobility which pervades his theories of 
 human life and obligation. He will not hear 
 of a virtue which desires to be rewarded. 
 Virtue is the power of God in the human soul, 
 and that is the exhaustive end of all human 
 desire. ' Beatitudo non est virtutis pretium, 
 sed ipsa virtus. Nihil aliud est quam ipsa an- 
 imi acquiescentia, quse ex Dei intuitiva cogni- 
 tione oritur.' The same spirit of generosity 
 exhibits itself in all his conclusions. The or- 
 dinary objects of desire, he says, are of such a 
 kind that for one man to obtain them is for
 
 142 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 another to lose them ; and this alone would 
 suffice to prove that they are not wiiat any man 
 should labor after. l!ut the fulness of God 
 suflfices for us all ; and he who possesses this 
 good desires only to communicate it to every 
 one and to make all mankind as happy as him 
 self. And again : — ' The wise men will not 
 speak in society of his neighbor's faults, and 
 sparingly of the infirmity of human nature ; but 
 he will speak largely of human virtue and human 
 power, and of the means by which that nature 
 can best be perfected, so to lead men to put 
 away their fear and aversion with which they 
 look on goodness, and learn with relieved hearts 
 to love and desire it.' And once more : — 
 ' He who loves God will not desire that God 
 should love him in return with any partial or 
 particular affection, for that is to desire that 
 God for his sake should change His everlast- 
 ing nature and become lower than himself.* 
 
 One grave element, indeed, of a religious 
 faith would seem in such a system to be neces- 
 sarily wanting. Where individual action is 
 resolved into the modified activity of the Uni- 
 versal Being, all absorbing and all evolving, 
 the individuality of the personal man is but 
 an evanescent and unreal shadow. Such indi- 
 viduality as we now possess, whatever it be, 
 might continue to exist in a future state as 
 really as it exists in the present, and those to 
 whom it belongs might be anxious naturally 
 for its persistence. Yet it would seem that 
 if the soul be nothing except the idea of a 
 body actually existing, when that body is 
 decomposed into its elements, the soul cor- 
 responding to it must accompany it into an 
 answering dissolution. And this, indeed, 
 Spinoza in one sense actually affirms, when 
 he denies to the mind any power of retaining 
 consciousness of what has befallen it in life, 
 'nisi durrmte corpore.' But Spinozism is a 
 philosophy full of surprises ; and our calcula- 
 tions of what musi belong to it are perpetually
 
 sriNoz.1. 143 
 
 baffled. The imagination, the memory, the 
 senses, whatever belongs to inadequate percep- 
 tion perish necessarily and eternally ; and the 
 man who has been the slave of his inclinations, 
 who has no knowledge cf God, and no active 
 possession of himself, having in life possessed 
 no personality, loses in death the appearance 
 of it with the dissolution of the body. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is in God an idea ex- 
 pressing the essence of the mind, united to the 
 mind as the mind is united in the body, and 
 thus there is in the soul something of an ever- 
 lastmg nature which cannot utterly perish. 
 And here Spinoza, as he often does in many of 
 his most solemn conclusions, deserts for a mo- 
 ment the thread of his demonstrations, and ap- 
 jDcals to the consciousness. In spite, of our non- 
 recollection of what passed before our birth, in 
 spite of all difificulties from the dissolution of 
 the body, 'Nihilominus,' he says, 'sentimus 
 experimurque nos a:;ternos esse. Nam mens 
 non minus res illas sentit quas intelligendo 
 concipit, quam quas in memoria habet. Men- 
 tis enim oculi quibus res videt observatque 
 sunt ipsai demonstrationes.' 
 
 This perception, immediately revealed to the 
 mind, falls into easy harmony with the rest of 
 the system. As the mind is not a faculty, but 
 an act or acts, — not a power of perception, but 
 the perception itself, in its high union with the 
 highest object (to use the metaphysical language 
 which Coleridge has made popular and par- 
 tially intelligible), the object and the subject 
 become one. If knowledge be followed as it 
 ought to be followed, and all objects of knowl- 
 edge be regarded in their relations, to the One 
 Absolute Being, the knowledge of particular 
 outward things, of nature, or life, or history, 
 becomes, in fact, knowledge of God ; and the 
 more complete or adequate such knowledge, 
 the more the mind is raised above what is 
 perishable in the phenomena to the idea or 
 law which lies beyond them. It learns to dwell
 
 144 
 
 HISTOI^ICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 exclusively upon the eternal, not upon the 
 temporary ; and being thus occupied with the 
 everlasting laws, and its activity subsisting in 
 its perfect union without them, it contracts in 
 itself the character of the objects which pos- 
 sess it. Thus we are emancipated from the 
 conditions of duration ; we are liable even to 
 death only guate/ius patimur, as we are passive 
 things and not active intelligences ; and the 
 more we possess such knowledge and are 
 possessed by it, the more entirely the passive 
 is superseded by the active — so that at last 
 the human soul may 'become of such a nature 
 that the portion of it which will perish with the 
 body in comparison with that of it which shall 
 endure, shall be insignificant and nnllius mo- 
 menti.' (Eth. v. 38.) 
 
 Such are the principal features of a philos- 
 ophy, the influence of which upon Europe, 
 direct and indirect, it is not easy to over-esti- 
 mate. The account of it is far from being 
 an account of the whole of Spinoza's la- 
 bors ; his ' Tractatus Theologico-Politicus' was 
 the forerunner of German historical criti- 
 cism ; the whole of which has been but the 
 application of principles laid down in that 
 remarkable work. But this is not a subject 
 on which, upon the present occasion, we have 
 cared to enter. We have designedly confined 
 ourselves to the system which is most associat- 
 ed with the name of its author. It is this 
 which has been really powerful, which has 
 stolen over the minds even of thinkers who 
 imagine themselves most opposed to it. It 
 has appeared in the absolute Pantheism of 
 Schelling and Hegel, in the Pantheistic Chris- 
 tianity of Herder and Schleiermacher. Pass- 
 ing into practical life it has formed the strong, 
 shrewd judgment of Goethe, while again it 
 has been able to unite with the theories of the 
 most extreme materialism. 
 
 It lies too, perhaps (and here its influence 
 has been unmixedly good), at the bottom of
 
 SP/NOZA. 145 
 
 that, more reverent contemplation of nature 
 which has caused the success of our modern 
 landscape ]-)aintii\f;, wliicli ins])ired Wordsworth's 
 poetry, and which, if ever physical science is 
 to become an instrument of intellectual edu- 
 cation, must first be infused into the lessons of 
 nature ; the sense of that ' something ' inter 
 fused in the material world — 
 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And liic round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; — 
 A nuition and a spirit, whicli impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 If we shrink from regarding the extended 
 universe, with Spinoza, as an actual manifes- 
 tation of Almighty God, we are unable to rest 
 in the mere denial that it is this. We go on to 
 ask what it is, and we are obliged to conclude 
 thus much at least of it, that every smallest 
 being was once a thought in His mind ; and 
 in the study of what He has made, we are 
 really and truly studying a revelation of Himself. 
 
 It is not here, it is not on the physical, it is 
 rather on the moral side, that the stumbling- 
 block is lyingi ; in that excuse for evil and for 
 evil men which the necessitarian theory will 
 furnish, disguise it in what fair-sounding words 
 we will. So plain this is, that common-sense 
 people, and especially English people, cannot 
 bring themselves even to consider the question 
 without impatience, and turn distainfully and 
 angrily from a theory which confuses their in- 
 stincts of right and wrong. Although, however 
 error on this side is infinitely less mischievous 
 than on the other, no vehement error can exist 
 in this world with impunity ; and it does appear 
 that in our common view of these matters we 
 have closed our eyes to certain grave facts of 
 experience, and liave given the fatalist a van- 
 tage ground of real truth which we ought to 
 have considered and allowed. At the risk of
 
 146 NISl'OKICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 tediousness we shall enter briefly into this un- 
 promising ground. Life and the necessities of 
 life are our best philosophers if we will only 
 listen honestly to what they say to us ; and 
 dislike the lesson as we may, it is cowardice 
 which refuses to hear it. 
 
 The popular belief is, that right and wrong 
 lie before every man, and that he is free to 
 choose between them, and the responsibility of 
 choice rests with himself. The fatalist's belief 
 is that every man's actions are determined by 
 causes external and internal, over which he 
 has no power, leaving no room for any moral 
 choice whatever. The first is contradicted by 
 facts, the second by the instinct of conscience. 
 Even Spinoza allows that for practical purposes 
 we are obliged to regard the future as con- 
 tingent, and ourselves as able to influence it; 
 and it is incredible that both our inward con- 
 victions and our outward conduct should be 
 built together upon a falsehood. But if, as 
 Butler says, whatever be the speculative account 
 of the matter, we are practically forced to 
 regard ourselves as free, this is but half the 
 truth, for it may be equally said that practically 
 we are forced to regard each other as nof free ; 
 •and to make allowance, every moment, for 
 influences for which we cannot hold each other 
 personally responsible. If not, — if every per- 
 son of sound mind (in the common acceptation 
 of the term) be equally able at all times to act 
 right if only he 7i//7/, — why all the care which 
 we take of children ^ why the pains to keep 
 them from bad society ? why do we so anxiously 
 watch their disposition, to determine the edu- 
 cation which will best answer to it .■* Why in 
 cases of guilt do we vary our moral censure 
 according to the opportunities of the offender.' 
 Why do we find excuses for youth, for inex- 
 perience, for violent natural passion, for bad 
 education, bad example ? Why, except that we 
 feel that all these things do affect the culpability 
 of the guilty person, and that it is folly and
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 147 
 
 inhumanity to disregard ihcm ? But what we 
 act upon in private life we cannot acknowledge 
 in our ethical theories, and, while our conduct 
 in detail is humane and just, we have been 
 contented to gather our speculative philosophy 
 out of the broad and coarse generalizations of 
 political necessity. In the swift haste of social 
 life we must indeed treat men as we find them. 
 We have no time to make allowances ; and the 
 graduation of punishment by the scale of guilt 
 is a mere impossibility. A thief is a thief in 
 the law's eye though he has been trained from 
 his cradle in the kennels of St. Giles ; and 
 definite penalties must be attached to definite 
 acts, the conditions of political life not admit- 
 ting of any other method of dealing with them. 
 But it is absurd to argue from such rude neces- 
 sity that each act therefore, by whomsoever 
 committed, is of specific culpability. The act 
 is one thing, the moral guilt is another. There 
 are many cases in which, as Butler again allows, 
 if we trace a sinner's history to the bottom, the 
 guilt attributable to himself appears to vanish 
 altogether. 
 
 This is plain matter of fact, and as long as 
 we continue to deny or ignore it, there will be 
 found men (not bad men, but men who love 
 the truth as much as ourselves,) who will see 
 only what we neglect, and will insist upon it, 
 and build their systems upon it. 
 
 And again, if less obvious, yet not less real, 
 are those natural tendencies which each of us 
 brings with him into the world, — which we did 
 not make, and yet which almost as much deter- 
 mine what we are to be, as the properties of 
 the seed determine the tree which shall grow 
 from it. Men are self-willed, or violent, or 
 obstinate, or weak, or generous, or affectionate ; 
 there is as large difference in their dispositions 
 as in the features of their faces. Duties which 
 are easy to one, another finds difBcult or impos- 
 sible. It is with morals as it is with art. Two 
 children are taught to draw ; one learns with
 
 148 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ease, the other hardly or never. In vain the 
 master will show him what to do. It seems so 
 easy : it seems as if he had only to vAIl, and 
 the thii)2^ would be done ; but it is not so. 
 Between the desire and the execution lies the 
 incapable organ which only wearily, and after 
 long labor, imperfectly accomplishes what is 
 required of it. And the same, to a certain 
 extent, unless we will deny the patent facts of 
 experience, holds true in moral actions. No 
 wonder, therefore, that evaded or thrust aside 
 as these things are in the popular beliefs, as 
 soon as they are recognized in their full reality 
 they should be mistaken for the whole truth, 
 and the free-will theory be thrown aside as a 
 chimera. 
 
 It may be said, and it often is said, that 
 such reasonings are merely sophistical — that 
 however we entangle ourselves in logic, we 
 are conscious that we are free ; we know — we 
 are as sure as we are of our existence — that 
 we' have power to act this way or that way, 
 exactly as we choose. But this is less plain 
 than it seems ; and if granted, it proves less 
 than it appears to prove. It may be true 
 that we can act as we choose, but can we cJioosef 
 Is not our choice determined for us? We 
 cannot determine from the fact, because we 
 always Juwc chosen as soon as we act, and we 
 cannot replace the conditions in such a way 
 as to discover whether we could have chosen 
 anything else. The stronger motive may have 
 determined our volition without our perceiving 
 it ; and if we desire to prove our independence 
 of motive, by showing that we can choose 
 something different from that which we should 
 naturally have chosen, we still cannot escape 
 from the circle, this very desire becoming, as 
 Mr Hume observes, itself a motive. Again, 
 consciousness of the possession of any power 
 may easily be delusive ; we can properly judge 
 what our powers are only by what they have 
 actually accomplished ; we know what we have
 
 SPINOZA. 
 
 149 
 
 done, and we may infer from liavmg done it 
 that our power was equal to what it achieved. 
 But it is easy for us to overrate our strength if 
 we try to measure our abilities in themselves. 
 A man who can leap five yards may think that 
 he can leap six ; yet he may try and fail, A 
 man who can write prose may only learn that 
 he cannot write poetry from the badness of the 
 verses which he produces. To the appeal to 
 consciousness of power there is always an 
 answer : — that we may believe ourselves to 
 possess it, but that experience proves that we 
 may be deceived. 
 
 There is, however, another group of feel- 
 ings which cannot be set aside in this way, 
 which do prove that, in some sense or other, 
 in some degree or other, we are the authors of 
 our own actions. It is one of the clearest of 
 all inward phenomena, that where two or more 
 courses involving moral issues are before us, 
 whether we have a consciousness of power to 
 choose between them or not, we have a conscious- 
 ness that we ought to choose between them ; 
 a sense of duty — on Scl tovto ifpaTTetr 
 — as Aristotle expresses it, which we cannot 
 shake oH. Whatever this consciousness in- 
 volves (and some measure of freedom it must 
 involve or it is nonsense), the feeling exists 
 within us, and refuses to yield before all the 
 batteries of logic. It is not that of the two 
 courses we know that one is in the long ruil 
 the best, and the other more immediately 
 tempting. We have a sense of obligation ir- 
 respective of consequence, the violation of 
 which is followed again by a sense of self- 
 disapprobation, of censure, of blame. In vain 
 will Spinoza tell us that such feelings, incom- 
 patible as they are with the theory of power- 
 lessness, are mistakes arising out of a false 
 philosophy. They are primary facts of sensa- 
 tion most vivid in minds of most vigorous 
 sensibility ; and although they may be ex- 
 tinguished by habitual profligacy, or possibly,
 
 T50 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 perhaps, destroyed by logic, the paralysis of 
 the conscience is no more a proof that it is 
 not a real power of perceiving real things, 
 than blindness is a proof tliat sight is not a real 
 power. The perceptions of worth and worth- 
 lessness are not conclusions of reasoning, but 
 immediate sensations like those of seeing and 
 hearing ; and although, like the other senses, 
 they may be mistaken sometimes in the ac- 
 counts they render to us, the fact of the ex- 
 istence of such feelings at all proves that there 
 is something which corresponds to them. If 
 there be any such things as ' true ideas,' or 
 clear, distinct perceptions at all, this of praise 
 and blame is one of them, and according to 
 Spinoza's own rule we must accept what it 
 involves. And it involves that somewhere or 
 other the influence of causes ceases to ©perate, 
 and that some degree of power there is in 
 men of self-determination, by the amount of 
 which, and not by their specific actions, moral 
 merit or demerit is to be measured. Specula- 
 tive difficulties remain in abundance. It will 
 be said in a case, e. g. of moral trial, that 
 there may have been p07acr ; but was there 
 power enough to resist the temptation ? If 
 there was, then it was resisted. If there was 
 not, there was no responsibility. We must 
 answer again from practical instinct. We re- 
 fuse to allow men to be considered all equally 
 guilty who have committed the same faults ; 
 and v*e insist that their actions must be meas- 
 ured against their opportunities. But a similar 
 conviction assures us that there is somewhere 
 a point of freedom. Where that point is — ■ 
 where other influences terminate, and re- 
 sponsibility begins — will always be of intricate 
 and often impossible solution. But if there 
 be such a point at all, it is fatal to necessita- 
 rianism, and man is what he has been hither- 
 to supposed to be — an exception in the order 
 of nature, with a power not differing in degree 
 but differing in kind from those of other crea-
 
 SPINOZA. 151 
 
 tures. Moral life, like all life, is a mystery ; 
 and as to anatomize the body will not reveal 
 the secret of animation, so with the actions of 
 the moral man. The spiritual life, which 
 alone gives them meaning and being, glides 
 awav before the logical dissecting knife, and 
 leaves it but a corpse to work upon.
 
 • THE DISSOLUTION 
 OF THE MONASTERIES.* 
 
 To be entirely just in our estimate of other 
 ages is not difificult — it is impossible. Even 
 what is passing in our presence we see but 
 through a glass darkly. The mind as well as 
 the eye adds something of its own, before an 
 image, even of the clearest object, can be 
 painted upon it. 
 
 And in historical inquiries, the most in- 
 structed thinkers have but a limited advantage 
 over the most illiterate. Those who know the 
 most, approach least to agreement. The most 
 careful investigations are diverging roads— the 
 further men travel upon them, the greater the 
 interval by which they are divided. In the 
 eyes of David Hume the history of the Saxon 
 Princes is 'the scuffling of kites and crows.' 
 Father Newman would mortify the conceit of a 
 degenerate England by pointing to the sixty 
 saints and the hundred confessors who were 
 trained in her royal palaces for the Calendar 
 of the Blessed. How vast a chasm yawns be- 
 tween these two conceptions of the same era ! 
 Through what common term can the student 
 pass from one into the other ? 
 
 Or, to take an instance yet more noticeable. 
 The history of England scarcely interests Mr. 
 Macaulay before the Revolution of the seven- 
 teenth contury. To Lord John Russell, the 
 Reformation was the first outcome from cen- 
 
 *Yxom Fraser's Marazine, iSo.
 
 154 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 turies of folly and ferocity ; and Mr. Hallam's 
 more temperate language softens, without con- 
 cealing, a similar conclusion. These writers 
 have all studied what they describe. Mr. Car- 
 lyle has studied the same subject with power 
 at least equal to theirs, and to him the great- 
 ness of English character was waning with the 
 dawn of English literature ; the race of heroes 
 was already failing. The era of action was 
 yielding before the era of speech. 
 
 All these views may seem to ourselves exag- 
 gerated ; we may have settled into some mod- 
 erate via mcdia^ or have carved out our own 
 ground on an original pattern ; but if we are 
 wise, the differences in other men's judgments 
 will teach us to be diffident. The more dis- 
 tinctly we have made history bear witness in 
 favor of our particular opinions, the more we 
 have multiplied the chances against the truth 
 of our own theory. 
 
 Again, supposing that we have made a truce 
 with ' opinions,' properly so called ; supposing 
 we have satisfied ourselves that it is idle to 
 quarrel upon points on which good men differ, 
 ^nd that it is better to attend rather to what 
 we certainly knov/ ; supposing that, either from 
 superior wisdom, or from the conceit of supe- 
 rior wisdom, we have resolved that we will look 
 for human perfection neither exclusively in the 
 Old World nor exclusively in the New — neither 
 among Catholics nor Protestants, among Whigs 
 or Tories, heathens or Christians — that we 
 have laid aside accidental differences, and de- 
 termined to recognize only moral distinctions, 
 to love moral worth, and to hate moral evil, 
 wherever we find them ; — even supposing all 
 this, we have not much improved our position 
 — we cannot leap from our shadow. 
 
 Eras, like individuals, differ from one another 
 in the species of virtue which they encourage. 
 In one age, we find the virtues of the warrior ; 
 in the next, of the saint. The ascetic and the 
 soldier in their turn disappear ; an industrial
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 
 
 155 
 
 era succeeds, brinjring with it the virtues of 
 common sense, of grace, and refinement. 
 There is the virtue of energy and command, 
 there is the virtue of humility and patient suf- 
 fering. All these are different, and all are, or 
 may be, of equal moral value ; yet, from the 
 constitution of our minds, we are so framed 
 that we cannot equally appreciate all ; we sym- 
 pathize instinctively with the person who most 
 represents our own ideal — with the period when 
 the graces which most harmonize with our own 
 tempers have been especially cultivated. Fur- 
 ther, if we leave out of sight these refinements, 
 and content ourselves with the most popular 
 conceptions of morality, there is this immeas- 
 urable difficulty — so great, yet so little consid- 
 ered, — that goodness is positive as well as 
 negative, and consists in the active accom- 
 plishment of certain things which we are bound 
 to do, as well as in the abstaining from things 
 we are not bound not to do. And here the warp 
 and woof vary in shade and pattern. Many a 
 man, with the help of circumstances, may pick 
 his way clear through life, having never violated 
 one prohibitive commandment, and yet at last 
 be fit only for the place of the unprofitable ser- 
 vant — he may not have committed either sin 
 or crime, yet never have felt the pulsation of a 
 single unselfish emotion. Another, meanwhile, 
 shall liave been hurried by an impulsive nature 
 into fault after fault — shall have been reck- 
 less, improvident, perhaps profligate, yet be 
 fitter after all for the kingdom of heaven than 
 the Pharisee — fitter, because against the cata- 
 logue of faults there could perhaps be set a 
 fairer list of acts of comparative generosity 
 and self-forgetfulness — fitter, because to those 
 who love much, much is forgiven. Fielding 
 had no occasion to make Blifil, behind his de- 
 cent coat, a traitor and a hypocrite. It would 
 have been enough to have colored him in and 
 out alike in the steady hues of selfishness, afraid 
 of offending the upper powers as he was afraid
 
 156 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of offending AUworthy — not from any love for 
 for what was good, but solely because it would 
 be imprudent — because the pleasure to be 
 gained was not worth the risk of consequences. 
 Such a Elifil would have answered the novelist's 
 purpose — for he would have remained a worse 
 man in the estimation of some of us than Tom 
 Jones. 
 
 So the truth is ; but unfortunately it is only 
 where accurate knowledge is stimulated by af- 
 fection, that we are able to feel it. Persons 
 who live beyond our own circle, and, still more, 
 persons who have lived in another age, receive 
 what is called justice, not charity ; and justice 
 is supposed to consist in due allotments of cen- 
 sure for each special act of misconduct, leav- 
 ing merit unrecognized. There are many rea- 
 sons for this harsh method of judging. We 
 must decide of men by what we know, and it is 
 easier to know faults than to know virtues. 
 Faults are specific, easily described, easily ap- 
 preciated, easily remembered. And again, 
 there is, or may be, hypocrisy in virtue ; but 
 no one pretends to vice who is not vicious. 
 The bad things which can be proved of a man 
 we know to be genuine. He was a spendthrift, 
 he was an adulterer, he gambled, he equivo- 
 cated. These are blots positive, unless un- 
 true, and when they stand alone, tinge the 
 whole character. 
 
 This also is to be observed in historical 
 criticism. All men feel a necessity of being on 
 some terms with their conscience, at their own 
 expense or at another's. If they cannot part 
 with their faults, they will at least call them by 
 their right name when they meet with such 
 faults elsewhere ; and thus, when they find 
 account of deeds of violence or sensuality, of 
 tyranny, of injustice of man to man, of great 
 and extensive suffering, or any of those other 
 misfortunes which the selfishness of men has 
 at various times occasioned, they will vituper- 
 ate the doers of such tilings, and the age which
 
 DJSSOL UTION OF MONASTERIES. 1 5 7 
 
 has permitted them to be done, with the full 
 emphasis of virtuous indii;nation, while all the 
 time they are themselves doing things which 
 will be described, with no less justice, in the 
 same colors, by an equally virtuous posterity. 
 
 Historians are fond of recording the sup- 
 posed sufferings of the poor in the days of 
 serfdom and villenage ; yet the records of the 
 strikes of the last ten years, when told by the 
 sufferers, contain pictures no less fertile in 
 tragedy. We speak of famines and plagues 
 under the Tudors and Stuarts ; but the Irish 
 famine, and the Irish plague of 1847, the last 
 page of such horrors which has yet been turned 
 over, is the most horrible of all. We can con- 
 ceive a description of England during the year 
 which has just closed over us (1856), true in 
 all its details, containing no one statement 
 which can be challenged, no single exaggera- 
 tion which can be proved ; and this descrip- 
 tion, if given without the correcting traits, shall 
 make ages to come marvel why the Cities of 
 the Plain were destroyed, and England was 
 allowed to survive. The frauds of trusted men, 
 high in power and high in supposed religion ; 
 the wholesale poisonings ; the robberies ; the 
 adulteration of food — nay, of almost everything 
 exposed for sale — the cruel usage of women — 
 children murdered for the burial fees — life and 
 property insecure in open day in the open 
 streets — splendor such as the world never saw 
 before upon earth, with vice and squalor crouch- 
 ing under its walls — let all this be written down 
 by an enemy, or let it be ascertained hereafter 
 by the investigation of a posterity which desires 
 to judge us as we generally have judged our 
 forefathers, and few years will show darker in 
 the English annals than the year which we have 
 just left behind us. Yet we know, in the hon- 
 esty of our hearts, how unjust such a picture 
 would be. Our future advocate, if we are so 
 happy as to find one, may not be able to dis- 
 prove a single article in the indictment ; and
 
 158 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 yet we know that, as the world goes, he will be 
 right if he marks the year with a white stroke 
 — as one in which, on the whole, the moral 
 harvest was better than an average. 
 
 Once more : our knowledge of any man is 
 always inadequate — even of the unit which 
 each of us calls himself ; and the first condition 
 under which we can know a man at all is, that 
 he be in essentials something like ourselves; 
 that our own experience be an interpreter which 
 shall open the secrets of his experience ; and 
 it often happens, even among our contempo- 
 raries, that we are altogether baffled. The Eng- 
 lishman and the Italian may understand each 
 other's speech, but the language of each other's 
 ideas has still to be learnt. Our long failures 
 in Ireland have arisen from a radical incon- 
 gruity of character which has divided the Celt 
 from the Saxon. And again, in the same 
 country, the Catholic will be a mystery to the 
 Protestant, and the Protestant to the Catholic. 
 Their intellects have been shaped in opposite 
 moulds ; they are like instruments which can- 
 not be played in concert. In the same way, 
 but in a far higher degree, we are divided from 
 the generations which have preceded us in this 
 planet — we try to comprehend a Pericles or a 
 Caisar — an image rises before us which we 
 seem to recognize as belonging to our common 
 humanity. There is this feature which is 
 familiar to us — and this — and this. We are 
 full of hope ; the lineaments, one by one, pass 
 into clearness ; when suddenly the figure be- 
 comes enveloped in a cloud — some perplexity 
 crosses our analysis, baflling it utterly, the 
 phantom which we have evoked dies away be- 
 fore our eyes, scornfully mocking our incapa- 
 city to master it. 
 
 The English antecedent to the Reformation 
 are nearer to us than Greeks or Romans ; and 
 yet there is a large interval between the baron 
 who fought at Barnet field, and his polished 
 descendant in a modern drawing-room. The ,
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 
 
 159 
 
 scale of appreciation and the rule of judg- 
 ment — the habits, the hopes, the fears, the 
 emotions — have utterly changed. 
 
 In perusing modern histories, the present 
 writer has been struck dumb with wonder at. 
 the facility with which men will fill in chasms 
 in their information with conjecture ; will guess 
 at the motives which have prompted actions ; 
 will pass their censures, as if all secrets of the 
 past lay out on an open scroll before them. 
 He is obliged to say for himself that, wherever 
 he has been fortunate enough to discover au- 
 thentic explanations of English historical diffi- 
 culties, it is rare indeed that he has found any 
 conjecture, either of his own or of any other 
 modern writer, confirmed. The true motive 
 has almost invariably been of a kind which no 
 modern experience could have suggested. 
 
 Thoughts such as these form a hesitating 
 prelude to an expression of opinion on a con- 
 troverted question. They will serve, however, 
 to indicate the limits within which the said 
 opinion is supposed to be hazarded. And in 
 fact, neither in this nor in any historical sub- 
 ject is the conclusion so clear that it can be 
 enunciated in a definite form. The utmost 
 which can be safely hazarded with history is to 
 relate honestly ascertained facts, with only such 
 indications of a judicial sentence upon them 
 as may be suggested in the form in which the 
 story is arranged. 
 
 Whether the monastic bodies of England, at 
 the time of their dissolution, were really in that 
 condition of moral corruption which is laid 
 to t heir charge in the Act of Parliament by 
 which they were dissolved, is a point which 
 it seems hopeless to argue. Roman Catholic, 
 and indeed almost all English, writers who 
 are not committed to an unfavorable opinion 
 by the ultra-Protestantism of their doctrines, 
 seem to have agreed of late years that the 
 accusations, if not false, were enormously ex- 
 ajTserated. The dissolution, we are told, was
 
 l(3o HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 a predetermined act of violence and rapacity; 
 and when the reports and the letters of the 
 visitors are quoted in justification of the Gov- 
 ernment, the discussion is closed with the dis- 
 missal of every unfavorable witness from the 
 court, as venal, corrupt, calumnious — in fact, 
 as a suborned liar. Upon these terms the 
 argument is easily disposed of ; and if it were 
 not that truth is in all matters better than 
 falsehood, it would be idle to reopen a question 
 which cannot be justly dealt with. No evi- 
 dence can affect convictions which have been 
 arrived at without evidence — and why should 
 we attempt a task which it is hopeless to ac- 
 complish ? It seems necessary, however, to 
 reassert the actual state of the surviving testi- 
 mony from time to time, if it be only to sus- 
 tain the links of the old traditions ; and the 
 jDresent paper will contain one or two pictures 
 of a peculiar kind, exhibiting the life and habits 
 of those institutions, which have been lately 
 met with chiefly among theunprinted Records. 
 — In anticipation of any possible charge of un- 
 fairness in judging from isolated instances, we 
 disclaim simply all desire to judge — all wish 
 to do anything beyond relating certain as- 
 certained stories. Let it remain, to those who 
 are perverse enough to insist upon it, an open 
 question whether the monasteries were more 
 corrupt under Henry the Eighth than they had 
 been four hundred years earlier. The dissolu- 
 tion would have been equally a necessity; for 
 no reasonable person would desire that bodies 
 of men should have been maintained for the 
 only business of singing masses, when the effi- 
 cacy of masses was no longer believed. Our 
 present desire is merely this — to satisfy our- 
 selves whether the Government, in discharging 
 a duty which could not be dispensed with, con- 
 descended to falsehood in seeking a vindica- 
 tion for themselves which they did not require; 
 or whether they had cause really to believe the 
 majority of the monastic bodies to be as they
 
 DISSOL UTION OF MONAS TEKIES. 1 6 r 
 
 affirmed — whether, that is to saj', there really 
 were such cases either of flagrant immorality, 
 neglect of discipline, or careless waste and 
 prodigality, as to justify the general censure 
 which was pronounced against the system by 
 the Parliament and the Privy Council. 
 
 Secure in the supposed completeness with 
 which Queen Mary's agents destroyed the Rec- 
 ords of the visitation under her father, Roman 
 Catholic writers have taken refuge in a dis- 
 dainful denial ; and the Anglicans, who for the 
 most part, while contented to enjoy the fruits 
 of the Reformation, detest the means by which 
 it was brought about, have taken the same 
 view. Bishop Latimer tells us, that, when the 
 Report of the visitors of the abbeys was read 
 in the Commons House, there rose from all 
 sides one long cry of ' Down with them.' But 
 Bishop Latimer, in the opinion of High Church- 
 men, is not to be believed. Do wc produce 
 letters of the visitors themselves, we are told 
 that they are the slanders prepared to justify 
 a preconceived purpose of spoliation. No 
 witness, it seems, will be admitted unless it be 
 the witness of a friend. Unless some enemy 
 of the Reformation can be found to confess 
 the crimes which made the Reformation neces- 
 sary, the crimes themselves are to be regarded 
 as unproved. This is a hard condition. We 
 appeal to Wolse}'. Wolsey commenced the 
 suppression. Wolsey first made public the 
 infamies which disgraced the Church ; while, 
 notwithstanding, he died the devoted servant 
 of the Church. This evidence is surely ad- 
 missible } But no : Wolsey, too, must be put 
 out of court. Wolsey was a courtier and a 
 time-server. Wolsey was a tyrant's minion. 
 Wolsev was — in short, we know not what 
 Wolsey was, or what he was not. Who can 
 put confidence in a charlatan ? Behind the 
 bulwarks of such objections, the champion of 
 the abbeys may well believe himself secure. 
 And yet, unreasonable though these de-
 
 1 62 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 mands may be, it happens, after all, that we are 
 able partially to gratify them. It is strange 
 that, of all extant accusations against any qne 
 of the abbeys, the heaviest is from a quarter 
 which even Lingard himself would scarcely call 
 suspicious. No picture left us by Henry's 
 visitors surpasses, even if it equals, a descrip- 
 tion of the condition of the Abbey of St Albans, 
 in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, 
 drawn by Morton, Henry the Seventh's minis- 
 ter. Cardinal Archbishop, Legate of the Apos- 
 tolic See, in a letter addressed by him to the 
 Abbot or St Albans himself. We must request 
 our reader's special attention for the next two 
 pages. 
 
 In the year 1489, Pope Innocent the Eighth 
 — moved with the enormous stories which 
 reached his ear of the corruption of the houses 
 of religion in England — granted a commission 
 to the Archbishop of Canterbury to make in- 
 quiries whether these stories were true, and to 
 proceed to correct and reform as might seem 
 good to him. The regular clergy were exempt 
 from episcopal visitation, except under especial 
 directions from Rome. The occasion had 
 appeared so serious as to make extraordinary 
 interference necessary. 
 
 On the receipt of the Papal commission. 
 Cardinal Morton, among other letters, wrote 
 the following letter : — 
 
 John, by Divine permission, Arclibishop of Cantebury 
 Primate of a!l England, Legate of tlic Apostolic See, to 
 William, Abbot of the Monastery of St Albans, greet- 
 ing. 
 
 We have received certain letters under lead, the 
 copies whereof we herewitli send you, from our most 
 holy Lord and Father in Christ, Innocent, by Divine 
 Providence Pope, the eighth of that name. We there- 
 fore, John, the Archbishop, the visitor, reformer, in- 
 quisitor, and judge therein mentioned, in reverence for 
 the Ai)ostolic Sec, liave taken ujion ourselves the burden 
 of enforcing the said commission ; and have determined 
 that we will proceed by, and according to, the full force, 
 tenor, and effect of the same. 
 
 And it has cume to our ears, being at once publicly
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 163 
 
 notorious and brought before us upon the testimony of 
 many witnesses worthy of credit, that you, tlie abbot 
 afore-mciitioned, liavc been of long time noted and 
 diffamed, and do yet continue so noted, of simony, of 
 usury, of dilapidation and waste of the goods, revenues, 
 and possessions of the said monastery, and of certain 
 other enormous crimes and excesses hereafter written. 
 In tJie rule, custody, and administration of the goods, 
 spiritual and temporal, of the said monastery you are so 
 remiss, so negligent, so prodigal^ that whereas the said 
 monastery was of old times founded and endowed by the 
 pious devotion of illustrious princes, of famous memory, 
 heretofore kings of this land, the most noble progenitors 
 of our most serene Lord and King that now is, in order 
 that true religion might flourish there, that the name of 
 the Most High, in whose honor and glory it was insti- 
 tuted, might be duly celebrated there; 
 
 And whereas, in days heretofore, the regular observ- 
 ance of the said rule 'was greatly regarded, and hospi- 
 tality was diligently kept; 
 
 Nevertheless, for no little time, during which you have 
 presided in the same monastery, you and certain of your 
 fellow-monks and brethren (whose blood, it is feared, 
 through your neglect, a severe Judge will require at 
 your hand) have relaxed the measure and form of re- 
 ligious life; you have laid aside the pleasant yoke of 
 contemplation, and all regular observances — hospitality, 
 alms, and those other offices of piety which of old time 
 were exercised and ministered therein have decreased, 
 and by your faults, your carelessness, your neglect and 
 deed, do daily decrease more and more, and cease to be 
 regarded — the pious vows of the founders are defrauded 
 of "their just intent — the ancient rule of your order is 
 deserted; and not a few of your fellow-monks and 
 brethren, as we most deeply grieve to learn, giving 
 themselves over to a reprobate mind, laying aside the 
 fear of God, do lead only a life of lasciviousness — nay, 
 as is horrible to relate, be not afraid to defile the holy 
 places, even the very churches of God, by infamous 
 intercourse with nuns, &c. &c. 
 
 You yourself, moreover, among other grave enormi- 
 ties and abominable crimes whereof you are guilty, and 
 for which you are noted and diffamed, have, in the first 
 place, admitted a certain married woman, named Elena 
 Germyn, who has separated herself without just cause 
 from her husband, and for some time past has lived in 
 adultery with another man, to be a nun or sister in the 
 house or Priory of Bray, lying, as you pretend, within 
 your jurisdiction. You have next appointed the same 
 woman to be prioress of the said house, notwithstanding 
 that her said iuisband was living at the time, and is still 
 alive. And finally. Father Thomas Sudbury, one of 
 your brother monks, publicly, notoriously, and without
 
 164 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 interference or punishment from you, has associated, 
 and still associates with tliis woman as an adulterer 
 with his harlot. 
 
 Moreover, divers other of your brethren and fellow- 
 monks have resorted, and do resort, continually to her 
 and other women at the same place, as to a public 
 brothel or receiving house, and have received no cor- 
 rection therefor. 
 
 Nor is Bray the only house into which you have in- 
 troduced disorder. At the nunnery of Sapwell, which 
 you also contend to be under your jurisdiction, you 
 change the prioresses and superiors again and again at 
 your own will and caprice. Here, as well as at Bray, 
 you depose those who are good and religious; you pro- 
 mote to the highest dignities the worthless and the 
 vicious. The duties of the order are cast aside ; virtue 
 is neglected; and by these means so much cost and ex- 
 travagance has been caused, that to provide means for 
 your indulgence yon have introduced certain of your 
 brethren to preside in their houses under the name of 
 guardians, when in fact they are no guardians, but 
 thieves and notorious villains; and with their help you 
 have caused and permitted the goods of the same priories 
 to be dispensed, or to speak more truly to be dissipated, 
 in the above-described corruptions and other enormous 
 and accursed offences. Those places once religious are 
 rendered and reputed as it were profane and impious; 
 and i)y your own and ycnir creatures' conduct, are so 
 im|)ovcri,slierl as to be be rcducetl to the verge of ruin. 
 
 In like manner, also, you have dealt with certain other 
 cells of monks wiiich you say arc subject to you, even 
 within the monastery of the glorious proto-martyr Alban 
 himself. You have dilapidated the common property; 
 you have made away with the jewels; the copses, the 
 woods, the underwood, almost all the oaks, and other 
 forest trees, to the value of eight thousand marks and 
 more, you iiave made to be cut down without distinction, 
 and they have by you been sold and alienated. The 
 brethren of the abbey, some of whom, as is rcj^orted, are 
 given over to all the evil things of the world, neglect 
 the service of God altogether. They live with harlots 
 and mistresses ]nil)licly and continuously, within the 
 precincts of the monastery and without. Some of them, 
 who are covetous of honor and promotion, and desirous 
 therefore of pleasing your cuijidily, have stolen and 
 made away with tlie chalices and other jewels of the 
 church. They have even .sacrilegiously extracted the 
 jjrccious stones from the very shrine of St. Alban; and 
 you iiavc not ])unished these men, but have ratlier know- 
 ingly supi)orted and maintained them. If any of your 
 brethren be living justly and religiously, if any l^e wise 
 and virtuous, these you straightway depress and hold in 
 hatred. . . . You . . .
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTER lE?^. 
 
 M 
 
 But we need not transcribe further this over- 
 whehiiing document. It pursues its way through 
 mire and fdih to its most lame and impotent 
 conclusion. Aflcr all this, the Abbot was not 
 deposed ; he was invited merely to reconsider 
 his doings, and, if possible, amend them. Such 
 was Church discipline, even under an extra- 
 ordinary commission from Rome. But the 
 most incorrigible Anglican will scarcely ques- 
 tion the truth of a picture drawn by such a 
 hand ; and it must be added that this one un- 
 exceptional indictment lends at once assured 
 credibility to the reports which were presented 
 fifty years later, on the general visitation. 
 There is no longer room for the presumptive 
 objection that charges so revolting could not 
 be true. We see that in their worst form they 
 could be true, and the evidence of Legh and 
 Leghton, of Rice and Bedyll, as it remains in 
 their letters to Cromwell, must be shaken in 
 detail, or else it must be accepted as correct. 
 We cannot dream that Archbisliop Morton was 
 mistaken, or was misled by false information. 
 St. Albans was no obscure priory in a remote 
 and thinly-peopled country. The Abbot of 
 St. Albans was a peer of the realm, taking 
 precedence of bishops, living in the full glare 
 of notoriety, within a few miles of London. 
 The Archbishop had ample means of ascertain- 
 ing the truth ; and, we may be sure, had taken 
 care to examine his ground before he left on 
 record so tremendous an accusation. This 
 story is true — as true as it is piteous. We will 
 pause a moment over it before we pass from 
 this, once more to ask our passionate Church 
 friends whether still they will persist that the 
 abbeys were no worse under the Tudors than 
 they had been in their origin, under the Sax- 
 ony, or under the first Norman and Plantagenet 
 kings. We refuse to believe it. The abbeys 
 which towered in the midst of the English 
 towns, the houses clustered at their feet like 
 subjects round some maiestic queen, were
 
 1 66 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 images indeed of the civil supremacy which the 
 Church of the Middle Ages had asserted for 
 itself ; but they were images also of an inner 
 spiritual sublimity, which had won the homage 
 of grateful and admiring nations. The heaven- 
 ly graces had once descended upon the monas- 
 tic orders, making them ministers of mercy, 
 patterns of celestial life, breathing witnesses 
 of the power of the Spirit in renewing and 
 sanctifvinir the heart. And then it was that 
 art and wealth and genius poured out their 
 treasures to raise fitting tabernacles for the 
 dwelling of so divine a soul. Alike in the 
 village and the city, amongst the unadorned 
 walls and the lowly roofs which closed in the 
 humble dwellings of the laity, the majestic 
 houses of the Father of mankind and of his es- 
 pecial servants rose up in sovereign beauty. 
 And ever at the sacred gates sat Mercy, pour- 
 ing out relief from a never-failing store to the 
 poor and the suffering ; ever within the sacred 
 aisles the voices of holy men were pealing 
 heavenwards in intercession for the sins of 
 mankind ; and such blessed influences were 
 thought to exhale around those mysterious 
 precincts, that even the poor outcasts of society, 
 — the debtor, the felon, and the outlaw — 
 gathered around the walls as the sick men 
 sought the shadow, of the apostles, and lay 
 there sheltered from the avenging hand, till 
 their sins were washed from off their souls. 
 The abbeys of the middle ages floated through 
 the storms of war and conquest, like the ark 
 upon the waves of the floocl, in the midst of 
 violence remaining inviolate, through awful 
 reverence which surrounded them. The abbeys, 
 as Henry's visitors found them, were as little 
 like what they once had been, as the living 
 man in the jiride of his growth is like the corpse 
 which the earth makes haste to hide for- 
 ever. 
 
 The official letters which reveal the condition 
 into which the monastic establishments had
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 167 
 
 degenerated, are chiefly in the Cotton Library, 
 and a large number of them have been pub- 
 lished by the Camden Society. Besides these, 
 however, tliere are in tlie Rolls House many 
 other documents which confirm and complete 
 the statements of the writers of those letters. 
 There is a part of what seems to have been a 
 digest of the ' Black Book ' — an epitome of 
 iniquities, under the title of the ' Compendium 
 Compertorum.' There are also reports from 
 private persons, private entreaties for inquiry, 
 depositions of monks in ofiicial examinations, 
 and other similar papers, which, in many in- 
 stances, are too offensive to be produced, and 
 may rest in obscurity, unless contentious per- 
 sons compel us to bring them forward. Some 
 of these, however, throw curious light on the 
 habits of the time, and on the collateral disor- 
 ders which accompanied the more gross enor- 
 mities. They show us, too, that although the 
 dark tints predominate, the picture was not 
 wholly black ; that as just Lot was in the 
 midst of Sodom, yet was unable by his signal 
 presence to save the guilty city from destruc- 
 tion, so in the latest era of monasticism there 
 were types yet lingering of an older and fairer 
 age, who, nevertheless, were not delivered, like 
 the patriarch, but perished most of them with 
 the institution to which they belonged. The 
 hideous exposure is not untinted with fairer 
 lines ; and we see traits here and there of true 
 devotion, mistaken but heroic. 
 
 Of these documents, two specimens shall be 
 given in this place, one of either kind ; and 
 both, so far as we know, new to modern history. 
 The first is so singular, that we print it as it is 
 found. — a genuine antique, fished up, in perfect 
 preservation, out of the wreck of the old 
 world. 
 
 About eight miles from Ludlow, in the county 
 of Herefordshire, once stood the Abbey of 
 Wifi:more. There was Wigmore Castle a 
 stronghold of the Welsh Marches, now, we
 
 J 68 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 believe, a modern, well conditioned mansion ; 
 and Wisfmore Abbev, of which we do not hear 
 that there are any remaining traces. Though 
 now vanished, however, like so many of its 
 kind, the house was three hundred years ago 
 in vigorous existence ; and when the stir com- 
 menced for an inquiry, the proceedings of the 
 Abbot of this place gave occasion to a memo- 
 rial which stands in the Rolls collection as fol- 
 lows : * — 
 
 Articles to be objected against John Smart, Abbot of 
 the Monastery of Wigmore, in the county of Hereford, 
 to be exhibited to the Right Honorable Lord Thomas 
 Cromwell, the Lord Privy Seal and Vicegerent to the 
 King's Majesty. 
 
 1. The said abbot is to be accused of simony, as well 
 for taking money for advocation and putations of bene- 
 fices, as for giving of orders, or more truly, selling them, 
 and that to such persons which have been rejected else- 
 where, and of little learning and light consideration. 
 
 2. The said abbot hath promoted to orders many 
 scholars when all other bishops did refrain to give such 
 orders on account of certain ordinances devised by the 
 King's Majesty and his Council for the common weal 
 of this realm. Then resorted to the said abbot scholars 
 out of all parts, whom he would promote to orders by 
 sixty at a time, and sometimes more, and otherwhiles 
 less. And sometimes the said abbot would give orders 
 by night within his chamber, and otherwise in the church 
 early in the morning, and now and then at a chapel out 
 of the abbey. So that there be many unlearned and 
 light priests made by the said abbot, and in the diocese of 
 Llandaff, and in the places aforenamed — a thousand, as 
 it is esteemed, by the space of this seven years he hath 
 made priests, and received not so little money of them 
 as a thousand pounds for their orders. 
 
 3. Item, that the said abbot now of late, when he 
 could not be suffered to give general orders, for the most 
 part doth give orders by pretence of dispensation ; and 
 by that color he ])romoteth them to orders by two and 
 three, and takes much money of them, both for their 
 orders and frjr to purchase their dispensations after the 
 time he hath promoted them to their orders. 
 
 4. Item, the said abbot hath hurt and dismayed his 
 tenants by putting them from their- leases, and by en- 
 closing their commons from them, and selling and utter 
 wasting of the woods that were wont to relieve and 
 succor them. 
 
 * Rolls House MS., Miscellaneous Paper s,Y\x%X Sc- 
 ries, 356.
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 169 
 
 5. Item, the said al)bot hath sold corradycs, to the 
 damage of the said monastery. 
 
 6. Item, the said abbot hath alienated and sold the 
 jewels and plate of the monastery, to the value of five 
 hundred marks, to purchase of tile Bishop of Koine his 
 bulls to be a bishop, and to aiuiex the said abbey to his 
 bishopric, to that intent that he should not for his misdeeds 
 be punished, or deprived from his said abbey. 
 
 7. Item, that the said abbot, long after that other 
 bishops had renounced the Bishop of Rome, and pro- 
 fessed them to the King's Majestv, did use, but more 
 verily usurped, the office of a bishop by virtue of his first 
 bulls purchased from Rome, till now of late, as it will 
 appear by the date of his confirmation, if he have any. 
 
 8. Item, that he the said abbot hath lived viciously, 
 and kept to concubines divers and many women that is 
 openly known, 
 
 9. item, that the said abbot doth yet continue his 
 vicious living, as it is known, openly. 
 
 10. Item, that the said abbot hath spent and wasted 
 much of the goods of the said monastery upon the afore- 
 said women. 
 
 11. Item, that the said abbot is malicious and very 
 wrathful, not regarding what he saith or doeth in his 
 fury or anger. 
 
 12. Item, that one Richard Gyles bought of the abbot 
 and convent of Wigmore a corradye, and a chamber for 
 him and his wife for term of their lives ; and when the 
 said Richard Gyles was aged and was very weak, he dis- 
 posed his goods, and made executors to execute his will. 
 
 And when the said abbot now being perceived that 
 
 the said Richard Gyles was rich, and had not bequested 
 so much of his goods to him as he would have had, the 
 said abbot then came to the chamber of the said Richard 
 Gyles, and put out thence all his friends and kinsfolk 
 that kept him in his sickness ; and then the said abbot 
 set his brother and other of his servants to keep the sick 
 man ; and the night next coming after the said Richard 
 Gyles's coffer was broken, and thence taken all that was 
 in the same, to the value of forty marks ; and long after 
 the said abbot confessed, before the executors of the 
 said Richard Gyles, that it was his deed. 
 
 13. Item, that the said abbot, after he had taken away 
 the goods of the said Richard Gyles, used daily to re- 
 prove and check the said Richard Gyles, and inquire of 
 him where was more of his coin and money ; and at the 
 last the said abbot thought he lived too long, and made 
 the sick man, after much sorry keeping, to be taken 
 from his feather-bed, and laid upon a cold mattress, 
 and kept his friends from him to his death. 
 
 15. Item, that the said abbot consented to the death 
 and murdering of one John Tichkill, that was slain at 
 his procuring, at the said monastery, by Sir Richard 
 Cubley, canon and chajilain to the said abbot ; which
 
 1 7 o ills TOKICA L ESS A YS. 
 
 canon is and ever hath been since that time chief of th«i 
 said abbot's council ; and is supported to carry cross- 
 bowes, and to go whither he lustcth at any time, to fish- 
 ing and hunting in the king's forests, paries, and chases ; 
 but little or nuliiing serving the quire, as other brethren 
 do, neither corrected of the abbot for any trespass he 
 doth commit, 
 
 i6. Item, that the said abbot hath been perjured oft, 
 as is to be proved ?ind is proved ; and as it is supposed, 
 did not make a true inventory of the goods, chattels, and 
 jewels of his monastery to the King's Majesty and his 
 Council, 
 
 17. Item, that the said abbot hath infringed all the 
 king's injunctions which were given him by Doctor Cave 
 to observe and keep ; and when he was denounced in 
 pleno capitula to have broken the same, he would have 
 put in prison the brother as did denounce him to have 
 broken the same injunctions, save that he was let by the 
 convent there. 
 
 18. Item, that the said abbot hath openly preached 
 against the doctrine of Christ, saying he ought not to 
 love his enemy, but as he loves the devil ; and that he 
 should love his enemy's soul, but not his body. 
 
 19. Item, that the said abbot hath taken but small 
 regard to the good-living of his household. 
 
 20. Item that the said abbot hath had and hath yet a 
 special favor to misdores and manquellers, thieves, de- 
 ceivers of their neighbors, and by them [is] most ruled 
 and counselled, 
 
 21. Item, that the said abbot hath granted leases of 
 farms and advocations first to one man, and took his 
 fine, and also hath granted the same lease to another 
 man for more money ; and then would make to the last 
 taker a lease or writing, with an antedate of the first 
 lease, which had bred great dissension among gentlemen 
 — as Master Blunt and Master Moysey, and other 
 takers of such leases — -and that often. 
 
 22. Item, the said abbot having the contrepaynes of 
 leases in liis keeping, hath, for money, rased out the 
 number of years mentioned in the said leases, and writ 
 a fresli number in the former taker's lease, and in the 
 contrcpayne thereof, to the intent to defraud the taker 
 ortbuycr of the residence of such leases of whom he hath 
 received the money. 
 
 23. Item, the said abbot hath, not according to the 
 foundation of his monastery, admitted reely tenants into 
 certain alms-houses Ijelonging to the said monastery ; 
 but of them he hath taken large fines, and some of them 
 he hath put away that would not give him fines; whither 
 poor, aged, ancl impotent people were wont to be freely 
 admitted, and [to| receive the founder's alms that of the 
 old customs [were] limited to the same — which alms is 
 also diminished by the said abbot. 
 
 24. Item, that the said abbot did not deliver the bulls
 
 D/SSOL UTION OF MONASTERIES. 1 7 1 
 
 of his bisliopric, that he purchased from Rome, to our 
 sovereign lonl the king's council till long after the time 
 he had delivered and exhibited the hulls of liis monastery 
 to them. 
 
 25. Item, that the said abbot hath detained and yet 
 doth detain servants' wages; and often when the said 
 servants hath asked their wages, the said abbot hath put 
 them into the stocks, and beat them. 
 
 26. Item, the said abbot, in times past, hath had a 
 great devotion to ride to Llangarvan, in Wales, upon 
 l.ammas-day, to receive pardon there ; and on the even 
 he would visit one Mary Hawle, an old acquaintance 
 of his, at the Welsh Poole, and on the morrow ride to 
 the foresaid Llangarvan, to be confessed and absolved, 
 and the same night return to company with the said 
 Mary Hawle, at the Welsh Poole aforesaid, and Kateryn, 
 the said Mary Hawle her first daughter, whom the said 
 abbot long hath kept to concubine, and had children by 
 her, that he lately married at Ludlow. And [there be] 
 others that have been taken out of his chamber and put 
 in the stocks within the said abbey, and others that have 
 complained upon him to the king's council of the 
 Marches of Wales ; and the woman that dashed out his 
 teeth, that he would have had by violence, I will not 
 name now, nor other men's wives, lest it would offend 
 your good lordship to read or hear the same. 
 
 27. Item, the said abbot doth daily embezzle, sell, and 
 convey the goods and chattels, and jewels of the said 
 Tnonastery, having no need so to do ; for is thought that 
 he hath a thousand marks or two thousand lying by him 
 that he hath gotten by selling of orders, and the jewels 
 and plate of the monastery and corradyes ; and it is to 
 be feared that he will alienate all the rest, unless your 
 good lordship speedily make redress and provision to 
 let the same. 
 
 28. Item, the said abbot was accustomed yearly to 
 preach at Lcyntwarded on the P'estival of the Nativity of 
 the Virgin Mary, where and when the people were wont 
 to offer to an image there, and to the s.ame the said abbot 
 in his sermons would exhort them and encourage them. 
 But now the oblations be decayed, tlie abbot, espying 
 the image then to have a cote of silver plate and gilt, 
 hath taken aw.ay of his own authority the said image, and 
 the plate turned to his own use ; and left his preaching 
 there, saying it is no manner of profit to any man, and 
 the plate that was about the said image was named to be 
 worth forty pounds. 
 
 29. Item, the said .abbot hath ever nourished enmity 
 and discord among his brethren ; and hath not encouraged 
 them to learn the laws and the mystery of Christ. But 
 he that least knew was most cherished by him ; and he 
 hath been highly displeased and [hath] disdained when 
 his brothers would say that 'it is God's inecept and 
 doctrine tliat ye ought to prefer before your ceremonies
 
 172 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ami vain constitutions.' This saying was liigh disobedient, 
 and should be grievously punished; when that lying, 
 obloquy, flattery, ignorance, derision, contumely, discord, 
 great swearing, drinking, hvpocrisv, fraud, superstition, 
 tleceit, conspiracy to wrong their neighbor, and other of 
 that kind, was had in special favor and regard. Laud 
 and praise be to God that hath sent us the true knowl- 
 edge. Honor and long ]5rosperity to our sovereign lord 
 and his noble council, that teaches to advance the same. 
 Amen. 
 
 15y John Lee, your faithful bedeman, and canon of the 
 said monastery of Wigmore. 
 
 Postscript. — My good lord, there is in the said abbey 
 a cross of fine gold and precious stones, whereof one 
 diamond was esteemed by Doctor Booth, Bishop of 
 Hereford, worth a hundred marks. In that cross is en- 
 closed a piece of wood, named to be of the cross that 
 Christ died upon, and to tlie same hath been offering. 
 And when it should be brought down to the church from 
 the treasury, it was brought down with lights, and like 
 reverence as should have been done to Christ Himself. 
 I fear lest the abbot upon Sunday next, when he may 
 enter the treasury, will take away the said cross and 
 break it, or turn to his own use, with many other pre- 
 cious jewels that be there. 
 
 All these articles afore written be true as to the sub- 
 stance and true meaning of them, though peradventure 
 for haste and lack of counsel, some words be set amiss 
 or out of their place. That I will be ready to prove 
 forasmuch as lies in me, when it shall like your honor- 
 able lordship to direct your commission to men (or any 
 man) that will be indifferent and not corrupt to sit upon 
 tlie same, at the said abbey, where the witnesses and 
 l^roofs be most ready and the truth is best known, or 
 at any other jjlace where it shall be thought most con- 
 venient by your high discretion and authority. 
 
 The statutes of Provisors, commonly called 
 Praemunire statutes, which forbade all pur- 
 chases of bulls from Rome under penalty of 
 outlawry, have been usually considered in the 
 highest degree oppressive ; and more particu- 
 larly the pul.)lic censure has fallen upon the 
 last application of those statutes, when on 
 Wolsey's fall, the whole body of the clergy 
 were laid under a prcemunire, and only obtained 
 pardon on payment of a serious fine. Let no 
 one regret that he has learnt to be tolerant to 
 Roman Catholics as the nineteenth century 
 knows them. But it is a spurious charity which,
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 173 
 
 to remedy a modern injustice, hastens to its 
 opposite ; and when philosophic historians in- 
 dulge in loose invective against the statesmen 
 of the Reformation, they show themselves unfit 
 to be trusted with the custody of our national 
 annals. The Acts of Parliament speak plainly 
 of the enormous abuses which had grown up 
 under these bulls. Yet even the emphatic 
 language of the statutes scarcely prepares us 
 to find an abbot able to purchase with jewels 
 stolen from his own convent a faculty to confer 
 holy orders, though there is no evidence that 
 he had been consecrated bishop, and to make 
 a thousand pounds by selling the exercise of 
 his privileges. This is the most flagrant case 
 which has fallen under the eyes of the present 
 writer. Yet it is but a choice specimen out of 
 many. He was taught to believe, like other 
 modern students of history, that the papal dis- 
 pensations for immorality, of which we read 
 in Foxe and other Protestant writers, were 
 calumnies, but he has been forced against his 
 will to perceive that the supposed calumnies 
 were but the plain truth ; he has found among 
 the records — for one thing, a list of more than 
 twenty clergy in one diocese who had obtained 
 licences to keep concubines.* After some ex- 
 perience, he advises all persons who are anxious 
 to understand the English Reformation to place 
 implicit confidence in the Statute Book. Every 
 fresh record which is brought to light is a 
 fresh evidence in its favor. In the fluctua- 
 tions of the conflict there were parliaments, as 
 there were princes, of opposing sentiments ; 
 and measures were passed, amended, repealed, 
 or censured, as Protestants and Catholics came 
 alternately into power. But whatever were the 
 differences of opinion, the facts on either side 
 which are stated in an Act of Parliament may 
 be uniformly trusted. Even in the attainders 
 for treason and heresy we admire the truthful- 
 ness of the details of the indictments although 
 * Tanner MS. 105, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
 
 174 
 
 JTISTOKJCAL ESS A VS. 
 
 we deplore ihe prejudice which at times could 
 make a crime of virtue. 
 
 We pass on to the next picture. Equal jus- 
 tice, or some attempt at it, was promised, and 
 we shall perhaps part from the friends of the 
 monasteries on better terms than they believe. 
 At least, we shall add to our own history and 
 to the Catholic martyrology a story of genuine 
 interest. 
 
 We have manv accounts of the abbeys at the 
 time of their actual dissolution. The resistance 
 or acquiescence of superiors, the dismissals of 
 the brethren, the sale of the property, the dis- 
 truclion of relics, etc., are all described. We 
 know how the windows were taken out, how 
 the glass appropriated, how the ' melter ' ac- 
 companied the visitors to run the lead upon 
 the roofs, and the metal of the bells, into por- 
 table forms. We see the pensioned regulars 
 filing out reluctantly, or exulting in their de- 
 liverance, discharged from their vows, furnished 
 each with his * secular apparel,' and his purse 
 of money, to begin the world as he might. 
 These scenes have long been partially known, 
 and they were rarely attended with anything 
 remarkable. At the time of the suppression, 
 the discipline of several years had broken 
 down opposition, and prepared the way for the 
 catastrophe. The end came at last, but as an 
 issue which had been long foreseen. 
 
 We have sought in vain, however, for a 
 glimpse into the interior of the houses at the 
 first intimation of what was coming — more es- 
 pecially when the great blow was struck which 
 severed England from obedience to Kome, and 
 asserted tli* independence of the Anglican 
 Church. Then, virtually, the fate of the mon- 
 asteries was decided. As soon as the suprem- 
 acy was vested in the Crown, inquiry into their 
 condition could no longer be escaped or de- 
 laved : and then, throuirh the lencrth and 
 breadth of the country, there must have been 
 rare dismay. The account of the London Car-
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 
 
 175 
 
 thusians is indeed known to us, because they 
 chose to die rather than yield submission 
 where their consciences forbade them ; and their 
 insohited heroism lias served to distinguish 
 their memories. The Pope, as head of the 
 Universal Church, claimed the power of ab- 
 solving subjects from their allegiance to their 
 king. He deposed Henry. He called on for- 
 eign princes to enforce his sentence ; and, on 
 pain of excommunication, commanded the 
 native English to rise in rebellion. The king, 
 in self-defence, was compelled to require his 
 subjects to disclaim all sympathy with these 
 pretensions, and to recognize no higher author- 
 ity, spirtual or secular, than himself within his 
 own dominions. The regular clergy throughout 
 the country were on the Pope's side, secretly 
 or openly. The Charter-house monks, how- 
 ever, alone of all the order, had the courage to 
 declare their convictions, and to suffer for them. 
 Of the rest, we only perceive that they at last 
 submitted ; and since there was no uncertainty 
 as to their real feelings, we have been disposed 
 to judge them liardly as cowards. Yet we who 
 have never been tried, should perhaps be cau- 
 tious in our censures. It is possible to hold an 
 opinion quite honestly, and yet to hesitate 
 about dying for it. We consider ourselves, at 
 the present day, persuaded honestly of many 
 things ; yet which of them should we refuse to 
 relinquish if the scaffold were the alternative — ^ 
 or at least seemed to relinquish, under silent 
 protest } 
 
 And yet, in the details of the struggle at the 
 Charter-house, we see the forms of mental trial 
 which must have repeated themselves among 
 all bodies of the clergy wherever there was ser- 
 iousness of conviction. If the majority of the 
 monks were vicious and sensual, there was still 
 a large minority laboring to be true to their 
 vows ; and when one entire convent was cap- 
 able of sustained resistance, there must have 
 been many where there: was only just too little
 
 1 76 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 virtue for the emergency — where the conflict 
 between interest and conscience was equally 
 genuine, though it ended the oilier way. 
 Scenes of bitter misery there must have been — 
 of passionate emotion wrestling ineffectually 
 with the iron resolution of the Government : 
 and the faults of the Catholic party weigh so 
 heavily against them in the course and prog- 
 ress of the Reformation, that we cannot will- 
 ingly lose the few countervailing tints which 
 soften the darkness of their conditions. 
 
 Nevertheless, for any authentic account of 
 the abbeys at this crisis, we have hitherto been 
 left to our imagination. A stern and busv ad- 
 ministration had little leisure to preserve 
 records of sentimental struggles which led to 
 nothing. The Catholics did not care to keep 
 alive the recollection of a conflict in which, 
 even though with difiicuky, the Church was 
 defeated. A rare accident only could have 
 brought down to us any fragment of a transac- 
 tion which no one had an interest in remem- 
 bering. ^That such an accident has really 
 occurred, we may consider as unusally fortu- 
 nate. The story in question concerns the 
 abbey of Woburn, and is as follows : — 
 
 At Woburn, as in many other religious 
 houses, there were representatives of both the 
 factions'which; divided the country; perhaps 
 we should say of three — the sincere Catholics, 
 the Indifferentjsts, and the Protestants. These 
 last, so long as Wolsey was in power, had been 
 frightened into silence, and with difliculty had 
 been able to save themselves from extreme 
 penalties. No sooner, however, had Wolsey 
 fallen, and the battle commenced with the 
 Papacy, than the tables turned, the persecuted 
 became persecutors — or at least threw off 
 their disguise — and were strengthened with the 
 support of the large class who cared only of 
 keep on the winning side. The mysteries of 
 the faith came * to be ' disputed at the public 
 tables ; the refectories lang with polemics ;
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 
 
 177 
 
 the sacred silence of the dormitories was broken 
 for the lust lime by lawless speculation. The 
 orthodox might have appealed to the Govern- 
 ment : heresy was still forbidden by law, and, 
 if detected, was still punished by the stake. 
 Jjut the orthodox among the regular clergy 
 adhered to the Pope as well as to the faith, and 
 abhorred the sacrilege of the Parliament as 
 deeply as the new opinions of the Reformers. 
 Instead of calling in the help of the law, they 
 muttered treason in secret ; and the Reformers, 
 confident in the necessities of the times, sent 
 reports to London of their arguments and con- 
 versations. The authorities in the abbey were 
 accused of disaffection ; and a commission of 
 inquiry was sent down towards the end of the 
 spring of 1536, to investigate. The deposi- 
 tions taken on this occasion are still preserved ; 
 and with the help of them, we can leap over 
 three centuries of time, and hear the last echoes 
 of the old monastic life in Woburn Abbey 
 dying away in discord. 
 
 Where party feeling was running so high, 
 there were, of course, passionate arguments. 
 The Act of Supremacy, the spread of Protes- 
 tantism, the power of the Pope, the state of 
 England — all were discussed ; and the possibil- 
 ities of the future, as each party painted it in 
 the colors of his hojies. The brethren, we find, 
 spoke their mrnds in plain language, some- 
 times condescending to a joke. 
 
 Brother Sherbourne deposes that the sub- 
 prior, ' on Candlemas-day last past (February 
 2, 1536), asked him whether he longed not to 
 be at Rome where all his bulls were ?' Brother 
 Sherbourne answered that ' his bulls had made 
 so many calves, that he had burned them. 
 Whereunto the sub-prior said he thought there 
 were more calves now than there were then.' 
 
 Then there were long and furious c|uarrels 
 about ' my Lord Privy Seal' (Cromwell) — who 
 was to one party, the incarnation of Satan ; to 
 the other, the delivering angel.
 
 178 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Nor did matters mend when from the minis 
 ter they passed to the master. 
 
 Dan John Croxton being in ' the shaving- 
 house ' one day with certain of the brethren 
 having their tonsures looked to, and gossiping 
 as men do on sucli occasions, one ' Friar Law- 
 rence did say that the king was dead.' Then 
 said Croxton, ' Thanks be to God, his Grace is 
 in good health, and I pray God so continue 
 him ; ' and said further to the said Lawrence, 
 ' I advise thee to leave thy babbling.' Croxton 
 it seems, had been among the suspected in 
 earlier times. Lawrence said to him, ' Croxton, 
 it maketh no matter what thou sayest, for thou 
 art one of the new world ; ' whereupon hotter 
 still the conversation proceeded. ' Thy bab- 
 bling tongue,' Croxton said, ' will turn us all to 
 displeasure at length.' ' Then, quoth Lawrence, 
 ' neither thou nor yet any of us all shall do 
 well as long as we forsake our head of the 
 Church, the Pope.' ' By the mass ! ' quoth 
 Croxton, ' I would thy Pope Roger were in thy 
 belly, or thou in his, for thou art a false perjur- 
 ed knave to thy prince.' Whereunto the said 
 Lawrence answered, saying, ' By the mass, 
 thou liest ! I was never sworn to forsake the 
 Pope to be our head, and never will be.' ' Then,' 
 quoth Croxton, ' thou shalt be sworn spite of 
 thine heart one day, or I will know why nay.' 
 
 These and similar wranglings may be taken 
 as specimens of the daily conversation at 
 Woburn, and we can perceive how an abbot 
 with the best intentions would have found it 
 difficult to keep the peace. There are instances 
 of superiors in other houses throwing down 
 their command in the midst of the crisis in flat 
 despair, protesting that their subject brethren 
 were no longer governable. Abbots who were 
 inclined to the Reformation could not manage 
 the Catholics ; Catholic abbots could not 
 manage the Protestants ; indifferent abbots 
 could not manage cither the one or the other. 
 It would have been well for the Abbot of
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 
 
 179 
 
 Wobiirn — or well as far as this world is concern- 
 ed — if he, like one of these, had acknowledged 
 his incapacity, and had fled from his charge. 
 
 His name was Robert Hobbes. Of his age 
 and family, history is silent. We know only 
 that he held his place when the storm rose 
 against the Pope ; that, like the rest of the 
 clergy, he bent before the blast, taking the 
 oath to the king, and submitting to the royal 
 supremacy, but swearing under protest, as the 
 phrase went, with the outward, and not with the 
 inward man — in fact, perjuring himself. Though 
 infirm, so far, however, he was too honest to be 
 a successful counterfeit, and from the jealous 
 eyes of the Neologians of the abbey he could 
 not conceal his tendencies^ We have signifi- 
 cant evidence of the espionage which was es- 
 tablished over all suspected quarters, in the 
 conversations and trifling details of conduct on 
 the part of the Abbot, which were reported to 
 the Government. 
 
 In the summer of 1534, orders come that the 
 Pope's name should be rased out wherever it 
 was mentioned in the ma.ss books. A malcon- 
 tent, by name Robert Salford, deposed that ' he 
 was singing mass before the Abbot at St 
 Thomas's altar within the monastery, at which 
 time he rased out with his knife the said name 
 out of the canon.' The Abbot told him to ' take 
 a pen and strike or cross him out,' The saucy 
 monk said those were not the orders^ They were 
 to rase him out. ' Well, well,' the Abbot said, ' it 
 will come again one day.' ' Come again will it ? ' 
 was the answer ; ' if it do, then we will put him 
 in again ; but I trust I shall never see that 
 day."' The mild Abbot could remonstrate, but 
 could not any more command ; and the proofs 
 of his malignant inclinations were remembered 
 ajrainst him for the ear of Cromwell. 
 
 In the general injunctions, too, he was di- 
 rected to preach against the Pope, and to ex- 
 pose his usurpation ; but he could not bring 
 himself to obey. He shrank from the pulpit ;
 
 l8o HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 he preached but twice after the visitation, and 
 then on other subjects, while in the prayer be- 
 fore the sermon he refused, as we find, to use 
 the prescribed form. He only said, ' You shall 
 pray for the spirituality, the temporality, and 
 the souls that be in the pains of purgatory; 
 and did not name the king to be supreme head 
 of the Church in neither of the said sermons, 
 nor speak against the pretended authority of 
 the Bishop of Rome.' 
 
 Again, when Paul the Third, shortly after 
 his election, proposed to call a general council 
 at Mantua, against which, by advice of Henry 
 the Eighth, the Germans protested, we have a 
 glimpse how eagerly anxious English eyes were 
 watching for a turning tide. ' Hear you,' said 
 the Abbot one day, ' of the Pope's holiness 
 and the congregation of bishops, abbots, and 
 princes gathered to the council at Mantua ? 
 They be gathered for the reformation of the 
 Universal Church; and here now we have a 
 book of the excuse of the Germans, by which 
 we may know what heretics they be : for if 
 they were Catholics and true men as they pre- 
 tend to be, they would never have refused to 
 come to a genera! council.' 
 
 So matters went with the Abbot for some 
 months after he had sworn obedience to the 
 king. Lulling his conscience with such opiates 
 as the casuists could provide for bim, he 
 watched anxiously for a change, and labored 
 with but little reserve to hold his brethren to 
 their old allegiance. 
 
 In the summer of 1535, however, a change 
 came over the scene, very different from the 
 outward reaction for which he was looking,and 
 a better mind woke in the Abbot : he learnt 
 that in swearing what he did not mean with 
 reservations and nice distinctions, he had lied 
 to heaven and lied to man : that to save his 
 miserable life he had perilled his soul. When 
 the Oath of Supremacy was required of the na- 
 tion, Sir Thomas More, Bishop Eisher, and the
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. i8i 
 
 monks of the Charter-house — mistaken, as we 
 believe, in judgment, but true to their con- 
 sciences, and disdaining evasion or subterfuge 
 — chose, with deliberate nobleness, rather to 
 die than to perjure themselves. This is no 
 place to enter on the great question of the 
 justice or necessity of those executions ; but 
 the story of the so-called martyrdoms convulsed 
 the Catholic world. The Pope shook upon his 
 throne ; the shuttle of diplomatic intrigue 
 stood still ; diplomatists who had lived so long 
 in lies that the whole life of man seemed but a 
 stage pageant, a thing of show and tinsel, 
 stood aghast at the revelation of English sin- 
 cerity, and a shudder of great awe ran through 
 Europe, The fury of party leaves little room 
 for generous emotion, and no pity was felt for 
 these men by the English Protestants. The 
 Protestants knew well that if these same suf- 
 ferers could have had their way, they would 
 themselves have been sacrificed by hecatombs ; 
 and as they had never experienced mercy, so 
 they were in turn without mercy. But to the 
 English Catholics^ who believed as Fisher be- 
 lieved, but who had not dared to suffer as 
 Fisher suffered, his death and the death of the 
 rest acted as a glimpse of the Judgment Day. 
 Their safety became their shame and terror ; 
 and in the radiant example before them of true 
 faithfulness, they saw their own falsehood and 
 their own disgrace. So it w'as with Father Forest, 
 who had taught his penitents in confession that 
 they might perjure themselves, and who now 
 sought a cruel death in voluntary expiation ; 
 so it was with Whiting, the Abbot of Glaston- 
 bury ; so with others whose names should be 
 should be more familiar to us than they are ; 
 and here in Woburn we are to see the feeble 
 but genuine penitence of Abbot Hobbes. He 
 was still unequal to immediate martyrdom, but 
 he did what he knew might drag his death upon 
 him if disclosed to the Government, and sur-
 
 1 8 2 JfIS TO RICA I. ESS A YS. 
 
 rounded by spies he could have had no hope 
 of concealment. 
 
 ' At the time,' deposed Robert Salford, 'that 
 the monks of the Charter-house, with other 
 traitors, did suffer death, the Abbot did call us 
 into the Chapter-house, and said these words : 
 — " Brethren, this is a perilous time ; such a 
 scourge was never heard since Christ's pas- 
 sion. Ye hear how good men suffer the death. 
 Brethren, this is undoubted for our offences. 
 Ye read, so long as the children of Israel kept 
 the commandments of God, so long their 
 enemies had no power over them, but God 
 took vengeance of their enemies. But when 
 they broke God's commandments, then they 
 were subdued by their enemies, and so be we. 
 Therefore let us be sorry for our offences. 
 Undoubted he will take vengeance of our 
 enemies ; I mean those heretics that causeth 
 so many good men to suffer thus. Alas, it is a 
 piteous case that so much Christian blood 
 should be shed. Therefore, good brethren, 
 for the reverence of God, every one of you 
 devoutly pray, and say this Psalm, ' O God, 
 the heathen are come into thine inheritance ; 
 thy holy temple have they defiled, and made 
 Jerusalem a heap of stones. The dead bodies 
 of thy servants have they given to be meat to 
 the fowls of llie air, and the flesh of thy saints 
 unto the beasts of the field. Their blood have 
 they shed like water on every side of Jeru- 
 salem, and there was no man to bury them. 
 We are become an open scorn unto our 
 enemies, a very scorn and derision unto them 
 that are round about us. Oh, remember not 
 our old sins, but have mercy upon us, and that 
 soon, for we are come to great misery. Help 
 us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of 
 thy name. Oh, be merciful unto our sins for 
 thy name's sake. Wherefore do the heathen 
 say. Where is now their God ? ' Ye shall say 
 this Psalm," repeated the Abbot, " every Fri- 
 day, after the litany, prostrate, when ye lie
 
 DISSOLUTION OF MONASTERIES. 183 
 
 upon the high altar, and undoubtedly God will 
 cease this extreme scourge." And so, con- 
 tinues Salford, significantly, ' the convent did 
 say this aforesaid" Psalm until there were cer- 
 tain that did murmur at the saying of it, and 
 so it was left.' 
 
 The Abbot, it seems, either stood alone, or 
 found but languid support : even his own fam- 
 iliar friends wliom he trusted, those with whom 
 he had walked in the house of God, had turned 
 against him ; the harsh air of the dawn of a 
 new world choked him : what was there for him 
 but to die ? But his conscience still haunted 
 him : while he lived he must fight on, and so, 
 if possible, find pardon for his perjury. The 
 blows in those years fell upon the Church thick 
 and fast. In February, 1536, the Bill passed 
 for the dissolution of the smaller monasteries ; 
 and now we find the sub-prior with the whole 
 fraternity united in hostility, and the Abbot 
 without one friend remaining. 
 
 ' He did again call us together,' says the 
 next deposition, ' and lamentably mourning for 
 the dissolving the said houses, he enjoined us 
 to sing ' Salvator mundi, salva nos omnes," 
 every day after lauds ; and we murmured at it 
 and were not content to sing it for such cause ; 
 and so we did omit it divers days, for which 
 the Abbot came unto the Chapter, and did in 
 manner rebuke us, and said we were bound to 
 obey his commandment by our profession, and 
 so did command us to sing it again with the 
 versicle " Let God arise, and let His enemies 
 be scattered. Let them also that hate Him 
 flee before Him." Also he enjoined us at 
 every mass that every priest did sing, to say 
 the collect, " O God, who despisest not the 
 sighing of a contrite heart." And he said if 
 we did this with good and true devotion, God 
 would so handle the matter, that it should be 
 to the comfort of all England, and so show us 
 mercy as he showed unto the children of Israel. 
 And surely, brethren, there will come to us a
 
 1 8 4 IT IS TO RICA L ESS A YS. 
 
 good man that will rectify these monasteries 
 again that be now supprest, because " God can 
 of these stones raise up children to Abraham." ' 
 
 ' Of the stones,' perhaps, but less easily of 
 the stony-hearted monks, who, with pitiless 
 smiles, watched the Abbot's sorrow, which 
 should soon bring him to his ruin. 
 
 Time passed on, and as the world grew 
 worse, so the Abbot grew more lonely. Deso- 
 late and unsupported, he was still unable to 
 make up his mind to the course which he knew 
 to be right ; but he slowly strengthened himself 
 for the trial, and as Lent came on the season 
 brought with it a more special call to effort ; 
 he did not fail to recognize it. The conduct 
 of the fraternity sorely disturbed him. They 
 preached against all which he most loved and 
 valued, in language purposely coarse ; and the 
 mild sweetness of the rebukes which he admin- 
 istered, showed plainly on which side lay, in 
 the Abbey of VVoburn, the larger portion of the 
 spirit of Heaven. Now whert the passions of 
 those times have died away, and we can look 
 back with more indifferent eyes, how touching 
 is the following scene. There was one Sir 
 William, curate of Woburn Chapel, whose 
 tongue, it seems, was rough beyond the rest. 
 The Abbot met him one day, and spoke to him. 
 ' Sir William,' he said, ' I hear tell ye be a 
 great railer. I marvel that ye rail so. I ]5ray 
 you teach my cure the Scripture of God, and that 
 may be to edification. I pray you leave such 
 railing. Ye call the Pope a bear and a band- 
 dog. Either he is a good man or an ill. Dom- 
 ino siio stat ant cadit. The office of a bishop 
 is honorable. What edifying is this to rail ? 
 Let him alone.' 
 
 But they would not let him alone, nor would 
 they let the Abbot alone, lie grew ' some- 
 what acrased,' they said ; vexed with feelings 
 of which they had no cxi)erience. He fell sick, 
 sorrow and the Lent discipline weighing upon 
 him. The brethren went to see him in his room ; 
 one Brother Dan Woburn came among the rest,
 
 DISSOL UTION OF MONASTE RIES. j 8 5 
 
 and asked him how he did ; the Abbot an- 
 swered, ' I would that I had died with the good 
 man that died for holding with the Pope. My 
 conscience, my conscience doth grudge me 
 everyday for it.' Life was fast losing its value 
 for him. What was life to him or any man 
 when bought with a sin against his soul .'' ' If 
 the Abbot be disposed to die, for that matter,' 
 Brother Croxton observed, ' he may die as soon 
 as he will.' 
 
 All Lent he fasted and prayed, and his 
 illness grew upon him ; and at length in Passion 
 week he thought all was over, and that he was 
 going away. On Passion Sunday he called the 
 brethren about him, and as they stood round 
 his bed, with their cold hard eyes, ' he exhorted 
 them all to charity,' he implored them 'never 
 to consent to go out of their monastery ; and if 
 it chanced them 'to be put from it, they should 
 in no wise forsake their habit.' After these 
 words, being in a great agony, he rose out of 
 his bed, and cried out and said, " I would to 
 God, it would please Him to take me out of 
 this wretched world ; and I would I had died 
 with the good men that have suffered death 
 heretofore, for they were quickly out of their 
 pain." ' * Then, half wandering, he began to 
 mutter to himself aloud the thoughts which had 
 been working in him in his struggles ; and 
 quoting St. Bernard's words about the Pope, 
 he exclaimed, ' Tu quis es primatu Abel, guber- 
 natione Noah, auctoritate Moses, judicatu 
 Samuel, potestate Petrus, unctione Christus. 
 Aliae ecclesiai habent super se pastores. Tu 
 pastor pastorum es.' 
 
 Let it be remembered that this is no sen- 
 timental fiction begotten out of the brain of 
 some ingenious novelist, but the record of the 
 true words and sufferings of a genuine child of 
 Adam, laboring in a trial too hard for him. 
 
 He prayed to die, and in good time death 
 was to come to him ; but not, after all, in the 
 
 * Meaning, as he afterwards said, More and Fisher and 
 the Carthusians.
 
 i86 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 sick bed, with his expiation but half com- 
 pleted. A year before, he had thrown down 
 the cross when it was offered him. He was to 
 take it acrain — the very cross which he had re- 
 fused. He recovered. He was brought before 
 the council ; with what result, there are no 
 means of knowing. To admit the Papal su- 
 premacy when officially questioned was high 
 treason. Whether the Abbot was constant, 
 and received some conditional pardon, or 
 whether his heart again for the moment failed 
 him — whichever he did, the records are silent. 
 This only we ascertain of him ; that he was 
 not put to death under the Statute of Suprem- 
 acy. But, two years later, when the official 
 list was presented to the Parliament of those 
 who had suffered for their share in ' the Pil- 
 grimage of Grace,' among the rest we find the 
 name of Robert Hobbes, late Abbot of 
 Woburn. To this solitary fact we can add 
 nothing. The rebellion was put down, and in 
 the punishment of the offenders there was 
 unusual leniency; not more than thirty persons 
 were executed, although forty thousand had 
 been in arms. Those only were selected who 
 had been most signally implicated. But they 
 were all leaders in the movement ; the men of 
 highest rank, and therefore greatest guilt. 
 They died for what they believed their duty ; 
 and the king and council did their duty in en- 
 forcing the laws against armed insurgents. He 
 for whose cause each supposed themselves to 
 be contending, has long since judged between 
 them ; and both parties perhaps now see all 
 things with clearer eyes than was permitted to 
 them on earth. 
 
 We also can see more distinctly. We will 
 not refuse the Abbot Hobbes a brief record 
 of his trial and passion. And although twelve 
 generations of Russells — all loyal to the Protest- 
 ant ascendancy — have swept Woburn clear of 
 Catholic associations, they, too, in these later 
 days, will not regret to see revived the authentic 
 story of its last Abbot.
 
 ENGLAND'S 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES-* 
 
 The Reformation, the Antipodes, the Amer- 
 ican Continent, the Planetary system, and the 
 infinite deep of the Heaven, have now become 
 common and familiar facts to us. Globes and 
 orreries are the playthings of our school-days ; 
 we inhale the spirit of Protestantism with our 
 earliest breath of consciousness. It is all but 
 impossible to throw back our imagination into 
 the time when, as new grand discoveries, they 
 stirred every mind which they touched with 
 awe and wonder at the revelation which God 
 had sent down among mankind. Vast spiritual 
 and material continents lay for the first time dis- 
 played, opening fields of thought and fields of 
 enterprise of which none could conjecture the 
 limit. Old routine was broken up. Men were 
 thrown back on their own strength and their 
 own power, unshackled to accomplish whatever 
 they might dare. And although we do not 
 speak of these discoveries as the cause of that 
 enormous force of heart and intellect which 
 accompanied them (for they were as much the 
 eflect as the cause, ^ and one reacted on the 
 other), yet at any rate they afforded scope and 
 room for the play of powers which, without 
 such scope, let them have been as transcendent 
 at they would, must have passed away un- 
 productive and blighted. 
 
 An earnest faith in the supernatural, an in- 
 
 • Wistiniiisiir Review, 1852.
 
 i88 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 tensely real conviction of the divine and devil- 
 ish forces by which the universe was guided 
 and misguided, was the inheritance of the 
 Elizabethan age from Catholic Christianity. 
 The fiercest and most lawless men did then 
 really and truly believe in the actual personal 
 presence of God or the devil in every accident, 
 or scene, or action. They brought to the con- 
 templation of the new heaven and the new 
 earth an imagination saturated with the spiritual 
 convictions of the old era, v/hichwere not lost, 
 but only infinitely expanded. The planets, 
 whose vastness they now learnt to recognize, 
 were, therefore, only the more powerful for 
 evil or for good ; the tides were the breathing 
 of Demogorgon ; and the idolatrous American 
 tribes were real worshippers of the real devil, 
 and were assisted with the full power of his 
 evil army. 
 
 It is a form of thought which, however in a 
 vague and general way we may continue to use 
 its phraseology, has become, in its detailed 
 application to life, utterly strange to us. We 
 congratulate ourselves on the enlargement of 
 our understanding when we read the decisions 
 of grave law courts in cases of supjDOsed witch- 
 craft ; we smile complacently over Raleigh's 
 story of the island of the Amazons, and rejoice 
 that we are not such as he — entangled in the 
 cobwebs of effete and foolish superstition. Yet 
 the true conclusion is less flattering to our 
 vanitv. That Raleigh and Bacon could believe 
 what they believed, and could be what they 
 were notwithstanding, is to us a proof that the 
 injury which such mistakes can inflict is un- 
 speakably insignificent ; "and arising, as those 
 mistakes arose, from a never-failing sense of 
 the real awfulness and mystery of the world 
 and of the life of human souls upon it, they 
 witness to the presence in such minds of a 
 spirit, the loss of which not the most j^crfect 
 acquaintance with every law by which the 
 whole creation moves can compensate. We
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 189 
 
 wonder at the grandeur, the moral majesty of 
 some of Shakespeare's characters, so far be- 
 yond what the noblest among ourselves can 
 imitate, and at first thought we attribute it to 
 the genius of the poet, who has outstripped 
 nature in his creations. But we are misunder- 
 standing the power and the meaning of poetry 
 in attributing creativeness to it in any such 
 sense. Shakespeare created, but only as the 
 spirit of nature created around him, working 
 in him as it worked abroad in those among 
 whom he lived. The men whom he draws 
 were such men as he saw and knew ; the words 
 they utter were such as he heard in the ordinary 
 conversations in which he joined. At the 
 Mermaid with Raleigh and with Sidney, and at 
 a thousand unnamed English firesides, he found 
 the living originals for his Prince Hals, his 
 Orlandos, his Antonios, his Portias, his Isa- 
 bellas. The closer personal acquaintance 
 which we can form with the English of the age 
 of Elizabeth, the more we are satisfied that 
 Shakespeare's great poetry is no more than the 
 rhythmic echo of the life which it depicts. 
 
 It was, therefore, with no little interest that 
 we heard of the formation of a society which 
 was to employ itself, as we understood, in re- 
 publishing in accessible form some, if not all, 
 of the invaluable records compiled or com- 
 posed by Richard Hakluyt. Books, like every- 
 thing else, have their appointed death-day : 
 the souls of them, unless they be found worthy 
 of a second birth in a new body, perish with 
 the paper in w^hich they lived ; and the early 
 folio Hakluyts, not from their own want of 
 •merit, but from our neglect of them, were ex- 
 piring of old age. The five-volume quarto edi- 
 tion, published in 181 1, so little people then 
 cared for the exploits of their ancestors, con- 
 sisted but of 270 copies. It was intended for 
 no more than for curious antiquaries, or for the 
 great libraries, where it could be consulted as 
 a book of reference ; and among a people, the
 
 I Q o JIl^"^ TO RICA L ESS A YS. 
 
 greater part of whom had never heard Hakluyt's 
 name, the editors are scarcely to be blamed if 
 it never so much as occurred to thciii that gen- 
 eral readers would care to have the book with- 
 in their reach. 
 
 And yet those five volumes may be called 
 the Prose Kpic of the modern English nation. 
 They contain the heroic tales of the exploits 
 of the great men in whom the new era was in- 
 augurated ; not mythic, like the Iliads and the 
 Eddas, but plain broad narratives of substan- 
 tial facts, which rival legend in interest, and 
 grandeur.. What the old epics were to the 
 royally or nobly born, this modern epic is to 
 the common people. We have no longer kings 
 or princes for chief actors, to whom the heroism 
 like the dominion of the world had in time 
 past been confined. But, as it was in the days 
 of the Apostles, when a few poor fish>ermen from 
 an obscure lake in Palestine assumed, under 
 the Divine mission, the spiritual authority over 
 mankind, so, in the days of our own Elizabeth, 
 the seamen from the banks of the Thames and 
 the Avon, the Plym and the Dart, self-taught 
 and self-directed, with no impulse but what 
 was beating in their own royal hearts, went 
 out across the unknown seas fighting, discov- 
 ering, colonizing, and graved out the channels, 
 paving them at last with their bones, through 
 which the commerce and enterprise of England 
 has flowed out over all the world. We can 
 conceive nothing, not the songs of Homer him- 
 self, which would be read among us with more 
 enthusiastic interest than these plain massive 
 tales ; and a people's edition of them in these 
 days, VThen the writings of Ainsworth and F>u- 
 g^ne Sue circulate in tens of thousands, would 
 perhaps be the most blessed antidote which 
 could be bestowed upon us. The heroes them- 
 selves were the men of the people — the Joneses, 
 the Smiths, the Davises, the Drakes ; and no 
 courtly pen, with the one exception of Raleigh, 
 lent its polish or its varnish to set them off. In
 
 FORGOrTEN WOkTHIES. iqi 
 
 most cases the captain himself, or his clerk or 
 servant, or some unknown gentleman volun- 
 teer, sat down and chronicled the voj'age 
 which he had sharctl ; and thus inorganically 
 arose a collection of writings which, with all 
 their simplicity, are for nothing more striking 
 than for the high moral beauty, warmed with 
 natural feeling, which displays itself through 
 all their pages. With us, the sailor is scarcely 
 himself .beyond his quarter-deck. If he is dis- 
 tinguished in his profession, he is professional 
 merely ; or if he is more than that, he owes it 
 not to his work as a sailor, but to independent 
 domestic culture. With them, their profession 
 was the school of their nature, a high moral ed- 
 ucation which most brought out what was most 
 nobly human in them; and the wonders of 
 earth, and air, and sea, and sky, were a real in- 
 telligible language in which they heard Al- 
 mighty God speaking to them. 
 
 That such hopes of what might be accom- 
 plished by the Hakluyt Society should in some 
 measure be disappointed, is only what might 
 naturally be anticipated of all very sanguine ex^ 
 pectation. Cheap editions are expensive editions 
 to the publisher ; and historical societies, from 
 a necessity which appears to encumber all cor- 
 porate English action, rarely fail to do their 
 work expensively and infelicitously. Yet, af- 
 ter all allowances and deductions, we cannot 
 reconcile ourselves to the mortification of hav- 
 ing found but one volume in the series to be 
 even tolerable edited, and that one to be edited 
 bv a gentleman to whom England is but an 
 adopted country — Sir Robert Schomburgk. 
 Raleigh's ' Conquest of Guiana,' with Sir 
 Robert's sketch of Raleigh's history and char- 
 acter, form in everything but its cost a very 
 model of an excellent volume. For the remain- 
 ing editors,* we are obliged to say that they 
 have exerted themselves successfully to para- 
 
 *This essay was written 15 years ago.
 
 192 
 
 HISrORICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 lyze whatever interest was reviving in Hakluyt, 
 and to consign their own volumes to the same 
 obscurity to which time and accident were con- 
 signing the earlier editions. Very little which 
 was really noteworthy escaped the industry of 
 Hakluyt himself, and we looked to find reprints 
 of the most remarkable of the stories which were 
 to be found in his collection. The editors be- 
 gan unfortunately with proposing to continue 
 the work where he had left it, and to produce 
 narratives hitherto unpublished of other voy- 
 ages of inferior interest, or not of English ori- 
 gin. Better thoughts appear to have occurred 
 to them in the course of the work ; but their 
 evil destiny overtook them before their thoughts 
 could get themselves executed. We opened 
 one volume with eagerness, bearing the title of 
 ' Voyage to the Northwest,' in hope of finding 
 our old friends Davis and P>obisher. We 
 found avast unnecessary Editor's Preface : and 
 instead of the voyages themselves, which with 
 their picturesqueness and moral beauty shine 
 among the fairest jewels in the diamond mine 
 of Hakluyt, we encountered an analysis and 
 digest of their results, which Milton was called 
 in to justify in an inappropriate quotation. It 
 is much as if they had undertaken to edit ' Ba- 
 con's Essays,' and had retailed what they con- 
 ceived to be the substance of them in their own 
 language ; strangely failing to see that the real 
 value of the actions or the thoughts of remark- 
 able men does not lie in the material result 
 which can be gathered from them, but in the 
 heart and soul of the actors or speakers them- 
 selves. Consider what Homer's 'Odyssey' 
 would be, reduced into an analysis. 
 
 The editor of the * Letters of Columbus ' 
 apologizes for the rudeness of the old seaman's 
 phraseology. Columbus, he tells us, was not 
 so great a master of the pen as of the art of 
 navigation. We are to make excuses for him. 
 We are put on our guard, and warned not to 
 be offended, before we are introduced to the
 
 FORGOTTEN IVORTJUES. jg^ 
 
 sublime record of sufferings under which a man 
 of the highest order was staggering towards 
 the end of his earthly calamities ; although the 
 inarticulate fragments in which his thouizht 
 breaks out from him, are strokes of natural art 
 by the side of which literary pathos is poor and 
 meaningless. 
 
 And even in the subjects which they select 
 they are pursued by the same curious fatality. 
 Why is Drake to be best known, or to be only 
 known, in his last voyage ? Why pass over 
 the success, and endeavor to immortalize the 
 failure ? When Drake climbed the tree in 
 Panama, and saw both oceans, and vowed that 
 he would sail a ship in the Pacific ; when he 
 crawled out upon the cliffs of Terra del Fuego, 
 and leaned his head over the southernmost 
 angle of the world ; when he scored a furrow 
 round the globe with his keel, and received 
 the homage of the barbarians of the antipodes 
 in the name of the Virgin Queen, he was an- 
 other man from what he had become after 
 twenty years of court life and intrigue, and 
 Spanish fighting and gold-hunting. There' is 
 a tragic solemnity in his end, if we take it as 
 the last act of his career ; but it is his life, not 
 his death, which we desire — not what he failed 
 to do, but what he did. 
 
 But every bad has a worse below it, and 
 more offensive than all these is the editor of 
 Hawkins's ' Voyage to the South Sea.' The 
 narrative is striking in itself ; not one of the 
 best, but very good ; and, as it is republished 
 complete, we can fortunately read it through, 
 carefully shutting off Captain Bethune's notes 
 with one hand, and we shall then find in it the 
 same beauty which breathes in the tone of all 
 the writings of the j^eiiod. 
 
 It is a record of misfortune, but of misfor- 
 tune which did no dishonor to him who sunk 
 under it; and there is a melancholy dignity in 
 the style in which Hawkins tells his story, 
 which seems to say, that though he had been
 
 194 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 defeated, and had never again an opportunity 
 of winning back his lost laurels, he respects 
 himself still for the heart with which he en- 
 dured a shame which would have broken a 
 smaller man. It would have required no large 
 exertion of editorial self-denial to have ab- 
 stained from marring the pages with puns of 
 which ' Punch ' would be ashamed, and with 
 the vulgar affectation of patronage with which 
 the sea captain of the nineteenth century con- 
 descends to criticise and approve of his half- 
 barbarous precursor. And what excuse can 
 we find for such an offence as this which fol- 
 lows ? — The war of the Araucan Indians is the 
 most gallant episode in the history of the New 
 World. The Spaniards themselves were not 
 behind-hand in acknowledging the chivalry be- 
 fore which they quailed, and after many years 
 of inffectual efforts, they gave up a conflict 
 which they never afterwards resumed ; leaving 
 the Araucans alone, of all the American races 
 with which they came in contact, a liberty 
 which they were unable to tear from them. It 
 is a subject for an epic poem ; and whatever 
 admiration is due to the heroism of a brave 
 people w-hom no inequality of strength could 
 appal and no defeats could crush, these poor 
 Indians have a right to demand of us. The 
 story of the war was well known in Europe: Haw- 
 kins, in coasting the western shores of South 
 America, fell i)i with them, and the finest pass- 
 age in his book is the relation of one of the in- 
 cidents of the war : — 
 
 An Indian captain was taken prisoner by the Spani- 
 ards, and for that he was of name, and known to have 
 done his devoir against them, they cut off his hands, 
 thereby intending to disenal^le him to fight any more 
 against tliem. iJut he, returning home, desirous to re- 
 venge this injury, to maintain his liberty, with the rcj)- 
 utation of his nation, and to liclp to banish the Spani- 
 ard, with liis tongue intrcatcd and incited tliem to per- 
 severe in their accustomed valor and reputation, abas- 
 ing the enemy and advancing his nation ; condemning 
 their contraries of cowardliness, and confirming it by
 
 I'OK GOTTEN IVOR TIIIES. 
 
 »9S 
 
 the cruelty used with him ar^d other his companions in 
 their mishaps; showing them liis arms without hands, 
 and naming liis Ijrt-lhren whose half feet liiey had cut 
 ol'f, because they might be unable to sit on horseback ; 
 with force arguing that if they feared them not, they 
 would not have used so great inhumanity — for fear jjro- 
 duccth cruelly, the companion of cowardice. Thus en- 
 couraged he them to fight for their lives, limbs, and 
 liberty, choosing rather to die an honorable death fight- 
 ing, than to live in servitude as fruitless members of the 
 commonwealth. Thus using the office of a sergeant- 
 major, and having loaden his two stumps with bundles 
 of arrows, lie succored them who, in the succeeding 
 battle, had their store wasted; and changing himself 
 from place to )ilace, animated and encouraged his coun- 
 trymen with such comfortable persuasions, as it is re- 
 ported and credibly believed, that he did more good 
 with his words and presence, without striking a stroke, 
 than a great part of the army did with fighting to the 
 utmost. 
 
 It is an action which may take its place by 
 the side of the myth of Mucins Screvola, or the 
 real exploit of that brother of the poet ^schy- 
 lus, who, when the Persians were fiying from 
 Marathon, clung to a ship till both his hands 
 were hewn away, and then seized it with his 
 teeth, leaving his name as a portent even in 
 the splendid calendar of Athenian heroes. Cai> 
 tain Bethune, without call or need, making his 
 notes, merely, as he tells us, from the sugges- 
 tions of his own mind as he revised the proof- 
 sheets, informs us, at the bottom of the page, 
 that ' it reminds him of the familiar lines — • 
 
 For Widdrington I needs must wail, 
 
 As one in doleful dumps ; 
 For when his legs were smitten off. 
 
 He fought upon his stumps. 
 
 It must not avail him, that he has but quoted 
 from the ballad of Chevy Chase. It is the 
 most deformed stanza* 
 
 * Here is the old stanza. T.ct whoever is disposed to 
 think us too hard on Captain liethune compare them: — 
 
 For Wetharrington my harte was woe, 
 That even he slayne sholde be ;
 
 1 9 6 If IS TO RICA L ESS A YS. 
 
 of the modern deformed version which was 
 composed in the eclipse of heart and taste, on 
 the restoration of the Stuarts ; and if such 
 verses could then pass for serious poetry, they 
 have ceased to sound in any ear as other than 
 a burlesque ; the associations which they arouse 
 are only absurd, and they could only have con- 
 tinued to rinof in his memorv throujrh their 
 ludicrous dog^rel. 
 
 When to these ofTences of the Society we 
 add, that in the long labored appendices and 
 introductions, which fill up valuable space, 
 which increase the expense of the edition, and 
 into reading which many readers are, no doubt 
 betrayed, we have found nothing which assists 
 the understanding of the stories which they 
 are supposed to illustrate — when we have de- 
 clared that we have found what is most uncom- 
 mon passed without notice, and what is most 
 trite and familiar encumbered with comment — 
 we have unpacked our hearts of the bitterness 
 which these volumes have aroused in us, and 
 can now take our leave of them and go on with 
 our more grateful subject. 
 
 Elizabeth, whose despotism was as peremp- 
 tory as that of the Plantagenets, and whose 
 ideas of the English constitution were limited 
 in the highest degree, was, notwithstanding, 
 more beloved by her subjects than any sover- 
 eign before or since. It was because, sub- 
 stantially, she was the people's sovereign ; 
 because it was given to her to conduct the 
 outgrowth of the national life through its crisis 
 of change, and the weight of her great mind 
 and her great place were thrown on the people's 
 side. She was able to paralyze the dying 
 efforts with which, if a Stuart had been on the 
 throne, the representatives of an effete system 
 
 « 
 
 For when both his leggis were hewen in to, 
 He knyled and fought on his knee 
 
 Even Percy, who, on the whole, thinks well of the 
 modern ballad, gives up this stanza as hopeless.
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTIflES. 
 
 197 
 
 might have made the struggle a deadly one ; 
 and the history of England is not the liistory 
 of France, because the resolution of one person 
 held the Refurnialioii firm till it had rooted 
 itself in tlie heart of the nation, and could not 
 be again overthrown. The Catholic faith was 
 no longer able to furnish standing ground on 
 which the English or any other nation could 
 live a manly and a godly life. Feudalism, as a 
 social organization, was not any more a system 
 under which their energies could have scope to 
 move. Thenceforward, not the Catholic Church, 
 but any man to whom God had given a heart 
 to feel and a voice to speak, was to be the 
 teacher to whom men were to listen ; and great 
 actions were not to remain the privilege of the 
 families of the Norman nobles, but were to be 
 laid within the reach of the poorest plebeian 
 who had the stuff in him to perform them. 
 Alone, of all the sovereigns in Europe, Eliza- 
 beth saw the change which had passed over the 
 world. She saw it, and saw it in faith, and 
 accepted it. The England of the Catholic 
 Hierarchy and the Norman Baron, was to cast 
 its shell and to become the England of free 
 thought and commerce and manufacture, which 
 was to plough the ocean with its navies, and 
 sow its colonies over the globe ; and the first 
 appearance of these enormous forces and the 
 light of the earliest achievements of the new 
 era shines through the forty years of the reign 
 of Elizabeth with a grandeur which, when once 
 its history is written, will be seen to be among 
 the riiost sublime phenomena v/hich the earth 
 as yet has witnessed. The work was not of 
 her creation ; the heart of the whole P^nglish 
 nation was stirred to its depths ; and Elizabeth's 
 place vras to recognize, to love, to foster, and 
 to guide. The Government originated nothing; 
 at such a time it was neither necessary nor 
 desirable that it should do so ; but wherever 
 expensive enterprises were on foot which prom- 
 ised ultimate good, and doubtful immediate
 
 iq8 historical essays. 
 
 profit, we never fail to find among the lists of 
 contributors the Queen's Majesty, Burghley, 
 Leicester, Walsinghani. Never chary of her 
 presence, for Elizabeth could afford to con- 
 descend, v.'hen ships were fitting in the river 
 for distant vovages, the Queen would 50 down 
 in her barge and inspect. Frobisher, who was 
 but a poor sailor adventurer, sees her wave her 
 handkerchief to him from the Greenwich 
 Palace windows, and he brings her home a 
 narwhal's horn for a present. She honored 
 her people, and her people loved her ; and the 
 result was that, with no cost to the Government, 
 she saw them scattering the fleets of the Span- 
 iards, planting America with colonies, and 
 exploring the most distant seas. Either for 
 honor or for expectation of profit, or from 
 that unconscious necessity by which a great 
 people, like a great man, will do what is right, 
 and must do it at the right time, whoever had 
 the means to furnish a ship, and whoever had 
 the talent to command one, laid their abilities 
 together and went out to pioneer, and to con- 
 quer, and to take possession, in the name of 
 the Queen of the Sea, There was no nation 
 so remote but what some one or other was 
 found ready to undertake an expedition there, 
 in the hope of opening a trade; and, let them 
 go where they would, they were sure of Eliza- 
 beth's countenance. We find letters written by 
 her, for the benefit of nameless adventurers, to 
 every poteiitate of whom she had ever heard — 
 to the Emperors of China, Japan, and India, 
 the Grand Duke of Russia, the Grand Turk, 
 the Persian ' Sofee,' and other unheard-of 
 Asiatic and African princes ; whatever was to 
 be done in I'^nHand, or bv Englishmen, Eliza- 
 beth assisted when she could, and admired 
 when she could not. 
 
 'I'lie springs of great actions are always 
 difficult to analyze — impossible to analyze per- 
 fectly — possible to analyze only very proxi- 
 mately; and the force by which a man throws
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. igg 
 
 a good action out of himself is invisible and 
 mystical, like that which brings out the blossom 
 and the fruit upon the tree. The motives 
 which we find men urging for their enterprises 
 seem often insufficient to have prompted them 
 to so large a daring. They did what they did 
 from the great unrest in them which made them 
 do it, and what it was mav be best measured 
 by the results in the present England and 
 America. 
 
 Nevertheless there was enough in the state 
 of the world, and in the position of P^ngland, 
 to have furnished abundance of conscious 
 motive, and to have stirred the drowsiest minis- 
 ter of routine. 
 
 Among material occasions for exertion, the 
 population began to outgrow the employment, 
 and there was a necessity for plantations to 
 serve as an outlet. Men who, under happier 
 circumstances, might have led decent lives, and 
 done good service, were now driven by want to 
 desperate courses — ' witness,' as Richard Hak- 
 luyt says, ' twenty tall fellows hanged last 
 Rochester assizes for small robberies ; ' and 
 there is an admirable paper addressed to the 
 Privy Council by Christopher Carlile, Walsing- 
 ham's son-in-law, pointing out the possible 
 openings to be made in or through such planta- 
 tions for home produce and manufacture. 
 
 Far below all such prudential economies and 
 mercantile ambitions, however, lay a chivalrous 
 enthusiasm which in these dull days we can 
 hardly, without an effort, realize. The life- 
 and -death wrestle between the Reformation 
 and the old religion had settled in the last 
 quarter of the sixteenth century into a perma- 
 nent struggle between England and Spain. 
 France was disabled. All the help which 
 Elizabeth could spare barely enabled the 
 Netherlands to defend themselves. Protestant- 
 ism, if it conquered, must conquer on another 
 field ; and by the circumstances of the time the 
 championship of the Reformed faith fell to the
 
 200 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 English sailors. The sword of Spain was for- 
 ged in the gold mines of Peru ; ilie legions of 
 Alva were only to be disarmed by intercepting 
 the gold ships on iheir passage ; and, inspired 
 by an enthusiasm like that which four centuries 
 before had precipitated the chivalry of Europe 
 upon the I^ast, the same sj^irit which in its 
 persent degeneracy covers our bays and rivers 
 with pleasure yachts, then fitted out armed 
 privateers, to sweep the Atlantic, and plunder 
 and destroy Spanish ships wherever they could 
 meet them. 
 
 Thus, from a combination of causes, the 
 whole force and energy of the age was directed 
 towards the sea. The wide excitement, and 
 the greatness of the interests at stake, raised 
 even common men above themselves ; and 
 people who in ordinary times would have been 
 no more than mere seamen, or mere money- 
 making merchants, appear before us with a 
 largeness and greatness of heart and mind 
 in which their duties to God and their country 
 are alike clearly and broadly seen and felt to 
 be paramount to every other. 
 
 Ordinary English traders we find fighting 
 Spanish war ships in behalf of the Protestant 
 faith. The cruisers of the Spanish main were 
 full of generous eagerness for the conversion 
 of the savage nations to Christianity. And 
 what is even more surprising, sites for coloniza- 
 tion were examined and scrutinized by such 
 men in a lofty statesmanlike spirit, and a ready 
 insight was displayed bytbeminto the indirect 
 effects of a wisely-extended commerce on every 
 highest human interest. 
 
 Again, in the conflict with the Spaniards, 
 there was a further feeling, a feeling of genuine 
 chivalry, which was spurring on the English, 
 and one which must be well understood and 
 well remembered, if men like Drake, and Haw- 
 kins, and Raleigh are to be tolcr;ibly under- 
 stood. One of the English Reviews, a short 
 time ago, was much amused with a story of
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 201 
 
 Drake having excommunicated a petty officer 
 as a punishment for some moral oifencc ; the 
 reviewer not being able to see in Drake, as a 
 man, anything more than a higlily brave and 
 successful buccaneer, whose pretences to relig- 
 ion might rank with the devotion of an Italian 
 bandit to the Madonna. And so Hawkins, and 
 even Raleigh, are regarded by superficial per- 
 sons, who see only such outward circum- 
 stances of their history as correspond with 
 their own impressions. The high nature of 
 these men, and the high objects which they 
 pursued, will only rise out and become visible 
 to us as we can throw ourselves back into 
 their times and teach our hearts to feel as they 
 felt. We do not find in the language of the 
 voyagers themselves, or of those who lent them 
 their help at home, any of that weak watery 
 talk of ' protection of aborigines,' which, as 
 soon as it is translated into fact, becomes the 
 most active policy for their destruction, soul 
 and body. But the stories of the dealings of 
 the Spaniards with the conquered Indians, 
 which were widely known in England, seem to 
 have affected all classes of people, not with 
 .pious passive horror, but with a genuine human 
 indignation. A thousand anecdotes in detail 
 we find scattered up and down the pages of 
 of Hakluyt, who, with a view to make them 
 known, translated Peter Martyr's letters ; and 
 each commonest sailor -boy who had heard 
 these stories from his childhood among the 
 the tales of his father's fireside, had longed to 
 be a man, that he might go out and become 
 avenger of a gallant and suffering people. A 
 high mission, undertaken with a generous heart 
 seldom fails to make those worthy of it to whom 
 it is given ; and it was a point of honor, if of 
 nothing more, among the English sailors, to do 
 no discredit by their conduct to llie greatness 
 of their cause. The high courtesy, the chiv- 
 alry of the Spanish nobles, so conspicuous in 
 their dealings with their European rivals, either
 
 2 02 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 failed to touch them in their dealings with un- 
 cultivated idolaters, or the high temper of the 
 aristocracy was unable to restrain or to influence 
 the masses of the soldiers. It would be as ungen- 
 erous as it would be untrue to charge upon their 
 religion the grievous actions of men who called 
 themselves the armed missionaries of Catholi- 
 cism when the Catholi cpriests and bishops were 
 the loudest in the indignation with which they 
 denounced them. But we are obliged to charge 
 upon it that slow and subtle influence so inevi- 
 tably exercised by any religion which is divorc- 
 ed from life, and converted into a thing of form, 
 or creed, or ceremony, or system — which could 
 permit the same men to be extravagant in 
 a sincere devotion to the Queen of Heaven, 
 whose entire lower nature, unsubdued and un- 
 affected, was given up to thirst of gold, and 
 plunder, and sensuality. If religion does not 
 make men more humane than they would be 
 without it, it makes them fatally less so ; and 
 it is to be feared that the spirit of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers, which had oscillated to the other 
 extreme, and had again crystallized into a 
 formal antinomian fanaticism, reproduced the 
 same fatal results as those in which the Spani- 
 ards had set them their unworthy precedent. 
 But the Elizabethan navigators, full for the 
 most part with large kindness, wisdom, gentle- 
 ness, and beauty, bear names untainted, as far 
 as we know, with a single crime against the 
 savages of America ; and the name of England 
 was as famous in the Indian seas as that of 
 Spain was infamous. On the banks of the 
 Oronoko there was remembered for a hundred 
 years the noble captain who had come there, 
 from the great Queen beyond the seas ; and 
 Raleigh speaks the language of the heart of his 
 country, when he urges the English statesmen 
 to colonize Guiana, and exults in the glorious 
 hope of driving the white marauder into the 
 Pacific, and restoring the Incas to the throne of 
 Peru.
 
 FORGOTTEN IVOKTHIES. 203 
 
 Who will not be persuaded (he says) that now at 
 length the great Judge of the world hath heard the sighs, 
 groans, and lamentations, hath seen the tears and blood 
 of so many millions of innocent men, women, and chil- 
 dren, afHicted, roblied, reviled, branded with hot irons, 
 roasted, dismembered, mangled, stabbed, whipped, 
 racked, scalded with hot oil, put to the strapado. ripped 
 alive, beheaded in sport, drowned, dashed against the 
 rocks, famished, devoured by mastiffs, burned, and by 
 infinite cruelties consumed, and purposeth to scourge 
 and plague that cursed nation, and to take the yoke of 
 servitude from that distressed people, as free by nature 
 as any Christian ? 
 
 Poor Raleigh ! if peace and comfort in this 
 world were of much importance to him, it was 
 in an ill day that he provoked the revenge of 
 Spain. The strength of England was needed 
 at the moment at its own door ; the Armada 
 came, and there was no means of executing 
 such an enterprise. And afterwards the throne 
 of Elizabeth was filled by a Stuart, and Guiana 
 was to be no scene of glory for Raleigh ; rather, 
 as later historians are pleased to think, it was 
 the grave of his reputation ^ 
 
 But the hope burned clear in hiiri through 
 all the weary 3'ears of unjust imprisonment ; 
 and when he was a gray-headed old man, the 
 base son of a bad mother used it to betray 
 him. The success of his last enterprise was 
 made the condition under which he was to be 
 pardoned for a crime which he had not comi- 
 mitted ; and its success depended, as he knew, 
 on its being kept secret from the Spaniards. 
 James required of Raleigh on his allegiance a 
 detail of what he proposed, giving him at the 
 same time his word as a king that the secret 
 should be safe with him. The next day it was 
 sweeping out of the port of London in the 
 swiftest of the Spanish ships, with private 
 orders to the Governor of St Thomas to pro- 
 voke a collision when Raleigh should arrive 
 there, which should afterwards cost him his 
 heart's blood. 
 
 \Vc luodern readers may run rapidly over the 
 series of epithets under which Raleigh has
 
 204 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 catalogued the Indian sufferings, hoping that 
 they are exaggerated, seeing that they are hor- 
 rible, and closing our eyes against them with 
 swiftest haste ; but it was not so when every 
 epithet suggested a hundred familiar facts ; 
 and some of these (not resting on English prej- 
 udices, but on Spanish evidence, which is too 
 full of shame and sorrow to be suspected) shall 
 be given in this place, however old a story it 
 may be thought ; because, as we said above, 
 it is impossible to understand the actions of 
 these men, unless we are familiar with the feel- 
 ings of which their hearts were full. 
 
 The massacres under Cortez and Pizarro, 
 terrible as they were,- were not the occasion 
 which stirred the deepest indignation. They 
 had the excuse of what might be called, for 
 want of a better word, necessity, and of 
 the desperate position of small bands of men in 
 the midst of enemies who might be counted by 
 millions. And in De Soto, when he burnt his 
 guides in Florida (it was his practice, when 
 there was danger of treachery, that those who 
 were left alive might take warning) ; or in Vasco 
 Nunnez, praying to the Virgin on the moun- 
 tains of Darien, and going down from off them 
 into the valleys to hunt the Indian caciques, 
 and fling them alive to his bloodhounds ; there 
 was, at least, with all this fierceness and cruel- 
 ty, a desperate courage which we cannot re- 
 fuse to admire, and which mingles with and 
 corrects our horror. It is the refinement of 
 the Spaniard's cruelty in the settled and con- 
 quered provinces, excused by no danger and 
 provoked by no resistance, the details of which 
 witness to the infernal coolness with which it 
 was perpetrated ; and the great bearing of the 
 Indians themselves under an oppression which 
 they despaired of resisting, raises the whole 
 history to the rank of a world-wide tragedy, in 
 which the nobler but weaker nature was 
 crushed under a malignant force which was 
 stronger and yet meaner than itself. Gold
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 205 
 
 hunting and lust were the two passions for 
 which the Spaniards cared ; and the fate of 
 the Indian women was only more dreadful than 
 that of the men, who were ganged and chained 
 to a labor in the mines which was only to 
 cease with their lives, in a land where but a 
 little before they had lived a free contented 
 people, more innocent of crime than perhaps 
 any people upon earth. If we can conceive what 
 our own feelings-would be — if, in the ' develop- 
 ment of the mammalia,' some baser but more 
 powerful race than man were to appear upon 
 this planet, and we and our wives and children 
 at our own happy firesides were degraded 
 from our freedom, and became to them what 
 the lower animals are to us, we can perhaps 
 realize the feelings of the enslaved nations of 
 Hispaniola. 
 
 As a harsh justification of slavery, it is some- 
 times urged that men who do not deserve to 
 be slaves will prefer death to the endurance of 
 it ; and that if they prize their liberty, it is 
 always in their power to assert it in the old 
 Roman fashion. Tried even by so hard a rule 
 the Indians vindicated their right ; and, before 
 the close of the sixteenth century, the entire 
 group of the Western Islands in the hands of 
 the Spaniards, containing, when Columbus dis- 
 covered them, many millions of inhabitants, 
 were left literally desolate from suicide. Of 
 the anecdotes of this terrible self-immolation, 
 as they were then known in England, here are 
 a few out of many. 
 
 The first is simple, and a specimen of the 
 ordinary method. A Yucatan cacique, who 
 was forced with his old subjects to labor in the 
 mines, at last ' calling those miners into an 
 house, to the number of ninety-five, he thus 
 debateth with them : — 
 
 ' My worthy companions and friends, why desire we 
 to live any longer under so cruel a servitude ? I,et us 
 now go luito the perpetual seat of our ancestors, for we 
 shall there have rest from these intolerable cares and 
 grievances which '.ve endure under the subjection of the
 
 jo6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 unthankful. Go j'e before, I will presently follow you. 
 Having so spoken, he held out whole handfuls of 
 those leaves which take away life, prepared for the pur- 
 pose, and giving every one part thereof, being kindled 
 to suck lip the fume ; who obeyed his command; the 
 king and his chief kinsmen reserving the last place for 
 themselves. 
 
 We speak of the crime of suicide, but few 
 persons will see a crime in this sad and stately 
 leave-taking of a life which it was no longer 
 possible to bear with unbroken hearts. We do 
 not envy the Indian who with Spaniards before 
 him as an evidence of the fruits which their 
 creed brought forth, deliberately exchanged 
 for it the old religion of his country, which 
 could sustain him in an action of such melan- 
 choly grandeur. But the Indians did not 
 always reply to their oppressors with escaping 
 passively beyond their hands. Here is a story 
 with matter in it for as rich a tragedy as CEdi- 
 pus or Agamemnon ; and in its stern and tre- 
 mendous features, more nearly resembling them 
 than any which were conceived even by Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 An officer named Orlando had taken the 
 daughter of a Cuban cacique to be his mis- 
 tress. She was with child by him, but suspect- 
 ing her of being engaged in some other intrigue 
 he had her fastened to two wooden spits, not 
 intending to kill her, but to terrify her ; and 
 setting her before the lire, he ordered that she 
 should be turned by the servants of the 
 kitchen. 
 
 The maiden, stricken with fear through the cruelty 
 thereof, and strange kind of torment, presently gave up 
 the ghost. The cacique, her father, understanding the 
 matter, took thirty of his men and went to the house of 
 the captain, who was then absent, and slew his wife, 
 whom he had married after that wicked act committed, 
 and the women who were companions of the wife, and 
 her servants every one. Then shutting the door of the 
 house, and putting fire under it, lie burnt himself and 
 all his companions that assisted him, together with the 
 captain's dead family and goods.
 
 FORGO TTEN IVOR THJES. 
 
 207 
 
 This is no fiction or poet's romance. It is a 
 tale of wrath and revenge, which in sober 
 dreadful truth enacted itself upon this earth, 
 and remains among the eternal records of the 
 doings of mankind upon it. As some relief to 
 its most terrible features, we follow it with a 
 story which has a touch in it of diabolical 
 humor. 
 
 The slave-owners finding their slaves escap- 
 ing thus unprosperously out of their grasp, set 
 themselves to find a remedy for so desperate 
 a disease, and were swift to avail themselves 
 of any weakness, mental or bodily, through 
 which to retain them in life. One of these 
 proprietors being informed that a number of 
 his people intended to kill themselves on a 
 certain day, at a particular spot, and knowing 
 by experience that they were too likely to do 
 it, presented himself there at the time which 
 had been fixed upon, and telling the Indians 
 when they arrived that he knew their intention 
 and that it was vain for them to attempt to 
 keep anything a secret from him, he ended 
 with saying, that he had come there to kill 
 himself with them ; that as he had used them 
 ill in this world, he might use them worse in the 
 next; ' with which he did dissuade them presently 
 from their purpose.' With what efficacy such 
 believers in the immortality of the soul were 
 likely to recommend cither their faith or their 
 God'; rather, how terribly all the devotion and 
 all the earnestness with which the poor priests 
 who follow-ed in the wake of the conqueror 
 labored to recommend it were shamed and 
 paralyzed, they themselves too bitterly lament. 
 
 It was idle to send out governor after gov- 
 ernor with orders to stay such practices. They 
 had but to arrive on the scene to become in- 
 fected with the same fever ; or if any remnant 
 of Castilian honor, or any faintest echoes of 
 the faith which they professed, still flickered 
 in a few of the best and noblest, they could 
 but look on with folded hands in ineffectual
 
 2o8 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 mourning ; they could do nothing without 
 soldiers, and the soldiers were the worst offen- 
 ders. Hispaniola became a desert ; the gold 
 was in the mines, and there were no slaves 
 left remaining to extract it. One means which 
 the Spaniards dared to employ to supply the 
 vacancy, brought about an incident which in 
 its piteous pathos exceeds any story we liave 
 ever heard. Crimes and criminals are swept 
 awav bv time, nature finds an antidote for their 
 poison, and they and their ill consequences alike 
 are blotted out and perish. If we do not for- 
 give the villain at least we cease to hate him, 
 as it grows more clear to us that he injures 
 none so deeply as himself. But the Orjptuj^rjs 
 KaKia, the enormous wickedness by which hu- 
 manity itself has been outraged and disgraced, 
 we cannot forgive ; we cannot cease to hate 
 that ; the years roll away, but the tints of it 
 remain on the pages of history, deep and hor- 
 rible as the day on which they were entered 
 there. 
 
 When the Spaniards understood the simple opinion 
 of the Yucatan islanders concerning the souls of tiieir 
 dei)artcd, which, after their sins purged in the cold 
 northern mountains should pass into the south, to the 
 intent that, leaving their own country of their own ac- 
 cord, thcv might suffer themselves to be brought to His- 
 paniola, they did persuade those poor wretches, that 
 they came from those places where they should see their 
 parents and children, and all their kindred and friends 
 that were dead, and should enjoy all kinds (jf delights 
 with the embraccnients and fruition of all beloved be- 
 ings. And they, being infected and possessed with these 
 crafty and subtle imaginations, singing and rejoicing 
 left their country, and followed vain and idle hope. 
 Hut when they saw that they were deceived, and neither 
 met their ])arents nor any that they desired, nut were 
 compelled to undergo grievous sovereignty and com- 
 mand, and to endure cruel and extreme labor, they 
 cither slew themselves, or, choosing to famish, gave up 
 their fair spirits, being persuaded by no reason or vio- 
 lence to take food. So these miserable Yucatans came 
 to their end. 
 
 It was once more as it was in the days of the 
 Apostles. The New World was first offered
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 
 
 209 
 
 to the holders of tlie old traditions. They 
 were the husbandmen first chosen for the new 
 vineyard, and blood and desolation were the 
 only fruits which they reared upon it. In 
 their hands it was becoming a kingdom, not of 
 God, but of the devil, and a sentence of blight 
 went out against them and against their w'orks. 
 How fatally it has worked, let modern Spain 
 and Spanish America bear witness. We need 
 not follow further the history of their dealings 
 with the Indians. For their colonies, a fatality 
 appears to have followed all attempts at Catho- 
 lic colonization. Like shoots from an old de- 
 caying tree which no skill and no care can 
 rear, they were planted, and for a while they 
 might seem to grow ; but their life was never 
 more than a lingering death, a failure, which to 
 a thinking person would outweigh in the ar- 
 guments against Catholicism whole libraries 
 of faultless catenas, and a conse?isus patrum 
 unbroken through fifteen centuries for the 
 supremacy of St Peter. 
 
 There is no occasion to look for superstitious 
 causes to explain the phenomenon. The 
 Catholic faith had ceased to be the faith of 
 the large mass of earnest thinking capable per- 
 sons ; and to those who can best do the work, 
 all work in this world sooner or later is com- 
 mitted, America was the natural home for 
 Protestants ; persecuted at home, they sought 
 a place where they might worship God in their 
 own way, without danger of stake or gibbet, 
 and the French Huguenots, as afterwards the 
 English Puritans, early found their way there. 
 The fate of a party of Coligny's people, who 
 had gone out as settlers, shall be the last of 
 these stories, illustrating, as it does in the 
 highest deirree, the wrath and fury with which 
 the passions on both sides were l)oiling. A 
 certain John Ribault, with about 400 compan- 
 ions, had emigrated to Florida. They were 
 quiet inoffensive people, and lived in peace 
 there several years, cultivating the soil, build-
 
 2IO HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ing villages, and on the best possible terms 
 •with tlie natives. Spain was at the time at 
 peace with France ; we are, therefore, to sup- 
 pose that \'i was in pursuance of the great cru- 
 sade, in which they might feel secure of the 
 secret, if not the confessed, sympathy of the 
 Guises, that a powerful Spanish fleet bore 
 down upon this settlement. The French made 
 no resistance, and they were seized and flayed 
 alive, and their bodies hung out upon the 
 trees, with an inscription suspended over them, 
 * Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics.' At Paris 
 all was sweetness and silence. The settlement 
 was tranquilly surrendered to the same men 
 who had made it the scene of their atrocity ; 
 and two years later, 500 of the very Spaniards 
 who had been most active in the murder were 
 living there in peaceable possession, in two 
 forts which their relation with the natives had 
 obliged them to build. It was well that there 
 were other Frenchmen living, of whose con- 
 sciences the Court had not the keeping, and 
 who were able on emerijencies to do what was 
 right without consulting it. A certain priva- 
 teer, named Dominique de Gourges, secretly 
 armed and equipped a vessel at Rochelle, and 
 stealing across the Atlantic and in two days 
 collecting a strong party of Indians, he came 
 down suddenly upon the forts, and, taking 
 them by storm, slew or afterwards hanged 
 every man he found there, leaving their bodies 
 on the trees on which they had hanged the 
 Huguenots, with their own inscription reversed 
 against them, — 'Not as Spaniards, but as 
 murderers.' For which exploit, well deserving 
 of all honest men's praise, 'Dominique de 
 Gourges had to fly his country for his life ; 
 and, coming to England, was received with 
 honorable welcome by I^lizabeth. 
 
 It was at such a time, and lo take their part 
 amidst such scenes as these, that the English 
 navigators ajjpeared along the shores of South 
 America, as the armed soldiers of the Reforma-
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 211 
 
 tion, and as the avengers of humanity. As 
 their enterprise was grand and lofty, so for 
 the most part was the manner in which they 
 bore themselves worthy of it. They were no 
 nation of saints, in the modern sentimental 
 sense of that word ; they were prompt, stern 
 men — more ready ever to strike an enemy 
 than to parley with him ; and, private adven- 
 turers as they all were, it was natural enough 
 that private rapacity and private badness 
 should be found among them as among other 
 mortals. Every Englishman who had the 
 means was at liberty to fit out a ship or ships, 
 and if he could produce tolerable vouchers for 
 himself, received at once a commission from 
 the Court. The battles of England were 
 fought by her children, at their own risk and 
 cost, and they were at liberty to repay them- 
 selves the expense of their expeditions by 
 plundering at the cost of the national enemy. 
 Thus, of course, in a mixed world, there were 
 found mixed marauding crews of scoundrels, 
 who played the game which a century later 
 was ]tlayed with such effect by the pirates of 
 the Tortugas. Negro hunters too, there were, 
 and a bad black slave trade — in which Elizabeth 
 herself, being hard driven for money, did not 
 disdain to invest her capital — but on the whole, 
 and in the war with the Spaniards, as in the 
 war with the elements, the conduct and char- 
 acter of the English sailors, considering what 
 they were and the work which they were sent 
 to do, present us all through that age with such 
 a picture of gallantry, disinterestedness, and 
 high heroic energy, as has never been over- 
 matched ; the more remarkable, as it was the 
 fruit of no drill or discipline, no tradition, no 
 system, no organized training, but was the free 
 native growth of a noble virgin soil. 
 
 Before starting on an expedition, it was 
 usual for the crew and the officers to meet and 
 arrange among themselves a series of articles 
 of conduct, to which they bound themselves by
 
 2J2 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 a formal agreement, the entire body itself un- 
 dertaking to see to their observance. It is 
 quite possible that strong religious profession, 
 and even sincere profession, might be accom- 
 panied, as it was in the Spaniards, with every- 
 thing most detestable. It is not sufficient of 
 itself to prove that their actions would corre- 
 spond with it, but it is one among a number of 
 evidences ; and coming as most of these men 
 come before us, with hands clear of any blood 
 but of fair and open enemies, their articles may 
 pass at least as indications of what they were. 
 Here we have a few instances : — 
 Richard Hawkins's ship's company was, as 
 he himself informs us, an unusually loose one. 
 Nevertheless, we find them ' gathered together 
 every morning and evening to serve God ; ' 
 and a fire on board, which only Hawkins's 
 presence of mind prevented from destroying 
 ship and crew together, was made use of by 
 the men as an occasion to banish swearing out 
 of the ship. 
 
 With a general consent of all our company, it was or- 
 dained that there should be a palmer or ferula which 
 should be in the keeping of him who was taken with an 
 oath ; and that he who had the palmer should give to 
 every one that he took swearing, a palmada with it and 
 the ferula; and whosoever at the time of evening or 
 morning prayer was found to have the palmer, should 
 have three blows given him Ijy the captain or the mas- 
 ter; and that he should still be bound to free himself by 
 taking another, or else to run in danger of continuing 
 the penalty, wliich being executed a few days, reformed 
 the vice, so that in three days together was not one oath 
 heard to be sworn. 
 
 The regulations for Luke Fox's voyage Com- 
 menced thus : — 
 
 For as much as the good success and ^rosj^erity of 
 every action doth consist in the due service and glorify- 
 fying of Ood, knowing that not only our Ijeing and pres- 
 ervation, but the jirospcrity of all our actions and en- 
 terprises, do immediately depend on His Almighty 
 goodness and mercy; it is provided — 
 
 First, that ail the company, as well officers as others,
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 
 
 213 
 
 shall duly repair every day twice at the call of the bell 
 to hear inihlic prayers to be read, such as are authorized 
 by the Church, and that in a godly and devout manner, 
 as good Christians ought. 
 
 Secondly, that no man shall swear by the name of 
 God, or use any profane oath, or blaspheme I lis holy 
 name. 
 
 To symptoms such as these, we cannot but 
 assign a very different value when they are the 
 spontaneous growth of common minds, un- 
 stimulated by sense of propriety or rules of the 
 service, or other official influence lay or eccle- 
 siastic, from what attaches to the somewhat 
 similar ceremonials in which among persons 
 whose position is conspicuous, important en- 
 terprises are now and then inaugurated. 
 
 We have said as much as we intend to say of 
 the treatment by the Spaniards of the Indian 
 women. Sir Walter Raleigh is commonly rep- 
 resented by historians as rather defective, if 
 he was remarkable at all, on the moral side of 
 his character. Yet Raleigh can declare proud- 
 1}^, that all the time he was on the Oronoko, 
 'neither by force nor other means had any of 
 his men intercourse with any woman there ; ' 
 and the narrator of the incidents of Raleigh's 
 last voyage acquaints his correspondent ' with 
 some particulars touching the government of 
 the fleet, which, although other men in their 
 voyages doubtless in some measure observed, 
 yet in all the great volumes which have been 
 written touching voyages, there is no precedent 
 of so godly severe and martial government, 
 which not only in itself is laudable and worthy 
 of imitation, but is also fit to be written and 
 engraven on every man's soul that coveteth to 
 do honor to his country.' 
 
 Once more, the modern theory of Drake is, 
 as we said above, that he was a gentleman-like 
 pirate on a large scale, who is indebted for the 
 place which he fills in history to the indistinct 
 ideas of right and wrong prevailing in the un- 
 enlightened age in which he lived, and who
 
 214 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 therefore demands all the toleration oT our own 
 enlarged humanity to allow him to remain 
 there. Let us see hnw the following incident 
 can be made to coincide with this hypo- 
 thesis : — 
 
 A few days after clearing the Channel on his 
 first great voyage, he fell in with a small Span- 
 ish ship, which he took for a prize. He com- 
 mitted the care of it to a certain Mr, Doughtie, 
 a person much trusted by, and personally very 
 dear to him, and this second vessel v/as to fol- 
 low him as a tender. 
 
 In dangerous expeditions into unknown seas, 
 a second smaller ship was often indispensable 
 to success ; but many finely intended enter- 
 prises were ruined by the cowardice of the offi- 
 cers to whom such ships were entrusted ; who 
 shrank as danger thickened, and again and again 
 took advantage of darkness or heavy weather to 
 make sail for England and forsake their com- 
 mander. Hawkins twice suffered in this way; 
 so did Sir Humfrey Gilbert ; and, although 
 Drake's own kind feeling for his old friend has 
 prevented him from leaving an exact account of 
 his offence, we gather from the scattered hints 
 which are let fall, that he, too, was meditating a 
 similar piece of treason. However, it may or 
 may not have been thus. But when at Port St. 
 Julien, 'our General,' says one of the crew, — 
 
 r.egan to inquire diligently of the actions of Mr. 
 Thomas Doughlie, and found them not to be such as he 
 looked for, but tending rather to contention or mutiny, 
 or some other disorder, whereby, without redrcsse, the 
 success of the voyage might greatly have been hazarded. 
 Whereupon the company was called together and made 
 acrjuainted with the particulars of the cause, which were 
 found, jnirtly by Mr. IJoughtie's own confession, and 
 jxartly by the evidence of the fact, to be true, which, 
 when our (Jencral saw, altliough his j^rivate affection to 
 Mr. Doughtie (as he then, in the jirescnce of us all, sac- 
 redly jjrotested) was great, yet the care which he had 
 of the .state of the voyage, of the expectation of Her 
 Majesty, and of the honor of his country, did more 
 touch him, as indeed it ought, than the jirivate respect 
 of one man ; so that the cause being thoroughly heard,
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 215 
 
 and all things done in good order .is near as might be to 
 the course ot our law in England, it was concluded that 
 Mr. Dt)ughtic shoulil receive i>Mnishnient according to 
 the quality of the offence. And he, seeing no remedy 
 but patience for iiimself, desired before his death to re- 
 ceive the communion, which he did at the hands of Mr. 
 Fletcher, our minister, and our General himself accom- 
 panied him in that holy action, which, being done, and 
 the place of execution made ready, he, having em- 
 braced our General, and taken le.ave of all the com- 
 pany, with prayers for the Queen's Majesty and our 
 realm, in quiet sort laid h s head to the block, where he 
 ended his life. This being done, our General made 
 divers speeches to the whole company, persuading us to 
 unity, obedience, love, and regard of our voyage, and 
 for the better confirmation thereof, willed-every man the 
 next Sunday following to prei)are himself to receive the 
 communion, as Christian brethren and friends ought to 
 do, which was done in very reverent sort, and so with 
 good contentment every man went about his business. 
 
 The simple majesty of this anecdote can 
 gain nothing from any comment which we 
 might offer upon it. The crew of a common 
 English ship organizing, of their own free mo- 
 tion, on that wild shore, a judgment hall more 
 grand and awful than any most elaborate law 
 court, is not to be reconciled with the pirate 
 theory. Drake, it is true, appropriated and 
 brought home a million and a half of Spanish 
 treasure, while England and Spain were at 
 peace. He took that treasure because for many 
 years the ofliccrs of the Inquisition had made 
 free at their pleasure with the lives and goods of 
 English merchants and seamen. The king of 
 Spain, when appealed to, had replied that he 
 had no power over the Holy House ; and it 
 was necessary to make the king of Spain, or 
 the Inquisition, or whoever were the parties 
 responsible, feel that they could not play their 
 pious pranks with impunity. When Drake 
 seized the bullion at Panama, he sent word to 
 the Viceroy that he should now learn to respect 
 the properties of English subjects ; and he 
 added, that if four English sailors, who were 
 prisoners in Mexico, were molested, he would 
 execute 2,000 Spaniards and send the Viceroy
 
 2i6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 their heads. Spain and England were at 
 peace, but Popery and Protestantism were at 
 war — deep, deadly, and irreconcilable. 
 
 Wherever we find them, they are still the 
 same. In the courts of Japan or of China ; 
 fighting Spaniards in the Pacific, or prisoners 
 among the Algerines ; founding colonies which 
 by-and-by were to grow into enormous Trans- 
 atlantic republics, or exploring in crazy pin- 
 naces the fierce latitudes of the Polar seas, — 
 they are the same indomitable God-fearing men 
 whose life was one great liturgy. ' The ice 
 was strong, but God was stronger,' says one of 
 Frobisher's men, after grinding a night and a 
 day among the icebergs, not waiting for God 
 to come down and split the ice for them, but 
 toiling through the long hours, himself and the 
 rest fending off the vessel with poles and 
 planks, with death glaring at them out of the 
 rocks. Icebergs were strong, Spaniards were 
 strong, and storms, and corsairs, and rocks 
 and reefs, which no chart had then noted — 
 they were all strong ; but God was stronger, 
 and that was all which they cared to know. 
 
 Out of the vast numbers of illustrations it is 
 difficult to make wise selections, but the atten- 
 tion floats loosely over generalities, and only 
 individual instances can seize it and hold it 
 fast. We shall attempt to bring our readers 
 face to face with some of these men ; not, of 
 course, to write their biographies, but to sketch 
 the details of a few scenes, in the hope that 
 they may tempt those under whose eyes they 
 may fall to look for themselves to complete 
 the perfect figure. 
 
 Some two miles above the port of Dartmouth, 
 once among the most important harbors in 
 England, on a projecting angle of land which 
 runs out into the river at the head of one of its 
 most beautiful reaches, there has stood for 
 some centuries the Manor House of Green- 
 away. The water runs deep all the way to it 
 from the sea, and the largest vessels may ride
 
 FOKCOTTEN WORTHIES. 217 
 
 with safely within a stone's throw of the win- 
 dows. In the latter half of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury there must have met, in the hall of this 
 mansion, a party as remarkable as could have 
 been found anywhere in England. Humfrey 
 and Adrian Gilbert, with their half-brother, 
 Walter Raleigh, here, when little boys, played 
 at sailors in the reaches of Long Stream ; in 
 the summer evenings doubtless rowing down 
 with the tide to the port, and wondering at the 
 quaint figure-heads and carved prows of the 
 ships which thronged it; or climbing on board, 
 and listening, with hearts beating, to the mar- 
 iners' tales of the new earth beyond the sun- 
 set. And here in later life, matured men, whose 
 boyish dreams had become heroic action, they 
 used again to meet in the intervals of quiet, 
 and the rock is shown underneath the house 
 where Raleigh smoked the first tobacco. An- 
 other remarkable man, of whom we shall pres- 
 ently speak more closely, could not fail lo have 
 made a fourth at these meetings. A sailor boy 
 of Sandwich, the adjoining parish, John Davis, 
 showed early a genius which could not have 
 escaped the eye of such neighbors, and in the 
 atmosphere of Greenaway he learned to be as 
 noble as the Gilberts, and as tender and deli- 
 cate as Raleigh. Of this party, for the present 
 we confine ourselves to the host and owner, 
 Humfrey Gilbert, knighted afterwards by Eliza- 
 beth. Led by the scenes of his childhood to 
 the sea and to see adventures, and afterwards, 
 as his mind unfolded, to study his profession 
 scientifically, we find him as soon as he was 
 old enough to think for himself, or make others 
 listen to him, 'amending the great errors of 
 naval sea cards, whose common fault is to 
 make the degree of longitude in every latitude 
 of one common bigness ; ' inventing instru- 
 ments for taking observations, studying the 
 form of the earth, and convincing himself that 
 there was a north-west passage, and studying 
 the necessities of his country, and discovering
 
 2ig HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the remedies for them in colonization and ex- 
 tended markets for home manufactures. Gil- 
 bert was examined before the Queen's Majesty 
 and the Privy Counsel, and the record of his 
 examination he has himself left to us in a 
 paper which he afterwards drew up, and strange 
 enough reading it is. The most admirable 
 conclusions stand side by side with the wildest 
 conjectures. 
 
 Homer and Aristotle are pressed into ser- 
 vice to prove that the ocean runs round the 
 three old continents, and that America there- 
 fore is necessarily an island. The Gulf Stream, 
 which he had carefully observed, eked out by a 
 theory of the. primum mobile, is made to demon- 
 strate a channel to the north, corresponding 
 to Magellan's Straits in the south, Gilbert be* 
 lieving, in common with almost every one of 
 his day, that these straits were the only open- 
 ing into the Pacific, and the land to the south 
 was unhroken to the Pole. He prophesies a 
 market in the East for our manufactured linen 
 and calicoes : — 
 
 The Easterns greatly prizing the same, as appeareth 
 in Hester, where the pomp is expressed of the great 
 King of India, Ahasuerus, wlio matched the colored 
 clothes wherewith his houses and tents were apparelled, 
 with gold and silver, as part of his greatest treasure. 
 
 These and other such arguments were the 
 best analysis which Sir Humfrey had to offer 
 of the spirit which he felt to be working in him. 
 We may think what we please of them ; but 
 we can have but one thought of the great 
 grand words with which the memorial con- 
 cludes, and they alone would explain the love 
 which Elizabeth bore him : — 
 
 Never, therefore, mislike with me for taking in hand 
 any laudable and honest enterprise, for if through pleas- 
 ure or idleness we purchase shame, the pleasure vanish- 
 eth, but the shame abideth forever. 
 
 Give me leave, thv^rcfore, without offence, always to 
 live and die in this mind ; that he is not worthy to live
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 
 
 219 
 
 at all that, for fear or danger of death, shunneth his 
 country's service and his own honor, seeing that death is 
 inevitable and the fame of virtue inimorial, wherefore 
 in this behalf miitarc vcl timere sperrio. 
 
 Two voyages which he undertook at his own 
 cost, which shattered his fortune, and failed, 
 as they naturally might, since inefficient help 
 or mutiny of subordinates, or other disorders, 
 are inevitable conditions under which more or 
 less great men must be content to see their 
 great thoughts mutilated by the feebleness of 
 their instruments, did not dishearten him, and 
 in June 1583 a last fleet of five ships sailed 
 from the port of Dartmouth, with commission 
 from the Queen to discovered and take posses- 
 sion from latitude 450 to 50" North — a voyage 
 not a little noteworthy, there being planted in 
 the course of it the first English colony west of 
 the Atlantic. Elizabeth had a foreboding that 
 she would never see him again. She sent him 
 a jewel as a last token of her favor, and she 
 desired Raleigh to have his picture taken 
 before he went. 
 
 The history of the voyage was written by a 
 Mr. Edward Hayes, of Dartmouth, one of the 
 principal actors in it, and as a composition it is 
 more remarkable for fine writing than any 
 very commendable thought in the author. But 
 Sir Humfrey's nature shines through the in- 
 firmity of his chronicler ; and in the end, 
 indeed, Mr Hayes himself is subdued into a 
 better mind. He had lost money by the voy- 
 age, and we will hope his higher nature was 
 was only under a temporary eclipse. The fleet 
 consisted (it is well to observe the ships and 
 the size of them) of the ' Delight,' 120 tons ; the 
 barque ' Raleigh.' 200 tons (this ship deserted 
 off the Land's End) ; the ' Golden Hinde ' and 
 the • Swallow,' 40 tons each ; and the ' Squirrel,' 
 which was called the frigate, 10 tons. Eor the 
 uninitiated in such matters, we may add, that 
 if in a vessel the size of the last, a member of 
 the Yacht Club would consider that he had
 
 2 20 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 earned a club-room immortality if he had 
 ventured a run in the depth of summer from 
 Cowes to the Channel Islands. 
 
 Wc were in all (says Mr. Ilayes) 260 men, among whom 
 we had of every faculty good choice. Besides, for 
 solace of our own people, and allurement of the savages, 
 we are provided of music in good variety, not omitting 
 the least toys as, morris dancers, hobby horses, and 
 May-like conceits to delight the savage people. 
 
 The expedition reached Newfoundland with- 
 out accident. St John's was taken posses- 
 sion of, and a colony left there ; and Sir Hum- 
 frey then set out exploring along the Ameri- 
 can coast to the south, he himself doing all the 
 work in his little lo-ton cutter, the service 
 being too dangerous for the larger vessels to 
 venture on. One of these had remained at St. 
 John's. He was now accompanied only by the 
 ' Delight' and the ' Golden Hinde,' and these 
 two keeping as near the shore as they dared, 
 he spent what remained of the summer examin- 
 ing every creek and bay, marking the sound- 
 ings, taking the bearings of the possible 
 harbors, and risking his life, as every hour 
 he was obliged to risk it in such a service, in 
 thus leading, as it were, the forlorn hope in 
 the conquest of the New World. How dan- 
 gerous it was we shall presently see. It was 
 towards the end of Augfust. 
 
 *&' 
 
 The evening was fair and pleasant, yet not without 
 token of storm to ensue, and most jiart of this Wednes- 
 day night, like the swan that singeth before her death, 
 they in the ' Delight ' continued in sounding of drums 
 aiul trumpets and fifes, also winding the cornets and 
 hautboys, and in the end of their jollity left with the 
 battell and ringing of doleful knells. 
 
 Two days after came the storm ; the ' De- 
 light ' struck upon a bank, and went down in 
 sight of the other vessels, which were unable to 
 render her any help. Sir Humfrey's papers, 
 among other things, were all lost in her ; at
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 221 
 
 the lime considered by him an irreparable 
 misfortune. But it was little matter, he was 
 never to need them. The ' Golden Hinde ' 
 and the ' Squirrel ' were now left alone of the 
 five ships. The provisions were running-short, 
 and the summer season was closing. Both 
 crews were on short allowance ; and with much 
 difficulty Sir Humfrey was prevailed upon 
 to be satisfied for the present with what he had 
 done, and to lay off for England, 
 
 So upon Saturday, in the afternoon, the 31st of Au- 
 gust, we changed our course, and returned back for 
 England, at which very instant, even in winding about 
 there passed along between us and the land, which we 
 now forsook, a very lion, to our seeming, in shape, hair, 
 and color ; not swimming after the manner of a beast 
 by moving of his feet, but rather sliding ujjon the water 
 with his whole body, except his legs in sight, neither yet 
 diving under and again rising as the manner is of whales, 
 porpoises, and other fish, but confidently showing himself 
 without hiding, notwithstanding that we presented our- 
 selves in open view and gesture to amaze him. Thus 
 he passed along, turning his head to and fro, yawning and 
 gaping wide, with ugly demonstration of long teeth 
 and glaring eyes; and to bidde us farewell, coming right 
 against the 'Hinde,' he sent forth a horrible voice, 
 roaring and bellowing as doth a lion, which spectacle 
 we all beheld so far "as we were able to discern the 
 same, as men prone to wonder at every strange thing. 
 What opinion others had thereof, and chiefly the Gen- 
 eral himself, I forbear to deliver. But he took it for 
 Bonum Omen, rejoicing that he was to war against such, 
 an enemy, it is were the devil. 
 
 We have do doubt that he did think it was 
 the devil ; men in those days believing really 
 that evil Avas more than a principle or a neces- 
 sary accident, and that in call their labor for 
 God and for right, they must their ccount to 
 have to fight with the devil in his proper 
 person. But if we are to all it superstition, 
 and if this were no devil in the form of a roar- 
 ing lion, but a mere great seal or sea-lion, it is 
 a more innocent superstition to impersonate 
 so real a power, and it requires a bolder heart 
 to rise up against it and defy it in its living
 
 2 22 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 terror, than to sublimate it away into a philo- 
 sophical principle, and to forget a battle with 
 it in speculating on its origin and nature. But 
 to follow the brave Sir Humfrey, whose work 
 of fighting with the devil was now over, and 
 who was passing to his reward. The 2nd of 
 September the General came on board the 
 * Golden Hinde ' ' to make merry with us.' 
 He greatly deplored the loss of his books and 
 papers, but he was full of confidence from what 
 he had seen, and talked with eagerness and 
 warmth of the new expedition for the following 
 spring. Apocryphal gold-mines still occupiyng 
 the minds of Mr Hayes and others, the were 
 persuaded that Sir Humfrey was keeping to 
 himself some such discovery which he had 
 secretly made, and they tried hard to extract it 
 from him. They could made nothing, however, 
 of his odd, ironical answers, and their sorrow 
 at the catastrophe which followed is sadly 
 blended with disappointment that such a secret 
 should have perished. Sir Humfrey doubtless 
 saw America with other eyes than theirs, and 
 gold-mines richer than California in its huge 
 rivers and savannahs. 
 
 Leaving the issue of this f;ood hope (about the gold), 
 (contimies Mr Hayes), to God, who only knowcth the 
 truth thereof, I will hasten to the end of this tragedy, 
 which must be knit up in the jjerson of our General, 
 and as it was Ciod's ordinance upon him, even so the 
 vehement jjersuasion of his friends could nothing avail 
 to divert him from his wilful resolution of going in his 
 frigate ; and when he was entreated by the captain, 
 master, and others, his well-wishers in the ' Hinde,' not 
 to venture, this was his answer — ' I' will not forsake my 
 little comi)any going homewards, with whom I have 
 so many storms and jjerils.' 
 
 Two-thirds of the wav home they met foul 
 weather and terrible seas, ' breaking short and 
 pyramid-wise.' Men who had all their lives 
 ' occupied the sea' had never seen it more out- 
 rageous. ' We had also ui)on our inainyard an 
 apparition of a little fire by night, which sea- 
 men do call Castor and Pollux.'
 
 FORGOTTEN IVORTIIIES. 223 
 
 Monday the ninth of Scptcmljcr, in the afternoon, the 
 frigate was near cast away op])ressccl by waves, but at 
 that time recovered, and giving forth signs of joy, the 
 General, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried 
 unto us in the 'Jlinde' so often as we did approach within 
 hearing, ' We are as near to heaven by sea as by land,' 
 reiterating the same speech, well beseeming a soldier 
 resolute in Jesus Christ, and I can testify that he was. 
 The same Monday night, about twelve of the clock, or 
 not long after, the frigate being ahead of us in the ' Gol- 
 den Hinde, suddenly her lights were out, whereof as 
 it were in a moment we lost the sight ; and withal our 
 watch cried, ' The General was cast away,' which was 
 too true. 
 
 Thus faithfully (concludes Mr Hayes, in some degree 
 rising above himself) I have related this story, wherein 
 some spark of the knight's virtues, though he be extin- 
 guished, may happily appear ; he remaining resolute to 
 a purpose honest and godly as was this, to discover, 
 possess and reduce unto the service of God and Chris- 
 tian piety, those . remote and heathen countries of 
 America. vSnch is the infinite bounty of God, who from 
 every evil deriveth good, that fruit may grow in time of 
 our travelling in these North-Western lands (as has it 
 not grown ?), and the crosses, turmoils, and afHictions, 
 both in the preparation and execution of the voyage did 
 correct the intemperate humors which before we noted 
 to be in this gentleman, and made unsavory and less 
 delightful his other manifold virtues. 
 
 Thus as he was refined and made nearer unto the 
 image of God, so it pleased the Divine will to resume 
 him unto Himself, whither both his and every other high 
 and noble mind have always aspired. 
 
 Such was Sir Humfrey Gilbert; still in the 
 prime of his years when the Atlantic swallowed 
 him. Like the gleam of a landscape lit sud- 
 denly for a moment by the lightning, these few 
 scenes flash down to us across the centuries : 
 but what a life must that have been of which 
 this was the conclusion ! We have glimpses of 
 him a few years earlier, when he won his spurs 
 in Ireland — won them by deeds which to us 
 seem terrible in their ruthlessness, but which 
 won the applause of Sir Henry Sidney as too 
 high for praise or even reward. Checkered 
 like all of us with lines of light and darkness, 
 he was, nevertheless, one of a race which has 
 ceased to be. We look round for them, and 
 we can hardly believe that the same blood is
 
 224 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 flowing in our veins. Brave we may still be, 
 and strong perhaps as they, but the liigh moral 
 grace which made bravery and strength so 
 beautiful is departed from us forever. 
 
 Our space is sadly limited for historical por- 
 trait painting ; but we must find room for 
 another of that Greenaway party whose nature 
 was as fine as that of Gilbert, and who intellec- 
 tually was more largely gifted. The latter was 
 drowned in 1583. In 1585 John Davis left 
 Dartmouth on his first vovage into the Polar 
 seas ; and twice subsequently he went again, 
 venturing in small ill-equipped vessels of thirty 
 or forty tons into the most dangerous seas. 
 These voyages were as remarkable for their 
 success as for the daring with which they were 
 accomplished, and Davis's epitaph is written 
 on the map of the world, where his name still re- 
 mains to commemorate his discoveries. Brave 
 as he was, he is distinguished by a pecul- 
 iar and exquisite sweetness of nature, which, 
 from many little facts of his life, seems to have 
 affected every one with whom he came in con- 
 tact in a remarkable degree. We find men, 
 for the love of Master Davis, leaving their fire- 
 sides to sail with him, without other hope 
 or motion : we find silver bullets cast to 
 shoot him in a mutiny ; the hard rude natures 
 of the mutineers being awed by something in 
 liis carriage which was not like that of a com- 
 mon man. He has written the account of one 
 of his northern voyages himself ; one of those, 
 by-the-by, which the Hakluyt Society have 
 mutilated ; and there is an imaginative beauty 
 in it, and a rich delicacy of expression, which is 
 called out in him by the first sight of strange 
 lands and things and people. 
 
 To show what he was, we should have pre- 
 ferred, if possible to have taken the story of 
 his expedition into the South Seas, in which, 
 under circumstances of singular difficulty, he 
 was deserted by Candish, under whom he had 
 sailed ; and after inconceivable trials from
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 225 
 
 famine, mutiny, and storm, ultimately saved 
 himseli; and liis ship, and such of the crew as 
 had chosen to submit to his -orders. But it is 
 a long history, and will not admit of being cur- 
 tailed. As an instance of the stuff of which it 
 was composed, he an back in the black night 
 in a gale of wind through the Straits of 
 Magellan, by a chart which he had f/iade with 
 the eye in passing up. His anchors were lost or 
 broken ; the cables were parted. He could 
 not bring up the ship ; there was nothing for 
 it but to run, and he carried her safe through 
 along a channel often not three miles broad, 
 sixty miles from end to end, and twisting like 
 the reaches of a river. 
 
 For the present, however, we are forced to 
 content ourselves with a few sketches out of 
 the north-west voyages. Here is one, for in- 
 stance, which shows how an Englishman could 
 deal with the Indians. Davis had landed at Gil- 
 bert's Sound, and gone up the country explor- 
 ing. On his return he found his crew loud in 
 complaints of the thievish propensities of the 
 natives, and urgent to have an example made of 
 some of them. On the next occasion he fired 
 a gun at them with blank cartridge ; but their 
 nature was still too strong for them. 
 
 Seeing iron (lie says), they could in no c;ise forbear 
 stealing; whicii, when I perceived, it did but minister to 
 me occasion of laughter to see their simplicity, and I 
 willed that they should not be hardly used, but that our 
 company should be more diligent to keep their things, 
 supposing it to be very hard in so short a time to make 
 them know their evils. 
 
 In his own way, however, he took an oppor- 
 tunity of administering a lesson to them of a 
 more wholesome kind than could be given with 
 gunpowder and bullets. Like the rest of his 
 countrymen, he believed the savage Indians 
 in their idolatries to be worshippers of the 
 devil. ' They are witches,' he says ; ' they have 
 images in great store, and use many kinds of
 
 226 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 enchantments.' And these enchantments they 
 tried on one occasion to put in force against 
 himself and his crew. 
 
 IJeing on shore on the 4th day of July, one of them 
 made a long oration, and then kindled a fire, into which 
 with many strange words and gestures he put divers 
 things, which we supposed to be a sacrifice. Myself and 
 certain of my company standing by, they desired us to 
 go into the smoke. I desired them to go into the smoke, 
 which they would by no means do. I then took one of 
 them and thrust him into the smoke, and willed one of 
 my comi^any to tread out the, fire and spurn it into the 
 sea, wliich was done to show them that we did contemn 
 their sorceries. 
 
 It is a very English story — exactly what a 
 modern Englishman would do ; only, perhaps, 
 not believing that there was anv real devil in 
 the case, which makes a difference. However,- 
 real or not real, after seeing him patiently put 
 up with such an injury, we will hope the poor 
 Greenlander had less respect for the devil than 
 formerly. 
 
 Leaving Gilbert's Sound, Davis went on to 
 the north-west, and in lat. 63^ fell in with a 
 barrier of ice, which he coasted for thirteen 
 days without finding an opening. The very 
 sight of an iceberg was new to all his crew ; 
 and the ropes and shrouds, though it was mid- 
 summer, becoming compassed with ice, — 
 
 The people began to fall sick and faint-hearted — 
 whereupon, very orderly, with good discretion, they en- 
 treated me to regard the safety of mine own life, as well 
 as the preservation of theirs; and that I should not, 
 through overbouldness, leave their widows and fatherless 
 children to give me bitter curses. 
 
 Whereuj)on, seeking counsel of God, it pleased His 
 Divine Majesty to move my heart to prosecute that 
 which I hojie shall be to Ilisglory, and to the contcnta- 
 tion of every Christian mind. 
 
 He had two vessels — one of gome burthen, 
 the other a pinnace of thirty tons. The result 
 of the counsel which lie had sought was, that 
 he made over his own large vessel to such as
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 227 
 
 wished to return, and himself, 'thinking it bet- 
 ter to die with honor than to return with in- 
 famy,' went on, with such volunteers as would 
 follow him, in a poor leaky cutter, up the sea 
 now in commemoration of that adventure called 
 Davis's Straits. He ascended 4'' North of the 
 furthest known point, among storms and ice- 
 bergs, when the long days and twilight nights 
 alone saved him from being destroyed, and, 
 coasting back along the American shore, he 
 discovered Hudson's Straits, supposed then to 
 be the long-desired entrance into the Pacific. 
 This exploit drew the attention of VValsing- 
 ham, and by him Davis was presented to Bur- 
 leigh, ' who was also pleased to show him great 
 encouragement.' If either these statesmen or 
 Elizabeth had been twenty years younger, his 
 name would have filled a larger space in his- 
 tory than a small corner of the map of the 
 world ; but if he was employed at all in the 
 last years of the century, no vates sacer has 
 been found to celebrate his work, and no clue 
 is left to guide us. He disappears ; a cloud 
 falls over him. He is known to have com- 
 manded trading vessels in the Eastern, seas; 
 and to have returned five times from India. 
 But the details are all lostj and accident .has 
 only parted the clouds for a moment to show 
 us the mournful setting with which he, too, 
 went down upon the sea; 
 
 In taking out Sir JEdward Michellthorne to 
 India, in 1604, he fell in with a cfew of Japa- 
 nese, whose ship had been burnt, drifting at 
 sea, without provisions, in a leaky junk. He 
 supposed them to be pirates, but he did not 
 choose to leave them to so wretched a death, 
 and took them on board ; and in a few hours, 
 watching their opportunity, they murdered 
 him. 
 
 As the fool dieth, so dieth the wise, and there 
 no is difference ; it was the chance of the sea, 
 the ill reward of a humane action — a melan- 
 cholv end for such a man — like the end of a
 
 228 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 warrior, not dying Epaminondas-like on the 
 field of victory, but cut off in some poor brawl 
 or ambuscade. But so it was with all these 
 men. Thev were cut off in the flower of their 
 days, and few of them laid their bones in the 
 sepulchres of their fathers. They knew the 
 service which they had chosen, and they did 
 not ask the wages for Avhich they had not 
 labored. Life with them was no summer holi- 
 day, hut a holy sacrifice offered up to duty, 
 and what their Master sent was welcome. 
 Beautiful is old age — beautiful as the slow-drop- 
 ping mellow autumn of a rich glorious summer. 
 In the old man, nature has fulfilled her work ; 
 she loads him with her blessings ; she fills him 
 with the fruits of a well-spent life; and, sur- 
 rounded by his children and his children's 
 children, she rocks him softly away to a 
 grave, to which he is followed with blessings. 
 God forbid we should not call it beautiful. It 
 is beautiful, but not the most beautiful. There 
 is another life, hard, rough, and thorny, trod- 
 den with bleeding feet and aching brow ; the 
 life of which the cross is the symbol ; a 
 battle which no peace follows, this side the 
 grave ; which the grave gapes to finish, be- 
 fore the victory is won ; and — strange that 
 it should be so — this is the highest life of 
 man. Look back along the great names 
 of history ; there is none whose life has 
 been other than this. They to whom it 
 has been given to do the really highest work 
 in this earth — whoever they are, Jew, or Gen- 
 tile, Pagan or Christian, warriors, legislators, 
 philosophers, priests, poets, kings, slaves — one 
 and all, their fate has been the same — the 
 same bitter cup has been given to them to 
 drink. And so it was with the servants of 
 PvDgland in the sixteenth century. Their life 
 was a lon<: battle, either with the elements or 
 with men ; and it was enough for them to ful- 
 fil their work, and to pass away in the hour 
 when God had nothing more to bid them do.
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 
 
 229 
 
 They did not complain, and why should we 
 complain for them ? Tcaccful life was not 
 what they desired, and an honorable death had 
 no terrors for them. Theirs was the old Gre- 
 cian spirit, and the great heart of the Theban 
 poet lived again in them : 
 
 Qavtiv 6' olaiv dvayKa, ri Kt n<; uvuiwfwf 
 yr/pa^ iv aKori,) KaU'fj/xevo^ trpoc /larav, 
 urruvTuv kuAuv u/ifcuput; -^ 
 
 Seeing,' in Gilbert's own brave words, 
 * that death is inevitable, and the fame of 
 virtue is immortal ; wherefor in this behalf 
 niutare vel tuncre spa-no,^ 
 
 In the conclusion of these light sketches we 
 pass into an element different from that in 
 which we have been lately dwelling. The 
 scenes in which Gilbert and Davis played out 
 their high natures were of the kind which we 
 call peaceful, and the enemies with which they 
 contended were principally the ice and the 
 wind, and the stormy seas and the dangers of 
 unknown and savage lands. We shall close 
 amidst the roar of cannon and the wrath and 
 rage of battle. Hume, who alludes to the en- 
 gagement which we are going to describe, 
 speaks of it in a tone which shows that he looked 
 at it as something portentous and prodigious ; 
 as a thing to wonder at — but scarcely as de- 
 serving the admiration which we pay to actions 
 properly within the scope of humanity — and as 
 if the energy which was displayed in it was like 
 the unnatural strength of madness. He does 
 not say this, but he appears to feel it ; and he 
 scarcely would have felt it if he had cared more 
 deeply to saturate himself with the temper of 
 the age of which he was writing. At the time, 
 all England and all the world rang with the 
 story. It struck a deeper terror, though it was 
 but the action of a single ship, into the hearts 
 of the Spanish people ; it dealt a more deadly 
 blow upon their fame and moral strength than 
 the destruction of the Armada itself; and in
 
 230 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the direct results which rose from it, it was 
 scarcely less disastrous to them. Hardly, as 
 it seems to us, if the most glorious actions 
 which are set like jewels in the history of 
 mankind are weighed one against the other in 
 the balance, hardly will those 300 Spartans who 
 in the summer morning sat * combing their long 
 hair for death ' in the passes of Thermopylaj, 
 have earned a more lofty estimate for them- 
 selves than this one crew of a modern English- 
 men. 
 
 In August 159I; Lord Thomas Howard, with 
 six English line-of-battle ships, six victuallers, 
 and two or three pinnaces, was lying at anchor 
 under the Island of Florez. Light in ballast 
 and short of water, with half his men disabled 
 by sickness, Howard was unable to pursue the 
 the aggressive purpose on which had been sent 
 out. Several of the ships' crews were on shore : 
 the ships themselves ' all pestered and rommag- 
 ing,' with everything out of order. In this con- 
 dition they were surprised by a Spanish fleet 
 consisting of 53 men-of-war. I^leven out of the 
 twelve English ships obeyed the signal of the 
 admiral, to cut or weigh their anchors and 
 escape as they might. The twelfth, the ' Re- 
 venge,' was unable for the moment to follow. 
 Of her crew of 190, ninety were sick on shore, 
 and, from the position of the ship, there was 
 some delay and difficulty in getting them on 
 board. The ' Revenge ' was commanded by 
 Sir Richard Grenville, of Eideford, a man well- 
 known in the Spanish seas, and the terror of 
 the Spanish sailors ; so fierce he was said to 
 be, that mythic stories passed from lip to lip 
 about him, and, like Earl Talbot or Cttiur de 
 Lion, the nurses at the Azores frightened 
 children with the sound of his name. ' He 
 was of great revenues, of his own inheritance,' 
 they said, 'but of unquiet mind, and greatly 
 affected to wars ; ' and from his uncontrollable 
 propensities for blood-eating, he had volun- 
 teered his services to the (^ueen ; ' of so hard
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 
 
 231 
 
 a complexion was lie, that I (John Hiiighcn 
 von Linschoten, who is our authority here, and 
 who was with the Spanish fleet after the action) 
 have been told by clivers credible persons who 
 stood and beheld him, that he would carouse 
 three or four glasses of wine, and take the 
 classes between his teeth and crush them in 
 pieces and swallow them down.' Such Grenville 
 was to the Spaniard. To the English he was a 
 goodly and gallant gentleman, who had never 
 turned his back upon an enemy, and was remark- 
 able in that remarkable time for his constancy 
 and daring. In this surprise at Florez he was in 
 no haste to flv. He first saw all his sick on 
 board and stowed away on the ballast,; and 
 then, with no more than 100 men left him to 
 fight and work the ship; he deliberately weighed, 
 uncertain, as it seemed at first, what he in- 
 tended to do. The Spanish fleet were by this 
 time on his weather bow, and he was persuaded 
 (we here take his cousin Raleigh's beautiful 
 narrative, and follow it in Raleigh's words) ' to 
 cut his mainsail and cast about, and trust to 
 the sailing of the ship : ' — 
 
 But Sir Richard utterly refused to turn from the 
 enemy, alledgiug that he would rather choose to die than 
 to dishonor himself, his country, and her Majesty's ship, 
 persuading his company that he would pass through 
 their two sciuadrons in spite of them, and enforce those 
 of Seville to give him way: which he performed upon 
 diverse of the foremost, who, as the mariners term it, 
 sprang their luff, and full under the lee of the Revenge.' 
 15ut the other course had been the better; and might 
 right well have been answered in so great an impossi- 
 bility of jjrcvailing: notwithstanding, out of the greatness 
 of his mind, he could not be persuaded. 
 
 The wind was light ; the ' San Philip,' ' a 
 huge high-carged ship ' of 1500 tons, came up 
 to windward of him, and, taking the wind out 
 of his sails, ran aboard him. 
 
 After the 'Revenge' was entangled with the 'San 
 I'liilip,' four others boarded her, two on her larboard 
 and two on her starboard. 'l"hc fight thus beginning at
 
 232 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 three o'clock in the afternoon continued very terrible all 
 
 that eveninfj. But the great ' San Philip,' having re- 
 ceived the lower tier of the ' Revenge,' shifted herself 
 with all diligence from her sides, utterly mislilcing her 
 first entertainment. The Spanish ships were filled with 
 soldiers, in some 200, besides, the mariners, in some 500 
 in others 800. In ours there were none at all, beside, 
 the mariners, but the servants of the commander and 
 some few voluntary gentlemen only. After many enter 
 changed vollies of great ordnance and small shot, the 
 .Spaniards deliberated to enter the ' Revenge,' and made 
 divers attempts, hoping to force her by the multitude of 
 their armed soldiers and musketeers; but were still re- 
 pulsed again and again, and at all times beaten back 
 into their own ship or into the sea. In the beginning 
 of the fight the ' George Noble,' of London, having re- 
 ceived some shot thnnigh her by the Armadas, fell 
 under the lee of the 'Revenge,' and asked Sir Richard 
 what he would command him; but being one of the 
 victuallers, and of small force, Sir Richard bade him 
 save himself and leave him to his fortune. 
 
 This last was a little touch of gallantry, 
 which we should be glad to remember with the 
 honor due to the brave English sailor who 
 commanded the ' George Noble ; ' but his name 
 has passed away, and his action is an in ine- 
 vioriam, on which time has effaced the writing. 
 All that August night the fight continued, the 
 stars rolling over in their sad majesty, but 
 unseen through the sulphurous clouds which 
 hung over the scene. Ship after ship of the 
 Spaniards came on u]jon the ' Revenge,' ' so 
 that never less than two mighty galleons w-ere 
 at her side and aboard her,' washing up like 
 waves upon a rock, and falling foiled and shat- 
 tered back amidst the roar of the artillery. Be- 
 fore morning fifteen several Armadas had as- 
 sailed her, and all in vain ; some had been 
 sunk at her side ; and the rest, 'so ill approv- 
 ing of their entertainment, that at break of day 
 they were far more willing to hearken to a com- 
 position, than hastily to make more assaults or 
 entries.' ' IJut as the day increased,' says 
 Raleigh, ' so our men decreased ; and as the 
 light grew more and more, by so much the 
 more grew our discomfort, for none appeared
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 
 
 233 
 
 in sight but enemies, save one small ship 
 called the " Pilgrim," cominandecl by Jacob 
 Whiddon, who hovered all night to see the 
 success, but in the morning, bearing with the 
 " Revenge," was hunted lil-;e a hare among 
 many ravenous hounds — but escaped.' 
 
 All the powder in the ' Revenge ' was now 
 spent, all her ]jikes were broken, 40 out of her 
 100 men killed, and a great number of the rest 
 wounded. Sir Richard, though badly hurt 
 early in the battle, never forsook the deck till 
 an hour before midnight; and was then shot 
 through the body while his wounds were being 
 dressed, and again in the head. His surgeon 
 was killed while attending on him ; the masts 
 were lying over the side, the rigging cut or 
 broken, the upper works all shot in pieces, and 
 the ship herself, unable to move, was settling 
 slowly in the sea ; the vast fleet of Spaniards 
 lying round her in a ring, like dogs round a dy- 
 ing lion, and wary of approaching him in his 
 last agony. Sir Richard, seeing that it was 
 past hope, having fought for fifteen hours, and 
 ' having by estimation eight hundred shot of 
 great artillery through him,' ' commanded the 
 master gunner, whom he knew to be a most 
 resolute man, to split and sink the ship, that 
 thereby nothing might remain of glory or vic- 
 tory to the Spaniards ; seeing in so many hours 
 they were not able to take her, having had 
 above fifteen hours' time, above ten thousand 
 men, and fifty-three men-of-war to perform it 
 withal ; and persuaded the company, or as many 
 as he could induce, to yield themselves unto 
 God and to the mercy of none else ; but as they 
 had, like valiant resolute men, repulsed so 
 many enemies, they should not now shorten 
 the honor of their nation by prolonging their 
 own lives for a few hours or a few days. 
 
 The gunner and a few others consented. 
 But such BaiixovLT] dperr} was more than could 
 be expected of ordinary seamen. They had 
 dared do all which did become men, and they
 
 234 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 were not more than men. Two Spanish ships 
 had gone down, above 1500 of their crew were 
 killed, and the Spanish admiral could not in- 
 duce any one of the rest of his fleet to board 
 the * Revenge ' again, ' doubling lest Sir Rich- 
 ard would have blown up himself and them, 
 knowing his dangerous disposition.' Sir Rich- 
 ard lying disabled below, the captain, ' finding 
 the Spaniards as ready to entertain a composi- 
 tion as they could be to offer it,' gained over 
 the majority of the surviving company ; and the 
 remainder then drawing back from the master 
 gunner, they all, without further consulting 
 their dying commander, surrendered on honor- 
 able terms. If unequal to the English in 
 action, the Spaniards were at least as courteous 
 in victory. It is due to them to say, that the 
 conditions were faithfully observed ; and ' the 
 ship being marvellous unsavourie,' Alonzo de 
 Eagon, the Spanish admiral, sent his boat to 
 bring Sir Richard on board his own vessel. 
 
 Sir Richard, whose life was fast ebbing away, 
 replied that 'he might do with his body what 
 he list, for that he esteemed it not ; ' and as he 
 was carried out of the ship he swooned, and 
 reviving again, desired the company to pray 
 for him. 
 
 The admiral used him with all humanity, 
 ' commending his valour and worthiness, being 
 unto them a rare spectacle, and a resolution 
 seldom approved.' The officers of the fleet, 
 too, John Higgins tells us, crowded round to 
 look at him ; and a new fight had almost 
 broken out between the Biscayans and the 
 ' Portugals,' each claiming the honor of having 
 boarded the ' Revenge.' 
 
 In .1 few hours Sir Richard, fcclinj^ Iiis end approach- 
 ing, shmvcd not any sign u( faintness, but spake these 
 words in Spanisli. and sai<i, 'Here die I, Kichartl Gren- 
 villc, willi a joyful and (piiet mind, for that I liave ended 
 my life as a true soldier (jught to do that hath fought for 
 his ctjuntry, (|ucen, religion and honor. Whereby my 
 soul most joyfully dcpartelh out of this body, and shall
 
 FORGOTTEN WORTHIES. 
 
 235 
 
 always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant 
 and true soldier that hath done his duty as he was bound 
 to do.' When he had finished these or other such like 
 words, he gave U]) the giiosl with great and stout courage, 
 and no nuui could perceive any signs of heaviness in 
 him. 
 
 Such was the fight at Florez. in that August 
 of 1591, without its equal in such of tlie annals 
 of mankind as the thing which we call history 
 has preserved to us ; scarcely equalled by the 
 most glorious fate which the imagination of 
 Barrere could invent for the ' Vengeur.' Nor 
 did the matter end without a sequel awful as 
 itself. Sea battles have been often followed 
 by storms, and without a miracle ; but with a 
 miracle, as the Spaniards and the English alike 
 believed, or without one, as we moderns would 
 would prefer to believe, ' there ensued on this 
 action a tempest so terrible as was never seen 
 or heard the like before.' A fleet of merchant- 
 men joined the Armada immediately after the 
 battle, forming in all 140 sail ■ and of these 140, 
 only 32 ever saw Spanish harbor. The rest 
 foundered, or were lost on the Azores. The 
 men-of-war had been so shattered by shot as 
 to be unable to carry sail ; and the ' Revenge ' 
 herself, disdained to survive her commander, 
 or as if to complete his own last baffled pur- 
 pose, like Samson, buried herself and her 
 200 prize crew under the rocks of St Michael's. 
 
 And it may well be thought and presumed (says John 
 Huighen) that it was no other than a just plague pur- 
 posely sent upon the Spaniards; and that it might 
 be truly said, the taking of the ' Kevenge ' was justly re- 
 venged on them ; and not by the might or force of man, 
 but by the jjowerof God. As some of them oijenlysaid 
 in the Isle of Terceira, that they believed verily (lod 
 would consume them, and that he took part with the 
 Lutherans and heretics .... saying further, that so soon 
 as they had thrown llie dead body of the Vice-Admiral 
 Sir Richard Grenville overboard, they verily thought 
 that as he had a devilish faith and religion, and there- 
 fore the devil loved him, so he presently sunk into the 
 bottom of the sea and down into hell, where he raised 
 up all the devils to the revenge of his death, and that
 
 236 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 they brought so great a storm and torments upon the 
 Spaniards, because they only maintained the Catholic 
 and Romish religion. Such and the like blasphemies 
 against God they ceased not openly to utter.
 
 homer; 
 
 Troy fell before the Greeks ; and in its turn 
 the war of Troy is now falling before the critics. 
 That ten years' death-struggle, in which the 
 immortals did not disdain to mingle — those 
 massive warriors, with their grandeur and their 
 chivalry, have, ' like an unsubstantial pageant, 
 faded 'before the wand of these modern en- 
 chanters ; and the Iliad and the Odyssey, and 
 the other early legends, are discovered to be no 
 more than the transparent myths of an old 
 cosmogony, the arabesques and frescoes with 
 which the imagination of the Ionian poets set 
 off and ornamented the palace of the heavens, 
 the struggle of the earth with the seasons, and 
 the labors of the sun through his twelve signs. 
 
 Nay, with Homer himself it was likely at one 
 time to have fared no better. His works, in- 
 deed, were indestructible, yet if they could not 
 be destroyed, they might be disorganized ; and 
 with their instinctive hatred of facts, the critics 
 fastened on the historical existence of the poet. 
 The origin of the poems was distributed among 
 the clouds of pre-historic imagination ; and — 
 instead of a single inspired Homer for their 
 author, w^e were required to believe in some 
 extraordinary spontaneous generation, or in 
 some collective genius of an age which igno- 
 rance had personified. 
 
 But the person of a poet has been found 
 more difficult of elimination than a mere fact 
 
 * Frazer's Magazine, \%t^\^
 
 238 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of history. Facts, it was once said, were stub- 
 born thinjrs ; but in our davs we have chansred 
 all that ; a fact under the knife of a critic, 
 splits in pieces, and is dissected out of belief 
 with incredible readiness. The helpless thing 
 lies under his hand like a foolish witness in a 
 law court, when browbeaten by an unscrupulous 
 advocate, and is turned about and twisted this 
 way and that way, till in its distraction it con- 
 tradicts itself, and bears witness against itself; 
 and to escape from torture, at last flies utterly 
 away, itself half doubting its own existence. 
 
 But it requires more cunning weapons to 
 destroy a Homer ; like his own immortals, he 
 may be wounded, but he cannot have the life 
 carved out of him by the prosaic strokes of 
 common men. His poems have but to be dis- 
 integrated to unite again, so strong are they in 
 the individuality of their genius. The single- 
 ness of their structure — the unitv of desiscn — 
 the distinctness of drawing in the characters — 
 the inimitable peculiarities of manner in each 
 of them, seem to place beyond serious question, 
 after the worst onslaught of the Wolfian critics, 
 that both Iliad and ()dyssey, whether or not 
 the work of the same mind, are at least each of 
 them sinijlv the work of one. 
 
 Let them leave us Homer, however, and on 
 the rank and file of facts they may do their 
 worst ; we can be indifferent to, or even thank- 
 ful for, what slaughter they may make. In the 
 legends of the Theogonia, in that of Zeus and 
 Cronus, for instance, there is evidently a meta- 
 physical allegory ; in the legends of Persephone, 
 or of the Dioscuri, a physical one ; in that of 
 Athene, a profoundly philosophical one ; and 
 fused as the entire system was in the intensely 
 poetical conception of the early thinkers, it 
 would be impossible, even if it were desirable, 
 at this time of day, to disentangle the fibres of 
 all these various elements. Fact and theory, 
 the natural, and the supernatural, the legendary 
 and the philosoohical, shade off so impcr-
 
 nOMRK. 239 
 
 ceptibly one into the other, in the stories of the 
 Olympians, or of their first offspring, that we can 
 never assure ourselves that we are on historic 
 ground, or tliat, antecotlcnt to the really historic 
 age, there is any such ground to be found any- 
 where. The old notion, that the heroes were 
 deified men, is no longer tenable. With but 
 few exceptions, we can trace their names as 
 the names of the old gods of the Hellenic or 
 Pelasgian races ; and if they appeared later in 
 Imman forms, they descended from Olympus 
 to assume them. Dionied was the CEtolian s!;.n- 
 god ; Achilles was worshipped in Thessaly long 
 before he became the hero of the tale of Troy. 
 The tragedy of the house of Atreus, and the 
 bloody bath of Agamemnon, as we are now 
 told with appearance of certainty,* are human- 
 ized stories of the physical struggle of the oppos- 
 ing principles of life and death, light and 
 darkness, night and day, winter and summer. 
 And let them be so ; we need not be sorry 
 to believe that there is no substantial basis for 
 these tales of crime. The history of mankind 
 is not so pure but that we can afford to lose a 
 few dark pages out of the record. Let it be 
 granted that of the times which Homer sung 
 historically we know nothing literal at all — not 
 any names of any kings, or of any ministers, 
 wars, intrigues, revolutions, crimes. They are 
 all gone — dead — passed away ; their vacant 
 chronicles may be silent as the tombs in which 
 their bones are buried. Of such stuff as that 
 with which historians till their pages there is 
 no trace ; it is a blank, vacant as the annals 
 of the Hottentot or of the Red Indian. Yet 
 when all is said, there remain still to us in 
 Homer's verse, materials richer, perhaps, than 
 exist for any period of the ancient world, richer 
 than even for the brilliant days of Pericles, or 
 of the Caesars, to construct a history of another 
 kind — a history, a picture not of the times of 
 
 * Mackay's Progress 0/ the luUlUct.
 
 240 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 which he sang, but of the men among whom he 
 lived. How they acted; how they thougiit, 
 talked, and felt ; what they made of this earth, 
 and of their place in it ; their i^rivate life and 
 their public life ; men and women ; masters 
 and servants ; rich and poor — we have it all 
 delineated in the marvellous verse of a poet 
 who, be he what he may, was in this respect the 
 greatest which the earth has ever seen. In 
 extent, the information is little enough ; but in 
 the same sense as it has been said that an hour 
 at.aan Athenian supper-party would teach us 
 more Grecian life and character than all Aris- 
 tophanes, Homer's pictures of life and manners 
 are so living, so distinct, so palpable, that a 
 whole prose encyclopaedia of disconnected facts 
 could give us nothing like them. It is the 
 marvellous property of verse — one, if we rightly 
 consider it, which would excuse any superstition 
 on the origin of language — that the metrical and 
 and rhythmatic arrangement of syllable and 
 sound is able to catch and express back to us, not 
 stories of actions, but the actions themselves, 
 with all the feelings which inspire them ; to 
 call up human action, and all other outward 
 things in which human hearts take interest — 
 to produce them, or to reproduce them, with a 
 distinctness which shall produce the same 
 emotions which they would themselves produce 
 when really existing. The thing itself is made 
 present before us by an exercise of creative 
 power as genuine as that of Nature herself; 
 which, perhaps, is but the same power man- 
 ifesting itself at one time in words, at. another 
 in outward phenomena. Whatever be the 
 cause, the fact is so. Poetry has this life-giving 
 power, and j^rose has it not ; and thus the poet is 
 the truest historian. Whatever is properly 
 valuable in history the poet gives us — not 
 events and names, but emotion, but action, but 
 life. He is the heart of his age, and his verse 
 expresses his age ; and what matter is it by 
 what name he describes his places or his per-
 
 JIOMER. 241 
 
 sons ? What matter is it what his own name 
 was, while we have himself, and while we have 
 the originals, from which he drew? The work 
 and the life are all for which wc need care, are 
 all which can really interest us : the names are 
 nothing- Though Phceacia was a dreamland, 
 or a symbol of the Flysian fields, yet Homer 
 drew his material, his island, his palaces, his 
 harbor, his gardens of parrenial beauty, from 
 those fair cities which lay along the shores of 
 his own Ionia ; and like his blind Demodocus, 
 Homer doubless himself sung those very hymns 
 which now delight us so, in the halls of many 
 a princely Alcinous. 
 
 The prose historian may give us facts and 
 names ; he may catalogue the successions, and 
 tell us long stories of battles, and of factions, 
 and of political intrigues ; he may draw char- 
 acters for us, of the sort which figure com- 
 monly in such features of human affairs, men 
 of the unheroic, unpoetic kind — the Cleons, 
 the Sejanuses, the Tiberiuses, a Philip the 
 Second or a Louis Quatorze, in whom the no- 
 ble element died out into selfishness and vul- 
 garity. But great men — and all men properly 
 so called (whatever is genuine and natural in 
 them) — lie beyond prose, and can only be 
 really represented by the poet. This is the 
 reason why such men as Alexander, or as Cae- 
 sar, or as Cromwell, so perplex us in histories, 
 because they and their actions are beyond the 
 scope of the art through which we have looked 
 at them. We compare the man as the historian 
 represents him, wiih the track of his path 
 through the world. The work is the work of a 
 giant ; the man, stripped of the vulgar append- 
 ages with which the stunted imagination of his 
 biographer may have set him off, is full of 
 meanesses and littlenesses, and is scarcely 
 greater than one of ourselves. Prose, that is, 
 has attempted something to which it is not 
 equal. It describes a figure which it calls Cae- 
 sar; but it is not Caisar, it is a monster. For
 
 242 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 the same reason, prose fictions, novels, and 
 the like, are worthless for more than a mo- 
 mentary purpose. The life which they are able 
 to represent is not worth representing. There 
 is no person so poor in his own eyes as not to 
 gaze with pleasure into a looking-glass ; and 
 the prose age may value its own image in the 
 novel. But the value of all such representa- 
 tions is ephemeral. It is with the poet's art 
 as with the sculptor's — sandstone will not 
 carve like marble, its texture is too loose to re- 
 tain a sharply moulded outline. The actions 
 of men, if they are true, noble, and genuine, 
 are strong enough to bear the form and bear 
 the polish of verse ; if loose or feeble, they 
 crumble away into the softer undulations of 
 prose. 
 
 What the life was whose texture bore shap- 
 ing into Homer's verse, we intend to spend 
 these pages in examining. It is, of course, 
 properly to be sought for in the poems them- 
 selves. But we shall here be concerned mainly 
 with features which in the original are rather 
 secondary than prominent, and which have to 
 be collected out of fragments, here a line, and 
 there a line, out of little hints, let fall by Homer 
 as it were by accident. Things too familiar to 
 his own hearers to require dwelling on, to us, 
 whose object is to make out just those very 
 things which were familiar, are of special and 
 singular value. It is not an inquiry which will 
 much profit us, if we come to it with any grand 
 notions of the ' progress of the species,' for in 
 many ways it will discourage the belief in 
 progress. 
 
 We have fallen into ways of talking of the 
 childhood and infancy of the race, as if no 
 beards had grown on any face before the mod- 
 ern Reformation ; and even people who know 
 what old Athens was under Pericles, look com- 
 monly on earlier Greece as scarcely struggling 
 out of it8 cradle. It would have fared so with 
 all early history except for the Bible. The
 
 HOMER. 243 
 
 Old Testament has operated partially to keep 
 us in our modest senses, and we can see some- 
 thing grand about the patriarchs ; but this is 
 owing to exceptional causes, which do not apply 
 to other literature ; and in spite of our admira- 
 tion of Homer's poetry, we regard his age, and 
 the contemporary periods in the other people 
 of the earth, as a kind of childhood little better 
 than barbarism. We look upon it, at all events, 
 as too far removed in every essential of spirit 
 or of form from our own, to enable us to feel 
 for it any strong interest or sympathy. More 
 or less we have, every one of us, felt some- 
 thing of this kind. Homer's men are, at first 
 sight, unlike any men that we have ever seen; 
 and it is not without a shock of surprise that, 
 for the first time, we fall, in reading him, across 
 some little trait of humanity which in form as 
 well as spirit is really identical with our own 
 experience. Then, for the moment, all is 
 changed with us — gleams of light flash out, in 
 which the drapery becomes transparent, and 
 we see the human form behind it, and that en- 
 tire old world in the warm glow of flesh and 
 blood. Such is the effect of those few child 
 scenes of his, which throw us back into our old 
 familiar childhood. With all these years be- 
 tween us, there is no difference between their 
 children and ours, and child would meet child 
 without sense of strangeness in common games 
 and common pleasures. 
 
 The little Ulysses, climbing on the knees of 
 his father's guest, coaxing for a taste of the 
 red wine, and spilling it as he starts at the un- 
 usual taste ; or that other most beautiful picture 
 of him running at Laertes's side in the garden 
 at Ithaca, the father teaching the boy the 
 names of the fruit-trees, and making presents 
 to him of this tree and of that tree for his very 
 own, to help him to remember what they were 
 called; the partition wall of three thousand 
 years melts away as we look back at scenes 
 like these ; that broad, world-experienced man
 
 244 niSTOKJCAl. ESSAYS. 
 
 was once, then, such a little creature as we re- 
 member ourselves, and Laertes a calm, kind 
 father of the nineteentii century. Then, as 
 now, the children loved to sport upon the 
 shore, and watch the inrolllng waves ; — then 
 as now, the boy-architect would pile the moist 
 sand into mimic town or castle, and when the 
 work was finished, sweep it away again in wan- 
 ton humor with foot and hand ; — then, as now' 
 the little tired maiden would cling to her 
 mother's skirt, and trotting painfully along be- 
 side her, look up wistfully and plead with moist 
 eyes to be carried in her arms. Nay, and 
 among the grown ones, where time has not 
 changed the occupation, and the forms of cul- 
 ture have little room to vary, we meet again 
 with very familiar faces. There is Melantho, 
 the not over-modest tittering waiting-maid — 
 saucy to her mistress and the old housekeeper- 
 and always running after the handsome young 
 princes. Unhappy Melantho, true child of uni- 
 versal nature ! grievous work we should make 
 with most households, if all who resemble thee 
 were treated to as rough a destiny. And there 
 are other old friends whom it is pleasant 
 enough to recognize at so long a distance. 
 ' Certain smooth-haired, sleek-faced fellows — 
 insolent where their lords would permit them; 
 inquisitive and pert, living but to eat and drink, 
 and pilfering the good things, to convey them 
 stealthily to their friends outside the castle 
 wall.' The thing that hath been, that shall be 
 again. When liomer wrote, the type had set- 
 tled into its long-enduring form. ' Such are 
 they,' he adds, in his good-natured irony, * as 
 the'valet race ever love to be.' 
 
 With such evidence of identity among us all, 
 it is worth while to look closer at the old 
 Greeks, to try to find in Homer something be- 
 yond fine poetry, or exciting adventures or 
 battle-scenes, or material for scholarship ; for 
 awhile to set all that aside, and look in him for 
 the story of real living men — set to pilgrimize
 
 HOMER. 
 
 245 
 
 in the old way on the same old earth — man 
 such as we are, children of one family, with 
 the same work to do, to live the best life they 
 could, and to save their souls — with the same 
 trials, the same passions, the same difficulties, 
 if with weaker means of meeting them. 
 
 And first for their religion. 
 
 Let those who like it, lend their labor to 
 the unravelling the secrets of the mythologies. 
 Theogonies and Theologies are not religion ; 
 they are but its historic dress and outward or 
 formal expression, which, like a language, may 
 be intelligible to those who see the inward 
 meaning in the sign, but no more than con- 
 fused sound to us who live in another atmos- 
 phere, and have no means of transferring our- 
 selves into the sentiment of an earlier era. It 
 is not in these forms of a day or of an age 
 that we should look for the real belief — the 
 real feelings of the heart ; but in the natural 
 expressions v/hich burst out spontaneously — 
 expressions of opinion on Providence, on the 
 relation of man to God, on the eternal laws by 
 which this world is governed. Perhaps we 
 misuse the word in speaking of religion ; we 
 ought rather to speak of piety : piety is always 
 simple ; the emotion is too vast, too overpower- 
 ing, whenever it is genuine, to be nice or fan- 
 tastic in its form ; and leaving philosophies and 
 cosmogonies to shape themselves in myth and 
 legend, it speaks itself out with a calm and 
 humble clearness. We may trifle with our 
 own discoveries, and hand them over to the 
 fancy or the imagination for elaborate decora- 
 tion. We may shroud over supposed mysteries 
 under an enigmatic veil, and adapt the degrees 
 of initiation to the capacities of our pupils ; 
 but before the vast facts of God and Provi- 
 dence, the difference between man and man 
 dwarfs into nothing. They are no discoveries 
 of our own with which we can meddle, but 
 revelations of the Infinite, which, like the sun- 
 light, shed themselves on all alike, wise and
 
 246 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 unwise, good and evil, and they claim and they 
 permit no other acknowledgment from us than 
 the simple obedience of our lives, and the 
 plainest confession of our lips. 
 
 Such confessions, except in David's Psalms, 
 we shall not anywhere find more natural or 
 unaffected than in Homer — most definite, vet 
 never elaborate — as far as may be from any 
 complimenting of Providence, yet expressing 
 the most unquestioning conviction. We shall 
 not often remember them when we set about 
 religion as a business ; but when the occasions 
 of life stir the feelings in us on which religion 
 itself reposes, if we were as familiar with the 
 Iliad as with the Psalms, the words of the old 
 Ionian singer would leap as naturally to our 
 lips as those of the Israelite king. 
 
 Zeus is not always the questionable son of 
 Cronus, nor the gods always the mythologic 
 Olympians. Generally, it is true, they appear 
 as a larger order of subject beings — beings like 
 men, and subject to a higher control — in a 
 position closely resembling that of Milton's 
 angels, and liable like them to passion and to 
 error. Put at times, the father of gods and 
 men is the Infinite and Eternal Ruler — the 
 living Providence of the world — and the les- 
 sergods are the immortal administrators of his 
 Divine will throughout the lower creation. 
 Forever at the head of the universe there is an 
 awful spiritual power; when Zeus appears with 
 a distinct and positive personality, he is him- 
 self subordinate to an authority which else- 
 where is one with himself. Wherever either 
 he or the other gods are made susceptible of 
 emotion, the Invisible is beyond and above 
 them. Wlien Zeus is the personal father of 
 Sarpedon, and his private love conflicts with 
 the law of the eternal order, though he has 
 power to set aside the law, lie dares not break 
 it ; but in the midst of his immortality, and on 
 his own awful throne, lie weeps tears of blood 
 in ineffectual sorrow for his dying child. And
 
 HOMER. 247 
 
 again, there is a power supreme both over Zeus 
 and over Poseidon, of which Iris reminds the 
 latter, when she is sent to rebuke him for his 
 disobedience to his brother. It is a law, she 
 says, that the younger shall obey the elder, 
 and the Erinnys will revenge its breach even 
 on a god. 
 
 But descending from the more difficult 
 Pantheon among mankind, the Divine law of 
 justice is conceived as clearly as we in this day 
 can conceive it. The supreme power is the 
 same immortal love of justice and the same 
 hater of iniquity ; and justice means what we 
 mean by justice, and iniquity what we mean 
 by iniquity. There is no diffidence, no scep- 
 ticism on this matter ; the moral law is as sure 
 as day and night, summer and winter. Thus 
 in the sixteenth Iliad — 
 
 'When in the market-place men deal un- 
 justly, and the rulers decree crooked judgment, 
 not regarding the fear of God,' God sends the 
 storm, and the earthquake, and the tempests, 
 as the executors of his vengeance. 
 
 Again, Ulysses says-^ 
 
 ' God looks upon the children of men, and 
 punishes the wrong doer.' 
 
 And Eumaius — 
 
 ' The gods love not violence and wrong ; but 
 the man whose ways are righteous, him they 
 honor.' 
 
 Even when as mere Olympians they put off 
 their celestial nature, and mix in earthly strife, 
 and are thus laid open to earthly suffering, a 
 mystery still hangs about thelii ; Diomed, even 
 while he crosses the path of Ares, feels all the 
 while ' that they are short-lived who contend 
 with the Immortals.' Ajax boasts that he will 
 save himself in spite of heaven, and immedi- 
 ately the wave dashes him upon the rocks. 
 One light word escaped Ulysses in the excite- 
 ment of his escape from the Cyclops which 
 nine years of suffering hardly expiated. 
 
 The same spirit which teaches Christians
 
 248 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 that those who have no earthly friend have 
 specially a friend above to care for and to 
 avenge them, taught the lonians a proverb 
 which appears again and again in Homer, that 
 the stranger and the poor man are the patri- 
 mony of God ; and it taught them, also, that 
 sometimes men entertained the immortals un- 
 awares. It was a faith, too, which was more 
 than words with them ; for we hear of no 
 vagrant acts or alien acts, and it was sacrilege 
 to turn away from the gate whoever asked its 
 hospitality. Times are changed. The world was 
 not so crowded as it is now, and perhaps rogues 
 were less abundant ; but at any rate those an- 
 tique Greeks did what they said. We say 
 what they said, while in the same breath we 
 say, too, that it is impossible to do it. 
 
 In every way, the dependence of man on a 
 special heavenly Providence was a matter of 
 sure and certain conviction with them. Tele- 
 machus appeals to the belief in the Council at 
 Ithaca. He questions it at Pylos, and is at 
 once rebuked by Athene. Both in Iliad and 
 Odyssey to live justly is the steady service 
 which the gods require, and their favor as 
 surely follows when that service is paid, as a 
 Nemesis sooner or later follows surely, too. on 
 the evil-doers. 
 
 But without multiplying evidence, as we 
 easily might, from every part of both Iliad and 
 Odyssey, the sceptical and the believing forms 
 of thought and feeling on this very subject are 
 made points of cjramatic contrast, to show off 
 the opposition of two separate characters ; and 
 this is clear proof that such thoughts and feel- 
 ings must have been familiar to Homer's 
 hearers : if it were not so, his characters would 
 have been without interest to his age — they 
 would have been individual, and not universal ; 
 and no expenditure of intellect, or passion, 
 would have made men care to listen to him. 
 The two persons wlio throughout the Iliad 
 stand out in relief in contrast to each other are
 
 HOMER. 249 
 
 of course, Hector and Achilles ; and faith in 
 God (as distinct from a mere recognition of 
 him) is as directly the characteristic of Hector 
 as in Achilles it is entirely absent. Both char- 
 acters are heroic, but the heroism in them 
 springs from opposite sources. Both are heroic, 
 because both are strong ; but the strength of 
 one is in himself, and the strength of the other 
 is in his faith. Hector is a patriot; Achilles 
 does not know what patriotism means ; — Hector 
 is full of tenderness and human affection ; 
 Achilles is self-enveloped. Even his love for 
 Patroclus is not pure, for Patroclus is as the 
 moon to the sun of Achilles, and Achilles sees 
 his own glory reflected on his friend. They 
 have both a forecast of their fate ; but Hector, 
 in his great brave way, scoffs at omens ; he 
 knows that there is a sj^ecial providence in the 
 fall of a sparrow, and defies augury. To do 
 his duty is the only omen for which Hector 
 cares ; and if death must be, he can welcome 
 it like a gallant man, if it find him fighting for 
 his country. Achilles is moody, speculative, 
 and subjective ; he is too proud to attempt an 
 ineffectual resistance to what he knows to be 
 inevitable, but he alternately murmurs at it and 
 scorns it. Till his passion is stirred by his 
 friend's death, he seems equally to disdain the 
 greatness of life and the littleness of it; the 
 glories of a hero are not worth dying for ; and 
 like Solomon, and almost in Solomon's words, 
 he complains that there is one event to all — 
 
 'Ev de IT} Ti/17) ^ jitv Kwcdc jjh koX iadh'c. 
 
 To gratify his own spleen, he will accept an 
 inglorious age in Thessaly, in exchange for a 
 hero immortality; as again in the end it is but 
 to gratify his own wounded pride that he goes 
 out to brav'e a fate which he scorns while he 
 knows that-it will subdue him. Thus, Achilles 
 is the hero of the stern human, seir-siifficing 
 spirit, which does not deny or question destiny,
 
 250 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 but seeing nothing in it except a cold, iron law, 
 meets force with force, and holds up against 
 it an unbroken, unbending will. Human nat- 
 ure is at its best but a miserable business to 
 him ; death and sorrow are its inevitable lot. 
 As a brave man, he will not fear such things, 
 but he will not pretend to regard them as any- 
 thing but detestable ; and he comforts the old, 
 weeping king of Troy, whose age he was him- 
 self bringing down to the grave in sorrow, 
 with philosophic meditations on the vanity of 
 all things, and a picture of Zeus mixing the 
 elements of life out of the two urns of good 
 and evil. 
 
 Turn to Hector, and we pass from shadow 
 into sunliglit. Achilles is all self, Hector all 
 self-forgetfulness; Achilles all pride. Hector all 
 modesty. The confidence of Achilles is in 
 himself and in his own arm ; Hector knows 
 (and the strongest expressions of the kind in 
 all the Iliad are placed pointedly in Hector's 
 mouth) that there is no strength except from 
 above. ' God's will,' he says, ' is over all ; he 
 makes the strong inan to fear, and gives the 
 victory to the weak, if it shall please him. 
 And at last when he meets Achilles, he an- 
 swers his bitter words, not with a defiance, 
 but calmly saying, * I know that thou art 
 mighty, and that my strength is far less than 
 thine ; but these things lie in the will of the 
 gods, and I, though weaker far than thou, may 
 yet take thy life from thee, if the Immortals 
 choose to have it so.' 
 
 So far then, on the general fact of Divine 
 Providence the feeling of Homer, and there- 
 fore of his countrymen, is distinct. Both the 
 great pocmsbearinghis name speak in the same 
 language. But beyond the general fact, many 
 questions rise in the application of the creed, 
 and on one of these (it is among several re- 
 markable differences which seem tp make the 
 Odyssey as of a later age) there is a very sin- 
 gular discrepancy. In the Iliad, the life of a
 
 HOMER. 
 
 251 
 
 man on this side the grave is enough for the 
 completion of his destiny — for his reward, 
 if he lives nobly; for his punishment if he 
 be base or wicked. Without repinings or 
 scepticisms at the apparent successes of bad 
 men, the poet is contented with what he finds 
 accepting cheerfully the facts of life as they 
 are ; it never seems to occur to him as seriously 
 possible that a bad man could succeed or a 
 good one fail ; and as the ways of Providence, 
 therefore, required no vindicating, neither his 
 imagination nor his curiosity tempts him into 
 penetrating the future. The house of Hades 
 is the long home to which men go when dis- 
 missed out of their bodies ; but it is a dim, 
 shadowy place, of which we see nothing, and 
 concerning which iio conjectures are ventured. 
 Achilles, in his passion over Patroclus, cries 
 out, that although the dead forget the dead irt 
 the halls of the departed, yet that he will re- 
 member his friend ; and through the Iliad there 
 is nothing clearer than these vagu6 wOrds to 
 show with what hopes or fears the poet looked 
 forward to death. So far, therefore, his faith 
 may seem imperfect ; yet perhaps, not the less 
 noble because imperfect ; religious men in 
 general are too well contented with the jyrorti- 
 ise of a future life, as of a scene where the 
 seeming shortcomings of the Divine adminis* 
 tration will be carried out with larger equity. 
 But whether imperfect or not, or whatever be 
 the account of the omission, the theory o£ 
 Hades in the Odyssey is developed into far 
 greater distinctness ; the future is still, indeed 
 shadowy, but it is no longer uncertain : there 
 is a dreadful prison-house, with the Judge upon 
 his throne — and the darker criminals are over- 
 taken by the vengeance which was delayed in 
 life. The tliin phantoms of the great ones of 
 the past flit to and fro, mourning wearily for 
 their lost mortality, and feeding on its memory. 
 And more than this, as if it were beginning 
 to be felt that something more was wanted
 
 252 
 
 HISTORICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 after all to satisfy us with the completeness of 
 the Divine rule, we have a glimpse — it is but 
 one, but it is like a ray of sunshine falling in 
 upon the darkness of the grave — ' of the far-off 
 Elysian fields where dwells Rhadamanthus with 
 the golden hair, where life is ever sweet, and 
 sorrow is not, nor winter, nor any rain or storm, 
 and the never-dying zephyrs blow soft and 
 cool from off the ocean.' 
 
 However vague the filling up of such a pic- 
 ture, the outline is correct to the best which 
 has been revealed even in Christianity, and it 
 speaks nobly for the people among whom, even 
 in germ, such ideas could root themselves. 
 But think what we will of their notions of the 
 future, the old Greek faith, considered as a 
 practical and not a theological system, is truly 
 admirable, clear, rational, and moral ; if it 
 does not profess to deal with the mysteries of 
 evil in the heart, it is prompt and stern with 
 them in their darker outward manifestations, 
 and, as far as it goes, as a guide in the common 
 daily business of life, it scarcely leaves any- 
 thing unsaid. 
 
 How far it went we shall see in the details 
 of the life itself, the most important of which 
 in the eyes of a modern will be the social or- 
 ganization ; and when he looks for organiza- 
 tion, he will be at once at a loss, for he will 
 find the fact of government yet without defined 
 form ; — he will find law, but without a public 
 sword to enforce it ; and a ' social machine' 
 moving without friction under the easy control 
 of opinion. There are no wars of classes, no 
 politics, no opposition of interests, a sacred 
 feeling of the will of the gods keeping every 
 one in his proper subordination. It was a 
 sacred duty that the younger should obey the 
 elder, that the servant should obey his master, 
 that property should be respected ; in war, 
 that the leader should be obeyed without ques- 
 ti(jning; in peace, that public questions should 
 be brought before the assembly of the people,
 
 HOMER. 
 
 253 
 
 and settled quietly as the Council determined. 
 In this assembly the prince presided, and be- 
 yond this presidency his authority at home 
 does not seem to have extended. Of course 
 there was no millennium in Ionia, and men's 
 passions were pretty much what they are now. 
 Without any organized means of repressing 
 crime when it did appear, the people were ex- 
 posed to, and often suffered under, extreme 
 forms of violence — violence such as that of the 
 suitors at Ithaca, or of ^gisthus at Argos. On 
 the other hand, what a state of cultivation it 
 implies, what peace and comfort in all classes, 
 when society could hold together for a day 
 with no more complete defence ! And, more- 
 over, there are disadvantages in elaborate 
 police systems. Self-reliance is one of the 
 highest virtues in which this world is intended 
 to discipline us ; and to depend upon ourselves 
 even for our own personal safety is a large 
 element in moral training. 
 
 But not to dwell on this, and to pass to the 
 way in which the men of those days employed 
 themselves; . 
 
 Our first boy's feeling with the Iliad is, that 
 Homer is pre-eminently a poet of war ; that 
 battles were his own passion, and tales of 
 battles the delight of his listeners. His heroes 
 appear like a great fighting aristocracy, such as 
 the after Spartans were, Homer himself like 
 another TyrtJEus, and the poorer occupations 
 of life too menial for their notice or for his. 
 They seem to live for glory — the one glory 
 worth caring for only to be won upon the battle- 
 field, and their exploits the one worthy theme 
 of the poet's song. This is our boyish impres- 
 sion, and like other such, it is very different 
 from the truth. If war had been a passion 
 with the lonians, as it was with the Teutons 
 and the Norsemen, the god of battles would 
 have been supreme in the Pantheon ; and 
 Zeus would scarcely have called Ares the most 
 hateful spirit in Olympus — most hateful, be-
 
 254 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 cause of his delight in war and carnage. Mr. 
 Carlyle looks forward to a chivalry of labor. 
 He rather wishes than expects that a time may 
 come when the campaign of industry against 
 anarchic nature may gather into it those feel- 
 ings of gallantry and nobleness which have 
 found their vent hitherto in fighting only. The 
 modern man's work, Mr. Carlyle says, is no 
 longer to splinter lances or break down walls, 
 but to break soil, to build barns and factories, 
 and to find a high employment for himself in 
 what hitherto has been despised as degrading. 
 How to elevate labor — how to make it beauti- 
 ful — how to enlist the spirit in it (for in no 
 other way can it be made humanly profitable), 
 that is fhe problem which he looks wistfully 
 to the future to solve for us. He may look to 
 the past as well as to the future ; in the old 
 Ionia he will find all for which he wishes. The 
 wise Ulysses built his own house, and carved 
 his own bed. Princes killed and cooked their 
 ow'n food. It was a holy work with them — 
 their way of saying grace for it ; for they 
 offered the animal in his death to the gods, and 
 they were not butchers, but sacrificing priests. 
 Even a keeper of swine is called noble, and 
 fights like a hero ; and the young princess of 
 Phoecia — the loveliest and gracefullest of 
 Homer's women — drove the clothes-cart and 
 washed limcn with her own beautiful hands. 
 Not only was labor free — for so it was among 
 the early Romans ; or honorable, so it was 
 among the Israelites, — but it was beautiful — 
 beautiful in the artist's sense, as perhaps else- 
 where it has never been. In later Greece — in 
 what we call the glorious period — toil had 
 gathered about it its modern crust of supposed 
 baseness — it was left to slaves ; and wise men, 
 in their philosophic lecture-room, spoke of it 
 as unworthy of the higher specimens of culti- 
 vsted humanity. 
 
 ]Jut Homer finds, in its most homely forms, 
 fit illustrations for the most glorious achieve.
 
 IIOMEK. 
 
 255 
 
 ments of his heroes ; and in every page we find 
 in simile or metaphor, some common scene of 
 daily life worked out with elaborate beauty. 
 What the pojDular poet chooses for his illustra- 
 tions are as good a measure as we can have of 
 the popular feeling, and the images which he 
 suggests are, of course, what he knows his 
 hearers will be pleased to dwell upon. There 
 is much to be said about this, and we shall re- 
 turn to it presently ; in the mean time, we must 
 not build on indirect evidence. The designs 
 on the shield of Achilles are, together, a com- 
 plete picture of Homer's microcosm. Homer 
 surely never thought inglorious or ignoble what 
 the immortal art of Hephaistos condescended 
 to imitate. 
 
 The first groups of figures point a contrast 
 which is obviously intentional ; and the signifi- 
 cance becomes'sadly earnest when we remem- 
 ber who it was that was to bear the shield. 
 The moral is a very modern one, and the pic- 
 ture might be called by the modern name of 
 Peace and War. There are two cities, embody- 
 ing in their condition the two ideas. In one, 
 a happy wedding is going forward ; the pomp 
 of the hymeneal procession is passing along 
 the streets ; the air is full of music, and the 
 women are standing at their doors to gaze. 
 The other is in the terrors of a siege ; the hos- 
 tile armies glitter under the walls, the women 
 and children press into the defences, and crowd 
 to the battlements. In the first city a quarrel 
 rises, and wrong is made right, not by violence 
 and fresh wrong, but by the majesty of law 
 and order. The heads of the families are sit- 
 ting gravely in the market-iDlace, the cause is 
 heard, the compensation set, the claim award- 
 ed. Under the walls of the other city an am- 
 bush lies, like a wild beast on the watch for its 
 prey. The unsuspecting herdsmen pass on 
 with their flocks to the waterside ; the spoilers 
 spring from their hiding-place, and all is strife, 
 and death, and horror, and confusion. If
 
 256 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 there were other war scenes on the shield, it 
 might be doubted whether Homer intended so 
 strong a contrast as he executed ; but fighting 
 for its own salce was evidently held in slight re- 
 spect with him. The forms of life which he 
 thought really beautiful follow in a series of 
 exquisite Rubens-like pictures : harvest scenes 
 and village festivals, the ploughing and the 
 vintage, or the lion-hunt on the reedy margin 
 of the river ; and he describes them with a 
 serene, sunny enjoyment which no other old 
 world art or poetry gives us anything in the 
 least resembling. Even we ourselves, in our 
 own pastorals, are struggling with but half suc- 
 cess, after what Homer entirely possessed. 
 What a majesty he has thrown into his harvest 
 scene ! The yellow corn falling, the boys fol- 
 lowing to gather up the large armsfull as they 
 drop behind the reapers ; in the distance a 
 banquet preparing under the trees ; in the 
 centre, in the midst of his workmen, the king 
 sitting in mellow silence, sceptre in hand, look- 
 ing on with gladdened heart. Again we see 
 the ploughman, unlike what are to be seen in 
 our corn-grounds, turning their teams at the 
 end of the furrow, and attendants standing 
 ready with the winecup, to hand to them as 
 they pass. Homer had seen these things, or 
 he would not have sung of them ; and princes 
 and nobles might have shared such labor with- 
 out shame, when kings presided over it, and 
 and gods designed it, and the divine Achilles 
 bore its image among his insignia in the 
 field. 
 
 Analogous to this, and as part of the same 
 feeling, is that intense enjoyment of natural 
 scenery, so keen in Homer, and of which the 
 Athenian poets show not a trace ; as, for in- 
 stance, in that night landscape by the sea, 
 finished off in a few lines only, but so exqui- 
 sitely perfect ! The broad moon, gleaming 
 through the mist as it parts suddenly from off 
 the sky ■ the crags and headlands, and soft
 
 HOMER. 
 
 257 
 
 wooded slopes, shining out in the silver light, 
 and earth and sea transformed into fairy land. 
 
 We spoke of Homer's similes as illustra- 
 tive of the Ionic feeling about war. War, of 
 course, was glorious to him — but war in a 
 glorious cause. Wars there were — wars in 
 plenty, as there have been since, and as it is 
 like there will be for some time to come ; and 
 a just war, of all human employments, is the 
 one which most calls out whatever nobleness 
 there is in man. It was the thing itself, the 
 actual fighting and killing, as apart from the 
 heroism for which it makes opportunities, for 
 which we said that he showed no taste. His 
 manner shows that he felt like a cultivated 
 man, and not like a savage. His spirit stirs in 
 him as he goes out with his hero to the battle ; 
 but there is no drunken delight in blood ; we 
 never hear of warriors as in that grim Hall of 
 the Nibelungen, quenching their thirst in the 
 red stream ; never anything of that fierce ex' 
 ultation in carnage with which the war poetry 
 of so many nations, late and old is crimsoned. 
 Everything, on the contrary, is contrived so 
 as to soften the merely horrible, and fix our 
 interest only on what is grand or beautiful. 
 We are never left to dwell long together 
 on scenes of death, and when the battle is at 
 its fiercest, our minds are called ofif by the 
 rapid introduction (either by simile or some 
 softer turn of human feeling) of other as- 
 sociations, not contrived as an inferior artist 
 would contrive, to deepen our emotions, but to 
 soften and relieve them. 
 
 Two warriors meet, and exchange their high 
 words of defiance ; we hear the grinding of the 
 spear-head, as it pierces shield and breast-plate, 
 and the crash of the armor, as this or that 
 hero falls. But at once, instead of being left 
 at his side to see him bleed, we are summoned 
 away to the soft water meadow, the lazy river, 
 the tall poplar, now waving its branches against 
 the sky, now lying its length along in the grass
 
 2s8 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 beside the water, and the wood-cutter with 
 jjeaceful industry laboring and lopping at it. 
 In the thick of the universal melee, when the 
 stones and arrows are raining on the combat* 
 ants, and some furious hailstorm is the slightest 
 illustration with which we should expect him 
 to heighten the effect of the human tempest, so 
 sure Homer is that he has painted the thing 
 itself in its own intense reality, that his simile 
 is the stillest phenomenon in all nature — a 
 stillness of activity, infinitely expressive of the 
 density of the shower of missiles, yet falling 
 like oil on water on the ruffled picture of the 
 battle ; the snow descending in the still air, 
 covering first hills, then plains and fields and 
 farmsteads ; covering the rocks down to the 
 very water's edge, and clogging the waves as 
 they roll in. Again in that fearful death- 
 wrestle at the Grecian wall, when gates and 
 battlements are sprinkled over with blood, and 
 neither Greeks nor Trojans can force their way 
 against the other, we have, first, as an image 
 of the fight itself, two men in the field, with 
 measuring rods, disputing over a land bound- 
 ary ; and for the equipoise of the two armies, 
 the softest of all home scenes, a poor working 
 woman weighing out her wool, before weaving 
 it, to earn a scanty subsistence for herself and 
 for her children. 
 
 Of course the similes are not all of this kind ; 
 it would be monotonous if they were ; but they 
 occur often enough to mark their meaning. In 
 the direct narrative, too, we see the same ten- 
 dency. Sarpedon struck through the thigh is 
 borne off the field, the long spear trailing from 
 the wound, and there is too much haste to 
 draw it out. Hector flies past him and has no 
 time to speak ; all is dust, hurry, and confu- 
 sion. Even Homer can only pause for a mo- 
 ment, but in three lines he lays the wounded 
 hero under a tree, he brings a dear friend to 
 his side, and we refresh ourselves in a beauti- 
 ful scene, when the lance is taken out and
 
 HOMER. 259 
 
 Sarpcdon faints, and comes slowly back to 
 life, with the cool air fanning him. We may 
 look in vain through the Nibelungen Lied for 
 anything like this. The Swabian poet can be 
 tender before the battle, but in the battle itself 
 his barbaric nature is too strong for him, and 
 he scents nothing but blood. In the Iliad, on 
 the contrary, the very battles of the gods, 
 grand and awful as they are, relieve rather 
 than increase the human horror. In the mag- 
 nificent scene, where Achilles, weary with 
 slaughter, pauses on the bank of the Scaman- 
 der, and the angry river god, whose course is 
 checked by the bodies of the slain, swells up 
 to revenge them and destroy him, the natural 
 and the supernatural are so strangely blended, 
 that when Poseidon lights the forest, and god 
 meets god and element meets element, the 
 convulsion is too tremendous to enhance the 
 fierceness of Achilles ; it concentrates the in- 
 terest on itself, and Achilles and Hector, fly- 
 ing Trojan and pursuing Greek, for the time 
 melt out and are forgotten. 
 
 We do not forget that there is nothing of 
 this kind, no relief, no softening, in the great 
 scene at the conclusion of the Odyssey. All 
 is stern enough and terrible enough there; 
 more terrible, if possible, because more dis- 
 tinct, than its modern counterpart in Criem- 
 hildas Hall. But there is an obvious reason 
 for this, and it does not make against what we 
 have been saying. It does not delight in 
 slaughter, but it is the stern justice of revenge 
 which we have here ; not, as in the Iliad, hero 
 meeting hero, but the long crime receiving at 
 last its Divine punishment ; the breaking of the 
 one storm, which from the beginning has been 
 slowly and awfully gathering. 
 
 With Homer's treatment of a battle-field, and 
 as illustrating the conclusion which we argue 
 from it, we are attempted to draw parallels 
 from two modern poets — one a German, who 
 was taken away in the morning of his life ; the
 
 f 
 
 260 HISTORICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 Other, the most gifted of modern Englishmen. 
 Each of those two has attempted the same sub- 
 ject, and the treatment in each case embodies, 
 in a similar manner, modern ways of thinking 
 about it. 
 
 The first is from the ' Albigenses' of young 
 Lenau, who has since died lunatic, we have 
 heard, as he was not unlikely to have died with 
 such thoughts in him. It is the eve which fol- 
 lowed one of those terrible struggles at Tou- 
 louse, and the poet's imagination is hanging 
 at moon-rise over the scene, 'The low broad 
 field scattered over thick with corpses, all 
 silent, dead, — the last sob" spent,' — the priest's 
 thanksgiving for the Catholic victory having 
 died into an echo, and only the 'vultures car- 
 ing their Te Deum Laudamus.' 
 
 Hat Gott de Herr den Korperstoff erschaffen, 
 Ha ihn hepvorgebracht ein boser Geist, 
 Dariiber stritten sie mit alien Waffen 
 Und werden von den Vogeln nungespiest, 
 Die, ohne ihren Ursprung nachzufragen, 
 Die Korper da sich lassen wohl behagen. 
 
 ' Was it God the Lord who formed the sub- 
 stance of their bodies ? or did some evil spirit 
 bring it forth } It was for this with all their 
 might they fought, and now they are devoured 
 there by the wild birds, who sit gorging merrily 
 over their carrion, without asking from whence 
 it came.' 
 
 In Homer, as we saw, the true hero is mas- 
 ter over death — death has no terror for him. 
 He meets it, if it is to be, calmly and proudly, 
 and then it is over ; whatever offensive may 
 follow after it, is concealed, or at least passed 
 lightly over. Here, on the contrary, everytiiing 
 most offensive is dwelt upon with an agonizing 
 intensity, and the triumph of death is made to 
 extend, not over the body only, but over the 
 soul, whose heroism it turns to mockery. The 
 cause in which a man dies, is what can make 
 his death beautiful ; but here nature herself, in
 
 nOMER. 261 
 
 her stern, awful way, is readinj; her sentence 
 over the cause itself as a wild ancl frantic dream. 
 We ouf^iit to be revolted — doubly revolted, one 
 would ihiuk, and yet we are \\o\. so; instead of 
 bein:^ revolted, we were affected with a sense 
 of vast, sad magnificence. Why is this ? Be- 
 cause we lose sight of the scene or lose the sense 
 of its horror, in the confusion of the spirit. It 
 is the true modern tragedy ; the note which 
 sounds through Shakespeare's ' Sonnets,' 
 through ' Hamlet,' through ' Faust.' All the 
 deeper trials of the modern heart might be 
 gathered out of those few lines ; the sense of 
 wasted nobleness — nobleness spending its ener- 
 gies upon what time seems to be pronouncing 
 no better than a dream — at any rate, misgiv- 
 ings, sceptic and distracting ; yet the heart the 
 while, in spite of the uncertainty of the issue, 
 remaining true to itself. If the spirit of the Al- 
 bigensian warriors had really broken down, or if 
 the poet had jDointed his lesson so as to say, 
 Truth is a lie ; faith is folly ; eat, drink, and 
 die, — then his picture would have been revolt- 
 ing; but the noble spirit remains, though it is 
 borne down and trifled with by destiny, and 
 therefore it is not revolting but trao-ic. 
 
 Far different from this — as far inferior in 
 tone to Lenau's lines, as it exceeds them in 
 beauty of workmanship — is the well-known 
 picture of the scene under the v/all in the Siege 
 of Corinth : 
 
 lie saw the lean dogs beneath the wall 
 
 Hold o'er the dead thei'' carnival ; 
 
 Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb; 
 
 They were too busy to bark at him ! 
 
 From a Tartar's skull they had stripp'd the flesh, 
 
 As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh; 
 
 And their white tusks crunch'd o'er the whiter skull, 
 
 As it slipp'd through their jaws when their edge grew 
 
 dull. 
 As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead, 
 When thcv scarce could rise from the spot where they 
 
 fed ; ' 
 So well they had broken a lingering fast 
 With those who had fallen for that night's repast.
 
 2 62 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 And Alp knew, by the turbans that roll'd on the san^ 
 The foremost of these were the best of his band : 
 
 The scalps were in the wild dog's maw, 
 The hair was tangled round his jaw. 
 Close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf, 
 There sate a vulture flapping a wolf, 
 Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away, 
 Scared by the dogs, from the human prey; 
 iJut he seized on his share of a steed that lay, 
 Pick'd by the birds, on the sands of the bay. 
 
 For a parallel to the horribleness of this won- 
 derfully painted scene we need not go to the 
 Nibelungen, for we shall find nothing like it 
 there : we must go back to the carved slabs 
 which adorned the banquet halls of the Assyr- 
 ian kings, where the foul birds hover over the 
 stricken fields, and trail from their talons the 
 entrails of the slain. 
 
 And for what purpose does Byron introduce 
 these frightful images ? Was it in contrast to 
 the exquisite moonlight which tempts the rene- 
 gade out of his tent ? Was it to bring his mind 
 into a fit condition to be worked upon by the 
 vision of Francesca? It does but mar and un- 
 tune the softening influence of nature, which 
 might have been rendered more powerful, per- 
 haps, by some slight touch to remind him of 
 his past day's work, but are blotted out and 
 paralyzed by such a mass of horrors. 
 
 To go back to Homer. 
 
 We must omit for the present any notice of 
 the domestic pictures, of which there are so 
 many, in the palaces of Ulysses, of Nestor, or 
 of Alcinous ; of the games, so manly, yet, in 
 point of refinement, so superior even to those 
 of our own middle ages ; of the supreme good of 
 life as the Greeks conceived it, and of the arts 
 by which they endeavored to realize that good. 
 It is useless to notice such things briefly, and 
 the detail would expand into a volume. But 
 the impression which we gather from them is 
 the same which we have gathered all along —
 
 HOMER. 263 
 
 that if the proper aim of all human culture be 
 to combine, in the highest measure in which 
 they are compaiil)le, ihe two elements of re- 
 finenieut and of manliness, then Homer's age 
 was cullivated to a degree the like of which 
 the earth has not witnessed since. '^I'here is 
 more refinement under Pericles, as there is 
 more in modern London and Paris ; but there 
 was, and there is, infinitely more vice. There 
 was more fierceness (greater manliness there 
 never was) in the times of feudalism. But take 
 it for all in all, and in a mere human sense, 
 apart from any other aspect of the world which 
 is involved in Christianity, it is difficult to 
 point to a time when life in general was happier, 
 and the character of man set in a more noble 
 form. If we have drawn the picture with too 
 little shadow, let it be allowed for. The shadow 
 was there, doubtless, though we see it only in a 
 few dark spots. The Margiles would have sup- 
 plied the rest, but the Margites, unhappily for 
 us, is lost. Even heroes have their littlenesses, 
 and Comedy is truer to the details of littleness 
 than Tragedy or Epic. The grand is always 
 more or less ideal, and the elevation of a mo- 
 ment is sublimed into the spirit of a life. 
 Comedy, therefore, is essential for the repre- 
 senting of men ; and there were times, doubt- 
 less, when the complexion of Agamemnon's 
 greatness was discolored, like Prince Henry's, 
 by remembering, when he was weary, that poor 
 creature — small beer — /. e. if the Greeks had 
 got any. 
 
 A more serious discoloration, however, we 
 are obliged to say that we find in Homer him- 
 self, in the soil or taint which even he is obliged 
 to cast over the position of women. In the 
 Iliad, where there is no sign of male slavery, 
 women had already fallen under the chain, and 
 though there does not seem to have been any 
 practice of polygamy, the female prisoners fell, 
 as a matter of course, into a more degraded 
 position. It is painful, too, to observe that
 
 264 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 their own feelings followed the practice of the 
 times, and that they composed themselves to 
 bear without reluctance whatever their destiny 
 forced upon them. When Priam ventured in- 
 to the Grecian camp for Hector's body, and 
 stood under the roof of Achilles, he endured 
 to do what, as he says, no mortal father had 
 ever yet endured — to give his hand to his son's 
 destrover. Briseis, whose bed was made deso- 
 late by the hand of the same Achilles, finds it 
 her one greatest consolation, that the conquer- 
 or stoops to choose her to share his own. And 
 when Hector in his last parting scene antici- 
 pates a like fate for his own Andromache, it is 
 not with the revolted agony of horror with 
 which such a possible future would be regarded 
 by a modern husband ; nor does Andromache, 
 however bitterly she feels the danger, protest, 
 as a modern wife would do, that there was no 
 fear for her — that death by sorrow's hand, or 
 by her own, would preserve her to rejoin him. 
 
 Nor, again, was unfaithfulness, of however 
 long duration, conclusively fatal against a wife; 
 for we meet Helen, after a twenty years' elope- 
 ment, again the quiet, hospitable mistress in 
 the Spartan palace, entertaining her husband's 
 guests with an easy matronly dignity, and not 
 afraid even in Menelaus's presence to allude 
 to the past — in strong terms of self-reproach, 
 indeed, but with nothing like despairing pros- 
 tration. Making the worst of this, however, 
 yet even in this respect the Homeric Greeks 
 were better than their contemporaries in Pal- 
 estine ; and on the whole there was, perhaps, 
 no time anterior to Christianity when women 
 held a higher place, or the relation between 
 wife and husband was of a more free and hon- 
 orable kind. 
 
 For we have given but one side of the picture. 
 When a woman can be the theme of a poet, 
 her nature cannot be held in slight esteem; 
 and there is no doubt tliat Penelope is Homer's 
 heroine in the Odyssey. One design, at least,
 
 HOMER. 265 
 
 which Homer had before him was to vindicate 
 the character of the virtuous matron against 
 the stain which Clytcninestra had inflicted on 
 it. Ciytenincstra has every advantage, Penel- 
 ope every difficulty : the trial of the former 
 lasted only half as long as that of the latter. 
 Agamemnon in leaving her gave herself and his 
 house in charge of a divine dotSo's, a heaven- 
 inspired prophet, who should stand between 
 her and temptation, and whom she had to 
 murder before her passion could have its way. 
 Penelope had to bear up alone for twenty 
 weary years, without a friend, without a coun- 
 sellor, and with even a child whose constancy 
 was wavering. It is obvious that Homer de- 
 signed this contrast. The story of the Argos 
 tragedy is told again and again. The shade of 
 Agamemnon himself forebodes a fate like his 
 own to Ulysses. It is Ulysses's first thought 
 when he wakes from his sleep to find himself 
 in his own land ; and the scene in Hades, in 
 the last book, seems only introduced that the 
 husband of Clytemnestra may meet the shades 
 of the Ithacan suitors, and learn, in their own 
 tale of the sad issue of their wooing, how far 
 otherwise it had fared with Ulysses than with 
 himself. Women, therefore, according to 
 Homer, were as capable of heroic virtue as 
 men were, and the ideal of this heroism is one 
 to which we have scarcely added. 
 
 For the rest, there is no trace of any oriental 
 seraglio system. The sexes lived together in 
 easy unaffected intercourse. The ladies ap- 
 peared in society naturally and gracefully, and 
 their chief occupations were household matters, 
 care of clothes and linen, and other domestic 
 arrangements. When a guest came, they pre- 
 pared his dressing-room, settled the bath, and 
 laid out the conveniences of his toilet-table. 
 In their leisure hours, they were to be found, 
 as now, in the hall or the saloon, and their 
 Work-table contained pretty much the same 
 materials. Helen was winding worsted as she
 
 266 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 entertained Telemachus, and Andromache 
 worked roses in very modern cross-stitch. A 
 literal ist like Mr. Mackav, who finds that the 
 Israelites were cannibals, from such expressions 
 as ' drinking the blood of the slain,' might dis- 
 cover, perhaps, a similar unpleasant propensity 
 in an exited wish of Hecuba, that she might 
 eat the heart of Achilles ; but in the absence 
 of other evidence, it is unwise in either case to 
 press a metaphor ; and the food of ladies, 
 wherever Homer lets us see it, is very innocent 
 cake and wine, with such fruits as were in sea- 
 son. To judge by Nausicaa, their breeding 
 must have been exquisite. Nausicaa standing 
 still, when the uncouth figure of Ulysses 
 emerged from under the wood, all sea-slime 
 and nakedness, and only covered with a girdle 
 of leaves — standing still to meet him when the 
 other girls ran away tittering and terrified, is 
 the perfect conception of true female modesty ; 
 and in the whole scene between them, Homer 
 shows the most finished understanding of the 
 delicate and tremulous relations which occur 
 occasionally in the accidents of intercourse 
 between highly cultivated men and women, and 
 which he could only have learnt by living in a 
 society where men and women met and felt in 
 the way which he has described. 
 
 Who, then, was Homer ? What was he } 
 When did he live .'' History has absolutely 
 nothing to answer. His poems were not writ- 
 ten ; for the art of writing (at any rate for a 
 poet's purpose) was unknown to him. There 
 is a vague tradition that the Iliad, and the 
 Odyssey, and a comic poem called the Margites, 
 were composed by an Ionian whose name was 
 Homer, about four hundred years before He- 
 rodotus, or in the ninth century B.C. We know 
 certainly that these poems were preserved by 
 the Rhapsodists or popular reciters, who 
 repeated them at private parties or festivals, 
 until writing came into use, and they were fixed 
 in a less precarious form. A later story was
 
 HOMER. 267 
 
 current, that we owe the collection to Pisistratus ; 
 but an exclusive claim for him was probably 
 only Athenian conceit. It is incredible that 
 men of genius in Homer's own land — Alcieus, 
 for instance — should have left such a work to 
 be done by a foreigner. But^his is really all 
 which is known ; and the creation of the poems 
 lies in impenetrable inystery. Nothing remains 
 to guide us, therefore, except internal evidence 
 (strangely enough, it is the same with Shake- 
 speare), and it has led to wild conclusions ; yet 
 the wildest is not without its use ; it has com- 
 monly something to rest upon ; and internal 
 evidence is only really valuable when outward 
 testimony has been sifted to the uttermost. 
 The present opinion seems to be, that each 
 poem is unquestionably the work of one man ; 
 but whether both poems are the work of the 
 same is yet suh-jiidice. The Greeks believed 
 they were ; and that is much. There are re- 
 markable points of resemblance in style, yet 
 not greater than the resemblances in the 'Two 
 Noble Kinsmen ' and in the ' Yorkshire Trag- 
 edy ' to ' Macbeth ' and ' Hamlet ; ' and there 
 are more remarkable points of non-resemblance, 
 which deepen upon us the more we read. On 
 the other hand, tradition is absolute. If the 
 style of the Odyssey is sometimes unlike the 
 Iliad, so is one part of the Iliad sometimes un- 
 like another. It is hard to conceive a genius 
 equal to the creation of either Iliad or Odyssey 
 to have existed without leaving so much as a 
 legend of his name ; and the difficulty of criti- 
 cising style accurately in an-old^ language will 
 be appreciated by those who have tried their 
 hand in their own language with the disputed 
 plays of Shakespeare. There are heavy diffi- 
 culties every way ; and we shall best conclude 
 our own subject by noting down briefly the 
 most striking points of variation of which as 
 yet no explanation has been attempted. We 
 have already noticed several : the non-appear- 
 ance of male slavery in the Iliad which is com-
 
 268 IIISTORJCAL ESSAYS. 
 
 mon in the Odyssey ; the notion of a future 
 state ; and perhaps a fuller cultivation in the 
 female character. Andromache is as delicate 
 as Nausicaa, but she is not as grand as Penelope ; 
 and in marked contrast to the feeling expressed 
 by Briseis, is the passage where the grief of 
 Ulysses over the song of Demodocus is com- 
 pared to the grief of a young wife flinging her- 
 self on the yet warm body of her husband, and 
 looking forward to her impending slavery with 
 feelings of horror and repulsion. But these 
 are among the slightest points in which the 
 two poems are dissimilar. Not only are there 
 slaves in the Odyssey, but there are ^c?, 
 or serfs, an order with which we are familiar 
 in later times, but which again are not in the 
 Iliad. In the Odyssey the Trojans are called 
 iin(irfTope% hnrtjiv, which must mean riders. 
 In the Iliad, horses are never ridden ; they are 
 always in harness. 
 
 Wherever in the Odyssey the Trojan war is 
 alluded to (and it is very often), in no one case 
 is the allusion to anything which is mentioned 
 in the Iliad. We hear of the wooden horse, 
 the taking of Troy, the death of Achilles, the 
 contention of Ulysses with Ajax for his arms, 
 it might be said that the poet wished to supply 
 afterwards indiroctlv what he had left in the 
 Iliad untold ; but again, this is impossible, for 
 a very curious reason. The Iliad opens with 
 the wrath of Achilles, which caused such bitter 
 woe to the Achaians. In the Odyssey it is 
 still the wrath of Achilles ; but singularly not 
 loith Agamemnon^ but with Ulysses. Ulysses to 
 the author of the Odyssey was a far grander 
 person at Troy than he appears in the Iliad. 
 In the latter poem he is great, but far from 
 one of the greatest ; in the other, he is evidently 
 the next to Achilles ; and it seems almost 
 certain that whoever wrote the Odyssey was 
 working from some other legend of the war. 
 There were a thousand versions of it. The 
 tale of Ilium was set to every lyre in Greece,
 
 HOMER. 269 
 
 and the relative jiosition of the heroes was 
 doubtless varied according to the sympathies 
 or the patriotism of the singer. The charac- 
 ter of Ulysses is much stronger in the 
 Odyssey ; and even when the same qualities 
 are attributed to him — his soft-flowing tongue, 
 his cunning, and his eloquence — they are held 
 in very different estimation. The Homer of 
 the Iliad has little liking for a talker. Ther- 
 sites is his pattern specimen of such ; and it is 
 the current scoff at unready warriors to praise 
 their father's courage, and then to add — 
 
 oKhh rhv vlfiv 
 yeivaro elo x^pvo ft'^XVy "J'opy <5£ t" u/ieIvca. 
 
 But the Phoeacian Lord who ventured to reflect, 
 in the Iliad style, on the supposed unreadiness 
 of Ulysses, is taught a different notion of 
 human excellence. Ulysses tells hhn that he 
 is a fool. ' The gods,' Ulysses says, ' do not 
 give all good things to all men, and often a man 
 is made unfair to look upon, but over his ill 
 favor they fling, like a garland, a power of 
 lovely speech, and the people delight to /oa/^ on 
 him. He speaks with modest dignity, and he 
 shines among the multitude. As he walks 
 through the city, men gaze on him as on a god.' 
 
 Differences like these; however, are far from 
 decisive. The very sliglitest external evidence 
 wowld weigh them all down together. Perhaps 
 the following may be of more importance : — 
 
 In both poems there are ' questionings of 
 destiny,' as the modern phrase goes. The 
 thing which we call human life is looked in 
 the face — this little checkered island of lights 
 and shadows, in the middle of an ocean of dark- 
 ness ; and in each we see the sort of answer 
 which the poet finds for himself, and which night 
 be summed up briefly in the last words of Eccle- 
 siastes, ' Fear God, and keep His command- 
 ments : for this is the whole duty of man.' But 
 the world bears a different aspect, and the 
 answer looks different in it application. In
 
 270 HISTORICAL ESSAYS, 
 
 the Iliad, in spite of the gloom of Achilles, and 
 his complaint of the double urn, the sense of 
 life, on the whole, is sunny and cheerful. There 
 is no vearninsf for anvthins: bcvond — nothin<r 
 vague, nothing m^'stical. The earth, the men, 
 the gods, have all a palpable reality about them. 
 From first to last, we know where we are, and 
 what we are about. In the Odyssey we are 
 breathing another atmosphere. The specula- 
 tions on the moral mysteries of our being hang 
 like a mist over us from the beginning to the 
 end ; and the cloud from time to time descends 
 on the actors and envelopes them with a pre- 
 ternatural halo. The poet evidently dislikes the 
 expression of ' suffering being the lot of mortals, 
 as if it had been abused already for ungodly 
 purposes. In the opening of the first book, 
 Zeus reproves the folly of mortal men for cast- 
 ing the blame upon the gods when they them- 
 selves, in spite of all the gods can do to save 
 them, persist in their own perverseness ; and 
 we never know as we go on, so fast we pass 
 from one to the other, when we are among mere 
 human beings, and when among the spiritual 
 or the mystical. Those sea-nymphs, those 
 cannibals, those enchantresses if intended to be 
 real, are neither mortal nor divine — at any 
 rate, like nothing divine which we had seen in 
 Olympus, or on the plains of Ilium ; and at 
 times there is a strangeness even in the hero 
 himself. Sometimes it is Ulysses painfully 
 painfully toiling his was home across the un- 
 known ocean ; sometimes it is we that are 
 Ulysses, and that unknown ocean is the life 
 across which we are wandering, with too many 
 Circes, and Sirens, and ' Isles of Error in our 
 path. In the same spirit death is no longer 
 the end ; and on every side long vistas seem to 
 stretch away into the infinite, peopled with 
 shadowy forms. 
 
 Ijut, as if this palpable initiation into the 
 unseen were still insufficient or unconvincing, 
 the common ground on which we are treading
 
 HOMER. 271 
 
 sometimes shakes under us, and we feel as 
 Humboldt describes himself to have felt at the 
 first shock of an earthquake. Strange pieces 
 of mysterious wildness are let fall in our way, 
 coming suddenly on us like spectres, and 
 vanishing without explanation or hint of their 
 purpose. What are those Phceacian ships 
 meant for, which required neither sail nor oar, 
 but of their own selves read the hearts of those 
 they carried, and bore them wherever they 
 would go ? — or the wild end of the ship which 
 carried Ulysses home ? — or that terrible piece 
 of second sight in the Hall of Ithaca, for which 
 the seer was brought from Pylos ? — or those 
 islands, one of which is forever wasting while 
 another is born into being to complete the 
 number ? — or those mystical sheep and oxen, 
 which knew neither age nor death, nor even 
 had offspring born to them, and whose flesh 
 upon the spits began to crawl and bellow ? — 
 or Helen singing round the horse inside the 
 Trojan walls, when every Grecian chief's heart 
 fainted in him as he thought he heard the 
 voice of his own dear wife far away beyond the 
 sea ? 
 
 In the far gates of the Lcestrygones, * where 
 such a narrow rim of night divided day from 
 day, that a man who needed not sleep might 
 earn a double hire, and the cry of the shepherd 
 at evening driving home his flock was heard by 
 the shepherd going out in the morning to 
 pasture,' we have, perhaps, some tale of a 
 Phcenician mariner who had wandered into the 
 North Seas, and seen ' the Norwav sunset into 
 sunrise.' But what shall we say to that Syrian 
 isle, ' where disease is not, nor hunger, nor 
 thirst, and where, when men grow old, Apollo 
 comes with Artemis, and alays them with his 
 silver bow ? ' There is nothing in the Iliad 
 like any of these stories. 
 
 Yet, when all is said, it matters little who 
 wrote the poems. Each is so magnificent, that' 
 to have written both could scarcely have in-
 
 272 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 creased the greatness of the man who had 
 written one ; and if there were two Homers, 
 the earth is richer by one more divine-gifted 
 man than we had known. After all, it is per- 
 haps more easy to believe that the differences 
 which we seem to see arise from Homer's own 
 choice of the material which best suited two 
 works so different, than that nature was so 
 largely prodigal as to have created in one age 
 and in one people two such men ; for whether 
 one or two, the authors of the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey stand alone with Shakespeare far away 
 above mankind.
 
 SOCIETY IN ITALY IN THE 
 LAST DAYS OF THE RO- 
 MAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 Whether free institutions create good citi- 
 zens, or whether coilversely free institutions 
 imply good citizens and wither up and perish 
 as private virtue decays, is a question which 
 will continue to be agitated as long as political 
 society continues. The science of history 
 ought to answer it, but the science of history 
 is silent or ambiguous where, if it could tell us 
 anything at all, it would be able to speak 
 decidedly. What is called the philosophy of 
 history is, and can be, only an attempted inter- 
 pretation of earlier ages by the modes of 
 thought current in our own ; and those modes 
 of thought, being formed by the study of the 
 phenomena which are actually around us, are 
 changed from era to era; We read the past 
 by the light of the present^ and the forms vary 
 as the shadows fall, or as the point of vision 
 alters. Those who have studied mos,t conscien,- 
 tiously the intiuences which have determined 
 their own convictions will be the last to claim 
 exemption from the control of forces which 
 they recognize as universal and irresistible. 
 The foreground of human life is the only part 
 of it which we can examine with real exact- 
 ness. As the distance recedes details disappear 
 in the shade, or resolve themselves into out- 
 lines. We turn to contemporary books and 
 records, but we lose in light and in connection 
 with present experience what we gain in minute- 
 ness. The accounts of their own times which 
 earlier writers leave to us are colored in turn
 
 274 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 by their opinions, and we cannot so reproduce 
 the past as to guard against prejudices which 
 governed those writers as much as they govern 
 ourselves. The result, even to the keenest 
 historical sight, is no more than a picture 
 which each of us paints for himself upon the 
 retina of his own imagination. 
 
 These conditions of our nature warn us all, 
 if we are wise, against generalized views of 
 history. We form general views. This, too. 
 we cannot help, unless we are ignorant of the 
 past altogether. But we receive them for what 
 they are worth. They do not repose upon a 
 knowledge of facts which can form the founda- 
 tions of a science. We see certain objects ; 
 but we see them not as they were, but fore^ 
 shortened by distance and colored by the at- 
 mosphere of time. The impression, before ii 
 arrives in our minds, has been half created by 
 ourselves. Therefore it is that from philoso- 
 phy of history, from attempts to explain the 
 phenomena of earlier generations by referring 
 them to general principles, we turn with weari- 
 ness and distrust. We find more interest in 
 taking advantage of those rare occasions 
 where we can apply a telescope to particular 
 incidents, and catch a sight of small fractions 
 of the actual doings of our fellow-mortals, where 
 accident enables us to examine them in de- 
 tailed pattern. We may obtain little in this 
 way to convince our judgment, but we can 
 satisfy an innocent curiosity, and we can some- 
 times see enough to put us on our guard 
 against universal conclusions. 
 
 We know, for instance (so far as w^ can 
 speak of knowledge of the general character 
 of an epoch), that the early commonwealth of 
 Rome was distinguished by remarkable purity 
 of manners ; that the marriage tie was sin- 
 gularly respected ; that the Latin yeomen, Avho 
 were the back-bone of the community, were in- 
 dustrious and laborious, that they lived with 
 frugality and simplicity, and bruught up their
 
 THE ROMAN KEPUBLIC. 
 
 275 
 
 children in a humble fear of God or of the 
 gods as rulers to whom they would one day 
 have to give an account. That the youth of a 
 plant which grew so sturdily was exceptionally 
 healthy is no more than we should naturally 
 infer, and that the fact was so is confirmed to 
 us both by legend and authentic record. The 
 change of manners is assumed by some persons 
 to have come in with the Caesars. Virtue is 
 supposed to have flourished so long as liberty 
 survived, and the perfidy and profligacy of 
 which we read with disgust in Tacitus and 
 Juvenal are regarded as the offspring of de- 
 spotism. With the general state of European 
 morals under the first centuries of the Empire 
 we are extremely ill-acquainted. Tacitus and 
 Juvenal describe the society of the capital. 
 Of life in the country and in the provincial 
 towns they tell us next to nothing. If we may 
 presume that the Messalinas had their imita- 
 tors in the provinces ; if we may gather from 
 the Epistles of St. Paul that the morals of 
 Corinth for instance were not distinguished by 
 any special excellence, yet there was virtue or 
 desire of virtue enough in the world to make 
 possible the growth of Christianity. 
 
 Accident, on the other hand, has preserved 
 the fragments of a drama of real life, which 
 was played out in the last days of the Republic, 
 partly in Rome itself, partly in a provincial 
 city in South Italy, from which it would ap- 
 pear that the ancient manners were already 
 evervwhere on the decline : that institutions 
 suited to an age when men were a lav/ to 
 themselves, could not prevent them from be- 
 coming wicked if they were inclined, and only 
 saved them from punishment when they had 
 deserved it. The broken pieces of the story 
 leave much to be desired. The actions are 
 preserved ; the actors are little more than 
 names. The flesh and blood, the thoughts 
 that wrought in the brain, the passions that 
 boiled in the veins — these are drv as the dust
 
 276 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of a mummy from an Egyptian catacomb. 
 Though generations pass away, however, the 
 earth at last remains. We cannot see the old 
 nations, but we can stand where they stood ; 
 we can look on the landscape on which they 
 looked ; we can watch the shadows of the 
 clods chasing one another on the same moun- 
 tain slopes ; we can listen to the everlasting 
 music of the same water-falls ; we can hear the 
 same surf far off breaking upon the beach. 
 
 Let us transport ourselves then to the 
 Neapolitan town of Larino, not far from the 
 Gulf of Venice. In the remains of the 
 amphitheatre we can recognize the Roman 
 hands that once were laboring there. 
 
 Let us imagine that it is the year 88 before 
 Christ, when Caesar was a boy of twelve, when 
 the Social War had just been ended by Sylla, 
 and Marius had fled from Rome, to moralize 
 amidst the ruins of Carthage. Larino, like 
 most of the Samnite towns, had taken part 
 with the patriots. Several of its most dis- 
 tinguished citizens had fallen in battle. They 
 had been defeated, but their cause had surviv- 
 ed. Summoned to Asia to oppose Mithridates, 
 Sylla had postponed his revenge, and had con- 
 ceded at least some of the objects for which 
 the Italians had been in arms. The leaders 
 returned to their homes, and their estates 
 escaped confiscation. The two families of 
 highest consequence in Larino were the 
 Cluentii and the Aurii. Both were in mourn- 
 ing. Lucius Clueutius, who had commanded 
 the insurgent army in Campania, had been 
 killed at Nola, Marcus Aurius had not re- 
 turned to Larino at the peace, and was suppos- 
 ed to have fallen in the North of Italy, Com- 
 mon political sympathies had drawn the sur- 
 vivors together, and they were further connect- 
 ed by marriage. There remained of the 
 Cluentii a widowed mother named Sassia, with 
 two children, Aulus Clucntius Avitus, a ])oy of 
 sixteen, and his sister Cluentia, a year younger.
 
 THE ROMAN KEPU/iLIC. 
 
 277 
 
 Dinea, the mother of the Aurii, was a widow 
 also. Dinea had been the sister of Sassia's 
 husband, and was therefore herself a Clucntia. 
 She had four children, all some years older 
 than their cousins — Marius, Aurius, whom she 
 believed to be dead ; Numerius Aurius ; Cnajus 
 Magius Aurius ; and a daughter, Magia. 
 
 The Aurii had other relations of the same 
 name at Larino — Aurius Melinus, Caius Meli- 
 nus; and several more. The Cluentii were the 
 last of their race. Both families were rich. 
 The wealth which had poured into Rome after 
 the conquest of the East had filtered over 
 Italy. These provincial magistrates lived in 
 handsome villas, with comforts which would 
 have made Cato shudder; and wdited upon 
 by retinues of slaves: Otherwise scandal had 
 no harm to say of either Aurii or Cluentii. 
 They were honored for their patriotism, and 
 beloved for their private virtues. 
 
 A third family at Larino, the Oppianici, 
 though also connected with the Aurii, belonged 
 to the opposite faction. Caius Oppianicus, the 
 younger of two brothers^ was married to Di- 
 nea's daughter Magia. Statins Albinus Oppi- 
 anicus, the elder, and the head of the clan, had 
 been three times married ; first to a sister of 
 Dinea, who had died, leaving him with a son ; 
 next, to a lady named Papia, who bore him a 
 son also, and whom he had divorced ; lastly, to 
 Novia, who was for the present living with him 
 and had brought him a third son, an infant. 
 He had squandered his own fortune and the 
 fortune of his first wife, whom he was suspected 
 of having poisoned. He had since been living 
 by his wits, and had figured unpleasantly in a 
 late trial at Rome. A foolish youth of Larino, 
 appropriately named Asinius, had come into 
 possession of a large sum of money. Like lago, 
 who made his fool his purse, Oppianicus took 
 possession of Asinius, carried hun to Rome to 
 see the world, and launched him among the 
 taverns and the gambling houses. A confed-
 
 278 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 erate, Avilius, a Larinate also, made a third in 
 the party ; and one night, when Asinius was 
 absent with a female companion, with whom 
 they were assured tiiat he would remain till 
 morning, Avilius affected to be taken suddenly 
 ill, and said that he must make his will. A 
 notary and witnesses were introduced to whom 
 the persons of Avilius and Asinius were alike 
 unknown. Avilius bequeathed all his property 
 to Oppianicus, signed his name Asinius, and 
 then recovered. The true Asinius was way- 
 laid and killed a few days after. Oppianicus 
 l^roduced the will, claimed the estate, and ob- 
 tained it — not, however, witliout some notice 
 having been drawn to the matter which might 
 have ended unpleasantly for him. Suspicions 
 had been aroused, it does not appear how. 
 Avilius was arrested and carried before one of 
 the city magistrates, to whom in his terror he 
 confessed the truth. Fortunately for Oppian- 
 icus, the magistrate was discreet and not inac- 
 cessible. The spoils were divided and the af- 
 fair was hushed up, but it had naturally been 
 much talked of at Larino. Oppianicus had 
 been looked on askance ; in the matter of for- 
 tune he was in a desperate condition, and he 
 was on the look-out for the nearest means of 
 improving his circumstances. 
 
 He was a man, it appears, of considerable 
 personal attractions. He had made himself 
 agreeable to his brother's wife Magia, and had 
 seduced her. Her brother Numerius caught a 
 fever and suddenly died, leaving his share of 
 the Aurian property to his brother Cnoeus 
 Magius. 
 
 Cnaeus Magius fell ill also very soon after. 
 He, perhaps, suspected the cause of his sick- 
 ness. At any rate he had seen with alarm 
 and suspicion his sister's intimacy with a per- 
 son of so questionable a character as Albinus 
 Oppianicus. His alarms were not diminished 
 when her husband, Caius Oppianicus, was 
 found dead in his bed, from some unexplained
 
 THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 279 
 
 visitation ; and growing rapidly worse, and 
 feeling that his own end was not far off, he sent 
 for his sister, and in the jDresence of his 
 mother Dinea he questioned her as to whether 
 she was pregnant. She assured him that it 
 was so. She half satisfied him that she was 
 herself innocent of guilt, and that Caius Op- 
 pianicus, and his brother, was the father. 
 He made a will bequeathing the whole inher- 
 itance which had fallen to him to this child as 
 soon as it should be born. He appointed his 
 mother, Dinea, the guardian, lest Albinus Op- 
 pianicus should interfere. If the child should 
 miscarry, or should not survive. Dinea and 
 Magia were then to divide the estates between 
 them. 
 
 The arrangement had scarcely been com- 
 pleted when Cna^us Magius died. Oppianicus 
 then induced Magia to take a medicine which 
 produced abortion. Magia and Dinea became 
 thus coheiresses, and Oppianicus saw almost 
 within his reach the accumulated wealth of the 
 family. v> 
 
 At this moment a stranger appeared it Larino 
 who brought news that the elder brother, 
 Marcus Aurius, was still alive. He had not 
 been killed, as report had said, but had been 
 taken prisoner, and was confined with hard 
 labor at a convict station in the North of Italy. 
 The story was not improbable, and the new- 
 comer produced credible evidence of the truth 
 of what he said. He gave Dinea the names 
 and addresses of persons who had seen Mar- 
 cus Aurius, and could find him. The hoj)e 
 that she had still a son surviving came to com- 
 fort her in her desolation, and she despatched 
 friends to discover him, purchase his release, 
 and restore him to her. 
 
 So unpleasant a discovery came inoppor- 
 tunely for the schemes of Oppianicus ; but he 
 lost neither heart nor presence of mind. He 
 made acquaintance with the stranger, pur- 
 chased his help, and induced him to vary his
 
 2o HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 account," and ' throw Dinea on a false scent. 
 He sent off a confederate to gain the parties 
 in the North and mislead the mother's messen- 
 gers, while a certain Sextus Vibrius was de- 
 spatched to obtain true directions from them, 
 to find out Marcus Aurius, and assassinate him. 
 The game was dangerous, however, so long as 
 Dinea lived. She had Aurian kinsmen in 
 Larino who were powerful, and to whom she 
 might possibly appeal. He was aware that 
 her suspicions would turn upon himself as soon 
 as she should hear that her son could not be 
 found, and he thought it better to anticipate 
 future trouble by removing her at once. She 
 was growing old, and her health had been 
 shaken by sorrow and anxiety. Oppianicus 
 recommended to her the assistance of a physi- 
 cian of whose skill he professed to have had 
 experience. Dinea declined his advice^ and 
 sent for another doctor from Ancona, whom 
 Oppianicus had some difficulty in gaining over 
 to his purpose. He succeeded at last, how- 
 ever, with a bribe of four thousand pounds, and 
 the unfortunate woman was poisoned. Before 
 she died she, too, made a will ; but Oppianicus 
 destroyed it. His agents in the North sent 
 him word that his work had been successfully 
 done. Marcns Aurius had been found and 
 killed, and all traces were destroyed by which 
 his fate could be discovered. Oppianicus at 
 once divorced his present wife, married Magia, 
 and took possession of the estates in her name. 
 He had played his cards skilfully ; but again, 
 as with his adventure at Rome, without hav- 
 ing succeeded perfectly in averting suspicion 
 from himself. Many eyes, no doubt, were 
 watching him. The Larinates could not see 
 with complaisance tlic entire disappearance of 
 one of their most honored families, and the 
 Aurian estates passing into the hands of a 
 blemished and bankrupt adherent of the Oli- 
 garchic faction. The messengers sent by Dinea 
 reported that they could not discover Marcus
 
 THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 281 
 
 Aurius ; but they had found that secret efforts 
 had been made to baffle them. They liad as- 
 certained that Oppianicus had been concerned 
 in those efforts, and they wrote to Larino, 
 charging him with foul play. Dinea being 
 dead, the letters were taken to the nearest re- 
 latives of the family, Aurius Melinus. 
 
 This Aurius Melinus had already appeared 
 before the Larinate public in a not very credi- 
 table manner. Soon after the death of her 
 father he had married Cluentia, daughter of 
 the widow Sassia, and sister of Aulus Cluen- 
 tius Avitus. Sassia, who was a licentious, un- 
 principled woman, became enamoured of her 
 son-in-law. Under the ancient Roman law, 
 the marriage tie had been as indissoluble as in 
 the strictest Christian community. But the 
 restraint of marriage, like every other check 
 on the individual will, had gone down before 
 the progress of democracy. To divorce a wife 
 was now as easy as to change a dress. The 
 closest affinity was no longer an obstacle to a 
 new connection. Sassia succeeded in enchant- 
 ing her son-in-law. The daughter was divorced, 
 and the mother was installed in her place. 
 
 Public opinion, though degenerate, was not 
 entirely corrupted. The world of Larino con- 
 sidered itself outraged by what it still regarded 
 as incest. Aulus Cluentius, the son, took his 
 mother's conduct so much to heart that he re- 
 fused to see either her or her husband, and the 
 domestic scandal had created almost as much 
 asfitation as the tra^jedv of Dinea and her chil- 
 dren. The two vicious streams were now to 
 unite. Aurius Melinus, perhaps to recover 
 the esteem of his fellow-citizens, put himself 
 forward to deniand justice against the niur- 
 flerers of his kinsmen. He called a public 
 meeting ; he read aloud in the assembly the 
 letters from the North denouncing Oppianicus. 
 He demanded an immediate investigation. If 
 his cousin Marcus was no longer alive, he
 
 282 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 charged Oppianicus with having assassinated 
 him. 
 
 Suspicions already rife turned to certainty. 
 The people rose. They rushed to Oppianicus's 
 house to seize and tear him in pieces. Ex- 
 ceptional villains appear at times to be the 
 special care of Providence, as if they had a 
 work given them to do and might not perish 
 till it was accomplished. Oppianicus had fled; 
 and unhappily a political revolution had not 
 only provided him with a sure surfuge, but 
 with means vet more fatal of adding to his 
 crimes. While Sylla was fighting Mithridates 
 in Asia, Marius had returned to a seventh 
 Consulship, and the democracy had enjoyed a 
 brief and sanguinary triumph ; but Marius was 
 dead, and Sylla had returned a conqueror, and 
 the name of every eminent advocate of popu- 
 lar rights was now entered on a proscription 
 list. Sylla's lieutenant, Quintus Metellus was en- 
 camped not far from Larino. Oppianicus threw 
 himself on Metellus's protection, represent- 
 ing himself, perhaps, as the victim of a popu- 
 lar commotion. Metellus sent him on to the 
 Dictator, and from Sylla he received a com- 
 mission to purge Larino of its suspected citi- 
 zens, to remove the magistrates, and to execute 
 every one who had been connected with the 
 Marian faction. In the haste of the time he 
 was allowed to draw the list of the proscribed 
 himself, and to enter upon it both his open 
 enemies and the accomplices of his crimes, 
 whose too intimate acquaintance with him 
 he had reason to fear. Aurius perished, and 
 every remaining member of the Aurian kin- 
 dred, Sextus Vibrius perished, who had 
 been his instrument in hiding the traces of 
 Marcus Aurius and murdering him. The pro- 
 scribed were seized and killed without being 
 allowed to speak ; and thus at one blow Oppi- 
 anicus was able to rid himself of every one 
 whose vengeance he had to fear, and of the only
 
 THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 283 
 
 witness by whom the worst of his crimes could 
 be brousfht home to him. 
 
 For his services to Sylla he was probably re- 
 warded further out of the estates of his victims, 
 and by a series of enormous crimes, which even 
 in that bad time it is to be hoped could not be 
 easily paralleled, he had become the most 
 opulent and most powerful citizen of his native 
 town, 
 
 Oppianicus had obtained all that he had de- 
 sired, but he found, as all mortals find, that 
 the enjoyment had been in the pursuit — that 
 the prize when won still failed to give perfect 
 satisfaction. Happiness was still flying before 
 him — almost within his grasp, but still eluding 
 it. Perhaps the murder of her husband, her 
 mother, and her brothers, may have sate un- 
 easily upon Magia, At any rate he had grown 
 weary of Magia, She too was now cleared 
 away to make room for a more suitable com- 
 panion. On the death of Aurius Melinus, 
 Sassia was again a widow, and Oppianicus be- 
 came a suitor for her hand. It was true that 
 he had killed her husband, but he swore, like 
 Richard, that he had done it ' to help her to a 
 better husband,' It was Sassia's ' heavenly face' 
 which had set him on, and Sassia listened, not 
 unfavorably. There were difficulties, however, 
 which had first to be removed. Sassia was 
 rich, and in a position to make conditions. 
 Oppianicus had three children, whose mothers 
 she may have disliked, or whom she expected 
 that she would find in her way. She was will- 
 ing to tolerate the eldest, who bore his father's 
 name, but she refused to marry him till the two 
 little ones had been removed. 
 
 The horrible woman was showing herself a 
 suitable mate for Oppianicus. Her wealth her 
 person, perhaps this last proof of the hardiness 
 of disposition, deierminecl him to secure her on 
 her own terms. One of his little boys was being 
 brought up with his mother at Theano. He 
 sent for the child to Larino. In the night it
 
 284 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 was taken ill and died, and to prevent inquiry 
 into the manner of its death, the body was 
 burnt before dawn the next morning. Two 
 days after the other little boy died with as 
 mysterious suddenness ; and Sassia became 
 Oppiniacus's wife. 
 
 Tiie people of Larino shuddered and mut- 
 tered. They could not challenge the favorite 
 of Sylla, the chief magistrate of the town, who 
 had the local authority in his hands and the 
 confidence of the Dictator at Rome ; but they 
 shrank from contact with him. They avoided 
 both him and his wife as if they had the 
 plague. Young Cluentius especially held aloof 
 from his mother more sternly than ever, and 
 would neither speak to her nor see her. 
 
 At length Sylla died ; the middle classes 
 through Italy drew their breath freely again, and 
 at Larino as elsewhere the people could venture 
 to make their voices heard. There was in the 
 town an ancient and venerable college of Priests 
 of Mars, a sort of Cathedral Chapter. The 
 priests had obtained the Roman franchise as a 
 result of the Italian war. It had been con- 
 firmed to them by Marius, It had been taken 
 away again by Sylla. And now that Sylla was 
 gone, a deputation from the town was sent to 
 the Senate to petition for its restoration. With 
 this deputation, as one of its members, went 
 young Aulus Cluentius, who was then acquiring 
 fame as a public speaker, and he soon attracted 
 notice at Rome by his vindication of the rights 
 of the Chapter. Oppianicus, who had been 
 Sylla's instrument in carrying out the disfran- 
 chisement in I>arino, had his own good reasons 
 for dreading to see his work overthrown. With 
 the restoration of political liberty municipal 
 self-govennnent would be restored along with 
 it. He feared Cluentius on personal grounds 
 as well as political. Me saw in him his future 
 accuser, and he had a further motive of another 
 kind for wishing to destroy him. Cluentius had 
 not yet made his will, for he would not leave
 
 THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 285 
 
 his fortune to his mother, and he could not 
 bring himself to make a disposition in which her 
 name should not be mentioned. In the absence 
 of a will she was his heir-at-law. It was but 
 one more murder, and Oppianicus would at 
 once quit himself of a dangerous antagonist, 
 gratify his wife, and add the lands of the Cluentii 
 to the vast estates which he had accumulated 
 already. 
 
 Cluentius was out of health. Cleophantus, 
 the physician by whom he was attended, was a 
 man of eminence and character, whom it was 
 unsafe to approach by the means which he had 
 used so successfully in the poisoning of Dinea. 
 But Cleophantus had a slave who worked in his 
 laboratory, whom Oppianicus calculated on 
 finding corruptible, and the assistant by whom 
 medicines are made up is in such cases as 
 useful as his principal. He did not think it 
 prudent to appear in person, but a patrician 
 friend, one of the Fabricii, undertook the 
 business for him ; and Fabricius felt his way 
 with the slave through his freedman Scamander. 
 
 Villains have an instinct for recognizing one 
 another, and rarely make mistakes in the 
 character of the person whom they address. 
 The necessary tact, however, was wanting to 
 Scamander ; and in the class of wretches who 
 were bought like sheep in the market, and 
 might be flung at pleasure into the fishponds 
 to feed the aristocrats' lampreys, a degree of 
 virtue was found at last which was to bring 
 Oppianicus's atrocities to a close. Diogenes — 
 so the slave was called — received Scamander's 
 overtures with apparent acquiescence. He 
 listened, drew Scamander on to reveal the 
 name of the employers, and then whispered 
 the story to his master. Cleophantus carried 
 it to Cluentius. An honest senator, Marcus 
 Bibrius, was taken into counsel ; and it was 
 agreed that Oppianicus should be played with 
 till he had committed himself, when punish- 
 ment could at last overtake him. Diogenes
 
 286 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 kept up his correspondence with Scamander, 
 and promised to administer the poison as soon 
 as he was provided with materials. It was 
 arranged that Cluentius should purchase Dio- 
 genes, that he might have a skilled attendant 
 to wait -upon him in his illness. The conspiracy 
 would then be carried on under Cluentius's 
 own roof, where the proceedings could be con- 
 veniently watched, and conversations be over- 
 heard. Oppianicus was out-manoeuvred at 
 last. Both he and Fabricius were tempted to 
 betray themselves. The poison was conveyed 
 to Diogenes ; the money which was to pay for 
 the murder was brought to him, and received 
 in the presence of concealed witnesses. The 
 criminals were caught red-handed, without 
 room for denial or concealment. They were 
 seized and denounced, and brought to imme- 
 diate trial. 
 
 Horrible crimes have, unfortunately, been so 
 frequent in this world that they have no per- 
 manent interest for us ; and, unless they have 
 been embalmed in poetry, or are preserved by 
 the exceptional genius of accomplished his- 
 torians, the memory of them rarely survives a 
 single generation. The tragedies of Larino 
 would have passed into oblivion with the lives 
 of those who had witnessed and shuddered at 
 them. Posterity, if it cared to recollect, would 
 have had their curiosity and their sense of 
 justice satisfied if they could have learned that 
 the chief villain was detected and punished at 
 last ; and to revive an interest in a detailed 
 chapter of human wickedness after nearly two 
 thousand years would have been alike super- 
 fluous and impossible. The story, however, 
 now assumes features of deeper importance. 
 Oppianicus and his victims are nothing to us. 
 'J'he rise and fall of the Roman Commonwealth 
 is of undying consequence to the political 
 student ; and other thousands of years will still 
 have to pass before we shall cease to study 
 the most minute particulars which will interpret
 
 TJIK ROMAN KEFUBLrC. 2Sj 
 
 to US SO remarkable a phenomenon. Tlic 
 judicial investigation into the crimes of Op- 
 pianicus was to form an illustration of the 
 incurable corrnplion of tlie Roman Senate ; 
 and that Senate's most brilliant member — ■ 
 better known to English schoolboys than the 
 most distinguished modern classic (Kikero 
 they now call hin) ; but we are too old to le'arn 
 the new nomenclature) — was to be the principal 
 instrument in exposing it. 
 
 Criminal trials at Rome were conducted be- 
 fore a body of judges or jurymen, the selection 
 of whom had been one of the chief subjects of 
 contention during the recent political struggles. 
 The privileged orders affected to fear that 
 justice would be degraded if the administration 
 of it was extended to persons who were incom- 
 petent for so honorable an office. The people 
 complained that their lives and properties were 
 unsafe in the hands of proud, extravagant, and 
 venal aristocrats. The Senators declared that 
 if members of their own order had not been 
 always pure, the middle classes would be found 
 immeasurablv worse. The middle classes, 
 without laying claims to superior virtue, pro- 
 tested that the Senators had already descended 
 to the lowest depths of the abyss of dishonesty. 
 
 That the office of a judge, at any rate, might 
 be made one of the most lucrative situations 
 which the State had to offer became apparent 
 in a prosecution which happened about the 
 same time of the Praetor Verres for the plunder 
 of Sicily. In the trial of Verres it was proved 
 that the governor of a Roman province under 
 the Republic. looked on his period of office as 
 an opportunity of making his fortune by ex- 
 tortion and the public sale of justice. To be 
 successful, he must carry off three times as 
 much booty as he expected to be allowed to 
 retain. A third had to be bestowed in buying 
 the goodwill of the consuls, tribunes, and other 
 magistrates ; a third in corrupting the juries, 
 when he was called to account by the pillaged
 
 288 HISTORICAL ESSA VS. 
 
 provincials; the remaining part only he might 
 calculate on keeping for himself. 
 
 The Court which was to try the case of the 
 Larinates was composed of thirty-two Senators. 
 Gaius Gracchus had granted the jury-right to 
 the Equites ; but it had again been taken from 
 them by Sylla. The judges were now ex- 
 clusively patricians, the purest blood of which 
 Rome had to boast. Scamander, Fabricius, 
 and Oppianicus were indicted successivly 
 for conspiring the murder of Cluentius. The 
 prisoners were tried separately. Though rumor 
 had caught hold of some features of the story, 
 the circumstances were generally unknown, 
 Oppianicus, through his wealth and connec- 
 tions, had secured powerful patrons ; and 
 Cicero, who rarely took part in prosecutions, 
 was retained in the first instance to defend 
 Scamander. 
 
 Publius Canutius opened the case for Cluen- 
 tius ; and Cicero, though he exerted himself 
 to the utmost, very soon discovered that he 
 had a bad cause. The evidence was absolutely 
 conclusive. Scamander was condemned, 
 and Fabricius was brought to the bar. Cicero 
 withdrew from the case and contented himself 
 with watching it. Fabricius's brother, Cepasius, 
 took his place as advocate ; but with no better 
 success. Fabricius, too, was convicted, but 
 with a slight difference in the form of the 
 result. A unanimous verdict was given against 
 Scamander ; a single Senator, called Stalenus, 
 voted for the acquittal of Fabricius. There 
 was no more doubt of his guilt than of his 
 freedman's. The evidence against them both 
 was the same. Stalenus had not been bribed, 
 for Fabricius was poor ; but he intended to in- 
 timate to the rich Oppianicus that he was open 
 to an arrangement when his own turn should 
 come on. 
 
 Stalenus was a man of consequence. He 
 had been qux'Stor, and aspired to the higher 
 offices of State. He had obtained some note-
 
 THE ROMAN KErUBLIC. 
 
 289 
 
 riety in a recent civil case in which one of the 
 parties was a certain Safinius Atella. Safinius 
 had the worst of the aiyunient, and Stalenus 
 had boasted that for a round sum of money he 
 could purchase a verdict notwithstanding. The 
 money was given to him, but Safinius lost his 
 cause, and ill-natured persons had whispered 
 that Stalenus had kept it for himself. Such a 
 transaction, however, if successful and un- 
 detected, might pass for a stroke of cleverness. 
 At all events the suspicions attached to it had 
 not interfered with the further employment of 
 this ingenious young nobleman. He was 
 merely observed, and anything singular in his 
 conduct was set down to its right motive. 
 
 Oppianicus's case might well be considered 
 desperate. Scamander and Fabricius had been 
 accessories only to a single attempt at murder. 
 The past history of Oppianicus had probably 
 been alluded to generally in the preliminary 
 trials. He would stand at the bar an object of 
 general abhorrence for various other enormities, 
 and the proofs which had been sufficient to 
 condemn his accomplices \\ould tell with ten- 
 fold force against their instigator, whose past 
 career had been so dark. In the vote of Stal- 
 enus only some glimmer of hope remained. 
 The Court adjourned for a few days. In the 
 interval Oppianicus made Stalenus's acquaint- 
 ance, and they soon understood one another. 
 
 Stalenus told him frankly that his situation 
 was a difficult one, and would probably be ex- 
 pensive. The judges who had condemned the 
 other prisoners would commit manifest perjury 
 if they acquitted Oppianicus. Public feeling 
 being excited, they would be exposed to general 
 opprobrium, and they would require to be well 
 paid for their services. Still, however, bethought 
 it might be managed. He knew his men, and 
 he considered that he could secure fifteen votes 
 out of the thirtv-two, which in addition to his 
 own would be sufficient. Money only was 
 necessary : each vote would require ;^400.
 
 290 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Oppianicus's fortune would be of little use 
 to him if he was convicted. Being a Roman 
 citizen, he was not liable to a sentence of death 
 from a criminal court, but exile and a fine 
 amounting nearly to confiscation were as bad 
 or possibly worse. He assented to Stalenus's 
 terms, and paid into his hands ;!^64oo. 
 
 It was understood by this time that a nego- 
 tiation with the prisoner was going forward. 
 Stalenus had felt his way, dropping hints here 
 and there in whatever quarter they were likely 
 to be operative, and at length the corruptible 
 fifteen had given conditional assurances that 
 they might be relied on. But the terms, as he 
 expected, were high ; very little would be left 
 for himself ; and he began to reflect that with 
 perfect safety he might keep the whole of it. 
 The honest part of the jury would, he thought, 
 undoubtedly vote for a convictior. Those who 
 had agreed to sell their consciences would be 
 so angry if they were now disappointed that 
 he might count on them with equal certainty, 
 and it would be in vain that after a verdict of 
 guilty such a wretch as Oppianicus would appeal 
 to public opinion. No one would believe him, 
 no one would pity him. Thus the night before 
 the trial came on he informed his friends upon 
 the jury that Oppianicus had changed his mind, 
 and that no money was forth-coming. They 
 were as exasperated as he hoped to find them. 
 He was himself not suspected, and they met 
 the next day in court with a most virtuous res- 
 olution that justice should not be balked of 
 its object. 
 
 The voting in a Roman trial was either open 
 or secret, as the Court might decide for itself. 
 Oppianicus not relying too perfectly on his 
 friends, and anxious not to be cheated of the 
 wares for which he had paid, demanded that 
 each judge should give his verdict by word. of 
 mouth. The tribune Quinctius, who was sec- 
 retly his friend, supported him, and his request 
 was agreed to. Every one was aware that
 
 THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 291 
 
 there had been bribery, and the members of 
 the jury who were open to bribes were generally 
 well known. It was, of course, assumed that 
 they would vote for an acquittal, and Stalenus 
 and his friends were observed with contempt- 
 uous curiosity, but without a doubt of what 
 their judgment would be. 
 
 It happened that Stalenus was the first to 
 vote, and two of his intimate associates were 
 the second and third. To the astonishment of 
 every one, all three without the slightest hesi- 
 tation voted guilty. The rest of the judges, or 
 rather the respectable portion of them, were 
 utterly bewildered. The theory of corruption 
 implies that men who take bribes will generally 
 fulfil their contract, nor again do men usually 
 take bribes to vote according to their real con- 
 victions. They were assured that Stalenus had 
 been corrupted by some one to give a false 
 verdict. They thought he had been corrupted 
 by Oppianicus ; but he had voted against Op- 
 pianicus ; he had voted for Cluentius, — there- 
 fore it seemed he must have been bribed by 
 Cluentius, and Oppianicus might be innocent 
 after all. Thus argued the outside public 
 almost universally, having heard the story but 
 imperfectly. Thus argued even a section of 
 the judges themselves, and in their confusion 
 five of the more honest of them actually voted 
 for Oppianicus's acquittal. The larger number 
 concluded at last that they must go by the 
 evidence. Stalenus and his friends might have 
 taken money from Cluentius. Cluentius might 
 have been afraid to trust himself entirely to the 
 justice of his cause. But corruption could not 
 alter the truth. Oppianicus was unquestion- 
 ably guilty, and he was condemned by a large 
 majority. 
 
 He for his part was banished, clamoring that 
 he was betrayed, but unable, as Stalenus ex- 
 pected, to obtain a remission of his sentence. 
 In modern eyes such a punishment was im- 
 measurably too lenient. To a Roman who
 
 292 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 wanted courage to end his misfortunes with his 
 own hand, exile was held to be the most terrible 
 of calamities. Caesar pleaded against the exe- 
 cution of the accomplices of Catiline, that death 
 ended all things. He would have them live 
 and suffer. 'Life,' said Cicero on the present 
 occasion, ' was worse than death to Oppianicus. 
 No one believed any longer the old wives' fable 
 of Tartarus. Death would be but a happy re- 
 lease to him.' He left Rome to wander about 
 Italy, as if marked with a curse. Sassia fol- 
 lowed him to torment him with her reproaches 
 and infidelities. One day as he was riding his 
 horse threw him. He was mortally injured and 
 died. 
 
 So ended Oppianicus. So, however, did not 
 end the consequences of his various villanies. 
 Political passions were again rising. The people 
 in Rome and out of it were clamoring to the 
 skies against the iniquities of the Senate. The 
 story went abroad that a senatorial jury had 
 again been bribed ; and being without detailed 
 knowledge of the case, the Roman populace 
 rushed naturally to the conclusion that an 
 innocent man had been condemned. Oppi- 
 anicus had protested against the verdict, and 
 had denounced his judges. It was enough. 
 The verdict was indisputably corrupt, and a 
 corrupt verdict, as a matter of course; must be 
 a false verdict. 
 
 Quinctius the tribune, Oppianicus's friend, 
 encouraged the agitation. It was an opportunity 
 not to be neglected of bringing the Senate into 
 disrepute. Thrice he harangued the General 
 Assembly in the Forum. He insisted that the 
 degraded patricians should be stripped once 
 more of the privileges which they abused. 
 Cluentius's name became a by-word. He who 
 in his humble way had been the champion of 
 his own townspeople was identified with the 
 liated senatorial monopoly. So furious were 
 the people that for eight years, Cicero says, 
 they would not so much as listen to a word
 
 THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 295 
 
 that could be said for him. Every senator who 
 had voted for Oppianicus's condemnation was 
 prosecuted under the Jury Laws. Some were 
 fined, some were expelled from the Senate by 
 the Censors. One of them, Caius Egnatius, 
 was disinherited by his father. The Senate 
 itself was invited to condemn its own members. 
 Not daring to refuse, the Senate saved its con- 
 science by a wise generality, and passed a 
 resolution that any person or persons who had 
 been instrumental in corrupting public justice 
 had been guilty of a heinous offence. Finally 
 Cluentius himself was brought to trial, and so 
 hot was public feeling against him that Cicero 
 was obliged to confine his defence to a legal 
 technicality. The law, he said, was for the 
 restraint of corruption in the juries. The 
 juries under Sylla's constitution could consist 
 of senators only, and Cluentius being an Eques, 
 the law could not touch him. 
 
 Gradually the outcry died away, melting into 
 the general steam of indignation which in a 
 few years swept away the constitution, and 
 under new forms made justice possible again. 
 But the final act of the Cluentian drama had 
 still to be played out. Again Cluentius was 
 to appear before a tribunal of Roman judges. 
 Again Cicero was to defend him — no longer 
 under a quibble, but on the merits of the whole 
 case, into which at last it was possible to enter. 
 
 From the speech which Cicero delivered on 
 this occasion we have gathered our story. It 
 is not a favorable specimen of his oratorical 
 power. There is no connection in the events. 
 There is no order of time. We are hurried 
 from date to date, from place to place. The 
 same person is described under different names ; 
 the same incident in different words. The 
 result is a mass of threads so knotted, twisted, 
 and entangled, that only patient labor can sort 
 them out into intelligible arrangement. 
 
 What Cicero lacks in method, however, he 
 makes up in earnestness. He was evidently
 
 294 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 
 
 supremely affected by the combination of atro- 
 cities and misunderstandincrs bv which an in- 
 nocent, well-deserving man was likely to be 
 overwhelmed. 
 
 The various lovers of Sassia had been either 
 murdered or had died, or had deserted her. 
 She had lost much of her ill-gained fortunes, 
 She had grown too old for the further indul- 
 gence of her pleasant vices. One desire alone 
 remained, and had devoured the rest — a desire 
 for revenge upon her son Cluentius. In the 
 prejudiced condition of public feeling at Rome, 
 any wily accusation against him might be ex- 
 pected to obtain a hearing. Having escaped 
 the prosecution for the bribery of the judges, 
 he was charged with having murdered one of 
 his friends, whose property he hoped to inherit. 
 The attempt was clumsy and it failed. The 
 friend was proved to have died where Cluentius 
 could have had no access to him ; and a 
 nephew, and not Cluentius, was his heir. The 
 next accusation was of having tried to poison 
 the surviving son of Oppianicus. Cluentius 
 and the younger Oppianicus had been together 
 at a festival of Larino. Another youth who 
 was also present there had died a few days 
 later, and it was alleged that he had drunk 
 by mistake from a cup which had been prepared 
 for Sassia's stepson. But again the evidence 
 broke down. There was no proof that the 
 death was caused by poison, or that Cluenitius 
 was in any way connected with it. 
 
 The accursed woman, though twice baffled, 
 would not abandon her object. In both in- 
 stances proof of malice had been wanting. 
 Cluentius had no object in perpetrating either 
 of the crimes of which she had accused him. 
 If he had no grudge against the young Op- 
 pianicus, however, he had undoubtedly hated 
 his father, and she professed to have discover- 
 ed that the father liad not died, as had been 
 reported, by the fall from his horse, but had 
 been poisoned by a cake which had been ad-
 
 THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 295 
 
 ministered to him at Cluentius's instigation. 
 The method in which Sassia went to work to 
 make out her case throws a fresh and hideous 
 light on tlie Roman administration of justice 
 in the last days of liberty. She produced two 
 witnesses who were both slaves. To one of 
 them, Nicostratus, a Greek, she owed an old 
 grudge. He had belonged to Oppianicus the 
 elder, and had revealed certain infidelities of 
 hers which had led to inconvenience. The 
 other, Strato, was the slave of a doctor who 
 had attended Oppianicus after his accident. 
 Since neither of these men were willing to say 
 what she required them to say of their own 
 accord, she demanded according to custom 
 that they should be tortured. The Roman law 
 did not acknowledge any rights in these human 
 chattels : a slave on the day of his bondage 
 ceased to be a man. Nicostratus and Strato 
 were racked till the executioners were weary, 
 but nothing could be extracted from them. A 
 distinguished advocate who was present, and 
 was not insensible to pity, said that the slaves 
 were being tortured not to make them tell the 
 truthj but to make them lie. The court took 
 the same view, and they were released. 
 
 Once more Sassia was defeated, but she 
 waited her opportunity. Three years later, 
 the orator Hortensius, a general protector of 
 rogues, was elected to the consulate. The 
 vindictiveness with which she had come for- 
 ward as the prosecutrix of her own son had 
 injured her cause. She made one more effort, 
 and this time she prevailed on the young 
 Oppianicus, who had meanwhile married her 
 daughterj to appear in her place. She had 
 purchased Strato after his escape from the 
 tt)rture, and had power of life and death over 
 him. He had murdered a fellow slave ; and 
 it was alleged that when he confessed to this 
 crime he had confessed to the other also. He 
 was crucified, and to prevent his telling in- 
 convenient truths upon the cross, his tongue
 
 296 
 
 HISTORICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 was cut out before he was nailed upon it. On 
 the strength of his pretended deposition a 
 criminal process was once more instituted 
 against Cluentius before a Roman jury. The 
 story had by this time become so notorious, 
 and the indignation of the provinces had been 
 so deeply roused, that deputations from every 
 town in the south of Italy came to the Capital 
 to petition in Cluentius's favor. How the trial 
 ended is unknown. It may be hoped that he 
 was acquitted — but it is uncertain. Innocent 
 men have suffered by millions in this world. 
 As many guilty wretch&s have escaped, and 
 seemed to triumph ; but the vengeance which 
 follows upon evil acts does not sleep because 
 individuals are wronged. The penalty is ex- 
 acted to the last farthing from the community 
 which permits injustice to be done. And the 
 Republican Commonwealth of Rome was fast 
 filling the measure of its iniquities. In another 
 half-century perjured juries and corrupted 
 magistrates had finished their work ; the world 
 could endure them no longer, and the free 
 institutions which had been the admiration of 
 mankind were buried under the throne of the 
 Caesars.
 
 LUCIAN. 
 
 The men of .genius who had the misfortune, 
 under the Liter Roman Emperors, to be blind 
 to the truth of Christianity have been punished 
 by a neglect which they do not wholly deserve. 
 With Tacitus the era closes in which a Roman 
 of ability has been allowed to have shut his 
 eyes to the light without wilful sin. Thence- 
 forward all men of intellectual reputation who 
 remained unconverted have been held guilty 
 by Christendom of deliberate unbelief. Their 
 writings have been thrown aside as either mis- 
 chievous or useless. The age itself and the 
 character of their contemporaries has been left 
 to be described by the Fathers of the Church ; 
 and unless for special reasons, or by exception- 
 al and curious students, the last representJi- 
 tives of the old classical literature remain gen- 
 erally unread. Nor is this neglect diminishing 
 or likely to diminish. 'VVhen modern books 
 were scarce, any writing which had value in it 
 was prized at Us true worth. Plutarch was 
 Shakespeare's chief authority for his Greeks 
 and Romans. Men of culture, who were weary 
 of the quarrels between Catholics and Protes- 
 tants, preferred the calmer atmosphere of Mar- 
 cus Aurelius and Epictetus. The lofty spirit- 
 ualism of the Alexandrian Platonists was a 
 favorite food with the Cambridge philosophers 
 of the seventeenth century. The exacting de- 
 mands of modern literature, however, leave 
 inadequate leisure for the study of even the
 
 ■298 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 most accomplished of the classical writers. 
 Modern languages encroach more and more on 
 the old domain of Greek and Latin, and either 
 divide the schools with them or threaten to ex- 
 pel them altogether. The ready quotation 
 from Horace has disappeared from society and 
 almost from the Senate house. Still less of 
 leisure has been left for the less polished, if 
 not less interesting, writers of the succeeding 
 centuries ; and except an occasional metaphysi- 
 cian, who makes excursions into Proclus or 
 Plotinus, or an anti-Christian controversialist, 
 who goes for assistance to the fragments of 
 Celsus or Porphyry, it is rare' that any one 
 wanders aside into the pages of authors who 
 are looked on as degenerate classics of danger- 
 ous tendency, without the literary merit which 
 might compensate for their spiritual deficiency. 
 
 Our indifference costs us more than we are 
 aware of. It is supremely desirable that we 
 should be acquainted with the age in which 
 Christianity became the creed of civilized man- 
 kind, and ue learn but half the truth from the 
 Christian Fathers. Whether we regard Chris- 
 tianity as a miracle from without, or as devel- 
 oped from within, out of the conscience and 
 intellect of man, we perceive, at any rate, that 
 it grew by natural causes, that it commended 
 itself by argument and example, that it was 
 received or rejected according to the rrioral 
 and mental condition of those to whom it was 
 addressed. We shall understand the history 
 of its triumph only when we see the heathen 
 world as the heathen world saw itself. The 
 most indispensable guides in such an inquiry 
 are the writers who remained unconvinced. 
 Nor is it uninteresting to see why they were 
 unconvinced, or how, when they noticed its 
 existence, the new creed appeared to them. 
 
 We invite our readers to forget their preju- 
 dices, and to accompany us, so far as our few 
 pages will allow, on an expedition into Lucian. 
 Every one has heard of Lucian's name ; nine
 
 LUC IAN. 
 
 299 
 
 people out of ten, if asked who Lucian was, 
 would be ready with an answer that he was a 
 scoffer and an atheist, and in that answer 
 would show decisively that they had never read 
 a page of him. The censure and the ignorance 
 rise from the same source. On the strength 
 of a Dialogue, which has been proved to be 
 spurious, Lucian has been denounced as a di- 
 rect enemy of Christianity. Lucian is supposed 
 to have encouraged with his satires the hatred 
 which took shape intiie persecutions. He has 
 been, therefore, spoken of systematically as a 
 special servant of Satan, as a person whose 
 company decent people were bound to avoid. 
 
 Yet Lucian, in his genuine writings, men- 
 tions the Christians but once, and then only as 
 a simple-minded sect whose credulity made 
 them the easy dupes of quacks and charlatans. 
 He had looked at Christianity, and had passed 
 it by as one of the thousand illusions which 
 were springing like mushrooms in the hotbed 
 of Greco-Asiatic speculation. The abomina- 
 tions of paganism and the cant of the popular 
 philosophers were the real objects of his de- 
 testation ; and, so far as concerned the com- 
 mon enemy, the Fathers and Lucian were fight- 
 ing on the same side. Yet it is doubtful 
 whether, had they known him as he was, he 
 would have been regarded as a welcome all}', 
 or otherwise as anything but intolerable to 
 them. The lightning-like mockery with which 
 Lucian strikes at folly and imposture was un- 
 favorable, however legitimate its objects, to 
 the generation of a believing spirit. To the 
 Fathers pagan cultus was a worship of devils, 
 to Lucian it was a dishonest or base affectation ; 
 and his dissecting knife cuts occasionally into 
 theories where their own nerves were suscepti- 
 ble. His detestation of falsehood was a pas- 
 sion. No KoXov i/^eSSo?, no edifying false- 
 hood, no ideal loveliness or supposed benefi- 
 cent influence to be derived from illusion could 
 blind his judgment or seduce his allegiance to
 
 300 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 truth. He lived in an age when the estab- 
 lished creeds were a mockery, and philosophy 
 was a juggle of words; when itinerant thauma- 
 turgists, like Proteus or Apollonius, were the 
 favorites of emperors, and were regarded by 
 millions upon millions as representatives or in- 
 carnations of the gods ; while politicians and 
 men of the world were laboring in desperate 
 conservatism to keep the pagan religion on its 
 feet, for fear society should fall to pieces if it 
 was openly confessed to be untrue. With this 
 ignoble terror, and with the quackery and dis- 
 honesty which were the inevitable fruit of it, 
 Lucian lived in perpetual war, striking at it 
 with a pungency of satire which is perhaps 
 without its equal in literature. He has the 
 keenness of Voltaire, the moral indignation, 
 disguised behind his jests, of Swift ; but while 
 Lucian, no more than Swift or Voltaire, will 
 spare the scoundrel any single lash which is 
 his due, he, like .Shakespeare, has still a pity 
 for the poor wretch, as if to be a scoundrel was 
 itself the sharpest of penalties. When Charon's 
 boat-load of ghosts is carried before the judg- 
 ment bar of Rhadamanthus, a powerful noble- 
 man is found among them who had exhausted 
 the list of possible human depravities — cruelty 
 and avarice, gluttony and lust indulged beyond 
 the limits of nature. Witness after witness de- 
 poses to the dreadful truth. His bed tells its 
 tale of horrors. His lamp, unable to say what 
 had been done in daylight when it was not 
 present, details its catalogue of midnight or- 
 gies. P^ach crime, discovered or undiscovered, 
 was supposed to leave its scars upon the soul. 
 The prisoner, being ordered to strip, discloses 
 a person so wealed and marked that the natural 
 substance of it was nowhere visible. Rhada- 
 manthus exclaims in horror for some new pun- 
 ishment adequate to such enormous villany. A 
 poor cobbler standing by suggests that justice 
 will be vindicated sufficiently if the cup of 
 Lethe, wiiich each shade was permitted to
 
 LUC I AN. 301 
 
 drink as he passed from the dread tribunal, 
 should in this instance be withheld. To re- 
 member what he had done in life would be re- 
 tribution enough for the worst of criminals, 
 without further torture. 
 
 Dut there is an interest in Lucian beyond 
 his satire and beyond Jiis literary excellence. 
 Lucian more than any other writer, pagan or 
 Christian, enables us to see what human beings 
 were, how they lived, what they thought, felt, 
 said, and did in the centuries when paganism 
 was expiring and Christianity was taking the 
 place of it. 
 
 The kingdom of heaven, it was said, was 
 like a grain of mustard seed. The world of 
 spirit and the world of matter are alike full of 
 such seeds, full of the germs of living organisms, 
 waiting for the fitting conditions in which they 
 can take root and grow. The germ, as it un- 
 folds, gathers its substance out of the soil in 
 which it is rooted, and out of \\\q. atmosphere 
 which it inhales ; and it is to that soil, to that 
 atmosphere, and to the elements of which they 
 are composed, that we must look, if we would 
 understand how and why at any particular time 
 a new form of organized life makes its appear- 
 ance. Critics have w-earicd themselves in 
 searching for the origin of the Gospels, and 
 arrive at nothing. They would discover the 
 secret of the life of Christianity, and they are 
 like children digging at the roots of a plant to 
 discover how and why it grows. The plant 
 withers when the root is exposed, but the net- 
 work of entangled fibre tells them nothing 
 which they desired to know. The historical 
 facts recorded in the Gospels formed the tissue 
 of the seed out of which the Christian Church 
 was developed, but the tissue of the seed is 
 not the life of it. How the Gospels were writ- 
 ten, or when or by whom, is concealed, as the 
 grain when growing is concealed in the earth. 
 The life of the Church was a new ideal, a new 
 spiritual principle to which humanity turned
 
 202 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 for deliverance from the poison of the estab- 
 lished theology and philosophy. In Lucian we 
 learn what that theology and that philosophy 
 was, and how the belief or want of belief in 
 them was affecting intellect and morals. He 
 has been called an apostate Christian. It is 
 perfectly evident that he neither had been a 
 Christian, nor, with such a mind as he possessed 
 and at the age at which he lived, ever could 
 have been a Christian. Two centuries later, 
 when Christianity had become the sole authori- 
 tative teacher of practical morality, Lucian 
 would have examined with reverential interest 
 a doctrine which was exerting so excellent an 
 influence over the education of the human race. 
 In point of fact he never gave to it more than 
 passing attention. To him it was but one of 
 manv strusrgling sects, an unintelligible offshoot 
 of Judaism, He was constitutionally incredulous 
 and the atmosphere of lies with which he was en- 
 veloped hardened further his natural distrust of 
 new opinions. Tales of miracles and mysteries, 
 so far from acting as inducements to command 
 his attention, would only be occasions of sus- 
 picion. Had he even looked seriously into 
 the Christian formulas of faith, and had found 
 himself invited to believe that the child of a 
 Galilean artisan had loo years before been 
 born of a virgin, had worked miracles, had 
 been put to death, had gone down to Hades 
 and had again returned to life, he would have 
 answered that he could match the story by a 
 hundred parallels from his own contemporary 
 experience. Each generation produced its own 
 swarm of pretenders to supernatural powers. 
 Life itself would be gone before he could have 
 examined minutely into the claims of each of 
 them. An aged student in one of his Dialogues 
 confessed to have spent 60 years in comparing 
 the schools of philosophy, still hoping that he 
 would find the truth and still unable to decide 
 in which of them the truth was to be found. 
 Jyucian tells him that he has missed his road,
 
 LUC I AN. ^o^ 
 
 that life is action not speculation, that one good 
 deed is better than a thousand syllogisms : and 
 in some such terms it is likely he would have 
 replied also, had Justin Martyr attempted to 
 make a convert of him. 
 
 But he was not careless in such matters. He 
 had taken exceptional pains to inquire into the 
 claims and expose the impostures of the pre- 
 tenders of his own lime. 
 
 A sketch of the character of Alexander of 
 Abonotichus, an earlier Cagliostro, is dedicated 
 to his friend Celsus, the^ame Celsus who, 
 after his death, was attacked by Origen. More 
 interesting, from the mention in it of the 
 Christians, is the account of the life and death 
 of Peregrinus, whom Lucian knew and whose 
 extraordinary end he witnessed. 
 
 This person was born in a village in Armenia. 
 He commenced his public career, after grow- 
 ing to manhood, murdering his father. To 
 conceal himself he joined the Christians at a 
 distant town, where he became professor of 
 exegetic theology, revised some of their sacred 
 books, wrote others, and seemingly was made 
 into a bishop. He was thrown nito prison in 
 one of the persecutions. The Christians be- 
 haved to him with the affection which they 
 never failed to show to any of the brethren in 
 distress. They raised subscriptions for him ; 
 they brought him food ; widows and orphans 
 watched about his cell, and with the jailer's 
 connivance shared the solitude of his confine- 
 ment. At length he was released, but the 
 sacred character which he had assumed sat 
 uneasily upon him. His disease was a passion 
 for notoriety, Lucian says that he shocked the 
 Christians by eating forbidden food ; more 
 likely he developed some new form of heresv, 
 He was excommunicated, or at any rate he was 
 expelled from the Church, and joined the Cynic 
 philosophers. In this capacity he went to 
 Rome, where he achieved a new celebrity by 
 the insolence of his tongue. He assailed Marcus
 
 3 o4 -^^^'^ TO RICA L ESS A YS. 
 
 Aurelius himself with his ribaldry. The wise 
 emperor rewarded him with the impunity of a 
 privileged fool, and the public, to whom there 
 is no pleasure greater than to hear good men 
 sneered at and libelled, for a time applauded 
 the libeller. But the novelty wore off. Pere- 
 grinus was again sinking into a neglect which 
 he could not endure. To rouse the interest of 
 men once more he announced that at the next 
 Olympian Festival he would give the world a 
 lesson in the contempt of death, and would 
 publicly burn himself. He expected that his 
 admirers would interfere, but curiosity or in- 
 difference kept them silent. He had committed 
 himself and was too vain to retract. The pile 
 was raised. The fire was kindled. Peregrinus 
 leapt into it and perished. Lucian, who was 
 himself present, being eagerly questioned as to 
 what had taken place by one of the martyr's 
 disciples, answered a fool according to his 
 folly, and told him that an eagle had risen out 
 of the flames and had soared into the sky. 
 The story which he had himself invented passed 
 at once into the popular belief, and was after- 
 wards retailed to him by another spectator, who 
 declared that he had witnessed the extraordi- 
 nary portent with his own eyes. 
 
 After such experience Lucian was not likely 
 to give easy credence to tales of miracles, and 
 Christianity had not attained in his lifetime a 
 position of the commanding importance which 
 would have induced him to study its meaning 
 with real attention. 
 
 He was born at Samosata, not far from 
 Antioch, about the year 130 a.d. His father 
 was a sculptor, and Lucian was intended for 
 the same pursuit. In a sketch which he calls 
 * A Dream,' he describes his difificulties in the 
 choice of his profession under the familiar 
 shape of the two Fairies. 'I'hc Genius of 
 mechanical art and the Oenius of intellectual 
 culture each work upon him their powers of 
 persuasion. The first promised him employ-
 
 LUC IAN. 
 
 305 
 
 ment and competence, the second promised 
 him poverty and wisdom. He had shown 
 special gifts as a child for modelling in clay. 
 Had he been contented with a narrow career 
 he might have achieved the eminence with 
 which the first fairy tempted him. But he 
 chose the nobler and higher course. He left 
 his mallet and chisel. He travelled : he 
 practised as a lawyer. He studied in the 
 schools of pliilosophy at Athens. His life was 
 honorably innocent, and if the fairy kept her 
 word about poverty, Lucian seems never to 
 have seriously suffered from it. The minute- 
 ness of the description of the situation suggests 
 that he was at one time a dependent on some 
 wealthy Roman patron. A Roman noble in 
 the second century thought his establishment 
 incomplete without a domestic philosopher to 
 amuse his guests, correct his verses, and ap- 
 plaud his witticisms ; and men of genius who 
 might have been distinguished accepted the 
 degrading position for the convenient case 
 which it held out to them. Lucian, as a warn- 
 ing to a friend who was meditating such a step 
 for himself, describes what he is to expect. A 
 young man gains a reputation at college. The 
 world takes notice of him. A great man in- 
 vites him to dinner, and the entertainment is 
 got up specially on his behalf. He finds him- 
 self in a saloon more splendid than he had 
 ever seen. He is uneasy in his chair. The 
 dishes are strange to him. He does not know 
 how to eat, or sit, or use his napkin. He 
 watches his neighbors. He dreads the ridicule 
 of the servants. His health is drunk, and he 
 has to made a speech. He stammers through 
 it in misery, drinks more than is good for him, 
 and wakes the next morning sick and misera- 
 ble. But he has given satisfaction. He is taken 
 into the great house, and is envied by his friends 
 for his supposed good fortune. Lucian traces 
 sadly his downward progress, after sacrificing 
 his liberty and self-respect to a low desire for
 
 3o6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 luxurious living. His intellect becomes de- 
 based. He forgets the little that he knew. He 
 ceases to entertain his master, and is discarded 
 for a new favorite. Having lost courage to 
 encounter the hardships of independence, he 
 is content to remain a neglected parasite of a 
 patron who has forgotten his existence, He is 
 set to travel in the same carriage with my 
 lady's maid, and is charged with the care of my 
 lady's pug dog. 
 
 If Lucian ever himself made an experiment 
 of this gilded slavery, he resumed his freedom 
 before he had allowed it to injure him. He 
 rose to be the friend and equal of the chosen 
 few of his age whose good opinion was best 
 worth possessing. In mature life he was ap- 
 pointed by Marcus Aurelius to a high civil post 
 in Egypt, and lived to be a very old man. His 
 writings are not voluminous, but they belong to 
 the rare class which will be read with delight 
 as long as human nature remains unchanged ; 
 and to us, in the present speculative condition 
 of our minds, and confronted with problems so 
 like those which troubled Lucian's contempo- 
 raries, they have an exceptional and peculiar 
 interest. 
 
 Of the true nature of our existence on this 
 planet, of the origin of our being, and of the 
 meaning and purpose of it ; of what is life and 
 what is death ; and of the nature of the rule 
 which is exerted over us, we really know noth- 
 ing. We live merely on the crust or rind of 
 things. The inner essence is absolutely con- 
 cealed from us. IJut though these questions 
 admit of no conclusive answer, there is some- 
 thing in our character which perpetually impels 
 us to seek for an answer. Ilopc and fear, 
 conscience and imagination, suggest possibili- 
 ties, and possibilities become probabilities when 
 allied with high and noble aspirations. We 
 feel the action upon us of forces which we can- 
 not see. The world in which we live we per- 
 ceive to be moving in obedience to some vast
 
 LUC IAN. 307 
 
 overmastering power. We connect our in- 
 ward emotions with what we outwardly perceive. 
 Observation of facts creates a scheme or form 
 into which our own souls infuse a spirit, and 
 thus arise theogonies or theologies which for a 
 series of ages seize possession of human be- 
 lief, take control of conduct, and silence, if 
 they fail to satisfy, the questionings of the in- 
 tellect. 
 
 Such, undoubtedly, however degraded they 
 became, was once the pagan religions. In- 
 credible and absurd as they appear on first ac- 
 quaintance with them, they reveal, when in- 
 spected more closely, essential facts at the 
 heart of them. They reveal generally a rude 
 observation of the simplest astronomical phe- 
 nomena, a recognition of the mysterious char- 
 acter of physical life, a perception of the eternal 
 difference between nobleness and baseness of 
 conduct, and they contain vague aspirations 
 after immortality. 
 
 The convictions and opinions thus honestly 
 formed clothed themselves in a dress of myth 
 and allegory, and the imaginative costume was 
 no more than a graceful drapery of ideas which 
 were easily seen through. But knowledge out- 
 grew its infant cycle. Imagination flowed in 
 new channels, and no longer pursued the sacred 
 legend to its source. Poetry became prose. 
 The picturesque fable became a literal fact, 
 and when claiming to be a fact became a mis- 
 chievous lie. The loves of the gods and god- 
 desses, transparent symbols of the workings of 
 natural forces, became demoralizing examples 
 of vice. The system without the clue to its 
 meaning was no longer credible, and the con- 
 flict began between piety, which dreaded to 
 be irreverent in refusing to believe, and con- 
 science, which dared not profess upon the lips 
 a creed which was felt to be false. 
 
 Under such conditions the keenest intellects 
 are brought once more face to face with the 
 limits of attainable knowledge. The problems
 
 3o8 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 to which faith had provided an answer are 
 again recognized as insoluble as soon as the 
 faith has disappeared ; and the painful ques- 
 tions have again to be wrestled with, which had 
 been concealed behind the accepted traditions 
 of healthier and happier ages. 
 
 If we nir.y judge from the prevailing tone of 
 modern popular literature, from the loud 
 avowals of incredulity on one side and the 
 lamentations on the other on the spread of in- 
 fidel opinions, it seems as if, after sixteen hun- 
 dred years of satisfied belief, which came in 
 with Christianity, we were passing once more 
 into a cycle of analogous doubts ; and the 
 sentiments of so robust a thinker as Lucian 
 under the same trials are the footprints of a 
 friend who has travelled before us the road on 
 which we are entering. We hear him telling 
 us in every sentence to keep a sound heart in 
 us ; to tell no lies ; to do right whatever may 
 befall us ; never to profess to believe what we 
 know that we do not believe ; to look phantoms 
 in the face, and to be sure that they cannot 
 hurt us if we are true to ourselves. 
 
 ]'ut Lucian must speak for himself. We 
 offer our readers a translation of one out of 
 his many Dialogues, not as more celebrated 
 that the rest, or as exceptionally superior ; but 
 as being the most characteristic on the special 
 subject of which we have been speaking. It 
 may be called The Iwili^/tt of the Gods of 
 paganism. It describes the dismay in the 
 Pantheon when the Olympian divinities per- 
 ceived that men were ceasing to believe in 
 them, and w-ere affected with the ludicrous 
 alarm that if not believed in they might cease 
 to exist. 
 
 The scene o])ens in heaven. Zeus is seen 
 walking up and down, muttering to himself; 
 others of the gods, j^erceiving tiiat he is uneasy, 
 approach him to learn what is amiss. 
 
 The Dialogue begins theatrically, iambics 
 and hexameters alternating.
 
 LUC IAN. 209 
 
 Scene. — Heave?!. 
 
 Zeus in ike foregrou7ul. Enter Hermes, 
 Ajhene, and Here. 
 
 Hermes.— \\\\?i\. ails you, Zeus ? Why do 
 you mutter so ? 
 Why pale and greensick pace you to and fro, 
 Like a philosopher ? Impart you grief; 
 A sympathizing friend may lend relief. 
 
 Athene. — Aye, my dear father Kronion, my 
 prince, my monarch of monarchs, 
 I thy gray-eyed daughter, thy Trito-born, kneel- 
 ing beseech thee, 
 Speak. Conceal it no longer, the sorrow that 
 
 weighs on thy spirit ; 
 Why dost thou sigh so deeply, and why is thy 
 countenance troubled? 
 Zt'f^s. — There is no agony, no wrong, no ill 
 Of such o'ermastering potency, but still 
 An immortal God may brave it if he will. 
 Athene. — Great Heaven, what words ! what 
 
 next are we to fear ? 
 Zens. — Oh wretches, wretches, spawn of sin 
 and earth ! 
 Oh to what woe, Prometheus, gav'st thou birth ! 
 ^///<f;/,?.— What is it? Tell us; none but 
 
 friends are here. 
 Zeus. — Oh ye loud echoing thunders, ye 
 lightnings, burst from the cloud bank. 
 
 Athene. — Moderate these wild storms. Euri- 
 pides fails us. 
 We are unskilled in these rhymes ; and cannot 
 keep pace with you. 
 Here, — You suppose we do not understand 
 what is the matter. 
 You presume too much on our simplicity. 
 Zeus. — Didst thou but know, thou wouldst 
 
 be sad as I. 
 
 Here. — I know generally. You are in love 
 
 again, and practice has taught me to be patient. 
 
 You have found another Semcle, or Europa, or 
 
 Danae. You are going to make a bull of your-
 
 3IO 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 again 
 
 self again, or a Satyr, or a shower of gold tc 
 run through the roof into the beloved's bosom. 
 There are the usual symptoms, sighs, tears, and 
 pale cheeks ; all undoubted tokens of love. 
 
 Zeus. — Sweet creature ! and you think I am 
 disturbed by trifles like these. 
 
 Here. — What else can it be then.'' You, the 
 supreme God, in serious trouble ! 
 
 Zeus. — I tell you. Here, we are all in trouble. 
 Our very existence as Gods is in peril. It 
 stands on the edge of a razor, as men say, 
 whether we are to be honored as we have been, 
 or to be neglected and turn into nothing. 
 
 Here. — Has a new race of giants been born ? 
 Have the Titans broken prison and taken arms 
 
 Zeus. — Ah, no, not that. There is no fear 
 on that side. 
 
 Here. — On what side then 1 What imagin- 
 able danger can be threatening us ? 
 
 Zeus. — Only yesterday, my Here, only yes- 
 terday, Timocles the Stoic and Damis the 
 P^picurean fell into an argument before a large 
 and distinguished audience on the nature of 
 Providence. Timocles was on our side. Damis 
 maintained either that we had no existence, 
 or, at least, that we had no influence over 
 human affairs. The argument was not con- 
 cluded, but the disputants separated agreeing 
 to meet again and finish it, and all the world 
 is in a fever to know which of the two will win. 
 You see the danger. We depend on a single 
 man, either to continue as we are, or to sink 
 into mere names. 
 
 Here. — A serious affair, no doubt. I don't 
 wonder that you are uneasy. 
 
 Zeus. — And you thought it was only a fresh 
 Danae ! Ah well ! But what is to be done ? 
 You, Hermes, Athene, Here, give me your 
 opinion. 
 
 I/er?ues. — If I were vou I would bring it be- 
 fore Parliament. Call the General Asseml^ly. 
 
 Here. — My advice is the same.
 
 LUCIA N. 
 
 311 
 
 Athene. — It is not mine, father. I would 
 not make a scandal and let the world sec that 
 I was alarmed. Surely \ve can arrange that 
 Timocles shall beat lOamis, and have the best 
 of the argument. 
 
 Hermes. — That is not so eas}'. We shall be 
 found out, and if we interfere in a matter per- 
 sonal to ourselves we shall be thought uncon- 
 stitutional. 
 
 Zeus. — Hermes is right. Call the Parlia- 
 ment. Let all the Gods attend. 
 
 Hermes. — Oyez, Oyez, Oyez ! All the Gods 
 are required to meet now for important busi- 
 ness in the General Assembly. 
 
 Zens. — Use better language, Hermes. Your 
 proclamation is too bare and inadequate. 
 
 Hertnes. — How would you have it, Zeus ? 
 
 Zens, — How would I have it ? I would 
 have it set out with metre and grandeur, and a 
 poetic dignity equal to the weight of the occa- 
 sion. The Gods, won't stir for prose. 
 
 Hermes. — Where is a bard to be found ? I 
 am no poet. My lines will halt with uneven 
 lengths, and you will laugh at me. Why, now 
 and then you laugh at the verses of Apollo 
 himself; though his oracles are so mystifyfng 
 that you hardly think of his metre. 
 
 Zens. — Take a proclamation out of Homer. 
 I daresay you remember lines enough for that. 
 
 Hermes. — I shall not make a good job of it, 
 but I will try. 
 
 Come each masculine God, and come each feminine 
 
 also, 
 Come every single River, except Occanus only, 
 Come each Nymph and each Faun, come all to the Hall 
 
 of Assembly. 
 All who can challenge a right to share in the banquet of 
 
 Heaven. 
 You, the inferior orders, the middle and lower classes, 
 Seat yourselves under the salt, where the steam ascends 
 
 from the altar. 
 
 Zeus, — Good, Hermes, good ! Here they 
 come. \Enter Gods from all sides of Heaven.']
 
 312 
 
 IIJSTOKICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 Place them in order of merit. The gold Gods 
 first, then the silver, then the ivory, bronze, 
 and stone ; and c;ive precedence to any work 
 of Phidias, or Alcamenes, or Myron, or Eu- 
 phrenor, or other artist of distinction. The rank 
 and file must stay together at p. distance, be- 
 ing here only to fill the Hall. 
 
 Jlcnncs. — Your directions shall be obeyed. 
 But stay ; suppose a hideous gold idol comes, 
 weighing manv talents. Is he to rank above 
 the marble and bronze of Phidias? How is 
 that to be > 
 
 Zens. — You must observe the rule. Gold 
 ranks first. 
 
 Hermes. — I perceive — we are a plutocracy, 
 not an aristocracy. This way the gold Gods ! 
 this way to the reserved benches I Bah 1 they 
 are all barbarions. The Greeks are beautiful — 
 they are faultless in form and feature — but the 
 most precious of them are only ivory. The few 
 of gilt wood are rotten, with a colony of mice in 
 their entrails. Bardis and Atys, and Mithras, 
 and Men are of solid substantial bullion. 
 
 Posido7i. — Do you mean to say, Hermes, 
 that this dog-faced Egyptian rascal is to sit 
 above me ? 
 
 Jlenncs. — So it is ordered, my shaker of the 
 earth. The Corinthians had no gold to spare, 
 and I.ysippus made you of bronze. The Egyp- 
 tian is above you by whole metallic degrees. 
 Look at his snout— and real gold too ! You 
 ought to be proud to sit under such a god. 
 
 Aphrodite. — You will give me a front seat, at 
 any rate, Hermes } All the world calls me 
 golden. 
 
 Hermes. — I cannot see it, my dear. You 
 appear to me to have been cut from the quarry 
 at Pentelicus. By the grace of Praxiteles you 
 became Aphrodite, and were sold to the 
 Cnidians. 
 
 Aphrodite. — But I call Homer to witness. 
 He calls me golden a hundred times. 
 
 Hermes. — So Honier calls Apollo golden;
 
 LUC I AN. 
 
 3»3 
 
 but there Apollo sits on the lower form. 
 Thieves have stolen his gold crown and his 
 lute strings, and you may sit by him and be 
 ihankful that you are not among the maid- 
 servants. 
 
 Colossus flf RJiodcs. — Who is the equal of me ? 
 T am the first of gods, for I am the biggest. 
 My friends at Rhodes made me so. I cost as 
 much as sixteen gold gods of average size. 
 That is what I am worth, and there is. the art 
 besides. 
 
 Hermes. — What am I to do here, your Majes- 
 ty? The substance of him is bronze, no doubt ; 
 but take him at his money value, and he must 
 be among the upper ten. 
 
 Zeus (aside). — What is he doing here, disturb- 
 ing the assembly and making the rest of us 
 look small ? — My best of Rhodians, we are 
 aware how precious you are ; but if I place 
 you among the gold gods, they must all move 
 to make room for vou, and you must sit by your- 
 self. You fill the Pnyx with one of your thighs. 
 Will you kindly stand ? You can stoop when 
 you want to hear. 
 
 Hermes. — Another difficulty. Here are 
 Dionysus and Hercules, both of first-rate work- 
 manship ; both by the same artist Lysippus; 
 both sons of your own. Which is to sit first of 
 them ? They are at words about it. 
 
 Zeus. — We waste time, Hermes. We should 
 have been at work long since. Let them sit 
 any way for the present ; we can settle their 
 precedence afterwards. 
 
 Hermes. — Hercules ! — what a noise they 
 make! 'Where is the nectar?' cries one. 
 'The ambrosia is out,' cries another. 'The 
 hecatombs are not fairly divided,' says a third ; 
 ' they are meant for all of us-, share and share 
 alike ! ' 
 
 Zeus. — Tell them to be quiet, Hermes. I 
 must now inform them why they are assem- 
 bled. 
 
 Hermes. — Half of them won't understand
 
 314 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSA YS, 
 
 me: I~can^spcak'no language but Greek, 
 and|^here .are, Scythians, Persians, Thracians, 
 and I know not_^vvho. _ I will sign to them with 
 my hand/ 
 
 ZcHs. — Do so. 
 
 Hermes. — They are mute as sophists. Speak 
 away ; they are all attention to hear what is 
 
 commg. 
 
 Zeus. — Oh ! my son, my son, what am I to 
 do ? You know how ready I generally am on 
 these occasions. 
 
 Hermes: — That I do. You terrify me some- 
 times when you talk so bigly of hanging us 
 all, f and earth and. sea to boot, on that gold 
 chain of yours,-; 
 
 ZdV/i',-;— And now — whether it be the occa- 
 sion, , or. all this crowd of gods, I know not — 
 but! have forgot my speech, I had prepared 
 it '^carefully, with a splendid exordium, and I 
 can't remember a word. 
 
 ^Hermes. — This is ruin. Every eye is fixed 
 on you. Your silence makes them expect won- 
 ders, 
 
 ^Zciis. — Shall I*start~with the established 
 line from Homer, 
 
 Hear me, all ye Gods, and all ye Goddesses also ? 
 
 Hervies. — Nonsense. I made mess enough 
 with Homer. Do as the orators do; take the 
 opening^of one, of Demosthenes' Philippics, 
 altering a word or two. 
 
 Zeus. — Aye, that will do. A few well-turned 
 expressions and we are all right. Here 
 goes :— 
 
 The most splendid present which I could 
 bestow upon you gentlemen Gods,* would be 
 less acceptable in your present disposition 
 than an explanation of the cause for which I 
 have now assembled you together, I must 
 beseech you, therefore, to attend to the words 
 
 ^ Ci iiv{\i(:r Oeoi instead of the w uvd/ieg 'AOyvalai. ThQ 
 humor is lost in the translation.
 
 LUC IAN. 3ig 
 
 which I am al^out to utter. The time in which 
 we are living, gentlemen, calls upon us to 
 exert ourselves with a voice all but articulate, 
 
 and we sit still in negligent indit'ference 
 
 But my ])emosthenes has run out. Let me 
 tell you plainly what is the matter. Yesterday, 
 you are aware, Captain Pious gave a thank- 
 offering for the preservation of his vessel, 
 which was nearly foundering. Such of us as 
 were invited were entertained at Piraeus. When 
 we broke up after dinner, I, as it was still 
 early, strolled up into the city, meditating on 
 the shabby provision which Captain Pious had 
 made. Sixteen of us had sate down. On the 
 altar there was but a single cock, and that one 
 too old to crow. The few grains of incense 
 were mildewed, and would not burn, and there 
 was scarce a whiff for the nose of one of us. 
 The wretch had promised hecatombs when he 
 was running on the rocks. I was standing in 
 the Porch engaged in these reflections, when 
 I observed a crowd about the hall, some in- 
 side, some pressing about the door. I heard 
 voices loud in contradiction. I understood at 
 once that a couple of professors were disput- 
 ing, and I determined to hear what it was 
 about. By good luck I had a thick cloud on. 
 I adjusted my dress, gave my beard a pull to 
 make myself like a philosopher, and elbowed 
 my way in. There I found a good-for-nothing 
 scamp of an Epicurean named Damis, and the 
 respected and excellent Stoic, Timocles, argu- 
 ing together. Timocles was perspiring with 
 eagerness, and hoarse with shouting. Damis 
 was turning him into ridicule and driving him 
 distracted with his coolness. The subject of 
 discussion was ourselves. Damis maintained 
 that we had no concern with men and their 
 doings, and almost denied our existenc" ^n. 
 deed, this was what he meant, and n 
 his audience applauded. Timocles tc 
 part, passionately and indignantly. He 
 well of Providence. He dwelt on tl
 
 3l6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 which is observed throughout nature. He was 
 not without his friends, but he was unequal to 
 his work. He spoke badly. The party in 
 favor of Daniis grew larger every moment, till, 
 seeing what was likely to happen, I ordered 
 up Night to bring the meeting to an end. leav- 
 ing them to finish the argument lo-morrow. I 
 mi.xed in ihe crowd as the people went home. 
 I found most of them, I am sorry to sav, on 
 Damis's side; a few only remained undecided 
 till they had heard out what Timocles had to 
 reply. You will now, my divine friends, be no 
 longer at a loss to understand your summons 
 to this assembly. From men we derive our 
 honor and glory and our revenues. Let men 
 once conceive either that we do not exist, or 
 that we have nothing to do with them, and vic- 
 tims, incense, and prayers will cease to be 
 offered to us. We shall be left sitting idle 
 here in Heaven, banquets and ceremonies at 
 an end, perishing of hunger. It concerns us 
 all, gentlemen, it concerns us all. What is to 
 be done ? How is Timocles to get the best of 
 the argument and answer Damis sufficiently? 
 I have no confidence in Timocles. He means 
 well, but unless we help him he will certainly 
 be beaten. Give the usual notice Hermes. 
 Any God who can give advice in our present 
 emergency, let him rise and speak. 
 
 Hcrnics. — Oyez, oyez, oyez ! Order in the 
 assembly ! Any God who desires to speak is 
 requested to stand up What, all motion- 
 less ! All struck dumb at what you have 
 heard I 
 
 Momiis — 
 
 Turning each one of you all into water and clods of the 
 
 valley. 
 
 If freedom of speech is permitted here, Father 
 Zeus, I should like to make an observation. 
 
 Zeus. — Speak on. You have nothing to fear. 
 We shall be delighted to hear you.
 
 LUC I AN. 
 
 317 
 
 Momus. Listen then, Gods. I will address 
 you, as men say, from the heart. I have long 
 seen how thini^s were j^oing. It has long been 
 evident to nie ihat philosophers would rise up 
 and piek holes in us. By Themis, I cannot 
 blame Epicurus and his disciples for the con- 
 clusions at which ihey have arrived about us. 
 What other conclusions could ihev arrive at, 
 when they saw the confusion around ihcm ? 
 Good men neglected, perishing in penury or 
 slavery; ami protiigate wretches wealthy, hon- 
 ored, and powerful. Sacrilegious temple-rob- 
 bers undiscovered and unpunished ; devotees 
 and saints beaten and crucified. With such 
 phenomena before them, of course men have 
 doubted our existence. The oracles, forsooth, 
 ought to be an evidence to them. An oracle 
 tells Croesus that if he crosses the Halys, he 
 will destroy a mighty empire ; but it does not 
 explain whether he is to destroy his enemy's 
 empire or his own. An oracle says 
 
 Many a mother's son sliall in thee, O Salamis, perish. 
 
 Mothers produce children in Greece as well as 
 in Persia. There are the Sacred Poems. Oh 
 yes ! Poems which tell them that we have our 
 loves and our fights ; that we quarrel one with 
 another; that some of us are in chains ; that a 
 thousand things go wrong with us, while we 
 pretend to immortal blessedness. What can 
 they do but hold us in contempt .'' We affect 
 surprise that men who are not fools decline to 
 put their faith in us. We ought rather to be 
 pleased if there is a man left to say his prayers. 
 We are among ourselves, with no strangers 
 present. Tell us, then, Zeus, have you really 
 ever taken pains to distinguish between gootl 
 men and bad ? You cannot say you have. The- 
 seus, not you, dest roved the robbers in Attica. 
 As far as you and Providence were concerned, 
 Sciron and Pity-o-campus might have mur- 
 dered and plundered to the end of time. If
 
 3i8 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Eurystheus had not looked into matters and 
 sent Hercules upon his labors, little would you 
 have troubled yourself with the Hydras and 
 the Centaurs. Let us be candid. AH that we 
 have really cared for has been a steady altar 
 service. Evervthins: else has been left to 
 chance. And now men are opening their eyes. 
 They perceive that whether they pra/ or don't 
 pray, go to church or don't go to church, makes 
 no difference to them. And we are receiving 
 our deserts. Our advocates are silenced. The 
 Kpicuruses and the Damises carry the world 
 before them. If you wish mankind to rever- 
 ence you again you must remove the cause of 
 their disbelief. For myself, I care little how 
 it goes. I was never much respected at the 
 best of limes, Now they may think as they 
 please. 
 
 2^ies. — Don't mind this rude fellow. He is 
 always so. Any one can pick holes, as the di- 
 vine Demosthenes says. The difficulty is to 
 discover what is to be done. And now that 
 Momus has finished you will give me your sug- 
 gestions. 
 
 Posidon. — My place, you are aware, is under 
 water at the bottom of the sea. To the best 
 of my ability I take care of sailors, help ships 
 to harbors, and keep down the winds. At the 
 same time I am not indifferent to matters here, 
 and to prevent more trouble, I recommend you 
 to knock Damis down with a thunderbolt. He 
 is plausible ; we shall prevent his words from 
 gaining more hold ; and we shall give a proof 
 that we are not to be trifled with, 
 
 Zfi/s. — You jest, Posidon. Have you forgot- 
 ten that llie manner of every man's death is 
 predestined for him? Do you suppose that if 
 it had rested with me I would have let the 
 robber escape who cut off my gold curls at 
 ()lympia, tliat weighed six pounds apiece? 
 Wliat could you do witii the fisherman that 
 stole your trident at Gera;slus ? Besides, to 
 put Damis out of tho way would only show that
 
 LUC I AN. 
 
 319 
 
 wc were afraid of what he might say, and 
 didn't dare to let the case he argued out. 
 
 rosidon. — It seems to me to be the easiest 
 road out of the difficuUy. 
 
 Zens. — A most dense notion, Posiddn, worthy 
 only of a sea-pig. 
 
 Posidon. — If my idea is piggish, find a better 
 of your own. 
 
 Apollo. — May a beardless youth venture to 
 address the assembly ? 
 
 Momus. — This is not a time to stand on cer- 
 emony, Apollo. You are within the law too. 
 You have been of age these many years. Why, 
 you are one of the twelve. I am not sure that 
 you were not in the Privy Council in Crono's 
 time. None of your infant airs. If your own 
 chin is smooth, you have a son, vEsculapius 
 here, whese beard is long enough. Give us 
 some of that philosophy which you have learnt 
 from the Muses in Helicon. 
 
 Apollo. — It does not rest with you, Momus, 
 to give leave or refuse it. If Zeus permits, 
 however, I may show, perhaps, that my con' 
 versation with the Muses has not been thrown 
 away. 
 
 Zens. — Say on, my child. I allow you. 
 
 Apollo. — This Timocles appears a worthy, 
 pious man, and is well thought of as a professor. 
 His lecture class is large. His fees are heavy, 
 and he speaks fluently and convincingly among 
 his own friends and disciples. On a public 
 platform, unhappily, he is less satisfactory. 
 His accent is not good. He lacks presence of 
 mind, and is confused. He labors to produce 
 an effect with fine words, and then he is laughed 
 at. Those who are familiar with the Stoic for- 
 mulas say that he understands his subject well 
 enough, but he wants clearness of exposition. 
 He loses his head when he is cross-questioned 
 and flounders into absurdities. Now, the object 
 is to make him speak so that he shall be com- 
 prehended. 
 
 Momus. — As you appreciate plainness, Ap-
 
 320 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 olio, it is a pity you don't practice it. Your 
 oracles usually want another oracle to interpret 
 them. How do you propose to cure these 
 faults in Timocles .'' 
 
 y^/^/Zb.'— Couldn't we provide a junior coun- 
 sel to take Timocles's ideas and put them into 
 words ? 
 
 Momus. — Utterly childish. ... A lead in an 
 an important case to be unable to express his 
 own thoughts at a meeting of philosophers ! 
 Damis is to speak for himself. Timocles is to 
 whisper his notions to his junior, and his junior is 
 to find the rhetoric without understanding what 
 he is saying. That will be too absurd. We 
 must find a better expedient than that. My 
 fine fellow, you are a prophet. You have made 
 a fortune by prophesying. They have given you 
 whole bricks of gold. Let us have a specimen 
 of your art. Tell us what is to happen in this 
 business. I suppose you know. 
 
 Apollo. — Impossible, Momus. I have neither 
 tripod nor censers — not so much as a fountain 
 of Castalia. 
 
 Momus. — You are afraid, are you ? You 
 think you will be found out. 
 
 Zens. — My son, you had better do it. Don't 
 let this caviller mock at ycu — as if your inspi- 
 ration depended on your tacking. 
 
 Apollo. — I could make a better business of it 
 at Delphi or Colophon, with my instruments at 
 hand. I will try, however, if you wish. You 
 must allow for irregularities in the verse. 
 
 Momus. — Never mind the verse, old fellow — 
 only speak intelligibly. No rams and tortoises 
 are being boiled in Lydia to catch you. You 
 know what we want to learn. 
 
 Zeus. — What is coming t The spirit works 
 in him. Mv child ! Oh, my child ! His color 
 changes! His eyes roll! He is convulsed! 
 Most mysterious, most fearful ! 
 
 Apollo {in the prophetic trance). — 
 List, oh list to my words, the words of the 
 Augur Apollo,
 
 LUC/AN. 321 
 
 How the dread strife shall have end which has 
 
 now coiniiiciicecl among mortals, 
 Mortals with voices shrill, and armed with the 
 
 weajjons of logic. 
 Many a blow shall be struck as the foemen 
 
 close in the battle ; 
 Many a blow shall be dealt in the solid wood 
 
 of the plongh-tail. 
 But when the locust is caught in the mighty 
 
 gripe of the vulture, 
 Then shall be heard the last croak of the om- 
 inous wet-boding raven. 
 Then shall the mule be strong and the jackass 
 shall butt at his offspring. 
 Zeus. — Why do you laugh, Momus ? It is 
 no laughing matter. Stop, you sinner ; you 
 will choke yourself. 
 
 Mofuus. — What can I do but laugh at so 
 simple a prophet ? 
 
 Zais. — If you understand the oracle, tell us 
 what it means. 
 
 Momns — What the oracle means; Why, it 
 means that the prophet is a humbug, and that 
 we who believe in him are mules and asses, 
 without the wit of a grasshopper. 
 
 Heraiks. — I am not quite at home up here — 
 but I don't like to sav nothing. What I think 
 IS this. Let the philosophers meet and argue. 
 If Timocles has the best of it, well and good — 
 nothing more need be done. If Timocles is 
 beaten I will pull down the hall on Damis's 
 head, and make an end of the miserable 
 creature. 
 
 Momus. — Hercules, dear Hercules, most 
 rustic of IJceotians ! To punish one bad man 
 you will destroy a thousand, and the hall besides, 
 with the frescoes of Miltiades and Marathon. 
 What is to become of the orators when the 
 fountain of their illustrations is gone ? IJcsides, 
 you can't do it. When you were a man you 
 l)erha|)s might, for you diil not understand the 
 condition of things. Now tiiat you are a God
 
 322 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 you are aware, arc you not ; that these matters 
 are pre-arranged by the Fates ? 
 
 Hercules to Zetis. — Is this true, sir ? when I 
 killed the Lion and the Hvdra, was it the Fates 
 that killed them, and not I ? 
 
 2^us. — Not a doubt of it. 
 
 Hacules. — And if any one is impudent to me, 
 or robs my temples, I may not punch his head 
 unless the Fates please ; 
 
 Zeus. — Indeed, you must not. 
 
 Hercules. — With your permission then, Zeus 
 I will make an observation. I am a plain man, 
 and call a spade a spade, as the poet says. If 
 this is to be a god, may you long enjoy your 
 blessed condition. For myself I will go to 
 Hades with my bow and hunt the ghosts of the 
 monsters which I slew when I was alive. 
 
 Zeus. — Out of our own mouths we stand con- 
 victed. We m.ay spare Dam is the trouble. 
 [But who comes here in such a hurry ?] 
 
 Btiter Hermagenes. 
 
 This bronze youth with his hair in the style of 
 the last century. It is your brother, Hermes. 
 Your brother that stands in the Agora, next 
 the Poekile. He is covered with j^itch. The 
 statuaries have been moulding upon him. 
 What brings you here, my son ? Is anything 
 ? 
 
 Hermagenes. — Indeed there there is, Zeus, 
 wrong with a vengeance. 
 
 Zeus. — What is it ? a revolution in Athens .'' 
 We ought to have been informed of it. 
 
 Hentiagenes — The founders' men were with 
 me. ' Twas but now 
 They smeared me round with resin, back and 
 
 brow ; 
 Thick coated was T, and the rind or peel 
 iJore my correct impression like a seal. 
 Just then a crowd came by, and in the midst 
 Two pale, loud-screaming, wordy pugilists, 
 Damis and — 
 
 wrong
 
 LUC I AN, 
 
 323 
 
 Zeus. — Not another word of your tragedy, 
 my dear Hermagenes ; I know the men. Has 
 the fight begun ? 
 
 Jlcrmagcitcs. — Not yet in earnest. They arc 
 skirmishing, pelting each other with words at 
 a distance. 
 
 Zeus. — We will go down and hear. Draw 
 the bolts ! pull up the cloud curtains ! open the 
 gates of Heaven! Hercules! what a multi- 
 tude ! Timocles looks ill : he shakes ; he is 
 no match for Damis, I fear. We can help him 
 with our prayers at any rate. Softly, however, 
 \est Damis hear. 
 
 Scene changes to the Theatre at Athens. The 
 bcncJics crowded with citize?is. Timocles 
 and \y hull's, o?i the stage ; and the Gods, in- 
 visible to the aiidience, looking on. 
 
 Tifjiocles. — What ! you blasphehious villain^ 
 you ! you don't believe in the Gods and in 
 Providence ? 
 
 Damis. I see no proof of their existence; 
 I wait your reasons v/hy I should have a posi- 
 tive opinion about it. 
 
 Timocles. I will give you no reasons, yOu 
 wretch. Give me yours for your atheism. 
 
 Zeus. — Our man is doing well. He has the 
 rudest manner and the loudest voice. Well 
 done, Timocles ! give him hard words. That 
 is your strong point. Begin to reason and you 
 will be as dumb as a fish. 
 
 Timocles. — By Athene, you shall have no 
 reasons from me. 
 
 Damis. — Very well then ; ask me questions 
 and I will answer them. Don't use foul lan- 
 guage if you can help it. 
 
 Timocles. — Speak then you accursed monster. 
 Do you or do you not believe in Divine Provi- 
 dence ? 
 
 Damis. — I do not. 
 
 Timocles. — What ? Do you mean that the 
 Gods do not foresee future events?
 
 324 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Damis. — I do not know that they do. 
 
 Ihnocks. — And there is no divine order in 
 the universe ? 
 
 Doffiis. — None that I am aware of. 
 
 Timocles. — And the world is not governed by 
 reason and intelligence ? 
 
 Datnis. — I do not perceive that it is. 
 
 Timocles. — Will you bear this, good people ? 
 Will you not stone the blasphemer ? 
 
 Damis. — Why inflame the people against 
 me, Timocles ? The Gods show no displeas- 
 ure. They have heard me (if hear they do) 
 without interposing. Why should you be so 
 fierce in their behalf ? 
 
 Timocles. — They hear you. They hear you. 
 They will give it to you by and by. 
 
 Damis. — They will not have much leisure to 
 bestow on me if they are so busy as you say, 
 Timocles, managing the universe. They have 
 not punished you for certain perjuries that I 
 have heard of. I will not go into particulars, 
 but they could scarcely have a better opportu- 
 nity of vindicating their existence than by 
 bringing you to question. They are away 
 across the ocean, perhaps, among the Ethiop- 
 ians. They dine there frequently on their own 
 invitation, do they not ? 
 
 Timocles. — What reply can I make to such 
 horrible irreverence ? 
 
 Damis. — You can give me the reply for 
 which I have been so long waiting. You can 
 tell me why you yourself believe in Providence. 
 
 Timocles. — I believe in it first on account of 
 the order which is visible throughout the uni- 
 versal scheme of things. The sun and moon 
 move in their allotted path ; the seasons re- 
 volve ; the plants spring ; the animals come to 
 the birth, and are organized with exquisite 
 skill. Man, yet more wonderful than they, 
 thinks and acts and makes shoes and builds 
 houses — all evident j^roofs of design and pur- 
 pose. 
 
 Damis. — You beg the question, Timocles.
 
 LUCIAN. 
 
 325 
 
 You have not proved that things are as they 
 are by design. What is, is. Tiiat it has been 
 so ordered by Providence is no sure conchisiou 
 Once there may have been disorder where 
 there is now order. You look at the universe 
 as it exists, you examine the movements of it, 
 you admire them, you assume that those move- 
 ments were intended, and you fly into a passion 
 with those who cannot agree with you ; but 
 passion is not argument, as they say in the 
 play. What is the second reason for your be- 
 lief ? 
 
 Timoclcs. — There is no need of a second ; 
 but you shall have no excuse for your impiety. 
 You allow that Homer is the first of poets ? 
 
 Datnis. — I do. 
 
 Timocles. — Well, then, Homer says that there 
 is a Providence, and I believe Homer. 
 
 Daniis. — My excellent friend. Homer may 
 be a first-rate poet, but neither he nor any of 
 his kind are authorities on matters of fact. 
 The object of poetry is to amuse, not to in- 
 struct. Poets arrange their words in metre, 
 they invent legends out of their imagination, 
 they desire to give their hearers pleasure, and 
 that is all. But to what passages in Homer do 
 you refer.-' He tells us, if I remember, that 
 the wife and brothers and daughter of Jupiier 
 conspired to dethrone and imprison him, and 
 that if Thetis had not called in the help of 
 Briareus they would have succeeded. He tells 
 us that Jupiter, to reward Thetis, cheated 
 Agamemnon with a false dream, and that tens 
 of thousands of Acha^ans perished in conse- 
 quence. Or you believe, perhaps, because 
 Athene set on Diomed to wound Aphrodite and 
 Ares, because the whole celestial company fell 
 afterwards into fighting one with another ; then 
 Ares, who I suppose had not recovered from 
 his hurt, was thrashed by Athene, and 
 
 Up against Leto arose the duughty champion Hermes.
 
 326k HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Or you have been convinced by the story about 
 Artemis. Artemis was angry because Q£neus 
 had not asked her to dinner, and sent a mon- 
 strous boar to ravage the country. These, I 
 presume, are the illustrations of divine power 
 mentioned by Homer which you have found so 
 satisfactory. 
 
 \Applause from all parts of the Theatre. 
 
 Zeus. — P>less me, how they cheer ; and our 
 fellow is looking over his shoulder. . . . He 
 trembles. He will drop his shield in a moment, 
 and run. 
 
 Timodcs. — Euripides brings the Gods upon 
 the very stage. He shows them in the act of 
 rewarding good heroes, and punishing wretches 
 like you. Is Euripides mistaken too ? 
 
 Daviis. — Most wise philosopher, if you argue 
 from the stage, why then the actors Polus, 
 Aristodemus, Satyrus must be Gods ; or per- 
 haps it is their masks, and boots, and shawls, 
 and gloves and false stomachs ? When Euri- 
 pides speaks his own opinion, he says : 
 
 Thou see'st the asther, stretching infinite, 
 Enveloping the earth in moist embrace. 
 This — this is Zeus — this is the Deity. 
 
 And again : 
 
 Zeus be Zeus whate'cr he may, 
 I know but what the legends say, 
 
 with more to the same purpose. 
 
 Timocles. — Then the uiuUitudes of men and 
 nations who have believed in the existence of 
 the Gods, and have worshipped them, have all 
 been deceived ? 
 
 Damis. — Thank you for reminding me of 
 national religious customs. Nothing exhibits 
 more plainly the foundations on which theology 
 is Ijuilt. 'J'here is one religion on one side of 
 a border, and another on the other. The 
 Scythian worships Acinaces, the Thracian a 
 slave, Zalmoxis, who escaped from Samos, The 
 Thrygian adores the moon or the month ; the
 
 LUC I AN. 327 
 
 ^Ethiopian the clay. The Cyllenian prays to 
 Phanes ; the Assyrian to a dove ; the Persians 
 to fire ; the /Egyptians to water. At Memphis 
 a bull isn agod ; at Pelusium an onion. Else- 
 where in Egypt they worship an ibis, a creco- 
 dile, a cat, a monkey, a dog-headed ape. In 
 some villages the right shoulder is sacred, in 
 others the left ; in others a skull cut in half ; in 
 others a bowl or a plate; Do you really mean, 
 Timocles, that such things are a serious proof 
 that the Gods exist ? 
 
 Momus (Jo the Gods). — I warned you, my 
 friends, that there would be an inquiry into 
 these matters, and that the truth would come 
 out. 
 
 Zeus. — You did so, and you were right, 
 Momus. If we survive our present trouble I 
 will try to mend them. 
 
 Timocles. — Oh, thou enemy of God ! what 
 dost thou say to oracles and prophecies ? 
 Whence come they, save from divine foreknowl- 
 edge. 
 
 Damis. — To what oracles do you refer ? You 
 mean, I presume, the answer that Croesus got 
 from the Pythoness, for which he paid so 
 dearly, that ruined him and his city. An oracle 
 with a double face, like the statues of Hermes. 
 
 Momus. — Exactly what I most feared. 
 Where is our soothsayer? Go in, Apollo, and 
 answer for yourself. 
 
 Zeus. — 'Sdeath, Momus, this is no time for 
 irony. 
 
 Timocles. — Seest thou not, thou sinner thou, 
 that thy arguments will make an end of Church 
 and Altar \ 
 
 Z>amis. — Not all Churches and not all Altars, 
 Timocles. We will let the Altars stand where 
 they burn only incense. Of the Shrine of our 
 Lady in Tauris I would not leave a stone. 
 
 Zeus. — Frightful. The fellow spares none of 
 us. He speaks as if from the back of a wagon, 
 and curses you all in a heap, alike the guilt;/ 
 and guiltless.
 
 328 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Momus. — Not many of us can plead not 
 guilty, Zeus. Wait ; he will strike higher pres- 
 ently. {A thiiiidcrstorin?) 
 
 Timoclcs. — Dost thou hear, thou impious 
 Damis .'' Uost thou hear the voice of Zeus 
 himself .'' 
 
 Damis. — I hear the thunder ; but whether it 
 be the voice of Zeus you know belter than I. 
 You have been in Heaven, I presume, and have 
 seen him. Travelers from Crete tell me they 
 show his grave in that island. If he has been 
 long dead, I do not perceive how he can be 
 thundering. 
 
 Mo7nus. — I knew he would say that ; I was 
 sure of it. You change color, Zeus. Your 
 teeth chatter. Pluck up your spirits. Never 
 mind what these monkeys say. 
 
 Zciis. — Never mind ! It is very well to say 
 never mind. Don't you see that Damis has the 
 whole Hall with him .'' 
 
 Alomus. — Let down that gold chain of yours, 
 and drag them all up in the air with earth and 
 ocean together. 
 
 Titnocks. — Have you ever been at sea, miser- 
 able man ? 
 
 Damis. — Many times, Timocles. 
 
 l^imoclcs. — And did not the wind in the sails 
 help you more than the rowers ? And was 
 there not a pilot at the helm to keep the vessel 
 true upon its course ? 
 
 Damis. — Assuredly. 
 
 Timoclcs. — The ship could not reach its port 
 without a pilot ; and the ship of the Universe, 
 you think, requires neither captain nor helmS' 
 man ? 
 
 Zens. — Well put, Timocles. A good illustra- 
 tion that. 
 
 Damis. — Most inspired Timocles, the cap- 
 tain you speak of arranges his plans before- 
 hand. He settles his course and adheres to it. 
 His men are all in order and obey his word of 
 command. Spars, ropes, chains, oars are on 
 board in their i^laces, and ready to his hand.
 
 LUCIA N. 329 
 
 But the great captain of the Universe shows 
 none of this forethought. The forestay is 
 made fast to the stern, and the sheets to the 
 bow. The anchors are sometimes of gold, and 
 the bulwarks of lead. The bottom is painted 
 and carved : the upper works are plain and 
 unsightly. The crew are disposed at random •, 
 the craven fool is a commissioned officer ; the 
 swimmer is sent aloft to man the yards ; the 
 skilled navigator to work at the pumps. As to 
 the passengers — knaves sit at the captain's 
 table ; honest men are huddled into corners. 
 Socrates and Aristides and Phocion lie on the 
 bare boards, without room to stretch their feet, 
 and without food enough to eat. Callias and 
 Midas and Sardanapalus revel in luxury, and 
 look down on the rest of mankind. This is 
 the state of your ship, Timocles, and it explains 
 the number of shipwrecks. Had there been a 
 captain in command, he would have distin- 
 guished the good from the bad, have promoted 
 worth and capacity, and have set vice and folly 
 in the place belonging to it. The able seaman 
 would be master or lieutenant ; the skulker 
 and poltroon would be tied to the triangles. 
 In short, my friend, if your ship has had a 
 commander, he has not been fit for his place, 
 and there is need of a revolution. 
 
 Momus. — Damis is sailing with wind and 
 stream direct into victory. 
 
 Zeus. — It is so indeed. Timocles produces 
 nothing but common-places, and one after 
 another they are overturned. 
 
 Timocles. — As the example of the ship does 
 not convince you, I will give you one more 
 argument, the last, the best, the sheet-anchor 
 of theology. 
 
 Zeus. — What is he going to say ? 
 
 Timocles. — Attend to the positions as they 
 follow one from the other, and discover a flaw 
 if you can. If there are altars, then there must 
 be Gods. But there are altars, therefore there
 
 330 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 are Gocls. There, what say you now ? 
 Laughing ? What is there to amuse you ? 
 
 Damis. — Mv clear friend, I doubt if this 
 sheet-anchor of yours will stand. You hang 
 the existence of the Gods on the existence of 
 altars, and you fancy the link will hold ; but if 
 this is your last position, we may as well close 
 the discussion. 
 
 Timocks. — You admit that you are van- 
 quished. 
 
 Damis. — Of course : you have taken refuge 
 at the altar as men do in extremities. On that 
 altar and in the name of your sheet-anchor we 
 will swear a truce, and contend no more. 
 
 Timoclcs. — Oh ! oh ! you are sarcastic, are 
 you ! you grave-digger ! you wretch ! you 
 abomination ! you jail-bird I you cess-pool ! 
 we know where you came from ; your mother 
 was a whore ; and you killed your brother and 
 seduced your friend's wife ; you are an adul- 
 terer, a sodomite, a glutton, and a beast. Stay 
 till I can thrash you. Stay, I say, villain, ab- 
 horred villain ! 
 
 Zeus. — One has gone off laughing, and the 
 other follows railing and throwing tiles at him. 
 Well, what are we to do ? 
 
 Hcnncs. — The old play says, you are not hurt 
 if you don't acknowledge it. Suppose a few 
 people have gone away believing in Damis, 
 what then .'' A great many more believe the 
 reverse ; and the whole mass of uneducated 
 Greeks and the barbarians everywhere. 
 
 Zeus. — True, Hermes, but that was a good 
 thing which Darius said about Zopyrus. * I had 
 rather have one Zopyrus than a thousand 
 Babylons.'
 
 DIVUS C^SAR. 
 
 The * Pharsalia ' of Lucan is a passionate 
 imprecation on the destroyers of tlic Roman 
 constitution. The Gods had permitted that in 
 this world the enemies of liberty should tri- 
 umph. Struggling for consolation, the young 
 patriot persuades himself that perhaps in an- 
 other world the balance may be redressed. 
 With the aid of the witch P>iclho, he reani- 
 mates the corpse of a lately killed soldier. 
 The livid lips describe the forging in hell of the 
 adamantine chains which are to bind Caisar to 
 the crags of an infernal Caucasus. The pOet 
 bids the champions of the Republic make haste 
 to die, that in Tartarus they may trample under 
 foot the tyrants whom Rome was adoring as 
 divinities. At other moments the future Seems 
 as hopeless to him as the present. He flings 
 the guilt upon the Olympians themselves,- and 
 finds no comfort save in the hope that they 
 may suffer retribution at the hands of the com- 
 mon usurpers. The Gods had forgotten to be 
 just, and their power would be taken from 
 them. The civil carnage would raise mortals 
 to the throne of heaven, their hands armed 
 with lightnings and their brows crowned with 
 stars. 
 
 As his last and practical conviction, Lucan 
 seems to have concluded that from Gods of 
 any kind no redress was to be looked for. 
 
 Victrix causa Deis i)laciiii scd victa Catoni.
 
 332 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Justice was in man or it was nowhere. If 
 crime was to be avenged, it must be on earth 
 and by a human hand. He sacrificed his life, 
 while only in his 2Sth year, in an abortive con- 
 spiracy against Nero, and along with his life 
 the extraordinary gifts which his frenzied pas- 
 sion could not wholly spoil. 
 
 Throughout his poem a confidence that the 
 right cause ought to triumph struggles with a 
 misgiving that, in the administration of the 
 universe, no moral purpose is discoverable. 
 Perhaps it was in irony, perhaps it was in sad 
 conviction that the Gods — if Gods there were 
 — were no better than Nero, that he addressed 
 the emperor in the amazing lines with which 
 he opens his subject. 
 
 After describing the desolation which Caesar's 
 wars had spread over the Roman world, he 
 proceeds : 
 
 But if no otlier means the fates could find 
 
 To give us Nero — if the Thunderer's self 
 
 Could reign but when the Giant's wars were done, 
 
 We then, oh Gods, complain not. For such boon 
 
 Our trampled laws, our violated rights, 
 
 Woe, sacrilege, crime, we gladly bear them all. 
 
 Strew thy dread plains, Pharsalia, with the slain, 
 
 Spirits of fallen Carthage, sate your thirst 
 
 With Latin blood on Munda's fatal field. 
 
 Famish I'erusium, perish Mutina, 
 
 Fleets drift to wreck on Leucas' iron crags. 
 
 And battles rage 'neath /Etna's blazing crest. 
 
 Yet Rome is still a debtor to the Gods 
 
 When she has thee. 'l"o thee, when late thou goest, 
 
 Thine earthly sojourn ended, to the stars, 
 
 Tiic Heavenly palaces will fling wide the gates, 
 
 The Gods will lay their sceptres at thy feet 
 
 And bid thee choose among them. Wilt thou reign. 
 
 Monarch sut)reme? Wilt thou i)refer to guide 
 
 The car of rh(i;bus ? Karth will know no fears 
 
 From change of lords beneath thy sure command; 
 
 And each divinity t(j thine must yield. 
 
 This only grant, that when the choice is made. 
 
 And thou art fixed in thy august dominion, 
 
 Seek not a throne within the icy North, 
 
 Incline not to the low-sunk Southern sky. 
 
 From whence on Kome thy beams askance may fall. 
 
 Too near the I'oles thv overtnastering weight 
 
 Will strain the nice poised balance of the world.
 
 DIVUS CAiSAR. 333 
 
 Dwell \\\ the Zenith, where each rival light 
 Shall pale in thine and thou shalt shine alone, 
 'riieu siiall the mists melt from the face of Heaven, 
 The sword fall blunted from the warrior's hand, 
 And peace shall reign and Janus' gates be closed. 
 
 Me now inspire, in this my enterprise. 
 With thee within my breast I shall not need 
 'I'o sue the Pvlliian God for mvstic fire; 
 la thee alone a Roman bard will find 
 Fit aid at need to sing a Roman song. 
 
 Many explanations may be given of this 
 extraordinary language, yet no one of them is 
 wholly satisfactory. When the deification of 
 Claudius was voted by the Senate, Lucan's 
 uncle, Seneca, had written a farce on this oc- 
 casion, the dTTo/foXoKiVrwrrt?, or translation 
 of the late emperor into the society of pump- 
 kins. Lucas's lines may be conceived to have 
 been written in a similar spirit of mockery. 
 Claudius, however, was dead when he was 
 turned into ridicule. Nero was alive, and was 
 not a person with whom it was safe to take 
 liberties. Call it adulation ! But adulation of 
 the Caesars was the last quality to be expected 
 in the ' Pharsalia ' or its author. Let it have 
 been conventionality ; but there will remain 
 to be explained the popular sentiment to which 
 conventional language is necessarily addressed. 
 How could educated Romans, who were still 
 punctilious in observing the traditionary forms 
 of the established religion, either utter or toler- 
 ate language which appeared like a satire upon 
 religion itself.? The elevation of illustrious 
 mortals, when their earthly labors were over, 
 to a throne among the stars had been for ages 
 a familiar conception. The Twins glittered 
 in the Zodiac among the August Twelve. 
 Hercules, Perseus, and Orion displayed in the 
 nightly sky the rewards prepared in heaven for 
 the deeds which they have accomplished as 
 men. Quirinus, the mythic founder of Rome, 
 remained the tutelary guardian of the Roman 
 people. The spirits of heroic warriors, rein- 
 corporated in jewelled constellations, spread
 
 334 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 over the surface of the entire celestial sphere. 
 That the great dead should have a home among 
 the Gods was a natural and reasonable expec' 
 tation. But never till the days of the Roman 
 Empire had men been found to say of a man 
 like themselves, still living among them, still 
 subjected to the conditions of mortality, ' He 
 is but waiting till he passes from the earth for 
 the Gods to abdicate and leave the choice to 
 him of the vacant thrones in heaven.' 
 
 For Nero it must be said that he was but 
 accepting honors which 'had been already 
 claimed by Caius Caligula, and which had been 
 offered by the Senate to the least arrogant of 
 his predecessors ; for Lucan, again, was but 
 repeating a note which had been struck already 
 by a poet of an incomparably higher order. 
 Augustus was studiously simple — careful to 
 conceal the power which he really possessed 
 behind constitutional forms, and sternly con- 
 temptuous of idle flattery. Horace, of all men 
 of intellect that ever lived, was the least likely 
 to condescend to extravagant and unmeaning 
 compliments. Horace was not religious, but 
 he never mocked at religion. Long indifferent 
 to such considerations, he tells us, half seri- 
 ously, that late in life he had been frightened 
 back into belief. In the grandest of his odes, 
 he refers the miseries of Rome to forgetfulness 
 of the Gods, and he warns liis countrymen that 
 the sins of their fathers will continue to be 
 visited upon them till they rebuild the temples 
 and restore the fallen shrines. Yet Horace 
 could address Augustus with whom he was 
 personally intimate, and with whom he con- 
 tinually dined, in language not less extrava- 
 gant than Lucan's. Whichever of the Gods 
 Augustus might be, whether Apollo, or Mer- 
 cury, or Mars, Horace affected to believe that 
 he was at least one of them. In pity for the 
 wretchedness of his children, the Great Father 
 had sent an immortal as 'a present God' to 
 take charge of them, and to bring back the
 
 DIVUS CAiSAR. 33^ 
 
 golden age. Under ihc beneficent rule of 
 Augustus, the cow did not cast her calf, the 
 corn waved yellow over the fields, the ship 
 SjDed to its pc^rt with calm seas and favoring 
 airs, man no longer broke his faith to man, and 
 wives were c'.iaste, and punishment followed 
 sin or crime. To Augustus the grateful hus- 
 bandman offered his evening sacrifice after 
 his day of toil before he retired with his family 
 to sleep.* What the Virgin Mary is to the 
 modern peasant of I-'rance or Italy, such Augus- 
 tus was, while still living, in the 'farm-house of 
 Latium and Etruria — as real, perhaps more 
 real, because he was ^ pfccsais JJivus,' because 
 his rule was regarded as a ' kingdom of God 
 upon earth.' 
 
 Virgil's Fourth Eclogue, which was read by 
 Constantine's order at the Council of Nice as 
 an evangelical prophecy, is no more than a 
 beautiful repetition of the same idea. In the 
 year of Pollio's consulship ' unto Rome a child 
 was born, unto Rome a son was given,' who 
 was to reign as a God upon earth. In his 
 time the earth would bring forth abundantly. 
 In his time the lion would lie down with the 
 lamb, the infant would play on the cockatrice's 
 den and take no harm, and sin and sorrow 
 \yould fly away. The babe for whom this bril- 
 liant horoscope was drawn was probably one 
 of Augustus's grandsons, who died in early 
 youth. We need not look, at any rate, beyond 
 the imperial family to understand and even 
 sympathize with language which was the ex- 
 pression of a universal feeling. 
 
 *Condit quisque diem collibus in suis 
 Et vitem viduas dticit ad arbores, 
 Hinc ad vina redit Irctiis et alteris , 
 Te nieusis adhibet Deum. 
 
 Te muitu prece, te prosequitur mero 
 Defuso pateris ct Laribus tuuin 
 Miacet inimcn, uti Groscia Castoris 
 pt magni inenior Ilcrciilis. 
 
 Ilurare, Oi/es : Lil) iv., (Jdc 5.
 
 3^6 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 To a Roman who had witnessed what Italian 
 society had become in the last days of the 
 Republic — the incredible depravity of manners, 
 the corruption of justice, the oppression of 
 the provinces, the collapse of the political 
 fabric in a succession of civil wars which had 
 overflowed the Roman world like a sea of lava 
 — the reign of Augustus, protracted as it was 
 through half a century, with order restored, 
 and life and property secure, and peace such as 
 the earth had never known established through- 
 out civilized mankind, may well have seemed 
 a kingdom of heaven ; and Augustus himself, 
 from whom these real blessings appeared to 
 How, may have been mistaken without extrav- 
 agant creduality for something more than a 
 mere mortal. 
 
 But let us turn to what we actually know of 
 the introduction of this singular idolatry. 
 
 The Romans, like all great peoples, were, 
 in the earlier stages of their history, eminently 
 religious. Their habits were frugal, their pri- 
 vate lives were austerely moral, and wherever 
 conduct is pure, piety springs up by an unvary- 
 ing law of nature, as grass and flowers grow 
 from a wholesome soil. Reverence for God, 
 or the Gods, was interwoven with domestic 
 habits and with public laws. The fact of the 
 Gods' existence and of their sovereign rule 
 over all things was accepted with the faith 
 which had never heard of scepticism. The 
 simple rites which the early Latins were called 
 on to observe neither troubled their consciences 
 nor perplexed their understandings. The 
 whole duty of man lay in i-irliis — virtue, manli- 
 ness ; and unbelief is an infection which manly 
 minds are the last to catch. 
 
 But they could not escape the inevitable. 
 The Gods of Latiuni might perhaps be supreme 
 in Italy; but when the authority of the republic 
 was extended beyond the Peninsula, the con- 
 (juerors encountered other nations with other 
 creeds, and it fared with the Romans as it fared
 
 DIVUS CyESAR. 
 
 m 
 
 with the Israelites among the Semitic tribes of 
 Canaan : 
 
 to 
 
 Graccia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes 
 Intulit agrcsti Latio. 
 
 The Israelites identified Jehovah with Baal. 
 The Greeks taught the Latins to see in their 
 own Jupiter and Minerva and Venus, the Zeus 
 and the Pallas and Aphrodite of Homer and 
 Hesiod. With the new names came the impure 
 mythology of the Hellenes ; and the Latin 
 morality, which was founded in religion, dis- 
 solved and disappeared in the presence of 
 Deities whom it was no longer possible to re- 
 spect. The cultivated Athenians could resolve 
 their legends into allegory. The practical 
 Romans took the letter of the mythology as 
 they found it, and discovered that it was no 
 longer credible. Those beings could not be 
 Gods in any true or real sense who lived in the 
 practice of the worst vices which their ances- 
 tors had taught them to abhor. The public 
 ceremonial survived, but the heart had gone 
 out of it. The fear of God departed, and mor- 
 ality and justice departed with it ; and the 
 ancient Latin creed underwent the fate tc 
 which all reliirions are condemned which arc 
 connected with partial sympathies or have risen 
 out of imperfect knowledge. 
 
 Religions which have exerted a real influence 
 over masses of mankind have always begun in 
 genuine conviction. They have contained an 
 answer to questions which men were anxiously 
 asking at the time when they originated, and 
 to which they appeared to give a credible reply. 
 Once accepted, they petrify into unchanging 
 forms. Knowledge increases ; religion remains 
 stationary. Fresh problems rise, for which 
 they provide no solution, or a solution trans- 
 parently false ; and then follow the familiar 
 phenomena of disintegration and failing sanc- 
 tions and relaxed rule of action, and, along
 
 338 Historical essays. 
 
 with these, the efforts of well-meaning men to 
 resist the irresistible — reconciliations of religion 
 and science, natural theologies reconstructed 
 on philosophic bases, with at intervals unavail- 
 ing efforts to conceal the cracks in the theory 
 by elaborate restorations of ritual ; — or again, 
 on the other side, the firm avowal of disbelief 
 from the more sincere and resolute minds, 
 such as rings out of the lines of Lucretius. 
 
 With Lucretius we are all familiar : not less 
 interesting — perhaps more interesting, as show- 
 ing the working of more commonplace intellects 
 — is the treatise ' On the Nature of Gods,' 
 which Cicero wrote almost "■•r the same time 
 when Lucretius was composing his poems, and 
 which contains the opinions of the better sort 
 of educated Romans. 
 
 That such a dialogue should have been 
 written by a responsible and respectable person 
 in Cicoro's position, is itself a proof that 
 religion was at its last gasp. Tradition had 
 utterly broken down : serious men were looking 
 in the face the facts of their situation, and were 
 asking from experience what rule they were 
 living under; and experience gave, and always 
 must give, but one reply. Men are taught to 
 believe in an overruling Providence ; they look 
 for evidence of it, and they find that, so far as 
 human power extends over nature there are 
 traces of a moral government ; but that it is 
 such a government as man himself establishes 
 for the protection of society, and nothing more. 
 To what we call good and evil, nature as such 
 is indifferent, and nature submits to man's 
 control, not as he is just or unjust, believing 
 or sceptical, but as he understands the laws by 
 which the operations of nature are directed. 
 The piety of the captain does not save his ship 
 from the reefs. He depends on his knowledge 
 of navigation. Prayer does not avert the 
 pestilence ; but an understanding of the condi- 
 tions of health. The lightning strikes the 
 church, but spares the gambling-house provided
 
 DIVUS CALSAR. 33f) 
 
 with a conducting-rod. Disease and misfortune, 
 or the more mi:;hty visitations of the earthquake, 
 the famine, tlie inundation, make no distinction 
 between the deservinq; and ihe base. The 
 house falls and spare the fool, while it cuts 
 short a career which might Ikivc been precious 
 to all mankind. This is the truth so far as ex- 
 perience can teach ; and only timidity, or 
 ignorance, or a resolution, like that of Job's 
 friends, to be more just than God, can venture 
 to deny it ; and thus arises the dismayed ex- 
 clamation which has burst in all ages from the 
 hearts of noble-minded men : Why are the 
 wicked in such prosperity t Not that they 
 envy the wicked any miserable enjoyment which 
 they may obtain for themselves, but because 
 they see that all things come alike to all, and 
 that there is no difference — that as it is with 
 the wise man, so it is with the fool ; as with 
 him that sacrifices, so with him that sacrifices 
 not. The manifest disregard of moral distinc- 
 tions discredits their confidence in Providence, 
 and sends a shuddering misgiving through 
 them, that no such power as a moral Providence 
 exists anywhere beyond themselves. 
 
 Again and again in the progress of human 
 development mankind have been forced into 
 an unwilling recognition of the truth, and the 
 crisis has been always a painful one. So long 
 as religion is fully believed, the inattention of 
 nature to impiety and immorality is compensat- 
 ed by the increased energy of government, 
 and by the higher aspirations of individual 
 men. Impiety does not escape unpunished 
 when it is treated by the magistrate as a crime. 
 In a society which is penetrated by a conscious- 
 ness of responsibility to God morality is re- 
 w\arded as such, and vice and impurity are 
 punished as such by temporal inconveniences. 
 When religion no longer guides the intellect or 
 controls the conduct, society confines itself to 
 the punishment of ofTences against itself. Hav- 
 ing no longer any high consciousness of duty,
 
 340 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 society is tolerant of profligncy which avoids 
 the grosser forms of crime. For the rest, the 
 magistrate exclaims cynically : Dforuvi injiir'm 
 JJiis ciine, well knowini^ that if the Gods' in- 
 juries are not punished by himself the offend- 
 er's slumbers will be undisturbed. 
 
 So matters stood at Rome when Velleius the 
 Epicurean, ]jalbus the Stoic, and Cotta the 
 Pontifex Maximus, the Pope, the head of the 
 national religion, the guardian of the sacred 
 oracles, met together at Cicero's villa to dis- 
 cuss the nature of the Gods. The argument 
 was opened properly by Velleius. Epicurean- 
 ism was the popular creed of the day, the creed 
 of the men of science and intellect, the creed 
 of the poet, the artist, and the statesman. The 
 Epicureans believed in phenomena. They 
 held with Locke that the intellect could reason 
 only upon facts conveyed to it through the 
 senses, and that knowledge could not extend 
 beyond the objects of sensible experience. 
 The earth and all that existed upon it had 
 been created by nature, and was governed by 
 laws of natural causation. Nature was sover- 
 eign, and no external power can be proved to 
 have ever interfered with it. As to the sup- 
 position that another order of beings existed 
 somewhere superior to man, the Epicureans 
 had no objection to acknowledge that it might 
 be so ; they thought it rather probable than 
 otherwise : they denied only that such beings 
 took an interest in man. 
 
 Briefly and completely their views on this 
 subject had been expressed by Ennius: 
 
 Ego genus esse semper dice et dixi Coelitum, 
 Sed non eos curare opinor quid agat humauum genus. 
 Nam si curent, bene bonis sit malis male, quod nunc 
 abest. 
 
 ' 1 always say and have said that the race of 
 the celestials exists, but I opine not that they 
 concern themselves with the doings of the sons 
 of men. Did they so concern themselves, it
 
 DIVUS CyESAR. 341 
 
 v'ould be well with the good and ill with the 
 wicked, which now it is not.' 
 
 Men had no care for the animals which 
 shared the eanh with thcin. The (jods might 
 exist, yet might care as little for men as men 
 cared for beetles or biitterilies. The admis- 
 sion of the possibility of such an existence was 
 perhaps a condescension of philosophy to pop- 
 ular prejudice, or arose from a wish to avoid 
 the reproach of Atheism. Yet Velleius insist- 
 ed on it with an appearance of earnestness. 
 He appealed to instinct and internal emotion 
 as an evidence * that somewhere in the uni- 
 verse were to be found beings, in a state of un- 
 broken repose, perfect virtue, and perfect hap- 
 piness, and that in the adoration of them — 
 disinterested, because no favor was to be 
 looked for in return — was the highest felicity 
 of man. 
 
 These views are set out in the dialogue with 
 a brevity which shows that Cicero did not 
 think them to deserve more elaborate treat- 
 ment, and in the reply of Cotta the most inter- 
 esting feature is his statement of his own ]50- 
 sition. He was the Pontifex Maximus. The 
 duty of his office, he said, required him to de- 
 fend the religion established by law. He 
 would be pleased if the existence of the Gods 
 could be established, not only on the authority 
 of tradition, but as a fact which admitted of 
 proof ; but it was surrounded with difhculties 
 which Velleius had only increased. That man- 
 kind could worship beings who were and would 
 be always indifferent to them, was hardly to be 
 expected. The openly expressed scepticism 
 of bolder reasoners, the exulting claim of Lu- 
 cretius that the spectre of superstition had been 
 forever exorcised by science, spared the nec- 
 essity of graver argument. 
 
 The Epicurean being thus dismissed, the 
 word was taken up by the Stoic Balbus. With 
 
 * ' Anteccptam animo rei quandam informationem 
 sine quu ncc iutelligi quicquaiu iicc disputari potest.'
 
 342 JIISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ihe Epicurean, morality was enlightened self- 
 interest. The Stoic believed in duty. To act 
 rightly, to love justice, and truth, and purity, 
 and to hate their opposites, were matters of ab- 
 solute obligation to him. A law implied a law- 
 giver ; responsibility required a ruler, to whom 
 an account would have to be rendered ; the 
 Stoic therefore looked about him in a very 
 modern fashion for answers to popular objec- 
 tions to the truth of religion. If the age of 
 miracles had ceased he found that mira- 
 cles, portents, or prodigies were recorded 
 in tradition ; the instances of design in nature, 
 the adaptation of means to ends in the struc- 
 ture and functions of animals, were evidence 
 of an intelligent Creator; and the elaborate 
 pains with which Cicero explains the Stoic po- 
 sition shows that at least he felt it to deserve re- 
 spectful treatment. Balbus maintained the ex- 
 istence of the Gods to be an established truth 
 of history. Castor and Pollux had appeared 
 in the battle at the Lake Regillus. Sacrifices 
 had been offered and accepted. The Decii 
 had devoted themselves, and a victory had 
 been won. Oracles had been delivered at 
 iJelphi and elsewhere, containing clear proph- 
 ecies of future events. These events had 
 afterwards taken place, and a foresight which 
 was not to be accounted for by human sagacity 
 was manifestly preternatural. In Italy again, 
 although it had fallen lately into neglect, the 
 art of divination had been practised from the 
 earliest period, and too many instances could 
 be produced of disaster from the neglect of 
 divine injunctions so conveyed to admit of be- 
 ing explained away. The sacred chickens had 
 refused to eat in the First Punic War. Tlie 
 Consul Claudius had cried impatiently that 
 they should drink then, and had flung them 
 into the water. The Roman fleet had been 
 lost in consequence, and Claudius had been 
 tried for impiety and executed. In the tradi- 
 tions of these things fable uught have been
 
 DIVUS C^SAR. 
 
 343 
 
 mixed with truth, but when all possible deduc- 
 tions had been made on the score of historic 
 fallibility, sufficient evidence remained for an 
 cnliirhlcncd and reasonable belief. 
 
 Passing from tradition to natural philosophy, 
 Balbus next appealed to the motion of the stars, 
 and the regularity of the operations of nature. 
 Posidonius, whom he called his friend, had 
 constructed an orrery, in which the movements 
 of the sun and moon and planets, and their re- 
 lative positions throughout the year, were ex- 
 actly represented. Anticipating literally Paley's 
 illustration from the watch, Balbus asked 
 whether, if this machine were exhibited in Scy- 
 thia or Britain, the veriest savage could avoid 
 perceiving that it was the work of a designing 
 mind. Pursuing the same line of thought, and 
 anticipating the Bridgewater treatises, he went 
 in detail into the structure of plants and ani- 
 mals, and dwelt on the adaptation of their va- 
 rious organs to thei^r method of life. The 
 Stoics had interrogated nature in the same 
 spirit as modern religious philosophers, and 
 had arrived at the same conclusion. They be- 
 lieved themselves to have found a proof of con- 
 trivance, and therefore of a contriving Creator. 
 But the real difficulty remained. Nature might 
 have an intelligent Author, yet intelligence 
 was nothing without morality ; and if the evi- 
 dences of design were abundant, yet evidences 
 of moral government were as conspicuously 
 absent. With ingenious boldness Balbus ad- 
 dressed himself to the central problem, and 
 approached as closely, perhaps, as any mere 
 philosopher has ever done to the only possible 
 solution of it. Morality, when vigorously alive, 
 sees farther than intellect, and provides un- 
 consciously for intellectual difficulties. The 
 Latins had extended their reverence beyond 
 the mythological divinities, and had built tem- 
 ples to the moral virtues as the guardian spirits 
 of mankind. Constancy and Faith, Valor and 
 Wisdom, Chastity and Piety, had each their
 
 344 
 
 HISTORICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 separate altar, where human beings paid their 
 orisons, and prayed for strength to overcome 
 temptation. ' You complain,' said Balbus, 
 ' that you can see no sign of an overruling 
 Providence in the administration of the uni- 
 verse ; the Virtues are Provid-cnce, and them- 
 selves constitute the moral government which 
 you pretend that you cannot find. Justice may 
 may not be perfect ; some crimes may be left 
 unpunished, some good actions may be unre- 
 warded. It is so with earthly governments, 
 and may be so wiih the divine. It is enough 
 that we see a tendency which may become 
 stronger with time, and may be carried out fur- 
 ther in later generations.' 
 
 In the close of his argument, he returns to 
 the auguries. It was a historical fact that from 
 immemorial time the Etruscans had supposed 
 that they could read coming events in the en- 
 trails of sacrificed animals. On great occa- 
 sions, with the utmost solemnit}'^, and in the 
 presence of the highest functionaries of the 
 state, the body of a calf or a sheep had been 
 gravely opened, and the most important ac- 
 tions had been undertaken, or laid aside, ac- 
 cording to the conditions of the heart or liver 
 of the dead animal. This was a plain matter 
 of certainty. The experiment would not have 
 been repeated for so long a time if the events 
 had not corresponded to the indications so 
 obtained. Even Tacitus, a century and a half 
 later, could speak of these foreshadowings as 
 still fully credited, and as apparently estab- 
 lished by evidence. iJalbus, however, was 
 content with the fact, and laid little stress upon 
 it. He did not profess to regard the blackened 
 liver of a calf as caused by divine interposition ; 
 he regarded it merely as a natural phenomenon 
 rising from some internal correspondence of 
 things. 
 
 On these reasonings, with more of which in 
 a modern form we are all familiar, the His;!! 
 Priest proceeded to comment at length, and
 
 DIVUS CAESAR. 34^ 
 
 with more seriousness than he had sliown in 
 discussing the arguments of the Epicureans. 
 He commenced witli a peculiarly solemn ref- 
 erence to his own official position, and like 
 Descartes, while doubting everything from the 
 point of reason, he insisted that his private con- 
 victions remained unshaken, because they re- 
 posed on belief and authority. He was Ponti- 
 fex (Pope), he repeated. He was appointed 
 by the State to uphold the established creed 
 and ceremonial. These he ever had main- 
 tained, and always would maintain, and no one, 
 learned or unlearned, would succeed in shaking 
 his faitli. So far as the truth of the Roman 
 religion was in question he should follow his 
 -predecessors in the papal chair, Coruncarius, 
 Publius Scipio, and Scajvola, and not Zcno, or 
 Cleanthes, or Chrysippus. Caius Lalius, the 
 augur, had more weight with him than the 
 wisest philosophers of the porch. The cere- 
 monial, the haruspiece, and the Sibylline books 
 were the pillars of the Roman Commonwealth. 
 The foundations of it had been laid in religion 
 by Romulus and Numa, and by the immortal 
 Gods alone it was sustained. That was his 
 position as Pontifex. 
 
 ' You philosophers, however,' Cotta went on, 
 * appeal to reason. I myself believe without 
 reason, eiiam nulla ratione radditd. The author- 
 ity of my ancestors is sufficient for me. ]}ut 
 you reject authority, and you will have reason 
 only. I must therefore set my reason against 
 yours, and I tell you that you with your argu- 
 ments make doubtful what without arfrument is 
 not doubtful at all. Your appearance of Castor 
 and Pollux at the Lake Regillus may be but a 
 legend. It is unauthenticated by certain his- 
 tory. The Decii were probably only brave 
 men who threw themselves among the enemy, 
 knowing that their countrymen would follow. 
 And what a character are you not attributing to 
 the Cjods when you represent them as beings 
 whose favor must be purchased by the sacrifice
 
 34^ 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 of good men ! You describe the Gods as all- 
 perfect, and omniscient, and you suppose them 
 to exist under conditions where no quality which 
 we call good can possibly be found. Where 
 there is no evil there can be no preference oft 
 good to evil. Where all is already known, there 
 can be no active intelligence. Where wrong-do- 
 ing is impossible, there is no justice ; no temper- 
 ance where there is no temptation ; no valor 
 where there is no evil to be overcome. The 
 theogonies of Hesiod and Homer are too 
 childish for belief, and when all is said, there 
 remains the enigma, which you have not re- 
 solved : if the Gods exist, and if the world is 
 ruled by them, why is it well with the wicked ? 
 and why do the good fall into calamity ? The 
 commonwealth and the family are ill ordered 
 when virtue is not rewarded, and crime is not 
 punished : so far as we can trace the action of 
 the Gods no such distinction is made. Argue 
 as you will, this is the fact. In the distribution 
 of good and evil, so far as it is left to forces 
 external to man, no question is asked sbout 
 character. You say that w-e ought not to be 
 surprised if the Gods do not punish every 
 crime, because earthly governments do not. 
 W^here is the analogy ? Earthly governments 
 fail for want of knowledge. You leave no such 
 excuse for the Gods, for the Gods are assumed 
 to be omniscient. You say that though the 
 wicked man may himself escape, his crimes 
 may be visited on his children. Wonderful 
 justice ! What should we say of a common- 
 wealth where the law condemned the son or 
 crrandson for the sins of his father } In the 
 system of nature there is no rule of a just God 
 descernible. One event comes alike to all. 
 Men, cities, nations, perish undeservedly, be- 
 cause, forsooth, God cannot attend to every- 
 thing. And yet you expect us to pray to him ! 
 It cannot be. 
 
 So far in substance the Pontiff Gotta ; and 
 with Cottu's scci>licistn the dialogue ends. A
 
 DIVUS CyESAR. 
 
 347 
 
 fourth speaker, especially if he could have had 
 the light of later history to guide him, might 
 have shown Cotta that his own foundations 
 were as feeble as those whicli he overthrew. 
 We, too, have heard of faith wliich rests upon 
 authority, and dispeiises with reason ; Init 
 what does authority rest upon ? Such a faith 
 may prolong a sickly existence for one or 
 more generations, but it cannot endure the 
 buffets of practical life. Questions to which it 
 can give no reasonable answer hang multiply- 
 ing like barbed arrows in its side. The cere- 
 monial becomes stereotyped. The faith re- 
 solves itself into words repeated without con- 
 viction. Packthread might as easily hold a 
 giant gone insane, as arguments for the prob- 
 able truth of the Pagan religion hold in check 
 the wolfish appetites of unbelieving mankind; 
 In Cicero's time the once God-fearing Latins 
 had become a commonwealth of Atheists, in 
 which chastity and innocence blushed to show 
 them selves, and corruption had lost the con- 
 scious ness of its own deformity. Three con- 
 quered continents lay at the feet of the Repub- 
 lic. The oligarchy and the democracy were 
 snarling and fighting over their prey. Italy 
 was torn with civil wars, and decimated by 
 proscriptions. Ordered freedom was lost iil 
 anarchy, and the state was staggering in drunk- 
 en frenzy. The senators sold justice, and 
 great ladies sold their persons, to the highest 
 bidder. The provinces were stripped to the 
 bone by the proitors. 'J'he praetors spent their 
 sjioils in gluttony and bestiality. As to religion, 
 and the respect which authority could command 
 for it, Cotta's successor in the Pontificate was 
 young Caisar, notorious than for the dissolute- 
 ness of his habits, and for an intellect which 
 for many years he appeared to disdain to use. 
 P'or the constitution, it had fallen into such 
 extraordinary contempt, that Catiline, with a 
 small knot of fashionable young men, had pro- 
 posed to burn the city ami kill the consuls and
 
 !54S 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 half the patricians. Yet Rome was so con- 
 rjcious of its own worthlessness as to be almost 
 incapable of indignation ; although the plot was 
 discovered, and Catiline knew that it was dis- 
 covered, he could venture to attend the Senate 
 House, and sit and listen while the particulars 
 of it were detailed by Cicero. He could walk 
 out unmolested, continue his preparations at 
 leisure, leave the city without an attempt at 
 arrest, and put himself at the head of an open 
 insurrection. 
 
 To this it had come in the first capital of the 
 world, and the most advanced nation of it, be- 
 cause, in the Hebrew language, they had for- 
 gotten God. They had no belief remaining 
 in any divine rule over them. The cement 
 was gone which held society together, and the 
 entire fabric of it had fallen in shapeless ruin. 
 Some vast change was inevitable, some power- 
 ful reassertion of the elementary principles of 
 authority and justice, or the enormous Roman 
 empire would have burst like a bubble. 
 
 In recorded history no single man (perhaps 
 with the exception of Mahomet) has produced 
 effects so vast and so enduring as Julius Cajsar. 
 It is the more remarkable that in no language, 
 ancient or modern, is there any adequate 
 biography of him. To Lucan he was an incar- 
 nation of Satan. Suetonius, the fullest au- 
 thority on his early li(e, accepted and recorded 
 .every scandalous libel which was current in 
 patrician coteries. To Suetonius the loose 
 songs of the Roman soldiers were sufficient 
 evidence to charge Ca;sar with infamy. With 
 as much reason similar accusations might be 
 brought against Nelson or Collingwood, be- 
 cause, in loose affectionate talk, they were 
 freely spoken of in the English fleet under 
 the name which Johnson defines as a term of 
 endearment among sailors. To Cicero Cx-sar 
 a))pcared at first as a young man of genius and 
 fashion, who was wasting time and talents, 
 while he was himself improving both. As the
 
 DIVUS CyJiSAR. 
 
 349 
 
 talents showed themselves more unmistakably, 
 and Cicero was obliged to allow that Cx*sar's 
 powers as an orator, when he cared to use 
 them, were as great as his own, that his style 
 as a writer was unmatched, that his influence 
 almost without effort was growing, and, worse 
 still, when it appeared that he was the advocate 
 of the democracy, contempt and pity changed 
 to fear and suspicion. And as Caisar at last 
 towered up above both him and all his con- 
 temporaries, Cicero came to dread and hate 
 him, and sate approving in the Senate when 
 he was murdered. Thus from Cicero, except 
 in scattered glimpses, we gather no credible 
 picture, and we are driven back to Caesar him- 
 self, who in his ' Commentaries ' has left the 
 most lucid of all military narratives ; but, ex- 
 cept in the studied absence of self-glorification, 
 and in a few sentences in which for a moment 
 he allows us to see into his own inner nature, 
 he leaves us scarcely better provided with the 
 means of understanding him. Patrician con- 
 stitutionalists, judging as men do by the event, 
 were assured that he had early conceived an 
 intention of overthrowing the republic ; and 
 that his object in obtaining his command in 
 Gaul was merely to secure the support of an 
 army to bring about his country's ruin. Noth- 
 ing can be less likely. A conspirator would 
 never have chosen so circuitous a road, or one 
 so little tending, according to common laws 
 of probability, to lead to his object. He was 
 past forty before he began to show what was 
 in him. May it not have been rather that he 
 remained in Rome, hoping that some useful 
 career might open for him, till the steady 
 growing anarchy and corruption taught him 
 that nothing was to be looked for there 'i Life 
 was slipping away, and he wished to accom- 
 plish something memorable before he died. 
 The Germans were pouring in over the Rhine. 
 But for Caisar Ariovistus might have been an 
 Alaric, and Europe might have been Teutonizcd
 
 350 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 four centuries before its time. In ten years 
 Caesar had forced back the Germans into their 
 forests. He had invaded Britain. Gaul he 
 had not merely overrun wilh his armies and 
 coerced into submission, but he liad won the 
 affection of the people wliom he had subdued. 
 The Gauls became an integral part of the 
 Roman nation, and infused new vitality into 
 the brain and sinew of the empire. For such 
 a service the reward which the Roman aristoc- 
 racy considered him to deserve was degrada- 
 tion, dishonor, and afterwards, of course, death. 
 The common sense of mankind repudiated 
 the enormous injustice. His adoring legions, 
 instead of demanding pay to remain on his 
 side, contributed out of their own purses the 
 expenses of the wars which followed. The 
 aristocracy died hard. The flower of them fell 
 at Pharr-alia. With the degrading support of 
 the Numidian chiefs, they fought through afresh 
 campaign in Africa. When Cato h.ad fallen 
 on his sword at Utica, the scattered fragments 
 of Pompey's and Scipio's armies drifted into 
 Spain, and threw their last stake in a desperate 
 struggle upon the Ebro. Then it was over, 
 The Republican constitution of Rome had 
 fallen, destroyed by its own vices. Ctesar was 
 sole sovereign of the civilized world ; and so 
 effectively the work was accomplished that his 
 own death could not undo it. Order and au- 
 thority were re-established under a militaryem- 
 j^irc, and the Roman dominion which had been 
 on the edge of dissolution, received a new 
 lease of existence. Was it to be wondered at 
 if men said that the doer of such an exploit 
 was something more than man ? Cffisar had 
 found the world going to pieces in madness 
 and corruption. All that mankind Jiad gained 
 from the beginning of recorded time, all that 
 Greece had bequeathed of art and culture, all 
 the fruits of the long struggles of Rome to 
 coerce unwilling barbarians into obedience to 
 law, was on the brink of perishing. The hu-
 
 DIVUS CAlSAR. 
 
 351 
 
 man race might have fallen back into primeval 
 savagery. C^sar, by his own resolute will, had 
 taken anarchy by the throat and destroyed it. 
 Quirinus the hrst founder of Rome, was called 
 a God. Was there not here a greater than 
 Quirinus .'' Philosophers had cried despairing- 
 ly that the Gods (if Gods existed) had no care 
 for man. Had not a living God come among 
 them in the form of man.? Was not Caesar a 
 God > 
 
 There is a doubt whether Cassar himself, in 
 his own lifetime, permitted the indulgence of 
 these fancies. Probably not. So calm, so ra- 
 tional an intellect was not so easily intoxicated, 
 nor was it like him to encourage, for political 
 reasons, any lying exaggerations. Seutonius 
 says that he allowed honors to be paid to hun 
 — ampliora /iiiviaiio fast'r^io — that temples were 
 raised to him, with sacrificing priests, and his 
 own image above the altars. Tacitus, a far 
 better authoritv, savs that Nero was the first of 
 the Coesars who was officially recognized as a 
 God before his death, ' the Emperors not hith- 
 erto receiving this distinction until their so- 
 journ upon earth was ended.'* So far as can 
 be seen, Caisar had personally no religious 
 convictions whatever. He had no belief in a 
 future life. He considered death to be the 
 limit of human existence, and on existence in 
 the present life he set but little value. When 
 warned of the conspiracy to kill him, he re- 
 fused to take precautions. He had lived long 
 enough, and did not care to continue. What- 
 ever, however, might have been his own 
 thoughts upon the subject, the popular feeling 
 was not to be restrained. He was enrolled 
 among the twelve Gods. The month of T^dv, 
 which still bears his name, was allotted to hnn 
 in the Fasti. His successor was but carrying 
 out the universal wishes of the army and llic 
 
 * * Nam Dciim honor Principi non ante habetur quam 
 agcrc inter homines dcsierit. — 'Tacitus' Amiah, lib. xv., 
 c-rip. 74.
 
 352 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 people when he built a temple to him and in- 
 stituted a formal service there. At the time of 
 his consecration a briUiant and unfamiliar star 
 was seen for several nights in the sky, and was 
 generally regarded as the spirit of Cajsar. 
 That he had been received up into heaven, 
 Suetonius says, was not merely a figure of 
 speech, but the real conviction of mankind. 
 
 Augustus, who had been brought up by Ck- 
 sar, shared probably in his uncle's opinions on 
 these subjects. Legend said that, when a 
 young man, Augustus had made one of a fa- 
 mous supper party — Coena 
 — 'supper of the twelve Gods — ' where each 
 guest had represented a God or Goddess, and 
 Augustus had personated Apollo. 
 
 The authoritv was onlv certain notiss'uni I'cr- 
 sus — verses well known in Rome a hundred 
 vears after. The storv is out of character with 
 Augustus, and is probably a lie.* 
 
 Ca;sar had named him his heir, with a just 
 insight into his extraordinary qualities. He 
 returned the confidence which had been placed 
 in him with a profound veneration to Caesar's 
 memory ; and when the first confusion was 
 over which followed Caesar's death, when the 
 attempt to re-establish the constitution had 
 utterly failed, and the popular will had ratified 
 Ccesar's disposition and raised him to the 
 throne, Augustus set himself witli a feeling of 
 sacred obligation to punish the murderers. In 
 three years not one of the whole of them sur- 
 vived : ]]rutus, Cassius, Casca, all were gone 
 — some killed, some falling by their own 
 liands ; Cicero himself, an accomplice though 
 not an actor, not escaping, having no longer 
 
 * Cum primum istorum conduxit mensa Choragum, 
 Scxqiic Deos vidit Mallia sexqiie ])cas, 
 Impia dum I'hocbi Ciusar mcndacia ludit, 
 
 ])um nova Divorum acnat adulteria, 
 Omnia sc a terris tr.nc luimina dcclinaruiit 
 Futjit ct auratos Jupiter ijjsc toros. 
 
 Suetonius, ' De Vila Odavii*
 
 DIVUS C/ESAR. 353 
 
 Cffisar to protect him. Scribimt quidain, says 
 Suetonius, not undertaking, however, to vouch 
 for their accuracy, that, on the Ides of March, 
 after the fall of Perusia, three hundred se- 
 lected prisoners were sacrificed at an altar to 
 Divus Julius. Augustus had no predilection 
 for melodrama. If the story is true, it was an 
 extraordinary illustration of the fanaticism to 
 which he was compelled to condescend. More 
 probably a severe e.xample was made of the 
 Perusians. Some passionate partisan may have 
 said that the victims were offered to the manes 
 of the Dictator, and a metaphor, as often hap- 
 pens, may have passed into a fact. 
 
 However this may be, Augustus was no 
 sooner settled in the purple than he endeavored 
 to bury the recollections of the civil war in a 
 general amnesty. Society had grown ashamed 
 of its orgies, and returned to simpler habits of 
 life, and the emperor led the way in the reform. 
 Like Charles V., Augustus banished plate from 
 his household, and was served with the plainest 
 food on the plainest earthenware. He slept 
 on a truckle bed without hangings. His fur- 
 niture was vix privaice ch'^aniicc, scarcely fine 
 enough for a private gentleman. His dress 
 was 'homespun, not distinguishable from the 
 dresses of his attendants, and to emphasize 
 the example, was manufactured by the Empress 
 and his daughter. With the improvement in 
 manners there set in also one of those periodi- 
 cal revivals of religious sentiment with which 
 history at such times is familiar, Augustus, 
 either from poUcy or because the feelings 
 which could influence Horace had also influ- 
 enced him, encouraged the symptoms of rccov- 
 erino- piety. Like his uncle he was Poniifex 
 Maximus ;' but unlike him he made his office 
 a reality. Caesar had defied auguries, Augus- 
 tus never ventured an important act without 
 consulting the haruspices. Ilis name, accord- 
 ing to Suetonius, he derived from his attention 
 to the flight of birds — tanquatii ab avium gcsiis
 
 354 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 — the birds, as inhabitants of the air, being 
 the supposed messengers between earth and 
 sk3\ If the etymology is incorrect, the sugges- 
 tion of it is an evidence of the popular belief 
 in this feature of the imperial character. He 
 was punctilious in each and all of his religious 
 observances. He reformed the priesthood, he 
 revised the canon of the Sibylline books, and 
 destroyed the apocryphal additions. He held, 
 like Cotta, to the traditions of his fathers, 
 looked unfavorably on heresies and new opin- 
 ions, and forbade the novel forms of worship 
 which with the turn of fashion were coming in 
 from the East. 
 
 For himself, notwithstanding the language 
 addressed to him by Horace, he declined, 
 while he was alive, any public recognition of 
 his superhuman qualities. He did not permit 
 himself to be addressed as Dominus or Lord.* 
 No shrines or temples were erected to him in 
 Kome, and in the provinces only in connection 
 with the genius of the empire. On public 
 buildings at Ephesus, lie is found, from inscrip- 
 tions on recently discovered buildings there, to 
 have been described by the singular title Yto; 
 ©eou, 'Son of God.' it is curious to consider 
 that St, Paul must have seen these words there. 
 The idea of the Sonship was already not un- 
 familiar. Nevertheless, notwithstanding his 
 inodesty, it is certain that throughout the Ro- 
 man dominions Augustus was regarded, not 
 only as the Son of (jod, but as an incarnation 
 of God — "xprceseiis Divus, a second revelation 
 in the flesh of the reality of the celestial 
 powers ; and during his long reign the harassed 
 peasant, who at last could till his farm and eat 
 his bread in safety, poured libations with un- 
 hesitating faith to the divinity of the luiiiDcror. 
 On his death the popular belief received offi- 
 cial ratification. In the Fasti he was placed 
 next to Julius. The uncle and nephew became 
 
 *' Domino ai)pcl!ationcin ut nialedictum ct approbri- 
 uni semper exhurruit.'
 
 DIVUS CMSAR. 
 
 355 
 
 the tutelary deities of the fairest months in the 
 year. Legends gathered about his history. 
 He was found to have been born of a virgin. 
 His mother had conceived him in a vision in 
 the Temple of Apollo. The jilace of his na- 
 tivity was held sacred. No curious visitor was 
 allowed to intrude there. No one might enter, 
 except to pray. A still more remarkable story 
 was believed in Rome in Suetonius' time, on 
 the authority of Julius Marathus, which it is 
 difficult to suppose was not in some way con- 
 nected with the Gospel history. A few months 
 before his birth a prodigy was observed, which 
 the augurs interpreted to mean that a child 
 was coming into the world who was to be King 
 of Rome. The Senate passed a vote that no 
 infant born in that year should be allowed to 
 live.* 
 
 Any superstition is tolerable so long as it is 
 sincerely believed, so long as it is a motive to 
 moral conduct, and makes men morally better 
 than they would have been without it. Under 
 Augustus Cajsar the language of Virgil's Fourth 
 Eclogue was scarcely more than a hyperbole. 
 Society, in the last pangs of dissolution, had 
 been restored to life, and if the Divine rule 
 over the world be a rule of justice, the public 
 administration under the second Cassar must 
 have seemed, when compared with the age 
 which preceded it, like the return of Astrasa. 
 And again, if we look at the ulterior purposes 
 of Providence, it was the consolidation of the 
 empire, the establishment of peace, order, and 
 a common government round the basin of the 
 Mediterranean, which enabled the Apostles to 
 carry Christianity through the world, and to 
 
 * ' Auctor est Julius Maratlius ante paucos quam iias- 
 ceretur menses ijrodigiuni Ronisc factum jjublice cjuo 
 cienuntiabaUir legem populi Ivomani natiiiam parturire. 
 Senatum exterritum censuissc no quis illo anno genitus 
 educaretur: eos qui gravidas uxores liaberent, quod ad 
 se quisque spcm traheret, curasse ne senatus consultum 
 ad a3rariuni dcferatur.'— Suetonius, De Vita Octavii, 
 cap. 94.
 
 356 
 
 HISTORICAL ESSA YS. 
 
 offjanize a Catholic Church ; while the chief 
 difficulties were already removed which would 
 have interfered with the acceptance of the 
 Christian creed. Already the Roman world 
 believed that a Son of God who was himself 
 God had been born upon earth of a human 
 mother and a Divine Father, that he had 
 reigned as a king, that he had established his 
 dominion over mankind, and that after his 
 death he had gone back to Heaven, from which 
 he had descended, there to remain forever. 
 
 It was in no figure of speech that St. Paul 
 spoke of the secular power as ordained of God. 
 So far as the power was the instrument of 
 justice, so far as it was an instrument of Provi- 
 dence, it was the power of God ; and yet a 
 brief trial sufficed to exhaust the divinity of the 
 imperial purple. The general administration 
 continued to be tolerable for centuries ; but 
 the imperial dignity tended to become heredi- 
 tary ; to be born to mere earthly greatness is a 
 severe trial ; and the youth never existed who 
 could be educated uninjured in the belief that 
 he was more than a man. When Herod spoke, 
 the people said it was the voice of God, and he 
 was smitten with worms because he gave not 
 God the glory. The younger Ca-sars were 
 smitten with the genius of wickedness, as a re- 
 buke even more significant to the unpermitted 
 and audacious assumption, Tiberius and Clau- 
 dius were neither of them born in the purple, 
 and however atrocious their conduct, their 
 crimes were not traceable to their pretensions 
 to divinitv. Tiberius was a man of science -and 
 a fatalist,* and, amidst his enormous vices, did 
 not pretend to powers of which he disbelieved 
 the existence, Claudius was a miserable ped- 
 ant, whom Augustus had considered unfit for 
 any higher office than that of a chief priest 
 {iigurale saccniotimn), and when Claudius was 
 
 * Circa Deos ac rcligiones ncgligcntior quippe ad- 
 dictiis nialhemalica;, ixjisuasionisciuc picuus cuiicta 
 fatu agi.' — Suctuuiub.
 
 DIVUS CyKSAR. 
 
 357 
 
 made a God at liis death, the universal ridicule 
 showed that already the divinity of the Caisars 
 was passinc^ into a jest. It had hardly survived 
 Caligula. Caligula, the son of Gernianicus, who, 
 if bred as a soldier, might have been a useful 
 centurion, being brought up a Caesar, was the 
 strangest ligure which ever sat upon a European 
 throne. He was a savage, and he knew it. 
 When they told him he was a God, in grotes- 
 que mockery of himself and his instructors 
 he challenged Jupiter Capitolinus to fight, and 
 Jupiter not responding, he took the head from 
 his statue and replaced it with his own. He 
 stood on the temple steps and bade the people 
 pray to him. He appointed a chapter of priests 
 to offer sacrifices to him, the choicest that 
 could be found {excogitatisswtas hostias), and 
 either in servility or in the same spirit of wild 
 riot, the patricians contended for the honor of 
 admission to the extraordinary order. 
 
 The translation of Claudius ' among the pump- 
 kins' was another step downwards ; but worse 
 was to come. Claudius had been more sinned 
 atrainst than sinninir. Caliscula had a trait of 
 humor in him. His profanities had been ex- 
 pressions rather of his contempt for the base- 
 ness of the court, than of any conceit of his 
 own greatness. It remained for Nero, the 
 pupil of Seneca, the accomplished artist, poet, 
 painter, sculptor, musician, public singer; the 
 sentimentalist, who sighed when called to 
 sign a death-warrant, and wished that he had 
 never learned to write ; who, when told 
 that three legions had revolted, said that 
 he would recover them to their allegiance with 
 his tears — reserved for him to exhibit, as a 
 prcescnse Divus, the most detestable qualities 
 which have been ever witnessed in combination 
 in anv human being. For Nero exhausted the 
 list of possible enormities, le'aving not one 
 crime unperpetrated of which man is capable, 
 and always in the most hideous of forms. To 
 make his wickedness complete, he was without
 
 358 
 
 HISTORICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 the temptation of violent appetites, which, in 
 reducing man to a beast, give him in some 
 degree the excuses of a beast. He was cruel, 
 without being naturally ferocious: he was de- 
 praved, yet he had little capacity for sensual 
 enjoyment ; and, with intellect suf^cient to know 
 what was good, he chose evil from deliberate 
 perference of it. 
 
 A famous French actress watched by death- 
 beds in the hospitals, that she might study the 
 art of expiring on the stage. The bolder Nero 
 committed incest with his mother that he might 
 realise the sensations of CEdipus, and murdered 
 her that he might comprehend the situation of 
 Orestes. Under Nero's fearful example the 
 imperial court of Rome became a gilded brothel. 
 Chastity was turned into a jest, vice was virtue, 
 and fame lay in excess of infamy. The wisest 
 sunk to the level of the worst. Seneca com- 
 posed a vindication of the assassination of 
 Agrippina, accusing her of having conspired 
 against her son. The Senate decreed a thanks- 
 giving to the Gods for Nero's deliverance from 
 Agrippina's treachery. The few honorable 
 men, like Paetus Thrasea and Soranus, who 
 refused to follow with the stream, were 
 made away with ; as if the emperor desired, in 
 the tremendous language of Tacitus , virtutem 
 ipsatn excindcre — to cut out virtue itself by the 
 roots ; and with a yet stranger appropriateness 
 than even Tacitus himself could recognize, 
 when Nero had set Rome on lire, he selected 
 the Christian converts as scapegoats for his 
 guilt. He smeared them with pitch, and set 
 them to blaze as torches in his gardens to light 
 his midnight revels. What those revels were 
 no modern language can decently reveal. In a 
 torchlight festival on Agrippa's lake, the nob- 
 lest ladies in Rome appeared as naked pros- 
 titutes, the emperor sailing up and down among 
 them in his barge. Tacitus must tell the rest 
 in his own words: Ipse per licita afqne illicita 
 fccdatits nihil Jhxgitii reliqucrai quo corruptior
 
 Dims CALSAR. 35Q 
 
 agerct, nisi pancos post dies niii ex illocontamina- 
 toriim grege cni nomcii Pythagorcc fiiit in modinn 
 solefmiinvi coiijiigiornvi tieiiupsissef. Itniituni 
 Iviperatori daviineitin — visi aitspiecs — dos et geni- 
 alis torus ct faces ntiptiales. Cuncta dcniqiie. 
 spsetata qucc ctiam ijifcemina iiox opcrit. (Tacit. 
 Ann. IS, 37.) 
 
 After tliese outrages it seems a desecration 
 of a sacred word to speak of Nero in connec- 
 tion with religion ; yet it was Nero's destiny in 
 this world to fulfil the measure of perfect in- 
 famy. As he had destroyed virtue, one 
 further step was necessary — to destroy the 
 belief in any source of virtue. He was an 
 artist, as was said : Qiialis artifcx pcreo were 
 his words when he was dying. He was with- 
 out conscience and therefore could have no 
 reverence. He was fearless, and had no super- 
 stition. Belief of his own he had none, save 
 for a time in the Syrian goddess of indecency, 
 to whom he was soon worse than faithless.* 
 The Syrian Goddess being repudiated, his ob- 
 ject of worship was afterwards a female 
 statuette {icnntula pueUaris^. He had some 
 notion of fate ; for fate, he had a strange im- 
 agination, was to make him one day ' King of 
 the Jews.' But Nero was his own God and 
 maker of Gods, and belief in God became im- 
 possible when Nero was regarded as a persona- 
 tion of him. On medals and in public instru- 
 ments he solemnly assumed the name of Jupiter. 
 He, too, had his temples and his priests. He 
 had murdered his vvife Octavia ; he afterwards 
 kicked to death his mistress Poppaea ; but while 
 Poppaea was in favor she shared his divine 
 honors with him, and a child which she bore 
 to him was to have been a God too, had it not 
 unfortunately died. 
 
 To this pass the world had come in the 
 kingdom of heaven upon earlli which was to 
 
 * ' Religiomim usque quaqiie contcniptor, i^racter 
 unius ]>ea; Syr'ai. Ilanc mfix ita sprcvit lit urina con- 
 taminaret.*— Suetonius, De Vitd Neronis.
 
 360 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 have been realized by the divinity of the 
 Ccesars. It is startling to remember that Nero 
 was the Ccusar to whom St. Paul appealed, that 
 it was in tiic Rome of Nero that St. Paul dwelt 
 two years in his own house, that it was in the 
 household of Nero that he found or made con- 
 verts to Christianity. The parricides, the in- 
 cests, the wholesale murders, the ' abomination 
 of desolation ' in the polluted saloons of the 
 palace, were actually witnessed by persons 
 with whom he was in daily intercourse. St. 
 Paul with his own eyes may have seen ' the son 
 of perdition sitting in the temple of God, 
 showing that he was God,' and we need go no 
 further to look for his meaning. Yet in his 
 Epistles written from Rome he says little of 
 these things. Those words are perhaps his 
 only allusion to them. 
 
 The administration of Augustus was the 
 most perfect system of secular government 
 ever known, and the attributes assigned to 
 Augustus were the apotheosis of it. The prin- 
 ciple of Augustus was the establishment of law 
 and order, of justice and decency of conduct. 
 Of the heroic virtues, or even the modest 
 virtues of purity and sense of moral responsi- 
 bility, such a system knew nothing, and offered 
 no motive for moral enthusiasm. Order and 
 law and decency are the body of society, but 
 are a body without a soul ; and, without a 
 soul, the body, however vigorous its sinews, 
 must die and go to corruption. Human im- 
 provement is from within outwards. A state 
 which can endure must be composed of mem- 
 bers who all in their way understand what 
 duty means and endeavor to do it. Duty im- 
 plies genuine belief in some sovereign spiritual 
 power. Spiritual regeneration comes first, 
 moral after it, political and social last. To 
 reverse the order is to plant a flower which has 
 been cut from its natural stem, which can bloom 
 but for a day and die. 
 
 The wavs of Providence are obscure and
 
 DIVUS CALSAR. 361 
 
 perplexing, but scenes such ns those which 
 Rome had witnessed under Nero are not acted 
 on this planet in the most neglected condition 
 of it without retribution. Nero perished 
 miserablv, and on the accursed citv which had 
 sinned with him the wrath of Heaven, or 
 destiny, or nature, or whatever it may be called, 
 was not long in falling. We read in the 
 Roman historians of military revolutions, of 
 three emperors enthroned and killed in less 
 than as many years, of provinces wasted and 
 cities stormed and burnt. The page before us 
 is stained with no blood : slayers and slain, 
 conquerors and conquered, are words, and 
 words only. The events recorded are far off, 
 and stir no longer any emotions of terror or 
 pity. Yet those years were an outpouring of 
 the wrath of the Almighty on polluted Italy. 
 The armies of the several frontiers demanded 
 the purple for their favorite 'commanders, and 
 gathered down upon the peninsula to make 
 good their furious pleasure. They came from 
 Spain and from the Rhine, from the Danube, 
 from Britain, from the Euphrates, from 
 Egypt. The empire was like an oak, hollow 
 at the heart, but vigorous in the branches. The 
 legions, recruited no longer from the Latin 
 peasants, were filled with Gauls and Spaniards, 
 Thracians and Germans — fierce animals, half 
 tamed by military discipline, but with the 
 savage nature boiling out when the rein was 
 slackened. With no common purpose, except 
 perhaps some resolution that the accursed 
 scenes which they heard reported from Rome 
 should come to an end, those nearest at hand 
 streamed down over the passes of the Alps. 
 Others followed. Town after town was sacked 
 and given to the flames. The Imperial city, 
 the harlot of the seven hills, the mother of in- 
 iquities, was taken and retaken among the par- 
 tisans of rival claimants for the purple. The 
 Capitol was burnt, the streets and gardens were 
 littered for weeks or months with unburied
 
 362 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 bodies. Debauched legionaries rioted in the 
 palaces of the nobles till indulgence had 
 broken their strength, and other wild band;* 
 burst in to tear the spoil from them. A Chris- 
 tian, with a real belief, must have seen in this 
 tremendous visitation the immediate hand of 
 Providence, and, if he was a person of any im- 
 aginative intelligence, the description of the 
 opening of the seals in the vision of St. John 
 would not seem an exaggerated description of 
 the history of those fearful years. That vision 
 may have had other meanings. No one can 
 say certainly to what St. John refers. Yet 
 metaphor might be piled on metaphor, and 
 image upon image, and all would have been too 
 little to have expressed the feelings likely to 
 have been experienced in that deluge of fire 
 and blood by a Christian who had escaped alive 
 from the torch festival of Nero. 
 
 It had been prophesied that salvation waste 
 come from the East. The eyes of the Roman 
 world were turned with passionate longing to 
 Vespasian and the army of Syria. That Ves- 
 pasian had been ' marked as extraordinary,' 
 had been proved by miracles which he was re- 
 luctantly persuaded to attempt in Alexandria, 
 and which he had succeeded in accomplishing. 
 A blind man was restored to sight, and a man 
 with a disabled hand had recovered the use of it 
 under circumstances which curiously resemble 
 these of the Gospel miracles.* His future 
 
 * ' E plebe Alexandrina quidam oculorum tabe notus 
 genua ejua advolvitur,remedium caicitatis exposccns gcm- 
 itu, monitu Scrapidis Dei qucm dedita superstitioncius 
 gens ante alios colit; prccabaturque principenutgenas et 
 oculorum orbes dignarctur respcrgere oris excrcmcnto. 
 Alius, manum seger, eodem Deo auctore, ut pede ac 
 vcstigio Cacsaris calcaretur orabat. Vespasianus primo 
 irriderc, aspernari, atque illis instantibus mode famam 
 vanitatis mctucre, modo obsecratione ipsorum et vocibus 
 adulantium in spem induci : postremo aetimari a mcdicis 
 
 t'ubct an talis ca;citas ac debilitas ope humana supera- 
 )ilcs forent. Medici varie dissercre. Iluic non exesam 
 vim luminis, et redituram si pellerentur obstantia: illi 
 elapsos in pravum artus si salubris vis adhibcatur posse
 
 DIVUS CMSAK. 3C-. 
 
 greatness had been foretold to him by a pro^ 
 phet on Mount Carmel. He was first saluted 
 emperor by the legions of Caesarea. If Cor- 
 nelius the Centurion, the first Gentile convert, 
 had not died in the short interval after St. 
 Peter's visit to him, he, it is reasonable to sup- 
 pose, was one of the actors in the revolution, 
 Vespasian was welcomed to the purple with ac- 
 clamation, and a time was found again for 
 'frighted peace to pant.' I'he race of the 
 CKsars was gone, their glory and their crimes 
 alike ended, and a more modest era again 
 commenced. The Fasti, adulatione teviponun 
 fixdati, were purged of their enormous addi- 
 tions. The Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus v/as 
 rebuilt with peculiar solemnity. The impious 
 rites were abolished, sacrifices and litanies 
 were offered once more to the old accredited 
 Gods and Goddesses, and a wet sponge was 
 drawn over the hideous past. After the Tem- 
 ple at Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus, the 
 two million Jews who were dispersed over the 
 empire contributed the annual double drachma, 
 previously remitted to the High Priest, to the 
 sacred edifices at Rome. Once more there 
 was decency and order, and men could live and 
 breathe with some shadow of self-respect. Thus 
 were secured eighty more years (with intervals 
 of relapse) of peace, equitable government, 
 and moderate manners, a renewal and prolong- 
 ation in a weakened form of the era of Augustus ; 
 eighty years which Gibbon considered to have 
 been, on the whole, the happiest which man- 
 kind have ever experienced. 
 
 But this was all. The dead Gods could be 
 
 nitegrari. Id fortassc cordi Diis, ct divino ministcrio 
 principein electuin. Denique patiati rcmedii gloriam 
 Cjcsarem, irriti ludibrium penes miseros fore. Igitur 
 Vespasianus, cuncta fortuna sua; patera atus nee qui- 
 cquam ultra incredibile, la:to ijjse vultu, erectii qua; ad- 
 stabat multitudine jussa exscquitur. Statim conversa 
 ad usuni manus, ac caeco re luxit dies. Utrumque qui 
 interfuere nunc quoque mem orant, postquam nallum 
 mundacio prctilum.' — Tacit, ///j/., lib. iv., c. 81.
 
 364 HISTORICAL ESS A YS. 
 
 replaced in the temples. The mythology was 
 made endurable for a time by allegoric inter- 
 pretations. But belief had become impossible 
 forever. And again the question rose : Where 
 was Providence 1 what signs could be found of 
 a divine rule ? Not in the emperors. After 
 the experience of Nero, that illusion was no 
 longer possible. The Caesars themselves re- 
 quired to be explained and accounted for in a 
 universe presided over by a moral power. The 
 distracted provincials had to be told that a bad 
 emperor was a natural calamity, like tempests 
 or plagues. They must bear with him and 
 hope for a change.* On thinking minds, 
 therefore, the j^roblem returned, ' Where was 
 the promise of his coming ? ' Why was it well 
 with the wicked ? Why were the good allowed 
 to suffer ? What was the nature of the rule 
 under which the universe was governed after 
 all ? Tacitus wavered between chance and 
 fate.t The mocking spirit in Lucian asks 
 Jupiter if ever once since he came to the throne 
 he had attempted to discriminate between 
 good and bad, and apportion reward to merit, 
 and dares him to mention one such instance. 
 Some there were, so Tacitus says, who tried to 
 believe that the popular notions of good and 
 evil might be mistaken ; that men might suffer 
 and yet be happy, be prosperous and yet be 
 miserable. But this was paradox. No real 
 conviction could be based on obscure pos- 
 
 * Thus Cerealis, the prefect of Northern Gaul, said 
 at Treves, when VitcUius was emperor: ' Quomudo 
 sterilitatcm aut niniios imbres et caetera natura: mala, 
 ita luxum vel avaritiam dominantium tolerate. Vitia 
 erunt, donee homines: sed neque haec continua et meli- 
 orum interventu jjcnsantur.' — Tacit. Hist., lib. iv., c. 74. 
 
 t 'Sed mihi ha;c atque talia audienti in incerto judi- 
 cium est, fatone res mortalium et necessitate immutabili 
 an forte volvantur. Quippe sapientissimos vetcrum, 
 quiquc sectam eorum a;mulantur, di versos reperies, ac 
 multis insitam opinionem non initia nostri, non finem, 
 nondenique homines Diis cunc; ideo crcberrime tristria 
 in bonos, lajta apud detcriores esse.' — Tac. Atma/s, vi., 
 22.
 
 DIVUS CAESAR. 365 
 
 sibilities; and the great Roman world went 
 upon its way back into vice, back into madness 
 and atiieism, till the dead shell fell off, and 
 a living Christian Church, grown to imperial 
 stature, was found standing on the ruins of the 
 constitution of the Ccesars. 
 
 Why was it well with the wicked ? The theo- 
 logy of paganism could give no answer, for 
 the * wealth ' of paganism was the ' wealth ' of 
 the modern Englishman — money and broad 
 lands and health to enjoy them — and the most 
 pious disposition to believe could not blind it- 
 self to the principles on which wealth of this 
 kind was distributed. Paganism had allotted 
 as the special dominion of the Gods the natural 
 forces which were beyond man's control. In 
 the operation of these forces there was no 
 trace of a moral Governor, and men who re- 
 fused to lie looked the truth in the face and 
 acknowledged it. Moral government, which 
 openly and visibly rewarded merit and pun- 
 ished vice and crime, extended precisely so far 
 as the authority of man extended and no fur- 
 ther. The oracles, the legendary tales, the 
 devout imaginations of what the Gods had 
 done in the old times, the prophecies of what 
 the Gods would do in the future, these would 
 no longer satisfy. The facts of experience 
 were too stern to be trifled with. The strug- 
 gling conscience had demanded reality, and 
 had built temples to Divus Ca;sar. This, too, 
 had not availed. A society constructed like 
 that of the Caesars, on the policeman and econ- 
 omic laws, is a body without life ; and by an 
 everlasting law of nature, which men may quar- 
 rel with, may deny to exist, yet from which 
 they can no more escape than they can escape 
 from their own dissolution, such a society, 
 such a kingdom of this world, will become a 
 kingdom of the Devil. 
 
 What was the truth, then ? What was this 
 inexorable sphinx which sat by the highway of 
 humanity, propounding its enigma and devour-
 
 366 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 ing every one who could not divine the answer ? 
 In the most despised of the Roman provinces, 
 among groups of peasants and fishermen, on 
 the shores of a Galilean lake, the answer had 
 been given, and there, in that remote and 
 humble region, a new life had begun for man- 
 kind. They had looked for a union of God 
 with man. They thought that they had found 
 it in Cajsar. Divided from Caesar by the whole 
 diameter of society, thev found it at last in the 
 Carpenter of Nazareth. The kingdom of Caesar 
 was a kingdom over the world ; the kingdom 
 of Christ was a kingdom in the heart of man. 
 
 I am a King, he said (if it be permitted to 
 paraphrase his words). I bid you follow me 
 and be my servants; but my kingdom is not 
 such a kingdom as you look for. It is the 
 kingdom of God. The Philosophers of the 
 world say there is no kingdom of God, because 
 no justice can be found in the apportionment 
 of good and evil. What the world calls good 
 is not the fit reward of human virtue. What 
 the world calls evil is not the punishment 
 of sin. The Galileans, whose blood Pilate 
 mingled with their sacrifices, were not sinners 
 above other Galileans. Suffering, you say, if 
 it is just, must be a punishment of sin, and you 
 ask where the sin lay when a man was born 
 blind? Does this perj^lex you.'' Do you say 
 God is indifferent ? I bid you find rather in 
 this indifference an example for yourselves to 
 imitate. Your Father in heaven makes his 
 rain to fall on the just and the unjust, and is 
 good to the unthankful and the evil. Be you 
 like Ilim. The kingdom of God is within you. 
 If you would enter it, put away your false 
 measure of good and evil ; the road into that 
 kingdom is through the Cross. I will not make 
 you great. I will not give you honors, and 
 lands, and gold and jewels. I will promise 
 you no immunity from disease, or suffering, 
 or death. To these things the Gentiles 
 look, and when they are not awarded, on
 
 DIVUH C/KSAR. 3O7 
 
 principles which tliey call just, they doubt if 
 there is any God in heaven. These are not 
 the wages which you will earn in my service. 
 Come to me and I will make you good men. 
 I will make you rulers over your own selfish- 
 ness, your own appetites and lusts. I will set 
 you free from sin. Make this your object, to 
 be free from sin, to lead pure and true and 
 honorable lives. I will then be with you. I 
 will dwell in you. I will give you a peace of 
 mind of which the world knows nothing. I 
 will be a well of water in you, springing up 
 into everlasting life. You wish for prosperit}', 
 you wish for pleasure, you wish for the world's 
 good things. But prosperity will be no help 
 to you in the conquest of yourselves. It may 
 rather be a hindrance. Sorrow and suffering 
 are not evils. They are the school in which 
 you may learn self-command. The empire to 
 to which I bid you aspire is higher than the 
 Cesar's. It is the empire over your own hearts. 
 The reward I offer you is greater than the 
 purple. It is the redemption of your own 
 character. This is the Providence of God, for 
 which you looked and failed to find it. And 
 it is just to the smallest fibre of it. External 
 things obey the laws assigned to them. The 
 moral Ruler whom you desire to know is not 
 to be found by looking at these. He is here ; 
 he is in the heart of man. He is in me who 
 now speak to you. He will be in you if you 
 struggle to obey him and to do his will. To 
 be happy is not the purpose for which you are 
 placed in this world. Examine your own hearts. 
 Ask your conscience and it will answer you. 
 Were the choice offered you, whether you would 
 be prosperous and wacked, or whether your 
 life should be a life of prolonged misfortune, 
 and you should rise out of it purified" and 
 ennobled, every one of you knows the answer 
 which he ought to give. Therefore your com- 
 plaint, that it is well with the wicked, and that 
 the good are afflicted, is confuted out of your
 
 358 HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 own lips. You would not change condition 
 with the wicked, however prosperous they may 
 seem, unless vou are yourself wicked. To that 
 man life has been most kind whose character 
 it has trained most nearly to perfection. 
 
 Desire first, to be good men — true in word, 
 just in action, pure in spirit. Seek these, what- 
 ever else befall you. So you will know God, 
 whom you have sought and could not find. So 
 out of men who have life in them shall grow a 
 society that has life, and the kingdom, of the 
 world shall be made in truth a kingdom of God, 
 
 ,/ 
 

 
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