Chapter III: Part 3

SAINT LEONTIUS, martyr; honored at Muri in Switzerland, as one of the soldiers of the Theban legion. A serpent is given him as attribute, with a little phial. Father Cahier says he has failed to discover the significance of the emblems.

SAINT AMABLE OF RIOM, priest; 19th of October, fifth century. Near him serpents and venomous animals, because it is said that he drove all maleficent beasts out of the neighborhood of Riom.

SAINT BRIAC, abbot; 17th of December, about 609. He banished a serpent with the sign of the cross. This saint met a man who was already stung by a dangerous reptile and fleeing from the animal, which was in pursuit of him. The servant of God, by giving his blessing, cured the wounded man and put the animal to flight. (_Vies des Saints de la Bretagne._)

SAINT MAUDEZ, hermit; 18th of November, seventh century. Driving out of an island, in which he had established his hermitage, a number of reptiles that lived in the place. The custom is preserved in Brittany of using earth taken from the island as a remedy for serpents' bites. (_Vies des Saints de la Bretagne_, p. 724, 725.)

SAINT JOHN OF REOMEY, founder of this abbey, which afterwards took the name of Montier-Saint-Jean; 28th of January, about 545. He is generally represented beside a well and holding a sort of dragon chained. His legend relates that he caused the death of a basilisk which made the water of a well or fountain dangerous. (_Calend. benedict._, 28 januar.) Sometimes instead of this dragon (winged) there is placed near him a chained serpent. (Cf. Aug. de Bastard, _Memoire sur les crosses_, p. 776.)

SAINT BEAT OR BEATUS OF VENDOMOIS, hermit; 9th of May, year difficult to determine. The story goes that, finding a reptile in the grotto into which he desired to retire, near the Loire, he drove the animal out with the sign of the cross. (AA. SS., _Maii_, t. II., p. 365. D. Piolin, _Hist. de l'Eglise du Mans_, t. I., p. 62.)

SAINT LIFARD (_Liphardus_, _Liethphardus_), hermit, afterwards abbot at Meun-sur-Loire; 3d of June, about 540. Near him in pictures is a staff planted in the earth, and bitten at top by a serpent, which is broken in the middle of the body. It is related that near his cell an enormous serpent prevented the people of the locality from having access to a fountain. Urbitius, a disciple of the holy man, ran one day to him, telling him that he had met the dreadful reptile. Lifard smiled and bade Urbitius be ashamed of his lack of faith, and gave him his staff with orders to plant it in the ground in front of the beast. This being done, and while the hermit was praying to God, the monster sprang upon the staff, which he bit with madness. The weight of the monstrous beast made it burst in the middle, and the country was delivered from him. (Surius, 3 jun.)

Outside of France, this is sometimes represented by an empaled dragon from which issue a number of little dragons flying away. (_Calendar. benedict._, 4 jun.)

SAINT LEONARD THE YOUNGER, abbot of Vendeuve; 15th of October, about 570. He is represented with a serpent near him, because one of these serpents having crawled towards the holy man while he was at prayer, stopped without being able to hurt him. He is also represented with a serpent dying at his feet or twined around his body. (AA. SS., Octobr., t. VII., p. 48, sq.) It is asserted that a serpent has never since appeared in that place.

SAINT MEMIN (or Maximin), abbot of Micy; 15th of December, 520. He is painted holding a serpent, because he is said to have driven a dangerous reptile from the banks of the Loire. (Aug. de Bastard, _Crosses_, p. 776.)

SAINT DOMINIC OF SARA, abbot of the order of Saint Benedict; 22d of January, about 1031. A present of fish sent to the holy man having been abstracted on the way, the rogues were rather surprised to find only snakes instead of the fish they had stolen. (_Calendar. benedict._, 22 januar.,--Brantii, _Martyrol. poetic._)

"Qui missos sancto pisces abscondit, in angues
Mutatos, rediens vidit et obstupuit."

SAINT VINCENT OF AVILA, with Saint Sabina and Saint Christeta, his sisters; 27th of October, under Diocletian. The bodies of these martyrs having been abandoned to beasts of prey, an enormous serpent protected their remains from any insult. A Jew, even, who had come to see the corpses, ran such danger from the reptile that he made a vow to receive baptism. (_Espana sagrada_, t. XIV., p. 32.)

SAINT GORRY (Godrick, Godrich, _Godricus_), hermit in England; 21st of May, 1170. He put himself under the direction of the monks of Durham, and passed the latter part of his life in a solitude. He is represented surrounded by serpents, because those venomous animals gathered around him and did him no harm. (_Calend. benedict._, 29 mai.--AA. SS., _Maii_, t. V., p. 68, sqq.)

The Blessed BONAGIUNTA MANETTI, Servite and first general of his order; 31st of August, 1257. Father Cahier says that in France pictures of the Servites are seldom found, and then with no particular emblem. He, however, found one in which the blessed Bonagiunta is blessing loaves which break, and bottles from which serpents escape. In the art of the Middle Ages a serpent is the emblem of poison, and so it seems to be here. As the holy man, while asking alms for his community, did not hesitate to rebuke sinners, he gave offence to a Florentine merchant. Pretending to be repentant and charitable, he sent poisoned bread and wine to the Servite monastery. The Blessed Bonagiunta received the man who brought the pretended alms, and said to him, "I know well that thy master would take my life. But tell him that no evil will happen us, and that death will soon strike himself." The prophecy was accomplished. (Cf. Brocchi, _Vite dei SS. Fiorentini_, t. I., p. 246.)

SAINT HELDRADUS, abbot of Novalese (13th of March, 875), is said to have expelled the serpents that infested the valley of Briancon where the saint wanted to establish a colony of his monks. (AA. SS., Mart., t. II., p. 334.)

SAINT THECLA, virgin and martyr; 23d of September, Apostolic age. This saint is called a martyr, and even the first of martyrs, because although her life was not taken in torments, she seems to be the first Christian woman who was given over to the barbarity of Pagan public power. It is related that she was thrown into a ditch filled with vipers, but a ball of fire fell from heaven and killed all those venomous animals. So she is sometimes painted with a fiery globe in her hand or near her. Father Cahier adds that her Acts have not come to us with sufficient indications of authenticity; but the church, in her prayers for the dying, retains the memory of the three tortures (flames, wild beasts, and venomous animals), from which the saint was delivered by assistance from on high. She prays: "As thou didst deliver that most blessed virgin Thecla from three most cruel torments, so vouchsafe to deliver the soul of this Thy servant," etc.[3]

SAINT CHRISTINA, virgin and martyr in Tuscany; 24th of July, towards the end of the third century. Same attribute and same reason as for as Saint Thecla. (Bagatta, _Admiranda orbis_, lib. VII., cap. I., 19, No. 3.)

SAINT ANATOLIA, virgin, martyred with Saint Audax, 9th of July, about 250. She was confined in a narrow dungeon, with a venomous serpent, which was expected to kill her. When it was thought that she was slain, Audax, one of those Marsi who prided themselves on being able to charm reptiles, was sent into the prison. But the virgin was unhurt, and the serpent flung itself on the pretended charmer, who was delivered only at Anatolia's command. Audax was converted to Christianity, and gave his life for Jesus Christ some time after the death of the saint, who was pierced by a sword. (_Martyrol. Rom._, 9 Jul.--Bagatta, _Admiranda orbis_, lib. VII., cap. I., Sec. 19, No. 17.)

SAINT VERENA, virgin at Zurzach in Switzerland; 1st of September, about the beginning of the fourth century. At her prayer, it is said, a quantity of venomous serpents forsook the country and flung themselves into the Aar.

SAINT VERDIANA (_Viridiana_), virgin of the Third Order of Saint Francis, or of Valeambrosa at Castel-Fiorentino; 13th of February, 1242. Living as a recluse with serpents. She imposed this sort of penance on herself to overcome the horror that reptiles excited in her, and took care to feed these strange guests herself so that they would not go away. (Bagatta, _l. c._, ibid., No. 27.)

SAINT ISBERGA, (_Itisberga_), a hermit virgin near Aire in Artois, afterwards abbess; 21st of May, about 770. As daughter of Pepin and sister of Charlemagne, she is often represented with a crown and a mantle covered with fleurs-de-lis. But she is particularly distinguished by another emblem. An eel is put in her hand, sometimes on a dish, and for this reason: A powerful prince had asked Isberga's hand in marriage; but in order to preserve the vow of virginity which she had made, she besought God to send her some disease which would disfigure her. Her face was soon covered with pustules, and the suitor no longer insisted upon marrying her. Heaven then revealed to Isberga that she would be cured by eating the first fish that would be caught in the Lys. The men whom she sent for that purpose toiled long without succeeding in taking anything but an eel, along with which they brought up in their nets the body of Saint Venantus, a hermit (the saint's director), who had been slain and cast into the river by the princess's lover, for he blamed the hermit for the resolution taken by the virgin whose hand he sought in marriage. The discovery of the body brought the crime to light, and made known the sanctity of Venantus, to whose merits Isberga ascribed the efficacy of the fish in delivering her from disease. (AA. SS. _Maii_, t. V., p. 44.--Dancoisne, _Numismatique bethunoise_, p. 165, sqq.)

SAINT ENIMIA OF GEVANDAN, virgin; 6th of October, about the seventh century. She, too, is depicted with a serpent because she is said to have delivered the country from that dangerous animal. (AA. SS. _Octobr._, t. XI., p. 630, t. III., p. 306, sqq.)

SAINT CRESCENTIAN; 1st of June, 287. Coins of Urbino represent him armed cap-a-pie, on foot or on horseback, and killing a dragon with his lance, or carrying a flag; at other times he is seen in deacon's costume, trampling a serpent under his feet. He is said to have been a Roman soldier, and to have introduced the Gospel into Citta-di-Castello. (Brantii _Martyrolog. poeticum_, 1 jun:

"Letifero Crescentinus serpente Tipherni
Occiso, gladio victima caesa cadit.")

Turning to another part of Father Cahier's work, we find that the following saints are also represented with serpents:

SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST; 27th of December. He is represented holding a sort of chalice surmounted by a little serpent or a dragon. The Golden Legend says, that, to prove the truth of his teaching, he was compelled to drink poison. Some of it was first given to two men condemned to death and they died on the spot. The saint made the sign of the cross over the cup, drank, suffered no inconvenience, and then restored the two dead men to life. Father Cahier adds that this story seems to have given rise to the custom especially prevalent among Germanic nations of drinking to friends' health under pretense of honoring Saint John. He says that this custom has sometimes been put under the protection of Saint John the Baptist, but that it is not probable the Germans would have cared about putting their _healths_ put under the protection of a saint who drank only water.

SAINT CHARITON, hermit and abbot in Palestine; 28th of September, about 350. Near him is represented a serpent plunging its head in a cup. A native of Lycaonia, and released by the Pagans after being tortured for the faith, he went to Jerusalem, where he was taken by robbers, and confined in the cave which was their retreat. A serpent came and drank out of the vase in which their wine was, at the same time poisoning it with his venom, and the robbers died in consequence, whereupon the saint made the cave the cradle of a monastery. (_Menolog., graec_, t. I., p. 73.)

SAINT POURCAIN (_Portianus_), abbot in Auvergne; 24th of November, about 540. He is represented with a broken cup from which emerges a serpent. King Thierry I. was ravaging Auvergne, and the holy abbot went to intercede with him for the poor people. The King was still asleep when he came, and the principal officer offered him a drink, which he refused because he had not yet seen the king or celebrated the office. Pressed, however, he blessed the vase which was brought him, it broke, and a serpent came out of it. The whole court considered that he had been saved from poison. (Gregor. Turon., _Vitae PP._, cap. V.)

SAINT JOHN OF SAHAGUN, Hermit of Saint Augustine; 12th of June, 1497. He is represented amongst other ways, with a cup surmounted by a serpent. This is because he was really poisoned by a dissolute woman in revenge for the conversion of her lover by the saint and his consequent dismissal of her. (AA. SS. _Jun._, t. II., p. 625.)

SAINT LOUIS BERTRAND, Dominican; 10th of October, 1581. A cup with a serpent indicates that in his missions in America he had poison given him more than once by the Pagans, without being injured by it.

TH. XR. K.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] It is curious that our English prayer-books leave out that word "three." The French follow the original Latin.--TR.

The Poems of Rosa Mulholland.[4]

Miss Rosa Mulholland has at last been induced to gather her poems into a volume which will be dear to all lovers of poetry into whose hands it may fall. No person with the faintest glimmering of insight into the subtle mechanism of literary composition in its higher forms could study the prose writings of the author of "The Wicked Woods of Tobereevil," of "Eldergowan," and many other dainty fictions, without being sure that the writer of such prose was a poet also, not merely by nature but by art; and many had learned to follow her initials through the pages of certain magazines. The present work contains nearly all of these scattered lyrics; and, along with them, many that are now printed for the first time combine to form a volume of the truest and holiest poetry that has been heard on earth since Adelaide Procter went to heaven.

The only justification for the too modest title of "Vagrant Verses," which gleams from the cover of this pretty volume, lies in the fact that this most graceful muse wanders from subject to subject according to her fancy, and pursues no heroic or dramatic theme with that exhaustive treatment which exhausts every one except the poet. The poems in this collection are short, written not to order, but under the manifest impulse of inspiration, for the expression only of the deeper thoughts and more vivid feelings of the soul. Except the fine lyrical and dramatic ballad, "The Children of Lir," which occupies eight pages, and the first five pages given to "Emmet's Love," none of the rest of the seventy poems go much beyond a page or two, while they range through every mood, sad or mirthful, and through every form of metre.

We have named the opening poem, which is an exquisitely pathetic soliloquy of Sarah Curran, a year after the death of her betrothed, young Robert Emmet--a nobler tribute to the memory of our great orator's daughter than either Moore's verse or Washington Irving's prose. But the metrical interlacing of the stanzas, and the elevation and refinement of the poetic diction, require a thoughtful perusal to bring out the perfections of this poem, which, therefore, lends itself less readily to quotation. We shall rather begin by giving one shorter poem in full, taken almost at random. Let it be "Wilfulness and Patience," as it teaches a lesson which it would be well for many to take to heart and to learn by heart:--

I said I am going into the garden,
Into the flush of the sweetness of life;
I can stay in the wilderness no longer,
Where sorrow and sickness and pain are so rife;

So I shod my feet in their golden sandals,
And I looped my gown with a ribbon of blue,
And into the garden went I singing,
The birds in the boughs fell a-singing too.

Just at the wicket I met with Patience,
Grave was her face, and pure and kind,
But oh, I loved not her ashen mantle,
Such sober looks were not to my mind.

Said Patience, "Go not into the garden,
But come with me by the difficult ways,
Over the wastes and the wilderness mountains,
To the higher levels of love and praise!"

Gaily I laughed as I opened the wicket,
And Patience, pitying, flitted away.
The garden glory was full of the morning--
The morning changed to the glamor of day.

O sweet were the winds among my tresses,
And sweet the flowers that bent at my knees;
Ripe were the fruits that fell at my wishing,
But sated soon was my soul with these.

And would I were hand in hand with Patience;
Tracking her feet on the difficult ways,
Over the wastes and the wilderness mountains,
To the higher level of love and praise!

The salutary lesson that the singer wants to impress on the young heart, is here taught plainly and directly even by the very name of the piece. But here is another very delicious melody, of which the name and the purport are somewhat more mysterious. It is called "Perdita."

I dipped my hand in the sea,
Wantonly--
The sun shone red o'er castle and cave;
Dreaming, I rocked on the sleepy wave;--
I drew a pearl from the sea.
Wonderingly.

There in my hand it lay:
Who could say
How from the depths of the ocean calm
It rose, and slid itself into my palm?
I smiled at finding there
Pearl so fair.

I kissed the beautiful thing,
Marvelling.
Poor till now I had grown to be
The wealthiest maiden on land or sea,
A priceless gem was mine,
Pure, divine!

I hid the pearl in my breast,
Fearful lest
The wind should steal, or the wave repent
Largess made in mere merriment,
And snatch it back again
Into the main.

But careless grown, ah me!
Wantonly
I held between two fingers fine
My gem above the sparkling brine,
Only to see it gleam
Across the stream.

I felt the treasure slide
Under the tide;
I saw its mild and delicate ray
Glittering upward, fade away.
Ah! then my tears did flow,
Long ago!

I weep, and weep, and weep,
Into the deep;
Sad am I that I could not hold
A treasure richer than virgin gold.
That Fate so sweetly gave
Out of the wave.

I dip my hand in the sea,
Longingly;
But never more will that jewel white
Shed on my soul its tender light.
My pearl lies buried deep
Where mermaids sleep.

Some readers of this MAGAZINE are, no doubt, for the first time making acquaintance with Miss Mulholland under this character in which others have known her long; and even these newest friends know enough of her already to pronounce upon some of her characteristics. She is not influenced by the spell of modern culture which has invested the poetic diction of recent years with an exquisite expressiveness and delicate beauty. But, while her style is the very antithesis of the tawdry or the commonplace, she has no mannerisms or affectations; she belongs to no school; she does not deem it the poet's duty to cultivate an artificial, _recherche_, dilettante dialect unknown to Shakespeare and Wordsworth--if we may use a string of epithets which can only be excused for their outlandishness on the plea that they describe something very outlandish. Her meaning is as lucid as her thoughts are high and pure. If, after reading one of her poems carefully, we sometimes have to ask "What does she mean by that?" we ask it not on account of any obscurity in her language, but on account of the depth and height of her thoughts.

The musical rhythm of our extracts prepares us for the form which many of Miss Mulholland's inspirations assume--that of the song pure and simple. Those last epithets have here more than the meaning which they usually bear in such a context; for these songs are not only eminently singable, but they are marked by a very attractive purity and simplicity. There are many of them besides this one which alone bears no other name than "Song."

The silent bird is hid in the boughs,
The scythe is hid in the corn,
The lazy oxen wink and drowse,
The grateful sheep are shorn.
Redder and redder burns the rose,
The lily was ne'er so pale,
Stiller and stiller the river flows
Along the path to the vale.

A little door is hid in the boughs,
A face is hiding within;
When birds are silent and oxen drowse,
Why should a maiden spin?
Slower and slower turns the wheel,
The face turns red and pale,
Brighter and brighter the looks that steal
Along the path to the vale.

Here and everywhere how few are the adjectives, and never any slipped in as mere adjectives. Verbs and nouns do duty for them, and the pictures paint themselves. There is more of genius, art, thought, and study in this self-restraining simplicity than in the freer and bolder eloquence that might make young pulses tingle.

This remarkable faculty for musical verse seems to us to enhance the merit of a poem in which a certain ruggedness is introduced of set purpose. At least, we think that the subtle sympathy, which in the workmanship of a true poet links theme and metre together, is curiously exemplified in "News to Tell." What metre is it? A very slight change here and there would conform it to the sober, solemn measure familiar to the least poetical of us in Gray's marvellous "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." That elegiac tone already suits the rhythm here to the pathetic story. But then the wounded soldier, who, perhaps, will not recover after all, but may follow his dead comrade--see how he drags himself with difficulty away from the old gray castle where the young widow and the aged mother are overwhelmed by the news he had to tell; and is not all this with exquisite cunning represented by the halting gait of the metre, in which every line deviates just a little from the normal scheme of five iambics?

Neighbor, lend me your arm, for I am not well,
This wound you see is scarcely a fortnight old,
All for a sorry message I had to tell,
I've travelled many a mile in wet and cold.

Yon is the old gray chateau above the road,
He bade me seek it, my comrade brave and gay;
Stately forest and river so brown and broad,
He showed me the scene as he a-dying lay.

I have been there, and, neighbor I am not well;
I bore his sword and some of his curling hair,
Knocked at the gate and said I had news to tell,
Entered a chamber and saw his mother there.

Tall and straight with the snows of age on her head,
Brave and stern as a soldier's mother might be,
Deep in her eyes a living look of the dead,
She grasped her staff and silently gazed at me.

I thought I'd better be dead than meet her eye;
She guessed it all, I'd never a word to tell.
Taking the sword in her arms she heaved a sigh,
Clasping the curl in her hand, she sobbed and fell.

I raised her up; she sate in her stately chair,
Her face like death, but not a tear in her eye.
We heard a step, a tender voice on the stair
Murmuring soft to an infant's cooing cry.

My lady she sate erect, and sterner grew,
Finger on mouth she motioned me not to stay;
A girl came in, the wife of the dead I knew,
She held his babe, and, neighbor, I fled away!

I tried to run, but I heard the widow's cry.
Neighbor, I have been hurt and I am not well:
I pray to God that never until I die
May I again have such sorry news to tell.

The next piece we shall cite has travelled across the Atlantic, and come back again under false pretences, and without its author's leave or knowledge. Some years ago an American newspaper published some pathetic stanzas, to which it gave as a title "Exquisite Effusion of a Dying Sister of Charity." One into whose hands this journal chanced to fall, read on with interest and pleasure, feeling the verses strangely familiar--till, on reflection, he found that the poem had been published some time before in _The Month_, over the well-known initials "R. M." As the American journalist named the Irish convent where the Sister of Charity had died--not one of Mrs. Aikenhead's spiritual daughters, but one of those whom we call French Sisters of Charity--the reader aforesaid went to the trouble of writing to the Mother Superior, who gave the following explanation: The holy Sister had been fond of reading and writing verse; and these verses with others were found in her desk after her death and handed over to her relatives as relics. They not comparing them very critically with the nun's genuine literary remains, rashly published them as "The Exquisite Effusion of a Dying Sister of Charity." The foregoing circumstances were soon afterwards published in the _Boston Pilot_; but the ghost of such a blunder is not so easily laid, and the poem reappears in _The Messenger of St. Joseph_ for last August, under the title of "An Invalid's Plaint," and still attributed to the dying Nun, who had only had the good taste to admire and transcribe Miss Mulholland's poem. In all its wanderings to and fro across the Atlantic many corruptions crept into the text; and it would be an interesting exercise in style to collate the version given by _The Messenger_ with the authorized edition which we here copy from page 136 of "Vagrant Verses," where the poem, of course, bears its original name of "Failure."

The Lord, Who fashioned my hands for working,
Set me a task, and it is not done;
I tried and tried since the early morning,
And now to westward sinketh the sun!

Noble the task that was kindly given
To one so little and weak as I--
Somehow my strength could never grasp it,
Never, as days and years went by.

Others around me, cheerfully toiling,
Showed me their work as they passed away;
Filled were their hands to overflowing,
Proud were their hearts, and glad and gay.

Laden with harvest spoils they entered
In at the golden gate of their rest;
Laid their sheaves at the feet of the Master,
Found their places among the blest.

Happy be they who strove to help me,
Failing ever in spite of their aid!
Fain would their love have borne me onward,
But I was unready, and sore afraid.

Now I know my task will never be finished,
And when the Master calleth my name,
The Voice will find me still at my labor,
Weeping beside it in weary shame.

With empty hands I shall rise to meet Him,
And when He looks for the fruits of years,
Nothing have I to lay before Him
But broken efforts and bitter tears.

Yet when He calls I fain would hasten--
Mine eyes are dim and their light is gone;
And I am as weary as though I carried
A burthen of beautiful work well done.

I will fold my empty hands on my bosom,
Meekly thus in the shape of His Cross;
And the Lord, Who made them frail and feeble,
Maybe will pity their strife and loss.

It might have been expected that so skilful an artist in beautiful words would be sure occasionally to find the classic sonnet form the most fitting vehicle for some rounded and stately thought. About half a dozen sonnets are strewn over these pages, all cast in the true Petrarchan mould, and all very properly bearing names of their own, like any other form of verse, instead of being labelled promiscuously as "sonnets." The following is called "Love." What a sublime ideal, only to be realized in human love when in its self-denying sacredness it approaches the divine!

True love is that which never can be lost:
Though cast away, alone and ownerless,
Like a strayed child, that wandering, misses most
When night comes down its mother's last caress;

True love dies not when banished and forgot,
But, solitary, barters still with Heaven
The scanty share of joy cast in its lot
For joys to the beloved freely given.

Love, smiling, stands afar to watch and see
Each blessing it has bought, like angel's kiss,
Fall on the loved one's face, who ne'er may know
At what strange cost thus, overflowingly,
His cup is filled, or how its depth of bliss
Doth give the measure of another's woe.

As this happens to be the solitary one among Miss Mulholland's sonnets, which in the arrangement of the quatrains varies slightly from the most orthodox tradition of this pharisee of song, I will give another specimen, prettily named "Among the Boughs."

High on a gnarled and mossy forest bough,
Dreaming, I hang between the earth and sky,
The golden moon through leafy mystery
Gazing aslant at me with glowing brow.
And since all living creatures slumber now,
O nightingale, save only thou and I,
Tell me the secret of thine ecstacy,
That none may know save only I and thou.

Alas, all vainly doth my heart entreat;
Thy magic pipe unfolds but to the moon
What wonders thee in faery worlds befell:
To her is sung thy midnight-music sweet,
And ere she wearies of thy mellow tune,
She hath thy secret, and will guard it well!

Unstinted as our extracts have been, there are poems here by the score over which our choice has wavered. Our selection has been made partly with a view to the illustration of the variety and versatility displayed by this new poet in matter and form; and on this principle we are tempted to quote "Girlhood at Midnight" as the only piece of blank verse in Miss Mulholland's repertory, to show how musical, how far from blank, she makes that most difficult and perilous measure. But we must put a restraint on ourselves, and just give one more sample, of the achievements of the author of "The Little Flower Seekers" and "The Wild Birds of Killeevy," in what an old writer calls "the melifluous meeters of poesie." This last is called "A Rebuke." Was there ever a sweeter or gentler rebuke?

Why are you so sad? (_sing the little birds, the little birds_,)
All the sky is blue,
We are in our branches, yonder are the herds,
And the sun is on the dew;
Everything is merry, (_sing the happy little birds_,)
Everything but you!

Fire is on the hearthstone, the ship is on the wave,
Pretty eggs are in the nest,
Yonder sits a mother smiling at a grave,
With a baby at her breast;
And Christ was on the earth, and the sinner He forgave
Is with Him in His rest.

We shall droop our wings, (_pipes the throstle on the tree_,)
When everything is done:
Time unfurleth yours, that you soar eternally
In the regions of the sun.
When our day is over, (_sings the blackbird in the lea_,)
Yours is but begun.

Then why are you so sad? (_warble all the little birds_,)
While the sky is blue,
Brooding over phantoms and vexing about words
That never can be true;
Everything is merry, (_trill the happy, happy birds_,)
Everything but you!

The setting of these jewels is almost worthy of them. The book is brought out with that faultless taste which has helped to win for the firm of No. 1 Paternoster Sq., such fame as poets' publishers. A large proportion of contemporary poetry of the highest name, including till lately the Laureate's, has appeared under the auspices of Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., who seem to have expended special care on the production of "Vagrant Verses."

And now, as we have let these poems chiefly speak for themselves, enough has been said. We do not hesitate to add in conclusion, that those among us with pretensions to literary culture, who do not hasten to contribute to the exceptional success which awaits a work such as even our brief account proves this work to be, will so far have failed in their duty towards Irish genius. For this book more than any that we have yet received from its author's hand--nay, more than any that we can hope to receive from her, since this is the consummate flower of her best years--will serve to secure for the name of Rosa Mulholland an enduring place among the most richly gifted of the daughters of Erin.

Dublin, 1886. REV. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S. J.

* * * * *

CONFIDENCE is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] "Vagrant Verses." By Rosa Mulholland. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.

About Critics.

A critic is a judge: and more, he is a judge who knows better than any author how his book should have been written; better than the artist how his picture should have been painted; better than the musician how his music should have been composed; better than the preacher how his sermon ought to have been arranged; better than the Lord Chancellor how he should decide in Equity; better than Sir Frederick Roberts how he should have pursued Ayoob Khan; better than the whole Cabinet how they should govern Ireland; and far better than the Pope how he should guard the deposit of faith. This, no doubt, needs a high culture, a many-sided genius, and the speciality of an expert in all subjects of human intelligence and action. But all that goes for nothing with a true critic. He is never daunted; never at a loss. If he is wrong, he is never the worse, for he criticises anonymously. Sometimes, indeed, the trade is dangerous. A well-known author of precocious literary copiousness, whose volumes contain an "Appendix of Authors quoted" almost as long as the catalogue of the Alexandrian Library, was once invited, maliciously we are afraid, to dine in a select party of specialists, on whose manors the author had been sporting without license. Not only was the jury packed, but the debate was organized with malice aforethought. Each in turn plucked and plucked until the critic was reduced to the Platonic man--_animal bipes implume_.

Addison says, somewhere in the _Spectator_, that ridicule is assumed superiority. Criticism is asserted superiority. Sometimes it may be justified, as when the shoemaker told Titian that he had stitched the shoe of a Doge of Venice in the wrong place. Sometimes it is not equally to be justified, as in the critics of the Divine Government of the world, to whom Butler in his "Analogy" meekly says that, if they only knew the whole system of all things, with all the reasons of them, and the last end to which all things and reasons are directed, they might, peradventure, be of another opinion.

There are some benevolent critics whose life is spent in watching the characters and conduct of all around them. They note every word and tone and gesture; they have a formed, and not a favorable, judgment of all we do and all we leave undone. It does not much matter which: if we did so, we ought not to have done it; if we did not, we ought to have done so. Such critics have, no doubt, an end and place in creation. Socrates told the Athenians that he was their "gadfly." There is room, perhaps, for one gadfly in a city; but in a household, wholesome companions they may be, but not altogether pleasant. These may be called critics of moral superiority. Again, there are Biblical critics, who spend their lives over a text in Scripture, all equally confident, and no two agreed. An old English author irreverently compares them to a cluster of monkeys, who, having found a glowworm, "heaped sticks upon it, and blowed themselves out of breath to set it alight." We commend this incident in scientific history to whomsoever may have inherited Landseer's pallet and brush, under the title of "Doctors in Divinity," for the Royal Academy in next May.

This reminds us of the historical critics who have erected the treatment of the most uncertain of all matters into the certainty of science, by the simple introduction of one additional compound, their own personal infallibility. The universal Church assembled in Council under the guidance of its Head does not, cannot and what is worse, will not, know its own history, or the true interpretation of its own records and acts. But, by a benign though tardy provision, the science of history has arisen, like the art of extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, to recall the Church from its deviations to the recognition of its own true misdeeds. Such higher intelligences may be called and revered as the Pontiffs of the Realm of Criticism.

We are warned, however, not to profane this awful Hierarchy of superior persons by further analysis. We will, therefore, end with three canons, not so much of criticism as of moral common sense. A critic knows more than the author he criticises, or just as much, or at least somewhat less.

As to the first class: Nothing we have said here is _lese majeste_ to the true senate of learned, patient, deliberate, grave, and kindly critics. They are our intellectual physicians, who heal the infirmities of us common men. We submit gladly to their treatment, and learn much by the frequent operations we have to undergo. If the surgeon be rough and his knife sharp, yet he knows better than we, and the smart will make us wiser and more wary, perhaps more real for the time to come. There is, indeed, a constant danger of literary unreality. A great author is reported to have said: "When I want to understand a subject, I write a book about it." Unfortunately, great authors are few, and many books are written by those who do not understand the subject either before or after the fact. The facility of printing has deluged the world with unreal, because shallow, books. Such medical and surgical critics are, therefore, benefactors of the human race.

As to the second class, of those who know just as much as the author they criticise, it would be better for the world that they were fewer or less prompt to judge. The assumption of the critic is that he knows more than his author; and the belief in which we waste our time over their criticisms is that they have something to add to the book. It is dreary work to find, after all, that we have been reading only the book itself in fragments and in another type.

But, lastly, there is a class of critics always ready for anything, the swashbucklers of the Press, who will write at any moment on any subject in newspaper, magazine, or review. Wake them out of their first sleep, and give them something to answer, or to ridicule, or to condemn. It is all one to them. The book itself gives the terminology, and the references, and the quotations, which may be re-quoted with a change of words. We remember two criticisms of the same work in the same week: one laudatory, especially of the facility and accuracy of its classical translations; the other damnatory for its cumbrous and unscholarlike versions. The critic of the black cap was asked by a classical friend whether he had read the book. He said, "No, I smelt it." This unworshipful company of critics is formidable for their numbers, their vocabulary, and their anonymous existence. Their dwelling is not known; but we imagine that it may be not far from Lord Bacon's House of Wisdom, the inmates of which, when they "come forth, lift their hand in the attitude of benediction with the look of those that pity men."

HENRY EDWARD, Cardinal Archbishop, in _Merry England_.

The Celts of South America.

The exiles of Erin wandering far from their native land, are always sure to make their presence felt. Their power is well known in the United States; and it is, therefore, gratifying to note the progress which the Irish race is making amongst the people of South America, and especially in the Argentine Republic. To our countrymen is mainly due the development of the sheep-farming industry, which is carried on to a greater extent than in this country or Australia. Many of them number their acres by thousands and their flocks by hundreds of thousands. And the pleasure which the knowledge of this prosperity gives us is exceedingly increased by the many evidences in which we observe that National spirit and feeling is strong, active and energetic amongst them. In their educational institutions, and notably in Holy Cross College at Buenos Ayres, the study of Irish history is made a special and prominent subject of attention. In the capital, too, an Irish Orphanage has been established, where, under the kindly care of Father Fitzgerald, the children of the dead Irish exiles are lovingly tended and preserved from contaminating influences. In the breasts of the Irishmen of the River Platte there is love for the Old Land as warm and generous as can be found in the green and fertile plains of Meath or Tipperary. There are young men born in this country of Irish parents who are deeply read in Irish history, and who follow with loving anxiety the progress Ireland is making on the road to liberty. There are nearly a quarter of a million of Irishmen in the Argentine Republic, and they may always be relied on to aid their kindred in the Old Land. The chain of Irish loyalty to Ireland is complete around the world.

* * * * *

The Parisians, with that fine appreciation of the fitness of things for which they have always been famous, have changed the adjective _chic_, by which they used to describe the attributes of the "dude" (male or female), for the more expressive one _becarre_. As the latter word is usually interpreted "natural," it would seem that our French cousins, in their estimate of the "dude" species, agree with the Irish, who, disliking to apply the epithet "fool" to any one, invariably designate a silly person as a "natural."

ENCYCLICAL[5]

(QUOD AUCTORITATE)

PROCLAIMING AN EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE.

TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN, THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES,
ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS AND OTHER ORDINARIES OF PLACES HAVING
GRACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE,

POPE LEO XIII.

_Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction._

What we have twice already by Apostolic authority decreed, that an extraordinary year of jubilee should be observed in the whole Christian world, opening for general welfare those heavenly treasures which it is in our power to dispense, we are pleased to decree likewise, with God's blessing, for the coming year. The usefulness of this action you, Venerable Brethren, cannot fail to understand, well aware as you are of the moral condition of our times: but there is a special reason rendering this design more seasonable perhaps than on other occasions. For having in a previous encyclical taught how much it is to the interest of States that they should conform more closely to Christian truth and a Christian character, it can readily be understood how suitable to this very purpose of ours it is to use what means we can to urge men to, or recall them to, the practice of Christian virtues. For the State is what the morals of the people make it: and as the goodness of a ship or a building depends on the goodness of its parts and their proper union, each in its own place, similarly the course of government cannot be rightful or free from obstacles unless the citizens lead righteous lives. Civil discipline and all those things in which public action consists, originate and perish through individuals: they impress on these things the stamp of their opinions and their morals. In order, therefore, that minds may be thoroughly imbued with those precepts of ours, and, above all, that the daily life of the individual be ruled accordingly, efforts must be made to the end that each one shall apply himself to the attainment of Christian wisdom, and also of Christian action not less publicly than privately.

And in this matter efforts must be increased in proportion to the greater number of dangers that threaten on every side. For the great virtues of our fathers have declined in no small part: passions that have of themselves very great force have through license striven to still greater: unsound opinions entirely unrestrained or insufficiently restrained are becoming daily more widespread: among those who hold correct sentiments there are many, who, deterred by an unreasonable shame, do not dare to profess freely what they believe, and much less to carry it out: most wretched examples have exercised an influence on popular morals here and there: sinful societies, which we ourselves have already designated, that are most proficient in criminal artifices, strive to impose on the people and to withdraw and alienate as many as possible from God, from sacred duties, from Christian faith.

Under the pressure of so many evils, whose very length of duration makes them greater, we must not omit anything that affords any hope of relief. With this design and this hope, we are about to proclaim a sacred Jubilee, admonishing and exhorting all who have their salvation at heart to collect themselves for a little while and turn to better things their thoughts that now are sunken in the earth. And this will be salutary not only to private persons but to the whole commonwealth, for the reason that as much as any person singly advances in perfection of mind, so much of an increase of virtue will be given to public life and morals.

But the desired result depends, as you see, Venerable Brethren, in great measure on your work and diligence, since the people must be suitably and carefully prepared in order that they may receive the fruits intended. It will pertain, therefore, to your charity and wisdom to give to priests selected for the purpose the charge of instructing the people by pious discourses suited to common capacity, and especially of exhorting to penance, which is, according to St. Augustine, "The daily punishment of the good and humble of the faithful in which we strike our breasts, saying: forgive us our trespasses." (Epist. 108.) Not without reason we mention, in the first place, penance and what is a part of it, the voluntary chastisement of the body. For you know the custom of the world: it is the choice of many to lead a life of effeminacy, to do nothing demanding fortitude and true courage. They fall into much other wretchedness, and often fashion reasons why they should not obey the salutary laws of the Church, thinking that a greater burden has been imposed on them than can be borne, when they are commanded to abstain from a certain kind of food, or to observe a fast on a few days of the year. Enervated by such mode of life, it is not to be wondered at that they by degrees give themselves up entirely to passions that call for greater indulgence still. It is proper, therefore, to recall to temperance those who have fallen into or are inclined to effeminacy; and for this reason those who are to address the people must carefully and minutely teach them what is a command not only of the law of the gospel but of natural reason as well, that every one ought to exercise self-control and hold his passions in subjection; that sins are not expiated except by penance. And that this virtue may be of enduring character, it will not be an unsuitable provision to place it as it were in the trust and keeping of an institution having a permanent character. You readily understand, Venerable Brethren, to what we refer; namely, to your perseverance--each in his own diocese--in protecting and extending the Third, or _secular_, Order of St. Francis. Surely, to preserve and foster the spirit of penance among Christians, there will be great aid in the examples and favor of the Patriarch Francis of Assisi, who to the greatest innocence of life joined a studious chastisement of himself so that he seemed to bear the image of Jesus Christ crucified not less in his life and customs than in the signs that were divinely impressed upon him. The laws of that order, which have been by us suitably tempered, are very easily observed; their importance to Christian virtue is by no means slight.

Secondly, in so great private and public needs, since the whole hope of salvation lies in the favor and keeping of our Heavenly Father, we greatly wish the revival of a constant and confiding habit of prayer. In every great crisis of the Christian commonwealth, whenever it happened to the Church to be pressed by external or internal dangers, our ancestors raising suppliant eyes to Heaven have signally taught in what way and from whence were to be sought strong virtue and suitable aid. Minds were thoroughly imbued with those precepts of Jesus Christ, "Ask and it shall be given you;" (Matt. vii. 7.) "We ought always to pray and to fail not." (Luke xviii. 1.) Consonant with this is the voice of the Apostles, "pray without ceasing;" (1 Thessal. v. 17.) "I desire, therefore, first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men." (1 Tim. ii. 1.) On this point John Chrysostom has left us, with not less acuteness than truth, the following comparison: as to man, when he comes naked and needing everything in the world, nature has given hands by the aid of which to procure what is necessary for life, so in those things that are above nature, since of himself he can do nothing, God has bestowed on him the faculty of prayer by the wise use of which he may easily obtain all that is required for salvation. And in these matters let all of you determine, Venerable Brethren, how pleasing and satisfactory to us is the care you have, with our initiative, taken to promote the devotion of the Holy Rosary, especially in these recent years. Nor can we pass over in silence the general piety awakened in the people nearly everywhere in that matter: nevertheless the greatest care is to be taken that this devotion be made still more ardent and lasting. If we continue to urge this, as we have more than once done already, none of you will be surprised, understanding as you do of how much moment it is that the practice of the Rosary of Mary should flourish among Christians, and knowing well, as you do, that it is a very beautiful form and part of that very spirit of prayer of which we speak, and that it is suitable to the times, easily practiced, and of most abundant usefulness.

But since the first and chief fruit of a Jubilee, as we have above pointed out, ought to be amendment of life and an increase of virtue, we consider especially necessary the avoidance of that evil which we have not failed to designate in previous Encyclical letters. We mean the internal and nearly domestic dissensions of some of our own, which dissolve, or certainly relax, the bond of charity, with an almost inexpressible harm. We have here mentioned this matter again to you, Venerable Brethren, guardians of ecclesiastical discipline and mutual charity, because we wish your watchfulness and authority continually applied to the abolition of this grave disadvantage. Admonishing, exhorting, reproving, work to the end that all be "solicitous to preserve unity of the spirit in the bond of peace," and that those may return to duty who are the cause of dissension, keeping in mind in every step of life that the only-begotten Son of God at the very approach of his supreme agonies sought nothing more ardently from his Father than that those should love one another who believed or were to believe in him, "that they all may be one as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." (John xvii. 21.)