Chapter VI (5)

No. 465, "Greenwood Lake," by Cropsey, is a pleasanter picture than we commonly see from this artist, who, to judge from his productions, scarcely ever saw a cloudy day, and has a very indifferent acquaintance with shadows. Here is a still, serene summer afternoon, in the foreground a newly-mown hayfield, with a group of mowers and rakers, just pausing from their labor, and beyond the placid bosom of the lake. Despite its somewhat monotonous uniformity of tone, the picture is pervaded by an agreeable sentiment of repose, characteristic of midsummer; and as an honest attempt to portray a pleasing phase of nature it is welcome. No. 493, "Afternoon in the Housatonic Valley," by J.B. Bristol, represents the period of the day selected by Mr. Cropsey, but the tone of his picture is lower and cooler, and the coloring more harmonious. Its most noticeable feature is a noble mountain in the background, whose wooded sides afford fine contrasts of light and shadow. No. 494, "A Foggy Morning--Coast of France," by Dana, evinces more desire to catch the secret of rich coloring than success. It is not by scattering warm pigments about, without regard to harmony or gradation, that Mr. Dana can attain his end; and so far as color is concerned he shows no improvement upon his work of former years. In composition he wields, as usual, a graceful pencil, and his children are pleasingly and naturally drawn.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE ILIAD OF HOMER RENDERED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE. By Edward, Earl of Derby. 2 vols. 8vo., pp. 430 and 457. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.

There have been several translations of the Iliad into English verse, but, practically, only three have hitherto been much in vogue. The first of these, by Chapman, is a work of considerable spirit, of a rude, fiery kind; but it is unfaithful, and has long been antiquated. Pope's brilliant and thoroughly un-Homeric version will always be popular as a poem, though anything more widely different from the original was probably never published as a translation. Cowper is verbally accurate, but tame and tiresome. A translation in blank verse, by William Munford, of Richmond, Va., appeared in Boston some twenty years ago, but does not seem to have attracted the attention it deserved.

Lord Derby appears to have avoided nearly all the defects and combined nearly all the merits of his predecessors. He has aimed "to produce a translation and not a paraphrase; not, indeed, such a translation as would satisfy, with regard to each word, the rigid requirements of accurate scholarship, but such as would fairly and honestly give the sense and spirit of every passage and of every line, omitting nothing and expanding nothing, and adhering as closely as our language will allow, even to every epithet which is capable of being translated, and which has, in the particular passage, anything of a special and distinctive character." The testimony of critics is almost unanimous as to the success with which he has carried out his design. His translation is incomparably more faithful than either of those we have mentioned. He almost invariably perceives the delicate shades of meaning which Pope was {571} not scholar enough to notice, and he is often wonderfully happy in expressing them in English. His language is dignified and pure; his style animated and idiomatic; and his verse has more of the majestic flow of Homer than that of any previous translator. He has produced by all odds the best version of the Iliad in the English language.

That a statesman should have succeeded in a task of this sort, where Pope and Cowper failed, is strange indeed. But let our readers judge for themselves: we give first a somewhat celebrated passage from Pope--the bivouac of the Trojans, at the end of the eighth book--premising that Pope prefixes to it four lines which have no equivalent in the Greek, and which are not only an interpolation but a positive injury to the sense:

"The troops exulting sat in order round,
And beaming fires illumined all the ground.
As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O'er heaven's clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene;
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole,
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And tip with silver every mountain's head;
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise,
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light.
So many flames before proud Ilion blaze,
And lighten glimmering Xanthus with their rays:
The long reflections of the distant fires
Gleam on the walls, and tremble on the spires;
A thousand piles the dusky horrors gild,
And shoot a shady lustre o'er the field,
Full fifty guards each flaming pile attend,
Whose umbered arms, by fits, thick flashes send,
Loud neigh the coursers o'er their heaps of corn,
And ardent warriors wait the rising morn."

This is not a faultless passage, but no one can help admiring the felicitous imagery, the vivid word-painting, the wonderful harmony of the versification. Yet what reader of Homer will hesitate to prefer Lord Derby's simpler and almost strictly literal rendering?

"Full of proud hopes, upon the pass of war,
All night they camped; and frequent blazed their fires.
As when in heaven, around the glittering moon
The stars shine bright amid the breathless air;
And every crag, and every jutting peak
Stands boldly forth, and every forest glade;
_Ev'n to the gates of heaven is opened wide
The boundless sky;_ shines each particular star
Distinct; joy fills the gazing shepherd's heart.
So bright, so thickly scattered o'er the plain,
Before the walls of Troy, between the ships
And Xanthus' stream, the Trojan watchfires blazed.
A thousand fires burnt brightly; and round each
Sat fifty warriors in the ruddy glare;
With store of provender before them laid,
Barley and rye, the tethered horses stood
Beside the cars, and waited for the morn."

Take now the description of Vulcan serving the gods at a banquet, from the conclusion of the first book. Cowper gives it as follows:

"So he; then Juno smiled, goddess white-armed,
And smiling still, from his unwonted hand
Received the goblet. He from right to left [Footnote 112]
Rich nectar from the beaker drawn, alert
Distributed to all the powers divine.
Heaven rang with laughter inextinguishable,
Peal after peal, such pleasure all conceived
At sight of Vulcan in his new employ.
So spent they in festivity the day,
And all were cheered; nor was Apollo's harp
Silent, nor did the muses spare to add
Responsive melody of vocal sweets.
But when the sun's bright orb had now declined,
Each to his mansion, wheresoever built
By the same matchless architect, withdrew.
Jove also, kindler of the fires of heaven,
His couch ascending as at other times
When gentle sleep approached him, slept serene,
With golden-sceptred Juno by his side."

[Footnote 112: Just the reverse,--_from left to right_, [Greek text]
Cowper's blunder is serious, because to proceed from right to left
was looked upon by the Greeks as unlucky.]

{572}

Cowper is better than Pope here; but Lord Derby is the most literal and by far the best of the three. His lines have a dignified simplicity not unworthy the father of poetry himself; yet the translation is nearly verbatim:

"Thus as he spoke, the white-armed goddess smiled,
And smiling from his hand received the cup,
Then to th' immortals all in order due
He ministered, and from the flagon poured
The luscious nectar; while among the gods
Rose laughter irrepressible, at sight
Of Vulcan hobbling round the spacious hall.
Thus they till sunset passed the festive hours;
Nor lacked the banquet aught to please the sense,
Nor sound of tuneful lyre, by Phoebus touched,
Nor muses' voice, who in alternate strains
Responsive sang; but when the sun was set,
Each for his home departed, where for each
The cripple Vulcan, matchless architect,
With wondrous skill a noble house had reared.
To his own couch, where he was wont of old,
When overcome by gentle sleep, to rest,
Olympian Jove ascended; there he slept,
And by his side the golden-throned queen."

If our space permitted we might easily extend these comparisons, and show that Lord Derby excels other translators in every phase of his undertaking--in the rude shock of war, the touching emotions of human sentiment, the debates of the gods, and the beauties and phenomena of nature. We cannot refrain, however, from quoting a few passages of conspicuous excellence.

Hector's assault on the ships in the fifteenth book is thus spiritedly rendered:

"Fiercely he raged, as terrible as Mars
With brandished spear; or as a raging fire
'Mid the dense thickets on the mountain side.
The foam was on his lips; bright flashed his eyes
Beneath his awful brows, and terribly
Above his temples waved amid the fray
The helm of Hector; Jove himself from heaven
His guardian hand extending, him alone
With glory crowning 'mid the host of men,
But short his term of glory; for the day
Was fast approaching, when, with Pallas' aid
The might of Peleus' son should work his doom.
Oft he essayed to break the ranks, where'er
The densest throng and noblest arms he saw;
But strenuous though his efforts, all were vain;
They, massed in close array, his charge withstood;
Firm as a craggy rock, upstanding high
Close by the hoary sea, which meets unmoved
The boist'rous currents of the whistling winds,
And the big waves that bellow round its
So stood unmoved the Greeks, and undismayed.
At length, all blazing in his arms, he sprang
Upon the mass; so plunging down as when
On some tall vessel, from beneath the clouds
A giant billow, _tempest-nursed_, descends:
The deck is drenched in foam; the stormy wind
Howls in the shrouds; th' affrighted seamen quail
In fear, but little way from death removed; [Footnote 113]
So quailed the spirit in every Grecian breast."

[Footnote 113: We are particularly struck with the
excellence of Lord Derby's translation of this
magnificent image when we contrast it with Mr.,
Munford's:

"As on a ship a wat'ry mountain falls,
Driven from the clouds by all the furious winds;
With foam the deck is covered, pitiless
The deafening tempest roars among the shrouds;
The sailors, whirled along by raging waves.
Tremble, confused and faint; immediate death
Appears before them."

Yet, no less an authority than the late President
Felton, of Harvard, pronounced Munford's
the best of all English metrical versions of the
Iliad.]

In book sixth Hector is accosted by his mother on his return from the battle-field. She offers him wine, wherewith to pour a libation to Jove and then to refresh himself. Lord Darby's translation of his answer is very neat and very close to the original:

{573}

"No, not for me, mine honored mother, pour
The luscious wine, lest thou unnerve my limbs
And make me all my wonted prowess lose.
The ruddy wine I dare not pour to Jove
With hands unwashed; nor to the cloud-girt son
Of Saturn may the voice of prayer ascend
From one with blood bespattered and defiled."

We close our extracts with a few lines from book third. Priam, sitting with "the sage chiefs and councillors of Troy" at the Scaean gate watching the hostile armies, thus addresses Helen:

"'Come here, my child, and sitting by my side,
From whence thou canst discern thy former lord,
His kindred and his friends (not thee I blame,
But to the gods I owe this woful war),
Tell me the name of yonder mighty chief
Among the Greeks a warrior brave and strong:
Others in height surpass him; but my eyes
A form so noble never yet beheld,
Nor so august; he moves, a king indeed.'
To whom in answer, Helen, heav'nly fair:
'With rev'rence, dearest father, and with shame
I look on thee: oh, would that I had died
That day when hither with thy son I came,
And left my husband, friends, and darling child,
And all the loved companions of my youth:
That I died not, with grief I pine away.
But to thy question; I will tell thee true;
Yon chief is Agamemnon, Atreus' son,
Wide-reigning, mighty monarch, ruler good,
And valiant warrior; in my husband's name,
Lost as I am, I called him brother once.'"

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LIFE OF MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO. By William Forsyth, M.A., Q.C., author of "Hortensius," "Napoleon at St. Helena and Sir Hudson Lowe," "History of Trial by Jury," etc., and late fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Two volumes, 8vo., pp. 364 and 341. New York: Charles Scribner & Co.

Mr. Forsyth has a very correct notion of the business of a biographer. His object has been not only to tell Cicero's history but to describe his private life--to make us acquainted with minute details of his domestic habits, and to represent him as far as possible in the same manner as he would a man of the present generation. "The more we accustom ourselves," he says, "to regard the ancients as persons of like passions as ourselves, and familiarize ourselves with the idea of them as fathers, husbands, friends, and _gentlemen_, the better we shall understand them." He has therefore carefully gathered up from the letters and other writings of the Roman orator those little bits of personal allusion, domestic history, and unconsidered trifles which indicate, more clearly sometimes than important actions, the bent of one's mind or the inmost character of one's heart; and he has arranged them with great skill, and a good eye for effect. He shows but slight literary polish; his style is not elegant, nor always clear, nor even dignified; but he has a logical way of putting things, a happy knack of arrangement, and a habit of keeping to the point and throwing aside superfluous matter, for which we dare say he is indebted to his training as a pleader in the courts. As a lawyer, too, he is specially qualified to give the history of the causes in which Cicero's orations were delivered; and this he does better than we have ever seen it done before, explaining the narrative by copious illustrations from modern jurisprudence. But if in some respects he writes like a lawyer, in another very important point his practice as an advocate seems not to have affected him. He is thoroughly impartial. He sums up Cicero's character more like a judge than a queen's counsel. He admires him but not blindly; holding the safe middle path between the excessive veneration shown by Middleton and Niebuhr and the unreasonable animosity of Drumann and Mommsen. He admits that Cicero was weak, timid, and irresolute; but these defects were counter-balanced by the display, at critical periods of his life, of the very opposite qualities. In the contest with Catiline and the final struggle with Antony he was as firm and brave as a man need be. One principal cause of his irresolution was an anxiety to do what was right. If he knew that he had acted wrongly, he instantly felt all the agony of remorse. His standard of morality was as high as it was perhaps possible to elevate it by the mere light of nature. The chief fault of his moral character was a want of sincerity. In a different sense of the words from that expressed by St. Paul, he wished to become all things to all men, if by any means he might win some. His private correspondence and {574} his public speeches were often in direct contradiction with each other as to the opinions he expressed of his contemporaries. His foible was vanity. He was never tired of speaking of himself. As a philosopher he had no pretensions to originality, but he was the first to make known to his countrymen the philosophy of Greece, which until he appeared may be said to have spoken to the Romans in an unknown tongue. He adhered to no particular sect, but affected chiefly the school of the new academy. He was a firm believer in a providence and a future state. As an orator his faults are coarseness in invective, exaggeration in matter, and prolixity in style. "Many of his sentences are intolerably long, and he dwells upon a topic with an exhaustive fulness which leaves nothing to the imagination. The pure gold of his eloquence is beaten out too thin, and what is gained in surface is lost in solidity and depth."

The position of Cicero with respect to the political parties into which the republic was divided in his time is not so well described as his personal character. While Mr. Forsyth displays industry and good judgment in collecting and arranging the little traits which go to make up a life-like portrait, he lacks the comprehensive and philosophical view with which Merivale has recently surveyed the same period of history. Forsyth writes as one who, having mingled with the busy crowd in the forum, should come away and tell us what he had seen and heard, and describe the men with whom he had talked. Merivale surveys the scene from a distance; and though his perception of individual objects is less distinct than Forsyth's, his view is broader and takes in better the relative situations and proportions of the various features spread out before him. Both are excellent in their kind: the historian is the more instructive, the biographer the more entertaining.

BEATRICE. By Julia Kavanagh, author of "Nathalie," "Adele," "Queen Mab," etc., etc. Three volumes in one. 12mo., pp. 520. New York: D. Appleton & Company.

The readers of "Adele" and "Nathalie" will hardly be prepared for what awaits them in the novel now upon our table. Miss Kavanagh has won a high reputation by her delicate pictures of quiet home life, and thorough analyses of female character. But lately the prevailing thirst for sensational stories appears to have enticed her away from the old path, and led her to attempt a style of novel which will no doubt please the majority of readers better than her earlier efforts, though as a work of art it is inferior to them. It is by no means however a merely sensation story. The heroine is painted with all Miss Kavanagh's accustomed clearness and skill; although the uninterrupted series of plots and counterplots, the dramatic terseness of the dialogue, and the effectiveness of the situations, tempt one to forget sometimes, in the absorbing interest of the narrative, the higher merit of vivid and truthful drawing of character. That of Beatrice is charmingly conceived, and admirably worked out, recalling those delightful heroines who first gave Miss Kavanagh a hold upon the popular heart. Beatrice is a spirited, proud, natural, warm-hearted girl, born in poverty and fallen heiress unexpectedly to great wealth. Her guardian and step-father, Mr. Gervoise, subjects her to innumerable wrongs in order that he may get possession of the property. Poison even and a mad-house are hinted at. The book is principally a narrative of battle between the defenceless girl and this villain. Our readers who may wish to know how the struggle ends are referred to the book itself; they will have no reason to regret the time they may spend in reading it.

GRACE MORTON; OR, THE INHERITANCE. A Catholic Tale. By M.L.M. 12mo., pp. 324.

THE CONFESSORS OF CONNAUGHT; OR, THE TENANTS OF A LORD BISHOP. A Tale of our Times. By M. L. M., author of Grace Morton, etc. 12mo., pp.319. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Company.

These are both religious stories. The first is inscribed to the Catholic youth of America, and the scene is laid in Pennsylvania. The second is founded upon the evictions in 1860, in the parish of Partry, Ireland, of a number of tenants of the Protestant bishop of Tuam, who had refused to send their children to proselytizing schools. The well-known missionary, Father Lavelle, is a {575} prominent figure in the book, slightly disguised under the name of Father Dillon.

A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA UNTIL THE PRESENT TIME. By M. l'Abbe J.E. Darras. First American from the last French edition. With an Introduction and Notes, by the Most Rev. M.J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Numbers 6, 7, and 8. 8vo. pp. (each) 48. New York: P. O'Shea.

We are pleased to learn that two valuable appendices are to be added to the American translation of this important work; one by an eminent Jesuit on the history of the Church in Ireland, the other by the Rev. C.I. White, D.D., on the history of the Church in America. The English version of the book ought thus to be far superior to the original French. The numbers appear with great promptness, and present the same neat and tasteful appearance which we took occasion to praise in noticing some of the earlier parts.

LIFE OF THE CURE D'ARS. From the French of the Abbe Alfred Monnin. 12mo., pp. 355. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

It is only six years since Jean Baptist Marie Vianney, better known as the Cure of Ars, closed his mortal life in that little village near Lyons which will probably be henceforth for ever associated with his name. "A common consent," says Dr. Manning, in a preface to the book before us, "seems to have numbered him, even while living, among the servants of God; and an expectation prevails that the day is not far off when the Church will raise him to veneration upon her altars." He was the son of a farmer of Dardilly, near Lyons, and appears to have inherited virtue from both his parents. God gave him neither graces of person nor gifts of intellect. His face was pale and thin, his stature low, his gait awkward, his manner shy and timid, his whole air common and unattractive. His education was so defective that his teachers hesitated to recommend him for ordination. But the want of human learning seems to have been supplied by supernatural illumination. When he went to Ars, virtue was little known there. To say that he speedily wrought an entire reformation is but a faint expression of the extraordinary effect of his ministry. Drunkenness and quarreling were soon unknown. At the sound of the midday _Angelus_ the laborers would stop in their work to recite the _Ave Maria_ with uncovered head. Men and women used to repair to the church after their work was done, and often came again to pray at two or three o'clock in the morning. The cure himself, it may be said, never left the church except to discharge some function of his ministry, to take one scanty meal a day, of bread or potatoes, and to sleep two or three hours. In the seventh year of his ministry he founded an asylum for orphan or destitute girls which he called "The Providence." It is believed that he was miraculously assisted in providing food and clothing for these poor children. Once the stock of flour was exhausted, except enough to make two loaves. "Put your leaven into the little flour you have," said the cure to the baker, "and to-morrow go on with your baking as usual." "The next day," says this person, "I know not how it happened, but as I kneaded, the dough seemed to rise and rise under my fingers; I could not put in the water quick enough; the more I put in, the more it swelled and thickened, so that I was able to make, with a handful of flour, ten large loaves of from twenty to twenty-two pounds each, as much, in fact, as could have been made with a whole sack of flour."

It was in consequence partly of circumstances of this nature connected with the Providence, and partly of the reputation of M. Vianney as a spiritual director, that a stream of pilgrims set in toward Ars that has continued to flow ever since. Before the close of his life, as many as eighty thousand persons are said to have visited him in a single year, by a single route. Most of them came to confess; many to be cured of deformities or disease; others to ask advice in special difficulties. The number of cures effected at his hands was prodigious. His labors in the confessional were almost beyond belief; for thirty years he spent in this severest of all the duties of a parish priest sixteen or eighteen hours a day. Penitents were content to await their turn in the church all night, all the next day--even two {576} days. Devout persons were so eager to get relics of him during his life, that whenever he laid aside his hat or his surplice the garment was immediately appropriated. So after a time he never put on a hat, and never took off his surplice.

It seemed at last that his humility could no longer endure the veneration that was paid him. He resolved to retire to a quiet place, and spend the rest of his life in prayer. He attempted to escape secretly by night; but one of his assistant priests discovered his purpose, and contrived to delay him, until the alarm was sounded through the village. The inhabitants were roused at the first stroke. The clangor of the bell was soon mingled with confused cries of "M. le cure!" The women crowded the market-place and prayed aloud in the church; the men armed themselves with whatever came first to hand; guns, forks, sticks, and axes. M. Vianney made his way with difficulty to the street door, but the villagers would not let him open it. "He went from one door to another," says his old servant, "without getting angry; but I think he was weeping." At last he reached the street, and stood still for a moment, considering how to escape. His assistant made a last effort to persuade him to remain. The populace fell at his feet, and cried, with heart-rending sobs, "Father, let us finish our confession; do not go without hearing us!" And thus saying, they carried rather than led him to the church. He knelt before the altar and wept for a long time. Then he went quietly into his confessional as if nothing had happened.

We would gladly quote the whole of the beautiful scene of which we have attempted to give an outline; but our space forbids. We must pass over also the graphic description of the abbe's death and funeral, as well as the narrative of the extraordinary sufferings which made his life one long purgatory. Let our readers get the book, and they will find it as interesting as a romance.

THE LIFE OF JOHN MARY DECALOGNE, STUDENT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS. Translated from the French. 18mo., pp. 162. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

This edifying narrative of the short and almost angelic career of a school-boy who died in the odor of sanctity, in his seventeenth year, was a great favorite with our fathers and grandfathers, but we believe has long been out of print. Its re-publication is a praiseworthy adventure, which we hope will have the success it deserves. The book is especially recommended to lads preparing for their first communion.

_The New Path_, for June (New York: James Miller, publisher), is devoted wholly to the fortieth annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design. Our spicy little contemporary has no mercy on the artists.

_Truebner's American and Oriental Literary Record_, the first number of which was published in London last March, is "a monthly register of the most important works published in North and South America, in India, China, and the British Colonies; with occasional notes on German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian books." We believe it is the first systematic attempt to bring the young literature of America and the East before the public of Europe. We commend it to the attention of our book-writing and publishing friends.

The American News Company issue a little pamphlet on _The Russo-Greek Church, by a former resident of Russia_. Its aim is to expose the absurdity of the attempts at union between the Russian and Protestant Episcopal Churches.

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BOOKS RECEIVED.

History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth. By James Anthony Froude, M.A. New York: Charles Scribner & Company.

The History of the Protestant Reformation, etc. By M.J. Spalding, D.D., Archbishop of Baltimore. Fourth revised edition. Baltimore: John Murphy & Company.

Ceremonial for the use of the Catholic Churches in the United States of America. Third edition, revised and enlarged. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

Meditations and Considerations for a Retreat of One Day in each Month. Compiled from the writings of Fathers of the Society of Jesus. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet.

The Year of Mary. Translated from the French of the Rev. M. d'Arville, Apostolic Prothonotary. Edited and in part translated by Mrs. J. Sadlier. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham.

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{577}

THE CATHOLIC WORLD,

VOL. I., NO. 5. AUGUST, 1865.

Translated from Etudes Religieuses, Historiques, et Litteraires, par des Peres de la Compagnie de Jesus.

DRAMATIC MYSTERIES OF THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.

BY A. CAHOUR, S. J.

The drama of the Middle Ages ends with a sort of theatrical explosion. Everything disappears at once, under all forms and on every side. It included, like that of earlier times, "mysteries" drawn from the Old and the New Testament; "miracles" and plays borrowed from legends, tragedies inspired by the acts of the martyrs and by chivalric romances, by ancient history and by modern history; "moralities" whose allegorical impersonations represent the vices and the virtues; pious comedies like those of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, upon the Nativity of Jesus Christ, upon the Adoration of the Magi, upon the Holy Family in the desert; profane comedies like those of the "Two Daughters" and the "Two Wives" by the same princess; ludicrous farces like that of Patelin the Advocate; licentious farces _ad nauseam;_ finally, the _"Soties,"_ satirical plays in which the _Clercs de la Basoche_ and the _Enfants sans souci_ renewed the audacity of Aristophanes without reviving his talent. There were representations for all solemn occasions, for the patron-feasts of cities and parishes, for the assemblies of a whole country, for the "joyous entry" of kings and princes. There were also scenic _entremets_ for banquets; and nearly all these displays were made with proportions so gigantic, with so much pomp and expense, that everybody must have participated in them, priests and magistrates, lords and citizens, carpenters and minstrels. The representation of a "mystery" became the affair of a whole city, of a whole province. The hangings of the theatre, the costume of the actors, exhibited the most beautiful tapestries, the richest dresses, the most precious jewels of the neighboring chateaux, and even the ornaments of the churches--copes for the eternal Father, dalmatics for the angels.

One of our most ingenious and learned critics, whom it is impossible not to cite frequently when writing upon the dramatic poetry of the sixteenth century, M. Sainte-Beuve, in speaking of this prodigious fecundity, has remarked, that "when things are close to their end they often have a final season of remarkable brilliancy--it is their autumn--their vintage; {578} or it is like the last brilliant discharge in a piece of fireworks." Perhaps there is no better illustration of this phenomenon than that of a pyrotechnic display, which multiplying its jets of light, and illuminating the entire horizon at the very moment of its extinction, disappears into the night and leaves naught behind but its smoke. What is there left, in fact, after all this theatrical effervescence? One natural and truly French inspiration alone--the immortal farce of Patelin, dating from the second half of the fifteenth century, and revived at the commencement of the eighteenth by Brueys and Palaprat.

However, despite its poverty, this dramatic epoch merits our close attention. In giving us a picture of the public amusements of our forefathers, it will indicate, on the one hand, the nature of their morality and their literary tastes, and on the other, the causes of the decline of the old Christian drama at the verge of the revolution which delivered over the French stage to the ideas and the philosophy of paganism.

If we wished to give a catalogue of the productions of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, we might easily compile it from the history of the brothers Parfait, the _"Recherches"_ of Beauchamps, and the _"Bibliotheque"_ of the Duke de la Valliere. Such a task, however abridged, would require a long chapter, and we neither have time to undertake it nor are we sorry at being obliged to omit it. Passing straight to our goal, let us occupy ourselves with the tragic dramas alone, and even here we must put bounds to our inquiry under penalty of losing ourselves in endless and uninteresting details. All that which characterizes the Melpomene of the fifteenth and the commencement of the sixteenth centuries is found in the two great works, "The Mystery of the Passion," and "The Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles." In these, and we may almost say in these only, shall we study its power and its originality.

"The Mystery of the Passion" is the work of two Angevin poets, named alike Jehan Michel. The first, born toward the end of the fourteenth century, after having been a canon and at the same time secretary of Queen Yolande of Aragon, mother of the good King Rene, Count of Anjou and of Provence, became bishop of Angers, February 19, 1438, and died in the odor of sanctity, September 12, 1447. The second Jehan Michel, a very eloquent and scientific doctor, as la Croix du Maine informs us, was the chief physician of King Charles VIII., and died in Piedmont, August 22, 1493. He edited and printed, in 1486, the work of his namesake.

This mystery was played at Metz and at Paris in 1437, and at Angers three years afterward upon the commencement of the episcopacy of its first author. It is a gigantic trilogy, into which are fused and co-ordinated all the dramatic representations borrowed for three centuries from the canonical and apocryphal gospels.

"It is," remarks M. Douhaire, in his eleventh lecture on the History of Christian Poetry before the Renaissance,--"it is a great central sea into which flow all the streams of a common poetic region. From the refreshing pictures of the patriarchal life of Joachim and Ann to the sublime scenes of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the saints of the ancient law, all, or nearly all, that has caught our eyes before is here found anew, sometimes as a reminiscence, sometimes in the lifelike and spirited form of a dialogue. The legend of the death of the Holy Virgin, the legends of the apostles, of Pilate, and of the Wandering Jew, have alone been omitted; whether because they appeared to the authors of the mystery to break the theological unity of their work, or because their length excluded them from a composition already swollen far beyond reasonable limits."

The mystery opens with a council held in heaven upon the redemption {579} of the human race. On the one side Mercy and Peace, in allegorical character, implore pardon for our first parents and their posterity. On the other, Justice and Truth demand the eternal condemnation of the guilty. To conciliate them, there must be found a man without sin who will freely die for the salvation of all. They go forth to seek him on the earth. To the council of heaven succeeds that of hell. Lucifer in terror convokes his demons to oppose the redemption of the world. During their tumultuous deliberation the four virtues return in despair to heaven. They have failed to find the generous and pure victim necessary for expiation. The Son of God offers himself, and the mystery of the incarnation is decreed. [Footnote 114] St. Joachim espouses St. Ann, and Mary is born of the union so long sterile. Then follows the scenic display of all the legendary and gospel narratives of her education, her marriage with St. Joseph, the incarnation of the Word, the birth of Jesus Christ, and all the wonders of his infancy up to his dispute in the temple with the doctors. It is at this point that the great drama completes its first part, which is entitled "The Mystery of the Conception." It is adapted, after the style of the time, for ninety-seven persons.

[Footnote 114: This is the idea of St. Bernard dramatized. _In festo
Annunciationis B.M.V. Sermo primus_, No. 9; vol. i., p. 974.]

The second part, which has given its name to the entire drama, is the "Mystery of the Passion of Jesus Christ." It is divided into four "days," each of which has its appropriate actors. The first day, which is for eighty-seven persons, extends from the preaching of St. John the Baptist, in the wilderness, to his beheading. The second requires a hundred persons. It comprises the sermons and miracles of our Saviour, and ends with the resurrection of Lazarus. The third commences with the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and ends with Annas and Caiphas. This day is for eighty-seven persons, like the first. The fourth requires five hundred. It is the representation of all the scenes in the tribunal of Pilate and at the court of Herod, at Calvary and at the holy sepulchre.

The third part, entitled "The Resurrection," represents Jesus Christ manifesting himself to his disciples in different places after he has risen from the tomb; then his ascension and entrance into heaven in the midst of concerts of angels; and finally, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles assembled together in an upper chamber. We have two different forms of this third part. One is in three days; the other in one. The former has only forty-five persons; one hundred and forty are needed for the latter.

These three dramas, of which the trilogy of the Passion is composed, were played for a century and a half, sometimes together, sometimes separately. When represented at Paris, in 1437, at the entrance of Charles VII., they closed with a spectacle of the final judgment. [Footnote 115] There are even found amplifiers who carry it back as far as the origin of the world. It will be difficult to say how much time the performance of this agglomeration of dramas required. Some idea, however, can be formed from a representation of the Old Testament, arranged about 1500, which set out with the creation of the angels and did not arrive at the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ until after twenty-two days. Was the trilogy of the two Angevin poets sometimes preceded by this immense prelude? We cannot tell. But the length of the spectacle would render this conjecture incredible, since the "Triumphant Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles," played at Bruges, in 1536, lasted forty days, morning and afternoon. {580} These spectacles commenced ordinarily at nine in the morning. Then at eleven o'clock the people went to dinner, and returned again two hours after.

[Footnote 115: "All along the great Rue St. Denis," according to
Alain Chartier, "to the distance of a stone's throw on both sides,
were erected scaffoldings of great and costly construction, where
were played The Annunciation of Our Lady, The Nativity of our Lord,
his Passion, his Resurrection, Pentecost, and the Last Judgment, the
whole passing off quite well." (Beauchamps' _Recherches sur les
theaters de France,_ t. i., p. 254-256).]

This drama, thirty or forty times longer than our longest classical tragedies, contains, at the least, sixty-six thousand verses. It was printed for the first time, in 1537, in two volumes folio, and proved its popularity by three different editions within four years. The emphasis of its title attests, moreover, the immense success of its representation at Bruges the year before. It was the composition of two brothers, Arnoul and Simon Greban, born at Compiegne. Arnoul, by whom it was conceived and commenced about 1450, was a canon of Mans. He died before he had finished versifying it. Simon, monk of St. Riquier, in Ponthieu, completed it during the reign of Charles VII., and, consequently, before 1461. Their dramatic composition is divided into nine books. They have left to the "directors" of the spectacle the care of dividing it into more or fewer days, according to circumstances.

The first book commences with the assembling of the disciples in the upper chamber, and represents the election of St. Matthias, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the earlier preaching of the apostles when braving the persecutions of the synagogue. The second book extends from the martyrdom of St. Stephen to the conversion of St. Paul. The third is filled with the legendary traditions concerning the apostleship of St Thomas in India. The fourth brings back the spectacle to Jerusalem, where Herod dies after having cut off the head of St. James the Greater; then the scene is transferred to Antioch, where St. Peter, at the solicitation of Simon the Magician, is put into prison, and obtains his liberty by restoring to life the son of the prince of that city who had been dead ten years. The fifth book contains, first, the preaching of St. Paul at Athens, where he converts St. Denis, the future apostle of France; then, the death of the Blessed Virgin, at which the apostles are present, brought together suddenly by a miracle. The sixth book is consecrated to the apostleship and martyrdom of St. Matthew in Ethiopia, of St. Barnabas in the Isle of Cyprus, of St. Simon and St. Jude at Babylon, and, finally, of St. Bartholomew, whom Prince Astyages flayed alive. In the seventh book, St. Thomas ends his apostleship in India, slain by the sword; St. Matthias is stoned to death by the Jews; St. Andrew is crucified by the provost of Achaia; the Emperor Claudius dies and Nero succeeds him. In the eighth book, St. Philip and St. James the Less suffer martyrdom at Hierapolis. The two princes combine with the apostles against Simon the Magician and bring his miracles to naught. St Paul recalls Patroclus to life, who had fallen from a high window while sleeping over the apostolic sermon. In the ninth and last book, Simon the Magician, availing himself of his most powerful enchantments in order to deceive the Romans, having caused himself to be lifted into the air by the demons, falls at the voice of St. Peter and is killed. Nero avenges him by imprisoning St. Peter and St. Paul--puts to death Proces and Martinian, their gaolers, whom they had converted and by whom they were set at liberty--arrests the two apostles anew, and condemns one to be crucified, the other to be beheaded. Then, terrified by the successive apparitions of the two martyrs, who announce to him the vengeance of heaven, he invokes the demons, demands their counsel, kills himself, and the devils bear away his soul to hell.

When we add that each book is filled with striking conversions, that some terminate with the baptism of a whole city or a whole people, and that the apostles insure the triumph of the gospel even in death, a sufficient idea will have been given of the historic procession and the moral unity of this drama, or rather of this epic worked up in dialogue and arranged for the {581} stage. But in order to get a clearer notion of its theatrical power and poetic features, it is necessary to direct our attention, in the first place, to the interest of the legends which are here blended constantly with history; and, in the second place, to the fairy art and the magnificence of the spectacle.

Here, for instance, is an example of the legendary poetry interwoven in the piece. We borrow it from the third book. Gondoforus, king of India, wishes to build a magnificent palace; but he is in want of architects, and therefore sends his provost Abanes to Rome in search of one. The messenger mounts at once on a dromedary: he is followed by a servant leading a camel. In three and a half hours they are at Caesarea in Palestine, where the apostle St. James is dwelling. St. Michael had descended from heaven to anticipate the arrival of Abanes, and commands the apostle, in the name of our Lord, to offer himself as architect. Directed by the archangel, he accosts Abanes and tells him that he is the man he seeks. They breakfast together and set out, not this time on a dromedary and a camel, but in a ship conducted by Palinurus, who had just arrived, bringing St. James, the son of Zebedee, from Spain to Palestine. While they are making the voyage, the king of Andrinopolis is holding counsel upon the manner of celebrating the nuptials of his daughter Pelagia, who is espoused to the young chevalier Denis; and the result of this deliberation is that he must invite everybody who can come. The apostle and the Provost disembark at Andrinopolis at very moment when the herald the proclamation, in the name of the king, summoning to the banquet citizens of all conditions and even rangers--pilgrims and wayfarers. St. Thomas consequently is present at the nuptial feast. A young Jewess chants a roundelay:

There is a God of Hebrew story.
Dwelling in eternal glory
Who first of all things claims our love:
Who made the earth, sea, sky above,
And taught the morning stars to sing.
High would I laud this virtuous king,
And blaming naught, his praises ring
Through every hall, through every grove.
There is a God of Hebrew story,
Dwelling in eternal glory,
Who first of all things claims our love. [Footnote 116]

[Footnote 116: She commences in Hebrew: A sarahel zadab aheboin, Aga
sela tanmeth thavehel Elyphaleth a der deaninin, etc. Then she
translates her roundelay into French.]

St. Thomas, charmed with this song, begs that it may be repeated, and the king's butler boxes his ears.

Ere the morrow shall be through,
Thy hand its fault will sorely rue,

says the apostle, adding--

'Twere better for thy purgatory,
To suffer anguish transitory.

This prediction is not tardy of accomplishment. The butler is sent to the fountain by the cup-bearer. A lion comes up, and with a snap of his teeth bites off the guilty hand, while the poor man dies repentant and commending his soul to God. In the banquet hall all is gay confusion, when presently a dog enters with the dissevered hand. The king, informed of the prophecy and its accomplishment, prostrates himself with his whole family at the feet of the apostle, who blesses him. All at once there appears a branch of palm covered with dates. The wedded couple eat of it and then fall asleep. In their dreams angels counsel them to preserve their virginity. After having baptized the king of Andrinopolis and all his household, St. Thomas renews his journey with his guide, and arrives in India.

Gondoforus and his brother Agatus salute the architect whom Abanes has brought. "Well, master, at what school did you study your art?" "My master surpasses all others in excellence." "And of whom did he learn his science?"

"Master and teacher had he none,
He learneth from himself alone."

"Where is he?"

"In a country far away,
He lives and ruleth regally:
The sons of men his servants be,
His twelve apprentices are we."

{582}

The king, amazed at the knowledge of the stranger, gives him a vast sum of gold, for the construction of his palace. But it was not an earthly edifice that the apostle proposed to build--it was a heavenly and spiritual edifice whose materials were alms and good works. He therefore distributes among the beggars whom he meets all the money which has been given him. At the end of two years, Gondoforus comes to see the building, and not finding it, he thus addresses St. Thomas and Abanes:

"Scoundrels without conscience born,
Where has all my money gone?
My trust in you has cost me dear.

THOMAS

Sire, therewith I did uprear
A palace fair, of rare device
For you--

AGATUS.

Where is't?

THOMAS.

In Paradise."

The Indian king, who does not understand that style of architecture, throws St. Thomas and Abanes into prison. Scarcely has he returned home with his followers, when Agatus suddenly dies. The angels descend in haste to bear his soul to heaven. [Footnote 117] "What do I see?" he cries. "The palace which Thomas has made for thy brother," replies Raphael. "Great God, but I am not pure enough to be its porter!" "Thy brother," said Uriel, "has made himself unworthy of it. But if thou desirest, we will supplicate our Lord to restore thee to earth, and this palace shall be thine when thou hast repaid the king his money." The soul of Agatus joyfully agreed to this, and was restored to its body by Uriel. Then Agatus, as soon as life returned, arose and told Gondoforus all that he had seen, proposing to reimburse him for all the expenses of this heavenly palace the possession of which he desired. The amazed king, wishing to secure the beautiful palace for himself, goes and flings himself at the feet of St. Thomas, beseeching baptism for himself and court.

[Footnote 117: "Although the arts of the middle ages," says Father
Cahier, "did not adopt an absolutely invariable form for the
representation of souls, the most ordinary symbol is that of a
small, nude figure escaping from the mouth, like a sword drawn from
the sheath." _Monagraphie de la Cathedrale de Bourges_, p. 158, note
2.]

When the "Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles" was played at Bruges in 1536, so perfect was the representation of this legend and the other marvels of the piece, says the old historian Du Berry, that many of the hearers thought it real and not feigned. They saw, among a thousand other wondrous sights, the provost of the king of the Indies enter riding on a huge dromedary, very well constructed, which moved its head, opened its mouth, and ran out its tongue. When the butler was punished, they saw a lion steal up and bite off the hand, and a dog who bore it still bleeding into the midst of the feasters. These were not the only animal prodigies that passed under the eyes of the spectators. In the representation of the sixteenth book, for example, two sorcerers, irritated against St. Matthew, caused a multitude of serpents to appear, and the apostle summoned forth from the earth a very terrible dragon which devoured them. In another part of this same book, St. Philip, having been led before the god Mars, makes a dragon leap forth from the mouth of the idol, which kills the son of the pagan bishop, two tribunes, and two varlets. In the course of the seventh book, a still more extraordinary automaton appears. St. Andrew delivers Greece from a monstrous serpent fifty cubits long. "Here," says the note introduced for the ordering of the mystery, "an oak must be planted, and a serpent must be coiled beneath the said oak, glaring, and must vomit forth a great quantity of blood and then die."