Chapter V: Reminiscences of the Past (6)

King James seems to have devoted no small portion of his time to advancing the interests of Cupid--if love it could be called, where love there was none. Sir Edward Coke had himself an only daughter, whom the king assigned to Viscount Purbeck, brother of the Duke of Buckingham. The wife of Coke, Lady Hatton, was a very Xantippe; and the eloquence of the great jurist, which could sway multitudes, and check or change the course of political events, was totally powerless within the walls of his own castle. Lady Hatton wisely opposed this match, to which her daughter was averse; but in this case the king as well as Sir Edward had decided, and for once she was obliged to yield; "the king doing the matter (says an old writer) as if the safety of the nation depended on its completion." Lady Hatton had one retaliation within her reach, and she took it; she gave orders that at the wedding "neither Sir Edward Coke nor any of his servants be admitted."[46]

How fared at last the hapless Lady Purbeck, the heiress of thousands and thousands? She had the misery to see the husband _not_ of her choice become in a short time hopelessly insane; while his brother, under pretence of looking after his affairs, left her, at times, almost penniless. Her letters to this unprincipled miscreant, written oftentimes under bodily as well as mental suffering, are truly touching. In one of them she says,

"Think not to send me again to my mother. I will beg my bread
in the streets, to all your dishonors, rather than more trouble
my friends." (Letter in the Caballa.)

Such were the tales of wretchedness within the precincts of a court.

III.

The career of King James and his son after the insolent and unscrupulous Buckingham appeared to lead or drive them, as the case might be, seems scarcely the actual history of sane men. When the downfall of Somerset left him supreme master, he seems to have taken possession of both king and palace. He soon sent for his kindred from all parts of the country; and their arrival is thus described:

"... the old countess, his mother, providing a place for them
to learn to carry themselves in a court-like garb. He desired
to match them with wives and husbands, inasmuch as his very
female kindred were enough to stock a plantation. So that King
James, who in former times so hated women, had his lodgings
replenished with them; ... little children did run up and down
the king's lodgings like little rabbits; ... for the kindred
had all the houses about Whitehall, like bulwarks and flankers
to a citadel." (Weldon.) #/

The most amusing event--or rather the most amusing absurdity in the annals of that period, or one might say of any other period--was the expedition of Prince Charles to Spain, in 1623, to bring home a wife.

Lord Bristol was at the court of Philip IV., negotiating a marriage between the infanta, his sister, and Prince Charles, and endeavoring to secure for him her magnificent dower; when Buckingham, thinking he was gaining too much credit by his labors, felt desirous of going himself to the spot and taking a part in the matter.

How was this to be accomplished? His wits never failed him. He approached Charles with a general lamentation over royal marriages, where the parties meet first at the altar--too late to retreat--and suggested to him the advantages and romance of presenting himself in person to the infanta, and bringing her home a bride. Charles was charmed with the quixotic notion, and they adjourned to the palace to obtain the king's consent. He at first flatly refused; then consented. The next day he fell into a passion of tears, and prayed to be released from his promise; for he feared the dangers of the journey, and the false reports and suspicions it might give rise to among his subjects. Charles was persuasive, the duke indignant and insolent, and once more the king told them to go. In the words of a historian--

... "So he said he would send Sir Francis Cottington and
Endymion Porter with them; and he called Cottington in and told
him that baby Charles and Stenie (as he always called them) had
a mind to go to Spain and bring the infanta; and Cottington
being pressed to speak of it, said it was both unsafe and
unwise; whereupon the king wept again, and said, 'I told you
so! I told you so!' Then Buckingham abused them all."

After another storm of words, it was decided that they should go in disguise, with only these two attendants. Their incognito was very poorly carried out; for at Gravesend they were suspected by giving gold coin, and at Canterbury they would have been arrested, had not Buckingham taken off his false wig and privately made himself known to the mayor. Finally they reached Dover, where they found Cottington, who had gone on before, in readiness with a vessel, and they set sail for the French coast.

In Paris, a Scottish nobleman who had somehow received intimation of their being there, called late one night on the English ambassador, and asked if he had seen the prince. "What prince?" "Prince Charles," was the reply; but it was too incredible for belief. Yet while in Paris, although not considering it worth their while to visit the British ambassador, they contrived to gain admission, without being recognized, to a court dancing-party, where Charles saw for the first time the fascinating Princess Henrietta.[47]

The consternation in England when their departure, so unbefitting royalty, was discovered, can scarcely be imagined. The king ordered prayers to be offered for their safe return; but no allusion made to their destination. A gentleman of that day, named Meade, writing to a friend, tells this story:

"The Bishop of London, you know, gave orders, as from the king,
that they pray for the safe return of the prince to us; and no
more. An honest, plain preacher here prayed 'that God would
return our noble prince to us, and no more!' thinking it all a
piece of the prayer."

Meanwhile these two knights-errant, or, as the king said, "sweet boys and dear venturous knights, worthy to be put in a new romanzo,"[48] continued their journey. At last, at the close of an evening in March, two mules stopped at the house of my Lord Bristol in Madrid, and the riders alighted. _Mr. Thomas Smith_ went in first with a portmanteau under his arm--then _Mr. John Smith_ was called in; and before the amazed diplomatist stood the heir to the British crown and the Marquis of Buckingham. He stared as if he had seen two ghosts; but he presently took Prince Charles to a bed-chamber, and dispatched a courier to inform his father of his safe arrival.

The Spanish court took the matter in its most chivalrous light, as the impulse of a lover; although rather puzzled how to arrange a reception in a case which certainly had no precedent. The Spanish people were enthusiastic. The infanta blushed charmingly at such unheard-of homage, and began to study English. King James sent over a troop of courtiers for a retinue, who proved a rough set--"jeering at the cookery and the religion, and making themselves odious."[49] The Spanish prime minister was soon disgusted with Buckingham, and would have been still more so if he could have understood all his swearing words--"which fortunately he cannot, (says a contemporary,) because they are done in English."

The letters which passed between this precious couple and the king at home are amusing. A want of money was his majesty's normal condition; and the pitiless way in which they seemed to ignore it, by making constant requisitions on his purse, is surprising and amusing effrontery. Prince Charles writes,

"I confess you have sent me more jewels than I'd have use for
but here, seeing so many. Some that you have appointed me to
give the infanta, in Stenie's opinion and mine are not fit for
her. I pray your majesty send more for my own wearing." #/

Then Buckingham defines more precisely their necessities.

"Though your baby himself hath sent word what needs he hath,
yet will I give my poor and saucy opinion what will be fittest
to send. Sire, he hath neither chain, or hat-band; and pray you
consider how rich they are here, and since your chiefest jewel
is here, your son, I pray you let loose these after him. First,
your best hat-band of the Portugal diamond, and the rest of
the pendants to make up a necklace to give his mistress. Also
the best rope of pearls, with a rich chain or two for himself,
and some other jewels, not to deserve that name, that will
serve for presents and save your purse. They never had so great
occasion to get out of their boxes as now."

King James found consolation in believing that they would soon return with the infanta and her dower; so he strove his best to supply them, and touched on smaller matters. He besought baby Charles and Stenie not to forget their dancing, though they

"should whistle or sing, one for the other, for the lack of
better music; ... but you must be as sparing as you can in your
spending, for your officers are put to the height of their
speed.... I pray you, my baby, take care of being hurt if you
run at tilt." (Letters in Ellis Collec.)

Difficult as it was for the king to satisfy their pecuniary demands, and desirous though he was to act on Prince Charles's frequent suggestion, to "consult no counsel, but leave all to Stenie and me," he received from them some proposals which rather exceeded his powers of acceptance; one of which was nothing less than that, to please Spain, he should acknowledge the pope's spiritual supremacy![50] Probably at this point some little vision of the people of England flitted over him; for he replied that he had made a great many concessions already, and added--

"Now, I cannot change my religion as a man changes his shirt at
tennis."

The end of their expedition, and of the negotiations with Spain, are well known. After meeting the most honorable hospitality, they raised objections which they never intended to have removed, and made promises which they never meant to fulfil; and returned home without the infanta, and without her dower, to reject with insult the Spanish alliance and lay the blame on Spain.

King James died like any common mortal, in the most literal acceptation of the phrase. The same slight cold passing into mortal sickness, the household called up in alarm at day-dawn, the same hugging on to the dear old life. The countess, mother of Buckingham, "ran with a draught and a posset;" he took the draught and applied the posset, but it was too late--and the prince, as Charles I., succeeded him.

Charles had married the sister of the French king, the Princess Henrietta, whose dancing had captivated his youthful fancy on his way to Spain; but some little discord and confusion had crept into the music and dancing of their English home. He had promised religious freedom for herself and her household. Her retinue was very numerous, and, with different religious creeds and widely different social habits, it is not surprising that year by year a sort of estrangement seemed to grow up between them. His majesty ascribed this to foreign influence; and he resolved to rule his own household, and in that very expressive phrase--_make a clean sweep_.

"One fine afternoon the king went unannounced to the queen's
side of the house, and finding some Frenchmen dancing and
curvetting in her presence, took her hand and led her to his
own lodgings; ... then my Lord Conway called forth the French
bishop and others, and told them the king's pleasure was that
all her majesty's servants of that nation, men and women, old
and young, with three or four exceptions, should depart the
kingdom. The bishop stood on, that he could not go unless the
king his master commanded; but he was told the king his master
had nothing to do in England.... The women howled and wept as
if they were going to execution; but it did no good, they were
thrust out and the doors locked."[51]

Buckingham was charged with their transportation and shipping at Dover; and his master wrote--

"Stick not long in disputing with them, Stenie; but drive them
away like wild beasts--and the devil go with them."

But an ambassador was dispatched to the French court with explanations.

The civil wars which desolated the kingdom under Charles I., and stained the soil of England with English blood, are familiar to all. Buckingham fell by the knife of an assassin. Whether sadly unwise or fearfully criminal, the king expiated his mistakes with his life. He was seized and imprisoned; and after a trial condemned and executed. His queen, Henrietta, with her children, all except one, were in France for safety. His little daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, was in England, and at his request was conducted to him the last evening of his life. Then, says Whitlock,

"it was sad to see him--he took the princess in his arms and
kissed her, and gave her two diamonds; and there was great
weeping."

There is preserved, in several collections of old poetry, a long and pathetic elegy, written by King Charles at Carisbrook Castle, where he was imprisoned; it is entitled, _An Imploration to the King of Kings_, and he sadly says therein--

"The fiercest furies that do daily tread
Upon my grief, my gray, discrowned head,
Are those that owe my bounty for their bread.

But sacred Saviour! with thy words I woo
Thee to forgive, and not be bitter to
Such as thou knowest do not know what they do."

The _Commonwealth of England_, whose first grand state seal dated 1648, came virtually to its end at the death of its founder in 1658; and a few years later Charles II. was called from exile to the throne of his fathers.

He is called the _merrie_ monarch; but very far from _merrie_ was the nation under his rule--dissensions and discontent pervaded it in every direction. The truth is, that the prominence given in brief histories to this epithet, the madcap frolics of his court, the witty and unprincipled nobles, and the uncommon array of female beauty which made up the surroundings of his own indolence and love of pleasure, lead to a sort of general idea that all England was one grand carousal. A nearer view changes the scene. The religious contests between conformists and non-conformists, which began in 1662 and lasted some twenty-six years--the fruitful harvest planted in preceding years of anarchy and fanaticism--present pictures of persecution and suffering such as enter only into religious warfare; and which, perhaps, it is most charity to refer to the importance which the opposing parties attach to their subject. During these twenty-six years it is computed that the penalties which were inflicted amounted to between twelve and fourteen millions sterling, and the sufferers for conscience' sake numbered 60,000. Homeless, and hungry, and penniless, they wandered about or were immured in jails; and contemporary writers (Defoe, Penn) assert that from 5000 to 8000 perished "like sheep, in those noisome pest-houses." Surely that was not the day of _merrie_ old England, beyond the precincts of the court.

Charles was succeeded by his brother, James II., who was soon deposed, and William, Prince of Orange, who had married his daughter Mary, was invited to the throne. Next to these came another daughter of James, Queen Anne; and with her expired the line of the Stuarts. The dark fortunes of Mary Stuart rested in some form on all her descendants.

IV.

In what quiet library, in what lordly mansion, was this old book safely stored away through all these changing scenes of pageantry and splendor, of riot and bloodshed? Who was he that first received it, new and comely, from the hands of _William Stanly, printer_, (who is saved to fame in a little corner of the title-page,) and what name is this, written on the margin in ink, embrowned now and almost obliterated, which evidently was once intended to establish ownership? The dedication to my Lord of Ellismere bespeaks for it a place with the noble and learned; who among them found time then to seek

"how to liue wel and how to die wel, from our Seneca--whose
diuine sentences, wholesom counsailes, serious exclamations
against vices, in being but a heathen, may make us ashamed
being Christians." (Translator's preface.)

What statesman, by lamplight perhaps, when the toils of the day were over, turned these very pages, and drew a rule for his steps from the maxims of the Roman? Hadst thou but a tongue, old book, what tales thou mightest tell! Where wert thou when that pestilence, the plague, swept from London 100,000 of its inhabitants? or where when its career was checked by that other horror, the great conflagration? when the bells from a hundred steeples tolled their own requiem, and the number of houses in London was diminished by 13,000.

One hundred years had passed over it when George I. ascended the English throne; then came Georges II., III., and IV., King William and Queen Victoria. Under the two first, no small portion of the troubles, both at home and with foreign nations, were traceable to the plots and intrigues of the last solitary scion of the house of Stuart; and with George III. a new war boomed over the Atlantic. At last it was finished; and at the somewhat mature age of two hundred and fifty-six years, but still in good condition, our time-honored volume has crossed the ocean to find a new home under the stripes and stars. One more exponent, in its silent eloquence, of that

"Vitæ summa brevis"

which the Roman poet warns us is not to be counted on.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Letters in Sir Henry Ellis's Collec.

[45] Letter of Lascelles to Earl Shrewsbury.

[46] Stratford.

[47] Wotton Reliq. (Sir Henry Wotton, once secretary to Raleigh.)

[48] Ellis Collec.

[49] Howell.

[50] Hardwicke State Papers.

[51] Letter of John Porry in Ellis Col.

THE VATICAN COUNCIL.

NUMBER FOUR.

Another month of the Vatican Council has passed by without any public session. There has not been a general congregation since February 22d, when the twenty-ninth was held. This absence of grand public ceremonials has driven some of the newspaper correspondents to turn elsewhere in search of sensational items. We are no longer inundated, and at times amused, by column after column of newspaper accounts narrating speeches and events in the council that had scarcely any existence, except in the fertile imaginations of the writers. The outward calm in Rome has produced its effect in no small extent in the newspaper world.

This calm, however, is by no means the calm of inaction. Quite the contrary. At no time were the fathers so assiduously engaged in the deep study of the matters before them, or more earnestly occupied with their conciliar labors.

We stated in our last number that they were then engaged in the discussion of the subjects of discipline, on which several _schemata_, or draughts, had been drawn up by preparatory committees of theologians, in anticipation of the council. The discussion was continued, on February 19th, with six speakers, on the 21st with seven speakers, and was closed on the 22d with seven other speakers, when the fourth _schema_, or draught, on discipline, was referred, as the preceding ones had been, to the appropriate committee or _deputation_ on matters of discipline.

Thus, within two months, since the congregation of December 28th, when the discussion began, one _schema_ on faith and four on discipline had come up before the bishops; and there had been in all one hundred and forty-five speeches delivered on them. The experience of those two months had made several points very clear:

First, the _schemata_, or draughts, as prepared by the theologians, did not prove as acceptable to the bishops as perhaps their authors had expected. On the contrary, the bishops subjected them to a very searching examination and discussion, criticising and weighing every point and every expression; and seemed disposed, in measure, to recast some of them entirely.

Secondly, the mode in which this examination had so far been conducted might, it was thought, be improved, both in its thoroughness and in the length of time it occupied. So far, all the prelates who wished had spoken one after another. The sittings of the congregations usually lasted from nine A.M. to one P.M., and became a great trial of the physical endurance of many of these aged men. The prelates could not refrain from asking each other, What progress are we making? How long will this series of speeches last?

Again, many of the speakers, unwilling to occupy the attention of the congregation too long, strove to condense what they wished to say, and sometimes omitted much that might have thrown additional light on the subject, or would be material for the support of their views. Yet how could this be avoided without extending the discussion beyond the limits of endurance.

Still more, many prelates, whose mature and experienced judgments would have been most valuable, would not speak; some, because they were unwilling to increase the already large number of speakers; others, because their organs of speech were too feeble to assure their being heard throughout a hall which held over a thousand persons in by no means crowded seats.

These points had gradually made themselves manifest, and, as we intimated in our last article, the question had been raised, how these difficulties could be met. Some suggested a division of the prelates into a number of sections, in each and all of which the discussions might go on at the same time. But, after much consideration, another method was resolved on, and was announced in the congregation of the 22d of February as the one to be followed in the examination and discussion of the next _schema_, or draught, to be taken up by the council.

The main points of these additional regulations are the following: When a _schema_ comes before the council for examination, instead of the _vivâ voce_ discussion, which according to the first system would take place in the congregations, before sending it to the proper committee, if necessary, the cardinals presiding shall fix and announce a suitable time, within which any and every one of the fathers, who desires to do so, may commit his views on it to writing, and shall send in the same to the secretary of the council. Any amendments, additions, and corrections which he may wish to make must be fully and clearly written out. The secretary must, at the end of the appointed time, transmit to the appropriate committee, or _deputation_ of bishops, all the remarks on the _schema_. The _schema_ will be examined and remodelled, if necessary, by the committee, under the light of these written statements, precisely as would be done if the members had before them the full report of speeches made in the former style before the congregation. The reformed _schema_ is again presented to the congregation, and with it a summary exposition of the substance of the remarks and of the amendments proposed. "When the _schema_, together with the aforesaid summary, has been distributed to the fathers of the council, the said presidents shall appoint a day for its discussion in general congregation." In parliamentary usage, this corresponds to having the discussion, not on the first, but on the second reading of a bill.

This discussion must proceed in the strict order of topics, first generally; that is, on the _schema_ wholly or in part, as it may have been brought before the congregation; then on the several portions of it, one by one. The speakers who wish to take part in the discussion must, in giving in their names as before, state also whether they intend to speak on the _schema_ as a whole, or on some special parts of it, and which ones. The form of amendment, should a speaker propose one, must be handed in, in writing, at the conclusion of his speech. Of course, the speakers must keep to the point in debate. If any one wanders from it, he will be called to order. The members of the reporting committee or deputation will, moreover, be free to speak in reply, during the debate, as they judge it advisable.

The last four of these by-laws are the following:

XI. "If the discussion be unreasonably protracted, after the
subject has been sufficiently debated, the cardinals presiding,
on the written request of at least ten bishops, shall be
at liberty to put the question to the fathers whether the
discussion shall continue. The fathers shall vote by rising or
retaining their seats; and if a majority of the fathers present
so decide, they shall close the discussion.

XII. "When the discussion on one part of a _schema_ is closed,
and before proceeding to another, the presiding cardinals
shall take the votes of the general congregation, first on the
amendments proposed during the discussion itself, and then on
the whole context of the part under consideration.

XIII. "The votes, both as to the amendments and as to the
context of such part, will be given by the fathers in the
following mode: First, the cardinals presiding shall require
those who assent to the amendment or text to rise; then, by a
second call, shall require those who dissent to rise in their
turn; and after the votes have been counted, the decision of
the majority of the fathers will be recorded.

XIV. "When all the several parts of a _schema_ have been
voted on in this mode, the cardinals presiding shall take
the judgment of the fathers on the entire _schema_ under
examination as a whole. These votes shall be given _vivâ
voce_, by the words, PLACET or NON PLACET. But those who think
it necessary to add any condition shall give their votes in
writing."

It is already evident that the first provision of these by-laws or regulations is attaining its purpose. At the congregation of February 22d, when they went into force, a certain portion of a new _schema_, or draught, on matters of faith, was announced as the next matter regularly coming up for examination, and the space of ten days was assigned within which the fathers might write out their criticisms, and propose any emendations or amendments to it, and send such written opinions to the secretary. There was no limit to hamper the bishops in the fullest expression of their sentiments. They might write briefly, or at as great length as they deemed proper. Moreover, in writing, they would naturally be more exact and careful than perhaps they could be in speeches often made extempore. There would also be less liability of being misunderstood. Moreover, many more could and probably would write than would have spoken. It is said over one hundred and fifty did so write on this first occasion; so that, in reality, as much was done in those ten days as under the old system would have occupied two months. The second portion, touching the debate before the congregation, will of course be effective and satisfactory. And it is confidently hoped that the third portion, as to the mode of closing the debate and taking the vote, will, when the time comes for testing it, be found equally satisfactory.

In our previous numbers we have avoided falling into the very error of the correspondents which we have repeatedly blamed; we have not pretended to have succeeded in getting a glimpse behind the curtain which veils the council, and so to have qualified ourselves to speak without reserve of the matters treated by the fathers in their private debates. Even had circumstances brought some knowledge of this to us, it would be under obligations which would effectually prevent our touching on it in these articles. But we can be under no such obligation in regard to questions which, if we are correctly informed, have not come, at least up to the present time, before the congregations of the council. There is one such question which excites universal attention, perhaps we should rather say universal talk, outside the council--the infallibility of the pope. It has become in Europe the question of the day. Books have been written on it, pamphlets discussing it are issued every week, and England, France, Germany, and Spain have been deluged with newspaper articles upholding it or attacking it--articles written with every possible shade of learning and of ignorance, and in every degree of temper, from the best to the worst. The articles are what might be expected when the writers are of every class, from erudite theologians down to penny-a-liners, and when, if some are good and sincere Catholics, many are by no means such. Protestants have written on it, some in favor of the doctrine (!), most of them against it. The bitterest and most unfair articles, however, have been and are those written by the political opponents of the church; though how this precise question can come into politics, any more than the existence of religion, the divinity of the Saviour, the infallibility of the church, or any other point of doctrine, we cannot see. But in Europe, if religion does not go into politics, politics, or at least politicians and political writers, have no scruples in going into religious matters. In fact, the most advanced party of "_progress, and enlightenment, and liberty_" proclaim that there should be no religion at all, that it narrows the intellect by hampering freedom of thought, and enslaves man by forbidding him to do much that he desires; and as they think mankind should, on the contrary, be free from all its trammels; and as they hold it to be their special mission to effect this liberation, they systematically omit no occasion of attacking religion. For them, one point is as good as another; the infallibility of the pope will do as well as the discovery that a crazy nun, subject to furious mania, was confined in a room so small that the sides of it only measured twenty feet one way and twenty-three the other, and so low that one had to stand on a step to reach the window. Any thing will serve this class of writers. And, unfortunately for religious news, much of what appears in the press of Europe, and must gradually be infused, in part at least, into the press in the United States, is from such pens, and is imbued or is tinged with their spirit.

We would not do justice to Rome and the council if we omitted to mention a very interesting event with which the council is connected, if only as the occasion. We mean the Roman Exposition of Arts, as applied to religious purposes. It was opened by the pope three weeks ago.

The traveller arriving in Rome by the railway cannot fail to be struck with wonder at the view which opens before him the instant he steps out of the door of the central station. Just across the square, huge dark masses of rough masonry rise before him. Some are only twenty or thirty feet high, and their tops are covered with the herbage or bushes that grow on the soil, wafted thither by the winds of centuries. Others are still higher, and are connected by walls equally old, some broken, some nearly entire. Here and there immense arches of masonry, a hundred feet high in the air, still span the space from pier to pier, and bear a fringe of green herbage. Every thing tells you of the immensity of the building, or group of buildings which men erected here in ages long gone by. But even still, as you see, portions of these walls and arches are used. Not every pier is a mere isolated ruin; not under every arch can you look and see through it a broad expanse of blue Italian sky. Modern walls are joined to these piers; the ancient walls too are turned to account; irregular roofs, some high, some low, come against them. Here, through the high openings in the original wall, men are busy taking in or delivering bundles of hay from the store-house they have constructed. There, through doorways and windows of more modern shape, you see that another portion is made to serve as barracks for soldiers. Other buildings stretch away northward and westward, schools, orphanages, and a reformatory, as you see by their various inscriptions. But though of more recent date, they have not lost all connection with the ruins; for the ground all along shows traces of the original constructions in the fragments of broken columns and in patches of the ancient masonry, which between and beyond them continues ever and anon to rise in outlying masses. But in the centre, where the strong masonry rises higher than elsewhere and is best preserved, there spreads a wide roof surmounted by crosses at the gables. To the eastward, the ruins seem to die away in a long and not very high line of buildings, evidently cared for and inhabited. The walls are covered with plaster, and the windows are glazed, and protected by shutters. Over the ridge of the roof you may see the lofty summits of some cedars that are growing in a court-yard or garden within.

These are the mighty remnants of the Baths of Diocletian, commenced by that emperor in the year 302. Built at the period when Rome was at the zenith of her wealth and luxury, it far exceeded all other buildings of its class in the seven-hilled city, both in vastness and in grandeur. It was undertaken in a time of the most cruel persecution of the church, and the Christians who were condemned to imprisonment and hard labor, because they would not deny their Lord, were brought here day after day from many a prison, and fettered like convicts, and were made to labor in erecting this pile devoted to pride, and luxury, and debauchery. Many an account of the martyr Christians of that age tells of old and young men and women, condemned for their faith, and sent to die here a lingering death of martyrdom. Many a soul passed from this spot straight to heaven. For who hath greater love than he who giveth his life for his friend? Many a prayer of Christian faith, of holy resignation, of ardent hope of a better life, was here uttered day after day, and hour after hour, all the years the work lasted. The antiquarian still finds here and there the bricks which believing hands marked with a cross, the outward expression of the prayer of their hearts, offering their labors and sufferings, endured for his sake, to Him who for their sakes labored and suffered on the cross. It is estimated that more than forty thousand Christians toiled at the work. It was in these ruins, if we mistake not, that was found one of the marble tablets inscribed with an encomium of Diocletian, for having purged the world of that vile and hateful superstition called Christianity.

In this vast pile of buildings, thirteen hundred feet from east to west, and twelve hundred from north to south, there were halls, court-yards surrounded by ample porticoes, pools for swimmers, thousands of baths, libraries, galleries of painting and sculpture, portions set aside for philosophic discussion, other portions for gymnastic exercises and games, and every thing that Roman luxury or Roman debauchery called for, and Roman wealth could provide.

The first dismantling and partial destruction of the buildings seems to have occurred when Alaric sacked Rome. Yet even a century later portions of them were still used for the original purpose as baths.

It is needless to say how they suffered still more, by alternate violence and neglect, for many centuries afterward. Often it was occupied by soldiers as a stronghold, and it suffered at their hands, as by alterations here and there they strove to make the place more defensible. Often it was assailed and taken, and then suffered still more, as whatever could be was toppled over in anger. And when the soldiers left it quiet, rain and winds and storms continued the work of destruction. In the sixteenth century all this property was owned by Saint Charles Borromeo. He gave it to the pope, Pius IV., who determined to construct a church, if possible, in the midst of these ruins, and so put them under the guardianship of that very religion which gave so many martyrs toward their construction. The pontiff committed the task to Michael Angelo, who executed it in a manner which won an admiration next to that gained by his great work at St. Peter's.

Amid the ruins there stood a vast hall, three hundred and twenty-five feet long and sixty feet broad. Its massive walls were perfect, and the vast arch of masonry that covered it, at the height of over one hundred feet, though weakened by the exposure of centuries, still stood unbroken. The Caldarium stood near by on one side, and the old natatio, or swimming room, joined it on the other. Both still preserved their vaulted roofs. Michael Angelo united them, and, preserving the walls and the massive monolith columns of red Egyptian granite, which were all standing, skilfully produced a noble church in the form of a Greek cross, which is known as St. Mary of the Angels. One loves to pass an hour in that vast, quiet, and attractive church, under the olden arch, now protected from the weather by an additional tiled roof, viewing the exquisite statues of saints, and the masterpieces of painting, the originals, some of them, of the mosaics over the altars of St. Peter's, or listening to the Cistercian monks who serve the church as they slowly and reverently chant the divine office at their stated hours of day and night.

On the eastern side, toward the Pretorian Camp, war had done its most destructive work. Here Michael Angelo found the ruins so entirely beaten down that most of the space had been devoted to gardens, though encumbered indeed by sundry picturesque mounds of masonry. Here, using the materials at hand so far as they would serve, he erected a monastery for the Cistercians, a plain quadrangular building, inclosing an open space about four hundred feet square. To each side of this the building presents a portico, or arcade, which thus forms a cloister, supported by twenty-five columns of travertine. No work of that great architect and artist exceeds this cloister in its simplicity, and the exquisite beauty of form and proportion in all its parts. In the centre of the yard is a majestic, ever-flowing fountain, throwing its stream of water aloft. This falls into an ample marble reservoir beneath, whose waters ripple and sparkle in the sunlight as the gold-fish are darting to and fro into the shade of water-lilies or out to court the beams of the sun. By this basin the architect planted with his own hand four young cedars, which throve apace. Three of them are still standing, historic trees. Two are strong and vigorous, though three centuries old; a third is in the decrepitude of old age, shattered and broken by the winds, but still bravely struggling to the last to raise its topmost branches upward toward heaven. The fourth perished some years ago, and has been replaced by another, younger one, which a good Cistercian, they say, obtained by securing in time and carefully nursing a young shoot of the old tree itself.

Around the cloister are the cells of the brethren. They seem to have a curious fancy of fastening placards on their doors. You can see half a dozen of them of different sizes. On some doors the sheet of paper is apparently fresh and clean, and is still securely fastened by four tacks, or by wafers under the corners. On other doors some of the tacks have fallen out, or the wafers have lost their hold, and the paper hangs dangling by a single corner. The winds have blown it until it is torn. The rain has moistened and caused it to curl. The upper portion hangs loosely over, half hiding the writing on it. You approach and stretch out your hand to lift it up, that you may read what a Cistercian had placarded on the door of his cell. It is all a delusion! There is no paper! Some painter, quitting the world, retreated to this community. In its quietude and silence, and in its penitential life, he found again peace and tranquillity of soul, and the gayety of his youth came back to him. He took a boyish pleasure in playing this clever artistic practical joke on the strangers whom curiosity, or other motives, from time to time, brought to look at the interior of a Carthusian monastery. He died peacefully and piously years ago, but the brethren have not ceased to enjoy the joke he perpetrated.

What a practical lesson of the power with which God rules the world! In this spot where a cruel and sanguinary emperor persecuted and martyred Christians by the thousands, and boasted that he had exterminated the Christian church, the ruins of his vast work owe their preservation to the sacred power of a Christian church. Where luxury, and the pride of the world, and every form of sensuality were wont to seek their gratification, now meek and humble white-robed Cistercians who have renounced the world and its pomps and sins, and are vowed to poverty, chastity, and obedience, work and study in silence, fast austerely, and make the hours of day and the hours of night holy by prayer and chanting of psalms. The heathen empire of Rome has passed away, but the church it tried to destroy lives in perpetual youth. Rome has lost her heathen power of ruling with the sword the bodies of men from the Pillars of Hercules. But through that very Christianity Rome has received and wields a far higher power than the sword could give. She guides the consciences and minds of men, not only through the provinces of her olden temporal empire, but beyond their limit, in lands where the eagle of a Roman legion was never raised, and in countries of whose existence the Roman emperors never dreamed. To the thoughtful mind the Cistercian monastery and the noble church of St. Mary of the Angels but typify the glory of Christian Rome, built amid the ruins of her olden heathen power.

The proposal, made originally by whom we know not, of opening an exposition of religious art at Rome during the sittings of the council, was immediately taken up with enthusiasm. His Holiness assigned the garden of this noble cloister as the best adapted site to be found in Rome, except at a large expense. The Cistercians withdrew temporarily to other buildings close by, and gave up their own beautiful place to architects and workmen. The cloister, or broad open arcade, which runs round the square garden was chosen to form the outer gallery or halls, altogether about twelve hundred feet long by twenty broad. Within this outer gallery, and just touching each side in the middle, is a series of sixteen rooms, all of the same size, and of the same irregular, or rather rhomboidal, shape, forming, as it were, a broad polygon of sixteen sides. Within this polygon is the central portion of the garden, still unoccupied, with its gravelled walks, its green sward, its rose-trees and flowering plants, its ever-gushing fountain, the ample basin receiving the water, the glistening gold-fish, and the majestic cedars of Michael Angelo. The arcade has, of course, its own covering. The sixteen rooms of the polygon are roofed with glass, to let in the flood of light, and a few feet below the glass is another roofing, or awning, to soften its intensity and to mitigate the heat of the direct rays of the sun. Large openings in the partition walls allow free passage from room to room, all around the polygon; and where it touches the arcade or outer halls, other doors allow you to pass to them, or by opposite doors you may pass out to walk in the garden.

The exposition was opened on the 17th of February by the pope himself, in the presence of the commission for the exposition, a number of cardinals, some three hundred of the bishops, and a large concourse of clergy and laity. He made an impromptu discourse, touching chiefly on the true progress which art has made under the inspiration of religion and the patronage of the church, and in illustration referred to some of those unrivalled works of religious painting and sculpture which are found in Rome.

Nothing could be more appropriate to the assembling of so many bishops and priests and pious laymen in Rome, drawn by the council, than this exposition. Go when you will, you will find many of all these classes spending hours in studying a collection of religious works of every kind, such as most of them have never seen. In size and extent this exposition cannot, of course, compare with those vast ones of London and Paris. They sought and received objects of every kind. This admits nothing that is not devoted to, or in some way connected with, religion. It would correspond, therefore, with one section of the Paris Exposition of 1867. Considered in this light, it does not, as a whole, fall below it; in several respects it is superior.

We have not the space now to enter into a detail of the many and multifarious objects offered for examination. Every art seems represented. For what is there that cannot be made to give glory to God? Still, we may glance at a few of the chief groups.

The exterior arcade is chiefly devoted to sculpture and paintings. Of the former there are here and elsewhere in the exhibition over two hundred and fifty pieces, in marble, in plaster, or metal, or wood. I do not count the hundreds of sweet little things in terra cotta, nor the many objects in ivory. Tadolini, Benzoni, Pettrich, and a hundred other artists from Rome, and other parts of Italy, Germany, and France, have sent the work of their chisels. As a whole, this group of subjects stands far higher in point of good art than was looked for. Some of the statues are of a high order. We may instance a group of heroic size by Tadolini, representing the Archangel Michael overcoming Lucifer, after the painting by Guido, and two life-size Madonnas by Pettrich, all of which, we understand, will be forwarded to the United States. There is in one of the French rooms a plaster copy of the statue of the holy Vianney, curate of the village of Ars, near Lyons, in France, who died a few years ago in the odor of sanctity, and who, the Catholics of France are confident, will in due time be canonized. He is robed in soutane, surplice, and stole, and is kneeling in prayer, his face turned upward toward heaven. I do not speak of the style and execution, which are good; but of the face, which attracts every one. It is said to be a perfect likeness. Thin, gaunt, with features sharp and exaggerated by the lack of flesh, rather ugly than otherwise, there is an expression of simplicity, of piety, of kindness, of earnestness, which makes it far more than beautiful, a face that grows in sweetness as you look on it. And yet study the individual features, forehead, eyebrows, nose, mouth, chin, cheek-bones, the chief lines and wrinkles. They are precisely the same as on the repulsive face of Voltaire! What different expressions were given to the same features by the calm piety, the love of God and our neighbor, the spiritual peace dwelling in the soul of the saintly priest, and the pride, and envy, and passions, and the bitter, hopeless or despairing unbelief of the apostle of evil.

As we examine these statues, so good in their execution and so truly religious in their type, one cannot but feel a regret that in the United States we are such strangers to the use of them in our churches and chapels and oratories. Here and there are found, indeed, casts in plaster of Paris, sometimes in _papier-maché_. But how few real works of merit in materials and in style! If the clergy who are at work building our churches, and some of the laymen who are seconding them in this work, could only see those statues of our Lord on the cross, or bearing the cross and sinking under its weight, or healing the blind, or blessing little children; or those sweet ones of the Mother and Divine Child, in various positions; or of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Joseph, of Saint Cecilia, Saint Agnes, and of so many other saints and groups representing religious subjects; surely among them, in marble, in iron, bronzed, silvered, gilt, or illuminated with polychrome, and such a variety in size and in cost, they would understand the void in our churches, and would each do his part to supply it.

Especially would this be the case with the stations of the way of the cross. No devotion is more tender and consoling, and at the same time none more strengthening to true piety and the practice of virtue, than this pilgrimage of faith, in which we accompany our Lord, and, as it were, stand by his side, during the several scenes of his sufferings down to his death on the cross and his burial. No devotion is more popular, because none better suited to the faithful of every condition and class. Would it not be well if the engravings of those different scenes, so often found--we had almost said, disfiguring the walls of our churches, could give way to some of those basso-relievos and alto-relievos of France, of Italy, and of Germany, such as we see here? The love of the beautiful and striking is innate in man. Even the child feels it; and in manhood, use and education but develop and increase the satisfaction it gives. While we smiled, we could not but sympathize in some measure with the Italian sculptor who, on his dying-bed, pushed away a crucifix which a pious attendant wished to place in his hands. "Not that, not that! it makes me angry," he said; "it is horrid! Give me the other one; it is well made. That will excite devotion." Let children be taught, in a way they will love, to think often, to know, to realize, even from their tenderest years, what the loving and merciful Saviour suffered for man. Lessons well learned at that tender and innocent age seldom fade from the mind and heart in after years. And no way of teaching that lesson is more effectual than the one we indicate.

There are more than five hundred paintings in the exposition. Of these perhaps two hundred are by the old masters, and have been placed here by their owners.

These embrace paintings by the divine Raffaele, as the Italians call him, Domenichino, Annibale Carracci, Correggio, Maratta, Carlo Dolce, Salvator Rosa, Murillo, Leonardo da Vinci, Guido Reni, Rubens, Vandyke, Ribeyra, Del Sarto, and a host of other old masters, Italian, German, Flemish, and Spanish, whom we need not name. There we may gaze with rapture on the excellence of art inspired by religious thought. It is a fact not to be overlooked or forgotten, in these days of irreligion, that the best paintings which the best artists ever painted were all produced when they brought their powers to represent a religious subject. In painting, and in other things too, he works best who works in the spirit of religion and the fear of God.

The larger number of the paintings are of later date, many of them by living artists. To our eye, certainly not trained to criticism, many of them appear worthy of high praise. But we believe the general verdict is not so favorable to them as to the statuary. Still, we must remember that here they have to compete side by side with those old paintings of the highest order. The contrast between their freshly laid colors and the colors of older paintings, toned down by age, if not somewhat faded, is so strong and striking that this very difference, often no real difference on the part of the painters, is set down as a defect to be censured. The portrait of the pope, by our American artist Healy, is undoubtedly the best likeness of the Holy Father in the exposition.