Chapter I: Front Matter

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

A

MONTHLY MAGAZINE

OF

GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.

VOL. XV.
APRIL, 1872, TO SEPTEMBER, 1872.

NEW YORK:
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE,
9 Warren Street.

1872.

CONTENTS.

Acoustics and Ventilation, 118.
Affirmations, 77, 225.
Aix-la-Chapelle, 795.
Ambrosia, 803.
Art and Religion, 356.
Art, Faith the Life of, 518.

Bad Beginning for a Saint, A, 675.
Belgium, Religious Processions in, 546.
Bolanden’s The Progressionists, 433, 618, 766.
Bryant’s Translation of the Iliad, 381.

Caresses of Providence, 270.
Catholic Congress in Mayence, The Twenty-first, 45.
Catholic Church in the United States, 577, 749.
Chaumonot, F. (A Bad Beginning for a Saint), 675.
Charity, Official, 407.
Church, The, 814.
“ and the Press, The, 413.
“ The Symbolism of the, 605.
“Chips,” Max Müller’s, 530.
Cicero, A Speech of, 182.
Craven’s (Mrs.) Fleurange, 60, 226, 342, 473, 591, 734.

Donkey, Jans von Steufle’s, 92.
Duties of the Rich in Christian Society, The, 37, 145, 289, 510.

Easter Eve, 42.
Education, The Necessity of Philosophy as a Basis of Higher,
632, 815.
English Literature, Taine’s, 1.
Essay on Epigrams, An, 467.
Etheridge, Miss, 501.

Faith the Life of Art, 518.
Fête-Day at Lyons, A, 362.

Gothic Revival in England, History of the, 443.
Greatness, True, 539.

Handkerchief, The, 849.
History of the Gothic Revival in England, 443.
House of Yorke, The, 18, 150, 295.
How I Learned Latin, 844.

Iliad, Bryant’s Translation of the, 381.
India, Protestant Missions in, 690.
Intellectual Centres, 721.

Jans von Steufle’s Donkey, 92.
Jewish Convert, A Reminiscence of Vienna, 211.

Lamartine, The Mother of, 167.
Last Days before the Siege, The, 457, 666.
Letters of His Holiness Pius IX. on the “Union of Christian
Women,” 563.
Little Love, 554.
Lyons, A Fête-Day at, 362.

Max Müller’s “Chips,” 530.
Miracles, Newman on, 133.
Miss Etheridge, 501.
Mission of the Barbarians, The Roman Empire and the, 102, 654.
Misty Mountain, On the, 705, 823.
Mother of Lamartine, The, 167.
Music, On, 733.

Newman on Miracles, 133.

Odd Stories, 124.
Official Charity, 407.
On Music, 733.
On the Misty Mountain, 705, 823.
Orléans and its Clergy, 833.

Paris before the War, A Salon in, 187, 323.
Philosophy as a Basis of Higher Education, The Necessity of,
632, 815.
Philosophy, Review of Dr. Stöckl’s, 329.
Press, The Church and the, 413.
Progressionists, The, 433, 618, 766.
Protestant Missions in India, 690.
Providence, Caresses of, 270.

Quarter of an Hour in the Old Roman Forum during a Speech of
Cicero’s, 182.

Religion, Art and, 356.
Religious Processions in Belgium, 546.
Reminiscence of Vienna, A, 211.
Review of Mr. Bryant’s Iliad, 576.
Rich, Duties of the, in Christian Society, 37, 145, 289, 510.
Rights of Women, How the Church Understands and Upholds
the, 78, 255, 366, 487.
Roman Empire, The, and the Mission of the Barbarians, 102, 654.

St. James’s Mission at Vancouver, Decision against the, 715.
Salon in Paris before the War, A, 187, 323.
Siege, Last Days before the, 457, 666.
Spain: What it was, and what it is, 397.
Spaniards at Home, The, 783.
Stöckl’s Philosophy, Review of, 329.
Stories, Odd, 124.
Summer in the Tyrol, A, 646.
Symbolism of the Church, The, 605.

Taine’s English Literature, 1.
Tennyson: Artist and Moralist, 241.
True Greatness, 539.
Twenty-first Catholic Congress in Mayence, The, 45.
Tyrol, A Summer in the, 646.

“Union of Christian Women,” Letters of His Holiness Pius IX.
on the, 563.
United States, The Catholic Church in the, 577, 749.
Use and Abuse of the Stage, 836.

Vancouver, Decision against the St. James’ Mission at, 715.
Ventilation, Acoustics and, 118.

Women, How the Church Understands and Upholds the Rights
of, 78, 255, 366, 487.

Yorke, The House of, 18, 150, 295.

POETRY.

After Reading Mr. Tupper’s Proverbial Philosophy, 466.
Anniversary of Baptism, 149.

Blessed Virgin, Fragments of Early English Poems on the, 319.
Books, Old, 729.

Clerke at Oxenforde, 674.

Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto III., 730.
De Vere’s The Last Days of Oisin the Bard, 76.
“ Legends of Oisin the Bard, 208, 320.
Devota, 269.

Faber’s The Papacy, 748.
Fragments of Early English Poetry, 590.
“ “ on the Blessed Virgin, 319.

Oxenforde, The Clerke of, 674.

Papacy, The, 748.
Passion, The, 91.
Passion, Fragments of Early English Poems on the, 17.
Pledges, The Three, 127.
Proverbial Philosophy, After Reading Mr. Tupper’s, 466.
Purgatorio, Dante’s, Canto III., 730.

Super Omnes Speciosa, 166.

To Wordsworth, 538.
Troubadours of Provence, On the, 294.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Allibone’s A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, 564.
Anderdon’s Christian Æsop, 719.
Announcements, 144, 288, 432, 576.
Arias’ Virtues of Mary, Mother of God, 568.
Augustine, St. Aurelius, Works of, 423.
Aunt Fanny’s Present, 432.

Baker’s Dozen, A, 859.
Betrothed, The, 425.
Bolanden’s Old God, 856.
Book of Psalms, 137.
Books and Pamphlets Received, 144.
Burke’s The Men and Women of the Reformation, 285.
Burke’s Lectures and Sermons, 852.
By the Seaside, 859.

Catholic Review, The, 860.
Christian Counsels, 859.
“ Free Schools, 432.
Clare’s (Sister Mary Frances) Hornehurst Rectory, 857.
Coleridge’s Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier, 423.
Conscience’s The Merchant of Antwerp, 720.
Craven’s (Mrs.) A Sister’s Story, 287.
Curtius’ The History of Greece, 139.

De Croyft’s (Mrs.) Little Jakey, 432.
Dorward’s Wild Flowers of Wisconsin, 287.
Dubois’ Zeal in the Work of the Ministry, 137.

Erckmann-Chatrian’s The Plebiscite, 858.
Excerpta ex Rituali Romano, etc., 574.
Extracts from the Fathers, etc., 569.

Fashion, 140.
Fiske’s The Offertorium, 574.
Fitton’s Memoirs of the Establishment of the Church in
N. E., 857.
Formby’s Parables of Our Lord, 286.
“ School Songs, 286.
“ The Devotion of the Seven Dolors, 286.
“ “ School Keepsake, 286.
“ “ Seven Sacraments, 286.
Fox’s Fashion, 140.
French Eggs in an English Basket, 425.
Fullerton’s (Lady) Constance Sherwood, 422.

Gardner’s Latin School Series, 575.
Gagarin’s The Russian Clergy, 719.
Gleeson’s History of the Church in California, 428.
Gould’s Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, 432.
Gould’s Lives of the Saints, 576.
Green’s Indulgences, Absolutions, Tax Tables, etc., 720.

Half-hour Recreations in Popular Science, 431.
Half-hours with Modern Scientists, 431.
Hare’s Walks in Rome, 432.
Harpain, Marie Eustelle, Life of, 285.
Hart’s A Manual of English Literature, 427.
Haskins’ Six Weeks Abroad, 571.
Hengstenberg’s Kingdom of God under the Old Testament, 429.
House of Yorke, The, 420.
Humphrey’s Divine Teacher, 855.

Lamon’s Life of Abraham Lincoln, 718.
Little Pierre, the Pedlar of Alsace, 284.
Liquefaction of the Blood of St. Januarius, 136.
Longfellow’s The Divine Tragedy, 427.

McQuaid’s (Bp.) Christian Free Schools, 432.
Maggie’s Rosary, 425.
Maguire’s Pontificate of Pius IX., 856.
Maistre’s A Journey Around My Room, 138.
Manning’s Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects, 142.
Manzoni’s The Betrothed, 425.
Martin’s Going Home, 858.
May’s (Sophie) Little Prudy’s Flyaway Series, 144.
Memoir of Roger B. Taney, 853.
Merrick’s Lectures on the Church, 430.
Monnin’s Life of the Curé d’Ars, 719.
Mulloy’s Passion Play, 427.
Mumford’s A Remembrance for the Living to Pray for the
Dead, 144.
Mystical City of God (Abridged), 720.

Newman’s Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects, 421.
Newman’s Historical Sketches, 855.

Oakeley’s The Order and Ceremonial of the Mass, 856.

Paine’s Physiology of the Soul, etc., 430.
Pellico’s Duties of Young Men, 575.
Phædrus, Justin, and Nepos, 575.
Proctor’s Half-Hour Recreations in Popular Science, 431.
Proctor’s Strange Discoveries Respecting the Aurora, 431.
Public School Education, 860.

Rawes’ Great Truths in Little Words, 856.
Reports on Observations of the Total Solar Eclipse, 431.
Roscoe, Huggins, and Lockyer’s Spectrum Analysis, 431.

St. Teresa, The Book of the Foundations of, 142.
St. Thomas of Aquin: His Life and Labors, 568.
Saunders’ Salad for the Solitary and the Social, 143.
Sedgwick’s Relation and Duty of the Lawyer to the State, 430.
Sermons by Fathers of the Society of Jesus, 425.
Sir Humphrey’s Trial, 860.
Smiddy’s An Address on the Druids, Churches, and Round Towers
of Ireland, 143.
Spectrum Analysis, 431.
Souvestre’s French Eggs, 425.

Taine’s Notes on England, 719.
Tondini’s The Pope of Rome, 427.
Travels in Arabia, 432.
Tyler’s Life of Roger B. Taney, 853.

Una and Her Paupers; or, Memorials of Agnes E. Jones, 569.

Vaughan’s St. Thomas of Aquin: His Life and Labors, 568.
Veith’s Via Crucis; or, The Way of the Cross, 426.
Vetromile’s Travels in Europe and the East, 857.
Virtues and Defects of a Young Girl, 571.

Warner’s Saunterings, 719.
Welsh’s Women Helpers in the Church, 572.
Wiseman’s Witch of Rosenburg, 720.
Women Helpers in the Church, 572.
Woodland Cottage, etc., 432.

* * * * *

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XV., No. 85.--APRIL, 1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev.
I. T. HECKER, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington, D. C.

TAINES ENGLISH LITERATURE.[1]

In so far as we may judge from the notices in periodicals and newspapers, this work appears to have been received, both in England and the United States, not only with general favor, but with enthusiastic admiration.

A history of English literature based on a system new to the great body of English readers, and written with freshness, _verve_, and certain attractive peculiarities of style, could not fail to fix their attention and engage their interest from the beginning to the end of its two bulky octavo volumes. The author of the work in question is so well known in the world of letters by his essays on the philosophy of art that he needs no introduction to our readers.

M. Taine starts out with the assumption that the literature of any given country is the exponent of its mental life, or, as he states it (p. 20), “I am about to write the history of a literature, and to seek in it for the psychology of a people.” In France and Germany, we are told, history has been revolutionized by the study of their literatures.

“It was perceived,” says M. Taine, “that a work of literature is
not a mere play of imagination, a solitary caprice of a heated
brain, but a transcript of contemporary manners, a type of a
certain kind of mind. It was concluded that one might retrace,
from the monuments of literature, the style of man’s feelings
and thoughts for centuries back. The attempt was made, and it
succeeded.”

Unquestionably the style of man’s feelings may be traced in literature for centuries back. That is M. Taine’s first approach. But between the successful insight into this or that writer’s opinions and modes of thought and the opinions and modes of thought of a nation, the void is so enormous--unless, indeed, we dangerously reason from particulars to generals--as to require to fill it more subjective literary productions than any country has ever yet produced.

From this system it would follow that if a nation has no literature it can have no history. If it have--as is too often the case--no literature but that of a despotism or of a dominant minority, it follows that you cannot discern a single idea nor hear a single pulsation of the heart of a great people. But granting the literature to exist, although we are told that a work “is not a mere play of the imagination,” we nevertheless know full well that some of the most brilliant portions of every literature are precisely what that phrase describes. Beyond that, we also know that all writers are not only not sincere, but too often unfaithful because too often venal, and cannot therefore be relied upon.

In certain writings enumerated by him, M. Taine says: “The reader will see all the wealth that may be drawn from a literary work: _when the work is rich, and one knows how to interpret it_, we find there the psychology of a soul, frequently of an age, now and then of a race.” Partially true. And M. Taine might have instanced the _Confessions_ of St. Augustine, but he does not. We may indeed find what he indicates under certain conditions, for, as he very correctly adds, “their utility grows with their perfection.” Unfortunately, such works occur in literature at the rarest intervals.

It cannot be questioned that M. Taine’s theory contains a germ of truth. But, in fact, so far as it is true it is a very old story. What is true in his theory is not new, and what is new is questionable. Since history has risen to be something more and something better than a mere roll of warriors and a correct list of kings and queens--which latter class of good people are fast disappearing, never again, we trust, to return--since the historian has been elevated from the rank of a mere annalist to be the interpreter to his own age of not only the acts and sufferings, but the mind and the heart of dead generations, he has become avid of the most trifling details concerning their transitory passage here on earth. He desires to discover and relate how they lived, slept, and ate--how they talked, toiled, and travelled--what they said, what they thought--what, in a word, was their social and psychological life. To obtain the knowledge he seeks, all sources are equally valuable--written manuscripts that speak as well as stone ruins that are dumb.

Such knowledge as this the new school of German historians, having first exhausted all literary material, have sought to gather from the most remote and even repulsive sources; and from philological analysis, from works of art, from monuments, old roads, half-corroded coins, almost obliterated inscriptions, broken pottery, partially effaced frescoes, and from the very fragments of mere kitchen utensils, they have created afresh and revealed to us, in all its details, the daily and familiar life of ancient Rome, and poured a flood of light upon the living man of the that day.

And yet, before the results of their archæological and ethnological labors were given to the world, we thought we knew our Roman well and familiarly. For what literature, unless it be that of Greece, presents so rich and so complete a portrait gallery of all the types of its people as the literature of Rome? From Virgil, who gives us the ploughman and vinedresser, and Cæsar, through whose pages marches the Roman soldier, to Livy, Sallust, Tacitus, Juvenal, and Horace, we have a score of writers in whose pages all the virtues and vices, the grandeur and the shame, the nobility and the grovelling sensuality, of Rome are spread before us in language so attractive and so grand as to promise to outlast many modern masterpieces.

M. Taine sneers at “Latin literature as worth nothing at the outset,” being “borrowed and imitative.” To this we reply, _Adhuc sub judice_, etc., and, bad or not, it tells the story of the Roman people, and very nearly reveals to us the ancient Roman as he walked on earth.

We have no such faithful picture of the English people in English literature.

We fear that M. Taine mistakes a part for the whole. Unquestionably, literature has its uses, and high ones, for the elucidation of many a problem and the illumination of many a page of history; but, if we set out to find the history of a nation in its literature, outside of history proper and the new aids to historical research we have referred to, we merely adopt a deceptive guide that can lead us only to disappointment. For these grand theories, so symmetrical and so plausible, when presented by their generally eloquent framers, stand, when put into actual service, very little wear and tear. Accordingly, we find that there happens to M. Taine precisely what happens to every man who starts out to construct a work strictly according to a given system. And what thus happens is a serious matter. This it is. Facts are treated as of secondary importance. They are put upon their best behavior. They must show themselves up to a certain standard, or they are counted as worthless. If they are so wrong-headed as to come in conflict with the author’s theory--the old story--why, so much the worse for the facts, and our theorist ruthlessly tramples upon and walks over them straight to his objective point, which is, necessarily, his foregone conclusion.

It would detain us too long to present an analysis of M. Taine’s introduction, from which alone it would not be difficult to demonstrate the insufficiency of his theory. It contains passages which, in the stately march of his eloquent phrase, seem to sound as though they announced newly discovered truths of startling import, but which, translated into familiar language, turn out to be but little more than the text-book enunciation of some familiar principle. Thus:

“When you have observed and noted in man one, two, three, then
a multitude of sensations, does this suffice, or does your
knowledge appear complete? Is a book of observation a psychology?
It is no psychology, and here as elsewhere the search for causes
must come after the collection of facts. No matter if the facts
be physical or moral, they all have their causes; there is a
cause for ambition, for courage, for truth, as there is for
digestion, for muscular movement, for animal heat. Vice and
virtue are products, like vitriol and sugar, and every complex
phenomenon has its springs from other more simple phenomena on
which it hangs.”

M. Taine, it is evident, cannot be charged with sparing his readers either the enunciation or the elucidation of first principles.

The author commences by disposing of the Anglo-Saxons, their literature, and six centuries of their annals, in a short chapter of twenty-three pages, which, so far as our observation has extended, has been passed over both by English and American criticism almost without remark. Some reviewers account for its conciseness by saying that Anglo-Saxon literature has but little interest for the general reader, except as a question of philology. As of general application, the remark is not widely incorrect, but it is signally out of place with reference to M. Taine’s work, for he announces as part of his task that of “developing the recondite mechanism whereby the Saxon barbarian has been transformed into the Englishman of to-day.”

Now, fairly to understand the Englishman of to-day, we must, by M. Taine’s own announcement, have the Saxon original placed before us; for, he says, “the modern Englishman existed entire in this Saxon” (p. 31). The Saxon must be produced to our sight, and we must have him evolved strictly on M. Taine’s principles, viz., _as the psychological product of his literature_. If this is done, he will fulfil his engagement of “developing the recondite mechanism,” etc., or, in other words, of presenting us a full exposition of Anglo-Saxon literature.

We feel bound to say that none of these promises are kept, and none of these results are reached, by M. Taine; nay, more, that he not only totally fails in presenting a fair or even intelligible abstract of Anglo-Saxon literature, but that he appears to be wanting in the necessary information which might enable him to do it. We think it less derogatory to him to say that his knowledge of the subject is defective than to make the necessarily alternative charge.

We find, however, some excuse for M. Taine’s limited acquirements in Anglo-Saxon literature in the fact that he appears to have relied to a great extent on Warton and on Sharon Turner. Dr. Warton’s well-known history of English poetry is unquestionably a work of great merit and utility, in so far as it treats of English poetry from the period of Chaucer down, but as authority on any matter connected with Anglo-Saxon literature, it is next to worthless. Warton knew very little about it. Sharon Turner as authority on Anglo-Saxon history, and Sharon Turner as authority on Anglo-Saxon literature, are two very different persons. The knowledge of Anglo-Saxon literature has made great strides since his day. For his history he was not dependent on Anglo-Saxon documents. Latin material was abundant.

It must be borne in mind that, although the English tongue is so directly derived from it, Anglo-Saxon is, nevertheless, a dead language, and when, in the sixteenth century, its study was to some extent revived, it had not only been dead four hundred years, but buried and forgotten. That revival occurred at a time when religious controversy ran high in England, the motive prompting it being to discover testimony among Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical MSS. as to the existence of an English Catholic Church separate from and independent of Papal authority. Thus far the search has not been attended with any marked success. In the seventeenth century, Anglo-Saxon was studied for the light it threw on the early history and legislation of England. Since the commencement of the present century, the study has been pursued with greater success than ever for objects purely literary and philological. Indeed, it may be said that, until within some forty years, the cultivation of Anglo-Saxon was confined to a very small circle of scholars.

The most remarkable monuments of its literature are of comparatively recent publication, and there happened at the outset to the study of Anglo-Saxon precisely what happened to the study of Sanskrit. It was that many scholars, aware of its literary wealth, and, possibly, in possession of copies of some of its productions, were without adequate means of pursuing or even of commencing their studies on account of the want of dictionaries and grammars. It was for this reason that Frederick Schlegel, before writing his great work on _The Language and Wisdom of the Indians_, was obliged to leave Germany and go to England, in order to avail himself of the resources of the British Museum; and when we consider the difficulties under which Dr. Lingard made his Anglo-Saxon studies, and wrote his _Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church_, of which work M. Taine does not appear to have heard, we are more than ever surprised at the ability displayed by the great English historian.

When we undertake to trace the gradual development of the Anglo-Saxon of Anno 500 into the Englishman of 1800, the first phase is immeasurably the most interesting and the most important, for in that phase he was at once civilized and christianized. Take away the introduction and development of Christianity from Anglo-Saxon history, and you have left nothing but a list of kings and two or three battles. Now, M. Taine’s exposition of how, when, and through what agencies civilization and Christianity were brought into England may be descriptively characterized as “how not to do it.” His great effort in his introductory chapter is to eliminate Christianity from Anglo-Saxon history, and to give us, as it were, the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted--an effort so systematic and persistent as to make us almost regret our volunteered plea for his excuse on the ground of want of familiarity with his subject. Here is his device to escape the necessity of relating the all essential story of the conversion to Christianity: “A race so constituted was predisposed to Christianity by its gloom, its aversion to sensual and reckless living, its inclination for the serious and sublime.” M. Taine has just described (pp. 41-43) the leading characteristics of the _pagan_ Anglo-Saxon mind as manifested in its poetry--“a race so constituted”--and cites in support of his exposition two passages translated from what he asserts to be pagan Anglo-Saxon poetry. The first, _Battle of Finsborough_, we know was found on the cover of a MS. book of homilies, written by some monk, although it may, perhaps, be of pagan origin. The second, and more important one, _The Battle of Brunanburh_, containing the line, “The sun on high, the great star, God’s brilliant candle, the noble creature”[2] (p. 43), is Christian and monkish beyond all peradventure, for it forms a portion of the _Saxon Chronicle_, begun as late as the days of Alfred. The battle was fought in the year 939!

We continue: “Its aversion to sensual and reckless living.” This is simply astounding when we remember that M. Taine has just been telling us, through twenty pages, of their “ravenous stomachs filled with meat and cheese, heated by strong drinks,” “prone to brutal drunkenness,” becoming “more gluttonous, carving their hogs, filling themselves with flesh; swallowing all the strong, coarse drinks which they could procure,” etc.

And then follows the far more surprising psychological result: “These utter barbarians embrace Christianity straightway, _through sheer force of mood and clime_” (p. 44).

Now, M. Taine knows--as we all know--that these pagan Anglo-Saxons were brutal and sensual to the last degree. In personal indulgence, they were what he describes and more. They were pirates, robbers, and murderers.

The rewards promised them by their gods after death were that they should have nothing to do but eat and drink. Even the paganism of their Scandinavian and Teutonic forefathers, a mixture of massacre and sensuality, was corrupted by them, and the emblems of their bloody and obscene gods were naked swords and hammers, with which they broke the heads of their victims. The immortality promised them in their Walhalla was a long continuance of new days of slaughter, and nights of debauch spent in drinking from their enemies’ skulls. Such was the race found by M. Taine so constituted as to be “predisposed to Christianity by its gloom, its aversion to sensual and reckless living”; such the people who “through sheer force of mood and clime” laid aside their cruelty, brutality, carnage, and sensuality, gave up feasting for fasting, proud independence for obedience, indulgence for self-denial! Truly remarkable effects of atmosphere. The climate of England must have greatly changed since the year 597.

In the course of a debate which once arose in the British House of Commons on the subject of negro emancipation, it was urged against the measure that you could not civilize the negro; he belonged to an inferior race which offered human sacrifices and sold their own children into slavery. Whereupon, a member promptly replied that was just what our ancestors in England did--they offered human sacrifices and sold their children into slavery. This will naturally recall to the reader’s mind the touching incident which led to the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, the fair-haired and blue-eyed children offered for sale, and their redemption by the great Gregory, who said they were not only Angles, but angels. From that moment the mission to England was resolved upon. We all know the story. Gregory’s departure, his capture by the citizens of Rome and forcible return, his elevation to the pontifical throne, the departure of St. Augustine and his forty companions, their trials, sufferings, and danger of death on the route, their arrival in England, their labors, the gradual and peaceful conversion of the people, their successful efforts in bringing the Saviour, his Gospel, and his church to benighted heathens, and their civilization and social amelioration of the Anglo-Saxons. To the immortal glory of these men be it said that neither violence nor persecution was resorted to by them, their disciples, or their protectors for the triumph of civilization and religion. It is one of the grandest Christian victories on record. Of all this, here is M. Taine’s record:

“Roman missionaries bearing a silver cross with a picture of
Christ came in procession, chanting a litany. Presently the high
priest of the Northumbrians declared, in presence of the nobles,
that the old gods were powerless, and confessed that formerly ‘he
knew nothing of that which he adored;’ and he among the first,
lance in hand, assisted to demolish their temple. At his side a
chief rose in the assembly, and said:

“You remember, O king, what sometimes happens in winter when
you are at supper with your earls and thanes, while the good
fire burns within, and it rains and the wind howls without. A
sparrow enters at one door, and flies out quickly at the other.
During that rapid passage and pleasant moment it disappears,
and from winter returns to winter again. Such seems to me to be
the life of man, and his career but a brief moment between that
which goes before and that which follows after, and of which we
know nothing. If, then, the new doctrine can teach us something
certain, it deserves to be followed.”[3]

The Protestant historian, Sharon Turner, says of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons: “It was accomplished in a manner worthy of the benevolence and purity [of the Christian religion]. Genuine piety seems to have led the first missionaries to our shores. Their zeal, their perseverance, and the excellence of the system they diffused made their labors successful.” He gives a detailed narrative of the action of Gregory the Great, of the devotion and self-sacrifice of St. Augustine and his companions, of their long and perilous journey, their landing in England, and, in describing their procession on the Isle of Thanet, writes: “With a silver cross and a picture of Christ, they advanced singing the litany.” M. Taine, with a stroke of the pen, copies this line almost word for word, and makes it do duty for a full and detailed account of the labors of St. Augustine and his forty companions for two score years!

What period of time the word _presently_ represents to M. Taine we do not know. It may be an hour, or a day, or a month, but the incident which he refers to as occurring “presently” took place about forty years after the “procession.”

And now it is sought to belittle or decry the victory of the Christian missionaries in two ways: 1st. It was the most natural thing in the world for the brutal, bloody, slave-dealing, drunken barbarian to embrace the new religion, because his paganism so strongly resembled Christianity. 2d. But after conversion they remained, after all, substantially, barbarous pagans as before, and their songs remind M. Taine of “the songs of the servants of Odin, tonsured and clad in the garments of monks.” “The Christian hymns embody the pagan” (p. 46).

To demonstrate this, and to show that the songs of these converted Saxons are “but a concrete of exclamations,” have “no development,” and are nothing but paganism after all, M. Taine gives five prose lines of imperfect translation from a poem by Cædmon. Here is a correct rendering of the opening of the poem in the original metre. Let the reader judge of the amount of pagan inspiration it contains:

“Now must we glorify
The guardian of heaven’s kingdom,
The Maker’s might,
And his mind’s thought,
The work of the worshipped father,
When of his wonders, each one,
The ever-living Lord
Ordered the origin,
He erst created
For earth’s children
Heaven as a high roof,
The holy Creator:
Then on this mid-world
Did man’s great guardian,
The ever-living Lord,
Afterward prepare
For men a mansion,
The Master Almighty.”[4]

M. Taine continues:

“One of them” [those servants of Odin, take notice], “Adhelm,
stood on a bridge leading to the town where he lived, and
repeated warlike and profane odes alternately with religious
poetry, in order to attract and instruct the men of his time. He
could do it without changing his key. In one of them, a funeral
song, Death speaks. It was one of the last Saxon compositions,
containing a terrible Christianity, which seems at the same time
to have sprung from the blackest depths of the _Edda_.”

M. Taine has here given rein to his imagination, and made terrible work with Saxon chronology and other matters. For Adhelm read Aldhelm, in Saxon _Ealdhelm_, so King Alfred spelt it. The name signifies _Old Helmet_; Aldhelm was of princely extraction. “Warlike and profane odes” does not correctly translate “_carmen triviale_.” Aldhelm was a learned priest, a Greek, Latin, and Hebrew scholar, with a profound knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. His present reputation rests on his Latin works. His contemporary reputation was founded on his Anglo-Saxon productions. He composed canticles and ballads in his native tongue, and, remarking the haste of many of the Anglo-Saxon peasants to leave church as soon as the Sunday Mass was over, in order to avoid the sermon, he would lie in wait for them at the bridge or wayside, and, singing to them as a bard, attract their attention, and in the fascination of a musical verse teach them the truths of religion they would not wait to hear from the pulpit. It was not for the pleasure of singing that Aldhelm thus labored: it was to save souls. Without the slightest authority, M. Taine puts in his mouth this beautiful Anglo-Saxon fragment:

“Death speaks to man: ’For thee was a house built ere thou
wast born; for thee was a mould shapen ere thou camest of thy
mother. Its height is not determined, nor its depth measured,
nor is it closed up (however long it may be) until I bring thee
where thou shalt remain, until I shall measure thee and the sod
of earth. Thy house is not highly built, it is unhigh and low;
when thou art in it the heelways are low, the sideways low. The
roof is built full nigh thy breast; so thou shalt dwell in earth
full cold, dim, and dark. Doorless is that house, and dark it is
within; there thou art fast prisoner, and Death holds the key.
Loathly is that earth-house, and grim to dwell in; there thou
shalt dwell, and worms shall share thee. Thus thou art laid, and
leavest thy friends; thou hast no friend that will come to thee,
who will ever inquire how that house liketh thee, who shall ever
open the door for thee, and seek thee, for soon thou becomest
loathly and hateful to look upon.’”

The composition is not by Aldhelm, who, probably, never heard of it. All of Aldhelm’s Anglo-Saxon MSS. perished when the magnificent monastery at Malmesbury was sacked under Henry VIII. The Protestant historian, Maitland, thus tells the story: “The precious MSS. of his [Aldhelm’s] library were long employed to fill up broken windows in the neighboring houses, or to light the bakers’ fires.”

All that we know of _The Grave_ is that it was found written in the margin of a volume of Anglo-Saxon homilies, preserved in the Bodleian Library. It is of a period following Aldhelm’s era, and is in the dialect of East Anglia, while Aldhelm was of Wessex. But M. Taine himself demonstrates that it could not be Aldhelm’s. At page 50, he tells us Aldhelm died in 709, having previously stated (p. 46) that the fragment “was one of the last Anglo-Saxon compositions.” But among the finest Anglo-Saxon poetical compositions are the celebrated _Ormulum_, and various poems by Layamon, which were written about the year 1225. _The Grave_, moreover, so far from containing “a terrible Christianity,” has so essentially the tone and spirit of many well-known Catholic meditations on death, that it might have been written in a Spanish monastery or taken from a book of Christian devotions.

Of course, “the poor monks” can do nothing creditable in M. Taine’s eyes, and he comes to sad grief in undertaking to go, by specification, beyond the common counts of the ordinary declaration dictated by bigotry. At page 53, vol. i., he thus refers in contemptuous terms to the monks who compiled the _Saxon Chronicle_:

“They spun out awkwardly and heavily dry chronicles, a sort
of historical almanacs. You might think them peasants, who,
returning from their toil, came and scribbled with chalk on a
smoky table the date of a year of scarcity, the price of corn,
the changes in the weather, a death.”

And here a word as to this _Chronicle_, which is a national history generally conceded to have been established by King Alfred, under the advice of his counsellor Pflegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, about 870 A.D. It begins with a brief account of Britain from Cæsar’s invasion, and becomes very full in its narrative after the year 853.

The _Chronicle_ shares with Bede’s history the highest place among authorities for early English history. Seven original copies of it are still in existence, and, making due allowance for the ravages of time and the elements, and the destruction by war, demolition of the monasteries, theft, spoliation, and the wilful mischief of religious bigotry, the survival of these seven copies would go far to prove the former existence of several hundreds. The copies yet extant are all evidently based upon a single original text, and it is presumed that the _Chronicle_ was continued at all the monasteries in England, each one forwarding its local annals to some one special monastery, where a brief summary was compiled of the whole, copies of which were supplied to all the religious houses, to be incorporated with the general _Chronicle_, thus keeping up from year to year the general history of the nation. M. Taine gives some half-dozen dry-as-dust extracts from the _Chronicle_ of this nature:

“902. _This year there was the great fight at the Holme, between
the men of Kent and the Danes._”

He adds:

“It is thus the poor monks speak, with monotonous dryness, who
after Alfred’s time gather up and take notes of great visible
events; sparsely scattered we find a few moral reflections, a
passionate emotion, nothing more” (vol. i. p. 53).

But at page 42, M. Taine has given us as belonging to a period preceding Christianity in England, as a part of “the pagan current,” an extract from the song on Athelstan’s victory, of which he speaks in terms of enthusiastic admiration. “If there has ever been anywhere a deep and serious poetic sentiment, it is here,” etc. Now, this song, under the date of A.D. 937, _is a part of the Saxon Chronicle, written by some poor monk “after Alfred’s time_.”

“This year King Athelstane, the Lord of Earls,
Ring-giver to the warriors, Edmund too
His brother, won in fight with edge of swords
Lifelong renown at Brunanburh. The sons
Of Edward clave with the forged steel the wall
Of linden shields. The spirit of their sires
Made them defenders of the land, its wealth,
Its homes, in many a fight with many a foe.”[5]

“It is thus the monks speak with monotonous dryness”! And so speak they often in their _Chronicle_. The death of Byrhtnoth referred to by M. Taine in note 2, p. 36, is also from the _Saxon Chronicle_, and Mr. Morley specifies numerous other poetical passages in it. Nevertheless, we find that M. Taine is not at all embarrassed by his somewhat uncertain and limited command of Anglo-Saxon literature. On the contrary, he qualifies as _amusing_ (p. 30) a discussion on a point of Anglo-Saxon history by two such distinguished scholars as Dr. Lingard and Sharon Turner! These historians “amuse” M. Taine!

“What is your first remark,” asks Mr. Taine, “in turning over
the great, stiff leaves of a folio, the yellow sheets of a
manuscript? This, you say, was not created alone. It is but a
mould, like a fossil shell, an imprint, like one of those shapes
embossed in stone by an animal which lived and perished. Under
the stone there was an animal, and behind the document there
was a man. Why do you study the shell, except to represent to
yourself the animal? So do you study the document only in order
to know the man” (Introduction, p. 1).

In this we almost agree with our author. It is well to study shells, and well to study men in the shells of leaves, sheets, manuscripts, or other literary exuviæ they may have left. Our objection to M. Taine is that he has piles and heaps of such shells, which he resolutely refuses to study, behind which he persistently refuses to look. The trouble with him lies here. Behind every shell is a monk, a priest, or a bishop, whose piety and whose virtues are not subjects of agreeable contemplation to a writer who announces his belief that religion is a mere human invention; that man makes a religion as he paints a portrait or constructs a steam-engine. Thus M. Taine states it: “Let us take first the three chief works of human intelligence--religion, art, philosophy” (p. 15).

Accordingly, of the great minds of Anglo-Saxon England during whole centuries we see nothing in M. Taine’s pages. They are carefully kept out of sight. One of the most majestic figures in all literary history, that of the Venerable Bede, is absent from his chapters, being referred to only twice by name, once as “Bede, their old poet”! The learned Aldhelm is made a mere gleeman on the highway. Roger Bacon’s name is not mentioned--the name of the man who was a prodigy of learning, and who announced the principles of the inductive system nearly four hundred years before Lord Verulam appropriated the glory of its discovery.[6] Augustine, Paulinus, Wilfred, Cuthbert, and scores of others are not referred to. These men and their companions were at once monks, preachers, schoolmasters, book-makers, scribes, authors, physicians, architects, builders, surveyors, and farmers. _Laborare est orare_, Labor is prayer, was their device. Barren moors, repulsive marshes, fever-bearing fens, and wasted tracts they cultivated, and made glad fields of gloomy swamps.

The sandy plains and barren heaths of Northumbria, and the marshes of East Anglia and Mercia, the monks transformed by intelligent labor and enduring toil from uninhabited deserts into rich fields yielding abundant harvests. Around these isolated monasteries soon sprang up, as around so many centres of life, schools, workshops, and settlements. The wilderness blossomed. And the monks wrote Christianity and civilization on the hearts of the people and on the soil of England. Not to mention the grand literary monuments dedicated to the record of their pious labors by Count Montalembert in his _Monks of the West_, all these victories for humanity are clearly discernible to scores of modern Protestant writers, who have borne eloquent testimony to the noble devotion and glorious services of these holy men, whose real merits have been too long obscured by the historical conspiracy against truth. They have looked behind shells and manuscripts, and found something to reward their search.

Thus Carlyle finds a man behind the old MS. of Jocelin of Brakelond:

“A personable man of seven-and-forty, stout made, stands erect
as a pillar; with bushy eyebrows, the face of him beaming into
you in a really strange way: the name of him Samson: a man worth
looking at.... He was wont to preach to the people in the English
tongue, though according to the dialect of Norfolk, where he
had been brought up. There preached he: a man worth going to
hear.... Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices;
human dwellings, churches, steeples, barns;--all fallen now and
vanished, but useful while they stood. He built and endowed ‘the
Hospital of Babwell’; built ‘fit houses for the St. Edmunsbury
schools.’ ... And yet these grim old walls are not a dilettantism
and dubiety; they are an earnest fact. It was a most real and
serious purpose they were built for? Yes, another world it was,
when these black ruins, white in their new mortar and fresh
chiselling, first saw the sun as walls, long ago. _Gauge not,
with thy dilettante compasses, with that placid dilettante
simper, the Heaven’s-Watchtower of our Fathers, the fallen God’s
Houses, the Golgotha of true Souls departed”!_

With the advantage of eleven hundred years of accumulated knowledge in his favor, the cultivated M. Taine can well afford to sneer at “a kind of literature” with which he credits these monks. The “kind of literature” they most affected, and in which they unceasingly labored, was the kind known as “the Scriptures.” Of a verity, strange occupation for “sons of Odin,” for the most meagre summary of Anglo-Saxon, monastic labor in this field is a magnificent memorial of their imperishable glory.

In default of types and power-presses, volumes of the Scriptures were multiplied by copying, and every talent and gift of man was enlisted to preserve, beautify, and bring them within the reach and comprehension of the great body of the people. Its light was not hidden in the obscurity of an unfamiliar tongue. In the fourth century, on the banks of the Danube, Ulphilas had translated the entire Scriptures into the then barbarous Mœso-Gothic. In England, Cædmon had sung the Scripture story of God’s power and mercy, and put into verse all of Genesis and Exodus, with other portions of the Old Testament, besides the life and passion of our Lord and the Acts of the Apostles. The Venerable Bede had translated St. John’s Gospel, and written numerous expositions of the Old and New Testaments. Aldhelm had translated the Psalms. The entire four Gospels have come down to us in the Anglo-Saxon of King Alfred’s day. Ælfric translated the whole of the Pentateuch and the Book of Job. The Normans in England had various translations besides their metrical romance, and a verse translation of the Bible. In 1327, William of Shoreham translated the Psalter into English. A few years later, Richard Rolle translated the Psalms and part of the Book of Job into the dialect of Northumberland. The four Gospels issued in 1571 by Parker, with a dedication to Queen Elizabeth by Foxe, the martyrologist, _are copied from two Anglo-Saxon versions of the tenth and eleventh centuries_. From the original copy, _Tha Halgan Godspel on Englisc_, they appear to have been divided and arranged for reading aloud to the people. Many of these, it will be noticed, are versions adorned and heightened by literary labor and poetic inspiration. Plain prose Bible translations existed in large numbers, which, as being more exposed, were the first to perish from the effects of time, the elements, and the wilful destruction of bigotry. The metrical versions were generally better bound and better cared for in special libraries, and in the hands of the wealthy. And yet of these how few copies survive! And who shall tell us of scores of hundreds more of which we have never heard? An immense body of Anglo-Saxon Scriptural literature has perished and left no trace.

But M. Taine, it may be objected, was surely under no obligation to write the history of your Anglo-Saxon monks! Certainly not. But he was under some sort of obligation not to represent the product of Christianity, viz., the Anglo-Saxon man, as the product of pure paganism. That he has done so, we have shown from the remarkable manner in which he has spoken of the products of Anglo-Saxon literature, and we have not taken into account the full and rich material at command, written in the Latin language by the Anglo-Saxons.

When we get further on in M. Taine’s work, we find in his fifth chapter, book the second, a yet more flagrant violation of his promise to show us the Englishman as the psychological product of his literature, and to “develop the recondite mechanism whereby the Saxon barbarian has been transformed into the Englishman of to-day.” Does he present to us the nature of the English Reformation as evolved from the writings of Englishmen of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Not at all. It would not be pleasant to show that, as politics was the leverage of the Reformation in Germany, plunder was the leverage in England, and he candidly admits, in phrase of studied delicacy (p. 362), that “the Reformation entered England by a side door.”

And so he travels all the way to Germany, and gives us, instead of English opinion and English mind, the echoes of Martin Luther’s “bellowing in bad Latin,”[7] and passages from his beery, boozy _Table-Talk_, bolstered up with extracts from a modern history of England by the late Mr. Froude. No study of shells and animals and manuscripts here. No elaborate development of recondite mechanism!

But we have scarcely space left for a few remarks we desire to make concerning

THE SHAKESPEARE OF M. TAINE.

And, at the outset, we do not agree with those critics who ascribe M. Taine’s utterly fantastic and distorted appreciation of Shakespeare to the general incapacity of the Gallic mind to grasp the great dramatist. We find something more than this. We discover a labored effort at depreciation, negatively, positively, and by comparison. Of Shakespeare the man, the careful student must admit that we know very little--almost nothing, indeed. Hence the sharpened avidity of his biographers to seize upon every floating piece of gossip, every stray tradition concerning him, whereof to make history. With aid of such loose and unreliable material, M. Taine makes of Shakespeare a man of licentious morals and loose habits.

Our author’s æsthetic starting-point renders simply impossible for him any fair appreciation of the great English poet. Corneille and Racine are his models in tragedy--Molière in comedy. To them and to their productions he subordinates Shakespeare at every step. Listen!

“If [a poet] is a logician, a moralist, an orator, as, for
instance, one of the French great tragic poets (Racine), he will
only represent noble manners; he will avoid low characters; he
will have a horror of valets and the plebs; he will observe
the greatest decorum in respect of the strongest outbreaks of
passion; he will reject as scandalous every low or indecent word;
he will give us reason, loftiness, good taste throughout; he will
suppress the familiarity, childishness,” etc.... “_Shakespeare
does just the contrary, because his genius is the exact
opposite_” (vol. i. p. 311).

At page 326, we are told: “If, in fact, Shakespeare comes across a heroic character worthy of Corneille, a Roman, such as the mother of Coriolanus, he will explain by passion[8] what Corneille would have explained by heroism.” “_Reason_,” M. Taine further informs us, “_tells us that our manners should be measured_; this is why the manners which Shakespeare paints are not so.” Again, “Shakespeare paints us as we are; his heroes bow, ask people for news, speak of rain and fine weather,” etc. (p. 312). As M. Taine finds that Shakespeare’s heroes bow, we should like to know his opinion of the exordium of the grand rhetorical effort which Corneille puts in the mouth of the master of the world, Cæsar Augustus:

“_Prends un siège, Cinna._”[9]

It cannot in reason be expected that the man who admires the stiff and frigid artificiality of French tragedy should reach any clear perception of Shakespeare. Nor can we expect the appreciator of Shakespeare to find any superiority in Corneille and Racine. A distinguished German scholar (Grimm) admirably expresses the general German and English estimate of these French poets in a letter he addressed to Michelet: “Must I tell you the opinion commonly expressed among us here in Germany? With the greatest possible amount of good-will, I have again and again opened Racine, Corneille, and Boileau, and I fully appreciate their superior talents; but I cannot read them for any length of time [_mais je ne puis en soutenir la lecture_], so strong upon me is the impression that a portion of the most profound sentiments awakened by poetry are a sealed book for these authors.”

A French writer so able and so thoroughly skilled as M. Taine, is at home in _persiflage_, and throughout his work he freely indulges in it at the expense of “those excellent English.” From the moment the Norman sets his foot in England, he is the Englishman’s superior. With the Norman came in education and intelligence. These poor Anglo-Saxons appear to have been their inferiors. Wherever opportunity occurs, English models suffer in comparison with French throughout the work, which closes with an extravagant rhapsody on Alfred de Musset, and this line: “I prefer Alfred de Musset to Tennyson.”

Many scholars of high acquirements, admirers of Shakespeare, having exhausted with praise the catalogue of Shakespeare’s serious and solid qualities, find that his pre-eminent superiority lies in wit and humor--the wit bright and sparkling, the humor kindly and genial, more akin to wisdom than to wit, and, indeed, in itself a particular form of wisdom, so that it might almost be said that his fools give us more wisdom than the philosophers of ordinary dramatists. M. Taine is of a diametrically opposite opinion. Here it is: “The mechanical imagination produces Shakespeare’s fool-characters: a quick, venturesome, dazzling, unquiet imagination produces his men of wit.”

Would you know what is true wit? You may learn from page 320, vol. i.:

“Of wit, there are many kinds. One, altogether French, which
is but reason, a foe to paradox, scorner of folly, a sort of
incisive common sense, having no occupation but to render
truth amusing and evident, the most effective weapon with an
intelligent and vain people: such was the wit of Voltaire and the
drawing-rooms.”

The conclusion is thus forced upon us that this is by no means the wit of Shakespeare. M. Taine falls into a mistake common to many persons who understand Shakespeare but imperfectly. It is that of attributing to him a certain style: “Let us, then, look for the man, and in his style. The style explains the work.” Ordinary writers have a style easily recognizable after slight study, but Shakespeare has fifty styles, certainly at least one for every character of marked individualism. This is not M. Taine’s view, for he says: “Shakespeare’s style is a compound of furious expressions. No man has submitted words to such a contortion. Mingled contrasts, raving exaggerations, apostrophes, exclamations, the whole fury of the ode, inversion of ideas, accumulation of images, the horrible and the divine jumbled into the same line; it seems, to my fancy, as though he never writes a word without shouting it” (p. 308).

If there is one peculiarity or merit of Shakespeare which, more than another, has received the general assent of critics and scholars, it is his eminently objective power. It is looked upon as a striking proof of the great dramatist’s deep, clear insight into the depths of the human heart, that he never thrusts his individuality into his conception of characters. He never mistakes the operations of his own mind for those of others, and never confounds his personality with that of any of his dramatic personages. Every page of Milton’s writings, it is said, exhibits a full-length portrait of the author. Byron’s heroes, Lara, Conrad, Manfred, and the rest, might interchange reflections and speeches, and not seriously interfere with each other’s identity, and the sentimental rubbish and trashy sophistry poured out from the mouths of any of Bulwer’s men and women might answer for all of them. But nothing that Romeo says could by possibility enter the mind of Hamlet, and King Lear has not a line which would be fitting in the mouth of Othello.

But M. Taine is not of this way of thinking. His theory is diametrically opposed to this, and he finds Shakespeare eminently subjective. He is always Shakespeare. “These characters are all of the same family. _Good or bad, gross or delicate, refined or awkward, Shakespeare gives them all the same kind of spirit which is his own_” (p. 317). Hamlet is Shakespeare, the melancholy Jaques[10] is Shakespeare, Othello is Shakespeare, and--Falstaff is Shakespeare!

No, we do not exaggerate. Here are M. Taine’s words: “Hamlet, it will be said, is half-mad; this explains his vehemence of expression. The truth is that Hamlet here is Shakespeare” (p. 308). “Hamlet is Shakespeare, and, at the close of this gallery of portraits, which have all some features of his own, Shakespeare has painted himself in the most striking of all” (p. 340).

Things equal to the same are equal to each other. Lara being George Gordon Noel Byron, and Conrad also being the same George, we see at once why there exists a striking resemblance between them; but when we are told that Hamlet and Falstaff, morally as far apart as the poles, are yet painted from the same model, we find that too much is asked of our credulity. Of Falstaff M. Taine says: “This big, pot-bellied fellow, a coward, a jester, a brawler, a drunkard, a lewd rascal, a pot-house poet, is one of Shakespeare’s favorites. The reason is that his manners are those of pure nature, and _Shakespeare’s mind is congenial with his own_” (p. 323). Wherein this “drunkard and lewd rascal” resembles Prince Hamlet, and wherein Shakespeare resembles either or both of them, is beyond the range of any Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic mind to comprehend. Perhaps M. Taine may be able to explain it. His book totally fails to do so.

No one can read this long chapter of fifty-five octavo pages on Shakespeare without being struck by the skill with which the author avoids mention of or reference to the dramatist’s most admirable passages, and also by his elaborate and painstaking exposition of the defects of Shakespeare’s inferior characters. Of the beauties of Romeo and Juliet--the Queen Mab description alone excepted--we hear nothing, but are regaled with two pages concerning “the most complete of all these characters--the nurse,” and a long and severe commentary on her “never-ending gossip’s babble.”[11] The same remark may be made of Hamlet, a play of which M. Taine evidently has no comprehension, if Coleridge, Hazlitt, Lamb, Ulrici, Tieck, Goethe, and Schlegel at all understand it. Concerning Othello, many paragraphs are frittered away in small criticism on the characters of Iago and Cassio. Of the grand features of Othello the reader obtains no glimpse, while a scandalous industry is exercised in bringing out from under the cover of obscure texts shocking pruriencies that are not perceived by the average reader of Shakespeare.

We may be told that tastes differ, that what through tradition or habit, perhaps, to us appear beauties, do not so strike a foreigner.

Let us test this by the criticism of another foreigner--not a German, but a Frenchman--and we will find him selecting, as prominent beauties on the first hearing of the play, the very passages which also strike us on long and familiar acquaintance.

In the winter of 1829-30, a French version of Othello was represented in a Parisian theatre, and that theatre--shades of Corneille and Racine--the Théâtre Français! Mademoiselle Mars was the Desdemona. The piece was a decided success, and in the _Revue Française_ for January, 1830, there appeared an admirably written article which was at once a _compte-rendu_ of the representation and a criticism of the tragedy. It was from the pen of the Duc de Broglie, and commanded universal attention. His description of the desperate struggles of the two cliques--the Classical and the Romantic--who were, of course, present in force, his account of the effect of the piece upon the general audience, his analysis of the motives of French admiration or blame of Shakespeare, are all most interesting. But what we specially have to do with is his criticism on the play and the dramatist. Here it is:

“The effect of Othello’s narration was irresistible. This portion
of the play is translated into all languages--its beauty is
perfectly entrancing, its originality is unequalled. Even La
Harpe could not refuse it the tribute of his admiration. But
perhaps the scene which precedes and that which follows are even
still more adapted to exhibit Shakespeare in all his greatness.
How wonderful a painter of human nature was this man! How true is
it that he has received from on high something of that creative
power which, by breathing on a little dust, can transform it into
a creature of life and immortality!”

Even as the Christian Anglo-Saxon was doomed to suffer at M. Taine’s hands the outrage of attributed paganism, so also was Shakespeare ignominiously foreordained (from the thirty-sixth page of his first volume) to be a maniac Berserkir. And all because the author has his little theory to carry out. Do you find it wonderful that under such treatment the facts should suffer? Alas! other and more important things must also suffer if such a work as this is to receive the sanction of recognized critical authority, and be placed in the hands of the rising generation.

To do M. Taine justice, he does not for a moment lose sight of his Berserkir, and keeps him, in the soul of Shakespeare, well up to his work. And so, Shakespeare’s Coriolanus is “an athlete of war, with a voice like a trumpet; whose eyes by contradiction are filled with a rush of blood and anger, proud and terrible in mood, a lion’s soul in the body of a steer” (vol. i. p. 329).

For M. Taine, the grand trial act in the Merchant of Venice is “the horrible scene in which Shylock brandished his butcher’s knife before Antonio’s bare breast,” and King Lear is “the supreme effort of pure imagination, a disease of reason which reason could never have conceived.” But reason has so decidedly done the contrary that an experienced physician of long practice in an insane asylum (in the United States) has written an essay[12] to show that Shakespeare’s physiological and psychological knowledge and acquirements, as displayed in his tragedies, were in advance of those of his age by fully two centuries, and, he adds, that the wonderful skill and sagacity manifested by the great dramatist in seizing upon the premonitory signs of insanity (as in King Lear), which are usually overlooked by all, even the patient’s most intimate friends and the members of his family, and weaving them into the character of his hero as a necessary element, without which it would be incomplete, like those of inferior artists, is a matter of wonder to all modern psychologists.

To the Voltairian school of literature in the last century, the plays of Shakespeare were “_ces monstrueuses farces que l’on appelle des tragedies_,” and Hamlet, in particular, in Voltaire’s judgment, “_seems the work of a drunken savage_.” When you have read M. Taine on Shakespeare, first let the coruscations of his verbal pyrotechnics subside, await the end of his epileptic contortions of style, then scratch off a thin varnish of polite concession, and you will find under it a Voltairian: although not, we hope, brutal and cynical as was the great original in his denunciation of those Frenchmen who were willing to claim some talent for Shakespeare. Voltaire called them _faquins_, _impudents_, _imbéciles_, _monstres_, etc. Such people were, he said, a source of _calamity and horror_, and France did not contain a sufficient number of pillories to punish _such a crime_. (“Letter of Voltaire to Count d’Argental,” July 19, 1776.)

One of the most interesting books to be found in the English language is Carlyle’s _French Revolution_. But it is interesting only on condition that the reader is already familiar with the history of that period. And we pay M. Taine’s work a high compliment in saying that, in like manner, his _History of English Literature_ will be found an interesting work to those whose opinions on art and literature are formed, whose religious principles are fixed, and whose judgments are sufficiently mature to be in no danger of being affected by the artificial, erroneous, and false views of man and his responsibilities, with which the book abounds.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _History of English Literature._ By H. A. Taine. Translated by H. Van Laun. With a Preface prepared expressly for this Translation by the author. New York: Holt & Williams. 1871.

[2] Literal translation of the original falls thus into English rhythm:

“The field streamed with warriors’ blood,
When rose at morning tide the glorious star,
The sun, God’s shining candle, until sank
The noble creature to its setting.”

[3] We have here substituted for M. Taine’s translation one that we consider better, and we add the following poetical paraphrase of the passage by Wordsworth:

“Man’s life is like a sparrow, mighty king.
That, while at banquet with your chiefs you sit,
Housed near a blazing fire, is seen to flit,
Safe from the wintry tempest. Fluttering,
Here did it enter, there, on hasty wing,
Flies out, and passes on from cold to cold:
But whence it came we know not, nor behold
Whither it goes. Even such, that transient thing,
The human soul, not utterly unknown,
While in the body lodged, the warm abode;
But from what world she came, what woe or weal
On her departure waits, no tongue hath shown.”

[4] M. Taine mildly states Milton’s obligations to Cædmon in saying, “One would think he must have had some knowledge of Cædmon from the translation of Junius.” It would be easy to show that some of Milton’s finest descriptions of the fallen angels are taken from Cædmon. Sir F. Palgrave says that there are in Cædmon passages so like the _Paradise Lost_ that some of Milton’s lines read like an almost literal translation.

[5] Version by Mr. Henry Morley.

[6] “Within Roger Bacon’s mind,” says Dr. Whewell, “was at the same time the Encyclopædia and the Novum Organum of the thirteenth century.”

[7] Expression of the historian Hallam.

[8] In his introductory chapter (vol. i. p. 36), M. Taine describes the Berserkirs as fighting pagan maniacs. He coolly makes up his mind that Shakespeare is a lineal descendant of a Berserkir! “With what sadness, madness, waste, such a disposition breaks its bonds, _we shall see in Shakespeare and Byron_”! And yet stupid English biographers and historians are puzzling their brains and burning midnight oil over the question of Shakespeare’s grandfather!

[9] “Take a seat, Cinna.”

[10] “A transparent mask, behind which we perceive the face of the poet” (p. 346). Then follows a comparison between Molière and Shakespeare, altogether to the disadvantage of the latter.

[11] We know of but one English author (of a Diary) with whose appreciation of this tragedy M. Taine would be likely to be pleased. It is that of the distinguished Mr. Samuel Pepys, who, having seen Romeo and Juliet acted in March, 1672, pronounces the play “to be the worst he had ever heard.” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is also, in the opinion of Pepys aforesaid, “the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.”

[12] Published in a small volume. We regret we cannot recall the title of the work and the author’s name.

FRAGMENTS OF EARLY ENGLISH POEMS ON THE PASSION.

Warton, in his _History of English Poetry_, has published a few fragments of poems on the Passion, which he ascribes to the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. There is a harmony in the versification of the following that one scarcely looks for at so early a date:

“Jhesu for thi muckle might
Thou gif us of thi grace,
That we may day and night
Thinken of thi face:
In myn herte it doth me gode
Whan y thinke on Jhesu blod,
That ran down bi ys side;
Fro ys herte dou to ys fot,
For us he spradde ys hertis blod,
His wondes wer so wyde.”

* * * * *

“Ever and aye he haveth us in thought,
He will not lose that he so dearly bought.”

One fragment more, which is taken from a sort of dialogue between our Lord on the Cross and the devout soul:

“Behold mi side,
Mi woundes spred so wide,
Restless I ride,
Lok on me, and put fro ye pride:
Dear man, mi love,
For mi love sinne no more.”

“Jhesu Christe, mi lemman swete,
That for me deyedis on rood tree
With al myn herte I the biseke
For thi woundes two and thre:
That so fast in mi herte
Thi love rooted might be,
As was the spere in thi side
When thou suffredst deth for me.”

--_Christian Schools and Scholars._

THE HOUSE OF YORKE.