Chapter IV: Part 4

In February, 1778, Lord North announced the resolution of government to yield every point in question to the Americans, except their nominal independence of the crown. To this, little opposition was offered in either house; it probably was the line of conduct which Lord Chatham at this late hour would have advised. But the Americans had declared their independence, and were not now to be satisfied with anything short of a formal acknowledgment of it; and here the two great sections of opposition, the Rockingham and Shelburne parties, were divided. The latter, with Lord Chatham at their head, regarded such an acknowledgment as the prelude to the total ruin and degradation of the country. The former held that it was impossible to avoid it at last, and earnestly desired, since the colonists could not be retained as subjects, to secure their alliance to this country, and not to drive them into the arms of France. The Duke of Richmond moved an address embodying these views, April 7th, a day memorable for the most affecting scene ever witnessed within the walls of Parliament. We relate it as nearly as possible from the account communicated to Mr. Seward by an eyewitness, and published in his Anecdotes of distinguished Persons.

“Lord Chatham came into the House of Lords leaning on two friends, wrapped up in flannel, pale and emaciated. Within his large wig little more was to be seen than his aquiline nose, and his penetrating eye. He looked like a dying man; yet never was seen a figure of more dignity; he appeared like a being of superior species.

“He rose from his seat with slowness and difficulty, leaning upon his crutches, and supported under each arm by his two friends. He took one hand from his crutch, and raised it, casting his eyes towards Heaven, and said, ‘I thank God that I have been enabled to come here this day, to perform my duty, and to speak on a subject which has so deeply impressed my mind. I am old and infirm—have one foot—more than one foot, in the grave. I am risen from my bed, to stand up in the cause of my country!—perhaps never again to speak in this House.’

“The reverence, the attention, the stillness of the house, was most affecting: if any one had dropped an handkerchief, the noise would have been heard. At first he spoke in a very low and feeble tone; but as he grew warm his voice rose, and was as harmonious as ever; oratorical and affecting perhaps more than at any former period; both from his own situation and from the importance of the subject on which he spoke. He gave the whole history of the American war; of all the measures to which he had objected; and all the evils which he had prophesied in consequence of them; adding, at the end of each, ‘And so it proved.’” He concluded with an energetic appeal against the “dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy.” To the Duke of Richmond’s reply he listened with attention and composure: he then rose again, but his strength failed, and he fell back in convulsions in the arms of the Peers who surrounded him. The House immediately adjourned. On the following day the Duke of Richmond’s motion was negatived.

Lord Chatham was removed to Hayes, where he languished until May 12, 1778, on which day he expired. He was honoured with a public funeral, and a public monument in Westminster Abbey; a sum of 20,000_l._ was voted in discharge of his debts; and a pension of 4,000_l._ a year was annexed to the earldom of Chatham. He left five children by his wife, Lady Hester Grenville, sister of Earl Temple, whom he married November 6, 1754. He warmly loved and was beloved by his family, and in domestic life enjoyed all the happiness which unbroken confidence and harmony can bestow.

The character of this great man is thus drawn by Lord Chesterfield:—“His constitution refused him the usual pleasures, and his genius forbade him the idle dissipations of youth; for so early as the age of sixteen, he was the martyr of an hereditary gout. He therefore employed the leisure which that tedious and painful distemper either procured or allowed him, in acquiring a great fund of premature and useful knowledge. Thus, by the unaccountable relation of causes and effects, what seemed the greatest misfortune of his life, was perhaps the principal cause of its splendour. His private life was stained by no vice, nor sullied by any meanness. All his sentiments were liberal and elevated. His ruling passion was an unbounded ambition, which, where supported by great abilities, and crowned with great success, makes what the world calls a great man. He was haughty, imperious, impatient of contradiction, and overbearing; qualities which too often accompany, but always clog great ones. He had manners and address, but one might discover through them too great a consciousness of his own superior talents. He was a most agreeable and lively companion in social life, and had such a versatility of wit, that he would adapt it to all sorts of conversation. He had also a happy turn for poetry, but he seldom indulged, and seldom avowed it. He came young into Parliament, and upon that theatre he soon equalled the oldest and the ablest actors. His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative, as well as in the declamatory way. But his invectives were terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction, and such dignity of action and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and best able to encounter him. Their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the ascendant which his genius gained over theirs.”

Mr. Thackeray’s ‘History of the Right Hon. W. Pitt, Earl of Chatham,’ in addition to the fullest account of his public and private life, contains copious extracts from the reports of his speeches, and his correspondence. The letters to his nephew, afterwards Lord Camelford, deserve notice, as exhibiting his private character in a very amiable light. The same may be said of the letters to his son, William Pitt, printed by Dr. Tomline in his life of that statesman.

]

MOZART.

That most of those who are now by universal consent numbered among the benefactors of the human race reaped little benefit from their genius, however actively exerted, is a melancholy truth not to be disputed, and seldom more strongly exemplified than in the instance of the great composer, who is the subject of this memoir. He to whom all the really civilized parts of the world are so deeply indebted for the increase, to an almost incalculable amount, of the stock of an intellectual and innocent pleasure, scarcely ever enjoyed a moment’s respite from ill-requited labour and corroding anxieties: few, not in a state of actual want, ever suffered more from the evils of poverty; and he who left so valuable a treasure to mankind had not in the hour of death the consolation of feeling that he had been able to secure against the miseries of dependence, an affectionate wife and her helpless offspring.

JOHANN-CHRYSOSTOMUS-WOLFGANG-GOTTLIEB MOZART was born at Salzburg, January 26, 1756. His father, Leopold, was sub-chapel master, or organist, to the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, and a skilful performer on the violin, a valuable treatise on which instrument he published, in quarto, under the title of ‘Violinschule,’ in 1769. Whatever time the duties of his office left at his disposal, he devoted to the education of his two children, and he began to give his daughter, who was four years older than her brother, instructions on the harpsichord, when the latter had scarcely completed his third year. The boy’s strong disposition for music then immediately developed itself: his delight was to seek out _thirds_ on the instrument, and his joy was unbounded when he succeeded in discovering one of these harmonious concords.

_Engraved by J. Thomson._

MOZART.

_From a Print engraved by C. Kohl, 1793._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

When Wolfgang had attained his fourth year, says M. Schlichtegroll, his father began, though hardly in earnest, to teach him a few minuets and other short pieces of music. It took the child half an hour to learn a minuet, and proportionately more time to master compositions of greater length. In less than two years he had made such progress, that he invented short pieces of music, which his father, to encourage such promising talent, committed to writing. It is to be regretted that not one of these curious manuscripts, if preserved, has ever been produced. Before he began to manifest a predilection for music, his amusements were like those of other children; and so ardent was he in the pursuit of them, that he would willingly have sacrificed his meals rather than be interrupted in his enjoyment. His great sensibility was observable as soon as he could make his feelings understood. Frequently he said to those about him, “Do you love me well?” and when in sport he was answered in the negative, tears immediately began to flow. He pursued everything with extraordinary ardour. While learning the elements of arithmetic, the tables, chairs, even the walls, bore in chalk the marks of his calculations. And here it will not be irrelevant to state,—what we believe has never yet appeared in print,—that his talent for the science of numbers was only inferior to that for music: had he not been distinguished by genius of a higher order, it is probable that his calculating powers would have been sufficiently remarkable to bring him into general notice.

When under six years of age, Mozart surprised his father, though well accustomed to these premature manifestations of musical genius, by the production of a concerto for the harpsichord, written in every respect according to rule, the only objection to which was its difficulty of execution. This circumstance at once determined Leopold Mozart to let the youthful prodigy be seen at some of the courts of Germany. He therefore carried his whole family, as soon as Wolfgang had completed his sixth year, to Munich, where they were received by the Elector in so flattering a manner, that the party returned to Salzburg to prepare for other visits. In 1762 they proceeded to Vienna, and performed at court. Here Mozart, when sitting down to play, said to the emperor Francis I.,—“Is not M. Wagenseil here? he ought to be present; he understands such matters.” The emperor sent for M. Wagenseil. “Sir,” said the child to the composer, “I shall play one of your concertos,—you must turn the leaves for me.” About the same time, a small violin was purchased for him, merely for his amusement; but while it was supposed to be little more than a toy in his hands, he made himself so far a master of the instrument, that when Wenzl, the violinist, brought his newly composed trios to Leopold Mozart for his opinion, Wolfgang supplicated to be allowed to take the second violin part, and accomplished the task as much to the satisfaction of the composer as to the wonder of all.

In 1763 the Mozart family commenced an extended tour, giving concerts in the principal cities through which they passed. In Paris they continued five months, and Wolfgang performed on the organ in the _chapelle du roi_, in presence of the whole court. There he composed and published his first two works, which, compared with other productions of the day, are by no means trivial. In April, 1764, the party arrived in London, where they remained till the middle of the following year. Here, as in France, the boy exhibited his talents before the royal family, and underwent more severe trials than any to which he had before been exposed, through which he passed in a most triumphant manner. So much interest did he excite in London, that the Hon. Daines Barrington drew up an account of his extraordinary performances, which was read before the Royal Society, and declared by the council of that body to be sufficiently interesting and important to form part of the Philosophical Transactions, in the seventieth volume of which it is published. But some suspicions having been entertained by many persons that the declared was not the real age of the youthful prodigy, Mr. Barrington obtained, through Count Haslang, then Bavarian minister at the British court, a certificate of Wolfgang’s birth, signed by the chaplain of the Archbishop of Salzburg, which at once dispelled all doubts on the subject.

In 1765, the family returned to the continent. At the Hague, where Mozart published six sonatas, they remained some months; then paid a second long visit to Paris, and, passing through Switzerland, reached Salzburg in 1768. Some time after, the children performed at Vienna before Joseph II., by whose desire Mozart composed an entire opera, _La finta Sposa_. Hasse and Metastasio both bestowed great commendations on the work, but it never was produced on the stage, and the probability is that its merit was only of a relative kind.

In 1769, Mozart (in his fourteenth year!) was appointed director of the Archbishop of Salzburg’s concerts. Shortly after he proceeded with his father to Italy, where he was received with enthusiasm. At Rome he gave a proof of memory which is still the subject of conversation in that city. He heard the famous Miserere of Allegri in the pontifical chapel, and knowing that the pope’s singers were forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to furnish a copy, or allow one, under any plea, to be taken, he gave his utmost attention to the composition during its performance, wrote it down when he returned home, and exultingly carried it with him to Germany. While in Italy, the pope invested him with the order of the Golden Spur. At Bologna he was unanimously elected a member of the Philharmonic Academy. He reached Milan in October, 1770, and in the following December gave his second opera, Mitridate, which had a run of twenty nights. In 1773 he composed another serious opera, Lucio Silla; this was performed twenty-six nights successively. He produced many other works of various kinds between that year and 1779, when he fixed his residence permanently in Vienna.

In his twenty-fifth year he was captivated by Madlle. Constance Weber, an amiable, accomplished, and celebrated actress, to whom he soon made a proposal of marriage. This was courteously declined by her family, on the ground that his reputation was not then sufficiently established. Upon this he composed his Idomeneo, in order to prove what means were at his command; and, animated by the strongest passion that ever entered his heart, produced an opera which he always considered his highest effort: certainly it was the first that showed his positive strength. Parts of it are in his most original, and grandest manner; but parts show that he had not quite emancipated himself from the thraldom of custom. Some of the airs, though far superior to those of his contemporaries, are too much in the opera style then prevailing, a style now become nearly obsolete; and when, a few years ago, it was wished to bring out Idomeneo at the King’s Theatre, it became evident that, if performed as originally written, its success would be very doubtful. To Madlle. Weber, on whom the composer’s affections were unalterably fixed, was assigned the principal character in the opera, and the high reputation which the author acquired by his work having immediately silenced the objections of Constance’s family, her hand was shortly after the reward of his efforts.

In 1782 Mozart composed Die Entführung aus dem Serail, (L’Enlévement du Sérail,) and here it is evident that he had entirely broken the fetters which before he had only loosened. Here is exhibited that style which, in an improved state, afterwards characterized all his dramatic works. It was on the first representation of this opera that Joseph II. remarked to the composer,—“All this may be very fine, but there are too many notes for our ears.” To which Mozart, with that independent spirit which always characterised him, replied,—“There are, Sire, just as many as there ought to be.” Le Nozze di Figaro—second in merit only to Don Giovanni, if to that—was produced in 1786, by command of the Emperor, by whose authority alone an Italian conspiracy against it was suppressed.

In 1787 appeared, first at Prague, the _chef-d’œuvre_ of Mozart, his Don Giovanni, which was received with enthusiasm by the Bohemians, but at that time, and indeed years after, was above the comprehension of the Viennese public, whose taste, unlike that which prevails in the north of Germany, still inclines them to prefer the nerveless, meagre compositions of Italy. “This matchless work of its immortalised author,” never found its way to our Anglo-Italian stage till the year 1817, when it was performed in a manner that surpassed all former representations, and has never since been equalled. The production of Don Giovanni in London,—which put ten thousand pounds into the manager’s pocket, and forms an era in our musical history—was so strenuously opposed by an Italian cabal, that but for the courage and perseverance of the director of that season, it would have been put aside, even after all the expense of getting up and trouble of rehearsing had been incurred. The charming comic opera, Cosi fan tutti, was composed in 1790; Die Zauberflöte and La Clemenza di Tito, in 1791; the latter for the coronation of Leopold II.

The last and, taken as a whole, the most sublime work of Mozart, his Requiem, was written on his death-bed; and having been left in rather an unfinished state, his pupil, Süssmayer, filled up some of the accompaniments. This circumstance led, a few years ago, to a dispute concerning its authorship, some indiscreet friends of the latter having claimed as his composition the best parts of the mass. The assertions by which the claim was supported, and the arguments in its favour, proved unavailing against the internal evidence which the work afforded, and it is to be presumed that the controversy will never be renewed. A story, too, that an anonymous, mysterious stranger commissioned Mozart to compose the Requiem, raised many idle conjectures, some of them of the most grossly superstitious kind. The matter, however, has latterly been very satisfactorily explained[2].

Footnote 2:

See Harmonicon, vol. iv., page 102.

This illustrious composer, on whom nature bestowed so much vigour of imagination, so little physical strength, never seemed destined to attain longevity. Slightly constructed, and feeble in constitution, he required more mental repose than his necessities would allow. His mind did not yield, but his body gave way, and on the 5th of December, 1792, prematurely worn out, he expired thoroughly exhausted, without any appearance of organic disease.

It has been said of Mozart, that his knowledge was bounded by his art, and that detached from this he was little better than a nonentity. That his thoughts were almost wholly bent on music was not a matter of choice, but of necessity. Had not his miserably-remunerated labours occupied nearly all his time, his means would have been still more limited than they were. But we have reason to think (as we have elsewhere stated) that his acquirements were far greater than in England is generally believed; in proof of which we have the best authority for saying, that once, at a court masquerade given at Vienna, Mozart appeared as a physician, and wrote prescriptions in Latin, French, Italian, and German; in which not only an acquaintance with the several languages was shown, but great discernment of character, and considerable wit. Assuming this to be true, he could not have been a very ignorant man, nor always a dull one, out of his profession. But still stronger evidence in favour of his understanding may be extracted from his works. That he who, in his operas, adapted his music with such felicity to the different persons of the drama—who evinced such nicety of discrimination—who represented the passions so accurately—who coloured so faithfully—whose music is so expressive, that without the aid of words it is almost sufficient to render the scene intelligible,—that such a man should not have been endowed with a high order of intellect is hard to be believed, but that his understanding should have been below mediocrity is incredible.

Had Mozart lived, this country, which witnessed his early proofs of genius, would have enjoyed it in its matured and most luxuriant state. When Salomon, the celebrated violin player—an enterprising, liberal, sensible man—was about establishing his subscription-concerts in London, he went to Vienna to engage either Haydn or Mozart to compose symphonies for him, and after several “most amicable and pleasant meetings” (Salomon’s own words) between the parties, it was agreed that Haydn should first proceed to the rich capital of the British dominions, and that the following season he should be succeeded by Mozart. The illness and death of the latter rendered unavailing an arrangement which would at least have compensated his labours more adequately than they had ever before been rewarded. The father of modern orchestral music may be said to have made his fortune—a small one, it is true, but an independence—by his visits to London; and the creator of an entirely new, an infinitely superior, style of dramatic music would hardly have been less successful.

The compositions of Mozart are of every kind, and so numerous, that we cannot pretend to give even a bare list of them. But it may be observed, generally, that from the sonata to the symphony, from the simplest romance to the most elaborate musical drama, he—whose career was stopped before he had completed his thirty-sixth year—composed in every imaginable style, and excelled in all. In each class he furnished models of the greatest attainable excellence: “exquisite melodies, profound harmonies, the playful, the tender, the pathetic, and the sublime,” are to be found among his works. It is the exclusive privilege of first rate merit to be more admired as it is better known; and while inferior composers enjoy their day of fashion, and are forgotten, Mozart’s fame will continue to expand in proportion as mankind advances in taste and knowledge.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

LOYOLA.

_From a Print by Bolswert, after a Picture by Rubens._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

LOYOLA.

The family-name of the founder of the Order of Jesuits, commonly called IGNATIUS LOYOLA, is stated by Ranke, Romischen Papste, vol. 1, on the authority of judicial records, to have been Don Inigo Lopez de Recalde. He was born in 1491, at the Castle of Loyola, in the province of Guipuscoa, in Spanish Biscay; and being destined to the profession of arms, was sent, at an early age, to learn the rudiments of war and gallantry, at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. He made great proficiency in both. Endowed with a lively imagination, and an ardent temperament, he became distinguished in arms, and first applied his talents, which were destined to such different purposes, to the composition of poetry. Thus he spent his youth; and he had already reached his thirtieth year, when he was called to the defence of Pampluna against the attack of the French. On this occasion he displayed his wonted valour, and while standing in the breach of the castle, he was struck by a cannon shot which fractured his leg. A tedious confinement followed; in part occasioned, as some assert, by his great anxiety to preserve the symmetry of the limb, which led him to undergo a second operation, to remove a deformity which had been occasioned by an ill-set bone. To relieve his weariness he called for some books of chivalry, but in their place he was supplied with the Lives of Saints, and other devotional works. He read them with extraordinary eagerness. He admired the zeal of those holy men; he sympathized in their sufferings; he envied their glory; and he aspired at their eternal recompense. His thoughts and wishes were thus turned into a new channel, and he entered on the path of spiritual warfare, with his natural ardour stimulated and inflamed by religious devotion.

Accordingly, he rose from his bed of sickness, resolved to renounce the pursuits and pleasures of this world, and to dedicate himself to the service of God. Still it was not without a desperate struggle that he could accomplish this resolution. He had a passion for military fame; he had a mistress whom it was necessary to abandon; and his earthly ties were as strong, as his temperament was violent. But the new sprung influence of religion overcame all obstacles. March 24, 1522, he passed the night in prayer and fasting in the church of the Holy Virgin at Montserrat; and having hung up his arms on the altar, he consecrated himself, according to all the forms of chivalry, to her service. At the same time he made a vow to perform a pilgrimage barefoot to Jerusalem; and he carried his immediate penance to such extremes of austerity, as to enervate his frame, and to endanger his life.

As the histories which had most deeply affected his imagination were those of St. Francis and St. Dominic, so the service which he vowed to the Virgin was one of privation and errantry. Accordingly he set out privately on his pilgrimage; and after tarrying some little time at Rome, to obtain the benediction of the Pope, he proceeded to Venice, and from Venice to Cyprus and the Holy Land. He reached Jerusalem, September 4, 1523, in the guise of the poorest pilgrim; and after indulging his piety in frequent visits to all the spots which religion and tradition have consecrated, he offered his services to the ecclesiastical officers resident there, for the conversion of the Infidels, or any other holy purpose. These however were refused, and he was dismissed, somewhat peremptorily, and commanded to return to Europe.

It is curious, in reviewing the lives of some of those eminent men, who have left lasting traces of their exertions, to observe how their own inclinations, had Providence allowed them their course, would sometimes have led them away from the work which they were commissioned to accomplish. Had Wesley proved a successful missionary, which was his earliest enterprise, the society which bears his name might never have existed. Had Loyola been permitted to spend his energies in attempts at converting the Jews or Turks, his life might have been of short duration, and his name might never have been heard beyond the limits of Palestine.

When his pilgrimage was completed, and he was restored to his native country, his passion for religious enterprise and distinction did not in any degree abate; but he soon discovered that his literary acquirements were wholly insufficient for his purpose. He began therefore, at the age of thirty-three, to apply himself to the rudiments of grammar; and endeavoured to regain lost time by his zeal and industry. He commenced his labours at Barcelona, and remained there till his pious attempts to reform a convent of abandoned nuns brought down upon him the vengeance of their lovers. Thence he retired to Alcala, where an university had lately been founded by Cardinal Ximenes. Here he pursued his studies with great ardour till the year 1527: he attempted at the same time the three sciences of logic, physic, and theology, and was bent on accomplishing by a single effort what results to other men from the patient employment of much time and labour. But it was too late in life. His mind had been already formed to more active pursuits, and he could not bend it to the acquisition of learning. A confused mass of knowledge, directed by no reflection, and founded on no principles, could neither be applied nor retained; and his endeavour to grasp so much, at so great a disadvantage, ended, where it was sure to end, in entire ignorance. He discovered his failure; and thenceforward directed his energies to a more attainable end: and, though he desisted not entirely from his tardy struggles after learning, he seems rather to have looked for success from the influence which personal intercourse generally enabled him to acquire over those about him. Some lectures, however, which he delivered at Alcala, gave offence to the authorities of that university; and after an imprisonment of forty-two days, he was prohibited from public preaching, until he should have completed a course of four years in theology. It seems too, that, together with two or three companions, he had assumed a peculiar dress, which they were ordered to lay aside.

From Alcala he removed to Salamanca; but there too he had no sooner resumed his preaching than the Inquisitors laid hands on him; and after a second confinement, with severer treatment, he and his companions were again dismissed, under a sentence not widely differing from the preceding. On these occasions it was not so much the character of his sermons which gave the offence, as the circumstance that they were delivered by a layman.

Thus discouraged in his native country, he hoped to find a wider, or at least a safer, field for his exertions in France. Accordingly he departed for Paris, and arrived there in the beginning of February, 1528. His means were extremely small, and even these had been provided by the generosity of his friends. He was deprived of all that remained to him, soon after his arrival, by the treachery of a fellow-student, and had no other method of subsistence than mendicity. Thus he lived, returning, as we are informed, with his first ardour to the rudiments of literature, and striving by his instructions and example to extend the narrow limits of his influence. Even thus however he was not beneath the notice of the Inquisitor, a special emissary of Clement VII., then resident at Paris; but on this occasion he cleared himself from any charge or suspicion of heresy, and was absolved without any particular injunction or reproach. But his poverty still compelled him to employ his vacations in begging, through various countries, the means which were to maintain him during his studies; and in one of these mendicant excursions, he visited certain Spanish merchants resident in London. Doubtless his powers of observation were profitably exercised during these wanderings, and his perpetual intercourse, even in the character of a religious beggar, with all classes of all nations, could not fail to improve a penetrating intellect in the art of dealing with mankind.

By this uncommon perseverance he was enabled to finish his course of study of three years, and was admitted to the degree of Master of Arts. Then again he betook himself more especially to theology; and it was at this time (1534) that he formed the first serious design of establishing a new Order. Such a project, in the hands of so very humble a person as Loyola then was, might have seemed wild and hopeless; and the prospect of its success was not improved by the number or quality of his associates. Seven individuals, of no distinguished rank or eminence, personal or ecclesiastical, some of whom were very young and others very poor, met together in the church of Montmartre, August 15, 1534, and devoted themselves to the service of Christ. They were prepared for this solemnity by prayer and fasting. One of them, Le Fevre, who had lately been ordained, administered the sacrament to his brethren in a subterraneous chapel; and all then bound themselves, by a solemn vow, to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the conversion of the infidels of the East, and to renounce all their possessions, except such as should be necessary for that pilgrimage: or else, in case they should be unable to accomplish that design, to throw themselves at the feet of the Pope, and offer their services as his faithful and gratuitous instruments and missionaries, for the performance of any ministry that he might think proper to impose on them. Another of these devotees was Francis Xavier, a Spaniard, fifteen years younger than Loyola; who, being from the very beginning one of his most zealous disciples, was numbered in later life among the most distinguished ornaments of the society.

Such was the origin of the “Society of the Jesuits.” From this little congregation of obscure enthusiasts in the subterraneous chapel of Montmartre arose that redoubted Company, which sprang up into such immediate eminence; which spread so soon through the whole body of Christendom; which took possession of the courts and the consciences of princes, and exerted for so many years a scarcely credible influence, in every quarter of the globe, over the course of human affairs. Its first professed object was the conversion of the infidels: the entire devotion to the Roman See, whence its future importance chiefly proceeded, was not, as it would seem, the primary motive which Ignatius inspired into his followers. Perhaps the chivalrous feeling which animated, or rather created, the earliest efforts of his piety, was not yet extinct within him—or it may have been his policy to put forward, as the leading part of his design, that which required the greatest sacrifice and offered the least reward. But, however that may have been, he had no sooner thus bound his associates together, than he prescribed to them rules and practices of devotion, daily meditations and penances, spiritual conversations, the study and imitation of the character of Jesus, constant self-examination, and frequent communion. He appointed the Day of the Assumption, the anniversary of their vow, for their peculiar observance; and during an interval of preparation necessary for his disciples, he directed his own exertions to repress the progress in France of the doctrines of Luther and Zuinglius.

After visiting his native country, he proceeded to Venice, according to agreement with his followers, for the accomplishment of their vow of pilgrimage: and arrived there at the end of 1535.

Their first design however was to present themselves at Rome. There Ignatius acquired the confidence of Peter Ortiz, a distinguished Spaniard, employed by Charles V. to sustain at the Holy See the validity of the marriage of Catharine of Arragon with Henry VIII. Ortiz presented him to Paul III., who approved his doctrine and encouraged his project. Howbeit, his departure for the Holy Land was prevented by the Turkish war, which at that moment broke out; and at the end of 1537 he assembled his companions, now increased to nine, at Vicenza, and persuaded them, that, as the approach to Palestine was closed, it only remained for them to fulfil the other part of their vow, and offer their devoted services to the Pope. Accordingly, Ignatius, with two others, returned to Rome for that purpose. The rest dispersed themselves among the principal academies of Italy, to gain proselytes. All bound themselves to the observance of certain distinctive rules and practices; and to any interrogatories which might be put to them respecting the Order to which they belonged, Ignatius instructed them to reply, that they were members of the Company of Jesus.

The encouragement which he received at Rome induced him to take further measures for the establishment and enlargement of his new Order. He presently recalled his missionaries, and collected them about him at Rome. During their residence at Venice they had taken the two vows of poverty and chastity; they now added that of obedience, and decided to elect a General with absolute power. They next determined to undertake a fourth and peculiar obligation—one, to which they had indeed already engaged themselves in the chapel of Montmartre, but which they had not yet proclaimed to the world—that of doing, without aid or recompense, any errand on which the Pope, as Vicar of Christ, might think fit to send them. Loyola then applied to Paul III. for the confirmation of his Order. Some obstacles arose, which were gradually removed. A charge of heresy, founded chiefly on his early persecutions at Alcala and Salamanca, was advanced with great clamour against him and his companions; but a judicial inquiry, by confirming their innocence, increased their reputation. An influential Cardinal earnestly opposed the establishment of the new Order. But his objections were finally overcome, and, September 27, 1540, the Pope issued his bull to sanction the institution of Ignatius. The number of his disciples was still confined to nine. Three of these were then absent from Italy,—Xavier and Rodriguez on a mission to India, Le Fevre at the Diet of Worms; so that on the day appointed for the election of a general, six only assembled, together with Loyola. He was chosen unanimously: but he affected great sorrow at this decision, and only accepted the honour, after it had been pressed upon him by a second assembly, and urged by the authoritative command of his confessor. The ceremonies of profession were performed in the Church of St. Paul, April 22, 1541; and while Ignatius made his vow of especial obedience directly to the Pope, the vows of the others professed were tendered exclusively to their General.

The Pope immediately availed himself of the services thus offered him, and sent the six disciples on various missions into different parts of Europe. Ignatius alone remained at Rome, and employed himself in offices of piety. He lectured publicly on religious subjects; he discharged many duties of humanity and charity; he took measures for the conversion of the Jews at Rome; he established a penitentiary for women reclaimed from sin; he founded an asylum for orphans; and the leisure which he could spare from these holy works, he devoted to composing the Constitutions of his Order.

These were founded on the principle of uniting spiritual meditation with active habits of practical piety; so that, while, on the one hand, he enjoined mental prayer, frequent self-examination, and religious retirement; on the other, he engaged his disciples to use every exertion for the instruction and sanctification of the rest of mankind. He commanded them to be perpetually exercised in preaching and missions, in the conversion of infidels and heretics, in the inspection of prisons and hospitals, in the direction of consciences, and the instruction of youth. To this end, he discouraged every severity of mortification, and all superfluity both in their public and private devotions. He prohibited the possession of property by any of his establishments, except colleges, which he permitted to be endowed for the advantage of necessitous students; and he closed, as far as he was able, all the various sources of ecclesiastical emolument. Similar professions of disinterested devotion and perfect self-denial had laid the foundations of the enormous wealth, power, and luxury of more ancient Orders; and if Ignatius had been actuated by ambition, he could have devised no better means of raising his society to affluence and importance, than by laying the same snare for the credulity of mankind.

In this mere sketch of the life of Loyola, it would be absurd to attempt any account of the internal constitution of his Order, of the particular laws by which it was regulated, of the gradual development of its principles, and the general evils which flowed from them. It is enough to give some faint notion of its earliest progress. Six years after the confirmation of the Order of Jesuits, a college was opened to them in Spain (it was the first of these establishments), by Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia, and endowed with the same privileges as those of Alcala and Salamanca. Its statutes were composed by Loyola. In the same year, to give some pledge for the sincerity of his vow of self-denial, and to secure his followers against one of the commonest temptations of ambition, he prevailed upon the Pope to exclude them and their successors, by a perpetual edict, from the possession of bishoprics, abbeys, and every description of benefice. This restriction not only stamped them with a peculiar character, and recommended them to popular favour as singular instances of self-devotion, but also left them, for the furtherance of the especial objects of the society, the leisure, talents, and industry which might otherwise have been employed in the pursuit of ecclesiastical dignities, or the performance of pastoral duties. But it was not faithfully observed, even during the lifetime of Ignatius.

The Spiritual Exercises, the great work of the founder of the Jesuits, is asserted to have been composed by him, aided by the inspiration of the Holy Virgin, very soon after his return from Jerusalem. His capacity for such a composition, at that period of his life, has been disputed by many, and various doubts have been thrown on its genuineness. Howbeit, the book passed for his during the infancy of the society, and in 1548 the Archbishop of Toledo took great pains to suppress it. Loyola turned this attempt into an advantage to himself. He caused the merits of the work to be strongly represented to Paul III., and obtained a bull in praise and confirmation of all contained in it. Thus recommended by the apostolical authority to the meditations of the faithful, it attracted more general attention on its author, and on the institution which he had founded.

After the first step had been taken, the progress of the Company of Jesus surpassed in rapidity all that is recorded of the infancy of the older establishments. It was scarcely planted in Spain before it spread to Ferrara, and other parts of Italy. In 1548 it got footing at Messina and Palermo. In 1550 it was introduced into Bavaria; and in the same year it was still further confirmed by a bull of Julius III., and enriched, as it had previously been, by abundant benefactions from the apostolic treasury. Two years afterwards, it founded a Germanic college at Rome, and by this time it could boast of similar institutions in many of the most civilized cities of Europe. And not in Europe only: its missionaries had already penetrated into India, Africa, and America. In the year 1553 they presented themselves in Cyprus, at Constantinople, and Jerusalem, and were carried by the same impulse into Abyssinia and China. France alone avowed her suspicion of their principles, and refused them admission: nor were the utmost endeavours of Loyola himself able to achieve this object. Howbeit, the perseverance of his followers, supported by their general success, succeeded even there, and in February, 1564, they opened their celebrated college in the Rue St. Jacques at Paris.

Cheered by this sudden and most rapid prosperity, Loyola, whom his disciples represent as the only spring of all the movements of the Company, and the sole spirit of the mighty body which was already spread over all the quarters of the world—whom his enemies describe as a vain, illiterate enthusiast, without talents, without knowledge, a mere machine in the hands of a crafty and worldly hierarchy—peaceably expired at Rome, July 31, 1566, surrounded by his disciples, and animated (as they relate) with the deepest feelings of piety, and gratitude to Providence for the blessing which had been vouchsafed upon his mission.

_Engraved by J. T. Wedgwood._

BRINDLEY.

_From a Print by R. Dunkarton 1773, after a Picture by F. Parsons._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

BRINDLEY.

Our memoir of the man who originated that system of canal navigation, which contributed in no secondary degree to the wonderful increase of our national wealth in the last century, is taken entirely, and in many parts verbatim, from Dr. Kippis’s Biographia Britannica. The article BRINDLEY in that work, communicated by Brindley’s brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, and his friend Mr. Bentley, appears to be the only original account of him extant, and the source from which all later accounts have been taken.

James Brindley was born in the parish of Wormhill in Derbyshire, in 1716. He was the son of a small freeholder, who squandered his property in rustic dissipation, and could scarcely afford to give him even the rudiments of education. His boyhood, therefore, was spent in rural labour: but at the age of seventeen he left his home, to be apprenticed to a millwright at Macclesfield. He soon exhibited an uncommon share of mechanical ingenuity, which enabled him to excel his master in planning and executing orders for machinery more complicated than usual, and caused his services to be eagerly sought and highly prized by those who had once occasion to employ him.

At a later period he went into business on his own account, and, by many useful inventions and contrivances, established his reputation throughout the neighbourhood as a skilful mechanic. He gradually obtained a wider range for the exercise of his powers. In 1752 he erected a remarkable engine to drain some coal mines at Clifton, in Lancashire, of which the moving power was a wheel fixed thirty feet below the surface of the earth, and driven by water drawn from the river Irwell, by a tunnel cut for near 600 yards through the rock. In 1755 he was employed to construct portions of the works for a silk mill at Congleton, under the superintendence of an engineer, who proved incompetent to the task which he had in hand. Brindley does not appear ever to have executed machinery of the sort required, and he had not even been permitted to see the general model of the mill: but on the incompetency of his superior being discovered, he came forward and told the proprietors, that if they would let him know what was the effect they wished to have produced, and would permit him to perform the business in his own way, he would finish the mill to their satisfaction. The knowledge which they had of his ability and integrity induced them to repose confidence in this assurance; he accomplished that very curious and complex piece of machinery, in a manner far superior to the expectations of his employers, and with the addition of several new and useful contrivances. He also invented machines for making tooth and pinion wheels, which hitherto had been cut by hand, and with great labour.

Many other improvements Brindley introduced into the mechanical arts. But about this time his thoughts were drawn towards a larger sphere of action by the resolution of Francis Duke of Bridgewater to cut a canal from his coal mines at Worsley to the town of Manchester, distant about seven miles. This scheme is said to have been before conceived by one of that nobleman’s predecessors: but that circumstance does not detract from the honour due to the great perseverance and resolution displayed in the execution of his plan. Divesting himself of the splendour which usually belongs to his rank, he devoted his large revenue almost entirely to his favourite undertaking: resisting the temptation to borrow money, lest he should involve himself and his successors in irremediable difficulties, in case of the failure of an undertaking which, from its novelty, no man living could assert to be certain of success. At the same time having selected Brindley as his engineer, on good experience of his skill and talent, he placed a noble confidence in him; and, without fear or distrust, devoted his energy and fortune to work out the magnificent design which the genius of his coadjutor had planned. As the difficulties to be overcome were very great, so there was little experience to guide the projectors. Navigable rivers indeed had been improved, and those which were not navigable by nature had been made so by pounding up their waters with locks and dams: but of canals, properly so called, this was the first constructed in England. That it might be perfect in its kind, it was resolved to preserve a level, and avoid locks altogether: but to effect this obstacles were to be overcome, such as never had been surmounted in England,—obstacles which had always been considered insurmountable. Navigable tunnels were to be cut, long and large mounds to be carried across valleys, and in the line which finally was adopted, an aqueduct bridge of three arches, nearly fifty feet in height, and including the embankments on each side, five hundred yards in length, was to be carried over the river Irwell. This part of the scheme being generally considered wild and extravagant, Brindley, to justify himself to his employer, desired that the opinion of another engineer might be taken. This was accordingly done: but the second, on being conducted to the spot where it was intended that the aqueduct should be made, exclaimed, “I have often heard of castles in the air, but never before was shown the place where any of them were to be erected.” But the Duke of Bridgewater’s confidence in Brindley was not to be shaken, and the bridge was undertaken and finished within less than a year.

It is needless now to give the details of works which, though they excited the wonder of contemporaries, have been far surpassed in magnitude by more recent undertakings. One feature in the Duke of Bridgewater’s canal, however, is too remarkable to be passed over: it is continued on the same level more than three quarters of a mile into the heart of the hill in which the collieries are situated, so that after a short transit in low waggons along the galleries of the mine, the coal is deposited at once in the barges which convey it to Manchester. For a fuller account, we may refer to Phillips’s History of Inland Navigation. In 1762, the Duke of Bridgewater obtained an Act of Parliament, enabling him to continue his canal from Worsley in an opposite direction to Runcorn, in the tideway of the Mersey, so as to establish a perfect water-way between Liverpool and Manchester, unembarrassed by the constant current, and inequalities of flood and drought, which impeded the navigation of the Irwell. In this part of the line several deep valleys, especially those of the rivers Mersey and Bollin, were to be crossed, and this was done without the assistance of a single lock. Brindley’s method of constructing the long embankments, which occurred in some places, was remarkable: he built caissons along the line of its intended course, into which boats laden with excavated soil were conducted by the canal itself, and discharged their contents upon the very spot where the ground was to be raised. Thus the canal, as it were, pushed itself forward; and the labour and expense of transporting these immense masses of earth was greatly diminished. To guard against the total loss of water, and ruin to the surrounding country, which might occur from a breach of these embankments, Brindley contrived stops, which were gates so hung as to lie horizontally near the bottom when the water was at rest, but to rise and close when any current should be produced by the banks giving way, and thus prevent the escape of any water, except that portion near the breach which should be comprised between them. It is hardly necessary to add that the result of this, the greatest undertaking perhaps ever performed by any private person out of his own fortune, has been the realization of an enormous income to the peer who undertook it, and to his heirs.

This success encouraged others to proceed in the same course; and in 1765 a subscription was raised, and an Act of Parliament procured, for uniting the rivers Mersey and Trent, and consequently the ports of Liverpool and Hull, by what is commonly called the Grand Trunk Canal. Brindley bestowed this name upon it, in the expectation that, traversing a large and important portion of our manufacturing district, it would be the main trunk, from which a number of minor branches would spring. The scheme had been projected so early as 1755, and the ground surveyed, which for the most part offered little difficulty. But there was one line of high ground, called Harecastle Hill, which could neither be turned nor surmounted by any expedient that former engineers could devise. Brindley overcame the obstacle by driving a tunnel through it, upwards of a mile and five furlongs in length, and in some parts seventy yards below the surface of the ground. This canal, which is ninety-three miles long, was begun in 1766, and finished in May, 1777, less than eleven years after its commencement. In connexion with it, Brindley planned and executed a branch which joined the Severn, and thus gave Bristol an inland navigation to Hull, Liverpool, and Manchester.