m^mwiMWWum MWwiiwiiiimiiii imumiiiimwio iiiiwiiiiwa— w— — w— MfiWI '"'T'~ i Tf"rT' r-'f"i B [TfT- | TTrntrr-rrr-rtiTriMiif ii M iii r i i ii| in iiiM ( iii f ii r i r ii ajornell ImuerHttg Sithratg atliata, Nfm fork FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013521012 FATHER PROUT LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODH AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET MET. F„MIA1BI®W»'. {"FATHER FROUT") THE FINAL RELIQUES OF FATHER PROUT (THE REV. FRANCIS MAHONY) COLLECTED AND EDITED BY BLANCHARD JERROLD ITrntBoiT CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1876 Al.-ZO'J'^Z, PREFACE. The object of collecting and editing the Final Reliques of one of the most brilliant and original litterateurs of our time was to rescue from oblivion such of the Prout writings as had not been in- cluded in the celebrated work edited by Oliver York (Mahony himself), with illustrations by Alfred Croquis (Maclise). These resuscitated writings comprise, for the most part, his Correspondence from Rome with the Daily News, begun when it was under the brief editorship of Charles Dickens. The letters were considered at the time not only worthy of as high a place in the public estimation as the generality, at least, of his former more showy and attractive contributions to ' Eraser's ' and ' Bentley's * Magazines, but that they were suffi- cient, if he had never contributed a line to either vi PREFACE. of those periodicals, to leave his mark upon his time. To a public organ of essentially broad and in- dependent views, Mahony was essentially the right man in the right place, as Roman Corre- spondent, during the short conterminous epochs which he described as ' The Fag End of a Long Reign' (that of Gregory XVI.) and 'The Bright Dawn of Better Days' (the opening of Pius the Ninth's Papal -reign) ; and fortunate indeed was Dickens when he shook hands with the Padre on the Milvian Bridge, of historic renown, accepting from him a handful of cigars bought at Torlonia's and ' blessed by the Pope' and engaging him at the same time to enter upon the correspondence. The period for Rome was one of transition. It came not long after the constitutional regimes which had been partially established in France and Spain, under Louis Philippe and Maria Christina, with which the Italian democracy, no matter how overawed by Austria, still cherishing the sacred flame of their old municipal liberties, secretly sympathised,' and sighed and watched for, with all the fervour of their race, but with all the patience of martyrs — the martyrs of the PREFACE. vii political and spiritual oppression of a thousand years ! The transition was on its march shortly before the. great European outbreak of 1848; and nowhere did it exhibit such peculiar phases as at the very seat of mental repression, in Rome itself. No one could read those phases, and understand the situation better than the bright and penetrating little Irishman, half-priest, half man of the world, the trained thinker, the tolerant looker-on, and accomplished scholar. In Rome he was at home and on his own manor. His education, his tastes, his training, all his antecedents attached him to Rome. He had its ancient and modern history by heart. He viewed and valued this irresponsible but peculiar despotism of Papal Rome in a Catholic spirit, which partook of no sceptical contempt, still less of sectarian rancour or exclusiveness. He praised and encouraged it where he saw it endeavour- ing with parental solicitude to do good, and f d- vancing in the right direction, as it appears to have done in 'The Bright Dawn' of Pio Nono's reign ; and he gave it no rest whilst it would slumber on with its eyes shut upon the signs of the times, as in ' The Fag End ' of Gregory the viii PREFACE. Sixteenth's. Like Erasmus, and Savonarola, who never broke thoroughly with their old Church, he would stand by her, with all her faults, to the last ; but he would not seek to reform her abuses in an ultra-puritan spirit with the one, but laugh her into common sense with the other. The great value of the letters, written during the closing days of Gregory the Sixteenth's rdgime, is that they enable the reader to understand the significance of the opening of Pio Nono's reign. Austrian diplomacy, representing an imperious despotism, second to none other on earth, ruled the Vatican during the former epoch, whilst a generous spirit of reform and patriotism inspired it during the latter. No history of Italy pretending to give a full account of the progress of constitutional thought and action throughout that country, from the early years of this century to the entry of Victor Emmanuel into Rome, can be written without a studied and faithful reference to these ' Mimoires pour servir' in which Mahony described Pio Nono's pure character, as it shone out in the bright days of his early promise and nobler aspira- tions. It will be for other pens to describe and PREFACE. ix account for the change that presently came over the spirit of his patriotic dream. The Preface to the ' Facts and Figures from Italy,' under which title Mahony's Roman Corre- spondence was published in a collected form by Bentley — now out of print and almost forgotten — was set forth as written by one Jeremy Savona- rola, a Benedictine monk, and descendant of the great Florentine reformer. It was a characteristic Prout conception, worthy of the Padre in his happiest mood. Whilst professing to hail from Sardinia, and to give an account of the island and its affairs during a disturbed political epoch, it covertly caricatures the state of Ireland during the latter years of the O'Connell era. As a political satire it was worthy of Swift himself. Indeed it may be put down as one of the wittiest, most penetrating, and most suggestive, if not. the most so, of all Mahony's prose writings. In Don Jeremy's Preface appears The Lay of Lazarus, one of the most powerful of the writer's satirical lyrics, ostensibly on the sending round of the begging box by the Sardinian agitator, and dema- gogue, Dandeleone, during the days of the chestnut rot, which beggared and more than decimated the X PREFACE. miserable inhabitants of the island. In reality it reprobated the extraordinary circumstance of the O'Connell Tribute producing 20,000/, during the year of the potato rot, and consequent Irish plague and famine. Some of the more remarkable of Mahony's prose writings were in his letters to the Globe, with which newspaper he commenced to corre- spond from Paris shortly after the Revolution of 1848. Although for the most part short, and some of them very short, they were always pun- gent, epigrammatic, and scholarly. Some pas- sages have been carefully selected for a place in these Final Reliques. In addition to such information as the editor could obtain from Mahony's few surviving relatives in Ireland as to his early education, a question of great interest when those rare and brilliant acquirements are taken into considera- tion which challenged the admiration of all who read his contributions to the periodicals and journals already mentioned ; an old friend and quondam pupil of his, for a short time, at the Irish College of the Jesuits, has contributed a paper entitled ' Familiar Memorabilia of the PREFACE. xi Writings, Genius, and Education of Father Prout' In this Essay is given the key to the Padre's wonderful facility in Latin Composition, and to his deep knowledge of ancient and modern Church History — to his hatred of O'Connell and the turbulent school of Irish agitation — to his apparent Toryism — to his trenchantly abusive style of political and general intellectual contro- versy in the press and in society. This latter, without such explanation, would seem a mystery to all who did not know him, when assured by those who did that he combined a thorough spirit of toleration with a mind that not only respected, but reverenced the biensdances of society, and a heart surcharged with goodness. Whilst the raison d'Hre cannot be given why a man of such genius, acquirements, and energy as must have secured him a leading rank in any profession but the incongenial one to which he unfortunately committed himself, should have been an ecclesiastic, and still more strange a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, the writer of the Essay palliates the abnormal position of his friend by declaring his belief that it was altogether an affair of pressure from home; and that, as Eras- xii PREFACE. mus entered the priesthood to get rid of the im- portunities and persecution of his guardians, so Mahony took the same deplorable step more to avoid the reproaches of his family than to please himself. It being the fashion to talk about the learning of the Jesuits, and a great deal having been said about Mahony's indebtedness to it, the ' Familiar Memorabilia' speaks in no flattering terms of the literary character of the celebrated Order during the present century, pointing out that the descendants of the men who left behind them such lasting monuments of classic learning as the Gradus ad Parnassum, and the Virgils, Ovids, Horaces, Juvenals, &c., edited In usum Delphini, have not enriched European literature with even an ordinary school-book for upwards of a hundred years. After alluding in laudatory terms to their leading Latin poets, Casimir Sarbievius, Van- nierius, Camirius, &c., the Essay points to the gems of the Muses Etonenses and Arundines Cami contributed by the Wellesleys, the Strangfords, the Cannings, the Lyttletons, the Gladstones, the Druries, the Merivales, the Creasies, &c., which of themselves, without calling in the aid of the Mil- PREFACE. xiii tons, Buchanans, Addisons, and Vincent Bournes of former times, need not fear comparison with the brightest and best of the Jesuit Parnassus. The generaHty of the literary men who were intimate with Mahony having been of opinion that he owed much of his out-of-the-way knowledge, and what might be called quaint learning, to his Jesuit training, it is not uninteresting to know, from an old and intimate friend of his, trained in the same berceau of primary instruction with him, his reasons for thinking that the chief and most valuable portion of Mahony's learning was attributable to his extraordinary industry, and de- sultory reading, out of class, both at St. Acheul and the Rue de Sevre. The Jesuit class lore gave him little or no trouble (something like Sir William Hamilton's case at Trinity College, Dub- lin, although not to be spoken of in the same day with that philosophic prodigy), and occupied not anything like the time he devoted to study. ' He read the most out-of-the-way works, and de- voured every sort of knowledge he could lay his hands on.' Of the manner of man he was, the space he filled in intellectual society at home and abroad ; xiv PREFACE. his quaint sayings ; his genial outbursts of senti- ment, sometimes more candid than courtly; his stern sense of right ; his reverence for religion, and hatred of scoffers ; his unqualified religious tolera- tion, which caused him, whilst they were proud of him, to be looked on coldly by the men of his cloth ; his rarely gifted and discriminating mind ; his most sympathetic heart — all these traits and features of his personal character and history may be traced through the various anecdotes and sketches supplied to this volume by friends who knew him long and intimately. The Editor is indebted for notes of the Padre's last days, his portrait, autograph, &c., to some Paris friends of his, and particularly to the relatives of Mrs. Mul- don, who nursed him in his last illness. With his illustrious friends — Maginn, Dickens, Jerrold, and Thackeray — the name of Mahony will be in- scribed in the Literary Pantheon, amongst the English Wits and Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. CONTENTS CHAP. PACB Preface . . . . . . . v. I. The Rev. Francis Mahony . . . i II. Father Prout's Reliques . . ■ • 93 III. Mahony in Paris . . . . -133 IV. Don Jeremy Savonarola . . . . 203 V. Rome, 1846. The Fag End of a Long Reign . 229 VI. Between the old Regime and the New . . 305 VII. The Bright Dawn of Better Days . . 333 VIII. Rome, 1847 . . . . • • 375 IX. Paris Notes under the Second Empire . 477 Political Epistle from Father Prout to Boz 527 Father Prout's Inauguration Ode . . 529 CHAPTER I. THE REV. FRANCIS MAHONY A. i^M^r^ v'^i Tfci/e^ ^-^fcr" iT*»:(feLcL>^ m.^ tmJ^ («¥■ twM/-'- ^ 'The Universal Review.' February i860. » ' Father Prout's ReHques.' Bell and Daldy, 1866, p. 164. II 98 ■ FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. embody himself in this very figure of a priest in the county of Cork, by which he is pleased to be represented. No man can separate himself from his traditions and early associations even if he tries. But a wise and generous man does not choose to try. He adores his own Sparta, though he may grumble at her modern government, and be tired of her black broth. There is no sepa- rating Carlyle altogether from Scotch Presby- terianism ; and the cosmopolitan Mahony, known as well at Rome as at London, and at Paris as at either, has the kind of genius and accomplish- ments natural to an Irish Catholic and an Irish- man of the South. Nothing is pleasanter than a brilliant Irishman who has not lived too exclu- sively in his native country, even though he share the national weakness of never getting Norseman or Saxon over his tumbler without endeavouring to prove his Celtic origin. ' We think, in fact (and we love above all things to fix the historical position of a man pre- paratory to taking a good look at him) that Father Prout may be. most conveniently studied as an Irish humourist. He is almost exactly to the Irish what Professor Wilson was to the Scotch — a representative of their peculiar talents and character in the guise of a humourist, but yet FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 99 without the narrowness of a too marked nation- ahty. From that vice (which produces in reahty only provincial bores) Wilson was saved, not only by largeness of mind, but by an Oxford edu- cation and a Cumberland residence ; as Prout has been by his Continental education, by London as- sociations, and by foreign travel. The two writers are national in genius and spirit rather than in de- tail, representing the wines of their nationalities, not the skin and stone of the grape only. Wilson writes about Burns, Mahony sports with Moore. One glorifies the Highlands, the other the bells of Shandon. One takes a lowland shepherd to speak through, the other an upland country priest. Yet it would be unfair to charge either with un- due narrowness of sympathies. . . . ' The reader will see at once that we are not comparing the characters, so much as the posi- tions, of these remarkable essayists. Mahony may be to Ireland what Wilson was to Scotland, without great personal resemblance in genius ; the flavour of it, in fact, differing as widely in the men as that of the whisky of their respective countries.' Mahony's fun is essentially Irish— fanciful, playful, odd, irregular, and more grotesque than Northern fun. In one of his own phrases, he is H 2 100 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ' an Irish potato, seasoned with Attic salt ' — a queer, characteristic touch of the very faculty it is meant to describe. But take a few paragraphs from his ' Apology for Lent,' to put you en rap- port again with the' wayward and eccentric spirit of his humour : — ' The Hollanders, the Swedes, the Saxons, the Prussians, and in Germany those circles in which the Gothic blood ran heaviest and most stagnant, hailed Luther as a deliverer from salt fish. The fatted calf was killed, bumpers of ale went round, and popery went to the dogs. Half Europe followed the impetus given to free opinions, and the congenial impulse of the gastric juice ; joining in reform, not because they loved Rome less, but because they loved substantial fare more. Mean- time, neighbours differed. The Dutch, dull and opaque as their own Zuider Zee, growled defiance at the Vatican when their food was to be con- trolled ; the Belgians, being a shade nearer to the Celtic family, submitted to the fast. While Ham- burg clung to its beef, and Westphalia preserved her hams, Munich and Bavaria adhered to the Pope and to sour-crout with desperate fidelity. ' As to the Cossacks, and all that set of northern marauders, they never kepit Lent at any time, and it would be arrant folly to expect that FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. loi the horsemen of the River Don, and the Esqui- maux of the Polar latitudes, would think of re- stricting their ravenous propensities in a Christian fashion ; the very system of cookery adopted by these terrible hordes would, I fear, give Dr. Kitchener a touch of the cholera. ' Mark the effect of this observance in Ireland, where it continues in its primitive austerity, un- diminished, unshorn of its beams. The Irish may be wrong, but the consequences to Protes- tant England are immense. To Lent we owe the connection of the two islands : it is the golden link that binds the two kingdoms together. Abolish fasting, and from that evil hour no beef or pork would be suffered by the wild natives to go over to your English markets, and the export of provisions would be discontinued by a people that had unlearned the lessons of starvation. Adieu to shipments, too, of live stock, and con- signments of bacon ! Were there not some potent mysterious spell over this country, think you we should allow the fat of the land to be everlastingly abstracted ? Let us learn that there is no virtue in Lent, and Repeal is triumphant to-morrow. We are, in truth, a most, abstemious race. Hence our great superiority over our Protestant fellow- countrymen in the jury-box. It having been I02 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. found out that they would never hold out against hunger, as we can, when locked up, and that the verdict was generally carried by popish obstinacy, former Administrations discountenanced our ad- mission to serve on juries at all. By an oversight of Serjeant Lefroy, all this has escaped the framers of the new jury bill for Ireland. ' To return to the Irish exports. The prin- cipal item is that of pigs. The hog is as essen- tial an inmate of the Irish cabin as the Arab steed of the shepherd's hut on the plains of Meso- potamia. Both are looked upon as part of the household, and the affectionate manner in which these dumb friends of the family are treated, here as well as there, is a trait of national resemblance, denoting a common origin. We are quite ori- ental in most of our peculiarities. The learned Vallancey will have it that our consanguinity is with the Jews. I might elucidate the colonel's discovery by showing how the pig in Ireland plays the part of the scapegoat of the Israelites ; he is a sacred thing, gets the run of the kitchen, is rarely molested, never killed, but alive and buoyant leaves the cabin when taken off by the landlord's driver for arrears of rent, and is then shipped clean out of the country, to be heard of no more. Indeed the pigs of Ireland bear this FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 103 notable resemblance to their cousins of Judah, that nothing can keep them from the sea — a ten- dency which strikes all travellers in the interior of the island whenever they meet our droves of swine precipitating themselves towards the out- ports for shipment.' In these passages, the characteristically Irish fact is, that the fun and the argument are blended together in a kind of way which makes it impos- sible to tell which is which. There is an audacity in Hibernian humour, above all, which mocks reason with an appearance of reasoning, as a ' bull ' insults you by its superficial air of good sense. ' They talk of our drinking,' said Curran, ' but who ever heard of an Irishman being born drunk ?' So, too, a certain Irish vagrant who was passing himself off for a shipwrecked sailor, happened un,- luckily to apply to a naval man for relief ' What is the mark on the lead-line at five fathoms ? ' asked the officer. ' Indeed, sir,' said the raga- muffin piteously, ' my misfortunes have put that particular branch of saymanship clane out of my head.' There is a richness about this which we should not find in an Englishman or a Scot. The basis of humour in Prout is racy of the soil from which he sprung. The men with whom he rollicked in his most exuberant pages were of 104 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Cork. But his style of illustration was from the seminary, his wit was Attic, his outlook was from classic lands. He embroidered the long tails of Paddy's coat with jewels borrowed from the stores of Greece and Rome. Hannay says of him : ' He sports with his scholarship just as he quizzes Ultramontanism, and fires arrows at " Repale." Firmly believing in the classics, he shows his love for them, as a man shows his love for his children ■ — by playing with them.' This very happily expresses Mahony's usual literary mood. But when we are told that ' Prout was making a fight for the ancient tongues, and this was the kind of way he chose to show his regard for them,' we say nay. Prout had no object. A man does not play with his children — with a purpose. Prout was a convivial literary man of his day ; when the tumbler stood close to the inkhorn. He was at home with Maginn and the Fraserians. He loved the 'dead languages,' for they were not dead to him, but rather the most robust living tongues which had supplied to him his daily literary food, through all the more impressionable years of a man's life. And, therefore, when jesting he used the weapon of Horace rather than that of Curran. Being a scholar, he affected the society of FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 105 scholars — of men who could understand him, and whom he on his part caired to understand. In the preface to the ' Reliques,' dated 1859, Frank Ma- hony plainly says : ' Prout preferred chewing the cud of classic fancies or otherwise approved of sub- stantial stuff ; delighting to invest with new and varied forms what had long gained universal re- cognition. He had strict notions as to what really constitute the Belles lettres. Brilliancy of thought, depth of remark, pathos of sentiment, sprightliness of wit, vigour and aptitude of style, with some scholarship, were requisites for his notice or claim to be held in esteem as a literary man. It is useless to add how much of recent growth, and how many pretenders to that title, he would have eschewed.' In another passage Mahony touches on the rambling propensities of Prout — pro- pensities that, like those of the bee, filled his hive : — ' It will be nqticed that the Father's rambles are not limited by any barrier, or caste, or coat, or coterie ; his soul is multilateral, his talk multi- farious, yet free, it is hoped, from garrulity, and decidedly exempt from credulity. He seems to have had a shxewd eye for scanning humbug, and it is well for him (and for others) that he has vacated his parish in due course of nature. He io6 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. would have stoutly resisted in Ireland the late attempted process of Italian Cullenisation.' The Father was also a jovial soul — jovial as Maginn and his companions were. Hannay, who carried this old-fashioned conviviality down to our own time, and was the soul of a roystering club which met by the classic piazzas of Covent Garden, not twenty years ago, under the title of ' The Tumbler,' threw all his verve into a de- fiance of the good Tories and scholars who drank many glasses in the small hours, and were not Cockneys. ' Now,' says Hannay, ' in our good Father as in all the school, there is a broad liberal homeliness which we do most entirely respect even in the midst of its extravagance, which last was, of course, partly assumed for the sake of its roystering humour. A fine smell of lemons, so to speak, is felt through his pages,^ alternating with the notes of ' The bells of Shandon Which sound so grand on The pleasant waters of the river Lee. What is piquant too, is the peculiar mixture of the four great elements of Toryism, classicism, sarcasm, and punch. For they are all united and ' Notably in ' The Watergrassliill Carousal' See ' Father Front's Reliques.' FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 107 related. The punch is brewed with water from the Aganippe. The Radical is contemned as much for being a bore and what Lord Vincent, in " Pelham," calls a " Latinless lubber," as for his mere principles, being indeed as fatal to a true symposium as to our ancient constitution. Hence one quality of the man of this school led him into another. His loyalty was moistened by punch, his satire was fortified by quotation ; and to picture him in all his entirety you must fancy him witha spoon in his hand, and a Horace in his pocket, holding forth to an after-dinner company upon the last public appearance of the Mr. Roupell or Mr. Williams of the time. Such would be the Fra- seriansof 1834-5 or so, whom we are anxious to hand down to literary historians of posterity. The class had its eccentricities and its exaggera- tions. We do not say that it is right to review an indifferent translator by calling him a " brainless and tuneless ragamuffin." We should not venture to call Cicero a pamphleteer. In defending the Irish Church, we should hardly interpolate in the argument a request for a tumbler of hot whisky- and-water. But in spite of such bits of literary friskiness we have a kindness for the old crew. Their respect for antiquities and institutions, for learning and letters, were valuable qualities. io8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Their horse-play in the polemic way was rough, but had an Aristophanic geniaUty about it. Our smart bagmen and sentimental counter-jumpers have less heart as they have undoubtedly less brains, while, with regard to knowledge, the new breed are in the deplorable condition of not even feeling the want of it. They pick up enough at a time to serve them for the day, as costermongers buy their fish or vegetables by the barrowful.' Hannay's contempt for the ' Cockney ' and his delight in convivial men of letters who could sport with the classics like Prout — a kind of sport in which he himself delighted — led him to a certain recklessness in his defence of the outrageous per- sonalities which were rife in the old Fraserian days. There was robustness in the hitting — the robustness of the prize-fighter. The age has become so outrageously cockneyfied, as Hannay would say, that we have put down the ring and taken to croquet. He cites the opening pas- sage of Front's papers on Horace. Let the reader consider whether literature has lost much by toning down such rough handling as the Father indulges in. ' From the ignoble doings of modern Whiggery, —sneaking and dastardly at home, and not very FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 109 dignified abroad — from Melbourne/ who has flung such unwonted dclat around the premiership of Great Britain {addens cormta patiperi), and Mulgrave, who has made vulgarity and ruffianism the supporters of a vice-regal chair {Regis Rupili pus atqite venenum),'^ it is allowable to turn aside for a transient glimpse of the Augustan age, when the premier was Maecenas, and the proconsul Agrippa. The poetic sense, nauseated with the effusions of Lord Lansdowne's family piper, finds relief in communing with Horace, the refined and gentlemanly Laureate of Roman Toryism. In his abhorrence of the "profane Radical mob" (lid. iii., ode. i.) in his commendation of virtue, " reful- gent" withuncontaminated honour, because derived from a steady refusal to take up or lay down the emblems of authority at popular dictation {lid. iii., ode i.) — in his portraiture of the Just Man, un- dismayed by the frenzied ardour of those who would force on by clamour depraved measures {lid. iii., ode iii.) — need we say how warmly we participate ? That the wits and sages who shed 1 Trial, Hon. George Chappie Norton versus Melbourne. 2 Lord Ndrmanby was, at this date (1834), letting loose all the jail-birds and ribbonmen in Ireland. He has since come out in the character of Polonius at the Courts of Florence and Modena. no FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. a lustre on that imperial court, should have merged all their precious theories in a rooted horror of agitators and sans-culottes, was a natural result of the intellectual progress made since the unlettered epoch of Marius and the Gracchi. In the bard of Tivoli, who had fought under the insurrectiona^ry banners of Brutus, up to the day when " the chins of the unshaven demagogues were brought to a level with the dust" (lib. ii., ode vii.), Tory principles obtained a distinguished convert ; nor is there any trace of mere subserviency to the men in power, or any evidence of insincerity in the record of his political opinions.' Surely the odes are more worthily introduced in a subsequent passage : — ' His little volume contains the distilled quintessence of Roman life, when at its very acme of refinement. It is the most perfect portraiture (cabinet size) that remains of the social habits, domestic elegance, and cultivated intercourse of the capital, at the most interesting period of its pros- perity. But the philosophy it inculcates, and the worldly wisdom it unfolds, is applicable to all times and all countries. Hence we cannot sympathise with the somewhat childish (to say the least of it) distaste, or indisposition, evinced by the immortal pilgrim, Harold {canto iv., st. Ixxv.), for those ever- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. tii enduring lyrics that formed the nourishment of our intellect, " when George the Third was King." The very affectation of alluding to the " drilled, dull lesson, forced down word for word, in his repugnant youth," proves the alumnus of Harrow- on-the-Hill to have relished and recollected the almost identical lines of the author he feigns to disremember — Carmina Livi meTnini Plagosum mihi parvo Orbilium dictare (Epist. ii. 70) ; and (though Peel may have been a more assiduous scholar) we can hardly believe the beauties of Horace to have been lost on Byron, even in his earliest hours of idleness.' Hannay cites from Prout's translations of the Odes — Mahony's foremost work of love — his ' Vides ut alti ; ' as containing the hearty, cheering vivacity of the original, with neatness and point of expression : — Versio Proutica. See how the winter blanches Soracte's giant brow ! Hear how the forest branches Groan for the weight of snow ! While the fix'd ice impanels Rivers within their channels. Out with the frost ! expel her ! Pile up the fuel-block, And from the hoary cellar Produce a Sabine crock j 112 FINAL kELICS OF FATHER PROUT. O Thaliarck ! remember It counts a fourth "December. Give to the gods the guidance Of earth's arrangements. List ! The blasts at their high biddance From the vex'd deep desist, Nor 'mid the cypress riot ; And the old elms are quiet. Enjoy, without foreboding, Life as the moments run ; Away with Care corroding. Youth of my soul ! nor shun Love, for whose smile thou'rt suited, And 'mid the dancers foot it. While youth's hour lasts, beguile it ; Follow the field, the camp. Each manly sport, till twilight Brings on the vesper-lamp. Then let thy loved one lisp her Fond feelings in a whisper. Or in a nook hide furtive. Till by her laugh betray'd, And drawn, with struggle sportive. Forth from her ambuscade ; Bracelet or ring th' offender, In forfeit sweet surrender ! ' It is seldom ' Hannay remarks ' that a Hora- tian translator attains more than one quality of his author at a time. Turn to other versions of this ode, and you will find that Lord Ravensworth's, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 113 though elegant, is rather tame, and that Professor Newman's, though close, is stiff. ' These Horatian translations of Prout's are embedded in essays full of the peculiarities of his manner. He discourses on the poet in a rambling, familiar, colloquial way, through whole pages sparkling with epigrams and studded with quota- tions, in the course of which Horace is set in all kinds of quaint lights, with odd piquant compari- sons and associations. A complete view of the Father's peculiar style may be gathered from the extracts which we proceed to make from his humorous and picturesque commentary on the Journey to Brundusium : — ' " The words on which I would ponder thus, after the most approved method of the great Flemish commentator, are contained in the 48th verse, which runs as follows in all known MSS. : — Lusum it Maecenas ; dormitum ego Virgiliusque. Lib. I. Sat. V. v. 48. ' " My approved good master, A Lapide, would hereupon, submitting each term to the more than chemical analysis of his scrutiny, first point out to the admiration of all functionaries in the diplomatic line, who happen to be charged with a secret mission, the sagacious conduct of Maecenas. The I 114 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. envoy of Augustus is fully conscious, on his arrival at Capua, that his motions are narrowly watched by the quidnuncs of that vagabond town, and that the probable object of his journey is sure to be dis- cussed by every barber in and about the market place. How does he act ? While the mules are resting at the 'caupona' (for it appears the vet- turini system of travelling is of very old date in the Italian peninsula), the charg6 d'affaires seeks out a certain tennis-court, the most favourite place of public resort, and there mingles in a game with the citizens, as if the impending destinies of the future empire of the world were not a moment in his contemplation, or did not rather engross his whole faculties for a while. This anecdote, I believe, has not been noticed by Mr. Taylor in his profound book, the ' Statesman.' It is at his service. ' " Leaving Maecenas to the enjoyment of his game of rackets, let us return to the Capuan hostelry, and take cognisance of what may be sup- posed to be then and there going on. Here then, we are, say, at the sign of ' Silenus and the Jack- ass,' in the ' Via Nolana.' In answer to our inquiries, it will appear that the author of the 'Georgics' (the '^neid' was yet unpublished) had, as usual ^ith him on the slightest emergencies, found his stomach sadly out of order {crudus) ; FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 115 while his fellow traveller, the distinguished lyrist of the day, had sympathetically complained of. the effect produced on his tender eyelids [lippus) by the clouds of incessant dust, and the glare of the noonday sun. '"They have both, therefore, previous to resum- ing their seat in the clumsy vehicles i^hedcs), which have conveyed them thus far, decided on devoting the sultry meridian hour to the refreshing process of a quiet siesta. The slave, within whose attri butions this service is comprised {decurio cubicw laris), is quickly summoned, and but few minutes have elapsed- before the two great ornaments of the Augustan age, the master-spirits of the then intellectual world, are fairly deposited in their respective cells, and consigned to the care of tired nature's kind restorer. Whoever has explored the existing remains of similar edifices in the neigh- bouring town of Pompeii, will probably form a fair estimate of the scale of comfort and style of accommodation prevalent at the head inn of Capua. Entering by a smoky hall {atrium), the kitchen being on one side, and the servants' offices on the other, your traveller proceeded towards the compluvium, or open quadrangle court-yard, on .each side of which, in cloister fashion, were ranged the sleeping apartments ; small, dark I 2 n6 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROU;r. chambers, each some eight or twelve feet square, having, at the height of about six feet from the mosaic ground-floor, a scanty aperture, furnished with a linen blind, a crockery lamp, a bronze tripod and basin {^pelvis), a mirror of the same material, forming, with a hard couch {stragula), the complete inventory of the movables within. A knight templar, Carthusian monk, would feel quite at . home in your antique hostelry. ' ' ' Little dreamed, I ween, the attendant slave, mayhap still less the enlightened master himself, of the high honour conferred on his establishment by an hour's occupancy of its chambers on that occasion. The very tall gentleman with the ungainly figure and slight stoop in the shoulders, so awkward and bashful in his address, and who had complained of such bad digestion, became, no doubt, the object of a few not over-respectful remarks among the atriensesoi the household. Nor did the short, fat, Sancho-Panza-looking sort of personage, forming in every respect so complete a contrast to his demure and sedate companion, fail to elicit some curious comment and some not very complimentary conjectures, as to what might be his relative position in society, in what particular capacity did they both follow the train of the rich knight Maecenas ? This was, no doubt, acutely and diligently can- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 117 vassed by the gossips of the inn. One thing was certain : in humour and disposition, as well as in personal appearance, they were the very antipodes of each other, — a musing Heraclitus yoked to a laughing Democritus ; aptly illustrative, the one of il penseroso, the other of V allegro. Mine host, with the instinctive sagacity of his tribe, at once set Horace as a man familiar with the metropolis, habituated to town life, and in every respect ' fit to travel.' It was equally clear that the other indi- vidual belonged to the agricultural interest, his manner savouring of much residence in the country ; being, in sooth, not merely rural, but actually rustic. In a word, they were fair samples of the rat de ville, and the rat de champs. • Mean- time, the unconscious objects of so much keen investigation ' slept on;' and 'little they recked' anent what was- thus ' lightly spoken ' concerning them, by those who kept the sign of ' Silenus and the Jackass,' in the high street of Capua Dormitum ego Virgiliusque. ' " Do I purpose to disturb them in their meri- dian slumber ? Not I." ' But he glances at them for all that, and turns his lamp on them, as they slumber, in the follow- ing way : — Ii8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ' " Virgil from his earliest infancy up to the period of confirmed manhood, had not left the banks of the Mincio, nor the plains of Lombardy. It required the confiscation of his little farm and the transfer of his ancestral acres to a set of quasi- Cromwellian intruders (Octavius Caesar's military colonists) to bring him up to Rome in quest of redress. He was then in his 30th year. Tender- ness, sensibility, a soul feeling alive to all the sweet emotions of unvitiated nature, are the natural growth of such happy seclusion frorh a wicked world. Majestic thoughts are the off- spring of solitude. Plato meditated alone on the promontory of Sunium ; Virgil was a Platonist. ' " The boyhood and youth of Horace (as I think may be gathered from my last paper) were spent in a totally different atmosphere ; and there- fore no two poets could be nurtured and trained in schools of poetry more essentially opposijte. The ' lake ' academy is not more different from the gymnasium of the ' silver fork.' Epicurus dwelt among the busy haun-ts of men : Horace was an Epicurean. ' " The latter was, in every respect, as his out- ward appearance would seem to indicate, ' of the town, townly.' Mirabeau used to say whenever he left Paris, that, on looking through his carriage FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 119 windows at the faces along the road, he could ascertain to a fraction how far he was from the capital. The men were his mile-stones. Even genius in the provinces wears an aspect of simpli- city. The Romans were perfectly sensible of this difference. Urbanum sal was a well-known com- modity, as easily distinguished by men of taste in the, metropolis, as the verbal provincialisms which pervade the decades of Livy were quickly de- tected by the delicate sensibility of metropolitan ears. '"In society Horace must have shown to great advantage in contrast with the retiring and un- communicative Mantuan. Acute, brilliant, satiri- cal, his versatile accomplishments fascinated at ■ once. Virgil, however, inspired an interest of a different description. Thoughtful and reserved, ' the rapt soul sitting in his eyes ' gave intimation of a depth of feeling and comprehensiveness of intellect far beyond the range of all contemporary minds. Habitually silent, yet, when he spoke in the solemn and exquisitely musical cadences pe- culiar to his poetry, it was as if the ' spirit of Plato ' revealed itself, or the Sibyllifie books were unfolded. ' " I can't understand the passage in the tenth Satire (lib. i.) where the Sabine humourist asserts I20 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. that the Muses who patronise a country life {^gaudentes rure Camoend), having endowed Virgil with a mild and lenient disposition, a delicate sweetness of style, had also bestowed on him a talent for the facetious {molle, atque facetum). There is assuredly, more fun and legitimate drollery in a page of the said Satires, than in all the ' Eclogues ' and ' Georgics ' put together. To extract a laugh out of the ' ^neid ' it re- quired the help of Scarron. ' " Horace was the delight of the convivial circle. The flashes of his Bacchanalian min- strelsy brightened the blaze of the banquet, and his love songs were the very quintessence of Roman refinement. Yet never did he achieve such a triumph as is recorded of his gifted friend, when, having consented to gratify the household of Augustus and the imperial circle by reading a portion of his majestic poem, he selected that famous exposition of Plato's sublimest theories, the sixth book of his ' -iEneid.' The charm of the recitation gave additional dignity to that high argument, so nobly developed in harmonious verse. But the intellect had feasted its full when he suddenly ' changed his hand and appealed to the heart ; ' when the glowing episode of the young Marcellus came by surprise on the assembled FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 121 court, a fainting empress, amid the mingled tears ^nd applause of veteran warriors^ confessed the sacred supremacy of song. ' "The poetry of Horace is a pleasant tkotighi ; that of Virgil a delightful dream. The first has mingled in the world of reality, the latter dwelt in a fanciful and ideal region, from which he rarely came down to the vulgarities of actual life. The tranquil lake reflects heaven in its calm bosom ; the running brook makes acquaintance with the thousand objects on its varied margin." ' When Hannay distinguishes between Ma- hony's wit, learning, eloquence, and happiness in quotations from the marvellous store, the Jesuits had helped to cram into his brain, and his mere iours deforce, he is just. ' To write verses in many tongues, is, indeed, a rare accomplishment ; but what is rarest is not always the best. A great singer is 'better than a great ventriloquist, though he is a common phe- nomenon too. A great horseman is better than the best Astley's man, though he never gets on more than one horse at a time. Prout must laugh in his sleeve at those who admire him, mainly for what is in reality a knack. He knows well that a man may be as good a linguist as he, without being able to handle the languages in his peculiar 122 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. and amusing way ; just as of two men who know Latin, he who knows it best will not necessarily write the best verse or prose. There goes far more real brain to mastering one language, as Porson did Greek, than to all the readiness in using fifty languages, colloquially, of a Mezzofanti. But then the result is not so startling, so dazzling, so odd. The crowd pass by the land surveyor, who is doing intellectual wonders with his cord, to gape at the juggler who is swallowing his. Father Prout is a great wit, humourist, and es- sayist, of large literary accomplishments, and we heartily relish the fun which, he thinks proper to make by amusing himself with his knowledge. We have intimated as much before. But we wish to see him admired for what is most admirable about him, not for the sportive exercises only of his versatile and brilliant mind.' ' ' The Rogueries of Tom Moore ' combine in them all Mahony's gifts, except that of tender eloquence, which is to be found in his paper on ' Dean Swift's Madness,' in the course of which, by the way, he alludes to ' the beautiful simile of the melodist ' who sang of ' some banquet-hall deserted.' , The opening of the paper (dated March 1830) shows -how Father Prout could be serious : — FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 123 ' Yet a few years, and a full century shall have elapsed since the death of Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's. Yes, O my friends ! if such I may presume to designate you, into whose hands,. when I am gathered to the silent tomb, these writings shall fall, .and to whose kindly perusal I commend them, bequeathing at the same time the posthumous blessing of a feeble and toil-worn old man — yes, when a few winters more shall have added to the accumulated snow of age that weighs on the hoary head of the pastor of this upland, and a short period shall have rolled on in the dull monotony of these latter days, the centenary cycle will be fully completed, the secular anthem of dirge-like solemnity may be sung, since the grave closed for ever on one whom Britain justly reveres as the most upright, intui- tive, and gifted of her sages, and whom Ireland, when the frenzied hour of strife shall have passed away, and the turbulence of parties shall have subsided into a national calm, will hail with the rapture of returning reason, as the first, the best, the mightiest of her sons. The long arrears of gratitude to the only true disinterested champion of her people will then be paid, the long-deferred apotheosis of the patriot divine will then take place, the shamefully-forgotten debt of glory which 124 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. the lustre of his genius shed around his semi- barbarous countrymen will be deeply and feelingly remembered ; the old landmark of genuine worth will be discovered in the ebbing of modern agi- tation, and due honour will be rendered by a more enlightened age to the keen and scruti- nising philosopher, the scanner of whate'er lies hidden in the folds of the human heart, the pro- phetic seer of coming things,- the unsparing satirist of contemporary delinquency, the stern Rhadamanthus of the political and of the literary world, the star of a benighted land, the lance and the buckler of Israel — " We ne'er shall look upon his like again." ' And still why must I recall (what I would fain obliterate) the ever-painful fact — graven alas! too indelibly on the stubborn tablets of his bio- graphers, chronicled in the annals of the country, and, above all, firmly and fatally established by the monumental record of his own philanthropic munificence — the disastrous fact that ere this bril- liant light of our island was quenched in death, towards the close of the year 1745, long before that sad consummation, the flame had wavered wild and flickered fitfully in its lamp of clay, casting around shadows of ghastly form, and soon FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 125 assuming a strange and melancholy hue, that made every well-wisher hail as a blessing the touch of its final extinction in the cold and dismal vaults of St. Patrick's ? In what mysterious struggle his gigantic intellect had been cloven down, none could tell. But the evil genius of insanity had clearly obtained a masterdom over faculties the most powerful, and endowments the highest, that have fallen to the lot of man.' Prout's translations of the songs of France, and the songs of Italy, are no mere tours de force : they are, in some instances, exquisite renderings and enrichments of the original poets. Prout was especially happy with B6ranger, in ' Les Sou- venirs du Peuple,' ' Le Vieux Drapeau,' and ' Le Dieu des Bonnes Gens,' for instance, but not in the ' Grenier ' of Beranger. ' Le Dieu des Bonnes Gens ' begins : — There's a god whom the poet in silence adores, But molests not his throne with importunate prayer; For he knows that the evil he sees and abhors, There is bljsssing to balance, and balm to repair. But the plan of the Deity beams in the bowl, And the eyelid of beauty reveals his design. Oh ! the goblet in hand, I abandon my soul To the Giver of genius, love, friendship, and wine ! But in his ' Literature and the Jesuits ' in which he poured forth his stores of learning in proof 126 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. that the Jesuits had deserved well of the Republic of Letters, he prints a translation of a short de- votional poem b)'' an old schoolfellow of Prout's 'who entered the Order in 1754, and died a missionary in Cochin China ' the old schoolfellow being of course, ' the lone incumbent ' himself. It is called Don Ignacio Loyola's Vigil in the Chapel of our Lady of Montserrat : — When at thy shrine, most holy maid ! The Spaniard hung his votive blade, And bared his helmed brow — Not that he feared war's visage grim, Or that the battle-field, for him Had aught to daunt, I trow. ' Glory ! ' he cried, ' with thee I've done ! Fame ! thy bright theatres I shun. To tread fresh pathways now : To track Thy footsteps, Saviour God ! ' With throbbing heart, with feet unshod — Hear, and record my vow. ' Yes, Thou shalt reign ! Chained to thy throne The mind of man thy sway shall own. And to its conqueror bow. Genius his lyre to Thee shall hft, And intellect its choicest gift Proudly on Thee bestow.' This from the translator of ' The Groves of Blarney ' and ' The Night before Larry was Stretched.' There was in Father Prout a good FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 127 deal of Scarron and something of' Gresset, the latter of whom he quotes at the opening of his ' Apology for Lent,' in which the bubbling Irish humour of the Father comes out more wildly than in any of his papers. Referring to his polyglot edition of ' The Groves of Blarney '' he describes his own happiest faculty as ' a rare combination of the Teian lyre and the Irish bagpipe — of the Ionian dialect blending harmoniously with the Cork brogue, — an Irish potato seasoned with Attic salt' The lyre and the bagpipe sound by turns in the following address of ' the lone incum- bent ' : — ' I do attach much importance to the act of James I., who in 1619 issued a proclamation re- minding his English subjects of the obligation of keeping Lent, because his Majesty's object is clearly ascertained to have been to encourage the traffic of his, countrymen the Scotch, who had just then embarked largely in the herring trade, and for whom the thrifty Stuart was anxious to secure a monopoly in the British markets. But when in 1627 I find the chivalrous Charles I., your martyred king, sending forth from the Banqueting- room of Whitehall, his royal decree to the same effect, I am at a loss to trace his motives. It is known that Archbishop Laud's advice went to the 128 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. effect of reinstating many customs of Catholicity, but from a more diligent consideration of the sub- ject I am -more inchned to think that the King wished rather, by this display of austere practices, to soothe and conciliate the Puritanical portion of his subjects, whose religious notions were supposed (I know not how justly) to have a tendency to self-denial and the mortifications of the flesh. Certain it is that the Calvinists and Roundheads were greater favourites at Billingsgate than the High- Church party ; from which we may conclude that they consumed more fish — a fact corroborated by the contemporary testimony of Samuel Butler, who says that when the great struggle com- menced — Each fisherwoman locked her fish up, And trudged abroad to cry '^No bishop ! ' ' I will only remark in furtherance of my own views, that the King's beefeaters and the gor- mandising Cavaliers of that period would never stand in fair fight against the austere and fasting Cromwellians. 'It is a vulgar error of your countrymen to connect valour with roast-beef, or courage with plum-pudding. There exists no such association ; and I wonder this national mistake has not been noticed by Jeremy Bentham in . his " Book of FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 129 Fallacies." As soon might it be presumed that the pot-bellied Fal^taff, faring on venison and sack, could overcome in prowess Owen Glen- dower, w]io, I suppose, fed on leeks ; or that the lean and emaciated Cassius was not a better soldier than a well-known sleek and greasy rogue who fled from the battle of Philippi, and, as he himself unblushingly tells the world, left his buckler behind him : Relictd non bene parmuld. ' Among European denominations, in propor- tion as the Celtic infusion predominates, so in corresponding ratio is the national character for abstemiousness. Nor would I thus dwell on an otherwise uninteresting speculation were I not about to draw a corollary, and show how these secret influences became apparent at what is called the great epoch of the Reformation. The latent tendency to escape from fasting observances became then revealed, and what had lain dormant for ages was at once developed. The Tartar and Sclavonic breed of men flung oft" the yoke of Rome, while the Celtic races remained faithful to the successor of the " Fisherman " and kept Lent' 1 Prout is friskier in the memorable Water- 1 The continuation of this quotation will be found in another connection, on p.' 100. K 130 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. grasshill Carousal, that, by the Hberal use of Cork names made in it, gave considerable offence in the Father's native town. But with none were more liberties taken than with that of Mr. Daniel Corbett. One of the Father's intimate friends writes to me : ^ ' At the house of one especial friend of his I often used to meet him — this was Dan Corbett, senior, a distinguished dentist, a man of rare genius, who, had he turned his abilities to the stage, would un- doubtedly have realised a very large fortune, and so Prout often told me. He was an admirable comic actor, and repeatedly gave proofs of his genius on the boards of the Cork Theatre, for charitable purposes. He was without a rival in Ireland as a comic singer of rare and funny songs — many of them his own composition. On, the whole, had he appeared at Drury Lane or Covent Garden, Corbett would have gained re- nown, and a niche in the temple of fame. In his " Reliques," Mahony alludes to Dan Corbett as " the hospitable dentist who never had nut- crackers on his table," for they would spoil his trade by saving the teeth of his guests.' Friar O'Meara's song, sung with the friar's eye on a succulent turkey apparent through the ' Letter from Mr. James Murphy, of Liverpool, to B. J., December 17, 1874. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 131 kitchen-door, is in the Father's most roystering vein : — Why, then, sure it was made by a learned owl, The ' rule ' by which I beg. Forbidding to eat of the tender fowl That hangs on yonder peg. But, rot it ! no matter — For here on a platter, Sweet Margaret brings A food fit for kings ; And a meat Clean and neat — That's an egg ! Sweet maid, She brings me an egg newly laid ! And to fast I need ne'er be afraid, -For 'tis Peg That can find me an egg. Nostra non est regula Edenda gallina. Altera sed edula Splendent in culina : Ova manus sedula Afifert mihi bina ! Est Margarita Qua facit ita Puellanim regina ! We now turn from the R.eHques of the Fraserian days closed by the Ladye of Lee, to the Rehques of a later time which the jocund scholar scattered over newspapers and magazines while he K 2 132 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. lived a lonely man, save when Thackeray broke in upon him from London, or he met a friend from across the Channel, by the Tiber or the Seine. Let us first tarry with the Padre on the banks of the Seine. CHAPTER III. MAHONY IN PARIS CHAPTER III. MAHONY IN PARIS. The Rev. Francis Mahony, or Father Prout, trudging along the Boulevards with his arms clasped behind him, his nose in the air, his hat worn as French caricaturists insist all Englishmen wear hat or cap ; his quick, clear, deep-seeking eye wandering sharply to the right or left, and sarcasm — not of the sourest kind — playing like jack-o' lantern in the corners of his mouth. Father Prout was as much a character of the French capital as the learned Armenian of the Imperial Library only a few years' ago. He was of those voluntary exiles to the banks of the Seine who loved their Paris well, and was as much part of Paris as Murger, Musset, Privat d'Anglemont, Mery, the great Theo, Lespes, Monselet, Dr. V^ron, and a host of other notable strollers were or are. Very scornfully, too, did the Father look down upon the later strollers, for he cquld carry 136 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. back his mind to the days of greater, more ear- nest men, when literary warfare was waged by soldiers with the souls of lofty gentlemen, and the tailor's son sang through the bars of Ste. Pelagie : Lisette seule a le droit de sourire Quand je lui dis : Je suis inddpendant, Je suis, je suis inddpendant. It was difficult to meet Father Prout. He was an odd, uncomfortable, uncertain man. His moods changed like April skies. Light little thoughts were busy in his brain, lively and frisking as ' troutlets in a pool.' He was impatient of in- terruption, and shambled forward talking in an undertone to himself, with now and then a bubble or two of laughter, or one short sharp laugh almost a bark, like that of the marksman when the arrow qyivers in the bull's eye. He would pass you with a nod that meant, 'Hold off — not to-day!' You had been with him in his entresol of the Rue des Moulins over night, and had been dismissed in the small hours when he had had gossiping enough. You had been charmed with the range of his scholarship, the ease and raciness of his wit, by the masterly skill with which he handled his literary tools, and the shades of the best of all good company whom he could summon before FI^AL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 137 you in anecdotes which almost brought their breath again upon the cheek. To-day he is gathered up closely within himself, and is holding company in solitude. He was very impatient if any injudicious friend or a passing acquaintance (who took him to be usually as accessible as any fldnetir on the macadam) thrust himself forward and would have his hand and agree with him that it was a fine day, but would possibly rain shortly. A sharp answer, and an unceremonious plunge forward without bow or good- day would put an end to the interruption. Of course the Father was called a bear by ceremonious shallow-pates who could not see there was something extra in the little man talking to himself and shuffling, with his hands behind him, through the fines fleurs and grandes dames of the Italian Boulevard. There were boobies of his cloth, moreover, who called him a bore. He was forgetful at times of the biensdances it seems, which regulate the use of scissors and paste. He made ill-timed visits. He was unmindful of the approach of 'the hour for going to press.' He lingered over thfe paper when a neighbour was waiting for it, while he travelled far off amid the vast stores of his memory, seeking to clothe some fact or truth of to-day in the splendour of a classic phrase or in some quaint 138 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. old Jesuit dress. When his brain was full-flowing to his tongue, he would keep you under a tropical sun by the Luxor obelisk, and tell you when he first knew Paris, and how he saw the scaffoldings of the Rue Royale, and what historic pageants he had watched progressing inwards and outwards by the Tuileries. Apposite anecdote, queer figure, sounding phrase covering wretched littleness, lace coats over muddy petty hearts : Monsieur de Talleyrand, Bdranger's de, everybody's de, Louis Philippe and his mess, the poet-president and then the nephew of somebody who lives to rule the roast — better roast too, than Monsieur Chose got by contract for his guests — ha ! ha ! the Father laughed, unmindful of the heat — and he gossiped on. Louis Philippe as Ulysses ! the thread was a delightful toy. Ulysses, as Leech could draw him, with bottle-nose, a cotton umbrella under his arm, and a market basket in his hand, going out for the Sunday dinner. The store of recollection would gape wide, and it would end with this, ' You've nothing to do for an hour, have a cigar.' And away to the Rue des Moulins, one of those grand ancient hotels in which the Padre de- lighted. He was proud of his hotel, with its Jacobin atmosphere, and would have writhed with ' expropriation ' written upon the dear walls. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 139 This Rue des Moulins and hereabouts, Father Prout loved— the MouHns and the New Street of the Little Fields of his friend Thackeray, whom he helped to perch in an apartment herein, before Mr. Titmarsh had written his book on Paris — a book, by the way, which the Father called 'a very poor thing ' — poor, for Thackeray. Also, the Father was a difficult critic to please, when the subject was Paris. We have stood together, looking at the old Thackeray home, on the way to the famous entresol, and hence the conversation has been led far back to the days when Mr. Thackeray was a young man, and the incumbent of Watergrasshill was his senior and literary mentor. They were a curious pair to meet in after days, sallying radiant from Thackeray's hostelry in the Place Venddme. Both had grey hair ; and the silver head of the author of ' Vanity Fair,' towered high above the little sharp face of the sometime mentor, who had given up literary ambition, and retired to. thread his beads of gold as they might rise to his fingers for his evening paper. Tender memories held the two together, and it was a holiday to the Father when a few lines of the familiar, handsome little hand, told him that his friend was round on the Place once more. Passing Vachette's (it was not Brebant's then) after dinner one summer evening, I40 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. a voice called to me, ' Brandy-and-water ? ' The Father was seated in the shade, alone with his iced water and carafon. Not a word of salutation ; no hand-shaking. ' Sit down.' I think Thackeray had just departed for America, after the great banquet, whereof there was much talk, extending beyond literary circles, on account of the indiscretion and tasteless pic- ture-painting of a correspondent for a provincial paper. In parenthesis, I would ask what English society would say to an Adrien Marx ? The Father was naturally led to talk of his friend, and the splendid fortunes that had waited at length upon his genius. And so, back to the beginning. The mind, like the eye, loves a contrast ; a little shade, as a relief from the shine. Hawthorne observes, in his ' Blithedale Romance,' ' Human destinies look ominous without some perceptible intermixture of the sable or the gray.' If not of sable, surely of gray, enough was spread over the life of Thackeray. ' The sable overspread him,' was about what the Father observed on this head. ' I knew him well before you were born. I was his domestic friend in the early time, and got the little house together here for the young couple.' The eyes of FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 141 the Father turned from me across the Boulevard — inimitably beyond that — as he spoke. Sad and playful memories traversed his brain, as plainly visible in the eye and mouth as the clouds and sunlight are upon the water. He got up, and marched off without notice, his hands tightly clasped behind him. I followed ; and as I reached his elbow, — somewhere about the Rue Vivienne, — without glancing at me, he said, in his own full time, without preface (he was a man void of preface in speech ; and, like Siebenkas, advo- cate of the poor, ' he laid the ^g^ of his act, or deep saying, without any nest, on the naked rock ') : ' I introduced Thackeray to Maginn.' He laughed as the vision passed before him. ' Thacke- ray was a young buck in those days : wanted to make a figure in literature — la belle affaire ! So he thought he must help himself to a magazine. It is an expensive toy. A magazine wanted — in those days, I know nothing about these — an editor. I recommended Billy Maginn.' A burst of sharp laughter followed this. ' It wasn't so easy to get hold of Master Maginn in tho,se times. However, I did get hold of him, and made Thackeray's proposition to him. The deck must be cleared for action. You must 142 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. put the women and the rest of it in a safe and comfortable place. Before Maginn could go into the matter he must have 500/. for deck- clearing.' The Father looked slyly round at me, seeming to say, ' The old story, you see. La belle affaire, this literary business ! ' ' This was a startling beginning ; but Maginn was not to be had on any other terms. He was the only available man at the time. You were not born, remember.' The Father chuckled over the little scratch. ' Now, there are so many geniuses, the difficulty would be in the choosing.' I ventured my little point — ' the mulberries of that day are the blackberries of this.' The Father was somewhat prone to resent an interruption of this kind, as an incursion on his province. ' No ; the blackberries, to a single blackberry, believe they are mulberries, but they are just fit for gipsies' finger and thumb now, as blackberries were when the down was upon Thackeray's chin. Maginns are not running about the market-places, though Pat Lardner and the rest of them have veneered such a lot of ye. The impossibility of making a purse of silk out of a sow's ear remains ; but, a plague on 'em, ■FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 143 they've contrived a silk cover, and the ear passes off unsuspected as the lining. Thackeray was obliged to come to Maginn's terms. Maginn got his first hundred ; and where do you think I brought them together ? ' Thackeray, the young man of fashion, and the man of the position when a magazine was to be started — I could make no guess. ' At the Crown Tavern, Vinegar Yard, Drury Lane ! ' In Maclise's cartoon of writers in Fraser, anno 1835, Maginn is addressing the brilliant company from the chair. Thackeray is four removed from the president, between Percival Banks and Chur- chill. A young man with plentiful hair, the deep stock of the time, and a glass in one eye, generally with the mark of fashion upon him — the parent of the ' Yellow- Plush Papers ' — faces his old friend Frank Mahony. And this is how my old friend' of the Rue des Moulins looked, three-and-thirty years ago ! I could pick him out from the throng, as I could pick out Allan Cunningham from the close resemblance to his son Peter. Just so must the Father, with the merry lip and the searching eye, have looked when all the world was young to him. I met and knew him in his after-glow ; here he is in the noontide of his fame, a man of greater 144 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. mark than the future author of 'Vanity Fair.' ' The lone incumbent of Watergrasshill ' watched tenderly over young Mr. Thackeray, in his literary go-cart days — when the fashionable youth about town thought it a great exploit and experience to get into the company of Maginn, and to be admitted to the mysteries of the public-house in Vinegar Yard. Prout, dating a preface to his ' Reliques ' from Paris in 1859, observes that he knew the great Maclise in his boyhood. It was in boyhood, then, that Maclise fixed the Father's ' true features in enduring copper.' The meeting at the ' Crown ' in Vinegar Yard was, of course, of earlier date than the cartoon by Maclise ; for herein Thackeray is established con- tributor to ' Fraser,' and is sitting at the board with the solid-browed Scot who is contributing ' Sartor Resaitus ' ; and he may be taking wine with Coleridge, who looks the oldest of the company. ' It was a pdor business, was the new magazine,' the Father resumed, thinking leisurely over it. ' It wasn't likely to get on.' Then a chuckle. ' They quarrelled. People always fall out over a failure. It's your fault, and it's mine, and it's t'other man's over the way. Maginn wasn't the easiest man in the world to deal with. The mag. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 145 lasted about six months. Thackeray wanted to sell it ; but Maginn had a share. Maginn conceived that he ought to be consulted. I brought them to- gether : Maginn in a towering passion, but he was capital. In the course of the meeting — at th.e old place, the " Crown " — he volunteered an Eastern story too, of two pashas, close friends, and how they divided their property in a manner which gave all of it to one of them. You will wonder, but Thacke- i-ay listened delighted to the end, and didn't see Billy Maginn's drift. The boys! the boys! All this was before ye were born.' 'And then he came over here, did Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh. John Barnet was here too.' Mr. Sheehan favours us with the following amusing and characteristic convivial recollections of his friend, when both of them lived in Paris about the middle of the fifties : — ' When his letter for the "Globe" had been des- patched, Prout generally strolled down to Voisin's, in the Rue de Luxembourg (one of Thackeray's favourite restaurants) where he was to be found, in the lower room, at dinner, from 6 to 7. He was a great fish-eater, as all who have read his "Apology for Lent" in the opening of the "Prout Papers " can very well imagine. I never saw him L 146 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. dine without fish ; and on Fridays he stood by his colours by dining on it exclusively. He always would maintain that the proper way of helping yourself to small fish at least, such as red mullets, of which he was passionately fond, whitings, her- rings, trout &c., was with your fingers, as the Arabs dived into their savoury mess of rice and kabobs ; whilst with the larger ones he would use spoons and forks of ivory, bone, or wood. He submitted, for the biensSances, to a silver fork, to which he objected almost as strongly as he did to cold steel itself. It was a great treat when one got him well on to the subject of pisciculture, which he would discuss in all its bearings, from its importance as an object of national wealth to its beneficial bearings upon the public health, and its moral significance in the sumptuary regulations of the Roman Catholic Church. ' After dinner and his bottle of Volnay at Voisin's, he was sometimes to be found in the fine autumn evenings, sitting in front of the Caf6 Riche on the Boulevards. On such . occasions were generally seen with him some three or four of the leading men of letters of the time — Englishmen almost invariably ; for, although he spoke French to perfection, and could hold his own with his French acquaintances, no matter how FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 147 spirituel and witty they might be, yet he was more partial to their society during dinner than afterwards. His genial spirit never took to the post-prandial coffee and petit verre, and only came thoroughly out as he mixed his cognac and water, sometimes hot, if the evening was at all chilly, but generally iced, as all the world take it in Paris in the fine season. Hot or ciold, however, the premier gargon, who knew his way, put the ele- ment before him, with lemon and sugar, and a small carafe of the finest velours, which the Padre discussed at his ease, over the space of a couple of hours, when he would generally rise, sometimes abruptly, without taking leave of his friends, and go home to bed. ' On one of those occasions, during a very fine October evening, when the Boulevards shone out en pleine jotiissance, as Prout was seated at his accustomed table with Thackeray and a couple of other friends, I happened to be strolling by, and was hailed by the party. ' My friend Mr. Henry Smith, then mayor of Cambridge, as well as proprietor and editor of the " Cambridge Independent Press," ^ was on a 1 After Mr. H. Smith's death, which took place some ten years back, the ' Cambridge Independent,' for which I wrote L 2 148 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. visit with me in Paris at the time, and accompanied me in my stroll along the Boulevards. He was indeed what you might call big amongst big Eng- lishmen, in well-proportioned height and bulk, being over six feet, and weighing not far short of twenty stone, with handsome regular features and a well-shaped head — his whole appearance indi- cating what he really was, one of the most genial and good-natured men in existence. ' Whilst the gargon was looking out for a chair large and strong enough to accommodate my friend — no easy matter — I presented him standing to the group, as an English journalist of high standing, and the President of the English Pro- vincial Press Association — Mr. Smith, of Cam- bridge. ' " Not Mr. Smith, of Cambridge ! " repeated Proutonthe instant, in a tone of mock indignation, " but Mr. Smith, of England ! " which sudden and not inappropriate outburst of droll fancy caused us all to laugh so loud that the occupants of the tables in our neighbourhood looked round at us, all anxious to ascertain what the fun was about. the leading articles in Cambridge, London, and Paris for nearly twenty years, reverted to the family of Mr. Weston Hatfield, the original founder of the newspaper. . FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 149 ' " Let me shake you by the hand, Smith, of England ! " continued Prout, standing up suddenly, his uncovered head not reaching the great man's shoulders. " Let me hail you and welcome you to France. It will do those half-starved Frenchmen, who are all gazing at you with admiration, a world of good to take moral and material measure of you. Sit down and join us, sir, whilst I sanc- tify your inauguration amongst us by praying Heaven to bless you every day you sit down to your bottle of old port and your national sirloin." ' Talking of big and bulky men — in which category Thackeray, who was six foot two inches in height, and from sixteen to seventeen stone in weight, may well have been placed — reminds me of another of our evenings on the Boulevards, when Prout pushed friendship to the verge on the point, and was guilty, although unwittingly, of personal rudeness to one of the best friends he had in the world. Indeed, if that unfailing ready wit, for which he was so remarkable, had not come instan- taneously to the rescue, the victim of the mauvaise plaisanterie, would, in all probability, have risen to his height and walked away, leaving the perpe- trator of it to enjoy the dignified reproof with which it was met, for another day or two at least. ISO FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. without the chance of hlaircissement or reconcilia- tion. ' A group of about a dozen jolly and remark- ably substantial-looking English excursionists were passing along in front of us, and amongst them one of gigantic height and bulk, very like Ben Caunt, if it was not the veritable champion of Eng- land himself, with his nose very little, if at all, improved since the day it was flattened in his fight with Bendigo or the Norwich Tinman, I forget which. ' " What a formidable-looking fellow ! " ex- claimed one of our party; adding the well-known " Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens — " ' " Cui nasus ademtus ! " added Prout, instantly changing the end of the hexameter for his purpose, so far happily, and remarking that, " If the giant did not get along, like Polyphemus, with his eye out, his nose, or what was left of it, would be the better of the Taliacosian operation." ' Then the Padre, darting one of his mischie- vous looks at Thackeray over his spectacles, said, "Overgrown humanity becomes additionally con- spicuous with any damage or drawback to the countenance." ' " You allude personally to my height and FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 151 bulk and the misfortune which occurred to my nose, I presume ? " — said Thackeray ; looking more serious than jocose at his tormentor. '"Not personally, in the sense you seem to mean," answered Prout, "but aesthetically. I never heard from yourself how your great nasal accident happened ; although I once heard a capital Char- terhouse joke about it — very funny, but of course very apocryphal." ' " The bridge of my nose," answered Thacke- ray, " was smashed, purely and simply, in a fair stand-up fight with another Charterhouse boy ; and my beauty was so completely spoiled that I went by the name of ' The Cherub ' as long as I remained in the school afterwards." ' '' Poor fellow ! " said Prout, really in sympathy — "and, sure enough, it was an awful smash ! " ' " And now for the Charterhouse joke — pray what may that have been about my nose ? " de- manded Thackeray. ' " Why, not that it had been compromised in a fight, but — " ' " Good heavens ! what else ? " ' " That you fell and stood on it ! " ' Of course, all present laughed heartily at the absurdity of the idea, excepting the victim, who ex- 1 52 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. claimed against its being a Charterhouse joke but a blundering Irish one. ' " Well, they say," said Prout, returning to the charge — and not relishing the home-thrust about the blundering Irish joke — " that in your school days your legs looked so long and so out of pro- portion with your torso, that the only wonder was they did not trip each other up and compromise you more frequently than they did ! " ' Another laugh at Thackeray's expense (none of us could resist it) who coloured up highly, and, \ looking in his opponent's face, said very delibe-l rately — ' " Rudis indigestaque moles ! " ' " Rudis, if you choose, and since you are so sensitive," cried out Prout ; " although I could not have meant to be rude, when I said that the school version of your nasal accident was only a joke, and an apocryphal one. As to being an ' undigested heap of matter,' I shall only return the compli- ment in a very different spirit, and hope it will put you in a different humour. For the Ovidian quotation which you apply to my case, I prefer to apply the Virgilian one to your own — ' Mens agitat molem et niagno se corpore miscet ! ' " You are more long-headed than long-legged. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 153 and your mind is far greater than even your body."' To return from Mr. Sheehan's evening to our own stroll with Prout on the Boulevards. We had turned down the Rue de la Paix — and the Father's eyes wandered along the chimney- pots right and left — till we got to the Place Vend6me, when they fell on the column. They had pulled down the Little Corporal, and put up a bare-legged Caesar. The Father had a passion- ate admiration for ' the great modern inheritor of the iron crown,' anointed, like Charlemagne, by a Pope, ' and, like him, the sole arbitrator of European kingdoms and destinies ; ' and the ex- pressions on his face lightened and darkened in quick succession. He would, have kept the gray coat and the cocked hat crowning that column of gun-metal. Every street corner gave him some memory of the past. He walked along, pointing with a nod of his head — for he seldom unclasped the hands that were folded behind him — to a window or a gateway. On his rounds he generally turned into Galignani's reading-room, in the anteroom to which he would possibly have a gossip. Sometimes he passed through, saw everybody, but was not inclined to speak, or even be at the 1 54 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. trouble of a gesture of recognition. At intervals old familiar faces beamed upon him as he entered, friends of the long time ago, passing to or from the continental holiday. Mr. Browning would suddenly appear, homeward bound from London. Admirable were the caricatures of Mr. Browning, senior, who dwelt in Paris, and died there a few years ago, according to the Father. When Prout was pondering a new edition of the ' Reliques,' that of 1859, we find him in communication with the great man who wrote ' Pippa Passes.' ' From Florence,' the ' lone incumbent ' writes, ' the poet Browning has sent for this edition some lines lately found in the Euganeian Hills, traced on a marble slab that covered the bones of Pietro d'Abano, held in his age to be an astrologer : — Studiando le mie cifre con compasso, Rilevo che sarb presto sotto terra ; Perchb del mio saper si fa gran chiasso, E gli ignoranti mi hanno mosso guerra. ' Of which epitaph the poet has supplied this vernacular rendering verbatim : — Studying my ciphers with the compa'ss, I find I shall be soon under the daisy ; Because of my lore folks make such a rumpus, That every dull dog is thereat unaisy.' The literary sympathy between the poet FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 155 Browning and the translator of Bdranger and author of the ' Bells of Shandon ' is explained in this bit of correspondence. The translation delighted the Father, who thereupon launched into his own theory of trans- lation. He held that ' in the clear failure of one language to elicit from its repertory an exact equivalent, it becomes not only proper but impera- tive (on the law principle of cestui apyes in case of trusts) to fall back on an approximate word or idea of kindred import, the interchange in vocabu- lary showing at times even a balance in favour of the substitute, as happens in the ordinary course of barter on the markets of the world. He (Prout) quite abhorred the clumsy servility of adhering to the letter while allowing the spirit to evaporate ; a mere verbal echo, distorted by natural unfructuosities, gives back neither the tone nor quality of the original voice, while the ease and curious felicity of the primitive utterance is marred by awkwardness and effort ; spontaneity of song being the quintessence, spontaneity is that which is the charm of Front's work in the way of translation. He waited till the corresponding idea came. In his ' Reliques,' and in his news- paper correspondence, there are hundreds of bits of happy inspiration, for his translation was inspi- 156 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ration, witness his songs of France, whether of Millevoye, De Vigny, or B^ranger. Drops of his scholarly humour in this way beaded the brim of his sparkling letters. The manner in which these letters for his paper were produced was as original as the matter of them. They were put together like mosaics, or little scraps of paper, bit by bit, a tint being added wherever he could pick it up on his daily saunterings. The gossip of the day never failed to stir something good out of the full caldron of his brain. As he kept his pot-au-feu, his pignatta, his olla podrida, call it what you will, simmering in the Rue des Moulins, so he treated his brain, adding and still adding to the rare contents, so that the hazard of the fork was never risked with- out bringing something good to the surface. I take an example at random ; it appeared in the ' Globe' in 1850. The Father is roused by a foreign jargon, ' un- English in sound as well as significance,' about ' rescript,' ' enthronisation,' 'jubilee,' and ' pallium.' Since it appears they are to become ' household words in merry England,' they must be under- stood. The Father takes up the pallium, and he is at home, merry with the wealth of erudition he can easily throw about the subject. He premises FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 157 that it is an article of dress of which the Pope makes a present to archbishops, ' but the shape and cut of the garment has undergone such a serious change that the original and primitive tailoring is lost altogether.' The story is got through rapidly, with a crowd of passing refe- rences. ' Certain it is, that when Tertullian wrote his treatise " De Pallio " no such gifts were flying about from Rome.' ' Originally a Greek dress (as opposed to the Roman toga), it was a distinction of scholars, rhetoricians, and men of letters, who were most of them foreign to Rome.' Then again, ' in the lapse of a few centuries, it became by promotion a royal garb, and the name was exclusively given to a flowing robe of purple worn by majesty.' Again, ' in the celebrated forgery called the " Do- nation of Constantine," which has been long laughed out of court, and of which Rome is now thoroughly ashamed, there is a clause inserted about a special grant of the emperor to the pon- tiff, authorising him to wear this royal accoutre- ment. There is nothing about his right to com- municate the privilege to others.' Cardinals' hats were not yet invented. The power to grant licences to wear this ' peculiar uniform ' was as- sumed by the papacy and turned to solid account, iS8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. as the Father shows when ' in Henry I.'s time, his Archbishop of York got over head and ears in debt to buy a pallium.' The pallium is a ' purely mundane affair,' a ' regular bit of fancy costume, and not to be confounded with pious usages in any way.' The Father is bold ; ' that it should be sought for so eagerly by sensible old men is only proof of human flunkeyism.' It shrivelled from the folds of a robe into the proportions of a garter, as it appears in the armorial emblems and official seal of Armagh, Canterbury, and Dublin. The following is one of the Father's happy uses of apropos knowledge : — ' There stands about a mile outside the Porta Pia, on the road to Tivoli, an old convent of nuns attached to the still more ancient church of St. Agnes. These nuns are poor, and rarely do any of Rome's high-born damsels enter the cloister of this lonely and neglected sisterhood. They have got a small paddock attendant to the monastery, and therein keep a couple of sacred lambs, not necessarily of the merino breed, but still proud and happy ministrants of their wool for the texture of this noble decoration. The sisters spin it, not by any new-fangled jennies, but on the old patri- archal spindle, and weave it in a loom of which the pattern might date from the days of Penelope. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 159 Doubtless these simple-minded and angelic vestals feel inward happiness in the thought of working out an ornament for the chosen champions of their Church ; a feeling akin to what in feudal ages animated the bosom of fair spinsters, who wove a scarf for some cherished and select model of chivalry : — Emblem bright ! which to embroider While her knight was far away, Many a maiden hath employed her Fairy fingers night and day. ' No one will be so unreasonable as to quarrel with the Pope for decorating any Englishman with his pallium, especially as he no longer pockets the fee, but allows it to go for the support of these poor nuns.' The Father, on the creation of Sir J. Brooke as rajah of Sarawak, continues — well, not in the ordinary ' our own correspondent ' style : — ' The Emperor of the Flowery Land may make Dr. Bowring of Hong Kong a first chop Mandarin, presenting the doctor with a splendid button, though both these happy gentlemen would see the propriety of a reference to their own sovereign on the occasion. Mr. Roebuck's constitutional law sees nothing, even in the creation of a West- minster mitre by a foreign prince, to warrant the i6o FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. notice of our Queen.' The Father is ready for the member for Sheffield : — ' Upon that point the following aphorism of old Guicciardini seems to us worthy of recollection : " He that bears one blow at an enemy's hand asketh another, and he that endureth one contemptible neglect from his subject shall be sure of many. For not to have sense of a foreign affront and be displeased at home-bred abuses, and capable to redress both, are things much derogating from the honour of a prince ; the first argues a pusillanimity of spirit, the other a debility of judgment. He, therefore, that will not be wronged a second time must remedy the first, against a stranger by the lance, against a subject by the law." ' As far back as 1833, the Father boasted that he knew the French character thoroughly ; yet he was not tired of studying its manifestations more than a quarter of a century later. I don't think his opinions in the main were modified by his latter daily studies. The French, among whom he was happy, were always to him a nation of bright children, 'possessing all the frolicsome wildness, all the playful attractiveness of that pleasant epoch in life, but deficient in the graver faculties of dispassionate reflection.' He propped his opinion with his plentiful learning. ' In the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. i6i age of Louis XIV., Pere Bonhours gravely dis- putes in his " Cours de Belles Lettres " the ques- tion " whether a native of Germany can possess wits ? " The phlegmatic dwellers on the Danube might retort by proposing as a problem to the University of Gottingen, " An datur philosophus inter Gallos ? " Certain it is, and I know them well, that the calibre of their mind is better adapted to receive and discharge " small shot " than "heavy metal;" that they are more calculated to shine in the imaginative, the ornamental, the refined and delicate departments of literature, than in the sober, sedate, and profound pursuits of philosophy ; and it is not without reason that history tells of their ancestors, when on the point of taking the Capitol, that they were foiled and discomfited by the solemn steadiness of a goose.' In the ' small shot,' as he watched its wonderful play night and morning, as he listened to it in the salon and the cafd (not much in the salon of late years). Father Prout delighted. In zest and tone he was French. Over his fire in his entresol, you would have said of him — ' Some bright, lonely, bachelor bibliophile, who can talk alone to the simmering pots, and let the world go topsy-turvy while he dwells on the learned glories of the M 1 62 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Jesuits, and fumbles amongst their inexhaustible treasures.' The sneer and short laugh, the flash of the sharp eyes, and the impatient gesture and the rude tongue punished the audacious meddler with his theme. The Father was ready to bury him under a mountain of books the dabbler had never seen. He ran his tongue along the bright roll of names which had issued from the desks of the Jesuits : • Forth from their college of Dijon, in Burgundy, came Bossuet to rear his mitred front at the court of a despot and to fling the bolts of his tremendous oratory among a crowd of elegant voluptuaries. They cradled the genius of Corneille. Moliere was the fruit of their classic guidance. ' D'Olivet, Fontenelle, Orebillon, Le Franc de Pompignan — there is scarcely a name known to literature during the seventeenth century which does not bear testimony to their prowess in the province of education — no profession for which they did not adapt their scholars.' The Father is inexhaustible. He remarks that Frangois Arouet issued from their college of Louis le Grand, and that they little knew to what purpose the subse- quent ' Voltaire ' would convert his abilities. Voltaire ! Of Voltaire — of none so immediately and strikingly did Father Prout remind the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 163 visitors — they were rare — who penetrated his entresol. And assuredly there never was a completer Frenchman than Monsieur Frangois Arouet. Our friend had the Frenchman's play- fulness also when he liked. I turned with him into a bye-street from the Rue de Rivoli one evening — somewhere behind the Oratory Church. He had stepped aside from our direct path to have a gossip with an humble housewife with whose boy and girl he appeared to be on terms of the most cordial intimacy. The poodle Toto bounded after him and licked his hands while he made his inquiries about his young favourites, who were at school. On another occasion he tapped at the window of a house. There was an instant com- motion within. The family was that of a journey- man watchmaker, and the Father was a friend of theirs, and he handed his watch in through the window to be regulated. But in London Father Prout showed his kindly side. I was a boy when I first met him. He was delighting in the society of a crowd of law and other students who had formed a discussion club. He looked a little grim now and then among us, he who had supped with Coleridge and Southey, and been a guide to Thackeray in his youth. He was generous, howeveri full of spirits, bubbling M 2 i64 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. over with anecdote and illustration ; in short, he had that touch of the boy in him which has been marked so often in men of the highest stamp. He laughed his heartiest at our debates, warmed his heart I think in the fire of our youth, showed a most affefctionate interest in any among us who gave the least promise of intellectual excellence, and in a discussion manifested that amiability which a big dog shows to a little one. I never met Father Prout by Galignani's or by the Caf6 Cardinal, or in the Cafd Vaudeville on the Place de la Bourse (then the cafe of many newspaper correspondents), that he did not, if we fell into a chat, ask how the ' boys ' were getting on. He had chosen a few from the hun- dred, and he held his impression of them fast, as he held the learning which he never ceased to accumulate. I was not in Paris when he died, but I have heard of his closing days from an accomplished American lady who sat often at his bedside, brightened some of his last hours, and bore with his roughnesses, knowing that they were as much an inseparable part of him as the brain that lay under the thinly-scattered snow flakes of his age. Sometimes he would greet her, and bid his gracious visitor talk with him. Suddenly she was FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 165 dismissed — abruptly told to leave him alone. He was impatient about the delicacies which were sent to his sick chamber ; but there was a warm corner in his heart answering these kindnesses. The lady to whom I have referred was quite proud to tell me that the Father had actually praised one jelly she sent, and hinted at another. She had first met him reading the papers in Galignani's room. She had referred to him in some difficulty of scholarship, and she said that nothing could exceed his kindness nor surpass his readiness of information. The strange lady with" the scholarly mind had touched the glorious old man of letters, and you see, ladies who are apt to sneer at penwomen, the ' blue ' who could com- fort him with intellectual conversation could make him the most toothsome of the dainties which were pressed to his poor lips in the final hour. The blue-stocking adopted Jeffrey's suggestion, and wore long petticoats. During the last fortnight preceding his death, the Father was often employed burning his papers ; so that only a few scraps, like the poems and the letter I have given in facsimile, remain. His sister (Mrs. Woodlock) went over from Ireland, and remained at his bedside till the last. He could speak only with great suffering, his 1 66 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. throat being severely affected ; but he constantly wrote his wishes upon a slate kept at his hand. By his own desire he saw the Rev. F. Lefevre, the Superior of the Jesuits, and he wrote to the Abbd Rogerson, of St. Roch, to come to him ; and the latter remained with him after he had received the last Sacraments of the Catholic Church, until he died.^ His remains were borne to Cork, and lie by ' the Bells of Shandon.' POSTSCRIPT. [Having finally applied to Mr. Sheehan for a few ' Last Words ' on the Padre's literary career and original training, knowing that he had peculiar opportunities of being intimately acquainted with both, he has been good enough to favour me with the following Memorabilia on the subject, which form a fitting postscript to his agreeable souvenirs of our brilliant and singularly gifted friend. B. J.] ' Inner Temj)le, June i, 1875. ' Dear Sir, — I have much pleasure in acceding to your request to let you have a frank expression ' Letter from Mr. T. Woodlock, of Uplands, Monkstown, Dublin, Mahony's nephew, to B. J. January 11, 1875. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 167 of my opinion on the genius and writings of our deceased friend Mahony, as well as what I know and think worth relating of his early training and education, to enable you to measure his peculiar school, and account for the more singular features of his brilliant originality. ' I accord with your wishes the more readily as, in the first place, you express your confidence in me that, having had the experience of a Univer- sity career, after finishing my primary education at a Jesuit college, I should, from such an inder pendent and advanced standpoint, be enabled to • form a more impartial as well as more competent judgment in the matter than if it had been my destiny to have begun and ended my academic education with the Jia^to Shidiorum of the Jesuits. In the second place, from -the circumstance of having worked in the same fields of classic humour on which he has left his more enduring mark, you give me credit for appreciating more accurately than the passing reader the high character of the literary reliques he has left behind him. And finally it is understood between us that I am not expected to write an elaborate review or essay, but simply jot down a few frank and sincere remarks, given as if in conversation with a friend, without any formal premeditation of the subject. i68 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ' Wishing you all the success which your undertaking merits, and feeling confident that our world of English literature sympathises with the object you have in view of rescuing from future oblivion the biographical and literary memorabilia of a name which claims an honoured place amongst the most brilliant littdrateurs of our century. ' I am, dear Sir, ' Yours faithfully, ' John Sheehan. 'Blanchaed Jerrold, Esq.' Familiar Memorabilia of the Writings, Genius and Education of Father Protct. ' . . . Ut premerer sacra Lauroque, collataque myrto, Non sine Dis animosus infans ! ' HoR. Ad Calliopen. ' The most interesting moments of Mahony's life were when he first opened a Latin grammar in Cork, to prepare for the priesthood, for he was " dedicated to the altar " from his childhood ; and when he went to London some quarter of a century afterwards. ' Had his parents been imbued with more FINAL RELICS OF lATHER PROUT. 169 common-sense than pietistic notions, he would have flourished in after hfe as an eminent member of some one of the other liberal professions ; and had his pilgrim footsteps after missionary employ- ment not led him to London to officiate in the chapel of the Bavarian ambassador, France, the land of his love and choicest recollections, would have been proud to claim him as the descendant of a race who fought for her on other though not more honoured fields ; eloquence would have been the only mode of the lyre that would have exer- cised his brilliant powers ; and we should have heard of him by this time as a Lacordaire or a Lamennais, if not a Massillon or a Bourdaloue himself. ' Mahony had not long been in London, where he arrived in his thirty-first year, when he made the acquaintance of Maginn, his celebrated fellow- townsman, a classic amongst classics, who led the eminently convivial set of the Fraserians, and occupied the most prominent position himself on the then famous periodical. Even in those early days, the young priest had an exceptionally large knowledge, not only of books but of men ; and his experience of foreign life, literature, and travel, especially as regards Italy and France, where he felt himself at home, and spoke their languages to 170 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. perfection, was, without any exaggeration, marvel- lous. ' Among such en/ants d' esprit his rare acquire- ments and jovial originality made him at once popular, and his rich literary resources were in full requisition. Breathing such an exciting at- mosphere, amidst such fascinating employments and companions, he wove his Parnassian wreaths instead of composing -his homilies, and changed the smoke of the incense and the sacerdotal chalice for the fumes of the Virginian weed and " the cup that cheers" but v/e cannot always say " inebriateth not." It was not, of course, to be expected that a dissolution between him and an uncongenial Order should not, however it was brought about, have taken place before long. Here I should say that he never underwent any episcopal censure, that he never was on un- friendly terms with his ecclesiastical superiors, who sinjply thought that he had mistaken, not dishonoured, his profession ; and that I am aware of his having performed without any prohibition, implied or positive, different sacerdotal functions at different periods of his life, afterwards. ' The most popular of the polyglot composi- tions in the " Prout Papers " was that which first of all attracted the attention, not only of university FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 171 readers generally, but of all who in this country receive the ordinary education of a public school. This was " The Groves of Blarney," the original words of which were written by a celebrated con- vivial wit in his day, Dick Milligan,^ of Cork, and were introduced into Lord Glengall's farce of " The Irish Tutor," by the famous actor of comic Irish parts, Tyrone Power. When the classic curiosity, as clever as it was amusing, first appeared (see second Prout Paper, " Eraser's Magazine "' for April 1835), it was interwoven with a serio-comic prose rhapsody in praise of pilgrimages, the gist of the story being a pilgrimage to the Blarney stone by the old pastor of Watergrasshill and no less a personage than Sir Walter Scott. Three versions, in Latin, Greek, and French, were given in parallel columns, alongside the original words, of which the Latin and French were by Prout, and the Greek by Frank Murphy, of the Temple, afterwards the Serjeant and Commissioner in Bankruptcy. The French was considered to stand the highest in order of merit, the Greek second, and the Latin third. It was thought by the leading critics of the time that the whole pro- duction would have been still more perfect, as a ' The author also of ' Saint Patrick was a Gentleman,' a song of equal popularity with ' The Groves of Blarney.' 172 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. piece of classic drollery, had the Latin and French rhymes been adapted to the metre and air of the old canticle. The Greek version being in rhyming anacreontics, at once faithful and spirited, and no one ever dreaming of singing the language of the Teian, as German and other Continental students chaunt Latin verses,^ and even English do French, Murphy's performance was deemed all that could be desired. The Serjeant, en passant, was the best writer in his day of Greek anacreontics at Clongowes Wood and Trinity College, Dublin. There were three more similar odes contributed by him to the earlier " Prout Papers," as Frank Creswell, of Furnival's Inn, which the Padre acknowledged — although not intelligibly enough to the uninitiated — as well as that he was indebted to the young barrister for the chief portion of the report of the " Watergrasshill Carousal." He inti- mates moreover in terms about which there can be no mistake, that the rhyming Latin Sapphic •version of Campbell's "Battle of Hohenlinden" was Frank Creswell's ; and even if he had not, the difference in style from his own would disclose the fact that, on the point of fidelity alone, it did ' Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes, dum sumus /' 'Edite, bibite, conviviales I ' ' Du/ce cum sodalibus sapit v'inum bonum ; ' &c. &c. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 173 not come from the hand of the diffuse although eminently brilliant paraphrast. ' Prout's acquaintance with Greek although respectable, was not by many degrees to be com- pared with his superior knowledge of Latin. The Latin races, and consequently their colleges, did not cultivate the former up to the high point of the English and German universities. Latin was xh.^ forte and speciality of the Jesuits ; and as regards Latin prose, it has ever been acknow- ledged that they wrote it with superior purity and elegance. It does not follow however that their school of Latin versification was of so high an order of merit, or indeed anything like it. I could point out specimens in the Musa Etonenses by the Marquis Wellesley, Lord Strangford, Lord Lyttleton, Canning, Stratford Canning, Gladstone (our late premier), Sir Edward Creasy, Sir G. C. Lewis, &c., as well as others from the Merivales, Druries, &c., in the Arundines Cami, without going back to Vincent Bourne or Addison, Milton or Buchanan, which need not fear com- parison with the choicest flowers of the Jesuit Parnassus. Indeed, I feel certain that in most in- stances the palm would be awarded to our English scholars. After Casimir Sarbiewski, who was far and away their best Latin ode writer, and was 174 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. justly called, as far as Latinity may be regarded, "the modern Horace," the three next in lyrical rank were Camirius, Hosschius, and Wallius. Vanniere, their best writer of hexameters, and author of the beautiful poem of the Prcedium Rus- ticum, I always thought deserved a Cambridge edition as much as Casimir, and that he ought to be much better known in our world of scholarship - than he is. ' The best of the Continental modern Latin poets are not to be found enrolled in the Order of the Jesuits. Vida, Archbishop of Cremona, the author of " The Christiad " and " The Silkworm " — (the translation of the latter by Prout, one of his best performances) had just gone off as the Jesuits were coming on ; Sannazaro, a Neapolitan gentle- man attached to the court of Frederick of Arra- gon, who wrote De Partu Virginis, and Fracastpr,^ who invested even such an otherwise repulsive subject as the Morbus Gallicus with the most ex- quisite graces of the Latin muse, both flourished in the century before Ignatius of Loyola founded his institution. Cardinal Polignac,^ who published ' Hallam prefers him as a poet to Vida and Sannazaro, not for the construction of his verse, but for his briUiant con- ceptions. ^ The unfortunate minister of Charles the Tenth derived his origin from the same old stock. The cardinal was a con- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 175 in 1747 his "Anti-Lucretius" (a poem which Pro- »fessor Tyndall would do well to read in the original Latin, unless he should prefer the excellent trans- lation of it by M. de Bougainville) was not a Jesuit ; nor did he attain such excellence as a writer of Latin hexameters in any of their col- leges. ' Speaking of the cardinal's education and scholarship, I am reminded of the fact that about this' epoch the classes at the Jesuit colleges showed a great falling off as regards not only the numbers but the rank of the students in Humanity. Pascal and the Port-Royalists, when the Order sided with Rome, as it has ever done, against the Jansenists and the liberties of the Galilean Church, had exposed its dangerous and despotic system of theological casuistry in Louis Quatorze's time. The generation living during the earlier years of Louis Quinze's reign had begun to forget much of its obnoxiousness ; and the generation coming after had nearly forgotten all about it. Then other events, which cannot be blotted out of their history, took place, and which sent them down hill in the public estimation faster and faster every temporary of Voltaire's, and the object of his work was at once an attack on the atomic theory of the old Roman poet, and the general materialism of the encyclopedists. 176 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT,' day, until at length they were expelled from France by a decree of the King and Parliament (1762)- brought about by their great enemy the minister Choiseul, additionally instigated to effect their downfall by the Marquise de Pompadour, on account of their endeavours to put an end to her intercourse with the King. During the period ranging over the second and third quarters of the last. century, the Order appears to have paid more attention to court and political intrigue than literature and the circle of the sciences ; and, even whilst it retained its sacerdotal character and collegiate status, to have mixed itself very largely and unworthily with trade and commerce. It natu- rally fell back therefore from the high intellectual position it had previously maintained ; and when at length the governments of France, Spain, and Portugal made a clean sweep of it from their dominions, its scholarship seems to have been snuffed out, not only from Western Europe, but from the world altogether. When it was sup- pressed by the rescript of Pope Clement XIV. in 1773, the Fathers of the Order became mission- aries through Asia, Africa, .and America, and were to be found again on a few European spots, following their usual mdtier of collegiate instruc- tion, about the end of that century. The Empress FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 177 of Russia gave them a warm invitation to open schools in Poland, accepting their honourable assu- rance that there or elsewhere in her dominions they would not propagandise amongst Russo- Greek believers in favour of the Roman faith. Mr. Pitt, who, of course, consulted his royal master, George the Third, before giving them any countenance, granted their application to be allowed to settle in England, under security of the oath of civil allegiance, prescribed by the Act of 1791. 'It was in 1794 that the Jesuits, who had been driven in former periods of our history from our shores ignominiously and savagely, and who, during some periods of ultra-religious rancour, would have been, if caught lurking amongst our old Catholic houses, consigned to the gibbet by our Protestant ancestors, landed once more, but this time in safety, on English ground, seeking an asylum from their co-religionists of the Continent. The Government of the Austrian Netherlands allowed them to settle under it when expelled from France, Spain, and Portugal in 1762 ; and in 1773, when the suppression of the Order was decreed by Clement XIV., they were allowed to retain their collegiate establishment at Liege, until they were expelled from it and from Belgium N 1 78 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. altogether by the French Revolutionary Army, under Dumouriez. * The exiled Belgian Fathers found a munifi- cent protector in Mr. Thomas Weld, of Lul worth Castle, one of the most ancient and wealthy Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom, who bestowed upon them his mansion and demesne of Stonyhurst, in Lancashire. ' In less than twenty years afterwards the Order purchased the splendid residence, with about three hundred acres of land attached to it, of Castle Brown, in the county of Kildare, giving it the ancient title Clongowes Wood, which it had enjoyed before the Brown family came into posses- sion of the property. ' The English and Irish branches of the Order, the former about eighty, and the latter about sixty years in existence, have pursued an ex- tremely quiet and inoffensive course, attending exclusively to the education of the sons of our Roman Catholic upper classes, and caring as little about making a figure in the literature of the outer world as for mingling in the religious controver- sies or party politics of the country. ' The somnolency of Stonyhurst in intellectual movement may be fairly measured by the evidence that was elicited concerning its ratio siudiorum FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 179 from some of its alumni, during the great trial of " The Claimant." It certainly can boast of having originally educated Richard Shell, who, however, graduated subsequently at Trinity College, Dublin, one of the most brilliant orators of his day ; and it produced an able and accomplished writer and speaker in the person of Thomas Wyse — the former of whom the British public of every reli- gious creed were pleased to see advanced to the head of our Legation at Florence, and the latter to a corresponding position of dignity at Athens. I know no other distinguished ■ man in arts or arms, in literature or the learned professions, whose education the Lancashire establishment can claim since its foundation. ' Clongowes Wood can boast of not a few names which stand high in the Honour Lists of Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards amongst the leaders of the Irish Bar, and the Dublin Faculty of Medicine. The difference in the results of the educational training at these Jesuit colleges I take to be fairly owing to the fact that the rich and respectable professional and mercantile classes of the Irish Roman Catholics, a working lot, who depend on their brains for getting on in life, go to Clongowes, and in many, if not most instances, to Trinity College afterwards, whilst N 2 i,8o FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. the sons of the Roman Catholic nobles, baronets, and superior landed gentry generally, not alone English but Irish, go to Stonyhurst, and to no University afterwards — ^just as the sons of our upper ten thousand of the English Established Church are sent to Trinity, Cambridge, and Christ Church, Oxford, these colleges being con- sidered more comme il faut and gentlemanly than the other colleges of the two great English Universities. ' All this has reference, more or less, to the learning of the Order generally, of which Prout got the credit of having drunk deep, from his post- mortem biographers in the Reviews and Maga- zines, as well as to " Literature and the Jesuits " in particular, his sixth paper of the Fraserian series, the subject of which he treated very cleverly, and which, without accusing him of even partial affection, he made the most of, going back, however, very far into the history of the Order to illustrate his panegyric. He has told us nothing of the literary or learned career of the Jesuits for ever so many generations back. How could he ? The successors of the learned Fathers who wrote the works he speaks of in prose and verse, as well as left behind them such lasting monu- ments of classic learning as the Gradus ad Parnas- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. i8i stim and the Virgils, Ovids, Horaces, Juvenals, &c., edited In Usum Delphini, have not, to the best of my belief and knowledge, enriched the literature of any country in Europe with even an ordinary school book for upwards of a hundred years ! ' Of course I do not seek to maintain for a moment that to be a good teacher one must be a, great author as well. Those who preside over a college or a class meritoriously and successfully cannot be all Doctor Arnolds. The best instruc- tors in Literis Humanioridus I ever knew were the Fellows of the Dublin University, which was called in my young days " The Silent Sister," be- cause she contributed nothing, or next to nothing, to the literature of the country. This brings me to speak of Front's early training, a most impor- tant point in considering his scholarship, for it is early training makes or mars the future scholar. I have seen little well-trained fellows of ten or a dozen years who could keep for ever in class above so called dunces many years older, who were not dunces after all, but were kept down by their misfortune of having been badly handled at first, just as the badly handled colt never makes a good horse in harness or the saddle. ' " An early acquaintance with the classics," says Tickell, in his preface to Jacob Tonson's edition i82 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. of Addison's works, " is what may be called the good breeding of poetry, as it gives a certain gracefulness which never forsakes a mind that contracted it in youth, but is seldom or never hit by those who would learn it too late." ' An acquaintance with the classics, be it early or late, cannot be achieved without its elementary foundation having been first securely laid. Prout did not study his rudiments under the mild and gentle class system of the Jesuits, but got them by heart, in fear and trembling, under a Munster pedagogue, who first put a Latin grammar in his hand when about seven years of age, and a Greek one about a year and a half afterwards. Those were the men, those Munster teachers, and the Cork ones ^ especially, who would have the elementary business done to perfection. Anyone who shirked it, no matter what his age, size, or condition, was safe to have it well flogged into him. ' After some four or five years of this perfect training — and what a deal of the junior classics he must have had drilled into him during that time, at ' Maginn's father, who kept the first school in Cork, was one of them upwards of fifty years ago. The Doctor assisted in the famous academy for some years, previous to his literary life in London. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 183 an age when, if of a good constitution, and rightly handled, a youth can do as much brain work in a week as in a month afterwards — the tiny Cork school-boy was sent to the Jesuit College at Amiens, at the same early age as his precocious and brilliant fellow-townsman Maginn entered the Dublin University, namely in his thirteenth year. Of course, the well-drilled and precocious little fellow jumped up at his first term's examination to the head of his school or class, and kept it till the end of his Humanity career. With emulation at the prow, and confidence at the helm, he sailed over the azure waters which flowed for him gently and as smooth as a summer lake ; or, during this, the pleasantest period of his pleasant life, he gallopped along the floweriest of paths and over the springiest of courses, like that which Atalanta bounded along in Arcadia, or the old four-mile one of his native Curragh. The Jesuits turned him out, not so much a brilliant speci- men of their training, as a bright, particular, and self-illuminated star. Their classic course gave him little or no trouble, and occupied not anything like the hours he devoted to study. He read the most out-of-the-way works, and devoured every sort of knowledge he could lay his hands on. " The Learning of the Jesuits," indeed ! — 1 84 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. " Siat nominis umbra " — all that had passed away long and many a year before his pupilage at Amiens and the Rue de Sevres. Then, as now, the Order took no lead in the world of intellect ; but was satisfied to enjoy its rich inheritance, the renown of bygone years, the reflection of its • former greatness. ' Prout's great facility of Latin composition, which surprised his literary friends in the com- mencement of his London career, was to be ac- counted for by his having been accustomed to speak and argue in Latin during the years it took him to go through his logic, philosophy, and theo- logy schools in the Seminary of the Rue de Sevres, where it was the language of thesis and discussion. At the same time, although it enabled him to have Latin and even the choicest of modern Latin at his fingers' ends, it would not have made him an elegant Latin verse writer, which one cannot be without constant reading from an early age of the Augustan poets, com- mitting their choicest passages to memory, and endeavouring to conceive and compose in their classic idiom and manner. He had gone through all this in his Humanity course at Amiens, as the students at every other Jesuit college, sfuccessfuUy or unsuccessfully, went through it; or as the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 185 upper forms of the great schools of England are similarly exercised. He had acquired the readi- ness of speaking and writing Latin in the Rue de Sevres, but the spirit and beauty, the lepores and mtmditicB of the Latin lyre, during his previous career at Amiens. This latter fact is patent even in the droll but exquisitely beautiful monkish Latin rhymes into which — to use his own expression — he has "upset" such English originals as Tom Moore's "Nora Creina" and "Evelyn's Bower," and such Anglo-Irish ones as Sam Lover's " Molly Carew," and Tom Hudson's " Judy Cal- laghan." There is not a single unpoetic concep- tion, no serpens humi expression throughout these or any other of his rhyming versicles — no turn of thought or phrase which might not be interwoven in classic metre. Of the latter, by the way, he gave us very few specimens — not half a dozen in all — but what he gave were good, especially the elegiac version of " Let Erin remember the days of old," and the Alcaic one of " John Ander- son, my jo." ' But independently of and superior even to his curious felicity of Latin thought and expression were his merits as a lyrical translator into French and English, which shine out conspicuously, and challenge our admiration throughout the whole of i86 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. these outpourings of his fertile muse without scarcely an exception. They consist of the songs of France and Italy, the creme de la creme of the Horatian odes, Vida's " Silkworm," Vaniere's " Parrot," a goodly selection from Sar- bieski, Sannazaro, Buchanan, Beza, &c. (into English) ; such specimens, grave and gay, of our own songs as " The Burial of Sir John Moore," (his chef d' csuvre) Tom Moore's " Shamrock " and " Go where Glory waits thee," " The Groves of Blarney," &c. (into French). " The Groves " he turned also into Italian rhymes, precisely to the same metre, which, although composed late in life, I think one of the best things of the kind he ever did. Indeed, I have heard more than one well- educated Italian declare it to be perfection. ' It has been said over and over again that it requires a poet to translate a poet worthily ; that he who would transplant the foreign flowers suc- cessfully into his native soil must not only be a master of his language, but be endowed with the poetic spirit as well; and Pope and Dryden are always adduced as instances proving, by their famous translations of , the two greatest poets of antiquity, the truth of the proposition. I am afraid the theory does not hold good in all or even in most cases ; take that for example of our English FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 187 translators of Horace, some of whom have done, although only in detached portions, their work well, without having ever produced anything ori- ginal of their own worthy of being called a poem. One of the best of these Horatian translators, indeed we think the best of them, is the latest, Mr. Theodore Martin. He has done the odes with great spirit and fidelity ; yet one has never heard of him as a poet— of having done anything original of such merit as would entitle him to such consideration. ' Prout's original writings in verse may be put in a very small space, but what few there are entitle him to no undistinguished . place in our poetic firmament. I allude, of course, to his more serious subjects, his treatment of which place him at all events in the first rank of the vers de socidte writers of his day; and one of them, "The Mis- tletoe," places him, I think, far above them all. The symbolical connection between the mystic plant and the coming of Christianity he declares to have heard sung in an old noel or Christmas carol once in Bretagne, where tradition gave the credit of the fanciful theory, so charming in thought and senti- ment, to a Breton divine, the greatest if not always the most orthodox scholastic philosopher of his day. This was none other than the accomplished but un- i88 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. fortunate Abelard, who used to mix up diamond dust with the dust of the schools, as well as the quaintest of fancies with his metaphysics. Second in order of merit I would place his " Redbreast of Aquitania," a ballad of great pathos on the loss of one of those beautiful birds when endeavouring to follow the poet's steamboat in the waters of the Garonne, which conveys an allegory on the falling away of Harrison Ainsworth from his early pro- mise. " The Lady of Lee " comes next, a love lay more sensuous than spiritual, which, when indul- ging in its passionate conceptions, one can very well imagine the enamoured writer feeling a smart twinge or two at least at the recollection of his sacer- dotal vows, if he had not reason to repent them as bitterly as the young priest of Cybele, or the above mentioned Peter Abelard himself. Then " The Legend of Arethusa," addressed in a different spirit to Mrs. Milner Gibson, a tribute of classic refine- ment, wit, and delicacy, which does equal honour to the poet's genius and good taste, and of which the proudest lady in the land might feel proud. He wrote a beautiful poetic address to Dickens from abroad when the great novelist of the future edited the opening numbers of "Bentley's Miscellany." Lastly, we have his tender and heart-searching song, " The Bells of Shandon," of world-wide popu- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 189 larity. These are the only serious metrical writings which Prout has left behind him, the last of which, I have already said, will be sung at all seasons of the year, and the first deserves to be recited at happy Christmas-tide, wherever the English lan- guage is spoken. ' The poem of " The Mistletoe," for it is of too high an order to be called a carol, should not undergo the chance of being consigned to the library shelves of the old " Bentley's Miscellany," or partially lost amidst the small type and crowded pages of the collected edition of the " Prout Re- liques." Looking on it, therefore, as " a gem of purest ray serene," and one in which his genius and power shine out most brilliantly, I think it deserves a prominent and permanent setting amongst the " Final Relics of Father Prout." THE MISTLETOE. A Prophet sat in the Temple gate, And he spoke each passer by, In thrilling tones — with words of weight, And fire in his rolling eye ! ' Pause thee, believing Jew ! Nor make one step beyond Until thy heart hath conned The mystery of this wand.' 190 . FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. And a rod from his robe he drew ; — 'Twas a withered bough Tom long ago From the tnmk on which it grew. But the branch long torn Showed a bud new born, That had blossomed there anew. That wand was ' jfessis rod,' Symbol, 'tis said, Of Her, the Maid- Yet Mother of our God I II. A Priest of Egypt sat meanwhile Beneath his palm tree hid, On the sacred brink of the flowing Nile, And there saw mirrored, 'mid Tall obelisk and shadowy pile Of ponderous pyramid. One lowly, lovely, Lotus plant. Pale orphan of the flood ; And long did that aged hierophant Gaze on that beauteous bud ; For well he thought as he saw it float O'er the waste of waters wild. On the long remembered cradle boat, Of the wondrous Hebrew child : — Nor was that lowly lotus dumb Of a mightier Infant still, to come, If mystic skiff And hieroglyph Speak aught in Luxor's catacomb. III. A Greek sat on Colonna's cape, In his lofty thoughts alone, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 191 And a volume lay on Plato's lap, For he was that lonely one ; And oft as the sage Gazed o'er the page His forehead radiant grew ; For in Wisdom's womb, Of the world to come A vision blest his view. He broached that theme in the Academe Of the teachful oHve grove — And a chosen few that secret knew In the PorcKs dim alcove. A Sybil sat in Cumse's cave In the hour of infant Rome, And her vigil kept and her warning gave Of the Holy One to come. 'Twas she who culled the hallowed branch, And silent took the helm, When he, the Founder-Sire, would launch His bark o'er Hades' realm : But chief she poured her vestal soul Through many a bright illumined scroll, By priest and sage. Of an after age. Conned in the lofty Capitol. A Druid stood in the dark oak wood Of a distant northern land. And he seemed to hold a sickle of gold In the grasp of his withered hand ; And he moved him slowly round the girth Of an aged oak to see 192 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. If an orphan plant of wondrous birth Had clung to the old oak tree. And anon he knelt, and from his belt Unloosened his golden blade, Then rose and culled the Mistletoe Under the woodland shade. VI. O blessed bough, meet emblem thou Of all dark Egypt knew. Of all foretold to the wise of old, To Roman, Greek, and 'j^ew. And long, God grant, time-honoured plant, Live we to see thee hung In cottage small, as in baron's hall. Banner and shield among ! Thus fitly rule the mirth of Yule Aloft in thy place of pride, Still usher forth, in each land of the North, The solemn Christmas Tide I ' Parnell's " Hermit," so praised by Pope and other competent judges, was deemed enough by itself to constitute him a poet, if he never wrote another verse, the fact being that he was too well off to compel his muse to be industrious. The same view may be fairly taken of " The Mistletoe," without taking into consideration its author's per- formances as a metrical translator or paraphrast of the most charming poetry of ancient and modern times, which were as numerous as they were charming, and, in many cases, incomparable. ' Having already entered into explanations FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 193 Upon Mahony's early training as a means of ena- bling the general reader to understand the ease and felicity with which, as regards his metrical per- formances, he turned out such a vast amount of classical work, it only remains for me to explain the reasons of the peculiar temper which pervaded his prose writings occasionally, and too often his conversation on subjects of controversy, causing his pen now and then to indulge in the fiercest in- vective and unworthiest imputation, and his tongue very often to transgress in the most egregious man- ner the laws of good breeding and fair discussion. ' In the biographical sketch which I gave of him in the edition which I edited for the New Burlington House of the "Bentley Ballads," I re- marked that — ' " Mahony was a brilliant conversationalist and a most amusing, although not always to some of his hearers an agreeable, companion. There was a strong Johnsonian element in him of conscious- ness, amounting sometimes to contemptuous supe- riority, which would sometimes break into downright rudeness of discussion. He had an ungovernable propensity to break flies upon the wheel, and to smash little people who were presumptuous enough to doubt, even with the utmost courtesy, the cor- rectness of his opinions. o 194 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. '"In the society of ladies, who petted and flattered him very much, his choleric tempera- ment was charmed and soothed down, and the ' extraordinary creature ' (the name he went by amongst his fair friends) who would worry and toss up a hundred small controversialists of his own sex in the same time that the famous dog Billy would have settled so many rats, became tout a fait a tame and most agreeable lion in ' my ladye's bower.' " ' I always considered this unrestrained in- tolerance, which formed such a drawback now and then to my friend's otherwise fine conversational powers, arose from his own passionate although by no means ungenerous nature, untamed and untempered by the wholesome training which boys obtain throughout the public scholastic estab- lishments of this country, and about which they know nothing in the Roman Catholic colleges of the Continent. In the former case, the school is a miniature world ruled by its own schoolboy laws, which teach, besides the principles of meum and tutim, those of toleration and fair- play, and the manners and manhood of a gentleman. These principles being maintained very rigorously on some occasions, the masters think it better not to look on at many things that occur in carrying them FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 195 into practice — things that will and must take place in the playground, although they are never inculcated from the pulpit — such as not submit- ting to wrong or insult, not presenting your right cheek when your left has been smitten, or, vice versd, putting a bully down, or sending a sneak or a coward to " Coventry." In the Roman Catholic system of the Continent the ascetic spirit dominates everything on the one hand, whilst passive obedience to and total dependence on Superiors are made a religious obligation on the other. Had Mahony learned when a small boy the inestimable lesson of keeping a civil tongue in his head, which he certainly should after a few lickings from one or other of his schoolfellows, his brilliant and genial qualities as a social companion in after life would have been without a drawback ; and we might apply to him the second half of the quatrain of Moore's monody on the death of poor Sheridan, as fully and truly as the first : — Whose humour, as gay as the fire-fly's light, Played round every object, and shone as it played ; Whose wit in the combat, as gentle as bright, Ne'er carried a heart-stain away on its blade. ' As to the personal vituperation in which he indulged in writing against Whigs and Whiggery and political opponents in general, it was the rule o 2 196 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. and practice of the Press to indulge in such per- sonaUties, not only during the first but for the better part of the second quarter of our century, which latter was the season of the Prout literary laurels ; and he indulged in it in common with his contemporaries . ' Those were the days when the " John Bull " and the " Age" of the weekly, and the " Herald " and " Standard " of the daily press, were in all their glory of party rage and personal invective. It was then that Theodore Hook and Maginn and the wits of the Temple, paid by Westmacott of the "Age" — who could not write a decent para- graph himself — squibbed the Whigs to madness, who had no publication to retaliate on the brilliant but reckless Tory skirmishers, with the exception perhaps of the " Weekly Dispatch," \hen in its best days, and rendered particularly attractive by the powerful writings of" Publicola." Leigh Hunt libelled the Prince of Wales in the Liberal " Examiner," and was imprisoned for it. Cobbett suffered also for his personal virulence in his " Register." He applied to the " Times " news- paper an epithet of the shambles. Amongst his mildest nicknames were " Old Glory " for Sir Francis Burdett ; " Black Slugs " for the clergy of the Established Church ; " Puddledock " for Print- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT 197 ing-house Square ; " Grandmother " for the " Morning Herald ; " and the " Tap Tub " for the " Morning Advertiser." " Eraser's Magazine," in which the " Prout Papers" appeared contem- poraneously, was notorious for the most trenchant personalities. As a couple out of many specimens that recur to my memory, take the ridiculous but reprehensible insinuation that Mr. Alaric Watts, a celebrated man of letters of the time, purloined a picture from a collection which he had gone to criticise ; and Doctor Maginn libelled Mr. Grantley Berkeley's mother in a review which he wrote on a novel which had been recently published by that gentleman. The latter horsewhipped Mr. Eraser in his own office for the outrage, and very nearly shot the author, who went out and ex- changed shots with Mr. Berkeley the same even- ing. " Blackwood's Magazine," in those fiery and fire-eating days, was as remarkable for the slash- ing style as " Fraser's." Even Parliament, with Brougham in one house, and Dan O'Connell in the other, breathed occasionally a strong atmo- sphere of personal vituperation. The Tory party thought that Catholic emancipation was to ruin the Established Church, the Reform Bill was to knock the landed interest into a cocked-hat, and both together were to lay the Crown of England 198 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. in the dust. The Whigs, goaded beyond what flesh and blood could bear, fired into and charged the Tory scribes and spouters as heartily and as terribly. Vituperation ! vituperation ! vitupera- tion ! was the order of the day, till the veteran battalions began to retire or die off ; their succes- sors got reconciled to the changes in the constitu- tion ; and the violent storm of party personalities beginning to pass away, the reign of good taste and decent English got gradually to be restored, and the Press to be purified. Like the white star of the twin sons of Leda shedding its gentle in- fluence over the angry face of the deep, Her gracious Majesty's advent to the throne and subse- quent marriage to a wise and accomplished Prince ushered in a calmer political atmosphere, if it did not altogether set the party winds and waves at rest. ' Simul alba naatis Stella refulsit, Defluit saxis agitatus humor, Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, Et minax, quod Di voluere, ponto Unda recumbit.' Even when the great free-trade agitation was at its highest, a few years afterwards, the Press, with perhaps a few petty provincial exceptions, got up FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 199 very nearly, if not altogether, to its present honourable and gentlemanly standard. ' About this time it was that Mahony wrote his letters from Rome to the " Daily News " — afterwards his correspondence to the " Globe," in both of which, whilst he displayed his former wit and learning, he evidenced a much more tolerant spirit than when he heaped personal abuse on Dan O'Connell and Lord Mulgrave, and flung his personal flippancies — which I always considered the very worst of his mauvaises plaisanteries — at his distinguished countrymen, Dionysius Lardner and Thomas Moore. Autres temps., autres mosurs. ' " Such is the natural disposition of mankind," says the greatest orator of ancient or modern times, " that invective and accusation are heard with pleasure, while they who speak their own praises are received with impatience."^ The second part of the proposition holds good invari- ably, the first not always — at least it does not at present, in English oratory, English literature, or any decent society or circle of English men and women. ' As the mantle of charity covereth many sins, so Mahony's clerical gown, which, although he very ' Demosthenes. Oration on the Crown. 2O0 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. seldom wore it, no one could take away from him — {Sacerdos in ^termtm secundum ordinem Melchi- sedec), if it did not screen his ebullitions of temper, protected him from their consequences. He knew this well ; and it was the reason why, with his gene- rous disposition, he felt sorrow for his rudeness, and was always ready to ask pardon for it a few moments afterwards. ' The ardour of his temperament and brilliancy of his genius would have ensured him a place in the first rank of any profession but the one to which he unfortunately had committed himself, and for which he was as unfit as another of its great but erratic lights, Erasmus, who too entered it more from fear of his guardians, as Mahony did to avoid the reproaches of his family, than to please him- selfi ' The choice of an uncongenial profession has rendered many a one morose and generally dis- agreeable to his acquaintances (Mahony, never morose, was, except under contradiction, a most agreeable companion) ; but if not too far committed ' ' Comme il n'estoit entrd dans cette Maison Religieuse que par force, il s'estoit resolu d'en sortir avant que faire Profes- sion ; mais neanmoins la crainte qu'il eut de ses Tuteurs, jointe k la honte qu'il avoit de quitter ainsi son Monastfere, I'empescha d'exdcuter ce qu'il avoit projett^, de sorte qu'il fit profession. — ' Ancient French Life of Erasmus.' FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 2oi by time and circumstances, the disappointed man can break new ground, and try his fortune in a more congenial calling. It is not so with the profession which Mahony allowed himself, as I have always heard, to be at least talked into. Its chief vows at ordination are never to be broken, above all that of celibacy, which can only be absolved in a Royal case for State purposes by the Pope himself. A bad wife or a bad husband can be got rid of in the Old Church from bed and board, at least, and in the Reformed Church from the chain of matrimony ; but with the " sacerdos in seternum secundum ordi- nem Melchisedec " it is for ever and for ever ; and they have much to answer for in this world and the next , who, from pietistic motives or- family tradition — which latter feeling has a good deal to do with this social and religious abuse in the south of Ireland — have directly or indirectly been the means of forcing any young man into this most awfully responsible of all professions, for which God never intended nor nature constituted him, and condemning him to a life of secret sorrow, self-reproach, and inevitable hypocrisy. 'J. S.' CHAPTER IV. DON JEREMY SAVONAROLA CHAPTER IV. DON JEREMY SAVONAROLA.^ Mahony opened his famous Roman correspon- dence with the ' Daily News,' at the instance of Charles Dickens, in January 1846 ; and he made the following pleasant record of the engagement in his first letter, dated January 3 1 : — ' Rome : January 31, 1846. ' My dear Dickens, — When you took leave of me at the Milvian Bridge, a spot witness of many occurrences more important to mankind, yet of none to me so particularly interesting as our final farewell ! — final, for alas ! I am a very old man, and cannot hope to revisit England, — you engaged me to enter upon this correspondence, and we ' ' Facts and Figures from Italy,' by Don Jeremy Savon- arola, Benedictine Monk. Addressed during the last two winters to Charles Dickens, Esq., being an Appendix to his ' Pictures.' London, Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street. 1847. 2o6 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ratified the solemn compact by your acceptance of that handful of cigars, which I pressed on you under the pretext that they were ' blessed by the Pope,' whereas I had bought them freshly at the shop of his highness Duke Torlonia, in the Corso. I trust you found their efficacy in traversing the pestilent Campagna, and that your remembrance of the donor has not gone the way of all smoke. ' By this time you will have rejoiced all Cock- neydom with your pleasant pictures from Italy, from which I understood you to intend carefully eliminating all shadow of our peninsular politics. Perhaps you are right. You have passed too rapidly among us to penetrate these darker objects, and though gifted with the most obser- vant eye of all modern seers, your glance was but transitory. As you passed along you have simply daguerreotyped the glorious landscape, the towered cities, and the motley groups : but your country- men, the landscape painters here, at whose mess- table I am an occasional guest, have stigmatised that new-fangled process, no doubt from jealousy, by the opprobrious term of dog-trapping. The old method of the camera obscura, which they still cling to, allows a more patient study of details, and involves a more laborious investigation of varying appearances ; the phenomena of our FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 207 Italian institutions, I apprehend, must be contem- plated by aid of the older instrument, and much delicacy of handling is requisite in bringing it to bear on the " Camera Apostolica " of Rome.' And then the writer plunged into an account of what he called 'the fag end of an old reign.' When, in 1847, he republished them, he took a nom de plume, in the true Prout vein, and figured as a Benedictine monk, one Don Jeremy Savona- rola. He prefaced the collection of his letters with the following account of Don Jeremy : — The venerable author of these letters, now living at Rome in the hale enjoyment of his seventy-seven years, was born in the island of Sardinia, a.d. 1770. The family, as anyone fa- miliar with Italian history knows, is of Floren- tine origin, and this branch appears to have left the banks of the Arno in disgust at the brutal treatment which their great kinsman, the sainted Jeronymo, experienced at the hands of the de- generate Medici, and the infamous Pope Borgia, in 1498. Quitting the commercial but very profligate community of Florence, the exiles appear to have brought with them, and introduced into Sardinia, a taste for industry and woollen manufactures, matters not much understood by 2o8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. the idle aborigines, and we find the family settled near the southern seaport town of Cagliari, where they have carried on steadily their useful pursuits for the last hundred years. To understand the biography of our author, it is absolutely requisite to enter fully into the cir- cumstances of the island in which he was born, and where he passed his early life at the close of the last century. Sardinia is an oblong bit of ground in the middle of the Mediterranean, con- taining near 10,000 square miles, but so shaped that it resembles what Robinson Crusoe was so frightened at on the sea-shore, on that memorable occasion when he saw in the sand the print of the sole of a man's foot — Et sola in sicca secum spatiatur arena. Some superstitious people have jumped at once at the conclusion that the island was origi- nally meant to be trampled on ; indeed, Junius says it has been ' uniformly plundered and op- pressed,' but the fact of its peculiar form cannot be denied with the map of Europe staring one in the face. So sure as the peninsula of Italy is a visible jack-boot, kicking Sicily before it as if it were a sort of triangular foot-ball, so Sardinia looks like the huge vestige of some megatheriac FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 209 Titan, who has left one of his monster soles in the water, as Empedocles left his slipper on the top of Etna. It is hence called a sandal by Pliny, ' sandaliotis ' {' Hist. Natur.' lib. iii. cap 7) ; and a footmark, ixi^ovcra, by Pausanias, in his ' History of Greek Colonies,' book x. ; while Claudian, in his poem (' De Bell. Gild.') clinches the matter : Humanae speciem plantse sinuosa figurat Insula, Sardiniam veteres dixere coloni. In allusion to which one of their native poets, // Moro melodioso, has the following beautiful senti- ment, which runs capitally in the original semi- Italian /a/^zV spoken by the islanders themselves : Sardinia ! when Nature embellished the tint Of thy hills and thy vales and green sod ; anon She failed in the outline ; and traced but the print Ql d. footmark, in order to give us a hint That we'll always be trampled and trodden on ! The earliest inhabitants appear to have been fugitives driven by Divine command out of the land of Canaan by the children of Israel. These poor devils are known to have emigrated in numbers at the ports of Tyre, Sidon, and Beyrout, for the western islands of Europe. They were fond of building round towers, the original idolatry of Babel ; and more than 300 of these distinctive architectural cylinders, though not exactly after the P 210 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Irish pattern, still exist in the interior of this island, besides one or two at Malta. The Cartha- ginians soon conquered these eastern colonists, and introduced with Arab and Nubian blood the true Punic idiosyncrasy which all subsequent inter- mingling of more sober and steady northern races has never effectually cured or tamed. The island was most useful to that great trading community as a grazing-ground and corn granary : hence in the treaty of Hanno, after the first Punic war, the following stringent article was inserted, at the instigation of the African board of trade : ' In Sardinid nulli Romanorum negotianto neve oppid^im possidento, nihil emunto ; si quis venerit, intra diem v. abito! (Polyb. lib. iii.) But it was doomed to follow the fortunes of the sea that surrounds it. When Rome mastered the Mediterranean, Scipio seized on Sardinia, which became so fertile under the cast-iron fixity of Roman rule that Horace immortalised its corn- fields in a song (lib. i. od. 31). But when Rome fell and the northern Vandals captured the island, its fertility received a check from which it has never recovered. The Roman system had fixed everything ; the barbarians left everything loose, vague, and undefined. Theirs was the Celtic system of agriculture, which Caesar describes as FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 211 existing in Celtic Gaul. 'Nee quis agri modum certum aut fines proprios habet, sed magistratus in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque homi- num ' (clans) ' quantum agri et quo loco eis visum est attribuunt ; et anno post, alio transire cogunt ' (' De Bell. Gall.' lib. vi.) Horace, a Sabine farmer, was aware of this defective system among the Scythian tribes of agriculturists. ' Immetata quibus jugera,' says he, Nee cultura placet longior annui. (Lib iii. od. 24.) The con-acre tenure of soil was thus fatally intro- duced, for which the Sardinian word ' tancave ' is used up to this day, where the 'vidazzone' holdings are annual leases of tracts of ground, for which the farmers draw lots with the middlemen, and all is confusion. When the Saracens, a sort of Danes, mastered the coast in the seventh century, they ravaged but did not alter the tenure of the land, which, under every successive government, has continued to the present. In the eleventh century the two trading republics of Genoa and Pisa took the island alternately, and squabbled about its masterdom, agreeing at last to leave their rival claims to the arbitration of Frederick Barbarossa. This Imperial wiseacre, reversing the judgment of Solomon, cut the foot in two parts, giving the toes p 2 212 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PKOUT. and instep to Pisa, and the heel to the Genoese. Corn, as it happened, grew principally on the toe district. Matters jogged on this way, heel and toe, until A.D. 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII. took it into his head, by some hocuspocus, to discover that the island belonged to him, and he accordingly issued a bull (in the exact terms of Adrian's brief to our Henry II., making him a present of Ireland), and bestowed Xh^ foot on Jacomo Secondo, King of Arragon. (See this grant in the ' Church History' of Cardinal Baronius, continued by Ranaldi, anno 1299.) The Spanish king sailed from Barcelona, took the island, and, as a record, built the town of Barcelonetta, a kind of London- derry in its significance. Spain held its footing in it up to 1 708, when it was captured by an English fleet under Admiral Leake, in the war of the Spanish succession. Thp Marquis of Jamaica, then viceroy, made a very poor resistance for his sovereign. In 1720 Cardinal Alberoni and Lord Stanhope agreed to swap the island for Sicily — and the House of Savoy thus finally got pos- session, which it has ever since retained. Under the strong and wise government of Turin the country, which the Spanish viceroys had only plundered and demoralised, began steadily to advance in all the elements of European pro- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 213 gress. Frequent petty insurrections and religious bickering (always a favourite pastime of the native Sardinians) kept the island back, it is true, more than other provinces, but the statistics are on record. In the time of the Spaniards, to which the factions always appeal, viz. up to 1721, Sardinia presented : — Population. Export Manufacture Duty Coral Souls duties of salt on tobacco fishery 327,000 189,400 f. 34,000 f. 33,000 f. 4,230 f. Seventy years afterwards, in 1790, the following augmentation had taken place : — 456,000 440,000 f. 280,000 f. 265,028 f. 20,000 f. And in 1837, the respective items presented fur- ther increase : — 620,000 560,000 f. 320,000 f. 345,000 f. 32,000 f. These very dry details are yet absolutely neces- sary to understand the part our author took in the politics of Sardinia. It was a natural consequence of the various conquests and the confiscation of land which so many successions of foreign rule had occasioned in the island, that there should exist a vast variety of discontented spirits, and that a good number of these, disagreeing in every possible way upon every practical matter, should still join in a wish to get the foot into their own 214 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. hands, reckless of what must necessarily occur after that difficult consummation. During the short interval of foreign conquest, when they ha4 the isle all to themselves, it is in black and white recorded by their only authentic historians {Gli Annali dei Qtiattro Maestri), that their favourite political economy consisted in cutting each other's throats ; for, having taken the trouble to read that work,' a rather ponderous composition of 400 pages, I find the average for each historic page gives six broken heads, four throats cut, twenty head of cattle carried off, three rapes, and a few brace of minor robberies. The more sensible and thoughtful patriots who knew the elements of Sardinian society will ever keep aloof from the mischievous mooting of this missionary millennium as not merely flat moonshine, but the wildest internecine lunacy. The crowned head of the House of Savoy, one of the oldest and most respectable monarchies in Europe, reigns over three united kingdoms, viz. Piedmont, Savoy, and Sardinia. The union of these three countries under one sceptre was brought about and elaborated, by a necessary chain of events, to their mutual clear advantage ; and every well-informed person will ejaculate with me, Esto perpehia ! Quis separabit ? Savoy FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 215 towards the north was the cradle of the royal family ; it was originally a poor district of High- landers, which by the transfer of its court to Turin on the acquisition of Piedmont, thought itself ruined outright, whereas the very contrary has taken place, and by its junction with the more wealthy and enterprising population of the south its prosperity has been marvellously developed. Much of this is owing to the shrewd common-sense and matter-of-fact tendencies of the thrifty Savoy- ards, who are not to be deluded or gulled by cajoling appeals to their weak side or Celtic pre- judices. Not so the Sardinians. Averse to habits of sustained industry, unwilling to use the means of improvement within their reach, taught by designing rogues that they are the finest peasantry in Europe, which they have heard so often that they almost believe it a fact, they imagine they could cut a grand figure in the world, could they only ' cut the painter.' In the meantime, they sedulously neglect every single department of local, individual, or national amelioration. But before this mischievous dream of a repeal of the union with the two other kingdoms came athwart their habitual slumber, there had' been a preliminary subject of angry and unprofitable agitation. Religion was the ostensible cause. 2i6 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. They are all Catholics, and all agreed as to the substantial doctrine which everywhere regulates the influence of the gospel ; but two denominations of minor theology, unknown to the primitive teachers of Christianity, sprang up in the island during the Spanish occupation. The Dominicans of Spain had introduced among the people an exaggeration of the respectful homage ever due to Christ's Holy Mother (the most exalted of merely human beings), and had inculcated the debateable doctrine of her ' immaculate conception ' as a point of belief without which no intercommunication could be held with fellow-Christians. The metro- politan church was dedicated under this title. In vain, for the pacification of these wild theorists, did the gigantic intellect and unrivalled erudition of MuRATORi write, at the suggestion of govern- ment, his book — ' De Superstitione Vitandi adversus votum sanguinarium pro immaculata Deiparae conceptione' (Milan, 1742. 4to). Un- fortunately a Spanish party was hereby created in politics, under the outward guise of simple religion. The loyal adherents of the court of Turin, comprising most of the intelligent, great part of the commercial, and nearly all the landlord class, did not hold the Spanish view of the ' im- maculates,' but held with the Piedmontese that FINAL RELICi, OF FATHER PROUT. 217 'it was an open question.' It was natural that the central government should favour and prefer its own supporters to the exclusion of the Spanish faction, whose disloyalty was ill concealed ; but the administration was ill-advised enough to enact a set of penal laws incapacitating the ' immaculates ' from public functions. Here was a palpable grievance — not indeed affecting the great mass of the people, whom its subsequent abolition left where it had found them, but sorely felt by the middle and upper classes of the Spanish faction. They got up accordingly a clamour for the summary abolition of those penal laws, and called their demand ' immaculate eman- cipation.' Freedom, toleration, liberality, were their new watchwords, when in point of fact their exclusion had been originally caused by their re- fusal to recognise any freedom or any toleration of opinion. However, their case was favourably viewed by a powerful party at the court of Turin — that of the Perukes — who formed half the wealth, influence, and intelligence of the kingdom. The songs of ToMAso il Moro had a great share in giving the fashion to 'immaculate emancipation,' which, supported by wit and reason, became the theme of impassioned eloquence in the grand council of Piedmont. ?i8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. The great opposition to this grant was not from the upright and fairplay-loving people of Italy. Turin is known to be so called from Taurinum (taurus), and yokn Taureau (a familiar name to the inhabitants) is a just and honest fellow, unless you attempt to bully him, and then he becomes obsti- nate. But the most deadly obstacle arose from native Sardinian adversaries within the island itself. Possessing the loaves and fishes, these men like to bask alone in the sunshine of government patronage, to the exclusion of disloyal and dis- affected folks. The two factions began a stand-up fight. If it could not be described under the fragrant designation of a war of the roses, it might have some claim to be called the battle of the citrons — the acidity being great on both sides — while sour ' oranges ' and rotten ' lemons ' were the respective missiles of each party, the common interests of both going to the juice. The central government, being then at war with France and Spain, was sincerely desirous of bringing this de- bilitating inward squabble to a close. All that Turin required was a guarantee against Spanish influence, and with that proviso offered to admit the 'immaculate' laity to public offices if the latter could vouch that none but loyal subjects should exercise spiritual control over them in the higher FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 219 ranks of their clergy. The foresight of the court of Turin, in making this stipulation, was subse- quently shown. Had there been a right of objection on the part of the crown, no such public nuisances would since have ensued as 'M.AC-{ckiav) Hello, Archbishop of Vestram, a roaring bellows of sedition ; HiCtGINI, firebrand and bishop of Arda, and C«/«-male, the incendiary pharisee of MiDIA. A quiet interchange of mutual concession was about to set the vast question at rest, when a brawling lawyer, with the aid of the mob (which had no interest in the exclusion at all), broke off all negotiation, took the business forcibly out of the hands of the upper middle classes, and, getting that portion of the clergy who depended on the mob for support to back him, began systematically to bully the court of Turin, quite disgusted the great Peruke party, exasperated the royal family, and 'flung back the settlement pf the question FIFTEEN YEARS to be then most unsatisfactorily settled amid rankling bitterness and mutual gnash- ing of teeth, which it will take another generation to forget ; for the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children s teeth are set on edge. (Jerem. xxxi. 29.) This result of the arch-lawyer's taking up the 220 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. question in the spirit and tone of a vulgar bully, was not then anticipated, nor is it now even generally understood ; but it was both seen and felt by our young Jeremy in his calm retreat at the Benedictine abbey of Sto. Mauro, where he took a dispassionate view of the distant tumult. His youth and manhood passed in compiling, with the rest of the Benedictine brotherhood, that un- rivalled storehouse of history, ' L'Art de Verifier les Dates,' in which every doubtful matter is sifted by reference to authentic records. Their art is exemplified below. This arch-lawyer's name was Dandeleone, of an old Carthaginian family of the Smuggleri,^ ' The following minute stands recorded on the books of the Board of Revenue Commissioners, 1781, and was afterwards confirmed by the Irish House of Commons, and placed on their journals. It completely settles an historic doubt. ' The plan of smuggling on the coast of Kerry having been changed to Darrynane, where there were stores for purpose of storing the goods smuggled, it was found that the establishment of the Dungannon cruiser was not calculated for the prevention of the ilHcit trade ; a plan was therefore fixed upon to meet the then mode of smuggling, and effectually to subdue it at Darry- nane, and overturn the system of illicit traffic ; and marine and land parties were therefore established under the command of Mr. Whitwell Butler, a gentleman of property and character, and a justice of the peace in the county of Kerry. ' Done by the Board, with approbation of government, the 22nd of May, 1 781.' The above is extracted from the Appendix to the Journals FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 221 settled on the south-west coast, towards the Spanish port of Valentia. Always disaffected to the government of Turin, they were of course ineligible to posts of emolument in Sardinia, but they helped themselves to wealth in rather an off- hand manner. This is rather a delicate topic, which I would rather avoid, but the ' immaculate ' party having adopted the bullying system in every minute matter, will insist on our not only reve- rencing a hero himself, but his grandfather and his grandchildren, his ox and his ass, and everything belonging to him. To drive a coach and four, or a ' six-oared gig,' through Sardinian law, was an exploit therefore to him of instinct and hereditary transmission. The cause of the ' immaculates ' had been left to the management, hitherto, of a board, comprising the leading gentry, barristers, merchants and land- owners ; folks really interested in the repeal of the exclusive code. To join them and add his own native vigour and activity to their social weight would have been a straightforward and disin- terested course : but Dandeleone's plan was to quash the gentry altogether ; his scheme was to estrange the masses from any union with them, of the Irish House of Commons, dated the 19th of March, 1796, where it may be seen, verbatim d literatim, at page ccclxxi. 222 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. to get the question into his own hands, and ap- propriate it to himself by infuriating the multitude in a pursuit totally profitless to themselves, but not so to him — this affords a clue to his whole career. Non bis in idem is a maxim of our criminal jurisprudence ; but though a man cannot be pro- secuted, he may be rewarded thrice for the one act : originally and subsequently Dandeleone was. The penny and the paternoster were not more in- separable than, in his eye, pence and the proper sort of patriotism : — Alterius sic Altera poscit opem res et conjurat amicfe. His professional gains among the Sardinian liti- gants were considerably increased by the notoriety of his political efforts, as the radical oratory of the late Henry Hunt helped the sale of his blacking. His popularity filled the small local newspapers; and as action begets reaction, the newspapers swelled his popularity. He skilfully kept his name before the public, a process of which he understood the full value. He preferred abuse to silence. The educated classes instinctively shrunk from con- tact with this boisterous man of the people. But his jolly phiz was on every aqua-vitce yi^ in the hlNAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 223 island. Padre Matteo had not yet arisen in those days of delusion. He got up an ' immaculate association ' in the Sardinian Corn Exchange, in which the principal orators besides himself were Dick Scutum, after- wards master of the mint in Turin, and Tomaso Le Sage, now secretary of the board of control for Cyprus, who has written a history of that society, and is connected with the Buonapartes. Both these saw how pernicious the system was, but were forced into it. There was, besides, a chivalrous buffoon called Tomaso Ferro, whom Dandeleone made the mouthpiece of every absurdity, useful in its way to himself, but of which he shunned the utterance. He also kept a newspaper editor, Barretti, of the Pilota, author of a slang dictionary in choice Italian, who, being most unscrupulous, "did all the dirty work in print. The office of gonfaliero for the Clara district became vacant ; a spirited gentleman, Gormano Mahon ^ originated and forced Dandeleone into the plan of electing him into the vacancy. This settled the business, and Turin sullenly gave up 1 The name is Carthaginian. The Mahons or Mahonys gave.it to Port Mahon {^Partus Maghonis) in Minorca, in the first Punic war. 224 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. the point, which it had been ready to concede gracefully fifteen years before. All the people got was the loss to them of their forty-franc franchise, by Dan's collusion. The upper classes were alone benefited. It would have been natural enough for these well-off classes to pay Dandeleone his fee for speechifying. But they shirked payment, thinking, perhaps, that he had been rather an obstacle to, than a promoter of, the accommodation of the question. Thereupon Dan got the clergy to hold a plate for him at the chapel doors, year after year, to collect pence from the poor, for whom he had never done anything in his whole life, and whose claim to a legal provision he had actually resisted when proposed by the holy bishop of Kildara. This roused the bile of Don Jeremy. A like fit of sceva indignatio prompted Swift to denounce, ill ^735> William Wood's design on the trades- people's copper currency in Ireland. For years, as long as it lasted, Jeremy mixed up with all his literary effusions a continued onslaught on the beggary. Dandeleone, in return, maligned him in a ' speech of the day,' at the Corn Exchange.^ No Sardinian priest, according to Dan, was at ' On Monday, Febraary 20, 1843. See Irish newspapers of the day. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 225 liberty to take a different view of politics from the cloth in general ; a doctrine which the blast of Padre Kenyon's trumpet, from some wild hill in Tipperaria, has since blown to tatters. But it was not pleasant in those days to live among his fanatic followers. Jeremy retired to Turin. When Clodius became the darling of Rome's mob, Tully went into exile : abibo ! et ubicumque invenero bene pacatum et liberam civitatem in ea conqui- escam ! — but he kept up in the press of Piedmont constant hostility to Da:n, especially to his new project for separating Sardinia from the two sister kingdoms. Dan thought to effect this by the same bullying system that he had before employed — a total MISTAKE ! In vain did he establish a club called ' Consternaturi Hall,' gather monstrous mobs, and talk of battle. In vain did he, taking a hint from Corsica, where ' King ' Theodore was then at work, set up like him (' Biog. Univers.' vol. xxxi. p. 100) an 'order to liberators.' The Turin authorities pounced upon him and his friends, and locked them up in a Sardinian peni- tentiary. He came out cowed, but impenitent. Then, alas ! alas ! ' La Nazione,' an able journal, for- sook him. He had been created by the news- papers ; an independent print killed him. The press unmade him, as the press had made. Q 226 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Archbishop Mora and the Primate of Armagh, with the wisest and most enlightened of the episcopacy, formally withdrew from his set. They even ap- proved of certain government colleges, which would bring together all classes, and extirpate mutual hatred and distrust : a state of public feel- ing, on which Dan having thriven and grown prosperous, felt loth to see abolished. He there- fore called the colleges ' godless,' and got Barretti to hint in his ' Pilota,' that ' the archbishop was insane !' ^ This happened just as a rot among the chest- nuts had begun to alarm the people, whose food that tree principally furnishes, and Dr. Mora had ordered prayers against famine, which would have the effect of preventing the annual plunder at the chapel doors ; yet he got about 20,000/. that very November. It was, however, the last haul he ever made, and drew forth a lyric from Don Jeremy, which, in an English form, may be seen in the ' Times ' of November 14, 1845, not badly trans- lated : — ' This infamous 'dodge' is noticed in the 'Morning Chronicle,' October 7, 1845 : — ' The utmost disgust is felt at an article in the " Dublin Pilot," of Monday, calculated to convey the impression, or rather the certainty, that the Catholic Primate of Ireland (Dr. CroUy) was insane ! ' FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 227 The Lay of Lazarus. (Lamento di Lazzxro). Hark, hark, to the begging-box shaking ! For whom is this alms-money making ? For Dan, who is cramming his wallet, while famine Sets the heart of the peasant a-quaking. II. Man's food in Earth's bosom is rotting — But Charity's dole is allotting^- To whom ? At God's door the Pampered once moip To plunder the Pauper is plotting ! III. The priest from the altar inveigles ; The peasant, reluctant, still higgles ; 'Tis his children's support. But a jolly year's sport Must be had for the Derrynane beagles. IV. 'Tis 'godless' to give education — 'Tis ' godless ' to teach a gulled nation — But 'Godlike' oh call it, to shoulder your wallet. Swelling huge in this hour of starvation. Archbishops ' are mad ' if they reason ; ' Are mad ' if they league not with treason, ' Stark mad ' if they hint, in a prayer or a print, Common sense to the people he preys on ! Q 2 228 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. VI. Their rounds mark his myrmidons plying , To where in yon cabin is dying The victim of want, pale, stricken, and gaunt. Go ; enter and pillage the dying ! VII. Take, take it, in meal or in metal. But hush ! — where is infancy's prattle ? On its mother's chilled breast lies the babe in Death's rest. ' Pshaw ! Come, give the box a good ratfle ! ' VIII. The land is all blighted with famine, The land is all blighted with famine, Yet still doth he crave — and, like ghoul at a grave, Racks rottenness, rooting for Mammon ! ENVOI. With a Hand from above to afflict him, Low Lazarus lies. Yet the victim In his anguish implores (but in vain) for his sores, That the Beagles of Dives may lick them. He died two years afterwards at Genoa. His son, however [in/elix puer !) continues the busi- ness, which, in his petty and paltry hands, has sadly fallen off. Le jeu ne vaitt pas la chandelle. May we all be let enjoy peace and quietness at last in this our Island of Sardinia! Cagliari : yuly i, 1847. CHAPTER V. ROME 1846 THE FAG END OF A LONG REIGN CHAPTER V. THE FAG END OF A LONG REIGN. Amid the settled gloom and sullen despondency which continue to weigh down our spirits when engaged in brooding over our condition internally, the year 1846 has opened rather auspiciously on this capital, with reference to its external relations. The imperial visit runs no risk of being forgotten : long will it be talked of by Roman diplomacy with all the enthusiasm of Scott's old dowager respect- ing a royal visit, equally unexpected, and propor- tionately important. Great also is the exultation of the hotel- keepers at the unwonted influx of Russian plutocracy, the northern hordes having this winter crossed the Ponte Molle in unusual force — not, as of old, to ravage and despoil, but rather after the fashion of their ancestral gladiators from the Volga and Danube, To make a Roman holiday. 232 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. The English migratory flocks are also in con- siderable feather ; last fortnight, at the ' blessing of the cattle,' their hunters and carriage horses were numerously conspicuous in the muster of quadrupeds annually gathered before the porch of St. Antonio, on the Esquiline ; oxen, mules, asses, sheep, all had their share of the friars' blessing, save the fox-hounds, the whipper-in not having the grace to bring his pack up from the Campagna. A 'very bad sign,' as Father Luke, in your wicked comedy, would say or sing ; for, consider- ing the precarious tenure which this esoteric sport has of the ground, its enjoyment is to be fenced round with all due observances.-^ Nothing could exceed the frigid indifference of all classes here at the announcement of the Duke's death at Modena. The Pope's coachman dying would make a greater sensation ; indeed were it not that etiquette of relationship required the postpone- ' Fox-hunting is far too manly and exciting an exercise not to alarm the drowsy old prejudices of the government. Ac- cordingly when poor Bertie Mathews broke his neck, Governor Marini gladly made it an excuse for his edict of suppression, issued in November. But he was made quickly to retrace that step. The Roman nobility rose en masse against the attempt to meddle with their sports, and the prelate has been forced to draw in his horns. Had it been an edict merely oppressive to shop-keepers, tradesmen, or peasants, its revocation would have been quite another matter. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 233 ment of the ball at the Austrian minister's, to the serious annoyance of several young ladies, and of not a few old ones, no notice would be vouchsafed to the fact of the ducal collar having been trans- ferred from the shoulders of an imbecile father to those of his still more stolid boy. The state of Modena is to Italy what a gradual ossification of the heart would be to the human system. The rest of the Peninsula, though slow and stagnant enough, has not yet come to that pitch of petri- faction. For the rest, from the Po to the Faro, under this trodden-down race no new star of hope has risen, unless it be found in the announcement seven days ago of a telescopic comet first seen on the 24th, by a lynx eye from the Jesuits' obser- vatory here, and, ominously enough, in the signi- ficant constellation of Eridamis. The Pontiff bears the weight of his eighty- one years with wonderful ease, actually looking younger than at any period of the last dozen winters. The polypus has been long since effec- tually cured, his voice, a deep baritone, bearing evidence to unabated vigour. He may yet sing a requiem to Louis Philippe.^ ' It will be seen that Savonarola here was no prophet. It , would have been better, perhaps, for the' French king's ultimate place in history, had he not survived, to turn in his dotage mar- 234 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROVT. From his aboccamento with the Czar, to which it is now pretty well known that he and all in his confidence look forward with tremulous, . with sleepless anxiety, and out of which, to his amaze- ment, he came forth so signally successful in the eyes of Europe, the octogenarian frame of Gregory has gathered fresh impulse, and, as it were, galvanic action. What may be called the mere ' court ' of Rome had never flattered itself that the aesthetic fascination of St. Peter, so potent in influencing Goth, Hun and Vandal, but which Charles V. Joseph II. and Napoleon profanely set at naught (confiding in the more modern agency of i-a/Z- Peter) would have overawed so stalwart a barbarian. A ne.w fresco is in contem- plation for a hall in the Vatican ; indeed ' Leo confronting Attila ' clearly can be reproduced without much novelty of attitude or even drapery, save in the regimentals of the gigantic Romanoff. An early day in February, and a chosen com- mittee (superseding the routine tribunal which would have otherwise taken cognisance thereof), riage-broker at Madrid ; but it is quite enough for us to stick to the affairs of the Peninsula : — Be his old age hale and niellow. And may the shrewd old fellow Last long as his old umbrella ! — Ed. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 235 have been named for investigating, in its spiritual operation, the late act of the British legislature for the endowment of lay colleges in Ireland. The few whose names have transpired are thoughtful and accomplished men, and know the bounds of their competency, long accustomed to similar vexed questions in other European states. The clauses submitted, as more or less objection- able, by the Irish remonstrants, have every chance of being fairly sifted. The only Irish prelate here. Dr. Kennedy of Killaloe, keeps strictly aloof, but is understood to side rather with the older and more enlightened members of the episcopacy in his judgment of the measure. His prudent re- serve has not, however, prevented the free ex- pression, three days ago, in his presence, of a rather forcible opinion, to wit that ' the bishops in Ireland favourable to the colleges ought to be denied Christian burial, and their ashes thrown into the Shannon,' the merit of which decent and sober utterance belongs to an official of the Irish seminary here. The wiseacre is from Waterford, for which latitude he is better fitted than that of Rome, where as yet the Turkish custom has not generally obtained of keeping a holy idiot in each mosque for luck. People here are not easily surprised at 236 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. any absurd rumour in the newspapers, which indeed they seldom read ; but the persevering tenacity with which the CarHst journals have^ month after month, asserted the failure of Rossi's diplomatic mission at this court, has amazed the oldest inhabitant. The influence he obtained at first he kept and extended, and never were Louis Philippe's wishes more respected than since he was chosen to urge and enforce them. Lately he had but to signify an objection, and the Jesuits, who have access everywhere, found it not to the pulpit of the French national church of St. Luigi de' Francesi. In the matter of railways much uncertainty prevails : the Holy Father is said to have relaxed his frown and lent his ear to innovation and to his barber Gaetanius, a functionary of well-known influence, and whose position in state affairs and other matters should be understood. In the spring the steamer will resume the towing of barges up the Tiber, beyond the city, into the Sabine territory, where a good bed of coal has been lately found and is worked, besides another farther inland towards Subiaco. But concerning the development of steam power in this capital, and the prospect for its utterly idle people of the varied branches of industry to be created through FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 237 that magic medium, I can hold out none but the faintest hopes. A straw thrown up may serve for an anemometer. One of our sculptors took a fanc}?- to import from Liverpool an Arnott stove to warm his spacious studio this winter, and laid in his stock of Sabine coal with comfortable thought : great was his glee at the genial glow it diffused through his workshop ; but short are the moments of perfect enjoyment. In a few days a general outcry arose among the neighbours : the nasal organ at Rome guide-books describe as peculiarly sensitive : a mob of women clamoured at the gate : they were all ' suffocated by the horrid carbon fossile! Phthisis is fearfully dreaded here : with uproarious lungs they denounced him as a prompter of pulmonary disease. Police came, remonstrance was useless. The artist's lares were ruthlessly invaded and his ' household gods shivered around him.' The Arnott altar of Vesta now lies prostrate in his lumber yard, quenched for ever ! February 2. The Roman virtuosi have been, these weeks past, impatiently looking out for the public appear- ance of Taglioni, who has been an in-dweller of our city some time. It appears, from what I am told, she had some difficulty in getting the Roman 238 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. coryphdes into dancing order ; the clumsiest ankles in all Christendom being those of Rome, as every artist will tell you, and any eye can see. She came out, however, last night (Sunday), it is understood, with applause unequalled since the days of the classic Arbuscula. To-day, being Candlemas morning. Pope Gregory in person, and in rude health, went processionally through the ceremonies, and blessed the candles ; may I never see a Pope rather inclined to bless extin- guishers ; and let us both thereupon devoutly ejaculate Fiat Lux ! The consistory, held this morning, February 1 2, has just broken up and has afforded the friends of Louis Philippe matter for congratulation. The assembly of cardinals, which would not have taken place for some time in the usual course, was hastened in compliment to the newly-arrived French Bishop of Arras, a strenuous adherent of the Orleans dynasty, a quondam veteran soldier of the Empire, and whose pure and unchallenged merits as a Galilean prelate had justified the demand of the King for a hat, which had been granted five years ago, but which had to be fitted on by Gregory in person, according to rule, this morning. From twenty to thirty of the leading FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 239 cardinals were in attendance. The Pope having taken his seat, a lawyer opened the pleadings pro formd, in a 'beatification case,' but was quickly cut short by the crier, who called on the real business of the day. The aged Frenchman was therefore introduced, and advancing to the steps of the pontifical throne, received a most cordial acollade from the pontiff. The respective ages of the two performers in the solemn scene being 80 and 81, added not a little to its impressiveness. The only objection that can be taken to an occurrence like this is its rarity. The admissions into the purple order, which ostensibly governs the Roman Catholic church, of individuals born beyond the Alps have of late years diminished in an alarming ratio to the eyes of the thoughtful supporters of the pontifical system. Out of near seventy hats, not half a dozen have been given beyond the Italian Peninsula. The present Pope has created fifty out of the living princes of the church, and not only have they been almost in- variably Italians, but thirty of the number have been selected from a still more restricted boundary viz. the Papal States. This is neither far-seeing nor (ecumenical. Spain has but one hat left of its many olden dignities ; Portugal has but recently acquired one ; Bavaria and Belgium have each 240 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. a single chapeau, and Austria proper is in a similar state of destitution. France, by the exer- tions of Louis Philippe, has three. As for the British Isles, they have no claim, of course, since they will neither give nor take even a diplomatic representative, though old Nicholas himself is about to admit a nuncio at St. Petersburg. Acton is merely a Neapolitan, and as such the name is mixed up with intrigues of a period little creditable to Great Britain. The time is far remote when men of mind, Lingard or Wiseman, will be raised to the dignity which God and nature had intended for them. The thing, however, may work its own cure before then. The Irish seem to take their aboriginal and persevering exclusion from any power, place, or rank in the church they love with surprising placidity. It is true that some rather curious candidates would be probably put forward for a hat did the whim seize their patriots. We should have Mayo recommending its ' Lion of Tuam' {leonum arida nutrix), Connaught its ' Dove of Galway ' {nota sedes palumbis), to the combined horror and amazement of this knowing, grave, and eternal city. In the matter of canonisation, (incidentally alluded to during the consistory), Italy has still more signally taken to itself the lion's share. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 241 Saints from beyond the Alps have become an extinct species — monuments of a former social condition now swept away. It is true that to get a single one enrolled on the sacred panel costs as much as one of your moderately-contested railway bills, since the system of centralisation was adopted, and Rome made sole adjudicatrix of the merits and the sanctity. In Ireland and England, had the clergy and people omitted to crowd heaven with native-born SS. by simple acclaim, before reference was made necessary to Rome, those islands would never have got the numerous in- tercessors and the flattering title they shared in the middle ages. St. Kevin, St. Senanus, St. Dunstan, and St. Jarlath had the halo painted round their heads by a native decision, and a home determination — ' Hereditary Bondsmen,' &c. &c. We had some hope that the truly angelic creature, the late Princess Borghese, would have made some progress in this path of recognised sanctity in the arms of her mother church. But as her bright and unblemished memory happens not to be mixed up with any particular theory or school of casuistry, or any collateral ambition or interest of any set of churchmen, the officials have let the matter drop, as being but a mere exempli- R 242 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. fication of transcendent maidenly and maternal holiness. Rome : Ash-Wednesday. Carnival has been unprecedentedly brilliant. For the last ten days, the roll of equipages, the interchange of bouquets, the discharge of confec- tionery projectiles, mid the uproar of the Corso, and of the two parallel streets that disembogue into the square del popolo, have been incessant. The French embassy ball outshone the compe- tition even of the Doria, the Borghese, Lord Ward, and the Bachelors' Club. The colts from the Campagna ran their appointed races, and save that a Roman lad was killed by a kick from one of these quadrupeds, and an American artist stabbed in the back by a native, everything went off pro- perly. The sudden contrast of this quiet morning is quite a relief. The flaunting masqueraders have vanished as by enchantment. The garb of so- briety and demure looks meets the eye. Many a northern nymph who might be met yesterday in very different attire — Nuper in straits studiosa florum, is now close-veiled in the costume of cetterentola, borne towards the Vatican, to share at the old Pope's hands the envied ashes. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 243 The profits of this season to the commerce of Rome (such as it is) can scarcely be; overrated. Their poUtical economists have the honesty to confess what is still denied in high quarters here, that the influx of strangers is the very breath of Roman nostrils. You need not be told that the ' balance of trade is awfully against the pontifical dominions ; but this — as well as many other un- pleasant facts — is carefully kept out of men's thoughts in this eternal place. From a diligent examination of official papers (not of easy access), it turns out that the imports exceed the exports by no less a sum than five millions of dollars annually. One detail of this balance-sheet (which I intend to send you) is still more discreditable, inasmuch as _ the export trade is almost exclusively made up of raw materials, while the imports are invariably articles of foreign skill and industry, leaving to Rome an overwhelming account of beggarly indo- lence and government incapacity. It can be no longer matter of surprise that, while every capital of Northern Europe has nearly doubled its popu- lation since the century began, this metropolis numbers only a few hundred more citizens this year of our Lord than it did in 1 800 ; neither will it be thought a very improbable occurrence that memorials and remonstrances to be presented to R 2 244 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. the Roman government on the part of crippled and oppressed trade, as well as other subjects of political grievance, were actually flung, on the drive of the Pincian Hill, into the lap of the late visitor — aye,' the Czar Nicholas. Even as regards England, the balance of Russian commerce is somewhat differently cared for. These few lines will occasion your paper to be stopped at the post-office, as was every number in which the public interests of this oppressed com- munity were advocated. Whenever ' Galignani ' copies similar obnoxious paragraphs, he is also vicariously punished by strict confiscation in the Piazza Colonna. We can only grumble at such things as they are, senza rimedio, but the Spanish nation has a right to complain, and deserves to be trampled on by foreign diplomacy if it do not give proper utterance to its indignation when the despatches of its envoy at this court are (as they were a few days ago), after having been confided to the custody of the post-office, found unsealed in the public piazza of St. Agostino, and brought in that state to the Spanish representative by a passing stranger. You will not see this fact in the ' Gazette d'Augsbourg.' FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 245 Yesterday, March 4, a few miles out on the Via Nomentana, an unusual assemblage of bril- liant equipages, mounted cavaliers, and miscel- laneous pedestrians, gave token that the Roman nobility had fixed on a rendezvous for some signal display. The hounds were to meet at this spot, and the scarlet tints of the horsemen's cos- tume accordingly gave additional relief to the glowing effects of the general landscape under an unclouded sky. Prince Constantine, the second son of the Czar, was expected on the ground, and hence this unwonted gathering. The newly- arrived visitor somehow did not come, and a fox being speedily unearthed, after a short run, the brush was won by the Prince Odescalchi. A cordial wel- come is in preparation for the Czarina his mother, whose arrival here from Palermo is impatiently looked for. The speech of Lord Aberdeen on the relations between Russia and Rome was in great request here, and was deemed additional evidence of his lordship's calm sagacity. You are long since aware of Cardinal Lambruschini's disavowal (in a formal note) of any participation in concocting or publishing the ' Nun's Tale ' — of that marvellous Odyssey, overshadowing in fanciful horrors the history of Baron Trenck, or the story of Mazeppa. 246 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. The real editor was the facetious Father Ryllo, a Lithuanian genius of no common order, who can- not forget being exiled by the Czar's predecessor in 1824. Ryllo is a stirring spirit, aiid has left his mark on the Caucasus, on the Anti-Lebanon (ask Sir C. Napier), and the island of Malta. He is now about visiting Abyssinia, and you may there- fore expect to hear of bustling intelligence from that quarter. It is hard, nevertheless, to exonerate the au- thorities from the publication, in Roman type, of this pseudo-narrative. The title-page of the little brochure bore, 'tis true, no printer's name — the whereabouts was simply ' Italia,' and since then it has disappeared miraculously from all the Roman bookstalls ; but that the printing thereof was winked at is well understood by anyone who knows of the perils that environ here clandestine typography. This is one of the inconveniences to which a government is liable, which looks upon the ' freedom of the press ' as the ' offspring of hell first-born.' It must be responsible for what- ever is printed. It were happy for the public welfare if that were the only inconvenience, but people will read, even in Rome ; and the book trade is a branch of industry which, on the banks of the Tiber, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. i^ government has effectually withered up, and thus added another melancholy leaf to the hortus siccus of Roman beggary. Without taking into account what is smuggled, a sum of 120,000 dollars is annually paid by this poor community to foreign booksellers — mainly for Italian works. If a Roman virtuoso labours with an MS. he seeks the obste- tric art of the printing-press anywhere but within these walls. You need not be told how many hands and heads are lucratively engaged elsewhere in the recently-adopted style of illustrated typography. From all share in that elegant industry Rome, by its own restrictions, has shut itself out. The engraver's family pines, the hand of young genius languishes unemployed, and, by paralysing the free production of letterpress, its concomitant and brother art is stricken down. As to periodical literature, which is now awakening mankind all over Europe to a sense of the beautiful and the useful in every department of science, here there is a universal blank. There is, to be sure, a costive serial, called the ' Album di Roma,' a number of which fell under our eye the other day ; but the leading article being a dissertation on il giuoco del oca — viz. 'the game of goose,' we flung it aside with a wish that if the 248 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ' authorised ' editor did not wish to enlighten his docile readers, he might avoid thus sneering at their imbecility. Newspapers and their great corollary — advertisements — are, of course, un- dreamt of. The paper on which this number of the ' Daily News ' is printed has probably come in the shape of Roman rags from Civita Vecchia or Ancona. This export (exclusive of smuggling) is, in pounds, two millions and a half of the raw material of paper. Any boy in one of your ' J'^g'g^d schools ' can calculate the loss which ensues on exporting rags and receiving printed books in return. An alarm was raised a few years ago about this glaring deficiency in the manage- ment of things, and by way of remedy, a prohi- bition against the exit of rags was enacted. The rags were then used as manure ; nothing could force them into paper under the restrictions of the press. The prohibition was accordingly removed. As in the similar case of the old log in Horace, the better alternative (between dung and divinity) was resolved upon — Maluit esse Deum. Deus inde ego, furum aviumque Maxima formido. I must break off, having to attend a sitting of ■FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 249 the Academia d'Arcadi, which takes place at four to-day. March 12. That ' amusing print ' the ' Diario di Roma,' which, as you know, is generally a mere recital of church ceremonies, chronicled with chamberlain precision and Chinese solemnity, published last week, in a fit of generosity, the balance-sheet of the savings bank for February. The laity were thus informed that during the past month a sum of 30,403 dollars had been lodged by thern, while only 16,332 had been withdrawn — a palpable hint to be joyful at such evidence of their prosperous condition under the ecclesiastical system of rule. As if they did not know this exceptional surplus to be a simple derivative from the disbursements of foreign opulence during carnival, and a casual result of the circulating medium being freely lavished among tradesfolk by these northern revellers, far from being an index to the sustained healthy condition of remunerative industry. This topic I have touched on before, and may resume with effect. The middle classes, the proldtaires, and operatives have been utterly overlooked in the dominions of the church (w,ith, thereunto, the ignoble connivance of the aristocracy), uni- 2 50 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. formly snubbed and crushed since the days of Rienzi. The declamations of Young Italy may or may not be all froth ; but Arabic figures cannot be dealt with in the fashion of rhetorical flourishes ; the whole question may resolve itself into a simple study of the balance-sheet of the Roman trade. Let your readers (matter-of-fact people) pause at each separate figure, and then sum up their im- pressions from the general coup d'ceil of the follow- ing cartoon, which has not been painted in the Vatican : — 1. Cot ion tissues. The population paj's, for every yard in use, hard cash to the looms of England, Switzerland, and Mulhausen. Two millions of dollars (exclusive of smuggling) are ascertained to be lost on this item. The only attempt to manufacture a coarse description of cotton stuffs was made in the workhouse at Diocle- tian's baths, and in the arsenal of galley slaves at Civita Vecchia. The paupers preferred begging, and the only 'cotton lords' left are the latter gentry. 2. In woollens, things are not quite so bad, though the staple is miserably cared for. Alarmed some years ago at the enormous outgoings of money to purchase foreign broad-cloth, the present FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 251 Pope's advisers suggested the exploded system of bounties ; a certain sum was ordered to be paid to the manufacturers according to quality as well as quantity. The result was that the trade appeared to revive. Manufactories Ells In 1836 there were in operation . . 28 producing 34,526 „ 1837 „ „ . . 36 „ 48,492 » 1838 „ „ . . 46 „ 63,165 „ 1839 „ „ . . 44 „ 63,810 But the force of bounties would no farther go. The thing had been worked uphill to the utmost of its capacity ; smuggling increased, and bounties were jobbed ; last year Peel's policy of reducing the tariff was adopted, and at the fair of Sinigaglia, the quantity of foreign cloth admitted at reduced rates doubled in amount, and kept up the produce to the Papal treasury, but several factories have since been discontinued, and much misery has ensued. It must be added that the intelligent manufacturers blame government for not giving such powers as are supplied in France by the system of livrets, a matter not unjderstood in England, but absolutely necessary here whenever workmen are congregated in bodies. Meantime the Roman states export raw wool to the amount 252 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. of 260,000 dollars, and import the same spun or woven to the amount of 480,000 dollars. 3. In silken tissues these states could sup- ply all Europe, with common painstaking. The whole Campagna might be planted with mul- berries, if the landowners had the slightest wish to improve their enormous tracts. The women spin enough to save a portion of the loss, which is thus : — Raw silk exported, in value . . . 489 dollars. Spun silk „ „ . . . 515,651 „ Woven silk imported, in value . . 237,554 „ 4. In flax and hemp the balance of trade is actually in favour of Rome, and that to an unex- pected extent, so as to cover the whole loss of the cotton imports. The spinning and weaving of linen is attended to, not in manufactories, but in the homesteads of the cottagers, and without any encouragement or interference of government. The women here again redeem the laziness and incapacity of the men. For, particularly on the other side of the Apennines, the old habits of the peasantry have survived, and though no longer is part of Macaulay's description true — When the oldest cask is opened, And the largest lamp is lit ; And the chestnuts glow in the embers, And the kid turns on the spit. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 253 If no longer Still The good man mends his armour, And trims his helmet plume ; The good wife's shuttle merrily Goes flashing thro' the loom. 5. In wax and honey the imports surpass the exports by 140,000 dollars. This is absolutely- shameful, and shows how little the fourth book of the Georgics, or the good old man of .^balia's example has done for the degenerate agricultural mind. 6. The fisheries are in as miserable a state of neglect as in Ireland. St. Peter appears to have only bequeathed his ring {annulum piscatoris) to the pontiffs. 400,000 dollars are paid in hard cash to us English for fishing the cod banks of New- foundland, to enable the Romans to keep Lent, which they do very badly. 7. In the matter of oil only think of a country where the olive has but to be planted to spread its silver leaves in the sun and give abundant returns, actually importing foreign oil from other Italian states, particularly its neighbour Tuscany, to the amount of 320,000 dollars. Most of the land thus mismanaged is in the claws of the church. To be badly off for soap is a still more 254 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. blameable condition, arguing arrant laziness : this article is imported to the extent of 100,000 dollars. 8. Corn shall form a chapter to itself in a future communication. This is the monster griev- ance, and ought not to be dealt with perfunctorily.- 9. For gutns, resins, frtiit, wines, the absolute loss on the balance of import and export is 1 30,000 dollars. 10. Colonial produce, tea, coffee, sugar, are of course on the wrong side of the ledger, but not an attempt has been dreamt of to imitate the French and German beet-root factories, though this vegetable, planted .lately in the fat ground near Aricia, produced roots varying in weight from ten to thirty pounds ! It might as well rot on Lethe's wharf as on the banks of the Tiber, for all the government cares. 11. In the matter of cheese and butter, fancy an agricultural country importing these two articles from its neighbours to the amount of 68,191 dollars, and at the same time exporting cows and oxen to the extent of 304,000 dollars. 12. Iron, brass, tin, lead, and zinc, are all im- ports ; yet are there abundant chalybeate indica- , tions and olden mines of irpn at Viterbo, at Tolfa, at Montelone, and coal-beds un worked. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 255 The government prefer bringing the all-impor- tant article from Elba of the Florentines. Some praise is due to Gregory for the ironworks estab- lished at the Falls of Tivoli and Terni, but the rule subsists more glaringly because of the ex- ception. 13. In straw bonnets, the industry of the wo- men again exhibits a slight compensation in an export of 1 20,000 dollars. 14. I have not been able to get the returns of the delf and crockery trade, but a large balance is here against Rome ; though one of its small depen- dencies, Fayenza, had formerly the glory of giving its name to this most profitable branch of in- dustry. 15. In the article of Belli Arti the export is of course on the side of Rome, but to an amount far less than would be supposed, a mere trifle over 100,000 dollars. These be a few data on which to found an opinion as to the value of church government and the exclusion of laymen from the rnanagement of temporal affairs ; and further, while such an aggregate of poverty is necessarily accumulated in the Roman states, with what face can the ecclesiastical rulers of this be- nighted land refuse the offer of capital for the construction of railroads ? Let Europe judge. 256 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Rome : March i8. Much disgust is felt and expressed in eccle- siastical circles here at the tenour of Dr. John Mac Hale's Lenten manifesto, ascribing the potato rot to the establishment of Irish colleges for the laity. Italian gravity relaxes into a smile of pity for the people to whom such garbage is presented with impunity. Nor, while the question is known to be under reference to superior authority, do people here overlook the indecency of this indi- vidual prejudgment, seeming, as it were, to bully the Vatican. The British artists, who meditate exhibiting their capi d' opera among you in May, have last week been engaged with the numerous agents of Mac Cracken, &c., and many a trim bark spreads its canvas for England, with other and more precious canvas under hatches. Not a few flasks of Orvieto have perished in wafting good wishes with the bill of lading. It were invidious to mention names ; besides, does not this particular department belong to one of their artistic brethren, whose pen is as graphic as his pencil, but whose sterling good nature is still more conspicuous— ' Michael Angelo Titmarsh.' He is well remembered here, where he rested FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 257 awhile after his famous pilgrimage from ' Cornhill to Cairo.' In the ' address book ' of working artists, lying for public inspection at Monaldini's news-rooms, the eye is somewhat bewildered in meeting with an English earl. In sooth, the pictorial brother- hood is augmented by the accession of Lord Compton, who, ' scorning ' mere aristocratic ' de- lights,' sits at the mess-table of art, has donned the blouse, and wears the indescribable beaver in which rejoiceth your modern Raffaelle ; for the rest, incomptus, to a hair completes the picture. Placards stuck up yesterday at various corners of streets acquainted the hackney coachmen and other literati of Rome that a German work, ycleped Die Romisch-heidensche Kirche (please spell it correctly for the bookseller's sake) was condemned by the Index Expurgatorius. Germany and Italy never 'did, nor ever will, thoroughly understand each other ; there lurks a principle of antagonism in the very nature of both ; all attempts to assimilate two such different idiosyn- crasies must fail. As to the so-called ' German Catholic Church,' it bears about the same relation to Catholicity as 'German silver' to the real article. 2S8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ' Galignani,' of the 7th, having had the hardi- hood to copy something extracted from one of my letters to you, was confiscated at the pontifical post- office. Like Hoby the bootmaker, when Ensign Shuttleworth threatened to withdraw his custom, the great Paris newsmonger will no doubt put up his shutters. March 28. The utter discomfiture of the insurgents on the Vistula, and the sad tinge of ridicule which this attempt has flung on popular efforts to obtain redress of grievances by the sword, are things not without important reaction on the prospects of Central Italy. The aspiration for deliverance is not checked nor retarded ; but the folly of any premature and fractional attempt has been thus effectually demonstrated. And hence, though the old Bastilles of darkness and despotism and the dwellers therein may imagine the ground more steady beneath them than it was before this slight earthquake, or rather mudqziake, the volcanic action is but adjourned. From Mount Gibello to Hecla the hint is taken. The Swiss regiments concentrated in the Le- gations for the expected outbreak in April may now pile their muskets comfortably, and the un- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 259 usually thick crop of bayonets visible on the other bank of the Po may disappear for the season. Many a good old cardinal legate will enjoy a sounder night's rest beyond- the Apennines ; and if a new loan is wanted of Torlonia, to stop a fresh gap of the yearly-yawning deficit, the great tobacco contractor will be, perhaps, in better humour. A few days ago this government provided for its subjects the spectacle of a public execution, into the details of which performance I do not enter. The law's delay had allowed the culprit to> remain two years in prison before his final produc- tion, and his case is not unsuggestive of much sound teaching, not to the mere rabble who gathered round the spot where of old Rienzi spoke, and where now the guillotine discourseth, but rather to those whom providence had made responsible for the conduct of the modern Roman people. In the minutes of the trial it appeared that this youth of twenty-four had sought all over the Campagna, from Frascati to Ardea, for work, and had sought in vain, before resolving, first, on the sale of his prayer-book, which fetched three bajocchi; and finally, on killing the first man he met, who turned out to be a charcoal-burner, as poor as himself. Now, wherefore was there no s 2 26o FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. work for Francesco Sciarra, in that wide champaign with its rich soil and its abounding pastures ? The answer is simple : these lands are either held in mortmain ^ by the church or the monks (which are two distinct categories), or by hos- pitals, or by such leviathan landowners as Bor- ghese, Rospigliosi, Piombino, Barberini, and (a namesake of the criminal) Prince Sciarra. The church lands are never improved by additional labour, because the incumbent has but a life- tenancy, and generally lives in Rome. The monks are migratory or reckless. The hospitals are gigantic jobs, where the plunder is divided between the highest and the lowest functionaries, a mere fractional part finding its way to the original humane object, and no funds can be spared for agricultural progress. The great land proprietors either have no taste for expensive im- provements on a strictly entailed estate, or they have other and less creditable pursuits ; they feel themselves to be mere ciphers in the ecclesiastical dominions, without the natural influence of pro- perty and rank, and therefore deem themselves not answerable for the pauperism around them. So between the aristocracy and the church (the ' See Mahony's evidence on this subject before a Com- mittee of the House of Commons. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 261 middle classes cannot get any land to purchase in the Campagna), the labourers are as little cared for as if they were tenants of an Irish absentee, or squattery of that Milesian Eldorado, Derrynane Beg. They have a corn-law here too, which attempts to regulate not only the import of grain, but is principally effective in preventing its export, a process capable of being made most extensive and remunerating, but for the peculiar distribution of property. Fertile tracts are only ploughed once every third year, being left the other two to be ' cooked ' {si cuoce) in the sun. The food of the working peasant is rarely bread, mostly Indian corn made into a moist cake, and having dried fruit, a raisin or something of that kind, frugally inter- spersed to make the lump palatable. With this provender he goes forth to labour at a great dis- tance from his dwelling, and returns at eve to a , supper of wild herbs, with a little oil and vinegar. To return to the gallows. The prevalent feel- ing was of course pity for the young murderer, whose guilt was totally forgotten ; and while the dismal preparation was being made, and pick- pockets at work, masked pilgrims went round making a collection for anticipative masses to benefit his soul. No one thought of including in 262 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. the votive offering a bajoccho for the soul of the poor charcoal-burner — the sympathy being all monopolised by the homicide, as in Ireland, and none left for his victim. The selection of the neighbourhood of Rienzi's house for these exhibitions is singularly infeli- citous, but not more so than was a certain adver- tisement in the form of a leading article which appears in the ' Roman Journal' of last Thursday. By this the public is informed that the Colonna family offer for sale all that remains of the famous pine-tree in their gardens on the Quirinal, blown down by the thunderstorm of May 1842, it having been planted so far back as 1332, on the day that, through their ancestors, the Commonwealth of Rome was brought under subjection to its present rulers, by the death of Cola, the last of the Tribunes. Already fifteen cart-loads of ficewood had been retailed out of the broken branches of the giant tree, and, now that the trunk alone was left, it was supposed that some admirer of antiques, vegetable as well as mineral, might be tempted to exchange with the Colonna for hard dollars this proud memento of their race. No bidder has yet. offered, though the gardener yesterday strongly recommended the timber to an English visitor as buono per un vapore — ' good for building a steam- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 263 boat ; ' it were better perhaps used in the con- struction of a printing-press. You may recollect that the same storm blew down Tasso's oak on the Janiculum, but the poor monks did not sell for firewood the memorial of their melancholy guest, nor made they a peddling traffic of Torquato's tree. The wife of your member for Manchester — Mrs. Milner Gibson, daughter of Sir T. Cullum, Bart, of Suffolk — is a descendant of' the Colonnas, and she is not probably aware that this opportunity offers of securing an heirloom of that time- honoured lineage. You may mention the subject to her with my best respects. April 4. There is much quiet amusement, not untinged with a dash of melancholy, supplied perpetually to strangers here by the efforts of government to arrest the progress of those modern improvements which must obviously ultimately be adopted even in Rome. The mirth which borders on sadness is stated by metaphysicians to have peculiar fasci- nations, and some aesthetic poet observes that no merriment was to him more enjoyable than The fun In mourning coaches when the funeral's done. Some such feelings were apt to creep o'er the 264 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. mind, in reading last week the newest edict of the local authorities affixed on the walls for the guidance of all shopkeepers and others. This hatii- sher'iff, which it is impossible not duly to respect, denounces the modern innovation of gas-light made of our old acquaintance the previously de- nounced carbon fossile, and all private gas-works of this nature are suppressed. Hereby many an in- dustrious and enterprising establishment has its pipe put out all of a sudden, while those which are suffered to remain are subjected to a thousand vexa- tious restrictions and domiciliary visits from offi- cials, who, as usual, must be bribed to report favourably. They are further told that their private gas-generators will be all confiscated at some unde- termined period when it shall please the wisdom of authority to establish government gas-works — a period far remote, to be sure, but sufficiently in- definite effectively to discourage the outlay of private capitalists on their private comforts or accommodation. Milan, Florence, Leghorn, Venice, Turin, and Naples are gas-lit long since. There is a refinement of stupidity in this pro- ceeding, which requires no further development. Alas ! there was a time when the Rome of Leo X. girded up her loins to walk in the vanguard of civilisation, instead of being, as now, decrepit and FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 265 bedridden, or, if you will, after the fashion, of a midnight hag squatted on the heaving breast of Italy. The ' iron roads ' will nevertheless be made, and the carbon fossile shall redden the fur- nace of many a Roman steam engine yet, and this very gas now denounced shall add new irradiancy to the majestic dome of Peter, which is just about to be illuminated with tallow for the blessed Easter festival. There is much of secret, senseless pride in this opposition to any innovation, the merit of origi- nating which does not happen to belong to this side of the Alps. But the odium theologictim has also some share in the matter. We ourselves, in bygone days, showed a similar dogged dulness in our refusal for a century to adopt the Gre- gorian calendar because, though obviously right, it was derived from a Papal source. For no other reason on earth does the Russian empire still con- tinue to be eleven days out of reckoning with the rest of mankind, being kept in countenance by the modern Greeks alone among civilised nations. April II. The Sistine chapel, adorned with the ' Last Judgment ' by Buonarotti, seems at this period of the year to possess, in common with that grand 266 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. and awful gathering of the whole human race, the peculiarity of assembling on one spot the most heterogeneous elements, which nothing short of a grand convulsion could otherwise bring into jux- taposition. On looking round, the eye wandexs from the uniform of the cardinals to that of the British red coats. A fat Capuchin friar is seen alongside of the great French novelist De Balzac, whose rival rotundity of form and amplitude of visage are conspicuous ; the pious assiduity of Don Miguel edifies the beholder ; while the two married daughters of Charles Kemble, spite of their black veils, send his thoughts far away to the haunts of Norma and of Julietta. The bluff face of Sir Henry Pottinger reminds one of our recent glories on the banks of the TreWe Trora/Aot, while the tall gaunt figure of Mr. Polk (brother to the Yankee President), rising in a ghastly vision be- hind him, suggests a similar discomfiture of the Kentuckian Sikhs on the banks of the Columbia river. Scotch feudalism is there in the person of ' the Glengarry ; ' Polish exiles pray alongside of Russian major-generals ; Puseyite parsons abound. There is Prince Paul Lieven near Mr. Whiteside, late counsel for the Repeal conspi- rators ; Count Toltstoy, Sir Charles Fellowes, Prince Gallitzin, Countess Flahaut, and Mr. James FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 267 Twig, of the ' well-known firm in Crutched Friars,' London. Apropos of Mr. Polk (aforesaid), the presence of this gentleman in Europe is one of th£ beautiful illustrations of the supposed ' democratic exemp- tion from that well-known Roman vice, nepotism. Here is an individual sent out at the expense of the all-repudiating republic, in the high capacity of envoy to the court of Naples, for which employ- ment his qualifications appear to be that he is ab- solutely incapable of interchanging his ideas in any European dialect spoken on this continent, a sense of which incapacity seems to have suggested to him the uselessness of his sojourning in Naples, for he has been all this year in Paris or elsewhere. April 18. My anticipations of there being a screw loose in the arrangements between Rome and Russia prove correct. The visit of the Empress to this capital is, after all the expensive preparations, finally interdicted by the autocrat, and the Czarina is by this time on her way seawise from Naples to Leghorn. As she sails along the Roman coast she may probably catch a glimpse of the cross topping the dome of St. Peter's, an object visible far out at sea ; but nothing further is 268 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. she fated to behold of all the marvels gathered together here. Among the many evils originating in the schism of old Photius, 'twixt Greek and Latin church, the non-gratification of laudable female curiosity, in this instance, is clearly trace- able to bygone theology, and a most curious commentary might be written on the oracular warning of the seer in the '^neid ' uttered many centuries previous : — Has autem terras, Italique banc littoris oram, Effuge ! cuncta malis habitantur (mama Graiis) nira Latinis ? The innocent Mr. Murray, in the pastoral simplicity of his guide-book, has put on record his ' agreeable surprise to find the artists of all coun- tries living here together on such amicable terms.' It is, perhaps, right that the public generally should take for granted the existence of this Arcadian state of things, and one feels loth to disturb so charming a vision. What boots it, in sooth, to learn that the French clique do not associate with the German set, or that the Rus- sians have an overseer at a high salary, to see that their political principles undergo no contamination from the indiscriminate Burschenschaft of art ? Who cares to learn that a Germanic confederation have established among themselves a kind of FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 269 Zollverein, admission being made dependent on the use of the Deutsch tongue, and the old club of the. Ponte MollehSiS been consequently expurgated of the few British artists who had been smuggled into it during a more liberal system of customs ? But it is not pleasant to observe a nascent spirit of exclusiveness among ourselves. It is not quite the thing that the residents of a year's standing in Rome should form themselves into a class apart, to the mortifying depression of all freshmen who may not yet have eaten 365 dinners of roast kid to qualify for association with the aforesaid yearlings. As to individual squabbles, non ra- gionam di loro. But the grand feud of all, revi- ving the wrath of Guelph and Ghibelline, is the feud between the Puritani and the Classicisti. This quarrel, which has been smouldering for the last twenty years, has now broken out in good earnest. Sir David Wilkie, writing from this place to Sir William Knighton, in January 1826, notices thus to his courtly correspondent (who kept the privy purse), the rise of this riot : — ' Some Ger- mans, with more of the devotion of a sect than of a school, have attracted much attention by revert- ing to the beginning of art, by' studying Raffaelle's master, rather than Rafifaelle, in hopes that, by going over the same ground, they may, from 270 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Pietro Perugirio, attain all , the excellences of his great scholar. These artists, among the most zealous of whom are Fyght, Schaddow, Schnore, and Overbeck, in their works, display, with much of the dryness of Albert Diirer, great talent, and a strong feeling for expression. They are not without admirers and patrons. Now, although volumes have been since written on the subject in newspapers and reviews, the , whole pith and substance of the matter has been put forth by Shrewd Davie, in these few lines, twenty years ago. The real sting which envenoms the business is, however, contained in the concluding words of the cannie Scot ; and in England, I apprehend, as well as here, the real question which sets men at loggerheads is, ought there to be a monopoly in certain mystical hands ,of the public patronage, of government orders, and private commissions ? Is there to be a domi- nant sect in art ? Are there to be Christian and Pagan painters ? Are the ' saints ' to inherit the land, to the utter exclusion of the profane ? A grand stand-up effort to do battle against this conspiracy has just been made in the great hall of the Roman Capitol. On the occasion of a biennial solemnity held by the Academy of St. Luke, Professor Visconti read an official harangue, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 271 which, owing to the noise of the over-crowded saloon, could be but indistinctly heard, but which being now in print before me, can be calmly con- sidered. It is a violent tirade, almost personal, against Overbeck and his followers, and by way of being more dispassionate, is announced as the composition of the president, Cavalier Fabris, himself a sculptor ; the venerable old imitator of the stiff Perugino is styled by the classic president tin copiatore pedante, at the same time that he is somewhat incoherently designated as a ' novatore che con falsi principii temerariamente esposti e con presuntuosa sicurezza inculcati fa deviare la gioventii credula, &c. &c.-, the object of this new sect is further stated, with some shrewdness, to be merely a scheme to avoid fair upright competition, by keeping aloof from the ordinary field of emulation, where their intrinsic weakness would be detected; to crow on a dunghill of their own choice, where no rival deigns to encounter them ; ' per toglier dinanzi qualunque importuna emula- tione e restar soli a dominar I'arte;' he calls the purist painter a ' povero di spirito,' ' senza anima,' at the same time that he hints at his being only an old hypocrite all the time, ' con arrogante ipocrisia' as if all this anti-paganism, artistic Puseyism, philo-Puginism, &c. &c., were all but cunning 2>2 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. devices, of quackery to fill the pockets of men who laugh in their sleeve at the enthusiasm they have created. I give you these details, without entering into the merits of the case further than to state that strong jealousy exists among the Italians, forced to see, as they d'o every Sunday, the enormous crowd of English attending the levee of Overbeck. This idol's shrine is near the Jews' quarter, in the palace of the Cenci (chosen for effect by the cun- ning charlatan, say they), and certainly there are various symptoms of trickery discernible in some of the old gentleman's peculiarities. In sculpture, where there is little scope for deviation from the enduring canons of the sublime and beautiful, the new sect has not broken ground to any extent ; but the Cavalier Fabris aforesaid, who has succeeded to the presidency and emolu- ments of Canova (owing to the cameraderie of Gre- gory XXL, who, when a poor monk, often quaffed a flask of Orvieto with the sucking sculptor), is but a poor apology for the genius that is departed. John Gibson's statue of the Queen, ordered for Buckingham Palace, is now nigh finished, and stands forth confessedly a masterpiece of marble portraiture. No coin, medal, picture, or miniature, which the British public has yet seen, can boast of FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 273 being so striking a resemblance, and at the same time embodying so majestically pleasing an imper- sonation of royalty. With one hand she grasps a scroll (some enactment of beneficial legislation), while with the other she is presenting a wreath of reward to some meritorious subject of her happy realm. The drapery is most gracefully studied, and so skilfully managed that modern costume is in- sensibly blended and dovetailed in the classic folds of antiquity. The expression is that of firmness tempered with benignity. John Hogan's colossal statue of Mr. O'Con- nell is in a similar state of forwardness. This tremendous figure, twelve feet in vertical height, carved from a spotless block of white Serravezza marble, produces an effect (spite of every reminis- cence connected with the individual represented) of unmixed and unaffected grandeur. Dignity of attitude,, consciousness of power, and indomitable energy, are in the extended arm and protruded leg of the orator. There is a slight shadow of sadness, with a half-suppressed twinkle of roguery percep- tible in the countenance. It is the very image of the man. The gigantic folds of the broadly-flung mantle are in the boldest style of masterly art ; and there stands no pedestal in the British islands bearing a statue in marble of such dimensions at T 274 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. all approaching the merit of this work ; a produc- tion of unmistakable native genius, which is under- stood to be ordered by the managers of Concilia- tion Hall. If they thus expended all the funds levied from the duped multitude, none would cavil at the extortion ; for when all the brawlers will be silent in their graves, and the follies of the present hour long forgotten, this proud monument of well-directed patriotism will yet gladden the eyes of millions. The Bavarian artist. Wolf, among many impor- tant works for Berlin and Munich, has been com- missioned by Her Majesty of England to execute a statue of Prince Albert, by reason, perhaps, of his having many years ago (before the royal marriage) carved a bust of the Prince when here in Rome. Of the present work, which is nearly completed, it is enough to say that the likeness is unexceptionable. There is an elegant gentleness in the Royal Consort's expression, a smooth mild- ness, somewhat grotesquely contrasting, never- theless, with the warlike costume of a Roman legionary, in which (kilt included) he stands before you. There are the bronze buskins, the corslet, the studded belt. He grasps the Roman short sword, and leans on a round buckler, with dol- phins (?) carved thereon. It needs no prophetic FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. .27s soul to anticipate the future celebrity of this per- formance ; the ' hat ' was nothing to this : alas ! there is a sad dog in Fleet Street, an unscrupu- lous assailant of the most solemn tomfooleries — need I name the implacable ' Punch,' who, Hushed in grim repose, awaits his marble prey ! A Mr. Card well ^ of Manchester has modelled some very superior works ; he is just now en- gaged in modelling a wassail-bowl, which has been ordered by some patron of the Anglo- Norman period of art. It is supposed to re- present the favourite drinking-cup of him who wrote the ' Canterbury Tales,' as is indicated by the following suggestive inscription, which, in black letter, gracefully runs round " the tracery of the vase : — This be Chaucer hys cup : y« well of english undefiled. Painting in Rome ranks now but second to sculpture ; there is no use in asking why,^ but the 1 The Statesman, vol. i. p. 97. 2 At an artists' dinner last Christmas (the occurrence will be found later on) it was stated from the chair, and ratified by ' applause,' that the head-quarters of Sculpture must ever be Rome, as irremovable thence as the immobile saxum of her Capitol; but as for being still the head nurse of young painters, she performed that office of late somewhat after the fashion of her own she- wolf, and her udders were exhausted. T2 2 76 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. fact is undemiable : there is a much greater amount of relative talent among the brethren of the chisel than among the fraternity of the brush. Among the natives, Cavalier Podesti has succeeded to the emo- luments and office of the late Camuccini, a change considerably for the better. Brick- dust is now at a discount, and a more pleasing set of tints have been introduced on the Roman palette. Mere academic figures have been banished from the canvas, and some originality of design has super- seded the monotony of previous years. Yet is the Roman school far below that of Paris, London, and even Milan. In Podesti's studio there is, nevertheless, a Decameron which might vie with that of Winterhalter. It is decidedly more simple, and has more local truthfulness. Capalti is exquisite in portraiture, and Minardi unrivalled in linear drawing ; but the great attrac- tion is the studio of Cornelius. It were wrong to confound this painter with the servile adherents of Overbeck : he has burst the swaddling-clothes of ' early art,' and dashes off his subject with a noble freedom. He is now engaged on a series of cartoons for a grand cemetery to be painted in fresco at Berlin. The subjects are from the Book of Revelation, and also from his own teeming fancy : fon as I was contemplating one of the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 277 awful scenes of exterminating angels and so forth, a shield, with the word ' Waterloo,' caught my eye, and I soon discovered its possessor to be an elderly gentleman with a Roman nos6 and a Roman toga, whom an angel was tapping on the shoulder, to draw his attention to another elderly gentleman holding a child on the baptismal font, which I supposed to be His Prussian Majesty, standing godfather at Windsor Castle, in the costume ' of the period.' An American artist, Mr. Powell, confessedly the most clever of his people here, has shadowed out the plan of a picture representing • a rather hackneyed subject, viz. Columbus before the Council of Seville. In poetry as well as painting, the fault of these New Englanders is their want of individuality. There is nothing racy of the American soil about them. There will never be an American school of art at this rate.^ Power at Florence, has given freshness and 1 There is some value in any addition to the old worn-out nomenclature of professional criticism ; ' the correggiosity of Correggio, and the grand contour of Angelo.' At this American painter's studio, last October, lay on the easel the portrait, in progress, of a Mr. Habbakuk Bourne of Massachusetts, and that worthy citizen, being somewhat proud of his effigy, had brought a brother Yankee to give his opinion on the perform- ance. Silently did he scan the work of art, and ' 'tis a deuced TIGHT FIT ! ' revealed his deep appreciation. 278 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. originality to his marble busts ; he may be truly called the founder of Yankee sculpture. This style is quite his own. An able artist, as well as a connoisseur, Mr. Macpherson, has lately had the luck to purchase, at the breaking up of the great storehouse of Cardinal Fesch, an oaken panel, about four feet by five, which is covered with an unfinished painting of Christ borne to the sepulchre, now pronounced by the best judges in Rome, and by Cornelius, to be an undoubted oil picture by Buonarotti. equal in all its peculiarities to that in the Florentine ' Tribuna.' Its history is curious enough. It was purchased at Fano, on the Adriatic, for thirty-five bajocchi, in a barber's shop, where it had done duty for several centuries as a table, the back of the picture- having been polished for the upper surface of that piece of domestic furniture. The speculator who brought it to Rome sold it to the Cardinal at once for twenty-seven crowns, and it has lain among the lumber uncleaned ever since. The government, officer, Visconti, was ordered to put his seal on it — ne exeat regno — but, by some oversight, the custom-house functionary, Fioroni, allowed himself to be outwitted, and the valuable FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 279 oak board is now safe at Leghorn, under the pro- tection of the British flag. The same gentleman, whose researches in the interesting mine of Stuart antiquities have been rewarded by so many valuable Jacobite treasures (see 'Quarterly Review' for January 1847, art. 'Stuart Papers'), seems to possess a kind of Scottish second-sight, by which he instinctively recognises the presence of an old master. In the ' Odyssey' we have Ulysses, the 'old master' of Ithaca, after many years of defacing care and dis- figuring toils, still identified by canine sagacity. And a picture by Sebastian del Piombo (an un- questionable portrait of Vittoria Colonna, painted in her widowhood), was on the point of being scraped to utter destruction by an ignorant restorer, when Mr. Macpherson came, saw, and rescued the invaluable canvas and restored it to its name and origin. Cavalier Minardi, the first authority in Rome on these matters, has hailed and vouched for the discovery, which has derived singular corroboration from an acknowledged portrait of the lady in a Neapolitan collection. Since the bold revelation of Ossian by his dis- tinguished grand-uncle, there have been few such felicitous trouvailles. 28o FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Memorandum. — At the Caf6 del Greco, fre- quented by the children of art, the uninitiated visitor hears what sounds like an ' unknown tongue.' Those who gently ask the waiter for a Carlo Dolce are simple applicants for a very mild form of alcoholic stimulant ; while yon well-whis- kered individual, who prefers a stiff tumbler of grog, quickly conveys his meaning by calling for a Pietro Perugino ! Florence : April 29. Being here to pay a passing visit to some very dear friends, I do not omit to keep you au courant of what passes, and I am now in a position to tell you that the pear is ripening, if this Peninsula can be likened to a pear, when it bears so notoriously the semblance of a boot. Our Florence, ' the thrifty,' is situated on the shin-bone of that fan- ciful similitude, and Bologna, ' the fat ' forms naturally part of the calf ; while Genoa, ' the superb,' supposing the boot to be of the small Hessian model, would have to play the ornamental part of its then obligato appendage, the tassel. In this arrangement Lombardy and the Venetian territory would not be included within the leather at all, though undeniably belonging to the leg ; and Austria most undoubtedly thinks that where the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 281 leather ends the nationaHty ought to stop, as in the contract of Queen Dido : — Taurino quantum potuit circumdare tergo. We demur to this ; and it is proper that you should be cognisant of the present prospects and hopes of those (so-called enthusiastic) day-dreamers who look on the deliverance of Italy as at hand. Whilst these matters bore only the semblance of conjectual reports or fanciful combinations, I with- held any reference to their existence ; but as latterly certain outward manifestations and positive overt acts have borne evidence to the reality of what seemed doubtful, I no longer hesitate to put you in possession of what is no secret here. Within the last four months a remarkable change has been perceptible in the policy of the court of Turin. The old and long departed spirit of the Prince of Carignano of 1820 seemed to have revisited the glimpses of the moon, and even to have walked in open day. The tone given to public instruction by a new appointment ; the withdrawal of confidence from the Jesuits, who had been hitherto paramount ; the circulation given publicly to the patriotic theories and opinions of that noble-minded and intelligent Christian philosopher Gioberti (whose liberal views are yet 282 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. combined with strict adherence to Catholic ortho- doxy) ; the permission given to the refugees of 1820 to revisit Piedmont and Genoa, the increase of the army to over 100,000 well-discipHned troops, all natives of Upper Italy ; the selection of Genoa as the rendezvous of all the scientific minds and daring souls of the Peninsula, who are to gather an immense force and unanimity there next September — all these indications of ulterior views on the part of King Carlo Alberto have spread alarm and dismay among the Austrian authorities at Milan. The objects contemplated are perfectly obvious. ' Italy for the Italians,' is the ill-sup- pressed ' cry ' on every lip. Hence a rapid march of numerous Hungarian and Bohemian regiments into the provinces of Lombardy ; hence a strength- ening of the garrisons along the frontier. Explanations have been sought by the old Mephistophiles of Vienna, and he has received evasive replies. The mild game of diplomacy is found to be of no use here ; there are no Galician peasantry here to let loose on Italian noblemen. What is to be done } Foreign bayonets are brought down in plenty, and the slightest commo- tion will give an opportunity to test their efficacy. Meantime, the war of custom-house vexations has already commenced. Within the last few FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 283 days we learn that the duty on Piedmontese wine has been considerably augmented at the frontier of Lombardy ; you are aware that immense supplies of that article pass from Piedmont into the neighbouring territory, less productive in vineyards, and subject to Austria. Another and most significant change has taken place in the relative bearing of Milan and Turin towards each other. Hitherto the subjects of both dominions having landed property in both were allowed all the rights of reciprocal citizenship, and were in the enjoyment of a twofold protection, coupled with a twofold allegiance. Lately the Austrian authorities have given notice that all his Imperial Majesty's subjects so situated must make their election, and declare themselves lieges of either the Kaiser or of the King. A further measure has been adopted (still on the part of Austria). Hitherto the farmers and peasantry on the imme- diate frontier could pass to and fro with a docu- ment anmially renewed. Now, there must be a special and distinct passport for each time they pass the boundary. It is reported that, to meet the increase of duty on Piedmontese wines, the court of Turin is about to increase the customs on all the woollen and other tissues of Bohemian origin, and to retaliate right and left on the 284 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Emperor. We shall see. War may be carried on by tariffs. Nous frapperons Falck with twenty per cent. The facts suggest their own commentary. That commentary is freely made in the Univer- sities of Pisa and Bologna, and wherever the youth of Italy congregate ; nor do elderly men draw any different conclusion of what is going on. The Italians have ceased to look to France for aid — Can Gaul or Muscovite befriend ye ? No. — Byron. They are learning self-reliance, and if the principle of non-intervention is sustained, short work will be made of the foreigner. Of course you gave no credit to the rumour that Renzi had been secretly executed in the castle of St. Angelo. The Roman government dare not indulge in such a luxury of vengeance, however palatable tosomeof Metternich's disciples at the Vatican ; but the next best thing was to murder his character, and that has been attempted by the Austrian embassy here, to which I have traced the report prevalent last week, ' that Renzi had turned informer, and given in a long list of secret rebels of Ancona, Bologna, Forli, and Perugia.' None believed it, when the question of FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 285 Renzi's extradition to the Papal government was under consideration in the council of our Grand Duke, and ultimately carried by the influence and threats of Austria. It is understood that one of our Florentine jurists, a member of that council, and favourable to the views of despotism in this case, was Judge Buonarotti. Alas ! for the lineage of Michael Angelo ! The popularity of our Leopold, shaken for a while, is re-established by his firmness in resisting the first attempts at in- trodvicing the Jesuits into Tuscany. The Univer- sity of Pisa, which took so prominent a part on that occasion, is by far the most advanced and enlightened body in this peninsula, and their sympathy with Poland in the late struggle was allowed free scope. They subscribed to the fund raised in Paris, and openly denounced the tyranny of the northern courts — a step which neither at Rome, Naples, nor Modena, would be tolerated a single moment by the paternal rulers of those re- spective prison-houses. At the approaching scientific congress at Genoa, I am given to understand that the govern- ment of Turin will , connive at (if not originate) the centenary commemoration of the levying of the siege of that republican capital and the with- drawal of the Austrian forces from before its 286 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. walls on the memorable occasion. This is plain speaking. Numbers of the Piedmontese and Genoese clergy are to harangue the people in the churches on the subject of that signal triumph of their fatherland over the invader. To promote sympathy and brotherhood among the states of Italy seems to be the watchword of the patriots. Already have the municipality of Genoa determined on restoring to Pisa the colossal chains which adorn the Cathedral of St. Lawrence and the mole, and which were maritime trophies carried off many centuries ago by the Genoese fleet, when Pisa had a fleet and harbour to guard with the aforesaid chains. A deputation is to be sent, and a warm interchange of patriotic feelings will doubtless ensue. Bologna. , The tenure by which the Pope retains his half dozen ' Legations ' north of the Apennines resem- bles somewhat the hold which the Grand Turk had on Algiers, and still has on the regency of Tunis. He cannot keep them with a tight hand, and must be satisfied with a lax grasp and a loose rein. His Pashas have done their duty if the tribute bags be duly remitted to the Papal trea- sury, and all minor disarrangements must be FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 287 winked at. The people of Bologna, in particular, are rather unwilling to be kept in leading-strings. When writing from Rome, I transmitted to you the late edict against gas published in the metro- polis, and which was, of course, there submitted to with a slight growl. No such childish manifesto would be tolerated here. The municipal authori- ties have at this moment in active construction three large gas-works for the public lighting of this active and industrious town, notwithstanding the well-known displeasure felt thereat at head- quarters. Their indignation at the refusal of railroads is intense, seeing that the whole line from Florence to Leghorn, with a branch to Sienna, will be open next year. It will go hard with the multitudinous lay dependents and clerical hangers-on about the Papal court when these provinces fail them. Bologna is the grand milch-cow from which these babes of grace derive their alimentary supplies, and without the Legations the whole system could not last a single day. Hence any peace-offering to Austria, any bribe to Louis Philippe, any com- plaisance to Prussia, sooner than lose this vacca sacra. The animal is exceedingly restive mean- time, Fsenum habet in comu.-i-c.T.X. 288 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. and no wonder, considering the perpetual drain on its resources, receiving nothing in return save a present of two Swiss regiments (of 4,000 men each) to keep it in order, assisted by a regiment of Pontifical dragoons. When it is stated that the principal portion of the Papal income is collected here and transmitted over the mountains, it were well to remind you of what that income is, and how further circum- stanced, in order that those who shall have reco- vered their money out of the railway deposits may have the option of investing the same in Roman five per cents. It is well then to remember that the total revenue of the Roman states is somewhat under two millions sterling ; but the expense of collecting it being about 460,000/. there remains a net income of 1,540,000/. In 1834 the public debt was 6,300,000/ Since then other loans have been contracted, at various rates of usury : one last year, from the tobacco broker, Torlonia, for two million dollars. The interest of the public debt, payable in Paris and Milan, absorbs annually 560,000/ and upwards. The different heads under which the revenue may be classified will indicate the form of taxation used in the Roman states ; it stands thus in dol- lars ; — FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 289 The receipts of the land-tax, tax on grinding com, i, and other praedial taxes ..... 3,280,000 The tobacco and salt monopoly, and all custom duties, principally at Ancona 4,120,000 The stamp duties, and all fees for registration . 550,000 The post-office department, most miserably managed 250,000 The sale of lottery tickets to the Roman people . 1,100,000 Total' ...... 9,100,000 Now when it is added that the annual expen- diture of this government amounts to the sum of 10,154,000 dollars, the deficit ^3.^ coming year, 'casting its shadow before,' is about 1,000,000 dollars, or exactly 222,222/. The shades deepen as day declines : — Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant, Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrse ! Methinks the obvious consequences are duly felt by so intelligent a mind as yours ; as Sterne has it — 'Shall I go on 1 No ! ' Yet it is not unimportant to observe how, and at what expense, these taxes are gathered, in order that your people at the treasury may take a lesson in economy : — The cost of collecting the land-tax and other prsedial imposts, is 23 per cent The customs are levied and transmitted at a cost of 1 1 „ The stamps are distributed and registries effected at 16 „ The post-office is managed at a charge of . 60 „ The machinery of lottery tickets for poor gamblers costs the revenue 69 » U 290 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. You can find the average from these data. This last item, viz. the income made by en- couraging gambhng propensities in the ignorant vulgar, is a subject too serious to be dismissed in a passing notice. I promise to anatomise this part of the Roman system in detail, and exhibit its demoralising operation in full. I have only sought here to give you some insight into . the mere financial condition of the eclesiastical domi- nions. Returning to the affairs of this capital town, centre of the ' Legations,' its principal feature is of course its world-famous and time-honoured univer- sity. In the present fallen condition of this once celebrated ' Alma Mater ' may be traced the degrading influence of the modern Roman court and the unblushing effrontery with which these selfish worldlings trample out the torch of science. Shortly after the few months of emancipation which this territory enjoyed in 1831, the first act of the Papal legate was to issue an edict confining the benefit of university education to youths born in the district, and forbidding all others to ap- proach the schools ; at one fell swoop sweeping off more than half the aspirants after knowledge. Numbers of students from the Levant, from Greece, from Dalmatia, and other countries, were FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 291 thus sent off to other founts of learning, and the halls of Bologna have ever since borne resemblance to those of Balclutha in desolation. Every prof- fessor of eminence was either banished or kidnap- ped. Mezzo/ante, whom Byron found here in the good old days of the university, was induced by the splendid bribe of a red hat to quit the scene of his early distinction, and mingle with the mob of courtly valets at the Vatican. Jurisprudence and medicine, which were so highly cultivated for so many centuries, are now both in the most languishing state, and the very School of Divinity, when compared to that of Munich, Bonn, or even Louvain, is much below par, and far beneath contempt. The only academy here which may be truly described as flourishing and full of vitality is the Lyceum of Musical Science, presided over and kept alive by the im- mortal Rossini. It is the policy of all despotisms to encourage the enervating arts, and to turn, if possible, the energies of youth into the volup- tuous paths and mazes of elegant sensuality. Motus docere gaudet lonicos, and music has effectually done for Italy what tobacco did for the Turks. Ever since the in- troduction of operas here and chibouks there, V 2 292 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT: all energy has departed as well from the children of Dante as the followers of the Prophet. The old Saracen sword was left to rust in the scabbard, to be replaced by the peaceful pipe ; and the war- cry of the Viscontis, the Gonzagas, old Dandolo, and old Doria, have been superseded by the modern modulations of some Signor Squallini, ' of Her Majesty's Theatre,' late from the Scala or the Pergola. It is pitiful to see the young nobles of this once valorous land totally absorbed, day and night, in the frivolities of the gamut. The chairs of jurisprudence and medicine can scarcely be expected to attract the ambition of any intelligent professor in a country where a free exercise of the mental faculties is looked upon with jealous distrust and forthwith surrounded with a cordon sanitaire of espionnage, sure to end in malignant misrepresentation. Yet, notwith- standing Rome's horror of innovation in science, and though up to this day that common instrument the stethoscope is not admitted into the hospitals (an English doctor who used it having been nick- named the ' dottor della tromba '), some old ladies in the metropolis have had influence enou|di at the Roman court to obtain toleration, and even patronage, for 'homoeopathy!' In the middle of last Lent, the Dowager Princess Piom- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 293 bino was so treated for hernia, by a notorious homoeopathic practitioner, and, of course, died, under circumstances that would render a coroner's inquest inevitable in England. Instead of beggars, who used to beset you at every turn in Rome, your eye will be here met in every direction by the well-known northern visages of the Swiss mercenaries. Their scowl is returned with interest by the civilised inhabitants, and even the native soldiers owe them a heavy grudge because of their double pay and extra allowance of brandy and kirschwasser. You have visited Rome, and there have admired the gentler manly beefeaters, clad in harlequin costume, loung- ing about the saloons of the Vatican, but you must not think you have seen any part of a Swiss regiment. These organised janissaries are always kept here in the Legations, and are the main cause of the deficit in the Roman finances ; there are now about 8,600 of these Vandals fed and pampered by a bankrupt government to overawe the people who pay for all. When the last year's loan was contracted, and the two millions paid by Torlonia into the Papal treasury, do not think that the money was for a moment destined, even in imagination, to the revival of trade, the opening or repairing of roads, the encouragement of manu- 294 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. factures, or fisheries, or .mines, or* public works — not a bit of it — the ' ApostoHc chamber,' as it humorously calls itself (they call the same thing an ' Aulic council' at Vienna), laid out the money at once in soldiers ; they purchased up at once some prime lots of bludgeon-men in the most brutal and ignorant valleys of Switzerland, and they now think themselves safe while the pay and provender can be provided. Let there be the slightest misintelligence be- tween the courts of Turin and the authorities of Lombardy, the Legations rise to a man, and aid the northei'n Italians to sweep the country of every beer-drinking boor in the length and breadth of the land. Methinks I have said enough to persuade those happy people in England called ' scrip-holders,' who have recovered their deposits from the com- mittee-men, to invest this so happily recuperated capital in Roman Fives. Milan: May 12. The attitude of open hostility assumed by the authorities of Lombardy towards the court of Turin, so promptly met, on the part of Piedmont, by scorn and defiance, is a new feature in the aspect of Italian politics, and you will have been FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 295 the first to put the English public in possession of this startling change in the prospects of Southern Europe. The situation is not altered, and the note is rather crescendo than symptomatic of abatement. The utmost activity reigns in all the public departments ; the war and police offices are at work night and day, and strangers arriving from Lower Italy or the Swiss frontier give the most ludicrous accounts of the vexatious exami- nations they and their passports have to undergo in the general panic. The movement has com- municated itself to the small adjacent territories more or less depending on Austi'ia. The young Duke of Modena has precipitately left his capital and fallen back on Reggio. The Archduchess Maria Louisa has left Parma in a most unex- pected manner, and retreated upon Placentia. The consternation and alarm would be most amusing, did they not indicate a most conscience- stricken admission of imbecility, usurpation, in- trusion, and recognised wrong. The whole policy of Metternich seems to go to pieces at a single kick, and Austria stands here in the predicament, not of a European power, but of a member of the swell-mob detected in flagrante, and exposed to general derision. 296 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Con arte e con inganno Si vive mezzo I'anno ; Con inganno e con arte Si vive I'altra parte ! It is true that I have my own suspicions as to the real cause of the sudden flight of the young Duke and the concurrent and synchronous hegira of the imperial widow. Politics may have some- thing to do in the matter, but Thrift ! Horatio, thrift ! Economy was one among the propellent motives. You must have learnt how the King of Naples was cleared out by the visit of the Czarina : the rumour of culinary ravages committed by the Russian locusts set every Italian court aghast ; Tuscany trembled at the approach of this female Attila, with her famished hordes. The Grand Duke, however, is rich, and he put the best face he could on the matter ; he even went out of his way to give a grand gas illumination of the whole quay of the Arno, from the Ponte Trinita to the new gas-works. He got but small thanks and poor courtesy in return from these haughty folks. They departed, however, and set out over the Apennines northwards, no exact route having been announced, and hence the complicated terror of the petty courts on the high road. At Bologna it FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 297 was reported that not a sausage remained un- devoured, and the imperial caravan, numbering about one hundred and fifty mouths, was announced as within half a day's journey of Modena What could the young and poor-spirited sovereign of the beggarly town do but run away ? He had no ' Caleb Balderstone ' among his ministers to get up a mock feast of shreds and patches and apologies ; or, perhaps, to set fire at once to his dreary and lumbersome old palazzo. Buonaparte's widow has been making a purse for her children by Nieperg these fifteen years, and has succeeded thereby in marrying one of them into the noblest family of Parma. She had no notion of wasting the revenues of her duchy on itinerant empresses, though she was once (like Dido) an itinerant herself — Non ignara mali, &c. &c. She has, you know, but a life-interest in the sovereignty of these dominions, and everything shows the dilapidated and desolate condition to which such a tenure is sure to reduce a kingdom as well as any other kind of landed or household property. After her death, Parma and Placentia become the estate of the Duke of Lucca, whose little duchy reverts to the neighbouring state of Tuscany. These are nice little family arrange- 298 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ments, but there is a little bird that sings a note of warning aloft, and the tenor of its song, if not fa ira, is something tantamount. It may not be the ' rogue's march,' but possibly an air more polite from the Gazza Ladra. People will have their own again. It will be perhaps urged, in respect to the provender with which Maria Louisa could furnish her Russian visitors, that Parmesan cheese might supply a piece de resistance capable of blunting their exorbitant appetite. Those who make the suggestion are not probably aware that the cheese in question, owing to the neglect of successive rulers, is no longer a staple of either Parma or Placentia ; scarce a pound of it is made here, and the whole manufacture is now carried on beyond the Po, in the pasturages that surround Lodi. Many are the melancholy changes which have befallen the cities of Lombardy ; and many more are expected. Verona, from being a most refined, gentle, and industrious town, is now transformed into a barrack, and within the last week is made uninhabitable by intrenchments, bristling cannon, and barred gates. Mantua, which was once, in the bosom of its limpid lake, with its long causeways and glittering domes, the Mexico of Italy, has seen its water drawn off into stagnant ditches, its FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 299 churches changed into cavalry stables, and its artistic courtly Dukes replaced by a sauerkraut- eating Field-Mareghal. The splendours of Monte- zuma have vanished, and the glories of Gonzaga are gone ! yet what poet is found to weep over Mantuan decay ? Why is there no sympathy for such desolation ? Perhaps the neighbouring widowhood of the ' sea Cybele ' — of Venice — has monopolised our deplorings, and none are left for Mantua ; the Virgilian town suffering in this instance from its vicinity to la bella Venezia, as it did of old from its ' too great proximity to Cre- mona : ' Mantua vse miserse nimium vicina Cremonae ! The demise of Gregory XVI. was the period originally fixed for a new organisation of this country ; but it is pleasant to learn that the vene- rable old Pontiff is yet likely to last a year or two ; a swelling in the legs^ has been announced in my ' It has since been ascertained that one of his medical advisers strongly urged, as the only chance of prolonging his life, immediate amputation of the left leg. Gregory was thun- derstruck at the unheard-of proposal. From the earliest per- sonal records of the Popes, compiled by ' Anastasius the Libra- rian^ down to this day, there had been no precedent for a Pontiff with a wooden leg. His horror of innovation, which vented itself upon gas and railroads, here produced a repug- nance which swayed his mind even at the peril of his life. He 30O FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. last Roman advices ; his general health is, how- ever, wonderful for his age. With all his political mistakes (and what could a poor monk have learnt in his cell of this wicked world's ways ?) the Roman Bishop is, after all, a genuine honest character. When he dies, you may fairly repro- duce the words of your Lord Bacon, concerning his namesake and predecessor : — ' Gregory XIII. fulfilled the age of eighty-three years, an absolute good man, sound in mind and in body, temperate, full of good works, and an almsgiver.' — (' Novum Organum.' Chapter of Life and Death.) It would be premature to hint anything as to his probable successor ; though more is likely to be known here in Genoa about the matter than at Rome itself This city has had the luck to produce and possess no less than six of the most influential Cardinals, for the Genoese get a footing anywhere ; they are not unlike the Scotch in promoting and assisting their countrymen. The secretary of state, Lambruschini, is from this town, so is Franzoni, head of the Propaganda, and spiritual ruler of all your Hiberno- British scouted the proposition. There is something impressive in the old man's consistency, reminding us of the sublime outburst in Tacitus. — Oportet Imperatorem stantem raori ! FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 301 colonies. Next conclave will be most interesting, if not to England, to Russia, France, Germany, and Spain, who are, each after its fashion, already busy in the electoral field. Of course no one thinks of Acton for the tiara, though in every respect a naturalised Italian, and a most obliging, modest, and un- presuming prelate : it were time nevertheless that old Nicholas Breakspeare (Adrian IV.) had a successor from your part of Europe, were it only to rebut the prevalent notion that the Italians have made a snug job of the popedom for them- selves. Was it not your late friend Tom Hood who left on record his truly (Ecumenical senti- ments : — My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven, All men I view with toleration thorough. And have a horror of regarding heaven As any prince or prelate's rotten borough. Apropos of your solitary English cardinal, it is rather curious to trace the origin of his red hat to the quarter-deck of a ship in the last century. If you look at Smollett's ' Letters from Italy ' — a book which got him the nickname of Dr. Smell- fungus from Sterne, his rival in this branch of itinerant literature — you will find a passage dated January 28, 1 765, from Leghorn : — ' He that now 302 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT, commands the Emperor's navy is an Englishman called Acton, who was heretofore captain of a ship in our East India Company's service. He has recently embraced the Catholic religion, and been created Admiral of Tuscany. In this curious record of the Italian branch of the Actons, a family which boasts of two baronetcies in England, you will admire the energies of your Anglo-Saxon race in taking root when transplanted. You will also recognise in the Roman eminence attained by the offspring of a seafaring adventurer, some- thing already illustrated in the opening lines of the ' ^neid : ' Fato profugus Liburnia venit Littora: multum ille et terris jactatus et alto .... genus unde Latin um Albanique Patres. There is no further political overt act to commu- nicate ; the fermentation goes on steadily. The Jesuits here help it on by their efforts to regain the mastery over the King's present advisers ; but it is all fruitless intrigue. The parochial clergy at Genoa are to a man on the popular side, and the pulpit will shortly become the vehicle of patriotic appeals to an awakening people. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 303 I have had the good luck to get from Mar- seilles an early copy of your ' Pictures,' ^ in which this city occupies the foreground. I have just glanced through the work, the tone and tendency of which I fain would notice at full leisure. With- out indulging in political diatribes, a la Lady Morgan (indeed morg^^e, as the French call it, or presumption of any sort, is alien to your gentle nature), you have done Italy yeoman's service. I am rather glad you have not adopted the out- ward semblance of a politician, whatever may be the real working of your spirit, nofi, optat ephippia JBoz. ' Dickens' ' Pictures from Italy.' CHAPTER VI. BETWEEN THE OLD REGIME AND THE NEW CHAPTER VI. BETWEEN THE OLD REGIME AND THE NEW. It is well known that His Holiness Pope Gregory .XVI. (called in that branch of the Benedictine order to which he belonged, Don Mauro Capellari), departed this life June i, on the very day that the people in England were reading in a morning journal of recent birth those kind and considerate reflections on his memory which are to be found at page loi of his re- markable volume, and which Don Jeremy wrote on May 24 at Genoa. It would appear that at Genoa our author embarked for his native island of Sardinia on a visit to his family and friends at Cagliari, and consequently no record exists from his- pen of the transactions that occurred during the conclave which immediately assembled at Rome, and eventuated in the happy election of Count John Mastai Ferretti. I was not in Rome myself then, nor indeed at X 2 3o8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. any other time, but I don't consider that an im- pediment to my speculating accurately upon the affairs of the Catholic capital ; rather the contrary, as I thereby enjoy the advantage of that respect- ful distance which is known to lend enchantment to the view. The best and most circumstantial works on Roman topography have been written by honest Germans who never crossed the Alps in their lives ; and my laborious friend Desborough Cooly, author of that astonishing book, the ' Negro- land,' knows every corner of Africa better than Mahomed AH or Marshal Bugeaud, though his travels, except an occasional trip to Gravesend, have been mostly confined to the reading-roont of the British Museum, among the writings of old Jesuit missionaries. The Museum library is a great national work- house where the paupers of literature are employed in elaborating the materials of their dead fellow- creatures into a useful kind of literary guano for the cultivation of the public mind. Much has been said during the last days of the late Parlia- ment about a great case of bone-crushing at An- dover, in Hampshire, and considerable sympathy has been elicited for the bumpkins engaged in that pursuit. The result is — a big blue-book added to the stock in our Museum. But I hope FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 309 when we get a fresh House of Commons, with a reasonable admixture of hterary men among the knights of the shire and the burgesses, something will be said in favour of us poor devils, who in seedy garments and with lank visages spend our days up to old age in the silent task-work of grinding into an available compost or composition the ossuary fragments of our defunct predecessors. It is not perhaps right on my part to let the public into the secret of our operations, thus telling tales out of school ; but I have latterly become quite reckless, and as I am paid sO much a page I may as well let the cat out of the bag, and eke out twenty pages which I have bargained to write for Don Jeremy Savonarola, by gossiping on the process by which such business is generally accomplished. Thus the topic being given, as in the present instance it happens to be the conclave held at Rome last year, the general practitioner in litera- ture hunts out any accounts he may be able to find of by-gone conclaves, and starts with a preliminary dissertation on elective monarchy as * compared with hereditary kingship. He may then become etymological, and show how these assem- blies are so called, because of their being held under lock and key (con chiave), and also their 310 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. having for object to decide into whose custody the key of heaven is to be committed, being composed of cardinals, so named, rather oddly, perhaps, from the term cardines, the hinges of a door. He may then indulge in a slight digression on the cardinal virtues, making honourable mention of the four cardinal points, and of a recent item of fashionable haberdashery. But if he means to astonish the public by the depth of his researches and the extent of his erudition, he will never confine himself to common- place dissertations, nor bound his enquiries within the limits of the 290,000 printed books to be had at the Museum. He will make a plunge into the more recondite department of manuscript, and grope with desperate daring through the MS. repositories of our national collection. This is the plan which I follow myself In the present instance I have ferreted out (and the documents are all now lying before me), a complete assortment of the squibs, placards, and pasquinades put forth at Rome during the several conclaves of — Urban VHI {Barberini.) Innocent X [Pamphili.) Alexander VII. . . . {Ckigi.) Clement IX. . . . ,. {Rospigliosi.) FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 311 Clement X [Altieri.) Innocent XI {Odescalcki.) Alexander VIII. . . . \ottoboni) Innocent XII {Pignatelli.) Clement XI [A 13am.) ending with Innocent XIII. . . . {Conti.) and embracing a period of exactly one hundred years, viz. from 1621 to 1721. The collection appears to have been the work of an impartial amateur, and though the handwriting is peculiar, you can make it out by an occasional, guess. It is numbered in Sir Fred. Madden's catalogue, 10806 addit. MS. These spontaneous outbursts of popular hu- mour, applause, indignation, or sarcasm, as the occasion might suggest, are the only true mirror in which we can get a glimpse of the real state of affairs in any country where there is no free press; and consequently they are far more to be relied on (making every allowance for personality and passion) than the solemn humbug of history from the pen of an enslaved or hired historian. In Milton's celebrated plea for liberty in matters of the press, a treatise of wondrous logical power and manly common sense, the ' old man eloquent ' dwells scornfully on the necessity existing in a 312 PINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. government like that of Rome of submitting every scrap of print to a Dominican friar, ' master of the sacred palace,' without whose imprimatur nothing has ever been suffered to go forth to the Roman world. Is the world in its infancy, that it is to be treated as a child ? Pius IX. now says ' No ! ' Considering them in this point of view, I must say that a very comprehensive, and, at the same time, very minute knowledge may be acquired of Roman society and the prevalent characteristics of civil and ecclesiastical life in that city during the period in question from these remarkable MSS. Hinc septem dominos videre montes Et totam licet contemplari Romam. Though much will depend on the construction which each reader's previous prejudices will prompt in disparagement or in favour of that Eternal City. Veuve d'un Peuple Roy et Reine encor' du monde ! There is vast variety of matter as well as style in prose and verse, and, with some doggrel, a good intermingling of terse and beautiful poetry in this voluminous assortment of Roman personalities. I have too great a respect for old Jeremy's book, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 313 and too great a regard for good taste in general, to quote in this volume any of the more objection- able parts of the collection, though the moralist and historian rnay be considerably enlightened in their severe researches by the perusal of every line. Too much of this pervades the memorials of the earlier conclaves, which became gradually, as public men began to be more amenable to public opinion in Europe, less characterised by open intrigue and a barefaced contempt of de- corum. Hence I would confine myself to the last assembly of the kind chronicled in the MS., which was a severe electioneering contest, but ended very satisfactorily in the choice of Inno- cent XIII. Among the candidates was the famous Car- dinal Alberoni. From being a bell-ringer in the cathedral of his native town, he had risen to be a canon of Parma, where, by turning marriage- broker to Philip v., for whom he secured the hand of Elizabeth Farnese, Princess of Parma, he quickly became prime minister, bishop, cardinal, and grandee of Spain. In a few years he raised the fallen monarchy into a condition to be the dominant power in Europe (Louis XIV. had just died), and exhibited an energy and diplomatic skill which threw Richelieu and Mazarin, and 314 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. even his great predecessor Cardinal Ximenes, into the shade. Resembling in many points our own great political Cardinal Wolsey, his rise as well as his fall was the work of female influence, and one Laura, the Queen's nurse, bribed by the Regent Orleans, achieved his disgrace and downfall. Like Wolsey, he also aspired to the Papal throne, and when forced to quit Spain attended the conclave of 1721 in the character of a candidate. Among other squibs directed against his pretensions, I select this as being almost sublime in its splendid introduction of a passage from the prophecies of Daniel. A Blast against Cardinal Alberoni, candidate for the Tiara (the son of an old gardener in Parma), 1721. Aleero, che fra noi t'estolli e ti dai vanto, Ch'il mar' adombri e'l sol e il ciel riempi, Volgi I'idea nei gik trascorsi tempi, Ne di tuoi fasti insuperbia cotanto. Deh non hai tu letto nel libro santo, Pieno per te di raemorandi esempi, Che Iddio grida destruttor degli empi, L'Albero si recida e cada infranto.' Tal contra Te non meno funesta e atroce Qual turbo orrendo infra spelonca alpina Tuona del ciel I'inesorabil' voce, E della tua caduta ormai vicina Air avemo, all' orco, alia tartarea foce Si udira rimbombar la tua ruina ! ' Daniel iv. it. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUj;. 315 Asa curious specimen of the freedom of invec- tive publicly indulged in on those occasions, and the existence in Rome of a strong spirit of irreve- rence towards the governing powers both in Church and State, I select the following lampoon against the whole body of the red-hatted dignitaries, pre- ferring to give a sample of wholesale abuse than to transcribe more specific onslaughts on indivi- dual character with which the collection abounds. A SILLY Diatribe on the Conclave of 1721. Fan consilio gli volpi in Vaticano : Guardate a vostri polli, Aquila e Gallo ! • Che in conclave vi h piii d'un capel giallo E pill d'un Turco in abito Cristiano. II Macchiavel vi sta Tofficio in mano ; Veggonsi ogni or : per non commetter fallo ; Pill d'un man' vi fe ch' ha fatt' il callo Nel tesser frodi ; e ogni inganno strano. Non pill colomba, ma fiamme di fuoco, Per abbrucciar in un tutto il conclave, Scendi, Spirito Santo ! in questo luoco ! Affonda col nochier anche la nave, Atterra i rei ! di te si prendon giuoco ; Che in man' di Ladri non sta ben la Chiave. After that, it is but fair to give an example of the laudatory style, which portion of the MS. is, I regret to say, less plentifully furnished than the ' France and Germany. 3i6 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. uncharitable part, being thus an accurate mirror of human society. The activity of friendly poets on these occasions never seems to equal the energetic labours of critics and foes. It must have been a period of great gain to the hirelings of Parnassus, for I perceive (with a blush for our gentle craft) that most of the eulogies bear Internal evidence of having been paid for in solid zecchini. Here is a poetic recommendation, which to a careful reader would seem rather ironical : — A Puff for Cardinal Barberini, candidate for the Popedom, 1721. O Iddio ! non avrai gia mai pensato Ritrovar fra noi simil persone ; Tessuto aver' e favole e cansone, E tutto contra un tal buon' porporato ! Si ti vuol ramentar ch' egli sia stato II punitor del empio e del bricone E prottetor solo delle pie persone ; E piu buon di lui non si e trovato. Regirator lo chiam e avaro. O ! indegno E quanta opera col' senno e colla mano Fe che superi ogni piii sano ingegno. Si fe Papa, buon per te, popol' Romano ! Vi danno Tape in ogni strada I'insegno Di quel che ffe in tuo ben' I'ottavo Urbano. The allusion to the heraldic bees towards the close of this sonnet is Intelligible to everyone who FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 317 has visited Rome, as in the Piazza di Spagna, all round Propaganda College, cut stone emblems of that industrious insect are visible, and in various other parts of the city. The institution of that college is the greatest work of the Barberini family, one of whom, as in our own day, is always on the board of management ; and no other college or society has done so much for the enlightenment of the heathen and the diffusion of Christianity. This brings to my memory a most classical puff, which, though not stuck on Pasquin's effigy like the rest, and not contained in these MSS., nevertheless was circulated at the election of Urban VIII., founder of the Propaganda. The poet on this occasion was the famous Jesuit father, Sarbieski, a distinguished Polish nobleman, who was subsequently employed by the Pope in polish- ing up and rendering less barbarous the Latin hymns of the Roman breviary. How far he was adequate to that or any other difficult task in the range of Horatian accomplishments, the connois- seur in classic Latinity will quickly perceive on reading : — Ad Apes Barberinas (162 i). I. Gives Hymetti, gratus Atticas lepos, Virginias volucres, Flavseque veris filiae ! 3i8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. II. Fures rosarum, turba prasdatrix thymi, Nectaris artifices, Bonseque runs hospitse ! III. Laboriosis quid juvat volatibus Rus et agros gravidis Perambulare cruribus ? IV. Si Barberino delicata principe Ssecula melle fluant Parata vobis saecula ! It is, perhaps, very impudent on the part of a mere literary hack, as I humbly confessed myself, in undertaking for Don Jeremy these intercalary pages, to submit any poetry of mine for inspec- tion, but having translated Sarbieski's lines to my own satisfaction, I cannot help printing them here. To THE Armorial Bees of Barberini (162 i). I. Citizens of Mount Hymettus, Attic labourers who toil, Never ceasing, till ye get us Winter store of honeyed spoil. II. Ye, who nectar, (sweets, and odours), Hebes of the hive ! compose, Flora's privileged marauders. Chartered pirates of the rose. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 319 III. Every flower and plant ye touch on, Wears at once a fresher grace ; Bees ! ye form the proud escutcheon Of the Barberini race. IV. Emblem bright ! which to embroider (While her knight was far away), Many a maiden hath employed her Fairy fingers night and day. Bees ! though pleased your flight I gaze on, In the garden or the field, Brighter hues your wings emblazon On the Barberini shield ! VI. Hitherto a rose's chalice Held thee, winged artisan. But thou fill est now the palace Of the gorgeous Vatican. Of that race a Pontiff reigneth, Sovereign of Imperial Rome, Lo ! th' armorial Bee obtaineth For its hive St. Peter's Dome ! VIII. And an era now commences, By a friendly genius planned ; Princely Bee, Urban dispenses Honeyed days throughout the land. 320 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. IX. Seek no more, with tuneful humming, Where the juicy floweret grows ; Halcyon days for you are coming. Days of plenty and repose. X. Rest ye ! workmen, blythe and bonny, Be no more the cowslips suckt: Honeyed flows the Tiber ; honey Fills each Roman aqueduct. XI. Myrtle groves are fast distilling Honey ; honey'd falls the dew, .A.ncient prophecies fulfilling ; A millennium for you. Turning aside for the present from the con- templation of these former conclaves, and entering on the subject of that recent assembly which elected Count John Mastai Ferretti, his present Holiness, no documents have been put into my hands by which I might hope to elucidate the various influences which contributed to bring about that happy result. Confessedly, things had gone on during Gregory's sixteen years of reign from feebleness to dotage, and from bad to worse. The finances were in an awful state ; the trade , and commerce of the country depressed, paralysed, and in despair ; the cultivation of science in every FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 321 department clogged and discountenanced ; no hope, no buoyancy in any of the Hberal professions ; deep-rooted discontent among the people, open rebellion in the Legations ; corruption in every branch of civil and in some departments of eccle- siastical administration ; dogged reluctance to adopt any system of amelioration ; stupid ad- herence to worn-out expedients and by-gone tra- ditions of red-tapery ; the approach of Ruin looked at with the calm stolidity of an idiot who hugs himself to the last in the cherished monotony of routine and fatalism. Such was the state of things at the close of the late reign. Added to this internal state of general decay, the overpowering predominance of a European power, the shadow of whose black eagle hovering over the Roman territory caused a ' dim eclipse,' / and scared all aspirations and hopes of a better future. This gigantic nightmare was far more felt in the Pontifical dominions than in Upper Italy, where slavery had its counterbalancing accompaniment of mere brute prosperity and physical enjoyments, which, among well-fed negroes, will always lessen the pangs of their prison-house, if they cannot eradicate the longing for freedom. But in the Papal States none of the common material efforts at amelioration pre- Y 322 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUl. valent in Lombardy were objects of adminis- trative solicitude. All was desolate, barren, waste, and dilapidated, beyond the graphic pic- turing of the inspired writer who has left on solemn record his landscape of the field tenanted by an idle man, with its fences broken down, and its other evidences of sad improvidence. Proverbs, xxiv. Ver. 30. I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding ; 31. And lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. 32. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. 33. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep : 34. So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth ; and thy want as an armed man ! It was at a crisis like this that old Gregory at last died. What followed I may leave to a poet to describe ; for, singularly enough, the conclave of 1846 has been foreseen, and allegorically adum- brated, in an episode called ' The Monks and the Giants,' as far back as the year 18 18, when Robert FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 323 and William Whistlecraft, harness and collar makers, at Stowmarket in Suffolk, published their proposed National Poem, of which Mr. Murray, of Albemarle Street, printed four cantos. In the fourth canto is the following prophetic narrative, which speaks for itself, and saves me the trouble of entering into details : — XVII. We wheeled him out, you know, to take the air ; It must have been an apoplectic fit He tumbled forward from his garden chair ; He seemed completely gone but warm as yet. (I wonder how they came to leave him there.) Poor soul ! he wanted courage, heart, and wit, For times like these — the shock and the surprise, 'Twas very natural the gout should rise. XVIII, But such a sudden end was scarce expected. Our parties will be puzzled to proceed The Belfry Set divided and dejected ; — The crisis is a strange one, strange indeed ; I'll bet the fighting friar is elected. It often happens in the hour of need, From popular ideas of utility, People are pitched upon for mere ability. XIX. I'll hint the subject, and communicate The sad event — he's standing there apart ; Y 2 324 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Our offer, to be sure, comes somewhat late ; But then we never thought he meant to start, And if he gains his end, at any rate He has an understanding and a' heart : He'll serve or he'll protect his friends, at least With better spirit than the poor deceased. XX. The convent was all going to the devil, While the poor creature thought himself beloved For saying handsome things and being oivil. Wheeling about as he was pulled and shoved By way of leaving things to find their level. His funeral sermon ended, both approved, And went to Friar John, who merely doubted The fact, and wished them to enquire about it. XXI. Then left them, and returned to the attack. They found their Abbot in his former place ; They took him up and turned him on his back — At first, you know, he tumbled on his face : They found him fairly stiff", and cold, and black ; They then unloosed each ligature and lace, His neckcloth and his girdle, hose, and garters, And took him up and lodged him in his quarters. XXII. Bees served me for simile before, And bees again, bees that have lost their king. Would seem a repetition and a bore, Besides, in fact, I never saw the thing ; And though those phrases from the good old store. Of ' feebler hummings ' and of ' flagging wing,' Perhaps may be descriptive and exact, I doubt it — I confine myself to fact. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 325 XXIII. Thus much is certain, that a mighty pother Arises — that the frame and the condition Of things is altered. They combine and bother, And every winged insect politician Is warm and eager till they choose another. In our monastic hive, the same ambition Was active and alert ; but angry fortune Constrained them to contract the long importune. XXIV. Tedious, obscure, inexplicable train, Qualification, form, and oath, and test, Ballots on ballots, balloted again, Accessits, scrutinies, and all the rest. Theirs was the good old method, short and plain ; Per acdamationem they invest Their fighting Friar John with robes and ring, Crozier and mitre, seals and everything. With a new warlike active chief elected. Almost at once, it scarce can be believed, What a new spirit, real or aflFected, Prevailed throughout. The monks complained and grieved That nothing was attempted or projected ; While quiristers and novices conceived That their new fighting abbot. Friar John, Would sally forth at once and lead them on. XXVI. I pass such gossip, and devote my cares. By diligent enquiry, to detect The genuine state and posture of affairs, Unmannered, uninformed, and incorrect ; 326 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Falsehood and malice hold alternate chairs, And lecture and preside in Envy's sect. The fortunate and great she never spares, Sowing the soil of history with tares. XXVII. Thus jealous of the truth, and feeling loth That Sir Nathaniel henceforth should accuse Our noble monk of cowardice and sloth, I'll print the affidavit of the muse. And state the facts, as ascertained on oath ; Corroborated by surveys and views. When good King Arthur granted them a brief, And ninety groats were raised for their relief xxvrii. Their arbours, walks, and alleys, were defaced ; Riven, uprooted, and with ruin strewn, And the fair dial in their garden placed, Battered by barbarous hands and overthrown. The deer with wild pursuit dispersed and chased ; The dove-house ransacked and the pigeons flown. The cows all killed in one promiscuous slaughter, The sheep all drowned, and floating in the water. XXIX. The mill was burnt down to the water-wheels, The giants had broke down the dam and sluice ; Dragged up and emptied all the fishing reels. Drained and destroyed the reservoir and stews, Wading about and groping carp and eels : In short, no single earthly thing of use Remained untouched. Beyond the convent wall. The friars, from their windows, viewed it all. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 327 XXX. Hence the bare hope of personal defence ; The Church, the Convent's, and their own protection Absorbed their thoughts, and silenced every sense Of present feuds at Friar John's election. Such would appear, in the form of a prophetic allegory, by substituting the cardinals for the monks and the Austrians for giants, a full and true statement of the recent transactions at Rome. The first acts of the newly-elected Pontiff are on record. He was scarce proclaimed to the people, and raised amid enthusiasm to the vacant chair of Peter, than he called for the French am- bassador, the only representative in Rome of European progress, and by cordially embracing Count Rossi, seemed at once to fling down the gauntlet to the old despotisms of the Continent. Nor was he long without striking a forcible blow at the system of terror, tyranny, and espion- age by which the government of his predecessor had been miserably upheld. He saw near ten thousand of the quondam subjects of Rome pining and gnashing their teeth in exile, fomenting in- fidelity and disaffection to all ecclesiastical rule in every town in Europe, scandalising Catholic countries and rejoicing Protestant dominions, by their open, and in some respects justifiable, de- nunciations of their native land. He knew that 328 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. he held the keys, not to lock the gates against their return to fidelity and patriotism, not to pre- clude hope, and change hostility to despair. He seized the glorious opportunity of showing him- self generous, magnanimous, and confident in the natural emotions which, in an Italian breast, kindly treatment is sure to awaken. He unbarred the gates of the Roman territory to them all. The great act of political amnesty was the act of the Pontiff himself Alone he did it. Ambassa- dors fumed and threatened ; cardinals disapproved, hinted, earwigged, and menaced ; old stagers showed an elongated visage, as if all were lost. Not one of the officials in authority could be got to sign the decree. He signed it himself. It appeared on June 1 7. Rome arose in its transport of joy like one man, and the kindred and friends of the banished did not feel more wild enthusiasm than the rest of the population. The general bosom swelled with grateful emotion, and the voice of the people found utterance in a vast variety of delightful demonstration. From the ends of the earth, from the capital cities and seaports and dark recesses of the whole Continent, the exiles came back, as Israel returning from a Babylonian captivity. The shout of welcome and the song of gladness was heard in the land. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 329 Then was felt the new era had begun. The old crust of antiquated oppression had been broken, and a free current given to the gushings of humanity. Has the reader ever been in Hungary when, in the spring of the year, the Danube, icebound during the winter, relents at the approach of a genial warmth, and with a sudden revulsion bursting the cold manacles in which it has lain enthralled, restores its capacious flood to fluency and freedom ? It is a moment of annual re- currence, but one of unpai'alleled excitement and native grandeur. The watchmen on the banks above Buda have, for miles along the mighty river, transmitted from man to man the signal of the approaching outbreak. The guns from the citadel of Comorn have announced far upwards, and reverberated down the stream the joyful event ; the surface of the wide flood has heaved up as in the throes of deliverance : vast fissures, with a thundering sound, have cloven the hitherto monotonous expanse of frozen waters ; a general breaking-up is perceptible from brink to brink, and when a few hours have elapsed, amid the acclamations of the millions who dwell on the margin of that immemorial current, the com- bined voice of Hungary calls out that the Ice is 330 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. BROKEN, and the highway of nations made free once more. Year after year the phenomenon takes place in the presence of those various and manly tribes, Qui profundum Danubium bibunt ; but it has not happened for centuries on the banks of the Roman river, where, though to all appear- ance the yellow waters had run their course with the semblance of a rapid flow, yet was the moral and intellectual progress of the Tiber checked, obstructed, and frozen ; and after the dormant monotony of ages, it was reserved for the energy of Count Ferretti to give the indwellers of the Eternal City a spectacle such as that above described. The guns of St. Angelo that an- nounced his election, told Europe at the same time that the old pathways of progress and civili- sation were reopened, and that the Ice was BROKEN at Rome. We have seen great things already achieved. What are we to look for in the vista of a long and prosperous future ? Those who know Pius I X. have their answer ready ; indeed, they find the query ready satisfied in the words of Paul : — ' Whatsoever things are true ; whatsoever things are honest ; whatsoever things are just ; what- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 331 soever things are pure ; whatsoever things are LOVELY ; whatsoever things be of good report ; if there be anything virtuous, if there be anything PRAISEWORTHY, count on the realisations of these things.' — PhiHppians iv. 8. For us, who are not of his flock, what may we hope from the accession to the confessedly most distinguished chair of Christian episcopacy of an enlightened nobleman, who is a disciple of Christ far more than a rabbi among men ? Much in every way. We may count on him for sympathy in what may be our unintentional error ; for a kindly toleration in matters which limited reason or deficient information prevent us from seeing in the same light as he was educated to view them. We may look to him for a mitigation of that intolerant spirit which has never made con- verts, whatever bitterness it may have infused into the intercourse of European society. We may look to him, finally, if the accomplishment of such a work enters at all into the designs of Pro- vidence, for a General Union ^ and Agreement ' ' This union is not so difficult as it appears to many : the points of agreement between the two Churches are numerous; those on which parties hesitate few, and not the most important. On most of those, it appears to me, there is no essential differ- ence between Catholic and Protestant, the existing diversity of opinion arising in most cases from certain forms of words which 332 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. among Christian Churches, a ' Communion of Saints.' admit of satisfactory explanation. Ignorance, misconception, prejudice, ill-will, pride, and points of honour, keep us divided on many subjects, not a love of Christian humility, charity, and truth.' — James Doyle, Bishop of Kildare. Letter to an M,P., dated Carlow, May 13, 1824. CHAPTER VII. THE BRIGHT DAWN OF BETTER DAYS CHAPTER VII. THE BRIGHT DAWN OF BETTER DAYS. Rome : October 20. The month of October has been from time imme- morial sacred to the observance of the Roman villegiatura, during which the cool acclivities of the circumambient hills afford, if not watering, at least breathing, places to the general public, state functionaries included. The active mind of Pius IX. brooks no relaxation ; and during his visit to the Falls of Tivoli this week, his whole time was devoted to the organisation of the new iron-works, which promise to relieve Rome from part of the dis graceful tribute she now pays to foreign industry. Fire-blasts, smelting furnaces, specimens of agri- cultural implements, models of iron bridges (these latter especially), occupied the attention of him who is ex-officio ' Pontifex,' ^ and orders mixed ' The original Roman Pontiffs were entrusted with the repairs and construction of bridges — whence their designation. 336 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. with encouragement were issued for a variety ot works. The Roman finances are, thanks to the various retrenchments made in the Papal house- hold, and the discontinuance of many sinecures, far from being in the hopeless condition they would have assumed had the late reign gone on. The grand millstone tied round the neck of the Papal treasurer is the payment of the Swiss boors, who, to the number of near 10,000, garrison the Le- gations. To get rid of these now worse than useless mercenaries is the firm determination of Pius ; but he is bound by the stolid and suicidal compact signed by the late Gregory in the year 1831, when, frightened out of his senses by the revolt of Bologna, he agreed to guarantee their pay and allowances for twenty years to come, which period will not expire till 1851. There is some notion of hiring them out to any foreign power who may want such efficient bludgeon-men, and may be willing to relieve his Holiness of the incumbrance. They would be invaluable to keep In those early days, religion was intimately blended with what- ever conduced to public utility. This etymology has not escaped the author of ' Paradise Lost,' who alludes to it for the purpose of having a fling against his bUe noire, Prelacy. Talking of the bridge which he makes the devil build over chaos to get at this planet, the sublime old Roundhead calls it ' a work Pontifical ! ' FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 337 down the Poles, and I suppose Russia or Austria will ultimately take them off his hands. The Swiss officers have had the cunning to bargain for full pay during their natural lives, besides certain prerogatives and emoluments, which place them over the heads of their Italian fellow-commanders — a perpetual blister on the Pontifical corps d'armde. Does not Milton say something about annulling certain Vows made in pain, as violent and void. And was not such the case of the late Pope when he was cheated into such an agreement by the Dalgetties of Lucerne. One family of that canton has held command of these hired troops for the last 300 years — a vested interest with a ven- geance. Another great source of unprofitable expendi- ture is the support of the galley-slaves, who are a very numerous class indeed, owing to the repug- nance of the Papal code to spilling blood, when the penalty can be possibly commuted to perpetual labour. You are aware of the value of such labour : the result is a dead loss to the exchequer. Count Rossi, before he left Rome to consult his masters at Paris, made, officially, an offer to re- lieve the Pope of all his convicts^ whom he en- 338 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. gaged to convert into agricultural labourers in the flourishing French colony of Algiers. Whether this was meant as a dry joke by the generally serious and solemn plenipotentiary, I have no means of knowing. Nothing has yet been de- cided on the point. Of one thing there can be no doubt, and that is the cordial feeling of Pius towards Louis Philippe, and hence he has done all in his power to forward the Montpensier marriage, as far as his influence with the Spanish clergy could be used for that object. Viewed from Rome, that question assumes an aspect very dif- ferent from its appearance to an English eye, Don Carlos has received a hint that if he comes here his sojourn will not be made very satisfac- tory should he assume the character of a pre- tender. All these things annoy the French Car- lists as well as those of the Peninsula, but they must swallow the bitter pill in silent acquiescence. You will scarcely believe it true, but it is, nevertheless, so generally asserted by grave men in every quarter, that there must be some founda- tion for the report, that his HoHness, previous to taking solemn possession of the Papacy on the 9th of November, intends, during eight consecu- tive days, to preach in proprid persona from the pulpit of St. John Lateran. We are all on the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 339 qui vive for this unheard-of course of lectures, only to be historically paralleled by the discourses of my respected kinsman Savonarola, in the glorious days of Florentine freedom. I shall send an analysis of these 'speeches from the throne' as they occur. The late secretary, Lambruschini, was detected last week in a ^z^^^-z'-treasonable correspondence — the original letter having found its way into the Pope's hands. Pius sent for him, tore it in fragments before his face, and told him to 'sin no more.' Cardinal della Genga has been still more deeply engaged in plotting with Austria, along with certain old jobbing functionaries here ; the belief in town is that his Eminence is now lodged in the Castle of St. Angelo. If not, where is he ? For the last week his whereabouts is the town mystery. Rome : October 28. I forward the first number of the ' Roman Advertiser,'^ an English weekly journal, which began its significant career last Saturday. No less than five new daily and weekly publi- 1 This paper is edited by a son of the late poetic Mrs. Hemans. Emerging from a Benedictine convent, the young lad shows taste and industry, but is yet rather green. He has much to learn in his editorial capacity. z 2 340 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. cations are announced to meet the demand of a freshly-created reading public of native growth — among others ' II Popolare,' ' L'Echo del Tempo,' ' II Contemporaneo,' and, perhaps, the most impor- tant of all, ' La Giurisprudenza.' This last journal is to be modelled on the French ' Gazette des Tribunaux,' and is the natural offshoot of a most vital amelioration of justice, viz. publicity in criminal trials — matters which have hitherto been managed in the dark, and over which public opinion never could exercise any sort of control. Not only are all trials to be now conducted in the light of day, but the whole criminal code is under- going revision, and the land that has produced a Beccaria is no longer to be disgraced by the syste- matic absurdities and glaring discrepancies of late Roman jurisprudence. The cellular system is under consideration for prison discipline. In no part of Europe, perhaps, are there such discredit- able jails as have existed from time immemorial here, and nothing has been attempted in the way of change since they were inspected by your philanthropist Howard, at the close of the last century. To improve the administration in every branch is the firm resolve of Pius I X. ; but the very exist- ence of the government must be first provided FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 341 for ; and, with the yearly deficit which for the last sixteen years was going on in arithmetical pro- gression, the days of the sovereignty were num- bered. Finding that all reductions in his house- hold and the abolition of sinecures cannot meet the evil, he has boldly broached the project of an in- come tax. In the state of landed property through- out his dominions this is nothing short of a financial revolution. The tax on salt, that on corn ground at the mill {la molturd) — this latter most oppres- sive to the peasant, who is not allowed to grind his own corn ! — are to be abolished on the expira- tion of the monopoly now belonging to the great salt-seller, Torlonia. A very serious item of ex- penditure was indulged in by the late sovereign, no less than the rebuilding of an imperial basilica, the gigantic church first erected by Theodosius while master of the Roman world, on the Via Ostia, in honour of St. Paul. There can be no question that the apostle of the Gentiles deserves every reasonable testimonial, but prudence, not to speak of justice, would suggest the impropriety of ' robbing Peter to pay ' his illustrious collaborator. When this splendid edifice was originally planned, the road to Ostia was the highway of nations, and the gorgeous colonnade and cedar roof did not flourish in a positive desert, but the 342 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. solitude is now unbroken, save by a chance buffalo driver or cockney tourist, for whose edification it is rather too much to spend a half-dozen million of dollars, even if a surplus existed in the Papal treasury. King Otho, who repudiates his bond- holders, might as well exhaust the small remnant of the Greek budget in an attempt to restore the Parthenon, while roads are wanting and banditti unsuppressed. The present Pope has reduced to one-third the allowance for this item of unneces- sary outgoings, and has thus obviated the oppres- sive effects of its ultimate bearing on the people. The late Gregory never took this view of things, being a simple monk. Two years ago an old Florentine usurer put up a stone fa9ade to a church in the Via Larga, and about the same time Professor Segato, having succeeded in a process of embalming dead bodies, so as to render them solid and imperishable, this squib was read on the pediment : — Nuovo miracolo ! Vivo segato Sangue del popolo Petrificato. Next to finance the most urgent difficulty of his Holiness is to find men of intellect and in- tegrity not only willing but adequate to the task of carrying out his views ; all the old red-tapists FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 343 are found to be more an incumbrance than aid. In the new cabinet, the members of which are named in the pubHc journals, you will find that he has included none of the cardinals. Much will depend on the new creations which he may be enabled to make by frequent deaths among those respectable octogenarians. One point he has de- termined upon, viz. not to grant a red ' hat ' merely because routine of office has accustomed certain functionaries to look up to that dignity as a re- tiring provision. The governor of Rome, a sort of police officer, expects it as a matter of course ; so does the head of the war office ; but I can safely affirm that neither Marini nor Medici Spada (who hold these respective posts), will be made a cardinal in a hurry, even on removal from office. The late Secretary Lambruschini has no reason to grumble, having got a splendid retiring allowance, 10,000 dollars a year, as segretario dei Brevi. I am sorry to report the fading health of Cardinal Acton ; and I fear much for the speedy loss of old Micara, deservedly popular with the Romans. We have had torrents of rain for the last ten days. Old Tiber walked the streets, and among other entertainments consequent on rainy nights 344 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. at Rome (for you recollect that when node pluit iota, redeunt spectacula mane) the Pantheon pre- sented a most striking though simple phenomenon ; the whole area of the marble floor being covered several feet deep with a placid sheet of golden- coloured liquid, the reflection of the great concave above in the mirror below, ' swan and shadow,' gave you an idea of the interior of a vast globe of overpowering dimensions. Fanny Elsler was presented to the Pope by Colonel Pfyffer, of the Swiss Guard ; and the monarch blandly said that 'talent in every de- partment of human excellence was ever welcome to his dominions.' The Pope made a visit in state to the aged martyr of alleged Russian brutality, the Polish nun Macryna, as if to intimate his views respecting Poland. This lady's story made a great stir last year, and she is now the object of extraordinary veneration. She has of late been induced by the flattery of the French nuns, who have given her kind hospitality, to try her hand at ' miraculous cures,' and this year a young French abbd, who had lost his voice, became quite a lion in all fashionable circles here, by recovering his speech FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 345 cnrough the agency of Mother Macryna. Should her claims to canonisation rest upon this exploit at any future day, I fear the avocato del diavolo will demur ; the miracle should have been reversed to become truly forcible ; she should have suc- ceeded in checking, not in promoting, the loquacity of a Frenchman. Although his Holiness is overwhelmed with business, your indefatigable countryman, Silk Buckingham, ' resident director ' of some establish- ment at the West End,^ having insisted on having it, had an audience, the details of which I possess, but am not at liberty to amuse you with ; it was as good as anything lately produced at the Hay- market. He will not fail to give you his own version of it, however, as he has already taken care to do here, in a paragraph of the Diario Romano, at which the British consul, who volun- teered to introduce him, is deservedly rabid. Altogether, the Pope, from this specimen of the native modesty and bashfulness of Englishmen, must imbibe a strange notion of John Bull. The Roman paper calls the affair Britannico straniero — British and strange — especially the latter. ' Probably the British and Foreign Institute. 346 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Rome : November 3. On the evening of October 28, Mr. Newman, accompanied by Mr. Ambrose St. John, entered the Eternal City, which had been for the last ten days deluged with incessant rain. Next morning the ex-Anglican proselyte's first impulse was to pay his homage at the tomb of the Apostles {limina apostolorum), when, as chance would have it, Pius IX. was in the act of realising the lines of Scott's ballad — The Pope he was saying his high high mass, All at St. Peter's shrine. Their interview occurred in the crypt or subter- ranean sanctuary, the oldest portion of the basilica. Whatever importance may attach to the arrival of this distinguished trans/uga, the most celebrated, perhaps, of the many that have come hither since the days of Queen Christina of Sweden (in which eccentric lady's quondam boudoir I now happen to write), the advent of so propitiatory an offering to the genius of the seven hills seems to have influenced the elements ; the rain has stopped, Et soles meliiis nitent. It would appear that the inundations of Upper Italy opposed serious obstacles to the progress of the Oxford pilgrims, and that at one passage the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 347 cart which bore them, drawn by oxen (in the absence of any other conveyance), was well-nigh swallowed up by the rush of many waters. Safe from those semi-apostolic ' perils of the flood,' they are now engaged, under the guidance of the most intelligent of their counttymen and co-religionists, in a brief survey of whatever is most remarkable here ; and in a few days Mr. Newman, late of Ox- ford, with his companions, will take possession of chambers in the College of Propaganda, and enter on a preparatory course previous to re-ordination in the Church of Rome. There will be another capella to-morrow in the church of St. Charles Borromeo, in the Corso ; this church is one of the most majestic in Rome, and it is but fitting that it should be so to typify aptly the grandeur and high character of the benevolent spirit it is erected to commemorate. Why the Pope should visit this church in par- ticular on the anniversary of the great Archbishop of Milan is a question interwoven with the quarrel of the Spanish succession in 1706, and therefore not uninteresting in 1846, when just a century and a half have terminated in reproducing the selfsame imbroglio, as if in exact accordance with the Pythagorean cycle of which Virgil is expositor. 348 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. and which would foreshadow a new Peninsular War, another Wellington. Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera quae vehat Argo Delectos heroas : erunt etiam altera bella, Atque itemm ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles. In 1706, then, the dean and chapter of the church, being Milanese subjects, and partisans of the house of Austria, had prepared for the saint's festival splendid banners displaying the arms and effigy of the Archduke Charles, which coming to the knowledge of the Bourbonite Spanish ambassador, the latter contemplated an inroad on the church at the head of his followers and a host of French auxiliaries ; whereupon Clement XI., who had publicly announced his perfect neutrality in the contest, proceeded in person to the church of San Carlo ; and, as no earthly monarch's in- signia can be displayed in presence of the reigning Pontiff, there was a decent excuse for both sides refraining from collision. Once established, the Pope's visit became an ' annual commemoration of peace and union among Christian princes.' It is worthy of remark that, since the accession of Pius IX. in June, the number of crimes com- mitted against the person as well as against property in the district of Rome, has diminished in the most extraordinary ratio — the month of FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 349 June offering about 500 cases, July 340, August 230, September 200, and last month's calendar falling to 112; the old admirers of ' the red-tape system,' coercion and routine, can make nothing of it. It seems to them a sort of ' witchcraft ; ' ay, such as that by which Othello compassed the willing affection of Desdemona. Rome : November 8. The grand ceremony of taking formal pos- session of the Lateran church began this morn- ing, and is not yet terminated, though the guns of St. Angelo are just now marking by their re- verberated roar that the most solemn stage of the business is being enacted. To this exhibition of Papal pomp the whole country round has been flocking in for the last two or three days, and the constant arrivals from Naples and Florence have evinced no less interest on the part of foreign visitants. The Olympic Games of Greece could scarcely present a fairer gathering in epitome of the various Hellenic tribes than Rome presented this week of all the surrounding towns in a circuit of one hundred miles, diversified in costume as distinctly, and as easily recognisable by a peculiar juxtaposition of primitive colours, as your Highland clans. Down from the suburban hills came bands 3SO FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT of music and troops of pifferari, to desciibe the general effect of which would require the classical bagpipe of Mr. Macaulay ; ex. gr. : — The horsemen and the footmen Came pouring in amain From many a stately market town — From many a fruitful plain — From many a lonely hamlet, Which, hid by beech and pine, Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest Of purple Apennine. For aged folks on crutches. And women large with child, And mothers gloating o'er their babes, That clung to them and smiled ; And sick men borne on litters. High on the necks of slaves, And troops of sunburnt husbandmen. With reaping-hooks and staves ; And droves of mules and asses Laden with skins of wine, &c. &c. literally ' choked every roaring gate ' of the city, principally on the side of Tivoli, Frascati, and Albano. For several evenings past the theatres have resounded with acclamations bestowed on a dull drama of Abbe Metastasio, dug out of oblivion for the purpose of political allusion, La Clemenza di Tito ; and it was obvious that a popular de- monstration, on a gigantic scale, was about to be given to his Holiness, expressive of the public FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 351 resolve to sustain him against all reactionary- efforts. . And most overwhelming was this day's exhi- bition of physical strength along the whole line of the Pope's progress from his Quirinal palace to the Lateran, amid shouts of enthusiastic de- votion, such as the unanimous heart of a whole people, long estranged from such feelings, could alone give forth. The richest tapestries lined the palaces on the line of procession ; festoons, garlands, and silk hangings profusely ornamented the inferior dwellings, and every balcony was a focus of patriotic ebullition, as the Pontiff was borne onward in the midst of as picturesque a cortege as the imagination of this fanciful land could conjure into existence. An idea of the dresses worn by the Roman court in this singular cavalcade can be only conveyed by you, dear Dickens, to your friends in Cockneyshire by re- ferring them to the gorgeous picture at Hampton Court of the ' Field of the Cloth of Gold ; ' almost all the costumes in that glowing representation being reproduced in the retinue which rode with the Pope in this splendid revival of a mediaeval ceremony. All the judges were on horseback as well as all the prelates, bishops, pages, the governor of Rome, captain of Swiss halberdiers. 352 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. the senators, and other indescribable functionaries of a variegated and many-tesselated government, men in armour, the noble guard and the Pope's standard-bearer, on his obligato mule, leading the van. Formerly the cavalcade mounted the steep ascent of the Capitol, but since Ganganelli fell off his horse on getting down towards the arch of Sep- timus, it now enters the Forum by a circuit. An immense crowd of swarthy peasants from the Sabine, Volscian, and Latin districts, filled the Campo Vaccino, and rent the air with reiterated shouts on the Pope's entering the old Via Sacra, at which moment the great bell of the Capitol, which is only heard on such an occasion as the present, roaring abov6 the voices of the multitude, uttered its diapason of singularly deep vibrations. Pealing solemnly. At the triumphal arch of Titus some curio- sity was excited in the expectation of the Jews' representatives in Rome paying homage, as usual, to the new sovereign, and craving toleration ; but the Pope's good taste dispensed with a dis- play which only keeps alive the sense of infe- riority and difference of caste — a prelude, I hope, to ulterior measures on behalf of Israel. All FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 353 the rising ground on the Palatine Hill was densely covered with spectators, but the Colosseum, divided into boxes and hung with silks, seemed to be what your great stand is at Newmarket races. Further on, at the church of St. Clement, cele- brated on many accounts, and now tenanted by a few Irish friars, some curiosity was excited in the crowd and expressed by the Papal cavalcade as to the meaning of a huge green banner floating from the porch, and bearing a harp uncrowned, with other heraldic puzzles. The hereditary colours of the Ferretti family, as displayed in the Papal escutcheon, are white and orange, and such were the pervading tints of every other attempt at decoration on his passage. The cavalcade ulti- mately reached its destination, no doubt ; for me, the crowd prevented all approach to the Lateran church ; and certainly no Roman triumph or mediaeval pageant could have surpassed what I witnessed to-day. To realise one part of the old classic procession, there was only wanting the Rev. Dr. Newman, Ambrose St. John, and George Talbot, to walk in the character of war captives. Britannus ut descenderet Sacri catenatus vii. The Pope has offered, by placards on the walls, a gold medal, value 1,000 dollars, to him who will A A 354 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. present the best plan for crossing the great Apen- nine barrier from Ancona to Rome. Should Waghorn and Pius IX. succeed in bringing the overland route from India to Europe into this channel, they will have done no small deed; and it will be curious to find that the earliest engi- neer who laid down the line of railway, with its gradients and terminus, was the playful poet, ' the end of whose journey and letter was Brundusium.' Rome: November ii. We are in full progress here towards popular government. One of the most significant tokens of the new era was exhibited yesterday, when eight hundred Roman citizens assembled at a public banquet to greet the political exiles of the provinces, under the magnificent roof of the Ali- berti Theatre, thousands of spectators crowding the boxes, and not a ' policeman ' to be seen of any sort. This demonstration was got up at a few days' notice. The committee consisted of men of the middle class — an order of mankind never yet heard of in Roman affairs. Their names deserve record ; they were : Orioli, son of the exiled pro- fessor (who has returned from Corfu to his native university of Bologna) ; Nattali, a bookseller ; FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 355 Delfrate, an artist ; Thomasson, a ' man of letters ; ' and De Andreis, a painter. The guests were gathered on an elevated platform, the committee presiding —for this popu- lar banquet presented the peculiarity of the presi- dent's chair being ' put in commission' — when, after discussing the viands with Italian gravity and sobriety, the business of the evening began. Che- chetelli, a well-known and voluminous writer, appeared for the first time in the character of a speaker, and in a graceful oration bespoke the moderation of his hearers in the enjoyment of their newly-recovered liberty of thought and action; so would they best defeat any scheme for rolling backwards the now happy onward tide of Roman freedom. Next rose Professor Sejani, an exile lately returned from Malta, the author of many tragedies, and implicated in not a few conspiracies ; on him devolved the task of proposing the health of Pius IX., a colossal bust of the monarch being forthwith borne forward and crowned with laurel, amid the loud vociferations of the whole theatre. Sejani's speech ~was energetic and clever, and drew down thunders of applause. After him a distinguished medical light of our university here. Dr. De Dominicus, whose brother lately died in prison for political causes, made a most affecting A A 2 3S6 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. appeal to his fellow-citizens, and was listened to with intense interest : he dwelt on the necessity of not thwarting the present Pope with an unreason- able eagerness for change, not one in that assem- bly being more anxious to accelerate beneficial measures than the pontiff, to whom alone were known the obstacles to be encountered, and the difficulties to be overcome. Sterbini, late exile from Marseilles, followed in prose for a while, till, kindling with his subject, he burst forth into poetry, or a kind of measured recitative, in the chorus of which the whole assembly, as if whirled into a vortex of ecstasy, soon joined. The evening would have passed off with undis- turbed regularity were it not for an incident which may leave the germ of much future ill-will and mistrust. I said before that the middle classes of Rome, hitherto a totally unrecognised body, were the originators of this festival. About a dozen tickets had been taken by members of the Casino dei Nobili, and their places kept until an advanced hour, when others were but too happy to fill up the vacancy their absence created. A buzz of enquiry ran through the theatre as to the cause of their non-appearance, when it transpired that Prince Borghese was entertaining, that night, a distinguished circle at the palace, and had pressed FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 357 all his acquaintances into the service. This was, of course, deemed an aggravation of the offence, and construed into a premeditated slight on the popular feelings, and on the Pope himself ; where- upon, at the close of the proceedings, several hundreds of the younger and more boisterous pro- ceeded in a body to the Palazzo Borghese, and with determined shouts called for an illumination, of the fagade in honour of Pio IX. ' Lttmifuon! lumifuori ! viva Pio nono I ' Instead of comply- ing with which demand, and thus restoring good humour, the inmates of the palace began to close the window-shutters, when a storm of popular ex- ecration assailed Borghese and his guests — hisses and groans of an unmistakable character. The Prince was proceeding to address the mob from the balcony, when, luckily for himself, he was drawn back by Vincenzo Colonna ; and some of the graver and more thoughtful citizens arriving from the banquet-hall, prevailed on the irritated- crowd to withdraw for the present, convinced that the nobles of the Casino and their host would offer every apology to-day. Rome : November 18. Nothing is yet known of an intimated inten- tion, which I hinted at last month, on the part of 3S8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. the pontiff, to address the Roman people in a series of homilies in that ancient Basilica, after the old fashion of Leo and Gregory ' the Great.' The last Pope who made his appearance in a Christian pulpit was the Bolognese Lambertini, about a century ago — an undeniably great man, and the first canonist of his day. Since then the -only harangues pronounced by Popes have been ' allocutions ' to the College of Cardinals, mostly distinguishable for bad Latin and premeditated obscurity. The late Gregory, on one of these occasions, took a fancy to denounce the freedom of the press as ' damnabilem imprimendi licentiam! The press throughout Europe is likely to return him the compliment. The common people of Rome have already adopted from Tuscany and the Legations the term frataccio, as embodying their notion of his reign and character. In the Legations the petty despotism of each successive local satrap had never been controlled by any well-defined limits of authority ; limits are being fixed, and means of appeal facilitated, so as to render the functions of the Legates somewhat analogous to those of French prefects of depart- ments. Each district and municipality is to be fairly represented in the persons of responsible FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 359 landholders, whose voice is to be heard potentially in matters affecting the improvement of their re- spective territories. The most sanguine partisans of progress appear satisfied at the pace which regulates the advance. If not a galloping reform, 'tis a good smart trot: — ' Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.' November 28. To the denizens of Rome there is newly opened an abounding source of gentle merriment in the perusal of French and German journals, whenever the affairs of this metropolis are introduced — which is now- of constant occurrence, though it would seem that the matrimonial imbroglio of the Spanish peninsula and the subsidence of Cracow from the map of Europe ought fully to engage the energetic spirits engaged in editorial redaction. Paragraphs of hazarded news are ventilated at Nuremberg or take wing from Frankfort and Cologne, birds of good, or, as it may be, of evil, augury, which were never seen from this Vatican hill, but belong rather to what in French news- paper dialect is called canard, Anglice, a species of literary wild duck. Fabulous onslaughts on the Jesuits in various small towns throughout the 36o FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Romagna are favourite game of this description with the press of Paris. No one in Rome is cog- nisant of aught — save a few vocal manifestations of dislike, never approaching personal violence — of scenes such as are represented to have occurred in Fano and Perugia. The pamphlet of the witty Gioberti (severely prohibited in Naples, Modena, and Lombardy), attacking the society's line of Italian policy, under the title of ' Prolegomena,' is freely handed about, or, as the poet has it, Con spavento dei divoti galantuomini Si vedono circolar gli Prolegomeni. But any overt act of physical force against the mistaken fathers is universally reprobated. A paragraph appears in the ' Courrier Fran^ais,' announcing the Pope's wish to contract a fresh loan, and representing the Roman finances as irreparably embarrassed. No such loan is dreamt of. There is a present supply in the exchequer, and the future prospects of the treasurer are by no means discouraging. Such rumours were the constant mode of attack by which the irreligious party in Italy sought to damage the Papal throne while ineffectively filled by its late occupant ; and many poetical squibs, with all the violence, and some of the fancy, of Bdranger, held up the ap- proaching bankruptcy of Rome to the world's FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 361 scorn. From one, entitled ' II Fallimento del Papa,' I recollect a few lines : Non basto il talento Del gran Lambruschini, A cento per cento Non trova quattrini ; O caso inaudito, II Papa fe fallito ! Guai al Pontefice, Quel buon Gregorio, Che in brevi vendere Dovra il ciborio, Perche il camefice Chiede il salario Gli tocca a vendere Sin' al breviario. Che per servar' i titoli Di Papa e di sovrano, A benedir' i despoti Distese la sua mano. Deh ! al gran principe Che ci governa Gli presta Diogene La sua latema ! Torlonia, who contracted for the last loan, would feel but too happy to get another chance upon the same terms (which he is not likely to have soon), and the more especially as the family are about to receive back in hard dollars the purchase-money of the great Braccino property, which, near thirty years ago, was bought from the 362 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Odescalchi, and which that princely race are now determined to regain. In the purchase of land here, there is always reserved a right of redemp- tion within a given number of years, and the allotted term being now at hand, notice has been served on the Duke of Braccino that Prince Odescalchi intends refunding the cash, and re- suming the duchy. As in the case of the old Taliacotian operation, when a fictitious nose was cut out of a porter's gluteus maximus, and affixed to a visage where no nasal organ existed, the title of Duke is lapsed with the loss of the property which conferred it, and the strawberry leaves fall away from the escutcheon of the banker. In the words of your ' Hudibras ' — Soon as the porter's life was out. Off dropt the sympathetic snout ! December 3. By the death of Cardinal Gaysriick, Arch- bishop of Milan, a hat has fallen in,, and as there are now more than half a dozen vacancies, a new creation is spoken of. Gaysriick was a true German of the old school, and a strong opponent of the Jesuits, whom he kept out of Lombardy to the last. I took occasion, some few posts ago, to notice FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROVT. 363 the apathy of Prince Borghese in the cause of national advancement or the improvement of his country ; a noble opportunity of throwing the weight of hi-s immense territorial property into the scale of the progressive party has been let pass. I regret to find that, among other frivolities which occupy the leisure of the Palazzo Borghese, homoeopathy is now paramount, and through female influence this nonsense has become positively mischievous. Last March the Duchess of Piom- bino was a victim, and this week a lovely daughter of Colonel Bryan, of Kilkenny, died under this treatment, none of the many English physicians resident here having been suffered to attend. She had arrived here but a few weeks before in perfect health. The solemn dirge and requiem held over the poor lady in the church of Irish Franciscans, St. Isidoro, was attended by several hundred British visitors, besides the young lady's kinsfolk, of the princely houses of Doria, Pamphili, and Borghese. Towards the termination of the sorrowful cere- mony, at a pause in the liturgy, there arose in the body of the church a person in ecclesiastical cos- tume, of pensive and careworn aspect, who, stand- ing near the coffin, addressed himself to speak. 364 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. His voice was low at first, so that few heard till it gradually filled the church, and it was understood to be a simple recital of the unostentatious virtues of the deceased ; but soon came words of more impressive import, and a whisper went round that the unexpected speaker on the occasion was the Rev. Mr. Newman, late of Oxford. To the thousands who have perused his printed sermons delivered in Anglican pulpits, it would be diffi- cult to convey a notion of his manner on the present occasion, it being the first time that he delivered himself of an extemporaneous unpre- meditated discourse. But as a letter to you is no proper vehicle for theological comments, I add no more. The next removal, it is devoutly to be hoped, will be the Postmaster- General, Massimo ; this functionary, not content with neglecting his proper duties in the amelioration of the posting system throughout the Roman states, which is a disgrace to Italy, has within the last fortnight shown his tender regard for Austria by taking on himself the responsibility of stopping any journals, French or English, which reflect on that respectable court in its late absorption of Cracow. The Pope is utterly unconscious of his pranks, and may, per- haps, first learn them from this letter when printed. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 365 Thus Postmaster Massimo has, of his own au- thority, confiscated ' GaHgnani's Messenger ' of the 20th, 2 1st, and 25th of November, as well as the ' Morning Chronicle' of the i8th and 19th ditto. The British residents here are inclined to proceed in a body to the Quirinal, to lay their complaint at the feet of the pontiff, who will doubtless find a speedy remedy for such insolent interference with his general policy. December 12. A sad calamity has befallen our city. The Tiber, suddenly swollen by rain such as is only witnessed under the tropics, and impeded in its course towards Ostia by a south-east wind, has just flooded two-thirds of the inhabited streets, and destroyed property, both in town and country, to a melancholy extent. This century had not seen a similar inundation, that of 1 805 being far less extensive or disastrous. As far as the eye could reach, from the Pincian Hill to the foot of Monte Mario, from the Ponte Molle to the con- trescarpe of Castle St. Angelo, became at once a vast lake, interspersed with tops of trees and farm roofs, cattle swimming, and floating waggons. Not only the accustomed low quarters of the Piazza Navona and Pantheon, but the Corso and 366 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Condolli were submerged, and the well-known magnificent area of the Porta del Popolo became a deep pond impassable to carriages. It was a singular sight to look down from the Pincian on this extemporised basin, reflecting calmly the surrounding churches and monuments, and receiv- ing into its abundance the rather superfluous con- tributions of the four Egyptian lions who kept up the farce of their quadruple jei d'eau throughout. The central obelisk of Rameses, which rose in quiet grandeur over the waters, seemed, after many thousand years, to have got a glimpse of his native Nile at its work of fertilisation. Un- fortunately, mischief, unmixed with any compen- sating result, ensues from these visits of the Roman river. The reports from the various quarters (or islands) of the city have as yet brought no tidings of drowned men ; though horses, pigs, and kine have perished in numbers, and the misery of the poorer classes can hardly be estimated unless by the knowledge of their exclusive tenancy of all ground-floors, in Rome the upper storeys being alone inhabited by the wealthy. But the un- fortunate Jews are in the worst predicament of all other denominations, their disadvantageous quarter being not of their own selection ; and hence it FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 367 became only an act of common honesty in the government to behave as it has done by them — to-day supplying them at once, and in the first rank, with food and necessaries. For this purpose domiciliary visits were made to all bakers and fashionable hotels and every loaf carried off to the Ghetto. If any good could possibly be elicited from the present sad occurrence, it would be, perhaps, the forcing the Pope's attention to the folly and un-Christian policy of his predecessors in cooping up the remnant of Israel here into a space of the town so confined and so objectionable as to nearly resemble the hold of a Brazilian slave-ship on the middle passage. To condemn a people to perpetual dirt and disease, with the in- terlude of an occasional deluge like the present, is a sorry scheme for their conversion, and a sad lesson of Christian love. These unlucky so- journers in the capital of the Church have just had all their property, cloths, silks, velvets, and every commodity in which they trade, destroyed at once by no act of theirs ; and in any civilised country they would be clearly entitled to recover the amount from the legislature. The old houses are happily falling on each other's shoulders, and the whole rookery will be rendered soon unin- habitable, in which case they must perforce be 368 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. allowed to select some other part of this wide metropolis to build in. This is the moment for their brethren though- out Europe to memorialise the benevolent pontiff on their behalf, with every probability of success. The Pope would be too happy to find outward support against the prejudices of the lower orders and the narrow-minded rich. 'Twas a touching sight to see these helpless sufferers, with the scanty wreck of their furniture, crowded under the roof of the synagogue, which was the only dry spot of their prison-house. By the river of Babylon well might they sit and weep when they remembered Sion ! There live 3,600 of them in this black hole, of whom 1,900 are paupers; about 1,000 earn a livelihood by trade, and the remainder are com- paratively rich. They raise among themselves 13,000 dollars yearly for the support of their own schools and other institutions. The State draws a large revenue from their commercial operations, and it is a remarkable circumstance in the case of the Roman Jews that by way of propitiating their Christian fellow-citizens they are in the habit of emphatically disclaiming any part or portion in the great misdeed visited upon them and their children. They maintain, and with considerable FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 369 pretension to truth, that they are descended from a colony of Hebrew men settled in Rome long before the period of the Crucifixion — and certainly we know that Pompey brought thousands of captive Jews to Rome ; and Josephus, I think, describes 8,000 of them going up to remonstrate with Augustus on some occasion or other. I pray the assistance of your brethren of the press in London in drawing the attention of the friends of Israel throughout Europe to these poor people and their cause ; it is truly that of the captive and the bondsman. December i;. It has been admitted to be a proper maxim (one, I believe, of Rochefoucauld's), Quilfaut laver son linge sale en fafnille, and you will learn with satisfaction that a secret and confidential com- mission has lately been named by his Holiness to investigate every branch of ecclesiastical re- venue, the rent-roll of every convent, hospital, confraternity, every canonry, chantry ; in fact, to overhaul the whole financial resources of the Roman district. Other districts will come next. This secret committee is composed of Cardinals Micara (General of the Capuchins), Bianchi (ditto of the Benedictine Camaldulese monks), Ostini B B 370 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. (Prefect of the ' Bishops and Regulars '), and, finally, the late Prime Minister, Lambruschini. The most searching powers have been given to this committee, and woe to any abuse, or dilapi- dation, or malversation which may come under • their notice. A consolidation of various institutes, and a severe economy throughout, will, it is understood, produce an aggregate of surplus- to the treasury sufficient to meet all pressure, so as to obviate the recurrence to loans for the future altogether. And though what follows belongs more pro- perly to the speculations of your money-market than to political correspondence, the attention of buyers and sellers in the public funds of European States would do well to consider the new' aspect of things in Italy, and the relative stability of the various governments, whose prospects have of late been materially changed. The price of the Roman funds (five per cents.) has for the last ten years remained unaltered at from lOO to 102, or thereabouts, even during the precarious rule of Gregory, whom the slightest breath of popular revenge would have dethroned in a twinkling, at any general outbreak on the Rhine, the Po, or the Bosphorus. Still he managed, by borrowing and patchwork, to keep up the Papal credit, which FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 371 never sunk below par. At the present juncture of pontifical prospects and with the stability which a whole people's enthusiasm must necessarily add to ' that divinity which doth hedge a king,' I should not wonder to see the Roman five per cents, advance at least to the price of the French ditto, which are now quoted at 116-11 7, and which have been not long ago as high as 1 20. Verb. sap. The only market for Romans is Milan or Paris, but any intelligent broker might bring them into Capel Court. As a trifling indication of the Pope's anxiety to bring his states into better unison with the oth,er civilised communities of Europe, the great clock of the Quirinal Palace marks the hours no longer in the old-fashioned and exploded system of twenty-four hours continuous, but in the double duodecimal used on your side of the Alps. It is an humble effort to teach his Romans the ' time of day.' December 24. The grant of a cardinal's hat to the unpopular Governor of Rome, on his late removal from office, has undoubtedly checked for a moment the enthusiasm of loyalty which had gone on crescendo since July. Numerous pasquinades have circu- B B 2 372 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. lated this week of a very violent kind, and full of gross personality against Marini. Arrangements were said to have been in progress for greeting the new dignitary with a storm of hisses and execration on the occasion of last Monday's cere- monial, but the boisterous state of the weather — unusually severe even for winter — cooled the in- dignation of the Romans, and, by the blessing of the barometer, his Eminence got off unscathed. His evening lev^e was even brilliantly attended, all the diplomatic body being present, in compli- ment to the Pope, and female influence having worked assiduously among the native nobility in furtherance of this demonstration. The British uniforms were especially conspicuous in the halls of reception, and much hilarity, considering the bitter cold, was occasioned by the display of the Scottish kilt on the person of some child of Caledonia stern and wild. The Princesses Lancelotti and Del Drago did the honours with inborn gracefulness, and all things passed off satisfactorily. This being Christmas Eve will account for the brevity of the letter. The festival of this hallowed night is to be held with unwonted solemnity and liturgical magnificence in the basilica of St. Mary FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 373 Major on the Esquiline. It is probable that the pontiff, whose chairitable donations have been this week on a scale of unusual largesse, and whose presence, during these sacred rites, in the midst of his people must endear him to all classes, will regain any amount of popularity which the shadow of this unlucky hat may have lost him. CHAPTER VIII. ROME. 1847 The following Reliques are taken from Mahony's letters from Rome contributed to the ' Daily News ' during the first two years of its existence. On closing his correspondence Mahony wro:e to Dickens : — ' And now, dear Dickens, fare thee well. I have now, during two successive winters, kept you au courant of Roman events ; a period which will be ever memorable in the annals of Italy and Europe — comprising the fag end of an exploded system and the first acts of the man sent from God, whose name was John. ' But before -I conclude, permit me. Carlo mio, to remind you of those lines I sent you ten years ago, and to congratulate you on all you have written since then for the improvement of mankind.' During the two years of Mahony's correspondence, which were the opening ones of the present Pope's reign, the latter was an anti-Austrian and an Italian patriot to his heart's core ; and the Correspondent sympathised thoroughly with the popular enthusiasm in his favour. The murder, however, by the Roman mob, of the minister, Count Rossi, who was a sincere friend of popular progress; his Holiness's own flight to Gaeta ; the regime of the revolutionary triumvirate, and the French occu- pation, changed the spirit of his dream. CHAPTER VIII. ROME. 1847. January 2. I SEE advertised in the usual form, and noticed by the ' Spectator,' a book entitled ' Christmas in Rome,' by some reverend American 'stranger,' whose views of men and things here seem rather jaundiced, to judge from the glimpse therein given. Rome cannot be understood by a Jonathan fresh from his conventicle. He cannot appreciate im- memorial usages ; no carmen sceculare brings to his ear the periodical mirth of centuries ; for him in vain descends from Praeneste and the Sabine hills the accustomed bagpiper, picturesquely dight, tibicen of the festival ; in vain the grim wild boar's head (on the shambles round the Parthenon) exhibits between his tusks the suggestive lemon ; the milk-white kid, bedecked with red berries, hangs alongside in unappreciated contrast ; and the linen tunic in which the Roman butcher stands 378 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. arrayed, strikes not his eye as the exact costume of the old sacrificial functionary. The chestnut roaster at each street corner is in vain surrounded by merry customers, and beggary itself looks jocular. Such people should remain to mess at their huge boarding-houses in the Broadway, eschew the via sacra, and never know the taste of a fig-pecker (so to Anglicise thy sweet name), oh, rare bird ! bonny becca-fica ! On Wednesday, December 29, Pius IX. mounted his horse, and rode off towards Ostia, to inspect personally the ravages of the river in the low grounds below Rome. A select group of Roman cavaliers formed the sovereign's escort, and that day his Holiness explored a circuit of 30 miles, giving everywhere orders for employment, pointing out tracts for drainage, and raising the wages of the labouring peasantry along his ride. Some of his equestrian cortege were hard pushed to keep up with the Pontiff, and probably re- member their excursion yet On that evening the students of the English college gave, after their annual dramatic performance, a grand supper in the library hall to their friends in Rome, Sir T. Miller, Scott Murray, Rev. W. Newman, Revs. G, Ryder and Talbot, MM. Langdale, Radcliffe, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROVT. 379 Chomeley, Petre, &c. &c. The student painters, sculptors, and architects of the three kingdoms, to the number of forty, assembled at their Christ- mas dinner in the great hall of Bertini ; Prout, pen and ink artist, in the chair. The students of the University {Sapienza) having expressed a wish to that effect, the Pontiff has granted a new chair of political economy, and three other professorships are in contemplation. . Several obnoxious and jobbing police functionaries were dismissed yesterday (Jan. i, 1847) to begin the year ; and nothing could exceed the numbers and enthusiasm of the host assembled before the Quirinal Palace windows, on the Monte Cavallo, to wish his Holiness the compliments of the season. When Pius appeared on the balcony, the shouts rent the welkin, and as a cloud seemed to approach, his Holiness put on his hat, and motioned to the uncovered crowd to do likewise ; the few drops of rain which had suggested this apparently trivial kindness were sufficient to intimate deeper care for their welfare, and no ' hatti-sheriff' of eastern romance ever elicited such heartfelt applause. Yesterday afternoon (Jan. 13) there was, as usual, an immense concourse assembled in the church of St. Andrea della Valle, to hear the 38o FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Wednesday sermon of Padre Ventura, general of the Theatines, and by far the most eloquent of our Roman orators. Some delay ensued, when a taller and more majestic personage was observed to move through the crowd towards the pulpit, and soon the well-known and well-beloved figure of the Sovereign stood recognisable by the gladdened multitude; and Pius IX. it was who spoke. ' His heart was so full with the varied emotions resulting from the position he had been placed in by Providence in their regard, that he must give public utterance to what he felt ; therefore he had come to commune with his people, after the manner of the olden days ; and first he would thank them with the warmest effusion of heart for the trans- cendent manifestation of their loyalty and devotion upon the Quirinal Hill at the opening of the year, and at various times since the dawn of his pontifi- cate ; a revival of the old Roman reverence for the chair of St. Peter, however now inadequately filled. The best return he could make would be a renewal of his efforts for their welfare, political as well as religious ; for the latter especially, as unmeasurably the nearer and dearer to his breast' The Pope then went, with the utmost simplicity and manly good sense, into the details of practical improvements which he desired to see carried out FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 381 in the individual conduct of his hearers, touching on most of the popular vices, and urging, with all the fervour of the ancient homilies, a thorough moral reform in his auditory. His address, which lasted scarce half an hour, was of course listened to with breathless attention ; and then the usual evening service was resumed. This occurrence was quite unlooked for. January 21. Our new governor, Grazzelini, has addressed himself in earnest to the work of social reform. His first effort is arduous enough, no less than an attempt to extirpate the old cancer of mendicity, which has long disfigured Rome. Florence has shown, early in this century, what could be effected by an intelligent government, to discourage, and ultimately uproot, the mendicant system from the midst of an industrious and thrifty population ; but the difificulties to encounter in this city are far more formidable, and therefore success will be, if achieved, a paramount triumph of administrative capacity. The process is deserving of attentive study, for obvious reasons just now. For some days the active agents of the Roman police were constituted into an army of observation, and the various haunts of eleemosynary practitioners were 382 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. accurately mapped out. No alarm was given ; but at the close of the last week several simul- taneous and well-directed razzias were made on the astonished natives of beggardom, and near 400 of the more prominent male and female characters carried off to the several dep6ts prepared for their reception. Church door corners and favourite thoroughfares were suddenly bereft of their imme- morial sentinels, and the vested interest of each ragged incumbent set at nought. Rigid enquiry at each dep6t quickly brought out the long suspected fact that not one-twentieth of them were natives of the city, but had been attracted hither from all quarters by the alms-giving renown of this capital. In return for alms so given, an immense amount of vice was shown to be imported among the native poor, with inveterate habits of the vilest hypocrisy. Means of conveyance forth- with were found for these unbidden guests, and some hundreds of them are now on their road homewards, specially recommended to the village or municip.al authorities, who are made responsible for their non-return. Accompanied with a land- tax on the great estates of the Roman nobles for their support or employment, this measure will greatly relieve the city ; though it may not be so palatable to the Piombinos, Rospigliosi, RuspoH, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 383 Chigi, Borghese, and other leviathan landholders, who would much prefer the practice of ostentatious alms-giving in Rome to the compulsory and inglorious payment of extra labourers on their farms. To one accustomed here, a walk through the streets of this town yesterday, without having to ' run the gauntlet ' of the usual professionals, was a real novelty. New Rome might be described in the graphic words of Scott's ' Andrew Fairservice ' when eulogising Glasgow Cathedral, which ap- peared to him ' all the better for being cleansed of popish eedols' and made by John Knox 'as dowse as a cat when the fleas are kempt ofl^ her ! ' Tastes differ as to picturesque effect, not merely with reference to the aforesaid eedols, but with regard to the fixed attendance of a goodly row of mendi- cants at the porch of Christian churches. Long ago Chrysostom boasted that Pagan palaces and temples might bedeck their porticoes with graceful statuary, but the maimed,. the lame, and the blind were the proper ornaments, metopes and triglyphs of an orthodox peristyle. The Byzantinfe standard of art may not be quite infallible, though Raphael, in his cartoon of the ' Beautiful Gate,' has introduced the lame beggar of Scripture with a skilful eye to contrast. But as the business of a journalist is 384 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. merely with social amelioration, the picturesque and archaeological part of this subject may be safely left to Mr. Pugin. The annual ceremony of blessing the cattle at the porch of St. Antonio, on the Esquiline, which, during the present week (Jan. 21), keeps all the ostlers and vetturini of Rome alive with excite- ment, as well as the blessing of two milk-white lambs at the Church of St. Agnes, which interests all the young ladies from England, and took place this morning, are topics which the rude pen of worldly-minded journalism had perhaps better eschew also. The former of these yearly transac- tions may, however, be looked at, not alone in a sentimental or aesthetic point of view, but as an exhibition of the native breed of horses — a kind of Roman Tattersall's. Very little has been done, and very much might be accomplished, for the improvement of what Frenchmen call la race chevaline, in these parts. A few of the nobility attend to their studs, having nothing else to do ; but the great mass of the working quadrupeds are miserably underbred, though the vast estates into which this territory is divided afford peculiar facilities for rearing a superior stock of cavalry. The introduction of the Chesterfield fox-hounds FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 385 has given some impulse to the breeding of saddle horses in the Campagna, and the new facility afforded by the Peninsular Company's steam com- munication direct between Civita Vecchia and Southampton may bring more English blood into the breed. The good friars' blessing can do the beasts no harm ; nay, may tend to humanise the ferocity of their masters, who can scarcely ill-treat the recipient of St. Antonio's benison ; as such, this ceremony ought to be patronised by the ' Animals' Friend Society,' who might possibly get up a branch establishment for the benefit of London cabmen, pr prevail on some benevolent rector (say your editorial fellow-labourer, George Croly) to give the metropolitan cattle a benefit at the ' Elephant and Castle.' A beggar on horseback is considered in England a rare combination, but a centaur of this kind was to be seen here on the Pincian Hill in the shape of a robust cripple, who rode in daily from his country seat, and dismounting took up his position on the great stairs of the Trinita, riding off gravis tsre domum at eve. I see him now from my window, his donkey b^ing tethered to the' accustomed tree. His is a torso as finely developed as that in the Vatican, with a voice to c c 386 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROVT. match. I rejoice to find he'\xa& escaped the razzia, being a fellow of infinite drollery ; he is in sooth the mighty P- (query D-)an of our Roman beg- gars. He has given his daughter i,ooo crowns dowry. January 28. Our latest lion here is Richard Cobden, fresh from a banquet given him by the merchants of Genoa. I fear he will find little scope in these parts for the development of free-trade propagan- dism, unless, indeed, he apply his ingenious mind to the effecting of a free intercourse with Great Britain in the matter of diplomatic relations, a topic of more vital consequence to the future pro- spects of the empire than seems to be generally understood among men of reputed foresight. The disaffected portion of our Irish fellow-subjects are fully alive to the importance of free-trade between England and the Vatican, and hence the violent hqwl from that quarter at the very mention of this ' delicate ' question. As to mere commercial interchange, until the Romans have something besides beads and cameos to barter with us there must be a pause of some duration ; a few statues of modern make, with some old ' noseless blocks ' of antique produce, will scarce make up a return FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 387 cargo. The little town of Massa di Carrara, in the Lucchese territory, exports more sculpture as well as unwrought marble than the whole Roman States. In spite of our immense rural resources and natural capabilities, we are, in Rome essentially, a mere consuming population. One fact tells our whole story : we send out annually to our Neapolitan neighbours about 100,000 skins of the kid who disports himself on our hills, and we receive back in return half a million pair of kid gloves which we might as well make at home. In truth, we have nothing to give in barter for colonial or manufacturing produce, of which we have never- theless considerable consumption, and our case is exactly that of the Irish sea-port described by one of your poets with more suggestive wisdom than he gets credit for : — There are ships from Cadiz And from Barbadoes, But the leading trade is In whisky-punch. As to corn (in which breadstuff we might pay for all our wants) until the system of entail is destroyed, and the mortmain ^ of monasteries and hospitals broken up, and a redistribution of land ' Mahony gave some interesting evidence on this subject before a Committee of the House of Commons. c c 2 388 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. takes place, no surplus will be grown for exporta- tion. You will be naturally curious to learn how the grand experiment of uprooting mendicity from Rome, described fully in my last, has been found to answer. Hitherto the attempt appears very successful, and street begging has, if not disap- peared, assumed a very different attitude. The genuine Roman beggar was proverbially the most insolent and importunate of the whole tribe ; the Irus of Homeric days was but a faint prototype of the class. To receive your alms seemed his right, and he pursued you like a bailiff armed with a warrant of exaction. These marauders have been captured and impounded ; the highway is now clear to all ; but there remain a few stragglers in the byeways, — Pauca tamen subeunt veteris vestigia fraudis, principally composed of cripples and blind men, whose demeanour is subdued, and who merely rattle a tin canister filled with a few seed bajocchi. The grand staircase of the Trinita exhibits a specimen or two, but not as it did of old, in such numbers as to rival the famous ' Nix Mangiare steps ' of Malta. The late Tom Hood described FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 389 his blind man as ' a figure in alto relievo whom few- relieved ; ' as an instance of the ' clair obscur ; being seldom blind to his own interest,' as a ' human canister tied to a dog's tail ; ' and as a ' Venetian blind,' being pulled up and down by a string. But it is very remarkable that no one ever saw a blind man in Rome led about by a dog. Such an ex- pedient never seems to have occurred to the natives here, or if the idea struck them it seems to have been rejected with scorn. Possibly the dogs here are not endowed with the instinct necessary to be entrusted with the guidance of a ' dark man ; ' but the fact is that each sufferer from ' gut serene,' or other ' dim suffusion ' takes good care to secure the services of a strapping young woman, or full-grown lad, whose whole time is given to the patient, and of course lost to the community. This is decidedly a more dignified style of thing than if dependent on a mere quad- ruped, or, as Virgil has it: — Canibus data praeda Latinis. And as we are on the subject of dogs, I may as well notice some particulars of the habits of this animal in connection with the general subject. Louis Bonaparte (Prince of Canino), brother-in- law of Mr. Wyse, and rival of Charles Waterton 390 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. in knowledge of brute instincts, has drawn the attention of naturalists to the system of life pur- sued by the dogs of Rome. You are aware that no sewerage exists here except the cloaca maxima, and that having no regular dustmen or street con- tractors, the inhabitants are accustomed to throw out the garbage and refuse of their houses, which is deposited generally in some blind corner ap- pointed for that purpose by the police, and decorated with a large inscription on the wall, Immondezzaio, i.e. ' rubbish shot here.' It appears that though several hundreds of these established depdts exist in Rome, not one is unappropriated, but has become, by usurpation or regular transfer, the fee-simple of some particular dog, who will not suffer his rights of flotsam and jetsam to be invaded by any squatter or new comer, but rules supreme master of the dung-heap he has acquired. Some cases of copartnership in a dirt corner have been observed, but generally with brothers on the death of the parent ; and desperate battles occur occasionally about ' fixity of tenure,' as in Tip- perary. The unsuccessful claimant on ejectment has no resource but the general run of the streets : Heu ! magnum alterius fmstrk spectabit acervum ! FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 391 Cases of suicide are proverbially rare in Rome : whether there be anything in the genius loci adverse to the conimission of the ' rash act,' or whether the aspect of our mouldering ruins has something soothing to the mind diseased, I do not profess to say. It is certain that an old Roman general felt resigned to his defeat while seated amid the ruins of Carthage, who would, probably, have fallen on his own sword in a gayer locality ; and as a French poet observes : — Et ces deux grands ddbris se consolaient entr' eux. It is a matter of statistic truth that in this ' city of the soul ' to which ' the orphans of the heart ' have resorted long before the days of Byron, self-murder has ever been of rare occur- rence. Two days ago (Feb. 2), however, the Piazza di Spagna was the scene of a strange transaction. An author of several treatises on educational matters, who had lived some years in London and Paris, where his name is probably not forgotten, Angelo Cerrutti, after spending the last few months in composing his autobiography, which fills two octavo volumes, and having caused supplies of the work to be distributed for sale at the various booksellers' shops throughout the city, on the morning of the 2nd inst. ordered a number 392 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. of bill-stickers to placard all Rome with the title of the said autobiography, ' Scritta lui vivente,' and while they were executing his job in all direc- tions, he quietly at noon blew his brains out. For the information of some of your metro- politan rectors of parishes, whose pious wrath is wreaked, in the refusal of sepulchral rites, on the relatives of the departed, I hasten to acquaint you that in Rome, by a decree of Pope Benedict XIV., suicides are declared to be by the very act proven madmen, and as such entitled, as well as dying lunatics, to the full benefit of Christian burial, and are here buried accordingly. February 8. I fear Austrian influence in Roman affairs is but ' scotched not killed.' The old serpent seems yet lively enough, and twines itself round the high priest and his ministers after the old Laocoon fashion. Last week afforded a case in point. At the instigation of the Kaiser's embassy here, a domiciliary visit was made at the shops of the Liberal bookseller Nattali, and all his stock in trade overhauled in the most unceremonious style. The murder at last was found out, and what d'ye think came uppermost ? Six hundred copies of a pamphlet bearing the print mark of FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 393 ' Paris,' and embodying the speech of Count Montalembert, in the French Peers, on the mas- sacres of GaHcia and Tarnow ! Also a few copies of the eloquent Abbe Gioberti's political and religious essays, which do honour to Italian and Christian literature. The indignation of all honest men is aroused at this wanton inroad on the de- clared policy of Pius IX., and it has neutralised to a great extent the effect of the late ' sermon.' In every social meeting of every class, the follow- ing ' card ' is circulated reflecting on this act of the new governor : — Lo Stampatore Perquisito a suoi Concittadini. Fummo sotto il reo Marini Minacciati e non feriti; Sotto il probo Grasselini Senza aviso siamo colpiti ; Spetta a voi Romani adesso, Giudicar qual sia il progresso ! And, certainly, if the attention of Papal au- thority is directed towards rectifying the press, it might find other game besides the works and speeches of two most distinguished members of our communion : men who combine, in rare con- junction, sincere faith with high intelligence and impressive logic. There is, for instance, a . book which has a greater circulation in the Roman 394 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. States than the New Testament or Thomas a Kempis, called the ' Book of Dreams, ' or the oracle of the government lottery. Wheelbarrow- fuls are sold to the populace at every fair, and it is often the only book in a whole village. The faith of credulous ignorance in this book is a most astounding fact, and no later than four days ago, at the drawing of the lottery, an instance of its infallibility was quoted in all the haunts of the people. A labourer fell from the scaffolding of the new hospital in the Corso, and was killed on the spot ; his fellow-workman left the corpse in the street, and ran to consult his ' Book of Dreams.' Paura, sangue, cascata, were the caba- listic words whose corresponding numbers set forth therein he selected for his investment of fifteen bajocchi. On Saturday his three numbers all came forth from the government urn, winning a prize of 300 dollars ! The subject of the infamous lottery system is, however, too vast for a casual notice, and deserves a separate letter ; its degrading and immoral ope- ration on every class of this pauper yet gambling community has been exposed by the best writers of Rome itself to no purpose hitherto. Sarcastic poetry has aimed its shaft of ridicule in vain ; for the pulpit, alas ! is not allowed to touch on the tabooed topic. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 395 Evviva la legge Che il lotto mantiene ! II capo del gregge Ci vuole un gran bene ; I mali, i bisogni Degli asini vede, E il fieno provvede Col libro dei sogni. • February 18. The Carnival, thank Heaven, is over at last, and ten days of this uproarious tomfoolery, which has forcibly superseded every rational sort of occupation, have come to a close. Among all kinds of outlandish costumes re- producing the semblance of every foreign garb and gaberdine, people took no notice of something really striking and strange, viz., the entrance into Rome of the new Turkish ambassador and his suite of genuine Orientals. Most spectators took the solemn pageant for part of the general farce, and applauded the Sultan's envoy as a well got up buffoonery, to the utter amazement of the grave Ottoman. His Highness Shekib Effendi, amidst showers of confectionery and groups of dancing harlequins, proceeded with diplomatic gravity to his appointed residence, and there having spread his carpet and performed his ablutions, lit his pipe and duly pondered on his reception in this holy 396 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. city. What his musings were may be left to the imagination. The day after his arrival being Shrove Tuesday, was the culminating point of the pre- vious day's fun ; and rumour having acquainted the Romans wilh the real nature of the distin- guished infidel's visit, crowds of maskers and gaily filled chariots thronged under the windows of the turbaned plenipotentiary. There sat Shekib Ef- fendi, plying his chibouk with imperturbable com- posure, having learnt from his attendants that the Christians were celebrating their ' Ramazan,' and having sufficiently imbibed principles of toleration to look calmly on the devotional exercises of the Giaours. Reports were rife as to the costly pre- sents which he was commissioned to offer the Pope on his reception, though different versions prevailed as to the precise nature of the gifts, some maintaining the value of a splendid jewelled pipe, others holding out for a priceless blade from Damascus, while the learned advocated an illumi- nated MS. of the Koran; shawls ruled highest with the fair Romans. Meantime, in endless succession, carriage after carriage rolled under the balconies of the envoy, each brilliant equipage of gay masquers vieing with the other in polite manifestations, flinging FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 397 flowers and saccharine projectiles in token of recognition ; to all which the Sublime Porte's representative ' made no sign.' It is related in Homer that, seated on the walls of Troy, old Priam got Helen to point out the distinguished Greeks as they fought in the distance round the beleaguered town. Had some ' devil on two sticks ' been at the Turk's elbow on the present occasion, he might have performed a similar office in respect of some remarkable characters. ' Yonder respectable, middle-aged gentleman with a party of English ladies, O Shekib, is the Sahib Robert el Gordon, brother of Aberdeen Effendi, both of which personages thou hast heard of in diplomacy. Saib Robert has been British envoy in Germany, whither thou goest, but he now disports himself with the rest after the man- ner of the Romans. In the next chariot seest thou a young nobleman of flash appearance, with a black eye, got by a blow from an orange ? That is one of the hereditary legislators of England, Ward Bey. Following him driveth past, in a dashing vehicle, the Prince of Syracuse, brother to the King of Naples, to Christina Munoz of Spain, to Caroline Lucchese Pafli and to Penelope Capua Smith. He appeareth to be, what I fear he is, a very snob of royalty. Next, in a hackney convey- 398 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ance, sitteth a tall gaunt personage alone, with a quid of tobacco inside his cheek ; that, O Shekib, is Ben Polk, of Naples, brother of " Jeames," the great sultaun of the Yan-kees. He always leaves his embassy and the lazzaroni of Rome during Ramazan. Not very gifted is he in diplomatic accomplishment, but a true connoisseur in the famous transatlantic sherbet, sherry cobbler. Anon, cometh a striking figure, rather short but manly, with a bushy beard and square forehead : 'tis the only clever remnant of the Bonaparte race, the intelligent Prince of Canino : profound as a sage, sportive as a boy. Dost thou notice the splendid equipage, with running footmen and tricolour cockades ? 'Tis Count Rossi, envoy of the Feringees, the only nationality represented here. Yonder carriage with the royal arms of Portugal carries a masked personage. He would fain pass for Dom Miguel, formerly King of Lisbon ; he is only the Don's valet, but very like his master. He can't impose upon the people here, for we know that the real Miguel secretly left Rome, on his way back to Oporto, ten days ago.' Such would be the indications furnished to the inquiring Ottoman by a dispassionate eye-witness, who might also enter into details of many less FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 399 known, but not less curiously interesting, private individuals ; but as none but avowedly public characters — appearing as such in public — are le- gitimate subjects of comment, 'non ragionam di loro, ma guarda e passa.' The last news is the interview of the senior captain (Cacciari) of the Roman civic guard with the Pope, on the occasion of electing a new colonel of the corps. After some discussion his Holiness asked whether there would be any objection to his becoming a candidate for that office ? Of course none ; and consequently, to the great delight of the Romans, Pius IX. is gazetted to-day (Feb. 18) Colonel of La Guardia Civica. February 28. The Italians are gifted by nature with a high order of intelligence, and whenever the swathing bands by which their very infancy is enveloped are removed, their native energies are in immediate evidence. The growth of public spirit in Rome, within a few months, resembles the sudden exuberance of a Russian or Canadian summer. Among the clergy liberal opinions are professed with a marvellous enthusiasm which, under the late Gregory, di fratesca memoria, would have 400 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. not only barred all chance of promotion, but in- volved more serious consequences. The public journals teem with the efifusions of clerical penman- ship in favour of political reform. In yesterday's ' Cotemporaneo,' so ably edited by the prelate Gazzola, the leading article is on the ' liberty of the press ; ' and the same paper contains vigorous essays on the ' right of petition,' the necessity of a ' penny postage,' and the sacred duty of every citizen taking part in politics, il sveluppamento della vita publica. Gioberti's principles are forcibly maintained in the teeth of Austria ; the Jesuits — considered by public opinion here as the political tools of the retrograde faction, whose centre is Modena — are rather roughly handled, and it is clear that the secular priesthood leads the van in the march of political progress. ' Sir Ricardo Cobden,' as the Italian news- papers insist on calling him, was introduced this week to Pius IX. by Cardinal Fieschi, and had a prolonged interview with the sovereign. The most distinguished of the Roman nobility vie with each other in doing honour to the English cotton- spinner. An edict went forth this week, opening the ports to foreign corn of every sort ; which, though limited for the present, will no doubt be FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 401 made a permanent measure. Gas-works are being organised ; the railway board is actively- engaged ; the national guard is a favourite object of the Pope's attention, and a splendid banner, sent them from the civic guard of Bologna, in token of fraternisation, was this week solemnly acknowledged and hung up in the Capitol. The birthday of General Washington occur- ring last Monday, a grand banquet was held in the hall of Bertini, at which nearly sixty citizens of the United- States assembled, under the presidency of their Neapolitan charg^ d'affaires, Mr. Polk, junior, whose name is not unknown to your readers. Thirteen toasts were gone through with republican vigour and perseverance, not omitting 'a successful termination to the Mexican War, with three cheers for General Taylor.' Judge Welborn, of Georgia, was eloquent in showing how a visit to Europe only made his countrymen all the prouder of their domestic institutions. ' Hail, Columbia,' and ' The Star- spangled Banner,' were performed on the piano- forte by Mr. Karsten ; and the American gym- nast, Signor Risley (who has made a harvest in Rome), volunteered an appropriate nigger dance, in honour of the father of freedom. D D 402 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Readers who have visited Rome, or have merely seen drawings of the porch of St. Peter's, with its ambidextrous semicircular colonnade, must recollect two statues of mediaeval design, meant for Peter and Paul, standing on each side of the ascending steps before the portico. These two blocks of shapeless travertine might have har- monised with the Byzantine taste of the old basilica to which they belonged, but were a pal- pable eyesore in juxtaposition with the exquisite sculpture prevalent throughout the work of Leo X. and his successors. Their limbs were stiff, their attitude awkward and clumsy, their antiquity undeniably venerable. Like many other of our time-honoured respectabilities, they have received notice to quit, and will be replaced before Easter by two marble statues of somewhat different taste, from the chisels of Fabris and Tadolini, the one director of the Belle Arti, the other a scholar of Canova. These modern productions are on a colossal scale ; each figure is nearly twenty feet in height, though formed each of a single block from Carrara. Each cost 12,000 dollars, and both are now ready to be transported from the work- shop on the Tiber, near St. Paul's, on the Ostian road. I have already alluded to the ill-judged ex- penditure of the late pontificate in this pestilent swamp. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 403 It was the intention of the late Pope to have added these two giant works to the other costly- materials entombed in that remote spot, where a casual visitor might possibly admire and appre- ciate them ; but the eminently practical and com- mon-sense intellect of Pius took a different view of the matter ; and thought them, if worth pay- ing for, worth seeing by rich and poor without the trouble of a special pilgrimage. In Lucan's ' Pharsalia,' a Roman general is introduced as indignant at the idea of Ammon's oracle being located in an African desert — an arrangement which did not accord with his notions of a provi- dent deity. Steriles neque legit arenas ■ Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere varum (pulchmm ?). 'So thinks Pius. ... In placing these new statues, the Pope seems to have had an eye to avoiding the blunder of your famous Wellington arch-abomination. Previous to deciding, he or- dered colossal drawings to be executed, with pro- portionate pedestals, and had the whole erected pro tern, on the spot to be occupied. He would not depend on any eye but his own — and his glance is unerring. The new Peter will wield his ' keys,' and the new Paul brandish his ' sword of the Spirit ' after a truly dignified fashion. Their 404 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. dimensions will not be of the stunted character of their predecessors, but in full accordance with the dome before which they are to stand sentinel. Talking of St. Peter reminds me of our governor's answer to the remonstrances of M. Guizot and the Portuguese ambassador on the late escape of Don Miguel — ' Our keys are not those of a jailor.' At a late sitting of the Roman Archaeological Society, Cavalier Campana — whose collection of Etruscan antiquities is the first in the world — gave some interesting details respecting a newly- discovered sepulchre of the Roman republican period, not far from the family vault of the Scipios at the Capena gate. The inscriptions record the entombment of several freedmen of Paulus Emilius and Julius Caesar. Subsequently, there is record of the interment of Messalina's tiring- woman, among whose bones in the cinerary urn were found several gold hair-pins and broken jewellery ; and also of a serving-maid of Cecilia Metella, with similar remnants of toilette. The ' court physician ' of Augustus, one Pindarus, is also recognisable for the first time ; as is the unknown colleague of the consul, Sergius Lentu- lus, anno urbis 762, the marble on t\\Q fasii consu- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 405 lares , of the Capitol being broken after his name. This colleague is now ascertained to have been one Junius Blesus, as was happily conjectured by some old scholiast. It also appears from these inscriptions, for the first time, that there existed a Philharmonic Society in republican Rome, one of the interred being described as belonging to collegmm symphoniacorum. 'We know so little of classic music or its performers,' says a corres- pondent, ' that any hint is of value : be it therefore known that this amateur was a " dasher of cym- bals," which may suggest the strepitoso character of these ancient concerts.' March 8. The organisation of municipal institutions and of a magistracy selected among the enlightened laity, has occupied the sovereign's attention this week. Prince Corsini, Marquis del Bufalo, Vin- cenzo Colonna, and Camillo Borghese have been named commissioners for the furtherance of these desirable reforms. But a far more vital measure has been taken by his Holiness, and one likely to be far more practically useful in its effects on the social condition of his people. He has called together, at the Quirinal Palace, a numerous as- sembly of the principal landowners of the Roman 4o6 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. territory, and in a vigorous allocution plainly told them that he would no longer tolerate individual neglect, in allowing so many broad acres of land to remain unproductive, and so many of his faith- ful peasantry to remain unemployed. He gave them notice that a vigilant eye would be kept on the management of the gigantic territorial districts confided to their care ; denied that they might do as they liked with their own, while there existed hands unemployed and months unfed within the boundary of their estates ; told them that if he found labourers in want of work on their proper- ties, he would find occupation for them at the proprietors' expense ; and finally dismissed the astonished feudal lords with a new but firm im- pression that duties as well as rights formed part of their landed inheritance. What he said, he is a man to do. To understand the full value of this bold step on the part of Pius IX., besides exhibiting him as seeking the support of the people alone, without reference to the suffrages of an effete aristocracy, it is necessary to know that five-sevenths of the whole population depend on agriculture, which forms the real resources of the kingdom. There are here three millions of inhabitants ; and if the produce of the soil were equally distributed, each FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 407 native of these dominions would be entitled to exactly 750 lbs. weight of good available food ; that is to say, our annual Pastoral and grazing produce amounts to . 350,000,000 lbs. Grain of all sorts, rice, vegetables, &c. . 1,900,000,000 „ Total . . . 2,250,000,000 „ Now the surface of the country, hill and plain, has been ascertained to present, in the form of cultivated ground, an area of 16,071 square miles ; while there remains in a state of neglect, though susceptible of culture, an extent of 1,315 square miles, in addition to only 731 quite incapable of improvement — presenting a total of 18,117 square miles. Your Irish ' reproductive board ' have , here means of comparison between the extent of their waste lands and ours ; and if a master's grasp is put forth here to compel a lazy proprietary to exertion, ought not an iron grip to be laudably laid on the spendthrift squirearchy who have for ages been the curse of Ireland } We have been amused here with accounts of a conspiracy among some friars at Ancona to upset his Holiness ; but the attempt would seem as hopeless at that alluded to in the ' Georgics.' Et conjuratos ccelum rescindere fratres ! Our newspapers give constant evidence of the 4o8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. bold and enlightened views held by political writers in Rome ; and the wonder is, how so many accu- rate thinkers and vigorous penmen have contrived to bottle up their indignation during the last sixteen years. The ' Cotemporaneo ' of the 7th has a splendid 'letter to the Pope,' signed by Gioberti, from Brussels, remarkable for freedom of speech and depth of philosophy. The ' Italico ' appears to be written by our first professors in law, medicine, and divinity. The ' Pallade ' is an artistic and utilitarian sheet. The old ' Diario ' crawls on as of old with imperturbable imbecility — a goose waddling among swans — and so fully is the mind of Rome satisfied with the new organs of recognised publicity, that an attempt to circu- late a clandestinely-printed journal, ' La Sentinella del Campidoglio,' was put- down by us all, out of respect to the liberal pontiff who has set opinion free for the first time within papal memory. The soi-disant patriotism of irreligionists and anti- socialists is at a discount in this peninsula, and all revolutionary abortions of the Carbonari school are at an end for ever. Every honest mind rallies, for hope, round Pius IX., and eschews the false oracles of demagogism and its delusions. Our great lyric poet, Monti, can no longer give utter- ance to that bitter sentiment, which the spectacle FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 409 of SO many self-seeking and declamatory politicians extorted from him some years since : Delia patria I'amor santo e perfetto Empie a mille la bocca — a died '-A petto ! The rumoured demise of Mr. O'Connell raised a slight ripple on the surface of society here, and the principal effect was to attract visitors to Hogan's studio for a glance at the colossal model of the statue now placed in the Dublin Exchange. The locale which forms this sculptor's workshop (once tenanted by Canova), presents just now what may be termed a sort of Hibernian Wal- halla. There stands the sainted effigy of the late Bishop Doyle, imploring divine mercy on a sup- pliant figure of ill-treated Erin, the right of whose impoverished children to legalised relief he argued in vain ; the voice of hollow turbulence, alas ! prevailed over the honest accents of him whose crozier whilom swayed Kildare's holy shrine. There stands the statue of Drummond, who first directed the energies of Dublin Castle to the amelioration of the neglected peasantry. There beams the mild and kindly countenance of Arch- bishop Murray, ever averse to ecclesiastical strife and the unseemly exhibitions of political church- 410 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. men. Again, the allegoric figure of Erin clasps in fond embrace the bust of her aged patriot, Cloncurry. Close at hand, in a spacious monu- mental bas-relief, Bishop Brinkley, of Cloyne, rests one hand on the celestial globe, while with the other he turns over the pages of Holy Writ. From another quarter the bust of Father Mathew looks forth, redolent of Christian philanthropy; on the same shelf is seen the mirthful brow of Father Prout. Tom Steele himself has a niche in this Irish temple of celebrity, and truly somehow the cranium of the 'head pacificator' seems iden- tified with the reading of the Riot Act. The late venerable Mr. Beamish, of Cork, as well as his meritorious partner, William Crawford, both models to any mercantile community, have their representations here, with several Murphies from that city, worthy men and knowledgeable in their generation. The bust of the late Thomas Davis, who first turned the youthful intelligence of Ireland into pathways of manly independence and self- respect, was ordered last year by a vote of his grateful fellow-countrymen ; but the funds have somehow or other been diverted to purposes more pleasing to ' Old Ireland.' Just at present the sculptor is engaged on a vast design, a sepulchral alto relievo, to the memory of. the late Peter FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 411 Purcell, the lamented founder of the Irish agri- cultural societies, who gave, for the first time, a practical direction to the spirit of association, long applied in Ireland to mere moonshine pur- poses or the selfish aggrandisement of individual ambitions. The form of the deceased worthy is accurately, yet ideally, pourtrayed ; he has fallen in the midst of his favourite pursuits. The plough is alongside the body of the departed husbandman, a shepherd's dog guarding his feet, while the genius of agriculture, crowned with ears of corn, presents a palm branch from above to the votary of food-creating industry. Alas ! Quid labor aut benefacta juvant ? Quid vomere terras Invertisse graves ? .... it tristis (Hibernus) arator, Mserentem abjungens Purcelli morte juvencum Atque opera in medio defixa relinquit aratra. March 13. Our sovereign has brought back the days of the great and good Haroun al Raschid, and goes about incognito, investigating abuses and relieving, distress. A paragraph in the ' Roman Advertiser ' gives an account of a visit paid to the Ragged Schools of Rome, originally founded by some pious laymen, and which the clergy have since taken in hand. Would that all the unoccupied friars of Rome (amounting to 800), had the grace 412 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. to employ their leisure in imparting instruction to the ignorant multitudes of children by whom they are surrounded ! There was found yesterday (what is an ex- ceedingly rare occurrence here), the dead body of a poor drunkard in the classic basin of the Fontana di Trevi, which is the water used by the select classes of Roman citizens. Much horror is felt by delicate persons at the unheard-of cir- cumstance. Possibly it may have been a victim of revenge or jealousy, but as we have no Wakley here to coronise the corpse, the mystery must remain unrevealed.'^ Not a little disgust has been felt in eccle- siastical circles on receipt of the last Lenten pastoral of Dr. M'Hale, dated February 15, contrasted, as it necessarily is, with the mild and considerate tone of similar official documents here. ' The actual in life warrants, more than is generally thought, the fanciful fictions of the best ' imaginative writers ; ' allow me to quote You — ex. gr. : — ' And her father ? ' enquired the poetic Snodgrass. ' Re- morse and misery,' replied the Stranger. ' Sudden disappear- ance — talk of the whole city — search made— fountain in the great square suddenly ceased playing — weeks elapsed ; still a stoppage — workmen to clean it — water drawn off — father-in-law discovered sticking head first in the main pipe, with a full con- fession in his right boot — took him out, and the fountain played away again, as well as ever.' — Pickwick Papers, chap, ii. FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 413 It appears that he inveighs amid Irish famine against the ' soup estabhshments with which this country is about to be inundated,' talks about ' breaking down .the fences of discipHne ! ' and sapiently adds that ' this soup, without affording sufficient nutriment, has just as much of the juice of meat as would fill the poor with remorse ! ' An Indian fakir on the banks of the Ganges might be supposed to howl forth such ravings, not -a Chris- tian teacher. Last year, it is well remembered here that the same individual ascribed, in his Lenten address, the . potato rot to the Bill for endowing provincial academies for the middle classes. March 18. Since the public holding of criminal courts (a gracious reform of our new monarch), the able Irish barrister, Mr. Whiteside, Q.C., has been a constant attendant on the sessions, and I trust on his return he will give you the benefit of his expe- rience in Roman law, as laid down by Bartoli, our ' Coke upon Littleton.' Accounts from Florence represent the Grand Duke as affrighted beyond measure at the freedom of public opinion in the Roman press, and he doubt- less aided Austria in getting the new edict Gizzi. 414 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Every southern and northern despot feels that the_ battle of human progress is to be fought at Rome, and we all feel the truth of that notion. Here the banner of reform must be unfurled to rally the mil- lions of hereditary bondsmen. ' Signifer hie statue signum ! hie optime manebimus.' ( Vide Livy.) March 27. The struggle between the Roman newspapers and Austrian interference has just terminated in the total discomfiture of Metternich and the triumph of the press. The ' edict ' forced on the pusillanimous Gizzi has, thanks to the firm atti- tude of our local editors, become a dead letter ; and yesterday all our journals came out fresh and vigorous as ever, without the ghost of a ' govern- ment stamp,' and evincing no trace of meddling censorship. The ' Cotemporaneo,' at the head of the public instructors, shows redoubled energy from its short repose, and contains articles of an eloquence and ability which the Parisian ' Debats ' has seldom exhibited. I transmit you yesterday's number. It is understood that no change will be attempted in matters of public journalism ' for the present year,' and such a concession to the late outburst of opinion is quite tantamount to a final settlement. It is a point of etiquette tacitly under- FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 415 * Stood in Rome, that no edict once promulgated can be formally repealed, however it may be suffered to lie dorniant : for instance, the late Governor Marini issued an ukase against fox- hunting in the Campagna, according to which the ■horse and his rider are still liable to fine and con- fiscation, yet the hounds meet twice a week, and the whipper-in is reckless ; ' habemus contra te Catilinam senatus-consultum vehemens et grave ; verum tanquam gladium in vagini reconditum ! ' Last night another kindly effort was made to aid the life-struggle in Ireland, and produced a thousand dollars. Adelaide Kemble (Sartoris), in unison with a number of amateurs, German, Russian, and Italian, got up an extemporaneous concert ; the Spanish envoy at this court flung open the long-deserted halls of the once gorgeous palace of his national embassy for their reception ; Lord Ward paid for the lights, and Earl Compton sang, as did Countess Calergi, De Rougemont, Prince Wolkonsky, Count Castlebarco, and Miss Brown, of Mayo. Nearly three hundred years ago, in these identical saloons, Olivarez and the general (of the Jesuits) Aquaviva, organised the rebellion of Hugh O'Neil in Ulster; and here the 'blessing ' of the Spanish Armada was concocted. 4i6 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. The same roof looked down last night on some- what more creditable proceedings. Pius IX., whose popularity flags not among the lower and middle classes, does not meet with the same enthusiasm among the selfish and worth-' less ' nobles,' who have for ages preyed oil the vitals of this land without exhibiting a particle of the qualities by which their forefathers bought their honours and distinctions ; it is true that some of these Roman patrician families at no period produced any great men, but merely gained wealth and an hereditary position from the acci- dental elevation of a Pope whose stupid nepotism became a mine of inexhaustible revenues to his relatives. Some very prominent and very frivo- lous leaders of fashionable life here will recognise themselves in this description. Not of this origin, however, is the family whose mansion the Pope honoured last week with a visit, being the first time he has paid such a compliment to any of his private subjects. Prince Massimo, though an in- different post-master, is unquestionably one of the best born and truest gentlemen in Rome, being an undoubted descendant of the sole surviving Fabius out of the 300 who marched to Oremera ; and through Fabius Maximus and a line of known FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 417 consuls and subsequent magistrates of this city, traceable in every link to the present day. Ma- billon, Litta, and Cardinal Mai have each in turn elucidated this unrivalled genealogy, so as to defy cavil. But if anything were wanting to cor- roborate the testimony of parchments and marble inscriptions, the experience of every traveller from Civita Vecchia or Florence might be ap- pealed to as to the slow-coach system prevalent under the present functionary, whose kinsmanship to the great Cunctator is thereby invincibly proven. April 3. This solemn week has 'given pause' to all sublunary things, and the public of Rome, as well as the floating population of pilgrims from every clime, have devoted themselves exclusively to the observances of the ritual and the immemorial pomps of the Catholic rubric, carried on not with- out due . admixture of exquisite music and soul- stirring anthems. Many whose sympathies could . hitherto never be awakened by these outward ceremonies, looked on by them as only tending to exalt a domineering priesthood in the eyes of an ignorant crowd, have this year mingled in the throng, out of pure regard for our truly enlightened and benevolent pontiff, and, entering into the true E E 4i8 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. spirit of the mystic liturgy, have ceased to scoff, in more than one instance, the Parcus deoram cultor et infrequens has remained to pray. Cobden's visit to Naples, though unattended by any public display (the lazzaroni government being afraid of Liberal speeches, such as were delivered in Rome and Genoa after the banquet), elicited, nevertheless, the true feeling of public opinion in that capital. No less than 119 cards of important personages from every class in society were left at his residence. April 5. Yesterday, while the pontiff was in the act of blessing ' urbem et orbeTtt ' from the porch of St. Peter's, before a concourse of over 200,000 Chris- tians of every creed, a slight disturbance arose, which might have had bad results. The civic guard (of which he is colonel) had petitioned to be allowed to put their hats upon the points of their bayonets, and to cheer, which had been allowed, but the troops of the line made a similar applica- tion which had not been successful, and, in conse- quence, Zamboni, the commandant, had counter- manded the order of the day as regarded the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 419 national troops. The people did not know of this, and when the Pope arose amid a deep silence, and his silvery voice was distinctly heard over the crowd, a sudden burst from the whole multitude greeted him, and all eyes were turned on the national guard for their expected manifestation ; their attitude of simple ' attention ' did not please the Romans, and a row would have ensued but for the timely explanation of some officers, who were on the qui vive. The Pope was escorted, amid wild enthusiasm, back to the Quirinal. Clubs are getting quite into vogue here. The nobles have not any longer the monopoly of casinos. The merchants have got up a club ; the artists have got one. The Germans had taken the lead in clubbing, and were soon imitated by the French. The English have a well-appointed one in the Piazza di Spagna. A kind of semi- political club (called // Circolo Romano) numbers already 300 members, and most of the journals of Europe are taken. A funeral took place last week of some im- portance, as showing how the middle classes are emerging from nonentity to importance and self- respect. A coffee-house keeper, called Ricci, who E E 2 420 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. had been distinguished as the first Roman who brewed gas for the hghting of his splendid saloons in the Palazzo Ruspdli (the putting out of which gas-pipe I enumerated last year on the 4th of April, among the doings of the late Govenor Marini), having died, was convoyed to his last resting-place by several thousands of his fel- low-citizens ; the Corso was resplendent with torches, and the national guard, of which he was a soldier, turned out in force to honour their worthy comrade. He was the great support of the poor exiles, and a stout reformer. You will find the speech pronounced over his grave in the pages of the ' Cotemporaneo.' None but a noble or a ' saint ' ever had honours of this sort in Rome. The mezzo ceto have begun to understand their own worth. Rocca, the President of Ecuador (Quito and Guayaquil), has sent an ambassador to our court, the Marquis Lorenzana. Among the odd regulations which from time immemorial have obtained in Rome is the law by which goats are not allowed to enter the city until after Easter Sunday. In consequence the town was thronged at an early hour this morning with herds of horiled visitors from the Sabine Hills, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER- PROUT. 421 their udders full of milk, and their odour recog- nisable through every thoroughfare. Carriages could hardly go at any pace for the obstruction. Why they are excluded during the Lent's holy fast I do not .pretend to discover ; possibly it may have some mysterious connection with a passage in the beautiful old dithyramb, ' Dies irae,' sung on mournful occasions of the church service : — Inter oves locum prsesta ! Et ab h(edis me sequestra, Statuens in parte dextra ! April 8. You may look out for a speedy adjustment of the question of Rome and England's interchange of diplomatic relations. Her Majesty's ambassador at Naples has just arrived here ; and if his visit to Rome has merely a recreative object, he would scarcely have chosen to come afier the Easter attractions had ceased to render our city interest- ing, and just when the season of Neapolitan festivity opens. The Hon. Mr. Temple and our late • English minister at Vienna, Sir Robert Gordon, do not appear idle ; and though this business belongs properly to the department of our Florentine envoy, Mr. Hamilton's continued illness has rendered the services of another official 422 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. personage indispensable. To lay the foundation of an embassy at Rome {tanta molts erai /) would seem a work of surpassing gravity ; and the brother of the late as well as the brother of the present occupant of the Foreign-office are not too many for the task. May the mother of the graces smile on the undertaking ! Sic te diva potens Cypri, Sic fratres Helenae, lucida sidera ! for, in a case like this, one may be allowed to draw upon both Horace and Virgil for illustra- tions. Letters from Paris to the Irish college here prepare the members of the clergy and other admirers of Mr. O'Connell for his immediate arrival by sea at Civita Vecchia, from which he will have, owing to the horrid state of that road, a most tedious drive to Rome. The town is fast getting empty, as usual about this time of the year, and next month the heat will begin to be intolerable, so that the baths of Lucca, or some other cheerful retreat, would be a more sensible move. He will find here, in a state of bodily and mental debility equal to his own, at an advanced age, the only living daughter of Curran, the sister FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 423 of her of whom it is written, in pages that will never die : — She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps. If he is enabled to climb the Janiculum Hill, he will trace on the marble floor of the church -of Mon- torio the newly-repaired and refreshened epitaphs of two Irish chieftains who did not confine their aspirations against the Saxon to mere talk, but wasted both life and fortune in the hopeless endea- vour to create an independent Ireland, to Right her wrongs in battle line. heic jacent o'nealivs bardo de dvngannon MAGNI HUGONIS FILIVS, ET o'donnel comes de tyrcgnnel QVI contra h/ereticos in hybernia multos anntls certarvnt MDCVIII. This memorable inscription had long remained unknown and neglected, when an Irish artist in his rambles brought it to light, and piously re- stored the nearly-defaced characters and the ' red hand of Ulster,' which is of porphyry. That artist was John Hogan, of Cork, a worthy disciple of your Scott's ' Old Mortality.' 424 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer ' Tiger,' which is to bring Gibson's Queen, is cram full of pictures and sculpture. The Royal Academy will be great prigs indeed if they object their ' time regulations ' to the reception of the .statue. ' Nullum tempus occurrit Reginae ! ' eh ? April 15. I regret to announce that Gibson's statue of the Queen, which left our quay, in a barchetta, for Civita Vecchia, to meet the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer for Southampton, missed arriving. The small barge, owing to the low water in the Tiber, and to the great weight of the marble, with its treble oak casing, stuck in the mud at Ostia, and lies there still. Such are the inconveniences of greatness, as Boileau curiously observes, speaking of Louis XIV. on the Rhine banks, while his army was forcing the passage : — Le grand roi, admirant leur courage, Se plaint de sa grandeur qui I'attache au rivage ! Milan, April 24. The vacant archiepiscopal mitre, with con- tingent or rather concomitant red-hat, has been placed on the brow, not of a German, as of late, but of Count Romilli, a Bergamasque, who has FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 425 been just translated to Milan from the sufifragan see of Cremona, henceforth to play first fiddle in the church affairs of Lombardy. The Milanese are in high glee at this forced concession of Kolowrath, and in every shop-window exhibit a print of the new primate — a faint reminiscence is their joy of the days when the civic governor Ambrose was, by sudden acclamation of the people, made bishop ; and from being a mere layman, and it is supposed only a catechumen, in three days baptized and priested and all. The new prelate had - only ruled Cremona one year, but had shown unexampled zeal for the social and moral bettering of the inhabitants ; proved effi- ciency has been his sole recommendation. He was neither tutor of some booby lord, nor editor of a crabbed Greek play, nor calculating pam- phleteer, nor sycophant master of a college. To the poor of Christ (the original grantees) he handed over, on principle, far more than two-thirds of his church revenues. Such a man ought to succeed to the great Frederick, and the still greater Charles, Borromeo. The prospects of agriculture in Italy must be a topic of interest to your readers ; and as I have just traversed the whole of the central and upper 426 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. districts of the Peninsula, I can affirm that for the last twenty years never was the aspect of the country, or the operatiops of the farmer, in a state so promising. There can be no doubt of an immense surplus of grain for export next autumn, nearly double the usual breadth of land being laid down with that view, consequent on the removal of your corn-laws, of which the presence here of Cobden had been an active memento. The rice- fields about Milan and Mantua are in high order ; the numerous floodings of the various streams throughout the winter have had in Tuscany and the Romagna rather a favourable and fertilising effect ; and the second or after-crop of Indian I corn is sure to be provided for in due time (after the present harvest) to an immense extent. The weather, which had been bright and bracing, is more genial and warm — indeed, in the plains inconveniently hot for the period of the year, and just such as Tasso described it in his time — Cessa al fin la pioggia, e toma il sole, Ma dulce spiega e temperate il raggio, Pien di maschio valor ; siccome suole Tra il fin d'Aprile e il comminciar di Maggio. (Gerusalemme, xx.) The mere material interests of the population in Austrian Lombardy are looked after carefully, FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 427 and, if men were mere animals, no government could be more laudably active in providing for the lower instincts and comforts of the people ; but, though it is severely proscribed, and the exercise of the mental faculties strictly interdicted, not a.< single reading-room is to be found in all Milan, and the splendid library of the Brera has but a very scai>t attendance of book students ; but woe to the possessor of a copy of any Roman newspaper. If the plague or cholera were in the Pope's capital, there could not be such alarm or precaution against what emanates now from Rome. Rome : April 28. Concerning the anniversary festival of the foundation of Rome, held in the baths of Titus, amid a concourse of 20,000 spectators, 800 sitting down to the banquet, you will have, ere this, heard much ; but the speech of the evening, that of Marquis Azeglio, which eloquently denounced the presence and pride of ' Goths, Huns, and Vandals ' in Italy, elicited thunders of applause, and has been printed, by authorisation of the new board of censorship, in a supplement of the ' Co- temporaneo.' The only other allusion was to England, which the speaker designated our elder sister in ' manufactures, commerce, and freedom.' 428 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. For obvious reasons no reference was made to France, the recent instructions and conduct of Count Rossi having taken the gold off his ginger- bread completely. The liberality of the new censors is the topic of general praise ; and, indeed, it is considered that the palpable truths uttered in the presence of so many applauding auditors, and ratified by the common sense of the whole Penin- sula, would amount to a suppressio veri equivalent to a suggestio falsi. Altogether this awakening exhibition will not fail to tell throughout Italy ; and if the founder of the baths, ' the beloved of mankind,' were permitted to hover in spirit over the scene, he could not repeat that ' he had lost a day.' I am sorry to record the seqijel of what took place on the publication of the speeches hailed with such enthusiasm. Four hours elapsed from the moment of their issuing from the press ; they were greedily devoured in every coffee-house, club, and private family in Rorne ; blessings were invoked on the orators, and on the whole pro-, ceeding ; when lo ! the agents of the police, ' blushing as they entered,' made their appearance in every hole and corner of Rome where the ' Cotemporaneo ' was supposed to be taken, and begged and menaced until they got back the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 429 ' supplement of speeches.' Not in all cases were they successful ; but at the post-ofifice they suc- ceeded but too well, and such was the rigour of the search, that I have been unable to transmit a smuggled copy of what was spoken. This I have ascertained on enquiry to-day among officials in my confidence. This is simply another quasi-concession to Lutzow, the Austrian minister, whose ' demand for his passports,' recorded by me, produced some weeks ago the attempt at suppressing the Roman journals — an attempt which, as I then chronicled, was defeated by the firm attitude of the press. To ' ask for his passports ' appears to be the only diplomacy of which he is capable, and in this instance he has only rendered his position at Rome really what he recently described it in a letter to Metternich, as pas tenable. For God's sake, since evidently go he eventually must, why does he wriggle and hesitate about the precise moment of his hegira — why imitate the unfortu- nate Ovid when about to go into banishment : — Saepe valedicens sum multa deinde locutus, Et quasi discedens oscula multa dedi, Indulgens animo pes mihi tardus erat ! That he must vanish is evident after the recent convocation of the Roman States-General 430 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. (for it amounts to that) contained in the late circular of Gizzi. This circular has ignited* an electric combustion in every Italian heart ; and every dreamer of constitutional freedom, every enthusiast for the revival of Florentine and Venetian commonwealths, is in ecstasies at the unexpected initiative taken by the Pope of Rome in a matter so vital to the cause of civilisation : — Via prima salutis (Quod minimb reris), Papae pandetur ab Urbe ! \ And Lutzow learned yesterday from the loiid execrations of the people their determination not to be baulked of their franchises by any menace of Austria. You must know that a mock fire was got up yesterday at the Vatican Palace (Pius resides at the Quirinal) in order to exercise the pompieri firemen's brigade. Mock incendiarism might have appeared a capital joke to Gizzi, but the Austrian minister did not see the point. People were seen screaming at the windows, mock flames were visible, ladders were uplifted, fire- engines worked assiduously, and a mob of 8,000 people had gathered to witness the uproar. Un- luckily the carriage of Lutzow was descried by the populace, when howling and yelling began in earnest ; the blinds of the vehicle were instantly FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 431 let down, but they knew their man, and amid shouts of execration accompanied him to the seat of embassy. He thought himself lucky to have got clear home. May 8. On Wednesday, the 5 th, being the feast of St. Pius, whose best achievement (his bringing about the battle of Lepanto), once rescued the south of Europe, great doings were planned to honour the name in the person of its present possessor, who bids fair to effect a similar European rescue. Hearing of these projects (for strict orders are issued to inform him of every matter) our monarch at once intimated his wish that the waste of blue lights and Roman candles should be superseded by a general distribution of bread. ' To wish is to be obeyed. Sixty gentlemen met immediately at the Doria Palace, organised themselves for a combined effort among the affluent, and, though Dante has left on record — Quanto b duro calle II scendere e salire per altrai scale : each member cheerfully cliinbed the stairs of the palaces allotted him in quest of donations. Seven thousand dollars were quickly forthcoming, and sixty thousand bread tickets put in circulation. 432 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. The remnant is kept to establish an infant school. Measures are in progress to. reduce the cost of salt to one-third of its present price. The great salt-seller, Torlonia, must, of course, be compensated for his monopoly. The poor have long felt the hardship of being taxed for this article ; of course the cattle have never aspired to such a luxury. On the 29th of April, Prince Livio Odescalchi paid down the ransom of the Duchy of Bracciano, which had been in pawn since 1803, ^.nd reassumed the title, which had gone into trade for over forty years. Do you recollect Sterne's description of the French noble- man resuming his sword on his return from com- merce in the Antilles ? Lord Ward, whose eccentricities are accom- panied by many graceful acts, has just come out in the character of a cognoscente, and paid over to the Prince of Canino 7,000/. for four pictures of acknowledged merit. One is by Fra Angelico, and represents the ' Last Judgment,' another is a sketch from the hand of Rembrandt, ' St. John Preaching in the Wilderness.' I have not seen the others. The annual artistic festival of the ' Cervera,' FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 433 occurring on the 1st of May, was this year quite a failure. The cause of this is attributable to the matter having fallen under German management ; and the utter repulsion of the Roman population to any emanation from Austria has found vent in this comparatively trivial celebration. The Prus- sian artists kept aloof, as if to show that all Ger- mans were not inimical to social progress. The English scorned the whole affair, and the result was a melancholy but significant tomfoolery. On Thursday night a seizure was made of eighty pounds' weight of printed satires against the Pope, entitled ' La festa delle Spighe in un giardino in Pistoia ; ' also another, called ' Articolo del suolo 47 sopra le cose Italiane.' These, it ap- pears, were written by the notorious monk Dome- nico Ambrosiani, and the package containing them was addressed to the Abbate Don G. Tamburini. Both these gentlemen have absconded. The trea- sonable trash was printed at Viterbo, and the carrier was instructed to drop it at a little pot- house at the Milvian Bridge. But the spot, ever since the days of Catiline, has been unlucky for conspiracies ; the landlord, Toffanelli, smelt a rat, and the carrier has been put into jail until he gives evidence respecting the whole transaction. F F 434 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROVT. That Pius IX. is a great and good man is pretty well known by this time of day ; but the man of human sympathies, the man of feeling, is predominant even above the statesman and the legislator. At the farewell audience of Bishop Wilson, previous to his return to the Antipodes (where there are half a dozen R. C. bishoprics), the Pope said, presenting him with a splendid golden chalice ' Be kind, my son, to all your flock at Hobart Town, but the kindest to the condemned!' May 28. To-morrow Pius IX. leaves Rome for a pro- longed visit to the Benedictine Abbey of Subiaco, in the Apennines, forty-four miles inland. This important move had been determined on pre- vious to the receipt of to-day's news describing as desperate the hopes of Mr. O'Connell's atten- dants of dragging him alive to this capital. No change in our sovereign's projects can be ascribed to the advent or non-arrival of the Father of Repeal; indeed, when it was known here that they had decided upon a land journey from Genoa to the Tuscan frontier, involving the ' Pass of the Magra,' of which any of your friends can form an idea from Stanfield's picture, exhibited, as I read, in this year's gallery, the hopelessness of his coming alive was demonstrated ; their selecting the FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 435 route to Lyons by Mount Tarrare having previ- ously shown how little conversant they were in practical geography. But as for our Pontiff, his mind is essentially practical ; and in labouring for the substantial welfare of his people he has an utter disregard for claptrap and mere popularity. The object of his visit to that glorious wilderness is understood to be twofold. First, he intends to reform the monastery, root and branch, and restore it to what it was in 1465, when it gave hospitality to the first printing-press that was set up in Italy ; two fugitive Germans having claimed its shelter for the printing of the editio princeps of Lactantius, a copy of which is carefully preserved in its once splendid library, typis Sweynheim et Pannartz, MCCCCLXV. The lately-defunct Cardinal Polidori was titular Abbot of Subiaco, a snug sinecure of 6,000 dollars a year. He is to have no suc- cessor in that fat berth, which lapses into the national treasury, to pay the national debt. The late Gregory, who granted the sinecure to the late Polidori, was very partial to a sojourn in these romantic regions, and from the adjacent village he brought to Rome his favourite, the famous barber Gaetanino, who trafficked in all commodities, sacred and profane, for sixteen years. The second object of our monarch is to keep F F 2 436 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT, aloof from the turbulent manifestations of popu- lar applause which he anticipates from a series of new reforms fixed and decided on, of a most sweeping character. Financial, administra- tive, and municipal decrees will issue from his retreat at Subiaco, calculated to astonish the red- tape politicians of Europe, and smacking of the old Roman energy of Sixtus Quintus. How dif- ferent his position, in this austere abode, from that of him who wrote verbose epistles from the island of Caprsea to the ghost of a Roman senate ! Poor Accon is gone to Naples to die ; his life is not worth a fortnight's purchase, and he was a real saint. His removal was a signal for the break-up of a very curious establishment kept on for centuries here — a government school for young aspirants to diplomatic and prelatic office, a kind of ecclesiastical Sandhurst, where ' church cadet- ships ' were the sure reward of successful intrigue and a display of clerical hypocrisy. Learning was at a low ebb in this snuggery, to which none could be admitted but of rich and noble Roman families ; but in lieu of erudition, all the arts of cajolery, duplicity, ^wA finesse were practically and theoretically cultivated. Pius has swept away the nuisance without pity, and seized the funds for FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 437 public use. The institution was a well-meant thing in its original conception ; but, like vege- tables which have been planted in too fat a soil, it had ' run to seed.' The greatest financial reform which Pius IX. has yet effected is in the matter of the hospital of Santo Spirito, the great Hotel Dieu of Rome : its revenues surpass, in land and houses, 100,000/. a year, and of course the official plunder is propor- tionate. The ' master of the 'Spital ' had so good a berth of it, that what with fines (bribes), and other douceurs, in letting out the property, he scorned a cardinal's hat, which was his on resigning office. He has been cashiered, and the management put under the care of efficient and honest laymen. The Princess Barberini, just dead, lies in state. I have to record another investment of Lord Ward : this time he has bought, from a set of old monks who live close by the Fontana di Trevi, a gallery of thirty pictures: — some good and some bad — for the round sum of 27,000 dollars. May 18. The leading event of the week here is the death of the great tribune of the Roman people, Cardinal Micara, who expired on the 24th. In 438 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. him were centred the hopes of the trasteverini, should any evil befall our enlightened monarch : for though Dean of the Sacred College, and born in 1775, he was a vigorous septuagenarian. Fanny Kemble, who, like old Boetius, has written a book, ' De Consolatione Philosophici,' in brisk demand here, records a conversation between Micara and Lambruschini, on their way to the conclave in one carriage : 'If the powers of dark- ness preside over the election, you'll be Pope,' said the defunct ; ' if the people had a voice, I'm the man ; but if heaven has a finger in the business, 'twill be Ferretti.' Micara was the terror of the retrograde faction ; he was known to advocate most sweeping reforms, including an agrarian law for breaking up entails and reconstructing the tenure of land in the Roman territory. Hence the great leviathans of the desolate Campagna tried to ridicule and depreciate him ; being a Capuchin, he wore a flowing bifurcated grey beard, and was nicknamed by them the ' Pacha of two tails.' The utter simplicity of his establishment rebuked the pomp and expenditure of his brother digni- taries ; but he recked not what they said, and was himself a frank outspeaker. I had a long conver- sation with him last month, of which Father Ma- thew, his brother Capuchin, was the subject. ' Why FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 439 doesn't he come to Rome ? ' ' Your Eminence is not, perhaps, aware that the lives of some thousand poor people depend on his untiring personal exer- tions in Ireland.' ' Bene capisco, bravo padre ! ' But, said he, about his advocacy of temperance, ' we wanted him here a little under the late ponti- ficate.' Whether this was an epigram or not, I do not presume to judge. I merely give his words. The ' pilgrims of the heart,' to use their own phraseology, arrived on Monday, and proceeded at once to the Irish seminary with the contents of the silver urn, which I saw to-day deposited in the vestry-room of the church adjacent, called St. Agatha dei Goti (of the Goths). The associations and reminiscences connected with this spot are by no means Irish, it having been, since the time of the Gothic Arians, a den of heterodoxy ; indeed, Gregory the Great calls it ' Spelunca pravitatis haeretics' (lib. iii. epist. 19). The seminary itself is far from realising the character of a national institution ; it was got up a few years back by a Dr. Blake, whose impracticable temper it had to contend with till his removal and the appointment of the present mild and considerate president, Dr. Cullen ; but it is by no means an improvement on Maynooth. Far from fostering a 440 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. race of young clergymen, able to overawe and cope with the intelligent laity, of new growth in Ireland, it can at best only produce a set of half- witted ascetics. There is here an Irish convent and church better entitled to this national relic. I mean St. Isidoro, founded several hundred years, and always tenanted by distinguished Irishmen, the earliest being Luke Wadding, the great historian of the Franciscans. There was some whisper of a vault in St. Peter's, but up to this moment those who gave that hint have been told that none but crowned heads were admissible, such as the Stuart race, the Sobieskis, the ex-queen Christina of Sweden, and (should she die here just now) the ex-queen Christina of Spain, her great rival in combining gallantry with devotion. If I were consulted on the matter, I would at once carry the silver away from the obscure and ill-famed loca- lity of the Suburra (vide Persii Satyr, v. 32), ascend the Janiculum Hill, and in the church of Montorio seek out the spot where moulder the bones of O'Neil of Tyrone, and O'Donnell of Tyrconnell 1608. I'd not leave thee, thou lone one, To pine on the stem ; Where the Patriots are sleeping — Go ! sleep thou with Them ! The Italians find some difficulty in understand- ing why and wherefore this Irish champion was FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 441 not disposed to allow his heart a resting-place in his own beloved land. The notion altogether is suspected here to be of posthumous origin, yet numbers resort to this small church to pay their respects to the assertor of his country's freedom, and feel flattered at the thought of possessing the relic within their walls, by whatever agency brought here. The deceased had certainly no reason to cry out, with Scipio Africanus, ' Ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem habebis.' As to ingrati- tude on the part of his coreligionists and other admirers, the thing is preposterous. He was most munificently remunerated, and never were the words of the Greek orator in reference to his great antagonist more applicable 'A)(apLTout y^/t ks^ ^ i^ if>»<*^JucUU^ ^^«^ FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. ' 527 Poetical Epistle from Father Prout to Boz. Genoa : December 14, 1837. A Rhyme ! a rhyme 1 From a distant clime — From the Gulf of the Genoese ; O'er the rugged scalps Of the Julian Alps, Dear Boz, I send you these, To light the ' Wick ' Your candlestick Holds up, or, should you list, To usher in The yarn you spin Concerning OHver Twist. 11. Immense applause You've gained, O Boz ! Through Continental Europe ; You've made Pickwick CEcumenick ; Of fame you have a sure hope : For here your books Are thought, gadzooks ! A greater luxe than auy That have issued yet, Hot press'd or wet. From the types of Galignani, 528 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. III. But neither when You sport your pen, potent mirth-compeller ! ' Winning our hearts ' In monthly parts,' Can Pickwick or Sam Weller Cause us to weep With pathos deep. Or shake with laugh spasmodical, As when you drain Your copious vein For Bentley's periodical. IV. Folks all enjoy Your ' Parish Boy,' — So truly you depict him ; But I, alack ! While thus you track Your English poor-laws victim. Think of the poor On t'other shore ; Poor who, unheeded, perish. By squires despoiled. By ' patriots ' gulled, 1 mean the starving Irish. Yet there's no dearth Of Irish mirth. Which, to a mind of feeling, Seemeth to be The Helot's glee Before the Spartan reeling : FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 529 Such gloomy thought O'ercometh not The glow of England's humour, Thrice happy isle ! Long may the smile Of genuine joy illume her ! VI. Write on, young sage ! Still o'er the page Pour forth the flood of fancy ; Divinely droll ! Wave o'er the soul Wit's wand of necromancy. Behold ! e'en now Around your brow Th' undying laurel thickens ! For Swift or Sterne Might live — and learn A thing or two from Dickens. 1837- Father Prout's Inauguration Ode. To the Author of ' Vanity Fair.' (On the first appearance of the 'Comhill Magazine,' January i860.) Ours is a faster, quicker age : Yet erst in Goldsmith's homely Wakefield Vicarage, While Lady Blarney, from the West End, glozes 'Mid the Primroses, M M 530 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Fudge ! cries Squire Thomhill, Much to the wonder of young greenhorn Moses. Such word of scorn ill Matches the ' Wisdom Fair ' thy whim proposes To hold on Comhill. II. With Fudge, or Blarney, or the ' Thames on Fire ! ' Treat not thy buyer ; But proffer good material — A genuine Cereal, Value for twelvepence, and not dear at twenty. Such wit replenishes thy Horn of Plenty ! III. Nor wit alone dispense, But sense : And with thy sparkling Xerez Let us have Ceres. Of loaf thou hast no lack> Nor set, like Shakspeare's zany, forth, With lots of sack, Of bread one pennyworth. IV. Sprightly, and yet sagacious. Funny, yet farinaceous. Dashing, and yet methodical — So may thy periodical, On this auspicious mom, Exalt its horn, Thron'd on the Hill of Com ! FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. 531 V. Of aught that smacks of sect, surplice, or synod, Be thy grain winnow'd ! Nor deign to win one laugh Wil^ empty chaff. Shun aught o'er which dullard or bigot gloats ; Nor seek our siller With meal from Titus Gates Or flour of Joseph Miller. VI. There's corn in Egypt still (Pilgrim from Cairo to Comhill !), Give each his fill. But, all comers among Treat best the young ; Fill the big brothers' knapsacks from thy bins, But slip the Cup of Love in Benjamin's. VII. Next as to those Who bring their lumbering verse or ponderous prose To where good Smith and Elder Have so long held their Wellgamish'd Cornhill storehouse — Bid them not bore us. Tell them instead To take their load next street, the Hall of Lead ! VIII. Only one word besides. As he who tanneth hides Stocketh with proper implements his tannery : So thou. Friend ! do not fail To s'tore a stout corn-flail. Ready for use, within thy Cornhill granary. 532 FINAL RELICS OF FATHER PROUT. Of old thou walked abroad, Prompt to right wrongs, Caliph Haroun al Rashid ; Deal thus with Fraud, Or Job or Humbug — thrash it ! IX. Courage, old Friend ! long found Firm at thy task, nor in fixt purpose fickle : Up ! choose thy ground. Put forth thy shining sickle ; — Shun the dense underwood Of Dunce or Dunderhood : But reap North, South, East, Far West, The world-wide Harvest ! 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Small folio, half-morocco extra, gilt edges, £^ 13;. 6d CHATTO ^ WINDUS, PICCADILLY, 13 HAYDON'S (B. R.) CORRESPONDENCE & TABLE-TALK. With, a Memoir by his Son, Frederick W. Haydon. Comprising a large num- ; ter of hitherto unpublished Letters from Keats, Wilkie, Southey.Wordsworth, KiRKUP, Lamb, Leigh Hunt, Landseeb, and others. Two Volumes, demy 2>vQf cloth extra, illustrated with a Portrait and facsimiles of many interesting Sketches ; including a Portrait of Haydon drawn by Keats, and Haydon': Portraits of Wilkie, Keats, Leigh Hunt, and Maria Foote, Sketched by hira in his Journals. [/« tke^ress HEEREN'S HISTORICAL WORKS. Translated from the German by George Bancroft, and various Oxford Scholars. Six Vols., 8vo, cloth extra, £x 16s. ; or, separately, 65-. per volume. *** Tkg Contents of the Valutnes are as /allows: — Vols, i and 2, Historical Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Ancient Nations of Asia ; 3. Researches into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the Ancient Nations of Africa, including the Carthaginians, Ethiopians, and Egyptians; 4. His- ±ory of the Political System of Europe and its Colonies ; 5. History of Ancient Greece, with Historical Treatises ; 6. A Manual of Ancient History, with special reference to the Constitutions, Commerce, and Colonies of the States of Antiquity. " Prof. Heeren's Historical Researches stand in the very highest rank among those with which modern Germany has enriched European literature. " — Quarterly Review . " We look upon Heeren as having breathed a new life into the dry bones of Ancient History. In countries, the history of which has been too imperfectly known to afford lessons of political wisdom, he has taught us still more interesting lessons — on the social relations of men, and the intercourse of nations in the earlier a^es of the world. 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With Life and Anecdotal Descriptions of the Pictures, by John Ireland and John Nichols. 160 Engravings, re- duced in exact facsimile of the Originals. The whole in Three Series, 8vo, cloth, gilt, 2ZS. 6(i. ; or, separately, ys. 6d. per volume. HOaARTH'S WORKS. Engraved by T, CoOK. 84 Plates, atlas folio, half-morocco, ;£3. HOGrARTH MORALIZED : A Complete Edition of all the most capital and admired Works of WIilliam Hogarth, accompanied by concise and comprehensive Explanations of their Moral Tendency, by the late Rev. Dr. Trusler ; to which are added, an Introductory Essay, and many Onginal and Selected Notes, by John Major. With 57 Plates and numerous Woodcuts. New Edition, revised, corrected, and enlarged. Demy 8vo, hf. -Roxburghe, 12s. 6d, HOGARTH'S FIVE DAYS' FROLIC ; or, Peregrinations by Land and Water. Illustrated by Tinted Drawings, made by Hogarth and Scott during the Journey. 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HONE'S SCRAP-BOOKS : The Miscellaneous Collections of William Hone, Author of "The Table-Book," "Every-DayBook," and " Year- Book" : being a Supplement to those works. With Notes, Portraits, and nume- rous Illustrations of-curions and eccentric, objects. Crown 8vo. \In preparation^ HOOD'S (Thomas) CHOICE WORKS, in Prose and Verse, Including the Cream of the Comic Annuals. With Life of the Author, Portrait, and over Two Hundred original Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, i&. 6d. HOOD'S (Tom) FROM NOWHERE TO THE NORTH POLE : A Noah's Arka;ological Narrative. By Tom Hood. With 25 Illustra- tions by W. Brunton and E. C. Barnes. Square crown 8vo, in a handsome and specially-designed binding, gilt edges, 6*. "Poor Tom Hood 1 It is very sad to turn over the droll pages of * From Nowhere to the North Pole,' and to think that he will never make the young people, for whom, like his famous father, he ever had such a kind, sympathetic heart, laugh or cry any more. 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LAMONT'S YACHTING IN THE ARCTIC SEAS : An Ex- amination of Routes to the North Pole, during Five Voyages of Sport and Discovery in the Neighbourhood of the Great Ice Pack. By James Lamont, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., Author of "Seasons with the Sea-Horses." Edited, witb numerous full-page Illustrations, by William Livesay, M.D. Demy 8vo, cloth extra, with Maps and Illustrations. [/« tlie press. LANDSEER'S (Sir Edwin) ETCHINGS OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS. Comprising 38 subjects, chiefly Early Works, etched by his Erothet Thomas or his Father, with Letterpress Descriptions. Roy. 4to, cloth extra 15J. LEE (General Robert) : HIS LIFE AND CAMPAIGNS. By his Nephew, Edward Lee Childe. With Steel-plate Portrait by Jeens, and a Map. Post 8vo, qs. LIFE IN LONDON; or, The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn and Corinthian Tom. With the whole of Cruikshank's VER'y: Droll Illustrations, in Colours, after the Originals. Cr. 8vo, cloth extra, ^s. 6d. LINTON'S (Mrs. E. Lyiin) PATRICIA KEMBALL : A Novel. New and Popular Edition, with a Frontispiece by George du Maurier. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, 6s. *' A very clever and well-constructed story, original and striking, and interesting all through. . . . A novel abounding in thought and power and interest." — Times. " Perhaps the ablest novel published in London this year (1874) . ■. . We know of nothing in the novels we have lately read equal to the scene in which Mr. Hamley* proposes to Dora . . . We advise our readers to send to the Hbrary for the story." —Athenmum. " This novel is distinguished by qualities which entitle it to a place apart from the ordinary fiction of the day; . . . displays genuine humour, as well as keen social observation. .... Enough graphic portraiture and witty observation to furnish materials for half a dozen novels of the ordinary Wtv^"— Saturday Review. LINTON'S (Mrs. E. Lynn) JOSHUA DAVIDSON, CHRIS- TIAN AND COMMUNIST. Sixth Edition, with a New Preface. SmalL^ crown 8vo, cloth extra, 4^, td. CHATTO ^ WINDUS, PICCADILLY. I? LONDON.— WILKINSON'S LONDINA ILLUSTRATA; or. Graphic and Historical Illustrations of the most Interesting and. Curious Archi- tectural Monuments of the City and Suburbs of London and Westminster (now mostly destroyed). Two Vols., imperial 4to, containing 207 Copperplate En- gravings, with historical and descriptive Letterpress, half-bound morocco, top edges gilt, I,^ 5s. *#* An enumeration of a few of the Plates will give some idea of the scope of the Work : — St. Bartholomew's Church, Cloisters, and Priory, in 1393 ; St. Micluiers, Cornhill, in 1421 ; St. Paul's Cathedral and Cross, in 1616 and 1656; St. John's of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell, 1660 ; Bunyan's Meeting House, in 1687 ; Guildhall, in 1517 ; Cheapside and its Cross, in 1547, 1585, and 1641 ; Cornhill, in 1599 ; Merchant Taylors' Hall, in 1599 ; Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, in 1612 and 1647 ; AUeyne's Bear Garden, in 1614 and 1647 ; Drury Lane, in 1702 and 1814 ; Covent Garden, in 1732, i794i and 1809 ; Whitehall, in 1638 and 1697 ; York House, with Inigo Jones's Water Gate, circa 1626 ; Somerset House, jirevious to its alteration hy Inigo Jones, circa 1600 : St. James's Palace, 1660; Montagu House (now the British Museum) before 1685, and in 1804. LONGFELLOW'S PROSE WORKS, Complete. With Portrait and Illustrations by Valentine Bromley. 800 pages, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 7J. 6d. **• This is hy far the most complete edition ever issued in this country, "Outre-Mer*' contains two additional chapters, restored from, the first edition ^ •while ** The Poets and Poetry of Europe," and the little collection of Sketches e7ititled "Driftwood " are mrw first introduced to the English public, LONGFELLOW'S POETICAL WORKS. With numerous fine Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, js. 6d. LOST BEAUTIES OP THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. An Appeal to Authors, Poets, Clergymen, and Public Speakers. By Charles Mackay, LL.D. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6s. 6d. LOTOS LEAVES: Original Stories, Essays, and Poems, by Wilkie Collins, Mark Twain, Whitelaw Reid, John Hay, Noah Brooks, John- Brougham, P. V. Nas'by, Isaac Bromley, and others. Profusely Illustrated by Alfred Fredericks, Arthur Lumley, John La Faroe, Gilbert Burling, George White, and others. Crown 4to, handsomely jound, clot»i extra, gilt and gilt edges, zis. "A very comely and pleasant volume, produced by general contribution pt a literary club in New York, which has some kindly relations with a similar coterie in London. A livre de luxe^ splendidly illustrated." — Daily Telegraph. TV/TACLISE'S GALLERY OP ILLUSTRIOUS LITERARY ^^•^ CHARACTERS. (The famous Fraser Portraits.) With Notes by the late William Maginn, LL.D. Edited, with copious Additional Notes, by Wil- liam Bates, B.A. The volume contains 83 Characteristic Portraits, now first issued in a complete form. Demy 4to, cloth gilt and gilt edges, 31J. td. " One of the most interesting volumes of this year's literature." — Times. "Deserves a place on every drawing-room table, and may not unfitly be removed from the drawing-room to the library." — Spectator. MACQUOID'S (Katharine S., Author of "Patty," &c.) THE EVIL EYE, and other Stories. With 8 Illustrations by Thomas R. MacquOid and Percy Macquoid. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, price ds. lln the press. MADRE NATURA versus THE MOLOCH OF FASHION. By Luke Limner. With 32 Illustrations by the Author. Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo, cloth, extra gilt, 2s. 6d. " Agreeably written and amusingly illustrated. Common sense and erudition are brought to bear on the subjects discussed in it." — Lancet. i8 BOOKSIPUBLISHED BY ]MA.aNA CHARTA. An exact Facsimile of the Original Docu- ment in the British Museum, printed on fine plate paper, nearly 3 feet long by 2 feet wide, with the Arms and Seals of the Barons emblazoned in Gold and Colours. Price 5^. A full Translation, with Notes, printed on a large sheet, price td: MANTELL'S PICTORIAL ATLAS OF FOSSIL REMAINS. With Additions and Descriptions. 4to, 74 Coloured Plates, cloth extra, 3K. 6d. AUTHOR'S CORRECTED EDITION. IVtARK TWAIN'S CHOICE WORKS. Revised and Corrected throughout by the Author. With Life, Portrait, and numerous Illustrations. 700 pages, cloth extra, gil ^s. 6d, MARK TWAIN'S PLEASTTRE TRIP on the CONTINENT of EUROPE. Post 8vo, illustrated boards, 2^. MARRYAT'S (Florence) OPEN ! SESAME ! New and popular Edition, with a Frontispiece, crown 8vo, cloth extra, 6s. [In the ^ress. "A story which arouses and sustains the reader's interest to a higher degree than, perhaps, any of its author's former works. ... A very excellent story." — Grapkic. MARSTON'S (Dr. Westland) DRAMATIC and POETICAL WORKS. Collected Library Edition, in Two Vols., crown 8vo. [/« the Press. MARSTON'S (PhUip Bourke) SONG TIDE, and other Poems. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 8*. " This is a first work of extraordinary performance and of still more extraordinary promise. The youngest school of English poetry has received an important acces- sion to its ranks in Philip Bourke Marston."— ^ji:«»2w«r. MARSTON'S (P. B.) ALL IN ALL : Poems and Sonnets. Crown Svo, cloth extra, %5. " Many of these poems are leavened with the leaven of genuine poetical sentiment, and expressed with grace and beauty of language. A tender melancholy, as well as a penetrating pathos, gives character to much of their sentiment, and lends it an irresistible interest to all who can feeL" — Standard. MAXWELL'S LIFE OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. Three Vols. , Svo, with numerous highly finished Line and Wood Engravings by Eminent Artists, Cloth extra, gilt, ^i 75. MAYHEW'S LONDON CHARACTERS: Illustrations of the Humour, Pathos, and Peculiarities of London Life. By Henry Mayhew, Author of " London Labour and the London Poor," and other Writers. With nearly 100 graphic Illustrations by W. S. Gilbert and others. Crown Svo, cloth extra, 6j. "Well fulfils the promise of its title. . , The book is an eminently interesting one, and will probably attract many readers." — Court Circular. MILLINGEN'S ANCIENT UNEDITED MONUMENTS ; comprising Painted Greek Vases, Statues, Busts, Bas-Reliefs, and other Remains of Grecian Art. 62 beautiful Engravings, mostly Coloured, with Letterpress Descriptions. Imperial 4to, half -morocco^ ;^4 14^. bd. MEYRICK'S ENGRAVED ILLUSTRATIONS OF ANCIENT ARJVIS AND ARMOUR. 154 highly finished Etchings of the Collection at Goodrich Court, Herefordshire, engraved by Joseph Skelton^ with Historical and Critical Disquisitions by Sir S. R. Meyrick. Two Vols., imperial 4to, wiUi Portrait, half-morocco extra, gilt edges, ^4 14^". 6t/. CHATTO 6- WINDUS, PICCADILLY, 19 MEYRICK'S PAINTED ILLUSTRATIONS OF ANCIENT ARMS AND ARMOUR: A Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armour as it existed in Europe,, but particularly in England, from the Norman Conquest to the Reign of Charles II. ; with a Glossary, by Sir S. R. Meyrick. New and greatly improved Edition, corrected throughout by the Author, with the assistance of Albert Way and others. Illustrated by more than 100 Plates, splendidly Illuminated in gold and silver ; also an additional Plate of the Tournament of Locks and Keys. Three Vols., imperial 410, half-morocco extra, gilt edges, £xo los. "While the splendour of the decorations of this work is well calculated to excite curiosity, the novel character of its contents, the very curious extracts from the rare MSS. in which it abounds, and the pleasing manner in which the author's anti- quarian researches are prosecuted, livill tempt many who take up the book in'idleness, to peruse it with care. No previous work can be compared^ in point of extent, arrangement, science,, or utility, with the one now in question, ist. It for the first time supplies to our schools of art, correct and ascertained data for costume, in its noblest and most important branch — historical painting. 2nd. It affords a simple, clear, and most conclusive elucidation of a great number of passages in our great dramatic poets — ay, and in the works of those of Greece and Rome — against which commentators and scholiasts have been trying their wits, for centuries. 3rd. It throws a flood of light upon the manners, usages, and sports of our ancestors, from the time of the Anglo-Saxons down to the reign of Charles the Second. And lastly it at once removes a vast number of idle traditions and ingenious fables, which one compiler of history, copying from another, has succeeded in transmitting through the lapse of four or five hundred years. " It is not often the fortune of a painful student of antiquity to conduct his readers through so splendid a succession of scenes and events as those to which Dr. Meyrick here successively introduces us. But he does it with all the ease and gracefulness of an accomplished cicerone. We See the haughty nobles and the impetuous knights — ^we are present at their arming — assist them to their snields— enter the well- appointed lists with them — and partake the hopes and fears, the perils, honours, and successes of the manly tournaments. Then we are presented to the glorious damsels, all superb and lovely, in ' velours and clothe of golde and dayntie devyces, bothe in pearls and emerawds, sawphires and dyniondes,',— andthe banquet, , with the serving men and bucklers, servitors and trenchers — ^kings_ and queens — pageants, &c. &c. We feel as if the age of chivalry had returned in all its gloxy.'^ —Edinburgh Review. MILTON'S COMPLETE WORKS, Prose and Poetical. With an Introductory Essay by Robert Fletcher. Imp. 8vo,, with Portraits, cl. extra, 15^. •* It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They_ abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Eurke sink. into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the * Paradise Lost * has the great poet ever risen higher than in those jiarts of his controversial works in which Eis feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric.T-apture. It is, to borrow his own majestic language, * a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies.* *' — Macaulay. ; ' ^ MITFORD'S (Mary RusseU) COUNTRY STORIES. "V^ith S Steel-plate Illustrations. Fcap. 8vo, cloth extra, gilt edges, 3^. 6d. MONTAG-U'S (Lady Mary Wortley) LETTERS AND WORKS. Edited by Lord Wharncliffe. With important Additions and Corrections, derived from the Original Manuscripts, and a New Memoir. 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Demy 4to, half- Roxburghe, gilt top, 425-. MUSES OF MAYFAIR : Vers de Societe of the Nineteenth Ceh. tury. Including Selections from Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, Rossetti, Jean Ingklow, Locker, Ingoldsby, Hood, Lytton, C.S.C;, Landor, Austin DoBSON, Henry Leigh, &c. &c. Edited by H. Cholmondeley-Pennell. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt, gilt edges, 7J. td. NAPOLEON III., THE MAN OF HIS TIME. From Carica- tures. Part I. The Story of the Life of Napoleon HI., as told by J. M. Haswell. Part II. The Same Story, as told by the Popular Caricatures of the past Thirty-five Years. Crown 8vo, with Coloured Frontispiece and over 100 Caricatures, 7*. ^d. NATIONAL GALLERY (The). A Selection from its Pictures. By ClaXjde, Rembrandt, Cuyp, Sir David Wilkie, Correggio, Gainsborough, Canaletti, Vandyck, Paul Veronese, Caracci, Rubens, N. and G. Pous- sin, and other great Masters. Engraved by George Doo, John Burnett, Wm. Finden, John and Henry Le Keux, John Pye, Walter Bromley, and others. With descriptive Text. Columbier 4to, cl. extra, full gilt and Rilt edges, 42*. TSnCHOLSON'S FIVE ORDERS of ARCHITECTURE (The Student's Instructor for Drawing and Working the). Demy 8vo, with 41 Plates, cloth extra, 5J. I^IBBUHR'S LECTURES ON ROMAN HISTORY, delivered at the University of Bonn. Translated - into English from the Edition of Dr. M. IsLER, by H. le M. Chepmell, M.A., and Franz Demmler, Ph.D. Three vols., fcap. 8yo, half (imitation) calf, full gilt back, and top edge gilt, price 13^. dd* OLD BOOKS— FACSIMILE REPRINTS. ARMY LISTS OP THE ROUNDHEADS AND CAVALIERS IN THE CIVIL WAR, 1642. Second Edition, Corrected and considerably Enlarged. Edited, with Notes and full Index, by Edward Peacock, F.S.A, 4to, half-Roxburghe, is. 6d, D'URFEY'S (" Tom") WIT AND MIRTH ; or, Pills to Purge Melancholy. Being a Collection of the best Merry Ballads and Songs, Old and New. Fitted to all Humours, having each their proper Tune for either Voice or Instrument ; most of the Songs being new set. London : Printed by W-. Pearson, for J. Tonson, at Shakespeare's Head, over against Catherine Street in the Strand^ 1719. An exact reprint. In Six Vols., large fcap. 8vo, printed on antique laid paper, antique boards, £5 3J. EARLY NEWS SHEET.— The Russian Invasion of Poland in 1563. {Memorabilis et perinde stupenda de crudeli Moscovitarum Expedi- tione Narratio, e Germanico in Latinum conversa.) An exact ^facsimile of a Contemporary Account, with Introduction, Historical Notes, and full Translation. Large fcap. 8vo, antique paper, half-Roxburghe, 7^. 6d. ENGLISH ROGUE (The), described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, and other Extravagants, comprehending the most Eminent Cheats of both Sexes. By Richard Head and Francis Kirkman. A Facsimile Reprint of the rare Original Edition (1665-1672), with Frontispiece, Facsimiles of the 12 Copperplates, and Portraits of the Authors. 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