i(j }^ii{iiti,tiji-->,i*i^,j;jf-, ;i 7 C0SM6iIliNWERffl,.fflffl 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/cu31924088042373 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. HISTORICAL SKETCHES RISE AND PROGRESS OF UNIVERSITIES NORTHMEN AND NORMANS IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND MEDIEVAL OXFORD CONVOCATION OF CANTERBURY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN OF THE ORATORY SOMETIME FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE LONDON BASIL MONTAGU PICKERING 196 PICCADILLY • , 1872 -D'V Preside:^: Wh'te ^ ^ Library I. RISE AND PROGRESS OF UNIVERSITIES. TO JAMES R. HOPE SCOTT, ESQ., Q.C., WHEN UNIVERSITIES ARE MENTIONED, FOR THE ZEAL OF HIS EARLY RESEARCHES, AND THE MUNIFICENCE OF HIS LATER DEEDS, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, A TARDY AND UNWORTHY MEMORIAL, ON THE PART OF ITS AUTHOR, OF THE LOVE AND' ADMIRATION OF MANY EVENTFUL YEARS. Dublin, Oct. 28, 1856. ADVERTISEMENT. , The following illustrations of the idea of a Univer- sity originally appeared in 1854, in the columns of the Dublin " Catholic University Gazette." In 1856 they were published in one volume, under the title of " Office and Work of Universities." Though the Author then put his name in the title- page, he thought it best to retain both the profession of incognito and the conversational tone in which he origi- nally wrote ; for the obvious reason, that, to have dropp<^d either would, have been to recast his work. For such a task he could not promise himself leisure ; and, had he effected it, he might after all only have made himself more exact and solid at the price of be- coming less readable, at least in the judgment of a day, which keenly appreciates the proverb, that "a great book is a great evil." In saying this, however, he has no in- tention of implying that he has spared thought or pains in his composition, or of apologising for its matter. P.S. In the present edition (1872) he has exchanged its original title for one which he considers more appro- priate to its contents. UNIVERSITIES. CHAP. PAGE. I. INTRODUCTORY I II. WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY ? 6 III. SITE OF A UNIVERSITY l8 IV. UNIVERSITY LIFE : ATHENS - • 33 V. FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE : THE SOPHISTS . . , 47 VI. DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE 60 VII. INFLUENCE : ATHENIAN SCHOOLS 77 VIII. DISCIPLINE : MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS . . 90 IX. DOWNFALL AND REFUGE OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. THE LOMBARDS I05 X. THE TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION : THE ISLES OF THE NORTH 116 XL A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES : ST. GREGORY THE GREAT 130 XII. MORAL OF THAT CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES : PIUS THE NINTH I42 XIII. SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE : PARIS 150 XIV. SUPPLY AND DEMAND : THE SCHOOLMEN . . . . 163 XV. PROFESSORS AND TUTORS 1 79 XVI. THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES : ABELARD I92 XVII. THE ANCIENT UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN .... 203 XVIII. COLLEGES THE CORRECTIVE OF UNIVERSITIES : OXFORD 213 XIX. ABUSES OF THE COLLEGES : OXFORD . . . . . 228 XX. UNIVERSITIES AND SEMINARIES : L'ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES 240 UNIVERSITIES. CHAPTER I.. I NTRO>D U CTO R Y.. I HAVE it in purpose to commit to paper, time after time, various thoughts of my own, seasonable, as I conceive, when a Catholic University is under formation, and apposite in a publication, which is to be the record and organ of its proceedings. An anonymous person, indeed, like myself, can claim no authority for anything he advances ; nor have I any intention of introducing or sheltering myself underthe sanction of the Institution which I wish to serve. My remarks will stand amid weightier matters like the non-official portion of certain government journals in foreign- parts ; and I trust they will have their use, though they are but individual in their origin, and immethodical in their execution. When I say anything to the purpose, the gain is the University's ; when I am mistaken or unsuccessful, the failure is my own. The Prelates of the Irish Church are, at present en- gaged in an anxious and momentous task, which has the inconvenience of being strange to us, if it be not novel. A University is not founded every day ; and seldom indeed has it been founded under the peculiar circum- stances which will now attend its establishment in I 2 Introductory. Catholic Ireland. Generally speaking, it has grown up out of schools, or colleges, or seminaries, or monastic bodies, which had already lasted for centuries ; and, different as it is from them all, has been little else than their natural result and completion. While then it has been expanding into its peculiar and perfect form, it has at the same time been by anticipation educating subjects for its service, and has been creating and carrying along with it the national sympathy. Here, however, as the world is not slow to object, this great institution is to take its place among us without antecedent or precedent, whether to recommend or explain it. It receives, we are told, neither illustration nor augury from the history of the past, and requires to be brought into existence as well as into shape. It has to force its way abruptly into an existing state of society which has never duly felt its absence ; and it finds its most formidable obsta- cles, not in anything inherent in the undertaking itself, but in the circumambient atmosphere of misapprehen- sion and prejudice into which it is received. Neces- sary as it really is, it has to be carried into effect in the presence of a reluctant or perplexed public opinion, and that, without any counterbalancing assistance whatever, as has commonly been the case with Universities, from royal favour or civil sanction. This is what many a man will urge, who is favourable to the project itself, viewed apart from the difficulties of the time ; nor can the force of such representations be denied. On the other hand, such difficulties must be taken for what they are really worth ; they exist, not so much in adverse facts, as in the opinion of the world about the facts. That opinion is the adverse fact. It would be absurd to deny, that grave and good men, zealous for religion, and experienced in the state of the Introductory. 3 country, have had serious misgivings on the subject, and have thought the vision of a Catholic University too noble, too desirable, to be possible. Still, making every admission on this score which can be required of me, I think it is true, after all, that our main adversary is to be found, not in the unfavourable judgments of particu- lar persons, though such there are, but in the vague and diffusive influence of what is called Public Opinion. I am not so irrational as to despise Public Opinion ; I have no thought of making light of a tribunal estab- lished in the conditions and necessities of human nature. It has its place in the very constitution of society ; it ever has existed, it ever will exist, whether in the com- monwealth of nations, or in the humble and secluded village. But wholesome as it is as a principle, it has, in common with all things human, great imperfections, and makes many mistakes. Too often it is nothing else than what the whole world opines, and no one in parti- cular. Your neighbour assures you that every one is of one way of thinking ; that there is but one opinion on -the subject ; and while he claims not to be answer- able for it, he does not hesitate to propound and spread it. In such cases, every one is appealing to every one else ; and the constituent members of a community one by one think it their duty to defer and succumb to the voice of that same community as a whole. It would be extravagant to maintain that this is the adequate account of the sentiments which have for some time prevailed among us as to the establishment of our University ; but, so far as it holds good, this follows, viz. : that the despondency, with which the project is regarded by so many persons, is the offspring, not of their judg- ment, but mainly (I say it, as will be seen directly, with- out any disrespect) of their imagination. Public Opinion 4 Introductory. especially acts upon the imagination ; it does not con- vince, but it impresses ; it has the force of authority, rather than of reason ; and concurrence in it is, not an intelhgent decision, but a submission or belief. This circumstance at once suggests to us how we are to pro- ceed in the case under consideration. Arguments are the fit weapons with which to assail an erroneous judg- ment, but assertions and actions must be brought to bear upon a false imagination. The mind in that case has been misled by representations ; it must be set right by representations. What it asks of us is, not reasoning, but discussion. In works on Logic, we meet with a so- phistical argument, the object of which is to prove that motion is impossible ; and it is not uncommon, before scientifically handling it, to submit it to a practical refu- tation ; — Solvitur ambulando. Such is the sort of reply which I think it may be useful just now to make to public opinion, which is so indisposed to allow that a Catholic University of the English tongue can be set in motion. I will neither directly prove that it is possible, nor answer the allegations in behalf of its impossibility ; I shall attempt a humbler, but perhaps a not less effica- cious service, in employing myself to the best of my ability, and according to the patience of the reader, in setting forth what a University is. I will leave the con- troversy to others ; I will confine myself to description and statement, concerning the nature, the character, the work, the peculiarities of a University, the aims with Introductory. 5 one subject to another, as each happens to arise, and gives no promise whatever of terminating in the produc- tion of a treatise. And in attempting as much as this, vs^hile I hope I shall gain instruction from criticisms of whatever sort, I do not mean to be put out by them, whether they come from those who know rnore, or those who know less than myself ; — from those who take exacter, broader, more erudite, more sagacious, rnore philosophical views than my own ; or those who have yet to attain such measure of truth and of judgment as I may myself claim. I must not be disturbed at the animadversions of those who have a right to feel superior to rne, nor at the complaints of others who think I do not enter into or satisfy their difficulties. If I am charged with being shallow on the one part, or off-hand on the other, if I myself feel that fastidiousness at my own attempts, which grows upon an author as he multiplies his compositions, I shall console myself with the reflection, that life is not long enough to do more than our best, whatever that may be ; that they who are ever taking aim, make no hits ; that they who never venture, never gain ; that to be ever safe, is to be ever feeble ; and that to do some substantial good, is the compensation for much incidental imperfection. With thoughts like these, which, such as they are, have been the companions ' and the food of my life hitherto, I address myself to my undertaking. 6 CHAPTER II. WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY ? IF I were asked to describe as briefly and popularly as I could, what a University was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of a Studium Gene- rale, or " School of Universal Learning." This descrip- tion implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one s^ot;— from a// parts ; else, how will you find professors and students for, every department of know- ledge .'' and m one spot; else, how can there be any school at all .-" Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, con- sisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. Many things are requisite to complete and satisfy the idea em- bodied in this description ; but such as this a University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal inter- course, through a wide extent of country. There is nothing far-fetched or unreasonable in the idea thus presented to us ; and if this be a University, then a University does but contemplate a necessity of our nature, and is but one specimen in a particular medium, out of many which might be adduced in others, of a provision for that necessity. Mutual education, in a large sense of the word, is one of the great and inces- sant occupations of human society, carried on partly with set purpose, and partly not. One generation forms What is a University ? 7 another ; and the existing generation is ever acting and reacting upon itself in the persons of its individual mem- bers. Now, in this process, book?, I need scarcely say, that is, the litera scripta, are one special instrument. It is true ; and emphatically so in this age. Considering the prodigious powers of the press, and how they are developed at this time in the never-intermitting issue of periodicals, tracts, pamphlets, works in series, and light literature, we must allow there never was a time which promised fairer for dispensing with every other means of information and instruction. What can we want more, you will say, for the intellectual education of the whole man, and for every man, than so exuberant and diversi- fied and persistent a promulgation of all kinds of knowledge .'' Why, you will ask, need we go up to knowledge, when knowledge comes down to us .'' The Sibyl wrote her prophecies upon the leaves of the forest, and wasted them ; but here such careless profusion might be prudently indulged, for it can be afforded without loss, in consequence of the alniost fabulous fecundity of the instrument which these latter ages have invented. We have sermons in stones, and books in the running brooks ; works larger and more comprehensive than those which have gained for ancients an immortality, issue forth every morning, and are projected onwards to the ends of the earth at the rate of hundreds of miles a day. Our seats are strewed, our pavements are pow- dered, with swarms of little tracts ; and the very bricks of our city walls preach wisdom, by informing us by their placards where we can at once cheaply purchase it. I allow all this, and much more ; such certainly is our popular education, and its effects are remarkable. Nevertheless, after all, even in this age, whenever men are really serious about getting what, in the language of 8 What is a University? trade, is called " a good article," when they aim at some- thing precise, something refined, something really lumi- nous, something really large, something choice, they go to another market ; they avail themselves, in some shape or other, of the rival method, the ancient method, of oral instruction, of present comm.unication between man and man, of teachers instead of learning, of the personal influence of a master, and the humble initiation of a disciple, and, in consequence, of great centres of pil- grimage and throng, which such a method of education necessarily involves. This, I think, will be found to hold good in all those departments or aspects of society, which possess an interest sufficient to bind men together, or to constitute what is called "a world." It holds in the political world, and in the high world, and in the reli- gious world ; and it holds also in the literary and scientific world. If the actions of men may be taken as any test of their convictions, then we have reason for saying this, viz. : — that the province and the inestimable benefit of the litera scripta is that of being a record of truth, and an authority of appeal, and an instrument of teaching in the hands of a teacher ; but that, if we wish to become exact and fully furnished in any branch of knowledge which is diversified ■ and complicated, we must consult the living man and listen to his living voice. I am not bound to investigate the cause of this, and anything I may say will, I am conscious, be short of its full analy- sis ;— perhaps we may suggest, that no books can get through the number of minute questions which it is possible to ask on any extended subject, or can hit upon the very difficulties which are severally felt by each reader in succession. Or again, that no book can con- vey the special spirit and delicate pecuharities of its What IS a University / 9 subject with that rapidity and certainty which attend on the sympathy of mind with mind, through the eyes, the look, the accent, and the manner, in casual expressions thrown off at the moment, and the unstudied turns of familiar conversation. But I am already dwelling too long on what is but an incidental portion of my main subject. Whatever be the cause, the fact is undeniable. The general principles of any study you may learn by books at home ; but the detail, the colour, the tone, the air, the life which makes it live in us, you must catch all these from those in whom it lives already. You must imitate the student in French or German, who is not content with his grammar, but goes to Paris or Dresden: you must take example from the young artist, who aspires to visit the great Masters in Florence and in Rome. Till we have discovered some intellectual da- guerreotype, which takes off the course of thought, and the form, lineaments, and features of truth, as completely and minutely, as the optical instrument reproduces the sensible object, we must come to the teachers of wisdom to learn wisdom, we must repair to the fountain, and drink there. Portions of it may go from thence to the ends of the earth by means of books ; but the fulness is in one place alone. It is in such assemblages and con- gregations of intellect that books themselves, the master- pieces of human genius, are written, or at least originated. The principle on which I have been insisting is so obvious, and instances in point are so ready, that I should think it tiresome to proceed with the subject, except that one or two illustrations may serve to explain my own language about it, which may not have done justice to the doctrine which it has been intended to enforce. For instance, the polished manners and high-bred bearing which are so difficult of attainment, and so lO What is a Universily ? strictly personal when attained, — which are so m'uch admired in society, from society are acquired. All that goes to constitute a gentleman, — the carriage, gait, address, gestures, voice ; the ease, the self-possession, the courtesy, the power of conversing, the talent of not offending ; the lofty principle, the delicacy of thought, the happiness of expression, the taste and propriety, the generosity and forbearance, the candour and considera- tion, the openness of hand ; — these qualities, some of them come by nature, some of them may be found in any rank, some of them are a direct precept of Christianity ; but the full assemblage of them, bound up in the unity of an individual character, do we expect they can be learned from books? are they not necessarily acquired, where they are to be found, in high society ? The very nature of the case leads us to say so ; you cannot fence without an antagonist, nor challenge all comers in disputation before you have supported a the- sis ; and in like manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn to converse till you have the world to converse with; you cannot unlearn your natural bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other besetting deformity, till you serve your time in some school of manners. Well, and is it not so in matter of fact .'* The metropolis, the court, the great houses of the land, are the centres to which at stated times the country comes up, as to shrines of refinement and good taste ; and then in due time the country goes back again home, enriched with a portion of the social accomplishments, which those very visits serve to call out and heighten in the gracious dis- pensers of them. We are unable to conceive how the " gentlemanlike " can otherwise be maintained ; and maintained in this way it is. And now a second instance : and here too I am eoino- What is a University ? 1 1 to speak without personal experience of the subject I am introducing. I admit I have not been in Parliament, any more than I have figured in the beau monde ; yet I cannot but think that statesmanship, as well as high breeding, is learned, not by books, but in certain cen- tres of education. If it be not presumption to say so. Parliament puts a clever man au courant with politics and affairs of state in a way surprising to himself. A member of the Legislature, if tolerably observant, be- gins to see things with new eyes, even, though his views undergo no change. Words have a meaning now, and ideas a reality, such as they had not before. He hears a vast deal in public speeches and private conversation, which is never put into print. The bearings of measures and events, the action of parties, and the persons of friends and enemies, are brought out to the man who is in the midst of them with a distinctness, which the most diligent perusal of newspapers will fail to impart to them. It is access to the fountain-heads of political wisdom and experience, it is daily intercourse, of one kind or another, with the multitude who go up to them, it is familiarity with business, it is access to the contributions of fact and opinion thrown together by many witnesses from many quarters, which does this for him. However, I need not account for a fact, to which it is sufficient to appeal ; that the Houses of Parliament and the atmosphere around them are a sort of Univer- sity of politics. As regards the world of science, we find a remark- able instance of the principle which I am illustrating, in the periodical meetings for its advance, which have arisen in the course of the last twenty years, such as the British Association. Such gatherings would to many persons appear at first sight simply preposterous. 12 What is a University? Above all subjects of study, Science is cbnveyed, is propagated, by books, or by private teaching ; experi- ments and investigations are conducted in silence ; dis- coveries are made in solitude. What have philosophers to do with festive celebrities, and panegyrical solemni- ties with mathematical and physical truth ? Yet on a closer attention to the subject, it is found that not even scientific thought can dispense with the suggestions, the instruction, the stimulus, the sympathy, the intercourse with mankind on a large scale, which such meetings secure. A fine time of year is chosen, when days are long, skies are bright, the earth' smiles, and all nature rejoices ; a city or town is taken by turns, of ancient name or modern opulence, where buildings are spacious and hospitality hearty. The novelty of place and circumstance, the excitement of strange, or the re- freshment of well-known faces, the majesty of rank or of genius, the amiable charities of men pleased both with themselves and with each other ; the elevated spirits, the circulation of thought, the curiosity ; the morning sections, the outdoor exercise, the well-fur- nished, well-earned board, the not ungraceful hilarity, the evening circle ; the brilliant lecture, the discussions or collisions or guesses of great men one with another, the narratives^ of scientific processes, of hopes, disap- pointments, conflicts, and successes, the splendid eulo- gistic orations ; these and the like constituents of the annual celebration, are considered to do something real and substantial forthe advance of knowledge which can be done in no other way. Of course they can but be occasional ; they answer to the annual Act, or Com- mencement, or Commemoration of a University, not to its ordinary condition ; but they are of a University nature ; and I can well believe in their utility. They What is a University? 13 issue in the promotion of a certain living and, as it were, bodily communication of knowledge from one to an- other, of a general interchange of ideas, and a comparison and adjustment of science with science, of an enlarge- ment of mind, intellectual and social, of an ardent love of the particular study, which may be chosen by each individual, and a noble devotion to its interests. Such meetings, I repeat, are but periodical, and only partially represent the idea of a University. The bustle and whirl which are their usual concomitants, are in ill keeping with the order and gravity of earnest intellectual education. We desiderate means of instruction which involve no interruption of our ordinary habits ; nor need we seek it long, for the natural course of things brings it about, while we debate over it. In every great country, the metropolis itself becomes a sort of necessary University, whether we will or no. As the chief city is the seat of the court, of high society, of politics, and of law, so as a matter of course is it the seat of letters also ; and at this time, for a long term of years, London and Paris are in fact and in operation Universities, though in Paris its famous University is no more, and in London a University scarcely exists except as a board of administration. The newspapers, magazines, reviews, journals, and periodicals of all kinds, the publishing trade, the libraries, museums, and academies there found, the learned and scientific societies, necessarily invest it with the functions of a University ; and that atmosphere of intellect, which in a former age hung over Oxford or Bologna or Salamanca, has, with the change of times, moved away to the centre of civil government. Thither come up youths from all parts of the country, the students of law, medicine, and the fine arts, and the employes and attaches of literature. There they live, as r4 What is a University ? chance determines ; and they are satisfied with their temporary home, for they find in it all that was promised to them there. They have not come in vain, as far as their own object in coming is concerned. They have not learned any particular religion, but they have learned their own particular profession well. They have, more- over, become acquainted with the habits, manners, and opinions of their place of sojourn, and done their part in maintaining the tradition of them. We cannot then be without virtual Universities ; a metropolis is such : the simple question is, whether the education sought and given should be based on principle, formed upon rule, directed to the highest ends, or left to the random suc- cession of masters and schools, one after another, with a melancholy waste of thought and an extreme hazard of truth. Religious teaching itself affords us an illustration of our subject to a certain point. It does not indeed seat itself merely in centres of the world ; this is impossible from the nature of the case. It is intended for the many not the few ; its subject matter is truth necessary for us, not truth recondite and rare ; but it concurs in the prin- ciple of a University so far as this, that its great instru- ment, or rather organ, has ever been that which nature prescribes in all education, the personal presence of a teacher, or, in theological language. Oral Tradition. It is the living voice, the breathing form, the expressive countenance, which preaches, which catechises. Truth, a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears, through his (affections, imagination, and reason ; it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there in perpetuity, by propound- ing and repeating it, by questioning and requestioning, by correcting and explaining, by progressing and then W^ai is a University ? 15 recurring to first principles, by all those ways which are implied in the word " catechising." In the first ages, it was a work of long time ; months, sometimes years, were devoted to the arduous task of disabusing the mind, of the incipient Christian of its pagan errors, and of mould- ing it upon the Christian faith. The Scriptures indeed were at hand for the study of those who could avail themselves of them ; but St. Irenaeus does not hesitate, to speak of whole races, who had been converted to Christianity, without being able to read them. To be unable to read or write was in those times no evidence of want of learning : the hermits of the deserts were, in this sense of the word, illiterate ; yet the great St. Anthony, though he knew not letters, was a match in disputation for the learned philosophers who came to try him. Didymus again, the great Alexandrian theologian, was blind. The ancient discipline, called the Disciplina Arcani, involved the same principle. The more sacred doctrines of Revelation were not committed to books but passed on by successive tradition. The teaching on the Blessed Trinity and the Eucharist appears to have been so handed down for some hundred years ; and when at length reduced to writing, it has filled many folios, yet has not been exhausted. But I have said more than enough in illustration ; I end as I began ; — a University is a place of concourse, whither students come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge. You cannot have the best of every kind everywhere ; you must go to some great city or em- porium for it. There you have all the choicest pro- ductions of nature and art all together, which you find each in its own separate place elsewhere. All the riches of the land, and of the earth, are carried up thither ; there are the best markets, and there the 1 5 • What is a University? best workmen. It is the centre of trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire of rival talents, and the standard of things rare and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful voices and performers of transcendent skill. It is the place for great preachers, great orators, great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of things, greatness and unity go together ; excellence implies a centre. And such, for the third or fourth time, is a University ; I hope I do not weary out the reader by repeating it. It is the place to which a thousand schools make contributions ; in which the intellect may safely range and speculate, sure to find its equal in some antagonist activity, and its judge in the tribunal of truth. It is a place where in- quiry is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind, and knowledge with knowledge. It is the place where the professor becomes eloquent, and is a missionary and a preacher, displaying his science in its most complete and most winning form, pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, and lighting up his own love of it in the breasts of his hearers. It is the place where the catechist makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the truth day by day into the ready memory, and wedging and tightening it into the expanding reason. It is a place which wins the admiration of the young by its celebrity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets the fidelity of the old by its associations. It is a seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation. It is this and a great deal more, and demands a somewhat better head and hand than mine to describe it well. Such is a University in its idea and in its purpose ; Wkai is a University? 17 such in good measure has it before now been in fact. Shall it ever be again ? We are going forward in the strength of the Cross, under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin, in the name of St. Patrick^ to attempt it. i8 I r^ ■ CHAPTER III. SITE OF A UNIVERSITY. IF we would know what a University is, considered in its elementary idea, we must betake ourselves to the first and most celebrated home of European literature and source of European civilization, to the bright and beautiful Athens, — Athens, whose schools drew to her bosom, and then sent back again to the business of life, the youth of the Western World for a long thousand years. Seated on the verge of the continent, the city seemed hardly suited for the duties of a central me- tropolis of knowledge; yet, what it lost in convenience of approach, it gained in its neighbourhood to the tra- ditions of the mysterious East, and in the loveliness of the region in which it lay. Hither, then, as to a sort of ideal land, where all archetypes of the great and the fair were found in substantial being, and all departments of truth explored, and all diversities of intellectual power exhibited, where taste and philosophy were majestically enthroned as in a royal court, where there was no so- vereignty but that of mind, and no nobility but that of genius, where professors were rulers, and princes did homage, hither flocked continually from the very corners of the ordis ierrarinn, the many-tongued generation, just rising, or just risen into manhood, in order to o-ain wisdom. ^ Pisistratus had in an early age discovered and nursed the infant genius of his people, and Cimon, after the Site of a University. \ g Persian war, had given it a home. That war had esta- blished the naval supremacy of Athens ; she had become an imperial state ; and the lonians, bound to her by the double chain of kindred and of subjection, were importing into her both their merchandize and their civilization. The arts and philosophy of the Asiatic coast were easily carried across the sea, and there was Cimon, as I have said, with his ample fortune, ready to receive them with due honours. Not content with patronizing their professors, he built the first of those noble porticos, of which we hear so much in Athens, and he formed the groves, which in process of time became the celebrated Academy. Planting is one of the most graceful, as in Athens it was one of the most beneficent, of employments. Cimon took in hand the wild wood, pruned and dressed it, and laid it out with handsome walks and welcome fountains. Nor, while hospitable to the authors of the city's civilization, was he ungrateful to the instruments of her prosperity. His trees extended their cool, umbrageous branches over the merchants, who assembled in the Agora, for many generations. Those merchants certainly had deserved that act of bounty ; for all the while their ships had been carrying forth the intellectual fame of Athens to the western world. Then commenced what may be called her Uni-, versity existence. Pericles, who succeeded Cimon both in the government and in the patronage of art, is said by Plutarch to have- entertained the idea of making Athens the capital of federated Greece : in this he failed, but his encouragement of such men as Phidias and Anaxagoras led the way to her acquiring a far more lasting sovereignty over a far wider empire. Little understanding the sources of her own greatness, Athens would go to war : peace is the interest of a seat of com- ?0 Site of a University. merce and the arts ; but to war she went ; yet to her, whether peace or war, it mattered not. The political power of Athens waned and disappeared ; kingdoms rose and fell ; centuries rolled away, — they did but bring fresh triumphs to the city of the poet and the sage. There at length the swarthy Moor and Spaniard were seen to meet the blue-eyed Gaul ; and the Cappa- docian, late subject of Mithridates, gazed without alarm at the haughty conquering Roman. Revolution after revolutiori oassed over the face of Europe, as well as of Greece, bM still she was there, — Athens, the city of mind, — as radiant, as splendid, as delicate, as young, as ever she had been. Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue yEgean, many a spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more ample ; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same perfection was nowhere else. The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of Argos, the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift ; Boeotia, which lay to its immediate north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavy atmosphere of that Boeotia might be good for vegetation, but it was asso- ciated in popular belief with the dulness of the Bceotian intellect : on the contrary, the special purity, elasticity, clearness, and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit con- comitant and emblem of its genius, did that for it which earth did not ; — it brought out every bright hue and tender shade of the landscape over which it was spread, and would have illuminated the face even of a more bare and rugged country. A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length, and thirty its greatest breadth ; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an angle ; three prominent mountains, commanding the plain, — Parnes, Pentelicus, Siie of a University. 2 1 and, Hymettus ; an unsatisfactory soil ; some streams, not always full ; — such is about the report which the agent of a London company would have made of Attica. He would report that the climate was mild ; the hills were limestone ; there was plenty of good marble ; more pasture land than at first survey might have been expected, sufficient certainly for sheep and goats ; fish- eries productive ; silver mines once, but long since worked out ; figs fair ; oil first-rate ; olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was, that that olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape, that it excited a religious veneration ; and that it took so kindly to the light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and' to climb up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word to his employers, how that clear air, of which I, have spoken, brought out, yet blended and subdued, the colours on the marble, till they had a softness and harmony, for all their richness, which in a picture looks exaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He would not tell, how that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere fresh- ened up the pale olive, till the olive forgot its mono- tony, and its cheek glowed like the arbutus or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of the thyme and thousand fragrant herbs which carpeted Hymettus ; he would hear nothing of the hum of its bees ; nor take much account of the rare flavour of its honey, since Gozo and Minorca were sufficient for the English demand. He would look over the .^gean from the height he had ascended ; he would follow with his eye the chain of islands, which, starting from the Sunian headland, seemed to offer the fabled divi- nities of Attica, when they would visit their Ionian cousins, a sort of viaduct thereto across the sea : but 22 Siie of a University. that fancy would not occur to him, nor any admiration of the dark violet billows with their white edges down below ; nor of those graceful, fan-like jets of silver upon the rocks, which slowly rise aloft like water spirits from the deep, then shiver, and break, and spread, and shroud themselves, and disappear, in a soft mist of foam ; nor of the gentle, incessant heaving and panting of the whole liquid plain ; nor of the long waves, keeping steady time, like a line of soldiery, as they resound upon the hollow shore, — he would not deign to notice that restless living element at all, except to bless his stars that he vfas not upon it. Nor the distinct detail, nor the refined colouring, nor the graceful outline and roseate golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the bold shadows cast from Qtus or Laurium by the declining sun ; — our agent of a mercantile firm would not value these matters even at a low figure. Rather we must turn for the sympathy we seek to yon pilgrim student, come from a semi-barbarous land to that small corner of the earth, as to a shrine, where he might take his fill of gazing on those emblems and coruscations of invisible unoriginate perfection. It was the stranger from a remote province, from Britain or from Mauritania, who in a scene so different from that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of his fiery choking sands, learned at once what a real University must be, by coming to under- stand the sort of country, which was its suitable home. Nor was this all that a University required, and found in Athens. No one, even there, could live on poetry. If the students at that famous place had nothing better than bright hues and soothing sounds, they would not have been able or disposed to turn their residence there to much account. Of course they must have the means Site of a University. 2^ of living, nay, in a certain sense, of enjoyment, if Athens was to be an Alma Mater at the time, or to remain afterwards a pleasant thought in their memory. And so they had : be it recollected Athens was a port, and a mart of trade, perhaps the first in Greece ; and this was very much to the point, when a number of strangers were ever flocking to it, whose combat was to be with intellectual, not physical difficulties, and who claimed to have their bodily wants supplied, that they might be at leisure to set about furnishing their minds. Now, barren as was the soil of Attica, and bare the face of the country, yet it had only too many resources for an elegant, nay luxurious abode there. So abundant were the imports of the place, that it was a common saying, that the productions, v/hich were found singly elsewhere, were brought all together in Athens. Corn and wine, the staple of subsistence in such a climate, came from the isles of the .^Egean ; fine wool and car- peting from Asia Minor ; slaves, as now, from the Euxine, and timber too ; and iron and brass from the coasts of the Mediterranean. The Athenian did not condescend to manufactures himself, but encouraged them in others ; and a population of foreigners caught at the lucrative occupation both for home consumption and for exportation. Their cloth, and other textures for dress and furniture, and their hardware — for instance, armour — were in great request. Labour was cheap ; stone and marble in plenty ; and the taste and skill, which at first were devoted to public buildings, as tem- ples and porticos, were in course of time applied to the mansions of public men. If nature did much for Athens, it is undeniable that art did much more. ^_^ ^^ Here some one will interrupt me with the remark : " By the bye, where are we, and whither are we going .? — 24 Site of a University. what has all this to do with a University ? at least what has it to do with education ? It is instructive doubtless ; but still how much has it to do with your subject ? " Now I beg to assure the reader that I am most con- scientiously employed upon my subject ; and I should have thought every one would have seen this : however, since the objection is made, I may be allowed to pause awhile, and show distinctly the drift of what I have been saying, before I go farther. What has this to do with my subject ! why, the question of the site is the very first that comes into consideration, when a Studium Generale is contemplated ; for that site should be a liberal and noble one ; who will deny it ? All authori- ties agree in this, and very little reflection will be suffi- cient to make it clear. I recollect a conversation I once had on this very subject with a very eminent man. I was a youth of eighteen, and was leaving my University for the Long Vacation, when I found myself in company in a public conveyance with a middle-aged person, whose face was strange to me. However, it was the great aca- demical luminary of the day, whom afterwards I knew very well. Luckily for me, I did not suspect it ; and luckily too, it was a fancy of his, as his friends knew, to make himself on easy terms especially with stage-coach companions. So, what with my flippancy and his con- descension, I managed to hear many things which were novel to me at the time ; and one point which he was strong upon, and was evidently fond of urging, was the material pomp and circumstance which should environ a great seat of learning. He considered it was worth the consideration of the government, whether Oxford should not stand in a domain of its own. An ample range, say four miles in diameter, should be turned into wood and meadow, and the University should be approached on Site of a University. 25 all sides by a magnificent park, with fine trees in groups and groves and avenues, and with glimpses and views of the fair city, as the traveller drew near it. There is nothing surely absurd in the idea, though it would cost a round sum to realise it. What has a better claim to the purest and fairest possessions of nature, than the seat of wisdom t So thought my coach companion ; and he did but express the tradition of ages and the instinct of mankind. For instance, take the great University of Paris. That famous school engrossed as its territory the whole south bank of the Seine, and occupied one half, and that the pleasanter half, of the city. King Louis had the island pretty well as his own, — it was scarcely more than a for- tification ; and the north of the river was given over to the nobles and citizens to do what they could with its marshes ; but the eligible south, rising from the stream, which swept around its base, to the fair summit of St. Genevieve, with its broad meadows, its vineyards and its gardens, and with the sacred elevation of Montmartre confronting it, all this was the inheritance of the Uni- versity. There was that pleasant Pratum, stretching along the river's bank, in which the students for centuries took their recreation, which Alcuin seems to mention in his farewell verses to Paris, and which has given a name to the great Abbey of St. Germain-des-Pr^s. For long years it was devoted to the purposes of innocent and healthy enjoyment ; but evil times came on the Univer- sity ; disorder arose within its precincts, and the fair meadow became the scene of party brawls ; heresy stalked through Europe, and Germany and England no longer sending their contingent of students, a heavy debt was the consequence to the academical body. To let their land was the only reso urce left to them : 26 Site of a University. buildings rose upon it, and spread along the green sod, and the country at length became town. Great was the grief and indignation of the doctors and masters, when this catastrophe occurred. " A wretched sight," said the Proctor of the German nation, "a wretched sight, to witness the sale of that ancient manor, whither the Muses were wont to wander for retirement and pleasure. Whither shall the youthful student now betake himself, what relief will he find for his eyes, wearied with intense reading, now that the pleasant stream is taken from him .-"' Two centuries and more have passed since this complaint was uttered ; and time has shown that the outward calamity, which it recorded, was but the emblenj of the great moral revolution, which was to follow ; till the institution itself has followed its green meadows, into the region of things which once were and now are not. And in like manner, when they were first contemplating a University in Belgium, some centuries ago, " Many," says Lipsius, " suggested Mechlin, as an abode salubrious and clean, but Louvain was preferred, as for other reasons, so because no city seemed, from the disposition of place and people, more suitable for learned leisure. Who will not approve the decision .' Can a site be healthier or more pleasant 1 The atmosphere pure and cheerful ; the spaces open and delightful ; meadows, fields, vines, groves, nay, I may say, a rus hi urbe. Ascend and walk round the walls ; what do you look down upon .•" Does not the wonderful and delightful variety smooth the brow and soothe the mind .' You have corn, and apples, and grapes ; sheep and oxen ; and . birds chirping or singing. Now carry your feet or your eyes beyond the walls ; there are streamlets, the river meandering along ; country-houses, convents, the superb fortress ; copses or woods fill up the scene, and spots Site of a University. 2 7 for simple enjoyment." And then he breaks out into poetry : Salvete Athense nostras, Athenas Belgicae, I Te Gallus, te Germanus, et te Sarmata Invisit, et Britannus, et te duplicis Hispanise alumnus, etc. Extravagant, then, and wayward as might be the thought of my learned coach companion, when, in the nineteenth century, he imagined, Norman-wise, to turn a score of villages into a park or pleasaunce, still, the waywardness of his fancy is excused by the justness of his principle ; for certainly, such as he would have made it, a University ought to be. Old Antony-&.-Wood, dis- coursing on the demands of a University, had expressed the . same sentiment long before him ; as Horace in ancient times, with reference to Athens itself, when he spoke of seeking truth "in the groves of Academe." And to Athens, as will be seen. Wood himself appeals, when he would discourse of Oxford. Among " those things which are required to make a University,'' he puts down, — " First, a good and pleasant site, where there is a wholesome and temperate constitution of the air ; com- posed with waters, springs or wells, woods and pleasant fields ; which being obtained, those commodities are enough to invite students to stay and abide there. As the Athenians in ancient times were happy for their conveniences, so also were the Britons, when by a rem- nant of the Grecians that came amongst them, they or their successors selected such a place in Britain to plant a school or schools therein, which for its pleasant situa- tion was afterwards called Bellositum or Bellosite, now Oxford, privileged with all those conveniences before mentioned." 2 8 Site of a University, By others the local advantages of that University have been more philosophically analyzed ; — for instance, •with a reference to its position in the middle of southern England ; its situation on several islands in a broad plain, through which many streams flowed ; the sur- rounding marshes, which, in times when it was needed, protected the city from invaders ; its own strength as a military position ; its easy communication with London, nay with the sea, by means of the Thames ; while the London fortifications hindered pirates from ascending the stream, which all the time was so ready and con- venient for a descent. Alas ! for centuries past that city has lost its prime honour and boast, as a servant and soldier of the Truth. Once named the second school of the Church, second only to Paris, the foster-mother of St. Edmund, St. Richard, St. Thomas Cantilupe, the theatre of great intellects, of Scotus the subtle Doctor, of Hales the irrefragible, of Occam the special, of Bacon the admir- able, of Middleton the solid, and of Bradwardine the profound, Oxford has now lapsed to that level of mere human loveliness, which in its highest perfection we admire in Athens. Nor would it have a place, now or hereafter, in these pages, nor would it occur to me to speak its name, except that, even in its sorrowful depri- vation, it still retains so much of that outward lustre, which, like the brightness on the prophet's face, ought to be a ray from an illumination within, as to afford me an illustration of the point on which I am engaged, viz., what should be the material dwelling-place and appear- ance, the local circumstances, and the secular concomi- tants of a great University. Pictures are drawn in tales of romance, of spirits seemingly too beautiful in their fall to be really fallen, and the holy Pope at Rome, Site of a University. 29 Gregory, in fact, and not in fiction, looked upon the blue eyes and golden hair of the fierce Saxon youth in the slave market, and pronounced them Angels, not Angles ; and the spell which this once loyal daughter of the Church still exercises upon the foreign visitor, even now when her true glory is departed, suggests to us how far more majestic and more touching, how brimful! of indescribable influence would be the presence of a Uni- versity, which was planted within, not without Jerusalem, — an influence, potent as her truth is strong, wide as her sway is world-wide, and growing, not lessening, by the extent of space over which its attraction would be exerted. Let the reader then listen to the words of the last learned German, who has treated of Oxford, and judge for himself if they do not bear me out, in what I have said of the fascination which the very face and smile of a University possess over those who come within its range. " There is scarce a spot in the world," says Huber, " that bears an historical stamp so deep and varied as Oxford ; where so many noble memorials of moral and material power, cooperating to an honourable end, meet the eye all at once. He who can be proof against the strong emotions which the whole aspect and genius of the place tend to inspire, must be dull, thoughtless, uneducated, or of very perverted views. Others will bear us witness, that, even side by side with the Eternal Rome, the Alma Mater of Oxford may be fitly named, as producing a deep, a lasting, and peculiar impression. " In one of the most fertile districts of the Queen of the Seas, whom nature has so richly blessed, whom for centuries past no footstep of foreign armies has dese- crated, lies a broad green vale, where the Cherwell and 30 Stie of a University. the Isis mingle their full, clear waters. Here and there primeval elms and oaks overshadow them ; while in their various windings they encircle gardens, meadows, and fields, villages, cottages, farm-houses, and country- seats, in motley mixture. In the midst rises a mass of mighty buildings, the general character of which varies between convent, palace, and castle. Some few Gothic church-towers and Romaic domes, it is true, break through the horizontal lines ; yet the general impression at a distance and at first sight, is essentially different from that of any of the towns of the middle ages. The outlines are far from being so sharp, so angular, so irre- gular, so fantastical ; a certain softness, a peculiar re- pose, reigns in those broader, terrace-like rising masses. Only in the creations of Claude Lorraine or Poussin could we expect to find a spot to compare with the prevailing character of this picture, especially when lit up by a favourable light. The principal masses consist of Colleges, the University buildings, and the city churches ; and by the side of these the city itself is lost on distant view. But on entering the streets, we find around us all the signs of an active and prosperous trade. Rich and elegant shops in profusion afford a sight to be found nowhere but in England ; but with all this glitter and show, they sink into a modest, and, as it were, a menial attitude, by the side of the grandly severe memorials of the higher intellectual life, memorials which have been growing out of that Ufe from almost the begin- ning of Christianity itself Those rich and elegant shops are, as it were, the domestic offices of these palaces of learning, which ever rivet the eye of the observer, while all besides seems perforce to be subservient to them. Each of the larger and more ancient Colleges looks like a separate whole — an entire town, whose walls and monu- Site of a University. 3 1 ments proclaim the vigorous growth of many centuries ; and the town itself has happily escaped the lot of modern beautifying, and in this respect harmonizes with the Colleges." * There are those who, having felt the influence of this ancient School, and being smit with its splendour and its sweetness, ask wistfully, if never again it is to be Catholic, or whether at least some footing for Catholicity may not be found there. All honour and merit to the charitable and zealous hearts who so inquire ! Nor can we dare to tell what in time to come may be the in- scrutable purposes of that grace, which is ever more comprehensive than human hope and aspiration. But for me, from the day I left its walls, I never, for good or bad, have had anticipation of its future ; and never for a moment have I had a wish to see again a place, which I have never ceased to love, and where I lived for nearly thirty years. Nay, looking at the gene- ral state of things at this day, I desiderate for a School of the Church, if an additional School is to be granted to us, a more central position than Oxford has to show. Since the age of Alfred and of the first Henry, the world has grown, from the west and south of Europe, into four or five continents ; and I look for a city less inland than that old sanctuary, and a country closer upon the highway of the seas. I look towards a land both old and young ; old in its Christianity, young in the promise of its future ; a nation, which received grace before the Saxon came to Britain, and which has never quenched it ; a Church, which comprehends in its history the rise and fall of Canterbury and York, which Augustine and Paulinus found, and Pole and * Huber on English Universities. F. W. Newman's translation. 32 Site of a University. Fisher left behind them. I contemplate a people which has had a long night, and will have an inevitable day. I am turning my eyes towards a hundred years to come, and I dimly see the island I am gazing on, become the road of passage and union between two hemispheres, and the centre of the world. I see its inhabitants rival Belgium in populousness, France in vigour, and Spain in enthusiasm ; and I see England taught by advancing years to exercise in its behalf that good sense which is her characteristic towards every one else. The capital of that prosperous and hopeful land is situate in a beautiful bay and near a romantic region ; and in it I see a flourishing University, which for a while had to struggle with fortune, but which, when its first founders and servants were dead and gone, had successes far exceeding their anxieties. Thither, as to a sacred soil, the home of their fathers, and the fountain-head of their Christianity, students are flocking from East, West, and South, from America and Australia and India, from Egypt and Asia Minor, with the ease and rapidity of a locomotion not yet discovered, and last, though not least, from England, — all speaking one tongue, all owning one faith, all eager for one large true wisdom ; and thence, when their stay is over, going back again to carry over all the earth " peace to men of good will." 00 CHAFTER IV. UNIVERSITY LIFE. ATHENS. HOWEVER apposite may have been the digression into which I was led when I had got about half through the foregoing Chapter, it has had the inconve- nience of what may be called running me off the rails ; and now that I wish to proceed from the point at which it took place, I shall find some trouble, if I may con- tinue the metaphor, in getting up the steam again, or if I may change it, in getting into the swing of my subject. It has been my desire, were I able, to bring before tlie reader what Athens may have been, viewed as what we have since called a University ; and to do this, not with any purpose of writing a panegyric on. a heathen city, or of denying its many deformities, or of concealing what was morally base in what was intellectually great, but just the contrary, of representing things as they really were ; so far, that is, as to enable him to see what a Uni- versity is, in the very constitution of society and in its own idea, what is its nature and object, and what it needs of aid and support external to itself to complete that nature and to secure that object. So now let us fancy our Scythian, or Armenian, or African, or Italian, or Gallic student, after tossing on the Saronic waves, which would be his more ordinary course to Athens, at last casting anchor at Piraeus. He is 3 34 University Life. of any condition or rank of life you please, and may be made to order, from a prince to a peasant. Per- baips he is some Cleanthes, who has been a boxer in the public games. How did it ever cross his brain to betake himself to Athens in search of wisdom 1 or, if he came thither by accident, how did the love of it ever touch his heart .' But so it was, to Athens he came with three drachms in his girdle, and he got his livelihood by drawing water, carrying loads, and the like servile occupations. He attached himself, of all philosophers, to Zeno the Stoic, — to Zeno, the most high-minded, the most haughty of speculators ; and out of his daily earnings the poor scholar brought his master the daily sum of an obolus, in payment for at- tending his lectures. Such progress did he make, that on Zeno's death he actually was his successor in his school ; and, if my memory does not play me false, he is the author of a hymn to the Supreme Being, which is one of the noblest effusions of the kind in classical poetry. Yet, even when he was the head of a school, he continued in his illiberal toil as if he had been a monk ; and, it is said, that once, when the wind took his pallium, and blew it aside, he was discovered to have no other garment at all ; — something like the German student who came up to Heidelberg with no- thing upon him but a great coat and a pair of pistols. Or it is another disciple of the Porch, — Stoic by na- ture, earlier than by profession, — who is entering the city; but in what different fashion he comes ! It is no other than Marcus, Emperor of Rome and philosopher. Pro- fessors long since were summoned from Athens for his service, when he was a youth, and now he comes, after his victories in the battle field, to make his acknowledg- ments at the end of hfe, to the city of wisdom, and to Athens. 35 submit himself to an initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries. Or it is a young man of great promise as an orator, were it not for his weakness of chest, which renders it necessary that he should acquire the art of speaking without over-exertion, and should adopt a delivery suffi- cient for the display of his rhetorical talents on the one hand, yet merciful to his physical resources on the other. He is called Cicero ; he will stop but a short time, and will pass over to Asia Minor and its cities, before he returns to continue a career which will render his name immortal ; and he will like his short sojourn at Athens so well, that he will take good care to send his son thither at an earlier age than he visited it him_;^ self But see where comes from Alexandria (for we need not be very solicitous about anachronisms), a young rhan from twenty to twenty-two, who has narrowly es- caped drowning on his voyage, and is to remain at Athens as many as eight or ten years, yet in the course of that time will not learn a line of Latin, thinking it enough to become accomplished in Greek composition, and in that he will succeed. He is a grave person, and difficult to make out ; some say he is a Christian, some- thing or other in the Christian line his father is for certain. His name is Gregory, he is by country a Cappadocian, and will in time become preeminently a theologian, and one of the principal Doctors of the Greek Church. Or it is one Horace, a youth of low stature and black hair, whose father has given him an education at Rome above his rank in life, and now is sending him to finish it at Athens ; he is said to have a turn for poetry : a hero he is not, and it were well if he knew it ; but he is caught by the enthusiasm of the hour, and goes off 36 University Life. campaigning with Brutus and Cassias, and will leave his shield behind him on the field of Philippi. Or it is a mere boy of fifteen : his name Eunapius ; though the voyage was not long, sea sickness, or confine- ment, or bad living on board the vessel, threw him into a fever, and, when the passengers landed in the evening at Pirsus, he could not stand. His countrymen who accompanied him, took him up among them and carried him to the house of the great teacher of the day, Proa;- resius, who was a friend of the captain's, and whose fame it was which! drew the enthusiastic youth to Athens. His companions understand the sort of place they are in, and, with the licence of academic students, they break into the philosopher's house, though he appears to have retired for the night, and proceed to make themselves free of it, with an absence of ceremony, which is only not impudence, because Proaeresius takes it so easily. Strange introduction for our stranger to a seat of learn- ing, but not out of keeping with Athens ; for what could you expect of a place where there was a mob of youths and not even the pretence of control ; where the poorer lived any how, and got on as they could, and the teachers themselves had no protection from the humours and caprices of the students who filled their lecture-halls'.'' However, as to this Eunapius, Proasresius took a fancy- to the boy, and told him curious stories about Athenian life. He himself had come up to the University with one Hephaestion, and they were even worse off than Cleanthes the Stoic ; for they had only one cloak be- tween them, and nothing whatever besides, except some old bedding; so when Proseresius went abroad, Hephaes- tion lay in bed, and practised himself in oratory ; and then Hephaestion put on the cloak, and Proasresius crept under the coverlet. At another time there was so fierce Athens. 3 7 a feud between what would be called " town and gown" in an English University, that the Professors did not dare lecture in public, for fear of ill treatment. But a freshman like Eunapius soon got experience for himself of the ways and manners prevalent in Athens. Such a one as he had hardly entered the city, when he was caught hold of by a party of the academic youth, who proceeded to practise on his awkwardness and his ignorance. At first sight onfe wonders at their childish- ness ; but the like conduct obtained in the medieval Universities ; and not many months have passed away since the journals have told us of sober Englishmen, given to matter-of-fact calculations, and to the anxieties of money-making, pelting each other with snow-balls on their own sacred territory, and defying the magistracy, when they would interfere with their privilege ,of becoming boys. So I suppose we must attribute it to something or other in human nature. Meanwhile, there stands the new-comer, surrounded by a circle of his new associates, who forthwith proceed to frighten, and to banter, and to make a fool of him, to the extent of their wit. Some address him with mock politeness, others with fierceness; and so they conduct him in solemn procession across the Agora to the Baths ; and as they approach, they dance about him like madmen. But this was to be the end of his trial, for the Bath was a sort of initiation ; he there- upon received the pallium, or University gown, and was suffered by his tormentors to depart in peace. One aloije is recorded as having been exempted from this persecution ; it was a youth graver and loftier than even St. Gregory himself: but it was not from his force of character,' but at the instance of Gregory, that he es- caped. Gregory .was his bosom-friend, and was ready in Athens to shelter him when he came. It was another 3^ University Life. Saint and another Doctor ; the great Basil, then, (it would appear,) as Gregory, but a catechumen of the Church. But to return to our freshman. His troubles are not at an end, though he has got his gown upon him. Where is he to lodge .'' whom is he to attend .-' He finds himself seized, before he well knows where he is, by another party of men, or three or four parties at once, like foreign porters at a landing, who seize on the baggage of the perplexed stranger, and thrust half a dozen cards into his unwilling hands. Our youth is plied by the hangers-on of professor this, or sophist that, each of whom wishes the fame or the profit of having a housefull. We will say that he escapes from their hands, — but then he will have to choose for him- self where he will put up ; and, to tell the truth, with all the praise I have already given, and the praise I shall have to give, to the city of mind, nevertheless, between ourselves, the brick and wood which formed it, the actual tenements, where flesh and blood had to lodge (always excepting the mansions of great men of the place), do not seem to have been much better than those of Greek or Turkish towns, which are at this moment a topic of interest and ridicule in the public prints. A lively picture has lately been set before us of GallipoH. Take, says the writer,* a multitude of the dilapidated outhouses found in farm-yards in England, of the rickety old wooden tenements, the cracked, shut- terless structures of planks and tiles, the sheds and stalls which our bye lanes, or fish-markets, or river-sides cati supply ; tumble them 'down on the declivity of a bare bald hill ; let the spaces between house and house, thus accidentally determined, be understood to form streets • Mr. Russell's Letters in the Times newspaper (1854). Athens. 39 winding of course for no reason, and with no meaning, up and down the town ; the roadway always narrow, the breadth never uniform, the separate houses bulging or retiring below, as circumstances may have deter- mined, and leaning forward till they meet overhead ; — and you have a good idea of Gallipoli. I question whether this picture would not nearly correspond to the special seat of the Muses in ancient times. Learned writers assure us distinctly that the houses of Athens were for the most part small and mean ; that the streets were crooked and narrow ; that the upper stories pro- jected over the roadway ; and that staircases, balus- trades, and doors that opened outwards, obstructed it; — a remarkable coincidence of description. I do not doubt at all, though history is silent, that that roadway was jolting to carriages, and all but impassable ; and that it was traversed by drains, as freely as any Turkish town now. Athens seems in these respects to have been below the average cities of its time. "A stranger," says an ancient, " might doubt, on the sudden view, if really he saw Athens." I grant all this, and much more, if you will ; but, recollect, Athens was the home of the intellectual and beautiful ; not of low mechanical contrivances, and ma- terial organization. Why stop within your lodgings, counting the rents in your wall or the holes in your tiling, when nature and art call you away .' You must put up with such a chamber, and a table, and a stool, and a sleeping board, any where else in the three continents ; one place does not differ from another indoors ; your magalia in Africa, or your grottos in Syria are n6t per- fection. I suppose you did not come to Athens to swarm up a ladder, or to grope about a closet : you came to see and to hear, what hear and see you could 40 University Life. not elsewhere. What food for the intellect is it possible to procure indoors, that you stay there looking about you ? do you think to read there ? where are your books ? do you expect to purchase books at Athens — you are much out in your calculations. True it is, we at this day, who live in the nineteenth century, have the books of Greece as a perpetual memorial ; and copies there have been, since the time that they were written ; but you need not go to Athens to procure them, nor would you find them in Athens. Strange to say, strange to the nineteenth century, that in the age of Plato and Thucydides, there was not, it is said, a bookshop in the whole place : nor was the book trade in existence till the very time of Augustus. Libraries, I suspect, were the bright invention of Attains or the Ptolemies ; * I doubt whether Athens had a library till the reign of Hadrian. It was what the student gazed on, what he heard, what he caught by the magic of sympathy, not what he read, which was the education furnished by Athens. He leaves his narrow lodging early in the morning ; and not till night, if even then, will he return. It is but a crib or kennel, — in which he sleeps when the weather is inclement or the ground damp ; in no respect a home. And he goes out of doors, not to read the day's news- paper, or to buy the gay shilling volume, but to imbibe the invisible atmosphere of genius, and to learn by heart the oral traditions of taste. Out he goes ; and, leaving the tumble-down town behind him, he mounts the Acropolis to the right, or he turns to the Areopagus on • I do not go into controversy on the subject, for which the reader must have recourse to Lipsius, Morhof, Boeckh, Bekkerj etc. ; • and this of course apphes to whatever historical matter I introduce, or shall introduce. Athens. 4 1 the left. He goes to the Parthenon to study the sculp- tures of Phidias ; to the temple of the Dioscuri to see the paintings of Polygnotus. We indeed take our Sophocles or ^sohylus out of our coat-pocket ; but, if our sojourner at Athens would understand how a tragic poet can write, he must betake himself to the theatre on the south, and see and hear the drama literally in action. Or let him go westward to the Agora, and there he will hear Lysias or Andocides pleading, or Demosthenes haranguing. He goes farther west still, along the shade of those noble planes, which Cimon has planted there; and he looks around him at the statues and porticos and vestibules, each by itself a work of genius and skill, enough to be the making of another city. He passes through the city gate, and then he is at the famous Ceramicus ; here are the tombs of the mighty dead ; and here, we will suppose, is Pericles himself, the most elevated, the most thrilling of orators, converting a funeral oration over the slain into a philosophical pane- gyric of the living. Onwards he proceeds still ; and now he has come to that still more celebrated Academe, which has bestowed its own name on Universities down to this day ; and , there he sees a sight which will be graven on his memory till he dies. Many are the beauties of the place, the groves, and the statues, and the temple, and the stream of the Cephissus flowing by ; many are the lessons which will be taught him day after day by teacher or by companion; but his eye is just now arrested by one object ; it is the very presence of Plato, He does not hear a word that he says ; he does not care to hear ; he asks neither for discourse nor disputation ; what he sees is a whole, complete in itself, not to be increased by addition, and greater than anything else. It will be a 42 University Life. point in the history of his life ; a stay for his memory to rest on, a burning thought in his heart, a bond of union with men of hke mind, ever afterwards. Such is the spell, which the living man exerts on his fellows, for good or for evil. How nature impels us to lean upon others, making virtue, or genius, or name, the qualifica- tion for our doing so ! A Spaniard is said to have tra- velled to Italy, simply to see Livy ; he had his fill of gazing, and then went back again home. Had our young stranger got nothing by his voyage but the sight of the breathing and moving Plato, had he entered no lecture-room to hear, no gymnasium to converse, he had got some measure of education, and something to tell of to his grandchildren. But Plato is not the only sage, nor the sight of him the only lesson to be learned in this wonderful suburb. It is the region and the realm of philosophy. Colleges were the inventions of many centuries later ; and they imply a sort of cloistered life, or at least a life of rule,, scarcely natural to an Athenian. It was the boast of the philosophic statesman of Athens, that his countrymen achieved by the mere force of nature and the love of the noble and the great, what other people aimed at by laborious discipline ; and all who came among them were submitted to the same method of education. We have traced our student on his wanderings from the Acropolis to the Sacred Way ; and now he is in the region of the schools. No awful arch, no window of many- coloured lights marks the seats of learning there or else- where; philosophy lives out of doors. No close atmos- phere oppresses the brain or inflames the eyelid ; no long session stiffens the limbs. Epicurus is reclining in his garden ; Zeno looks like a divinity in his porch ; the restless Aristotle, on the other side of the city, as if in Athens. 43 antagonism to Plato, is walking his pupils off their legs in his Lyceum by the Ilyssus. Our student has deter- mined on entering himself as a disciple of Theophrastus, a teacher of marvellous popularity, who has brought together two thousand pupils from all parts of the world. He himself is of Lesbos ; for masters, as well as students, come hither from all regions of the earth, — as befits a University. How could Athens have collected hearers in such numbers, unless she had selected teachers of such power .>" it was the range of territory, which the notion of a University implies, which fur- nished both the quantity of the one, and the quality of the other. Anaxagoras was from Ionia, Carneades from' Africa, Zeno from Cyprus, Protagoras from Thrace, and Gorgias from Sicily. Andromachus was a Syrian, Proseresius an Armenian, Hilarius a Bithynian, Philiscus a Thessalian, Hadrian a Syrian. Rome is celebrated for her liberality in civil .matters ; Athens was as liberal in intellectual. There was no narrow jealousy, directed against a Professor, because he was not an Athenian ; genius and talent were the qualifications ; and to bring them to Athens, was to do homage to it as a University. There was a brotherhood and a citizenship of mind. Mind came first, and was the foundation of the academical polity ; but it soon brought along with it, and gathered round itself, the gifts of fortune and the prizes of life. As time went on, wisdom was not always sentenced to the bare cloak of Cleanthes ; but, begin- ning in rags, it ended in fine linen. The Professors be- came honourable and rich ; and the students ranged themselves under their names, and were proud of calling themselves their countrymen. The University was divided into four great nations, as the medieval anti- quarian would style them ; and in the middle of the 44 University Life. fourth century, Proaeresius was the leader or proctor of the Attic, Hephsestion of the Oriental, Epiphanius of the Arabic, and Diophantus of the Pontic. Thus the Professors were both patrons of clients, and hosts and proxeni of strangers and visitors, as well as masters of the schools : and the Cappadocian, Syrian, or Sicilian youth who came to one or other of them, would be encouraged to study by his protection, and to aspire by his example. Even Plato, when the schools of Athens were not a hundred years old, was in circumstances to enjoy the otiinn aim dignitate. He had a villa out at Heraclea ; and he left his patrimony to his school, in whose hands it remained, not only safe, but fructifying, a marvellous phenomenon in tumultuous Greece, for the long space of eight hundred years. Epicurus too had the property of the Gardens where he lectured ; and these too became the property of his sect. But in Roman times the chairs of grammar, rhetoric, politics, and the four philosophies, were handsomely endowed by the State ; some of the Professors were themselves statesmen or high function- aries, and brought to their favourite study senatorial rank or Asiatic opulence. Patrons such as these can compensate to the freshman, in whom we have interested ourselves, for the poorness of his lodging and the turbulence of his companions. In every thing there is a better side and a worse ; in every place a disreputable set and a respectable, and the one is hardly known at all to the other. Men come away from the same University at this day, with contradic- tory impressions and contradictory statements, accord- ing to the society they have found there ; if you believe the one, nothing goes on there as it should be : if you believe the other, nothing goes on as it should not. Virtue, Athens. 45 however, and decency are at least in the minority every where, and under some sort of a cloud or disadvantage ; and this being the case, it is so much gain whenever an Herodes Atticus is found, to throw the influence of wealth and station on the side even of a decorous phi- losophy. A consular man, and the heir of an ample fortune, this Herod was content to devote his life to a professorship, and his fortune to the patronage of literature. He gave the sophist Polemo about eight thousand pounds, as the sum is calculated, for three declamations. He built at Athens a stadium six hun- dred feet long, entirely of white marble, and capable of admitting the whole population. His theatre, erected^ to the memory of his wife, was made of cedar wood curiously carved. He had two villas, one at Marathon, the place of his birth, about ten miles from Athens, the other at Cephissia, at the distance of six ; and thither he drew to him the ilite, and at times the whole body of the students. Long arcades, groves of trees, clear pools for the bath, delighted and recruited the summer visitor. Never was so brilliant a lecture-room as his evening banqueting-hall ; highly connected students from Rome mixed with the sharp-witted provincial of Greece or Asia Minor ; and the flippant sciolist, and the nonde- script visitor, -half philosopher, half tramp, met with a reception, courteous always, but suitable to his deserts. Herod was noted for his repartees ; and we have in- stances on record' of his setting down, according to the emergency, both the one and the other. A higher line, though a rarer one, was that allotted to the youthful Basil. He was one of those men who seem by a sort of fascination to draw others around them even without wishing it. One might have deemed that his gravity and his reserve would have kept them at a 46 University Life. distance ; but, almost in spite of himself, he was the centre of a knot of youths, who, pagans as most of them were, used Athens honestly for the purpose for which they professed to seek it ; and, disappointed and dis- pleased with the place himself, he seems nevertheless to have been the means of their profiting by its advantages. One of these was Sophronius, who afterwards held a high office in the State : Eusebius was another, at that time the bosom-friend of Sophronius, and afterwards a Bishop. Celsus too is named, who afterwards was raised to the government of Cilicia by the Emperor Julian. Julian himself, in the sequel of unhappy me- mory, was then at Athens, and known at least to St. Gregory. Another Julian is also mentioned, who was afterwards commissioner of the land tax. Here we have a glimpse of the better kind of society among the stu- dents of Athens ; and it is to the credit of the parties composing it, that such young men as Gregory and Basil, men as intimately connected with Christianity, as they were well known in the world, should hold so high a place in their esteem and love. When the two saints were departing, their companions came around them with the hope of changing their purpose. Basil perse- vered ; but Gregory relented, and turned back to Athens for a season. k^, 26 ^- /r|] CHAPTER V. FREE TRADE IN KNOWLEDGE. THE SOPHISTS. WHEN the Catholic University is mentioned, we hear people saying on all sides of us, — " Impos- sible ! how can you give degrees .■" what will your degrees be worth .' where are your endowments .'' where are your edifices ? where will you find students .'' what will govern- ment have to say to you .-" who wants you .•' who will ac- knowledge you .■" what do you expect .■" what is left for you.'" Now, I hope I may say without offence, that this sur- prise on the part of so many excellent men, is itself not a little surprising. When I look around at what the Catholic Church now is in this country of Ireland, and am told what it was twenty or thirty years ago ; when I see the hundreds of good works, which in that interval have been done, and now stand as monuments of the zeal and charity of the living and the dead ; when I find that in those years new religious orders have been intro- duced, and that the country is now' covered with con- vents ; when I gaze upon the sacred edifices, spacious and fair, which during that time have been built out of the pence of the poor ; when I reckon up the multitude of schools now at work, and the sacrifices which gave them birth ; when I reflect upon the great political exer- tions and successes which have made the same period memorable in all history to come ; when I contrast what 48 . Free Trade in Knowledge. was then almost a nation of bondsmen, with the intelh'- gence, and freedom of thought, and hope for the future, which is its present characteristic ; when I meditate on the wonderful sight of a people springing again fresh and vigorous from the sepulchre of famine and pestilence ; and when I consider that those bonds of death which they have burst, are but the specimen and image of the ada- mantine obstacle's, political, social, and municipal, which have all along stood in the way of their triumphs, and how they have been carried on to victory by the simple energy of a courageous faith ; it sets me marvelling to find some of those very me'n, who have been heroically achieving impossibilities all their lives long, now begin- ning to scruple about adding one little sntaking impos- sibility to the list, and I feel it to be a great escape for the Church that they did not insert the word "impos- sible" into their dictionaries and encyclopedias at a somewhat earher date. However, this by the way : as to the objection itself, which has led to this not unnatural reflection, perhaps the reader may have observed, if he has taken the trouble to follow me, that in what I have said above I have already been covertly aiming at it ; and now I propose to handle it avowedly, at least as far as my limits will allow in one Chapter. He will recollect, perhaps, that in former Chapters I have already been maintaining, that a University con- sists, and has ever consisted, in demand and supply, in wants which it alone can satisfy and which it does satisfy, in the communication of knowledge, and the relation and bond which exists between the teacher and the taught. Its constituting, animating principle is this moral attrac- - tion of one class of persons to another ; which is prior in its nature, nay commonly in its history, to any other tie The Sophists. 49 whatever ; so that, where this is wanting, a University is alive only in name, and has lost its true essence, what- ever be the advantages, whether of position or of afflu- ence, with which the civil power or private benefactors contrive to encircle it. I am far indeed from undervalu- ing those external advantages ; a certain share of them is necessary to its -ftrell-being : but on the whole, as it is with the individual, so will it be with the body: — it is talents and attainments which command success. Con- sideration, dignity, wealth, and power, are all very proper things in the territory of literature ; but they ought to know their place ; they come second, not first ; they must not presume, or make too much of themselves, or they had better be away. First intellect, then secular advantages, as its instruments and as its rewards ; I say no more than this, but I say no less. Nor am I denying, as I shall directly show, that, under any circpmstances, professors will ordinarily lec- ture, and students ordinarily attend them, with a view, in some shape or other, to Secular advantage. Certainly ; few persons pursue knowledge simply for its own sake. But though remuneration of some sort, both to the teachers and to the taught, may be inseparable from the fact of a University, still it may be separable from its idea. Much less am I forgetting (to view the subject on another side), that intellect is helpless, because ungovernable and self-destructive, unless it be regu- lated by a moral rule and by revealed truth. Nor am I saying anything in disparagement of the principle, that establishments of literature and science should be in subordination to ecclesiastical authority. I would not make light of any of these considerations ; some I "shall even assume at once, as necessary for my purpose ; of some I shall say more hereafter ; here,* 4 50 Free Trade in Kjiowledge. however, I am merely suggesting to the reader's better judgment what constitutes a University, what is just enough to constitute it, or what a University consists in, viewed in its essence. What this is, seems to me most simply explained and ascertained, as I noticed in a former Chapter, by the instance of metropolitan centres. It would appear as if the very same kinds of need, social and moral, which give rise to a metropolis, give rise also to a University ; nay, that every metro- polis is a University, as far as the rudiments of a University are concerned. [ Youths come up thither from, all parts, in order to better themselves gene- rally^ — not as if they necessarily looked for degrees in their own several pursuits, and degrees recognized by the law ; not as if there were to be any competition for fellowships in chemistry, for instance, or engineering, — but they come to gain that instruction which will turn most to their account in after life, and to form good and serviceable connexions, and that, as regards the fine arts, literature, and science, as well as in trade and the professions. I do not see why it should be more diffi- cult for Ireland to trade, if I may use the term, upon the field of knowledge, than for the inhabitants of San Fran- cisco or of Melbourne to make a fortune by their gold fields, or tor the North of England by its coal. If gold is power, wealth, influence ; and if coal is power, wealth, influence ; so is knowledge. " When house and lands are gone and spent, Then learning is most excellent" ; and, as some men go to the Antipodes for the gold, so others may come to us here for the knowledge. And it is as reasonable to expect students, though we have no •charter from the State, provided we hold out the in- The -Sophists. 51 ducement of good teachers, as to expect a crowd of Britishers, Yankees, Spaniards, and Chinamen at the diggings, though there are no degrees for the successful use of the pickaxe, sieve, and shovel. And history, I think, corroborates- this view of the matter. In all times there have been Universities ; and in all times they have flourished by means of this pro- fession of teaching and this desire of learning. They have needed nothing else but this for their existence. There has been a demand, and there has been a supply ; and there has been the supply necessarily before the de- mand, though not before the need. This is how the University, in every age, has made progress. Teachers have set up their tent, and opened their school, and students and disciples have flocked around them, in spite of the want of every advantage, or even of the presence of every conceivable discouragement. Years, nay, centuries perhaps, passed along of discomfort and disorder : and these, though they showed plainly enough that, for the well-being and perfection of a University, something more than the desire for knowledge is re- quired, yet they showed also how irrepressible was that desire, how reviviscent, how indestructible, how ade- quate to the duties of a vital principle, in the midst of enemies within and without, amid plague, famine, desti- tution, war, dissension, and tyranny, evils physical and social, which would have been fatal to any other but a really natural principle naturally developed. Do not let the reader suppose, however, that I am anticipating for Dublin at this day such dreary periods or such ruinous commotions, as befel the schools of the medieval period. Such miseries were the accidents of the times ; and this is why we hear so much then of pro- tectors of learning — the Charlemagnes and Alfreds, — as 52 Free Trade in Knowledge. the compensation of those miseries. It may be asked, whether royal protectors do not tell against the inherent vitality, on which I have been insisting, of Universities ; but in truth, powerful sovereigns, such as they, did but clear and keep the ground, on which Universities were to build. Learning in the middle ages had great foes and great friends ; we too, were we setting up a school of learning in a rude period of society, should have to expect perils on the one hand, and to court protectors on the other ; as it is, however, we can afford to treat with com- parative unconcern the prospect both of the one and of the other. We may hope, and we may be content, to be just let alone ; or, if we must be anxious about the future, we may reasonably use the words of the proverb, " Save me from my friends." Charlemagne was indeed a patron of learning, but he was its protector far more ; it is our happiness, for which we cannot be too thankful to the Author of all good, that we need no protector ; for it is our privilege just now, whatever comes of the morrow, to live in the midst of a civilization, the like of which the world never saw before. The descent of enemies on our coasts, the forays of indigenous marauders, the sudden rise of town mobs, the unbridled cruelty of rulers, the resistless sweep of pestilence, the utter insecurity of life and property, and the recklessness which is its conse- quence, all that deforms the annals of the medieval Universities, is to us for the present but a matter of history. The statesman, the lawyer, the soldier, the policeman, the reformer, the economist, have most of them seriously wronged and afflicted us Catholics in other ways, national, social, and religious ; but, on the side on which I have here to view them, they are acting in our behalf as a blessing from heaven. They are giving us that tranquillity for which the Church so variously The Sophists. 53 and so anxiously prays ; that real freedom, whicli en- ables us to consult her interests, to edify her holy house, to adorn her sanctuary, to perfect her discipline, to inculcate her doctrines, and to enlighten and form her children, " with all confidence," as Scripture speaks, " without prohibition." We are able to set up a Studmm Generate, without its concomitant dangers and incon- veniences ; and the history of the past, while it adum- brates for us the pattern of a University, and supplies us with a specimen of its good fruits, conveys to us no presage of the recurrence of those melancholy conflicts, in which the cultivated intellect was in those times en- gaged, sometimes with brute force, and sometimes, alas ! with Revealed Religion. Charlemagne then was necessary, but not so much for the University, as against its enemies ; he was con- fessedly a patron of letters, effectual as well as munifi- cent, but he could not any how have dispensed with his celebrated professors, and they, as the history of litera- ture, both before and after him, shows, could probably have dispensed with him. Whether we turn to the ancient world or to the modern, in either case we have evidence in behalf of this position : we have the spec- tacle of the thirst of knowledge acting for and by itself, and making its own way. Here I shall confine myself to ancient history : both in Athens and in Rome, we find it pushing forward, in independence of the civil power. The professors of literature seated themselves in Athens without the favour of the government ; and they opened their mission in Rome in spite of its state traditions. It was the rising generation, it was the mind of youth un- fettered by the conventional ideas of the ruling politics, which in either instance became their followers. The ex- 54 Ft'^e Trade in Knowledge. citement they created in Athens is described by Plato in one of his Dialogues, and has often been quoted. Protagoras came to the bright city with the profession of teaching " the political art" ; and the young flocked around him. They flocked to him, be it observed, not because he promised them entertainment or novelty, such as the theatre might promise, and a people pro- verbially fickle and curious might exact ; nor, on the other hand, had he any definite recompense to hold out, — a degree, for instance, or a snug fellowship, or an India writership, or a place in the civil service. He offered them just the sort of inducement, which carries ofi" a man now to a conveyancer, or a medical prac- titioner, or an engineer, — he engaged to prepare them for the line of life which they had chosen as their own, and to prepare them better than Hippias or Prodicus, who were at Athens with him. Whether he was really able to do this, is another thing altogether; or rather it makes the argument stronger, if he were unable ; for, if the very promise of knowledge was so potent a spell, what would have been its real possession .' But now let us hear the state of the case from the mouth of Hippocrates himself^ — the youth, who in his eagerness woke Socrates, himself a young man at the time, while it was yet dark, to tell him that Protagoras was come to Athens. " When we had supped, and were going to bed,"* he says, " then my brother told me that Protagoras was arrived, and my first thought was to come and see you immediately ; but afterwards it appeared to me too late at night. As soon, however, as sleep had refreshed me, up I got, and came here." " And I," continued Socrates, giving an account of the conversation, '" knowing his earnestness and excitability, * Carey's translation is followed almost verbatim. The Sophists. 55 said : ' What is thit to you ? does Protagoras do you any harm?' He laughed and said: 'That he does, Socrates ; because he alone is wise, and does not make me so.' ' Nay,' said I, ' do you give him money enough, and he will make you wise too.' ' O Jupiter and ye gods,' he made answer, 'that it depended upon that, for I would spare nothing of my own, or of my friends' property either ; and I have now come to you for this very purpose, to get you to speak to him in my behalf For, besides that I am too young, I have never yet seen Protagoras, or heard him speak ; for I was but a boy when he came before. However, all praise him, Socrates, and say that he has the greatest skill in speaking. But why do we not go to him, that we may find him at home r " They went on talking till the light ; and then they set out for the house of Callias, where Protagoras, with others of his own calling, was lodged. There they found him pacing up and down the portico, with his host and others, among whom, on one side of him, was a son of Pericles (his father being at this time in power), while another son of Pericles, with another party, was on the other. A party followed, chiefly of foreigners, whom Protagoras had " bewitched, like Orpheus, by his voice." On the opposite side of the portico sat Hippias, with a bench of youths before him, who were asking him questions in physics and astronomy. Prodicus was still in bed, with some listeners on sofas round him. The house is described as quite full of guests. Such is the sketch given us of this school of Athens, as there represented. I do not enter on the question, as I have already said, whether the doctrine of these Sophists, as they are called, was true or false ; more than very partially true it could not be, whether in morals or in physics, from the cir- 56 Free Trade in Knowledge, cumstances of the age ; it is sufficient that it powerfully- interested the hearers. We see what it was that filled the Athenian lecture-halls and porticos ; not the fashion of the day, not the patronage of the great, not pecuniary- prizes, but the reputation of talent and the desire of knowledge, — ambition, if you will, personal attachment, but not an influence, political or other, external to the School. "Such Sophists," says Mr. Grote, referring to the passage in Plato, " had nothing to recomine7id them except superior /^«^w/?(^^ and intellectual fame, combined with an imposing personality, making itself felt in the lectures and conversation." So much for Athens, where Protagoras had at least this advantage, that Pericles was his private friend, if he was not publicly his patron ; but now when we turn to Rome, in what is almost a parallel page in her history, we shall find that literature, or at least philosophy, had to encounter there the direct opposition of the ruling party in the state, and of the hereditary and popular sentiment. The story goes, that when the Greek trea- tises which Numa had had buried with him, were acci- dentally brought to light, the Romans had burned them, from the dread of such knowledge coming into fashion. At a later date decrees passed the Senate for the expul- sion from the city, first of philosophers, then of rheto- ricians, who were gaining the attention of the rising generation. A second decree was passed some time afterwards to the same effect, assigning, in its vindica- tion, the danger, which existed, of young men losing, by means of these new studies, their taste for the military profession. Such was the nascent conflict between the old rule and policy of Rome, and the awakening intellect, at the time of that celebrated embassy of the three philoso- The Sophists. 57 phers, Diogenes the Stoic, Carneades the Academic, and Crltolaus the Peripatetic, sent to Ronxe from Athens on a political affair. Whether they were as skilful in diplomacy as they were zealous in their own particular line, need not here be determined ; any how, they lengthened out their stay at Rome, and employed them- selves in giving lectures. "Those among the youth," says Plutarch, " who had a taste for literature went to them, and became their constant and enthusiastic hearers. Especially, the graceful eloquence of Car- neades, which had a reputation equal to its talent, secured large and favourable audiences, and was noised about the city. It was reported that a Greek, with a perfectly astounding power both of interesting and of commanding the feelings, was kindling in the youth a most ardent emotion, which possessed them, to the neglect of their ordinary indulgences and amusements, with a sort of rage for philosophy." Upon this, Cato took up the matter upon the traditionary ground ; he represented that the civil and military interests of Rome were sure to suffer, if such tastes became popular ; and he exerted himself with such effect, that the three philo- sophers were sent off with the least possible delay, " to return home to their own schools, and in future to con- fine their lessons to Greek boys, leaving the youth of Rome, as heretofore, to listen to the magistrates and the laws." The pressure of the government was suc- cessful at the moment ; but ultimately the cause of education prevailed. Schools were gradually founded ; first of grammar, in the large sense of the word, then of rhetoric, then of mathematics, then of philosophy, and then of medicine, though the order of their introduction, one with another, is not altogether clear. At length the Emperors secured the interests of letters by an estab- 58 Free Trade in Knowledge. lishment, which has lasted to this day in the Roman University, now called Sapienza. Here are two striking instances in very different countries, to prove that it is the thirst for knowledge, and not the patronage of the great, which carries on the cause of literature and science to its ultimate victory ; and all that can be said against them is, that I have gone back a great way to find them. But a general truth is made up of particular instances, which cannot be brought forward all at once, nor crowded into half a dozen pages of a work like this. I shall continue the subject some future time ; meanwhile I will but observe that, while these ancient instances teach us that a Uni- versity is founded on principles stii generis and proper to itself, so do they coincidently suggest that it may boldly appeal to those principles before they are yet brought into exercise, and may, or rather must, take the initiative in its own success. It must be set up before it can be sought ; and it must offer a supply, in order to create a demand. Protagoras and Carneades needed nothing more than to advertise themselves in order to gain disciples ; if we have a confidence that we have that to offer to Irishmen, to Catholics, which is good and great, and which at present they have not, our success may be tedious and slow in coming, but ultimately come it must. Therefore, I say, let us set up our University ; let us only set it up, and it will teach the world its value by the fact of its existence. What ventures are made, what risks incurred by private persons in matters of trade ! "What speculations are entered on in the departments of building or engineering ! What boldness in innovation or improvement has been manifested by statesmen dur- ing the last twenty years ! Mercantile undertakings The Sophists. 59 indeed may be ill-advised, and political measures may be censurable in themselves, or fatal in their results. I am not considering them here in their motive or their object, in their expedience or their justice, but in the manner in which they have been carried out. Wliat largeness then of view, what intrepidity, vigour, and re- solution are implied in the Reform Bill, in the Emanci- pation of the Blacks, in the finance changes, in the Useful Knowledge movement, in the organization of the Free Kirk, in the introduction of the penny postage, and in the railroads ! This is an age, if not of great men, at least of great works ; are Catholics alone to refuse to act on faith .■" England has faith in her skill, in her deter- mination, in her resources in war, in the genius of her people ; is Ireland alone to fail in confidence in her chil- dren and her God .' Fortes fortuna adjuvat; so says the proverb. If the chance concurrence of half a dozen of sophists, or the embassy of three philosophers, could do so much of old to excite the enthusiasm of the young, and to awaken the intellect into activity, is it very pre- sumptuous, or very imprudent, in us at this time, to enter upon an undertaking, which comes to us with the autho- rity of St. Peter, the blessing of St. Patrick, the coopera- tion of the faithful, the prayers of the poor, and all the ordinary materials of success, resources, intellect, pure intention, and self devotion, to bring it into effect .? Shall it be said in future times, that the work needed nought but good and gallant hearts, and found them not.? 6o 9 CHAPTER VI. DISCIPLINE AND INFLUENCE. I HAVE had some debate with myself, whether what are called myths and parables, and similar com- positions of a representative nature, are in keeping with this work ; yet, considering that the early Chris- tians recognized the Logi of the classical writers as not inconsistent with the gravity of their own litera- ture, not to mention the precedent afforded by the sacred text, I think I may proceed, without apology to myself or others, to impart to the reader in confi- dence, while it is fresh on my mind, a conversation which I have just had with an intimate English friend, on the general subject to which these columns are de- voted. I do not say that it was of' a very important nature ; still to those who choose to reflect, it may suggest more than it expresses. It took place only a day or two ago, on occasion of my paying him a fly- ing visit. My friend lives in a spot as convenient as it is de- lightful. The neighbouring hamlet is the first station out of London of a railroad ; while not above a quarter of a mile from his boundary wall flows the magnifi- cent river, which moves towards the metropolis through a richness of grove and meadow of its own creation. After a liberal education, he entered a lucrative business; and, making a competency in a few years, exchanged Discipline and Influence. 6i New Broad Street for the " fallentis semita vitse." Soon . after his marriage, which followed this retirement, his wife died, and left him solitary. Instead of returning to the world, or seeking to supply her place, he gave him- self to his garden and his books ; and with these com- panions he has passed the last twenty years. He has lived in a largish house, the "monarch of all he surveyed;" the sorrows of the past, his creed, and the humble chapel not a stone's throw from his carriage-gate, have saved him from the selfishness of such a sovereignty, and the oppressiveness of such a solitude ; yet not, if I may speak candidly, from some of the inconveniences of a bachelor life. He has his own fixed views, from which it is diffi- cult to move him, and some people say that he discourses rather than converses, though, somehow, when I am with . him, from long familiarity, I manage to get through as many words as he. I do not know that such peculiarities can in any case be called moral defects ; certainly not, when contrasted with the great mischiefs which a life so enjoyable as his might have done to him, and has not. He has indeed been in possession of the very perfection of earthly happiness, at least as I view things ; — ^mind, I say of "earthly;" and I do not say that earthly happiness is desirable. On the contrary, man is born for labour, not for self ; what right has any one to retire from the world and profit no one .'' He who takes his ease in this world, will have none in the worlc^ to come. All this rings in my friend's ears quite as distinctly as I may fancy it does in mine, and has a corresponding effect upon his con- duct ; who would not exchange consciences with him > but still the fact remains, that a life such as his is in itself dangerous, and that, in proportion to its attractive- ness. If indeed there were no country beyond the grave, 62 Discipline and Influence. it would be our wisdom to make of our present dwelling- place as much as ever we could ; and this would be done by the very life which my friend has chosen, not by any absurd excesses, not by tumult, dissipation, excitement, but by the " moderate and rational use," as Protestant sermons say, " of the gifts of Providence." Easy circumstances, books, friends, literary connexions, the fine arts, presents from abroad, foreign correspon- dents, handsome appointments, elegant simplicity, gravel walks, lawns, flower beds, trees and shrubberies, summer houses, strawberry beds, a greenhouse, a wall for peaches, " hoc erat in votis"; — nothing out of the way, no hot-houses, graperies, pineries, — " Persicos odi, puer, apparatus," — no mansions, no parks, no deer, no preserves ; these things are not worth the cost, they involve the bother of dependents, they interfere with enjoyment. One or two faithful servants, who last on as the trees do, and cannot change their place : — the ancients had slaves, a sort of dumb waiter, and the real article ; alas ! they are impossible now. We must have no one with claims upon us, or with rights ; no incum- brances ; no wife and children ; they would hurt our dignity. We must have acquaintance within reach, yet not in the way ; ready, not troublesome or intrusive. We must have something of name, or of rank, or of ancestry, or of past official life, to raise us from the dead level of mankind, to afford food for the imagination of our neighbours, to bring us from time to time strange visitors, and to invest our home with mystery. In con- sequence we shall be loyal subjects, good conservatives, fond of old times, averse to change, suspicious of novelty, because we know perfectly when we are well off, and that in our case " progredi est regredi." To a life such as this, a man is more attached, the longer he lives; Discipline and Influence. 63 and he would be more and more happy in it too, were it not for the mcniento within him, tliat books and gardens do not make a' man immortal ; that, though they do not leave him, he at least must leave them, all but "the hateful cypresses," and must go where the only book is the book of doom, and the only garden the Paradise of the just. All this has nothing to do with our University, but nevertheless they are some of the reflections which came into my mind, as I left the station I have spoken of, and turned my face towards my friend's abode. As I went along, on the lovely afternoon of last Monday, which had dried up the traces of a wet morning, and as I fed upon the soothing scents and sounds which filled the air, I began to reflect how the most energetic and war- like race among the descendants of Adam, had made, by contrast, this Epicurean life, the " otium cum dignitate," the very type of human happiness. A life in the country in the midst of one's own people, was the dream of Roman poets from Virgil to Juvenal, and the reward of Roman statesmen from Cincinnatus to Pliny. I called to mind the Corycian old man, so beautifully sketched in the fourth Georgic, and then my own fantastic protesta- tion in years long dead and gone, that, if I were free to choose my own line of life, it should be that of a gardener in some great family, a life without care, without excite- ment, in which the gifts of the Creator screened off man's evil doings, and the romance of the past coloured and illuminated the matter-of-fact present. " Otium divos," I suppose the reader will say. Smiling myself at the recollection of my own absurdity, I passed along the silent avenues of solemn elms, which, belong- ing to a nobleman's domain, led the way towards the humbler dwelling for which I was bound ; and then I 64 Discipline and Influence. recurred to the Romans, wandering in thought, as in a time of relaxation one is wont ; and I contrasted, or rather investigated, the respective aspects, one with another, under which a country hfe, so dear to that conquering people nationally, presented itself severally to Cicero, to Virgil, to Horace, and to Juvenal, and I asked myself under which of them all was my friend's home to be regarded. Then suddenly the scene changed, and I was viewing it in my own way; for I had known him since I was a schoolboy, in his father's time ; and I recollected with a sigh how I had once passed a week there of my summer holidays, and what I then thought of persons and things I met there, of its various inmates, father, mother, brothers, and sisters, all of them, except himself and me, now numbered with the departed. Thus Cicero and Horace glided off from my field of view, like the circles of a magic lantern ; and my ears, no longer open to the preludes of the nightingales around me, which were preparing for their nightly concert, heard nothing but The voices of the dead, and songs of other years. Thus, deep in sad thoughts, I reached the well-known garden gate, and unconsciously opened it, and was upon the lower lawn, advancing towards the house, before I apprehended shrubberies and beds, which were sensibly before me, otherwise than through my memory. Then suddenly the vivid past gave way, and the actual present flowed in upon me, and I saw my friend pacing up and down on the side furthest from me, with his hands be- hind him, and a newsf)aper or some such publication in their grasp. It is an old-fashioned place ; the house may be of the date of George the Second ; a square hall in the middle, Discipline and Influence. 65 and in the centre of it a pillar, and rooms all around. The servants' rooms and offices run off on the right ; a rookery covers the left flank, and the drawing-room opens upon the lawn. There a large plane tree, with its massive branches, whilome sustained a swing, when there were children on that lawn, blithely to^ undergo an exercise of head, at the very thought of which the grown man sickens. Three formal terraces gradually conduct ■down to one of the majestic avenues, of which I have already spoken ; the second and third, intersected by grass walks, constitute the kitchen-'garden. As a boy, I used to stare at the magnificent cauliflowers and large apricots which it furnished for the table ; and how diffi- cult it was to leave off, when once one got among the gooseberry bushes in the idle morning ! I had now got close upon my friend ; and, in return for the schoolboy reminiscences and tranquil influences of the place, was ungrateful enough to begin attacking him for his epicurean life. " Here you are, you old pagan," I said, " as usual, fit for nothing so much as to be one of the interlocutors in a dialogue of Cicero's." " You are a pretty fellow," he made answer, " to ac- cuse me of paganism, who have yourself been so busily engaged just now in writing up Athens ;" and then I saw that it was several numbers of the Gazette, which he had in his hand, and which perhaps had given energy to his step. After giving utterance to some general expressions of his satisfaction at the publication, and the great interest he took in the undertaking to which it was devoted, he suddenly stopped, turned round upon me, looked hard in my face, and taking hold of a button of my coat, said abruptly : " But what on earth possessed you, my good friend, to have anything to do with this Irish University.'' what was it to you .' how did it fall in your way .?" 5 66 Discipline and Influence. I could not help laughing out ; " O I see," I cried, " you consider me a person who cannot keep quiet, and must ever be in one scrape or another." " Yes, but seriously, tell me," he urged, " what had you to do with it? what was Ireland to you? you had your own line and your own work ; was not that enough ?" "Well, my dear Richard," I retorted, "better do too much than too little." " A tu quoque is quite unworthy of you," he replied ; " answer me, charissime, what had you to do with an Irish undertaking ? do you think they have not clever men enough there to work it, but you must meddle ?" " Well," I said, " I do not think it is an Irish under- taking, that is, in such a sense that it is not a Catholic undertaking, and one which intimately and directly interests other countries besides Ireland." " Say England," he interposed. " Well, I say and mean England : I think it most intimately concerns England ; unless it was an affair of England, as well as of Ireland, I should have sympa- thized in so grand a conception, I .should have done what I could to aid it, but I should have had no call, as you well say, I should have considered it presumption in me, to take an active part in its execution." He looked at me with a laughing expression in his eye, and was for a moment silent ; then he began again: " You must think yourself a great genius," he said, "to fancy that place is not a condition of capacity. You are an Enghshman; your mind, your habits are English; ' you have hitherto -been acting only upon Englishmen, with Englishmen ; do you really anticipate that you will be able to walk into a new world, and to do any good service there, because you have done it here ? Ne siitor ultra crepidam. I would as soon believe that you could Discipline and Influe^ice. 67 shoot your soul into a new body, according to the Eastern tale, and make it your own." I made him a bow ; " I thank you heartily," I said, " for the seasonable encouragement you give me in a difficult undertaking ; you are determined, Richard, that I shall not get too much refreshment from your shrubberies," " I beg your pardon," he made answer, "do not mis- take me ; I am only trying to draw you out ; I am curious to know how you came to make this engage- ment ; you know we have not had any talk together for some time." " It may be as you say," I answered ; " that is, I may be found quite unequal to what I have attempted ; but, I assure you, not for want of zealous and able assistance, of sympathizing friends, — not because it is in Ireland, instead of England, that I have to work." " They tell me," he replied, " that they don't mean to let you have any Englishmen about you if they can help it." " You seem to know a great deal more about it here than I do in Ireland," I answered : " I have not heard this ; but still, I suppose, in former times, when men were called from one country to another for a similar purpose, as Peter from Ireland to Naples, and John of Melrose to Paris, they did in fact go alone." " Modest man !" he cried, " to compare yourself to the sages and doctors of the Middle Age ! But still the fact is not so : far from going alone, the very number they could and did spare from home is the most remark- able evidence of the education of the Irish in those times. Moore, I recollect, emphatically states, that it was abroad that the Irish sought, and abroad that they found, the rewards of their genius. If any people ought 68 Discipline and Influence. to suffer foreigners to come to them, it is they who have, with so much glory, to themselves, so often gone to foreigners. In the passage I have in my eye, Moore calls it ' the peculiar fortune of Ireland, that both in talent and in fame her sons have prospered more signally abroad than at home ; that not so much those who con- fined their labours to their native land, as those who carried their talents and zeal to other lands, won for their country the high title of the Island of the Holy and the Learned.' But, not to insist on the principle of reciprocity, jealousy of foreigners among them is little in keeping with that ancient hospitality of theirs, of which history speaks as distinctly." " Really," I made answer, " begging your pardon, yo.u do not quite know what you are talking about. You never were in Ireland, I believe ; am I likely to know less than you .'' If there be a nation, which in matters of intellect does not want ' protection,' to use the political word, it is the Irish. A stupid people would have a right to claim it, when they would set up a Uni- versity ; but, if I were you, I would think twice before I paid so bad a compliment to one of the most gifted nations of Europe, as to suppose that it could not keep its ground, that it would not take the lead, in the intel- lectual arena, though competition was perfectly open. If their ' grex philosophorum ' spread in the medieval time over Europe, in spite of the perils of sea and land, will they not be sure to fill the majority of chairs in their own University in an age like this, from the sheer claims of talent, though those chairs were open to the world .' No ; a monopoly would make the cleverest people idle ; it would sink the character of their under- taking, and Ireland herself would be the first to exclaim against the places of a' great school of learning becoming Dhcipline and Influence. 69 mere pieces of patronage and occasions for jobbing, lilce the sees of thie Irish Establishment." My friend did not reply, but looked grave ; at length he said that he was not stating what ought to be, but what would be ; Irishmen boasted, and justly, that in ancient times they went to Melrose, to Malmesbury, to Glastonbury, to East Anglia, to Oxford ; that they established themselves in Paris, Ratisbon, Padua, Pavia, Naples, and other continental schools ; but there was in fact no reciprocity now ; Paris had not been simply for Frenchmen, nor Oxford simply for Englishmen, but Ireland must be solely for the Irish. " Really, in truth," I made answer, " to speak most seriously, I think you are prejudiced and unjust, and I should be very sorry indeed to have to believe that you expressed an English sentiment. I am sure you do not. However, you speak of what you simply do not know. In Ireland, as in every country, there is of course a wholesome jealousy towards persons placed in important posts, such as my own, lest they should exercise their power unfairly ; there is a fear of jobs, not a jealousy of English ; and I don't suppose you think I am likely to turn out a jobber. This is all I can grant you at the utmost, and perhaps I grant too much. But I do most solemnly assure you, that, as far as I have had the means of bearing witness, there is an earnest wish in the pro- moters and advocates of this great undertaking to get the best men for its execution, wherever they are to be found, in England, or in France, or in Belgium, or in Germany, or in Italy, or in the United States ; though there is an anticipation too, which is far from unreason- able, that formost of the Professorships of the University the best men will he found in Ireland. Of course in particular cases, there ever will be a difference of opinion 70 Discipline and Influence. who is the best man ; but this does not interfere at all, as is evident, with the honest desire on all sides, to make the Institution a real honour to Ireland and a defence of Ireland's faith." My companion again kept silence, and so we walked on ; then he suddenly said : " Come let us have some tea, since you tell me," (I had told him by letter,) " that you cannot take a bed ; the last train is not over- late." As we walked towards the house, " The truth is," he continued, speaking slowly, " I had another solution of my own difficulty myself. I cannot help thinking that your Gazette makes more of persons than is just, and does not lay stress enough upon order, system, and rule, in conducting a University. This is what I have said to myself ' After all, suppose there be an exclusive system, it does not much matter ; a great institution, if well organized, moves of itself, independently of the accident of its particular functionaries.' . . . Well now, is it not so .'" he added briskly ; " you have been laying too much stress upon persons ? " I hesitated how best I should begin to answer him, and he went on : — " Look at the Church herself ; how little she depends on individuals ; in proportion as she can develop her system, she dispenses with them. In times of great confusion, in countries under conversion, great men are given to her, great Popes, great Evan- gelists ; but there is no call for Hildebrands or Ghislieris in the nineteenth century, or for Winfrids or Xaviers in modern Europe. It is so with states ; despotisms re- quire great monarchs, Turkish or Russian ; constitutions manage to jog on without them ; this is the meaning of the famous saying, ' QuantulU sapientia regitur mun- dus ! ' What a great idea again, to use Guizot's ex- Discipline and Influence, 71 pression, is the Society of Jesus ! what a creation of genius is its organization ; but so well adapted is the institution to its object, that for that very reason it can afford to crush individualities, however gifted ; so much so, that, in spite of the rare talents of its members, it has even become an objection to it in the mouth of its enemies, that it has not produced a thinker like Scotus or Malebranche. Now, I consider your papers make' too much of persons, and put system out of sight ; and this is the sort of consolation which occurs to me, in answer to the misgivings which come upon me, about the exclusiveness with which the University seems to me to be threatened." " You know," I answered, " these papers have not got half through their subject yet. I assure you I do not at all forget, that something more than able Professors are necessary to make a University.'' " Still," said he, " I should like to be certain, you were sufficiently alive to the evils which spring from over- valuing them. You have talked to us a great deal about Platos, Hephrestions, Herods, and the rest of them, sophists one and all, and very little about a constitution. All that you have said has gone one way. You have professed a high and mighty independence of state patronage, and a conviction that the demand and supply of knowledge is all in all ; that the supply must be pro- vided before the demand in order to create it ; and that great minds are the instruments of that supply. You have founded your ideal University on individuals. Then, I say, on this hypothesis, be sure you have for your purpose the largest selection possible ; do not pro- claim that you mean to have the tip-top men of the age, and then refuse to look out beyond one country for them, as if any country, though it be Ireland, had a 72 Discipline and Influence. monopoly of talent. Observe, I say this on your hypo- thesis ; but I confess I am disposed to question its soundness, and it is in that way I get over my own mis- giving, about you. I say that, may be, your University need not have the best men ; it may fall back on a jog- trot system, a routine, and perhaps it ought to do so." " Forbid it ! " said I ; " you cannot suppose that what you have said is new to me, or that I do not give it due weight. Indeed I could almost write a dissertation on the subject which you have started, that is, on the functions and mutual relations, in the conduct of human affairs, of Influence and Law. I should begin by saying that these are the two moving powers which carry on the world, and that in the supernatural order they are absolutely united in the Source of all perfection. I should observe that the Supreme Being is both, — a living, individual Agent, as sovereign as if an Eternal Law were not ; and a Rule of right and wrong, and an Order fixed and irreversible, as if He had no will, or supremacy, or characteristics of personality. Then I should say that here below the two principles are separated, that each has its own function, that each is necessary for the other, and that they ought to act together ; yet that it too often happens that they become rivals of one an- other, that this or that acts of itself, and will encroach upon the province, or usurp the rights of the other ; and that then every thing goes wrong. Thus I should start, and would you not concur with me .' Would it not be sufficient to give you hope that I am not taking a one- sided view of the subject of University education t " He answered, as one so partial to me was sure to answer ; that he had no sort of suspicion that I was acting without deliberation, or without viewing the matter as a whole ; but still he could not help saying Discipline and Influence. 73 that he thought he saw a bias in me which he had not expected, and he would be truly glad to find himself mistaken. " Do you know," he said, " I am surprised to find that you, of all men. in the world, should be taking the intellectual line, and should be advocating the pro- fessorial system. Surely it was once far otherwise ; I thought our line used to be, that knowledge without principle was simply mischievous, and that Professors did but represent and promote that mischievous know- ledge. This used to be our language : and, beyond all doubt, a great deal may be said in justification of it. What is heresy in ecclesiastical history but the action of per- sonal influence against law and precedent ? and what were such heterodox teachers as the Arian leaders in primitive times, or Abelard in the middle ages, but the eloquent and attractive masters of philosophical schools .■' And what again were Arius and Abelard but the fore- runners of modern German professors, a set of clever charlatans, or subtle sophists, who aim at originality, show, and popularity, at the expense of truth .'' Such men are the nucleus of a system, if system it may be called, of which disorder is the outward manifestation, and scepticism the secret life. This you used to think ; but now you tell us that demand and supply are all in all, and that supply must precede demand ; — and that this is a University in a nutshell." ■ I laughed, and said he was unfair to me, and rather had not understood me at all. " We are neither of us theologians or metaphysicians," said I ; "yet I suppose we know the difference between a direct cause and a sine qud non, and between the essence of a thing and its integrity. Things are not content to be in fact just what we contemplate them in the abstract, and nothing more ; they require something more than themselves, 74 Discipline and Influence. sometimes as necessary conditions of their being, some- times for their well-being. Breath is not part of man ; it comes to him from without ; it is merely the surround- ing air, inhaled, and then exhaled ; yet no one can live without breathing. Place an animal under an exhausted receiver, and it dies : yet the air does not enter into its definition. When then I say, that a Great School or University consists in the communication of knowledge, in lecturers and hearers, that is, in the Professorial system, you must not run away with the notion that I consider personal influence enough for its well-being. It is indeed its essence, but something more is necessary than barely to get on from day to day ; for its sure and comfortable existence we must look to law, rule, order ; to religion, from which law proceeds ; to the collegiate system, in which it is embodied ; and to endowments, by which it is protected and perpetuated. This is the part of the subject which my papers have not yet touched upon ; nor could they well treat of what comes second, till they had done justice to what comes first." I thought that here he seemed disposed to interrupt me, so I interposed : " Now, please, let me bring out what I want to say, while I am full of it. I say then, that the personal influence of the teacher is able in some sort to dispense with an academical system, but that the system cannot in any sort dispense with personal in- fluence. With influence there is life, without it there is none ; if influence is deprived of its due position, it will not by those means be got rid of, it will only break out irregularly, dangerously. An academical system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils, is an arctic winter ; it will create an ice-bound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else. You will not call this any new notion of mine ; and you will not Discipline and Influence. 75 suspect, after what happened to me a long twenty-five years ago, that I can ever be induced to think otherwise. No ! I have known a time in a great School of Letters, when things went on for the most part by mere routine, and form took the place of earnestness. I have experi- enced a state of things, in which teachers were cut off from the taught as by an insurmountable barrier; when neither party entered into the thoughts of the other ; when each lived by and in itself; when the tutor was supposed to fulfil his duty, if he trotted on like a squirrel in his cage, if at a certain hour he was in a certain room, or in hall, or in chapel, as it might be ; and the pupil did his duty too, if he was careful to meet his tutor in that same room, or hall, or chapel, at the same certain hour ; and when neither the one nor the other dreamed of seeing each other out of lecture, out of chapel, out of academical gown. I have known places where a stiff manner, a pompous voice, coldness and condescension, were the teacher's attributes, and where he neither knew, nor wished to know, and avowed he did not wish to know, the private irregularities of the youths committed to his charge. " This was the reign of Law without Influence, System without Personality. And then again, I have seen in this dreary state of things, as you yourself well know, while the many went their way and rejoiced in their liberty, how that such as were better disposed and aimed at higher things, looked to the right and to the left, as sheep without a shepherd, to find those who would exert that influence upon them which its legiti- mate owners made light of; and how, wherever they saw a little more profession of strictness and distinctness of creed, a little more intellect, principle, and devotion, than was ordinary, thither they went, poor youths, like 76 Discipline and Influence. St. Anthony when he first turned to God, for counsel and encouragement ; and how, as this feeHng, without visible cause, mysteriously increased in the subjects of that seat of learning, a whole class of teachers gradually arose, unrecognised by its authorities, and rivals to the teachers whom it furnished, and gained the hearts and became the guides of the youthful generation, who found no sympathy were they had a claim for it. And then moreover, you recollect, as well as I, how, as time went on and that generation grew up and came into University office themselves, then, from the memory of their own past discomfort, they tried to mend matters, and to unite Rule and Influence together, which had been so long severed, and how they claimed from their pupils for themselves that personal attachment which in their own pupillage they were not invited to bestow ; and then, how in con- sequence a struggle began between the dry old red- tapists, as in politics they are called, and — " Here my friend, who had, been unaccountably im- patient for some time, fairly interrupted me. " It seems very rude," he said, "very inhospitable; it is against my interest ; perhaps you will stay the night ; but if you must go, go at once you must, or you will lose the train." An announcement like this turned the current of my thoughts, and I started up. In a few seconds we were walking, as briskly as elderly men walk, towards the garden entrance. Sorry was I to leave so abruptly so sweet a place, so old and so dear to me ; sorry to have disturbed it with controversy instead of drinking in its calm. When we reached the lofty avenue, from which I entered, Richard shook my hand, and wished me God-speed, " port&que emittit eburni." 77 CHAPTER VII. ATHENIAN SCHOOLS : INFLUENCE. TAKING Influence and Law to be the two great principles of Government, it is plain that, histori- cally speaking. Influence comes first, and then Law. Thus Orpheus preceded Lycurgus and Solon. Thus Deioces the Mede laid the foundations of his power in his personal reputation for justice, and then established it in the seven walls by which he surrounded himself in Ecbatana. First we have the " virum pietate gravem," whose word " rules the spirits and soothes the breasts " of the multitude ; — or the warrior ; — or the mythologist and bard ; — then follow at length the dynasty and con- stitution. Such is the history of society : it begins in the poet, and ends in the policeman. Universities are instances of the same course : they begin in Influence, they end in System. At first, what- ever good they may have done, has been the work of persons, of personal exertions ; of faith in persons, of personal attachments. Their Professors have been a sort of preachers and missionaries, and have not only taught, but have won over or inflamed their hearers. As time has gone on, it has been found out that personal in- fluence does not last for ever ; that individuals get past their work, that they die, that they cannot always be depended on, that they change ; that, if they are to be 78 Athenian Schools. the exponents of a University, it will have no abidance, no steadiness ; that it will be great and small again, and will inspire no trust. Accordingly, system has of neces- sity been superadded to individual action ; a University has been embodied in a constitution, it has exerted authority, it has been protected by rights and privileges, it has enforced discipline, it has developed itself into Colleges, and has admitted Monasteries into its territory. The details of this advance and consummation are of course different in different instances ; each University has a career of its own ; I have been stating the process in the logical, rather than in the historical order ; but such it has been on the whole, whether in ancient or medieval times. Zeal began, power and wisdom com- pleted : private enterprise came first, national or govern- mental recognition followed ; first the Greek, then the Macedonian and Roman ; the Athenian created, the Imperialist organized and consolidated. This is the sub- ject I am going to enter upon to-day. Now as to Athens, I have already shown what it did, and implied what.it did not do ; and I shall proceed to say something more about it. I have another reason for dwelliiig on the subject ; it will lead me to direct attention to certain characteristics of Athenian opinion, which are not only to my immediate purpose, but will form an introduction to something I should like to say on a future occasion, if I could grasp my own thoughts, about the philosophical sentiments of the present age, their drift, and their bearing on a University. This is another matter ; but I mention it because it is one out of several reasons which will set me on a course, in which I shall seem to be ranging very wide of my mark, while all the time I shall have a meaning in my wanderings. Influence. 79 Beginning then the subject very far back, I observe that the guide of Hfe, implanted in our nature, discrimi- nating right from wrong, and investing right with authority and sway, is our Conscience, which Revelation does but enlighten, strengthen, and refine. Coming from one and the same Author, these internal and external monitors of course recognize and bear witness to each other ; Nature warrants without anticipating the Super- natural, and the Supernatural completes without supersed- ing Nature. Such is the divine order of things ; but man, — not being divine, nor over partial to so stern a reprover with- in his breast, yet seeing too the necessity of some rule or other, some common standard of conduct, if Society is to be kept together, and the children of Adam to be saved from setting up each for himsdf with every one else his foe, — as soon as he has secured for himself some little cultiva- tion of intellect, looks about him how he can manage to dispense with Conscience, and find some other principle to do its work. The most plausible and obvious and ordinary of these expedients, is the Law of the State, human law; the more plausible and ordinary, because it really comes to us with a divine sanction, and necessarily has a place in every society or community of men. Accordingly it is very widely used instead of Conscience, as but a little experience of life will show us ; " the law says this ; " " would you have me go against the law .■' " is considered an unanswerable argument in every case ; and, when the two come into collision, it follows of course that Con-. science is to give way, and the Law to prevail. Another substitute for Conscience is the rule of Ex- pediency : Conscience is pronounced superannuated and retires on a pension, whenever a people is so far advanced in illumination, as to perceive that right and wrong can to a certain extent be measured and determined by the 8o Athenian Schools. useful on the one hand, and by the hurtful on the other; according to the maxim, which embodies this principle, that " honesty is the best policy." Another substitute of a more refined character is, the principle of Beauty : — it is maintained that the Beautiful and the Virtuous mean the same thing, and are converti- ble terms. Accordingly Conscience is found out to be but slavish ; and a fine taste, an exquisite sense of the decorous, the graceful, and the appropriate, this is to be our true guide for ordering our mind and our conduct, and bringing the whole man into shape. These are great sophisms, it is plain ; for, true though it be, that virtue is always expedient, always fair, it does not there- fore follow that every thing which is expedient, and every thing which is fair, is virtuous. A pestilence is an evil, yet may have its undeniable uses ; and war, " glorious war,'' is an evil, yet an army is a very beauti- ful object to look upon ; and what holds in these cases, may hold in others ; so that it is not very safe or logical to say that Utility and Beauty are guarantees for Virtue. However, there are these three principles of conduct, which may be plausibly made use of in order to disp'ense with Conscience ; viz.. Law, Expedience, and Propriety ; and (at length to come to our point) the Athenians chose the last of them, as became so exquisite a people, and professed to practise virtue on no inferior consideration, but simply because it was so praiseworthy, so noble, and so fair. Not that they discarded Law, not that they had not an eye to their interest ; but they boasted that " o-rass- hoppers " like them, old of race and pure of blood, could be influenced in their conduct by nothing short of a fine and delicate taste, a sense of honour, and an elevated aspiring spirit. Their model man, like the pattern of Influence. 8 1 chivalry, was a gentleman, KaXoKajado'^ ; — a word which has hardly its equivalent in the sterner language of Rome, where, on the contrary, Vir bonus est quis ? Qui consulta patrum, qui leges juraque servat. For the Romans deified Law, as the Athenians deified the Beautiful. This being the state of the case, Athens was in truth a ready-made University. The present age, indeed, with that solidity of mind for which it is indebted to Christianity, and that practical character which has ever been the peculiarity of the West, would bargain that the ,True and Serviceable as well as the Beautiful should be made the aim of the Academic Intellect and the business of a University ; — of course, — but the present age, and every age, will bargain for many things in its schools which Athens had not, when once we set about summing up her desiderata. Let us take her as she was, and I say, that a people so speculative, so imaginative, who throve upon mental activity as other races upon mental repose and to whom it came as natural to think, as to a barbarian to smoke or to sleep, such a people were in a true sense born teachers, and merely to live among them was a cultivation of mind. Hence they took their place in this capacity forthwith, from the time that they eman- cipated themselves from the aristocratic families, with which their history opens. We talk of the " republic of letters," because thought is free, and minds of whatever rank in life are on a level. The Athenians felt that a democracy was but the political expression of an intel- lectual isonomy, and, when they had obtained it, and taken the Beautiful for their Sovereign, instead of king or tyrant, they came forth as the civilizers, not of Greece only, but of the European world. 6 82 Athenian Schools. A century had not passed from the expulsion of the Pisistratidje, when Pericles was able to call Athens the " schoolmistress " of Greece. And ere it had well run out, the old Syracusan, who, upon her misfortunes in Sicily, pleaded in behalf of her citizens, conjured his fellow- citizens, " in that they had the gift of Reason," to have mercy upon those, who had opened their land, as "a common school," to all men ; and he asks, " To what foreign land will men betake themselves for liberal education, if Athens be destroyed ?" And the story is well known, when, in spite of his generous attempt, the Athenian prisoners were set to work in the stone-quarries, how that those who could recite passages from Euripides, found this accomplishment serve them instead of ransom, for their liberation. Such was Athens on the coast of the .£gean and in the Mediterranean ; and it was hardly more than the next generation, when her civilization was conveyed by means of the conquests of Alexander into the very heart of further Asia, and was the life of the Greek kingdom which he founded in Bactriana. She became the centre of a vast intellectual propagandism, and had in her hands the spell of a more wonderful influence than that semi-barbarous power which iirst conquered and then used her. Wherever the Macedonian phalanx held its ground, thither came a colony of her philosophers ; Asia Minor and Syria were covered with her schools, while in Alexandria her children, Theo- phrastus and Demetrius, became the life of the great literary undertakings which have immortalized the name of the Ptolemies. Such was the effect of that peculiar democracy, in which Pericles glories in his celebrated Funeral Oration. It made Athens in the event politically weak, but it was her strength as an ecumenical teacher and civilizer. The Influence. 83 love of the Beautiful will not conquer the world, but like the voice of Orpheus, it may for a while carry it away captive.' Such is that "divine Philosophy," in the poet's words, " Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical, as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns." The Athenians then exercised Influence by discarding Law. It was their boast that they had found out the art of living well and happily, without working for it. They professed to do right, not from servile feeling, not because they were obliged, not from fear of command, not from belief of the unseen, but because it was their nature, because it was so truly pleasant, because it was such a luxury to do it. Their political bond was good will and generous sentiment. They were loyal citizens, active, hardy, brave, munificent, from their very love of what was high, and because the virtuous was the enjoy- able, and the enjoyable was the virtuous. They regulated themselves by music, and so danced through life. Thus, according to Pericles, while, in private and personal matters, each Athenian was suffered to please himself, without any tyrannous public opinion to make him feel uncomfortable, the same freedom of will did but unite the people, one and all, in concerns of national interest, because obedience to the magistrates and the laws was with them a sort of passion, to shrink from dishonour an instinct, and to repress injustice an indul- gence. They could be splendid in their feasts and spectacles without extravagance, because the crowds whom they attracted from abroad, repaid them for the outlay ; and such large hospitality did but cherish in them a frank, unsuspicious, and courageous spirit, which 84 Athenian Schools. better protected them than a pile of state secrets and exclusive laws. Nor did this joyous mode of life relax them, as it might relax a less noble race, for they were warlike without effort, and expert without training, and rich in resource by the gift of nature, and, after their fill of pleasure, they were only more gallant in the field, and more patient and enduring on the march. They cultivated the fine arts with too much taste to be expen- sive, and they studied the sciences with too much point to become effeminate ; debate did not blunt their energy, nor foresight of danger chill their daring ; but, as their tragic poet expresses it, "the loves were the attendants upon wisdom, and had a share in the acts of every virtue." Such was the Athenian according to his own account of himself, and very beautiful is the picture ; very original and attractive ; very suitable, certainly, to a personage, who was to be the world-wide Professor of the humanities and the philosophic Missionary of mankind. Suitable, if he could be just what I have been depicting him, and nothing besides ; but, alas ! when we attentively consider what the above conception -was likely in fact to turn out, as soon as it came to be carried into execution, we shall feel no surprise, on passing from panegyric to experience, that he looks so different in history, from what he promised to be in the glowing periods of the orator. The case, as I have already remarked, is very simple : if beautifulness was all that was needed to make a thing right, then nothing graceful and pleasant could be wrong ; and, since there is no abstract idea but admits of being embellished and dressed up, and made pleasant and graceful, it followed as a matter of course that any thing whatever is per- missible. One sees at once, that, taking men as they Influence. 85 are, the love of the Beautiful would be nothing short of the love of the Sensual ; nor was the anticipation falsi- fied by the event : for in Athens genius and voluptuous- ness ever went hand in hand, and their literature, as it has come down to us, is no sample or measure of their actual mode of living. Their literature indeed is of that serene and severe beauty, which has ever been associated with the word " classical ; " and it is grave and profound enough for ancient Fathers to have considered it a preparation for the gospel; but we are concerned here, not with the writings, but with the social life of Athens. I have been speaking of her as a living body, as an intellectual home, as the pattern school of the Professorial system ; and we now see where the hitch lay. She was of far too fine and dainty a nature for the wear and tear of life ; — she needed to be " of sterner stuff," if she was to aspire to the charge of the young and inexperienced. Not all the zeal of the teacher and devotion of the pupil, the thirst of giving and receiving, the exuberance of demand and supply, will avail for a University, unless some provision is made for the maintenance of authority and of discipline, unless the terrors of the Law are added to the persuasives of the Beautiful. Influence was not enough without command. This too is the reason why Athens, with all her high gifts, was at fault, not only as a University, but as an Empire. She was proud, indeed, of her imperial sway, in the season of her power, and ambitious of its extension ; but, in matter of fact, she was as ill adapted to reign in the cities of the earth, as to rule in its schools. In this world no one rules by mere love ; if you are but amiable, you are no hero ; to be powerful, you must be strong, and to have dominion you must have a genius for organizing. Macedon and 86 Athenian Schools. Rome were, as in politics, so in literature, the necessary complement of Athens. Yet there is something so winning in the idea of Athenian life, which Pericles sets before us, that, acknow- ledging, as, alas! I must acknowledge, that that life was inseparable from the gravest disorders, in the world as it is, and much more in the pagan world, and that at best it is only ephemeral, if attempted, still, since I am now going to bid farewell to Athens and her schools, I am not sorry to be able to pay her some sort of compli- ment in parting. I think, then, her great orators have put to her credit a beautiful idea, which, though not really fulfilled -in her, has literally and unequivocally been realized within the territory of Christianity. I am not speaking of course of the genius of the Athenians, which was peculiar to themselves, nor of those manifold gifts in detail, which have made them the wonder of the world, but of that profession of philosophical democracy, so original and so refined in its idea, of that grace, freedom, nobleness, and liberality of daily life, of which Pericles, in his oration, is specially enamoured ; and, with my tenderness, on the one hand, for Athens (little as I love the radical Greek character), and my devotion to a particular Catholic Institution on the other, I have ever thought I could trace a certain resemblance between Athens, as contrasted with Rome, and the Oratory of St. Philip, as viewed in contrast with the Religious Orders. All the creations of Holy Church have their own excellence and do their own service ; each is perfect in ts kind, nor can any one be measured against another in the way of rivalry or antagonism. We may admire one of them without disparaging the rest ; again, we may specify its characteristic gift, without implying thereby Influence. 87 that it has not other gifts also. Whereas then, to take up the language which my friend Richard has put into my mouth, there are two great principles of action in human affairs, Influence and System, some ecclesiastical institutions are based upon System, and others upon Influence. Which are those which flourish and fulfil their mission by means of System } Evidently the Regular Bodies, as the very word "regular" implies; they are great, they are famous, they spread, they do exploits, in the strength of their Rule. They are of the nature of imperial states. Ancient Rome, for instance, had the talent of organization ; and she formed a political framework to unite to herself and to each other the countries which she successively conquered. She sent out her legions all over the earth to secure and to govern it. She created establishments which were fitted to last for ever ; she brought together a hundred nations into one, and she moulded Europe on a model, which it retains even now; — and this not by a sentiment or an imagination, but by wisdom of policy, and the iron hand of Law. Establishment is the very idea, which the name of Imperial Rome suggests. Athens, on the other hand, was as fertile, indeed, in schools, as Rome in mili- tary successes and political institutions ; she was as metropolitan a city, and as frequented a capital, as Rome ; she drew the world to her, she sent her literature into the world ; but still men came and went, in and out, without constraint ; and her preachers went to and fro, as they pleased ; she sent out her missions by reason of her energy of intellect, and men came on pilgrimage to her from their love for philosophy. Observe, I am all along directing attention, not to the mental gifts of Athens, which belonged to her nature, but to what is separable from her, her method and her instru- 88 Athenian Schools. ments. I repeat, that, contrariwise to Rome, it was the method of Influence : it was the absence of rule, it was the action of personality, the intercourse of soul with soul, the play of mind upon mind, it was an admirable spontaneous force, which kept the schools of Athens going, and made the pulses of foreign intellects keep time with hers. Now, I say, if there be an Institution in the Catholic Church, which in this point of view has caught the idea of this great heathen precursor of the Truth, and has made the idea Christian, — if it proceeds from one who has even gained for himself the title of the " Amabile Santo," — who has placed the noblest aims before his children, yet withal the freest course ; who always drew them to their duty, instead of commanding, and brought them on to perform before they had yet promised ; who made it a man's praise that he " potuit transgredi, et non est transgressus, facere mala, et non fecit ; " who in his humility had no intention of forming any Congregation at all, but had formed it before he knew of it, from the beauty and the fascination of his own saintliness ; and then, when he was obliged to recognize it and put it in- to shape, shrank from the severity of the Regular, would have nothing to say to vows, and forbade propagation and dominion ; whose houses stand, like Greek colonies, independent of each other and complete in themselves ; whose subjects in those several houses are allowed, like Athenian citizens, freely to cultivate their respective gifts and to follow out their own mission ; whose one rule is Love, and whose own weapon Influence ; — I say, if all this is true of a certain Congregation in the Church, and if it so happens that that Congregation, in the per- son of one of its members, finds itself at the present moment in contact with the preparatory movements of Influence. 89 the establishment of a great University, then surely I may trust, without fancifulness and without impertinence, that there is a providential fitness discernible in the cir- cumstance of the traditions of that Congregation flowing in upon the first agitation of that design ; and, though to frame, to organize, and to consolidate, be the imperial gift of St. Dominic or St. Ignatius, and beyond his range, yet a son of St. Philip Neri may aspire without presumption to the preliminary task of breaking the ground and clearing the foundations of the Future, of in- troducing the great idea into men's minds, and making ' them understand it, and love it, and have hope in it, and have faith in it, and show zeal for it ; — of bringing many intellects to work together for it, and of teaching them to understand each other, and bear with each other, and go on together, not so much by rule, as by mutual kind feeling and a common devotion, — after the conception and in the spirit of that memorable people, who, though they could bring nothing to perfection, were great (over and above their supreme originality) in exciting a general in- terest, and in creating an elevated taste, in the various subject-matters of art, science, and philosophy. But here I am only in the middle of my subject, and at the end of my paper ; so I must reserve the rest of what I have to say for the next Chapter. 90 CHAPTER VIII. MACEDONIAN AND ROMAN SCHOOLS : DISCIPLINE. LOOKING at Athens as the preacher and missionary of Letters, and as enlisting the whole Greek race in her work, who is not struck with admiration at the range and multiplicity of her operations .'' At first, the Ionian and ^olian cities are the principal scene of her activity; but, if we look on a century or two, we shall find that she forms the intellect of the colonies of Sicily and Magna Graecia, has penetrated Italy, and is shedding the light of philosophy and awakening thought in the cities of Gaul by means of Marseilles, and along the coast of Africa by means of Cyrene. She has sailed up both sides of the Euxine, and deposited her literary wares where she stopped, as traders nowadays leave samples of foreign merchandize, or as war Steamers land muskets and ammunition, or as agents for religious so- cieties drop their tracts or scatter their versions. The whole of Asia Minor and Syria resounds with her teach- ing ; the barbarians of Parthia are quoting fragments of her tragedians ; Greek manners are introduced and per- petuated on the Hydaspes and Acesines ; Greek coins, lately come to light, are struck in the capital of Bactriana ; and so charged is the moral atmosphere of the East with Greek civilization, that, down to this day, those tribes are said to show to most advantage, which can claim re- Discipline. , 9 1 lation of place or kin with Greek colonies established there above two thousand years ago. But there is one city, which, though Greece and Athens have no longer any memorial in it, has in this point of view a claim, beyond the rest, upon our attention ; and that, not only from its Greek origin, and the memorable name which it bears, but because it introduces us to a new state of things, and is the record of an advance in the history of the education of the intellect ; — I mean, Alexandria. Alexander, if we must call him a Greek, which the Greeks themselves would not permit, did that which no Greek had done before ; or rather, because he was no thorough Greek, though so nearly a Greek by descent and birthplace and by tastes, he was able, without sacri- ficing what Greece was, to show himself to be what Greece was not. The creator of a wide empire, he had talents for organization and administration, which were foreign to the Athenian mind, and which were absolutely neces- sary if its mission was to be carried out. The picture, which history presents of Alexander, is as beautiful as it is romantic. It is not only the history of a youth of twenty, pursuing conquests so vast, that at the end of a few years he had to weep that there was no second world to subjugate, but it is that of a beneficent prince, civi- lizing, as he went along, both by his political institutions and by his patronage of science. It is this union of an energetic devotion to letters with a genius for sovereignty, which places him in contrast both to Greek and Roman. Caesar, with all his cultivation of mind, did not conquer in order to civilize, any more than Hannibal; he must add Augustus to himself, before he can be an Alexander. The royal pupil of Aristotle and Callisthenes started, where aspiring statesmen or generals end ; he professed to be more ambitious of a name for knowledge than for 92 Macedonian and Roman Schools. power, and he paid a graceful homage to the city of in- tellect by confessing, when he was in India, that he was doing his great acts to gain the immortal praise of the Athenians. The classic poets and philosophers were his recreation ; he preferred the contest of song to the palaes- tra ; of medicine he had more than a theoretical know- ledge ; and his ear for music was so fine, that Dryden's celebrated Ode, legendary as may be its subject, only does justice to its sensitiveness. He was either expert in fostering, or quick in detecting, the literary tastes of those around him; and two of his generals have left behindthem a literary fame. Eumenes and Ptolemy, after his death, engaged in the honourable rivalry, the one in Asia Minor, the other in Egypt, of investing the dynasties which they respectively founded, with the patronage of learning and of its professors. Ptolemy, upon whom, on Alexander's death, devolved the kingdom of Egypt, supplies us with the first great instance of what may be called the establishment of Letters. He and Eumenes may be considered the first founders of public libraries. Some authors indeed allude to the Egyptian king, Osymanduas, and others point to Pisistratus, as having created a precedent for their imita- tion. It is difficult to say what these pretensions are exactly worth : or how far those personages are entitled to more than the merit of a conception, which obviously would occur to various minds before it was actually accomplished. There is more reason for referring it to Aristotle, who, from his relation to Alexander, may be considered as the head of the Macedonian literary move- ment, and whose books, together with those of his wealthy disciple, Theophrastus, ultimately came into the posses- sion of the Ptolemies ; but Aristotle's idea, to whatever extent he realized it, was carried out by the two Mace- Discipline. 93 donian dynasties with a magnificence of execution, which kings alone. could project, and a succession of ages secure. For the first time, a great system was set on foot for collecting together in one, and handing down to posterity, the oracles of the world's wisdom In the reign of the second Ptolemy the number of volumes rescued from destruction, and housed in the Alexandrian Library, amounted to 100,000, as volumes were then formed ; in course of time it grew to 400,000 ; and a second collection was commenced, which at length rose to 300,000, making, with the former, a sum total of 700,000 volumes. During Caesar's military defence of Alexandria, the former of these collections was unfortunately burned ; but, in com- pensation, the library received the 200,000 volumes of the rival collection of the kings of Pergamus, the gift of Antony to Cleopatra. After lasting nearly a thousand years, this noblest of dynastic monuments was de- liberately burned, as all the world knows, by the Sara- cens, on their becoming masters of Alexandria. A library, however, was only one of two great con- ceptions brought into execution by the first Ptolemy ; and as the first was the embalming of dead genius, so the second was the endowment of living. Here again the Egyptian priests may be said in a certain sense to have' preceded him ; moreover, in Athens itself there had grown up a custom of maintaining in the Prytaneum at the public cost, or of pensioning, those who had de- served well of the state, nay, their children also. This had been the privilege, for instance, conferred on the family of the physician Hippocrates, for his medical ser- vices at the time of the plague ; yet I suppose the pro- vision of a home or residence was never contemplated in its idea. But as regards literature itself, to receive money for teaching, was considered to degrade it to an illiberal 94 Macedonian and Roman Schools. purpose, as had been felt in the instance of the Sophists ; even the Pythian prize for verse, though at first gold or silver, became nothing more than a crown of leaves, as soon as a sufficient competition was secured. Kings, indeed, might lavish precious gifts upon the philosophers or poets whom they kept about them ; but such practices did not proceed on rule or by engagement, nor imply any salary settled on the objects of their bounty. Ptolemy, however, prornpted, or at least encouraged, by the cele- brated Demetrius of Phalerus, put into execution a plan for the formal endowment of literature and science. The fact indeed of the possession of an immense library seemed sufficient to render Alexandria a University; for what could be a greater attraction to the students of all lands, than the opportunity afforded them of intellectual converse, not only with the living, but with the dead, with all who had any where at any time thrown light upon any subject of inquiry .■" But Ptolemy determined that his teachers of knowledge should be as stationaiy and as permanent as his books ; so, resolving to make Alexandria the seat of a Studium Generale, he founded a College for its domicile, and endowed that College with ample revenues. Here, I consider, he did more than has been com- monly done, till modern times. It requires considerable knowledge of medieval Universities to be entitled to give an opinion; as regards Germany, forinstance, or Poland, or Spain ; but, as far as I have a right to speak, such an en- dowment has been rare down to the sixteenth century, as well as before Ptolemy. The University of Toulouse, I think, was founded in a College ; so was Orleans ; so has been the Protestant University of Dublin ; other Universities have yearly salaries from the Government ; but even the University of Oxford to this day, viewed as Discipline. 95 a University, is a poor body. Its Professors have for the most part a scanty endowment and no house of residence ; and it subsists mainly on fees received from year to year from its members. Such too, I beheve, is the case with the University of Cambridge. The University founded in Dubhn in John the Twenty-second's time, fell for lack of funds. The University of Paris could not be very wealthy, even in the ninth century of its existence, or it would not have found it necessaryto sell its beautiful Park or Pratum. As for ourselves at present, it is commonly understood, that we are starting with ample means already, while large contributions are still expected ; a sum equal perhaps to a third of what has already been collected is to be added to it from the United States ; as to Ireland herself, the overflowing, almost miraculous liberality of her poorest classes makes no anticipation of their prospective contributions extravagant. Well, any how, if money made a University, we might expect ours to last as long as the Ptolemies'; and, I suppose, any one of us would be content that an institution, which he helped to found, should live through a thousand years. But to return to the Alexandrian College. It was called the Museum, — a name since appropriated to an- other institution connected with the seats of science. Its situation affords an additional instance in corrobora- tion of remarks I have already made upon the sites of Universities. There was a quarter of the city so dis- tinct from the rest in Alexandria, that it is sometimes spoken of as a suburb. It was pleasantly situated on the water's edge, and had been set aside for ornamental buildings, and was traversed by groves of trees. Here stood the royal palace, here the theatre and amphi- theatre ; here the gymnasia and stadium ; here the 96 Macedonian and Roman Schools. famous Serapeum. And here it was, close upon the Port, that Ptolemy placed his Library and College. As might be supposed, the building was worthy of its pur- pose ; a noble portico stretched along its front, for exercise or conversation, and opened upon the public rooms devoted to disputations and lectures. A certain number of Professors were lodged within the precincts, and a handsome hall, or refectory, was provided for the common meal. The Prefect of the house was a priest, whose appointment lay with the government. Over the Library a dignified person presided, who, if his jurisdic- tion extended to the Museum also, might somewhat an- swer to a medieval or modern Chancellor ; the first of these functionaries being the celebrated Athenian who had so much to do with the original design. As to the Professors, so liberal was their maintenance, that a philo- sopher of the very age of the first foundation Called the place a "bread basket," or a "bird coop;" yet, in spite of accidental exceptions, so careful on the whole was their selection, that even six hundred years afterwards, Ammianus describes the Museum under the title of "the lasting abode of distinguished men." Philostratus, too, about a century before, calls it " a table gathering to- gether celebrated men :" a phrase which merits attention, as testifying both to the high character of the Professors, and to the means by which they were secured. In some cases, at least, they were chosen by concurstcs or com- petition, in which the native Egyptians are said some- times to have surpassed the Greeks. We read too of literary games or contests, apparently of the same nature. As time went on, new Colleges were added to the original Museum ; of which one was a foundation of the Emperor Claudius, and called after his name. It cannot be thought that the high reputation of these Discipline. 97 foundations would have been maintained, unless Ptolemy had looked beyond Egypt for occupants of his chairs ; and indeed he got together the best men, wherever he could find them. On these he heaped wealtjh and privi- leges; and so complete was their naturalization in their adopted country, that they lost their usual surnames, drawn from their place of birth, and, instead of being called, for instance, Apion of Oasis, or Aristarchus of Samothracia, or Dionysius of Thrace, received each simply the title of "the Alexandrian." Thus Clement of Alexandria, the learned father of the Church, was a native of Athens. A diversity of teachers secured an abundance of students. " Hither," says Cave, " as to a public em- porium of polite literature, congregated, from every part of the world, youthful students, and attended the lectures in Grammar, Rhetoric, Poetry, Philosophy, Astronomy, Music, Medicine, and other arts and sciences ; " and hence proceeded, as it would appear, the great Christian writers and doctors, Clement, whom I have just been mentioning, Origen, Anatolius, and Athanasius. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, in the third century, may be added ; he came across Asia Minor and Syria from Pontus, as to a place, says his name- sake of Nyssa, "to which young men from all parts gathered together, who were applying themselves to philosophy." As to the subjects taught in the Museum, Cave has already enumerated the principal ; but he has not done justice to the peculiar character of the Alexandrian school. From the time that science got out of the hands of the pure Greeks, into those of a power which had a talent for administration, it became less theore- tical, and bore more distinctly upon definite and 7 98 Macedonian atid Roman Schools. tangible objects. The very conception of an endow- ment is a specimen of this change. Without yielding the palm of subtle speculation to the Greeks, philosophy assumed a more masculine and vigorous character. Dreamy theorists, indeed, they could also show in still higher perfection than Athens, where there was the guarantee of genius that abstract investigation would never become ridiculous. The Alexandrian Neo-plato- nists certainly have incurred the risk of this imputation ; yet, Potamo, Ammonius, Plotinus, and Hierocles, who are to be numbered among them, with the addition perhaps of Proclus, in spite of the frivolousness and feebleness of their system, have a weight of character, taken together, which would do honour to any school. And the very circumstance that they originated a new philosophy is no ordinary distinction in the intellectual world : and that it was directly intended to be a rival and refutation of Christianity, while no great recommendation to it certainlyin a religious judgment, marks the practical character of the Museum even amid its subtleties. So much for their philosophers : among their poets was Apollonius of Rhodes, whose poem on the Argonauts carries with it, in the very fact of its being still extant, the testimony of succeeding ages either to its merit, or to its antiquarian importance. Egyptian Antiquities were investigated, at least by the disciples of the Egyptian Manetho, fragments of whose history are considered to remain ; while Carthaginian and Etruscan had a place in the studies of the Claudian College. The Museum was celebrated, moreover, for its grammarians ; the work of Hephaestion de Metris still affords matter of thought to a living Professor of Oxford ; * and Aris- * Dr. Gaisford, since dead. For the Alexandrian Grammarians, vid. Fabric. Bibl. Grace, t. vi., p. 353. Discipline. gg tarchus, like the Athenian Priscian, has almost become the nick-name for a critic. Yet, eminent as is the Alexandrian school in these departments of science, its fame rests still more se- curely upon its proficiency in medicine and mathe- matics. Among its physicians is the celebrated Galen, who was attracted thither from Pergamus ;■ and we are told by a writer of the fourth centuiy,* that in his time the very fact of a physician having studied at Alexan- dria, was an evidence of his science which superseded further testimonial. As to mathematics, it is suffi- cient to say, that, of four great ancient names, on whom the modern science is founded", three came from Alexandria. Archimedes indeed was a Syracusan ; but the Museum may boast of A-pollonius of Perga, Diophantus, a native Alexandrian, and Euclid, whose country is unknown. Of these three, Euclid's services to Geometry are known, if not appreciated, by every school-boy ; Apollonius is the first writer on Conic Sections ; and Diophantus the first writer on Algebra. To these illustrious names, may be added, Eratosthenes of Gyrene, to whom astronomy has obligations so con- siderable ; Pappus ; Theon ; and Ptolemy, said to be of Pelusium, whose celebrated system, called after him the Ptolemaic, reigned in the schools till the time of Copernicus, and whose Geography, dealing with facts, not theories, is in repute still. ' Such was the celebrated Stndiiim or University of Alexandria ; for a while, in the course of the third and fourth centuries, it was subject to reverses, principally from war. The whole of the Bruchion, the quarter of the city in which it was situated, was given to the flames; and, when Hilarion .came to Alexandria, thei * Ammianus. lOO Macedonian and Roman Schools. holy hermit, whose rule of life did not suffer him to lodge in cities, took up his lodgment with a few soli- taries among the ruins of its edifices. The schools, however, and the library continued ; the library was reserved for the CaHph Omar's famous judgment ; as to the schools, even as late as the twelfth century, the Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, gives us a surprising report of what he found in Alexandria. " Outside the city," he says, a mode of speaking which agrees with what has been above said about the locality of the Museum, " is the Academy of Aristotle, Alexander's preceptor ; a handsome pile of buildings, which has twenty Colleges, whither students betake themselves from all parts of the world to learn his philosophy. The marble columns divide one College from another." Though the Roman schools have more direct bearing on the subsequent rise of the medieval Universities, they are not so exact an anticipation of its type, as the Alexandrian Museum. They differ from the Museum, as being for the most part, as it would appear, devoted to the education of the very young, without any reference to the advancement of science. No list of writers or of discoveries, no local or historical authorities, can be • adduced, from the date of Augustus to that of Justinian, to rival the fame of Alexandria ; we hear on the con- trary much of the elements of knowledge, the Trivium and Quadrivium ; and the Law of the Empire provided, and the Theodosian Code has recorded, the discipline necessary for the students. Teaching and learning was a department of government ; and schools were set up and professors endowed, just as soldiers were stationed or courts opened, in every great city of the East and West. In Rome itself the seat of education was placed Discipline. lOi in the Capitol ; ten chairs were appointed for Latin Grammar, ten for Greek ; three for Latin Rhetoric, five for Greek ; one, some say three, for Philosophy ; two or four for Roman Law. Professorships of Medicine were afterwards added. Under Grammar (if St. Gregory's account of Athens in Roman times may be applied to the Roman schools generally), were included knowledge of language and metre, criticism, and history. Rome, as might be expected, and Carthage, were celebrated for their Latin teaching ; Roman Law is said to have been taught in three cities only, Rome itself, Constantinople, and Berytus ; but this probably was the restriction of a later age. The study of grammar and geography was commenced at the age of twelve, and apparently at the private school, and was continued till the age of fourteen. Then the youths were sent to the public academy for oratory^ philosophy, mathematics, and law. The course lasted five years ; and, on entering on their twentieth year, their education was considered complete, and they were sent home. If they studied the law, they were allowed to stay, (for instance, in Berytus,)- till their twenty-fifth year ; a permission, indeed, which was- extended in- that city to the students in polite literature, or, as we should now say, in Arts. The number of youths, who went up to Rome for the study of the Law, was considerable ; chiefly from Africa and Gaul. Originally the Government had discouraged foreigners in repairing to the metropolis, from the dangers it naturally presented to youth ; when their resi- dence there became a necessary evil, it contented itself with imposing strict rules of discipline upon them. No youth could obtain admission into the Roman schools, without a certificate signed by the magistracy of his I02 Macedonian and Roman Schools. province. Next, he presented himself before the Magister Census, an official who was in the department of the Prsefectus Urbis, and who, besides his ordinary duties, acted as Rector of the Academy. Next, his name, city, age, and qualifications were entered in a public register; and a specification, moreover, of the studies he proposed to pursue, and of the lodging-house where he proposed to reside. He was amenable for his conduct to the Censuales, as if they had been Proctors ; and he was reminded that the eyes of the world were upon him, that he had a character to maintain, and that it was his duty to avoid clubs, of which the Govern- ment was jealous, riotous parties, and the public shows, which were of daily occurrence and of most corrupting nature. If he was refractory and disgraced himself, he was to be publicly flogged, and shipped off at once to his country. Those who acquitted themselves well, were reported to the Government, and received public appointments. The Professors were under the same jurisdiction as the students, and were sometimes made to feel it. Of the schools planted through the Empire, the most considerable were the Gallic and the African, of which the latter had no good reputation, while the Gallic name stood especially high. Marseilles, one of the oldest of the Greek colonies, was the most celebrated of the schools of Gaul for learning and discipline. For this reason, and from its position, it drew off numbers, under the Empire, who otherwise would have repaired to Athens. It was here that Agricola received his edu- cation ; " a school," says his biographer, " in which Greek politeness was happily blended and tempered with provincial strictness." The schools of Bourdeaux and Autun also had a high name ; and Rheims received Discipline. 1 03 the title of a new Athens. This appellation was also bestowed upon the school of Milan. Besides these countries, respectful mention is made of the schools of Britain. As to Spain, the colonies there established are even called, by one commentator on the Theodosian code, " literary colonies ; " a singular title when Rome is concerned ; and, in fact, a considerable number of writers of reputation came from Spain. Lucan, the Senecas, Martial, perhaps Quintilian, Mela, Columella, and Hy- ginus, are its contribution in the course of a century. It will be seen that the Roman schools, as little as Athens itself, answer to the precise idea of a modern University. The Roman schools were for boys, or, at least, adolescentuli : Agricola came to Marseilles when a child, " parvulus." On the other hand, a residence at Athens corresponded rather to seeing the world, as in touring and travelling, and was often delayed till the season of education was over. Cicero went thither, after his public career had begun, with a view to his health, as well as to his oratory. St. Basil had already studied at the schools of Caesarea and Cappadocia. Sometimes young men on campaign, when quartered near Athens, took the opportunity of attending her schools. However, the case was the same with Rome so far as regards the departments of jurisprudence and general cultivation. We read both of Rusticus, the correspondent of St. Jerome, and of St. Germanus of Auxerre, coming to Rome, after attending the Gallic schools ; — the latter expressly in order to study the law ; the former, for the same general purpose as might take a student to Athens, to polish and perfect his style of conversation and writing. All this suggests to us, what of course must ever be borne in mind, that, while the necessities of human 1 04 Macedonian and Roman Schools. society and the nature of the case are guarantee;s to us that such Schools of general education will ever be in requisition, still they will be modified in detail by the circumstances, and marked by the peculiarities, of the age to which they severally belong. I05 CHAPTER IX. DOWNFALL AND REFUGE OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION. THE LOMBARDS. r THERE never was, perhaps, in the history of this tumultuous world, prosperity so great, so far- spreading, so lasting, as that which began throughout the vast Empire of Rome, at the time when the Prince of Peace was born into it. Preternatural as was the tyranny of certain of the Caesars, it did not reach the . mass of the population ; and the reigns of the Five good Emperors, who succeeded them, are proverbs of wise and gentle government. The sole great exception to this universal happiness was the cruel persecution of the Christians ; the sufferings of a whole world fell and were concentrated on them, and the children of heaven were tormented, that the sons of men might enjoy their revel. Their Lord,* while His shadow brought peace upon earth, foretold that in the event He came to send " not peace but a sword ;" and that sword was first let loose upon His own people. "Judgment commenced with the House of God;" and though, as time went on, it left Jerusalem behind, and began to career round the world and sweep the nations as it travelled on, nevertheless, as if by some paradox of Providence, it seemed at first, that truth and wretchedness had " met together," and sin and prosperity had " kissed one another." The more the heathens enjoyed themselves, the more they scorned. 1 06 Fall and Refuge qf Ancient Civilization. hated, and persecuted their true Light and true Peace. They persecuted Him, for the very reason that they had Httle else to do ; happy and haughty, they saw in Him the sole drawback, the sole exception, the sole hinder- ance, to a universal, a continual sunshine ; they called Him "the enemy of the human race:" and they felt themselves bound, by their loyalty to the glorious and immortal memory of their forefathers, by their traditions of state, and their duties towards their children, to trample upon, and, if they could, to stifle that teach- ing, which was destined to be the life and mould of a new world. But our immediate subject here is, not Christianity, but the world that passed away ; and before it passed, it had, I say, a tranquillity great in proportion to its former commotions. Ages of trouble terminated in two cen- turies of peace. The present crust of the earth is said to be the result of a long war of elements, and to have been made so beautiful, so various, so rich, and so useful, by the discipline of revolutions, by earthquake and lightning, by mountains of water and seas of fire ; and so in like manner, it required the events of two thou- sand years, the multiform fortunes of tribes and popu- lations, the rise and fall of kings, the mutual collision of states, the spread of colonies, the vicissitudes and the succession of conquests, and the gradual adjustment and settlement of innumerous discordant ideas and interests, t-o carry on the human race to unity, and to shape and consolidate the great Roman Power. And when once those unwieldy materials were welded together into one mass, what human force could split them up again.' what "hammer of the earth" could shiver at a stroke a solidity which it had taken ages to form .'' Who can estimate the strength of a political The Lombards. 107 establishment, which has been the slow birth of time ? and what establishment ever equalled pagan Rome ? Hence has come the proverb, " Rome was not built in a day:" it was the portentous solidity of its power that forced the gazer back upon an exclamation, which was the relief of his astonishment, as being his solution of the prodigy. And, when at length it was built, Rome, so long in building, was " Eternal Rome : " it had been done once for all; its being was inconceivable before- hand, and its not being was inconceivable afterwards. It had been a miracle that it was brought to be ; it would take a second miracle that it should cease to be. To remove it from its place was to cast a mountain into the sea. Look at the Palatine Hill, penetrated, tra- versed, cased with brickwork, till it appears a work of man, not of nature ; run your eye along the cliffs from Ostia to Terracina, covered with the debris of masonry ; gaze around the bay of Baise, whose rocks have been made to serve as the foundations and the walls of palaces ; and in those mere remains, lasting to this day, you will have a type of the moral and political strength of the establishments of Rome. Think of the aqueducts making for the imperial city, for miles across the plain ; think of the straight roads stretching off again from that one centre to the ends of the earth ; consider the vast territory round about it strewn to this day with countless ruins ; follow in your imagination its suburbs, extending along its roads, for as much, at least in some directions, as forty miles ; and number up its continuous mass of population, amounting, as grave authors say, to almost six million ; and answer the question, how was Rome ever to be got rid oit why was it not to progress t why was it not to progress for ever .■" where was that ancient civihzation to end } Such io8 Fall and Refuge of Ancient Civilization. were the questionings and anticipations of thoughtful minds,not specially proud or fond of Rome. "The world," says Tertullian, " has more of cultivation every day, and is better furnished than in times of old. All places are opened up now ; all are familiarly known ; all are scenes of business. Smiling farms have obliterated the notori- ous wilderness ; tillage has tamed the forest land ; flocks have put to flight the beasts of prey. Sandy tracts are sown ; rocks are put into shape ; marshes are drained. There are more cities now, than there were cottages at one time. Islands are no longer wild ; the crag is no longer frightful ; everywhere there is a home, a popula- tion, a state, and a livelihood." Such was the prosperity, such the promise of progress and permanence, in which the Assyrian, the Persian, the Greek, the Macedonian conquests had terminated. Education had gone through a similar course of diffi- culties, and had a place in the prosperous result. First, carried forth upon the wings of genius, and disseminated by the energy of individual minds, or by the colonizing missions of single cities. Knowledge was irregularly extended to and fro over the spacious regions, of which the Mediterranean is the common basin. Introduced, in course of time, to a more intimate alliance with political power, it received the means, at the date of Alexander and his successors, both of its cultivation and its propagatioa It was formally recognized and en- dowed under the Ptolemies, and at length became a direct object of the solicitude of the government under the Caesars. It was honoured and dispensed in every considerable city of the Empire ; it tempered the political administration of the conquering people ; it civilized the manners of a hundred barbarian conquests ; it gradually reconciled uncongenial, and associated dis- The Lombards. log tant countries, with each other ; while it had ever ministered to the fine arts, it now proceeded to subserve the useful. It took in hand the reformation of the world's religion ; it began to harmonize the legends of discordant worships ; it purified the mythology by mak- ing it symbolical ; it interpreted it, and gave it a moral, and explained away its idolatry. It began to develope a system of ethics, it framed a code of laws: what might not be expected of it, as time went on, were it not for that illiberal, unintelligible, fanatical, abominable sect of Galileans .' If they were allowed to make play, and get power, what might not happen .' There again Chris- tians were in the way, as hateful to the philosopher, as to the statesman. Yet in truth it was not in this quarter that the peril of civiHzation lay : it lay in a very different direction, over, against the Empire to the North and North-East, in a black cloud of inexhaustible barbarian populations : and when the storm mounted overhead and broke upon the earth, it was those scorned and detested Galileans, and none but they, the men-haters and God-despisers, who, returning good for evil, housed and lodged the scattered remnants of that old world's wis- dom, which had so persecuted them, went forth valiantly to meet the savage destroyer, tamed him without arms, and became the founders of a new and higher civilization. Not a man in Europe now, who talks bravely against the Church, but owes it to the Church, that he can talk at all. But what was to be the process, what the method, what the instruments, what the place, for sheltering the treasures of ancient intellect during the convulsion, of bridging over the abyss, and of linking the old world to the new .? In spite of the consolidation of its power, Rome was to %q, as all things human go, and vanish for 1 10 Fall and Refuge of Ancient Civilization. ever. In the words of inspiration, " Great Babylon came in remembrance before God, and every island fled away, and the mountains were not found." All the fury of the elements was directed against it ; and, as a continual dropping wears away the stone, so blow after blow, and revolution after revolution, sufficed at last to heave up, and hurl down, and smash into fragments, the noblest earthly power that ever was. First came the Goth, then the Hun, and then the Lombard. The Goth took pos- session, but he was of noble nature, and soon lost his barbarism. The Hun came next ; he was irreclaimable, but did not stay. The Lombard kept both his savage- ness and his ground ; he appropriated to himself the territory, not the civilization of Italy, fierce as the Hun, and powerful as the Goth, the most tremendous scourge of Heaven. In his dark presence the poor remains of Greek and Roman splendour died away, and the world went more rapidly to ruin, material and moral, than it was advancing from triumph to triumph in the time of Tertullian. Alas ! the change between Rome in the hey-day of her pride, and in the agony of her judgment ! Tertullian writes while she is exalted ; Pope Gregory when she is in humiliation. He was delivering homilies upon the Prophet Ezekiel, when the news came to Rome of the advance of the Lombards upon the city, and in the course of them he several times burst out into lamenta- tions at the news of miseries, which eventually obliged him to cut short his exposition. " Sights and sounds of war,'' he says, " meet us on every side. The cities are destroyed ; the military stations broken up ; the land devastated ; the earth depopulated. No one remains in the country ; scarcely any inhabitants in the towns ; yet even the poor remains of human kind are still smitten daily and without inter- The Lombards. 1 1 1 mission. Before our eyes some are carried away captive, some mutilated, some murderqd. She herself, who once was mistress of the world, we behold how Rome fares : worn down by manifold and incalculable distresses, the bereavement of citizens, the attack of foes, the reiteration of overthrows, where is her senate ? where are her people ? We, the few survivors, are still the daily prey of the sword and of other innumerable tribulations. Where are they who in a former day revelled in her glory .' where is their pomp, their pride, their frequent and immoderate joy .' — youngsters, young men of the world, congregated here from every quarter, where they aimed at a secular advancement. Now no one hastens up to her for preferment ; and so it is with other cities also ; some places are laid waste by pestilence, others are depopulated by the sword, others are tormented by famine, and others are swallowed up by earthquakes." These words, far from being a rhetorical lament, are but a meagre statement of some of the circumstances of a desolation, in which the elements themselves, as St. Gregory intimates, as well as the barbarians, took a principal part. In the dreadful age of that great Pope, a plague spread from the lowlands of Egypt to the Indies on the one hand, along Africa across to Spain on the other, till, reversing its course, it reached the eastern extremity of Europe. For fifty-two years did it retain possession of the infected atmosphere, and, in Con- stantinople, during three months, five thousand, and at length ten thousand persons, are said to have died daily. Many cities of the East were left without inhabitants ; and in several districts of Italy there were no labourers to gather either harvest or vintage. A succession of earthquakes accompanied for years this heavy calamity. Constantinople was shaken for above forty days. Two 112 Fall and Refuge of Ancient Civilization . hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have perished in the earthquake of Antioch, crowded, as the city was, with strangers for the festival of the Ascension. Berytus, the Eastern school of Roman jurisprudence, called, from its literary and scientific importance, the eye of Phoenicia, shared a similar fate. These, however, were but local visitations. Cities are indeed the homes of civilization, but the wide earth, with her hill and dale, open plain and winding valley, is its refuge. The bar- barian invaders, spreading over the country, like a flight of locusts, did their best to destroy every fragment of the old world, and every element of revival. Twenty- nine public libraries had been founded at Rome ; but, had these been destroyed, as in Antioch, or Berytus, by earthquakes or by conflagration, yet a large aggregate of books would have still survived. Such collections had become a fashion and a luxury in the latter Empire, and every colony and municipium, every larger temple, every prastorium, the baths, and the private villas, had their respective libraries. When the ruin swept across the country, and these various libraries were destroyed, then the patient monks had begun again, in their quiet dwellings, to bring together, to arrange, to transcribe and to catalogue ; but then again the new visitation of the Lombards fell, and Monte Cassino, the famous metropolis of the Benedictines, not to mention monas- teries of lesser note, was sacked and destroyed. Truly was Christianity revenged on that ancient civi- lization for the persecutions which it had inflicted on Christianity. Man ceased from the earth, and his works with him. The arts of life, architecture, engineering, agricultiire, were alike brought to nought. The waters were let out over the face of the country ; arable and pasture lands were drowned ; landmarks disappeared. The Lombards.. r 1 3 Pools and lakes intercepted the thorouglifares ; whole districts became pestilential marshes ; the strong stream, or the abiding morass, sapped and obliterated the very site of cities. Here the mountain torrent cut a channel in the plain ; there it elevated ridges across it ; elsewhere it disengaged masses of rock and earth in its precipitous passage, and, hurrying them on, left them as islands in. the midst of the flood. Forests overspread the land, in rivalry of the waters, and became the habitation of wild animals, of wolves, and even bears. The dwindled race of man lived in scattered huts of mud, where best they might avoid marauder, and pestilence, and inundation ; or clung together for mutual defence in cities, where wretched cottages, on the ruins of marble palaces, over- balanced the security of numbers by the frequency of conflagration. ' In such a state of things, the very mention of educa- tion was a mockery, the very aim and effort to exist was occupation enough for mind and body. The heads of the Church bewailed a universal ignorance, which they could not remedy ; it was a great thing that, schools re- mained sufficient for clerical education, and this educa- tion was only sufficient, as Pope Agatho informs us, to enable them to hand on the traditions of the Fathers, without scientific exposition or polemical defence. In that Pope's, time, the great Council of Rome, in its letter to the Emperor of the East, who had asked for Episcopal legates of correct life and scientific knowledge, of the Scriptures, made answer, that, if by science was meant knowledge of revealed truth, the demand could be sup- plied ; not, if more was required ; "since," continue the Fathers, " in these parts, the fury of our various heathen foes is ever breaking out, whether in conflicts, or in in- roads and rapine. Hence our life is simply one of 114 ^«// and Refuge of Ancient Civilization. anxiety of soul and labour of body ; of anxiety, because we are in the midst of the heathen; of labour, because the maintenance, which used to come to us as ecclesiastics, is at an end ; so that faith is our only substance, to live in its possession our highest glory, to die for it our eternal gain." The very profession of the clergy is the knowledge of letters : if even these lost it, would others retain it in their miseries, to whom it was no duty? And what then was the hope and prospect of the world in the generations which were to follow ? "What is coming ? what is to be the end?" Such was the question, that weighed so heavily upon the august line of" Pontiffs, upon whom rested " the solicitude of all the churches," and whose failure in vigilance and de- cision in that miserable time would had been the loss of ancient learning, and the indefinite postponement of new civilization. What could be done for art, science, and philosophy, when towns had been burned up, and country devastated ? In such distress, islands, or deserts, or the mountain-top have commonly been the retreat, to which in the last instance the hopes of humanity have been conveyed. Thus the monks of the fourth century had preserved the Catholic faith from the tyranny of Arianism in the Egyptian desert ; and so the inhabitants of Lom- bardy had taken refuge from the Huns in the shallows of the Adriatic ; so too just then the Christian Goths were biding their time to revenge themselves on the Saracens, in the mountains of Asturias. Where should the Steward of the Household deposit the riches, which his predecessors had inherited from Jew and heathen, thi things old as well as new, in an age, in which each suc- ceeding century threatened them with woes worse than the centuries which had gone before ! Pontiff after Pontiff looked out from the ruins of the Imperial City, which The Lombwrd&. 1 1 5 were to be his ever-lasting, ever-restless throne, if per- chance some place was to be found, more tranquil than his own, where the hope of the future might be lodged. They looked over, the Earth, towards great cities and far provinces, and whether it was Gregory, or Vitalian, or Agatho, or Leo, their eyes had all been drawn in one direction, and fixed upon one quarter for that purpose, — not to the East, from which the light of knowledge had arisen, not to the West, whither it had spread, — but to the North. High in the region of the North, beyond the just limits of the B.oman world, though partly included in its range, so secluded and secure in their sea-encircled domain, that they have been thought to be the fabulous Hesperides, where heroes dwelt in peace, lay two sister islands, — whose names and histories, warned by my diminished space, I must reserve for another Chapter. ii6 CHAPTER X. THE TRADITION OF CIVILIZATION. THE ISLES OF THE NORTH. WHATEVER were the real causes of the downfall of the ancient civilization, its immediate instru- ment was the fury of the barbarian invasions, directed again and again against the institutions in which it was embodied. First one came down upon the devoted Empire, and then another ; and " that which the palmer worm left, the locust ate ; and what the locust left, the mildew destroyed." Nay, this succession of assaults did not merely carry on and finish the process of destruction, but rather undid the promise and actual prospect of recovery. In the interval between blow and blow, there was a direct tendency to a revival of what had been trodden down, and a restoration of what had been de- faced ; and that, not only from any such reaction as might take place in the afflicted population itself, when the crisis was over, but from the incipient domestication of the conqueror, and the introduction of a new and vigorous element into the party and cause of civilization. The fierce soldier was vanquished by the captive of his sword and bow. The beauty of the southern climate, the richness of its productions, the material splendour of its cities, the majesty of the imperial organization, the spontaneous precision of a routine administration, the influence of religion upon the imagination and the affec- The Isles of the North. 1 1 7 tions, antiquity, rule, name, prescription, and territory, presented to him in visible and recognized forms, — in a word, the conservative power proper to establishments, — ■ awed, overcame, and won, the sensitive and noble savage. " Order is heaven's first law," and bears upon it the impress of divinity ; and it has an especial power over those minds which have had least experience of it. The Goth not only took pay, and sought refuge, from the Empire, but, still more, when, instead of dependent, he was lord and master, he found himself absorbed into and assimilated with the civilization, upon which he had violently thrust himself Had he been left in possession, great revolutions certainly, but not dissolution, would have been the destiny of the social framework ; and the tradition of science and of the arts of life would have been unbroken. Thus, in the midst of the awful events which were then in progress, there were intervals of respite and of hope. The day of wrath seemed to be passing away ; things began to look up, and the sun was on the point of coming out again. Statesmen, who watched the signs of the times, perhaps began to say, that at last they did think that the worst was over, and that there were good grounds for looking hopefully at the State of affairs. Adolphus, the successor of Alaric, took on him- self the obligations of a Roman general, assumed the Roman dress, accepted the Emperor's sister in marriage, and opposed in arms the fiercer barbarians who had overrun Spain. The sons of Theodoric the Visigoth were taught Virgil and Roman Law in the schools of Gaul. Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, anxiously preserved the ancient monuments of Rome, and ornamented the cities of Italy with new edifices ; he revived agriculture, promoted commerce, and patronized literature. But the 1 1 8 The Tradition of Civilization. Goth was not to retain the booty which the Roman had been obh'ged to rehnquish ; he had soon, in company with his former foe, to repel the Vandal, the Hun, or the Frank; or, weakened from within, to yield to the younger assailants who were to succeed him. Then the whole work of civilization had to begin again — if indeed there was to be a new begining ; or rather there was not life enough left in its poor remains, to vivify the fresh mass of barbarism which fell heavily upon it, or even to save itself from a final extinction. As great Caesar fell, not under one, but under twenty strokes ; so it was only by many a cleaving, many a shattering blow, " scalpri frequentis ictibus et tunsione plurima," that the existing fabric of the old world, to which Caesar, more than any other, had given name and form, was battered down. It was the accumulation, the reiteration of calamities, in every quarter and through a long period, by " the rain falling, and the floods coming, and the winds blowing and breaking upon that house," that it fell, "and great was the fall thereof" The judgments of God were upon the earth, and " the clouds returned after the rain ;" and as a thunder cloud careers around the sky, and condenses suddenly here or there, and repeats its violence when it seems to have been spent, so was it with the descent of the North upon the South. There was scarcely a province of the great Empire, but twice or thrice had to sustain attack, invasion, or occupation, from the barbarian. Till the termination of the reign of the Antonines, for a hundred and fifty years, the long peace continued, which the Prince of Peace brought with Him ; then a fitful century of cloud and sunshine, hope and fear, suspense and affliction ; till at length, just at the middle of the third century of our era, the trumpet sounded, and the time of visitation The Isles of the North. 1 1 g began. The tremendous period opened in a great pestilence, and in an eruption of the barbarians both on the East and on the West. The pestilence lasted for fifteen years ; and, though sooner brought to an end than that more awful pestilence in St. Gregory's day with which the season of judgment closed, yet in that fifteen years it made its way into every region and city of the Empire. Many cities were emptied ; Rome at one time lost 5,000 inhabitants daily, Alexandria lost half her population. As to the barbarians, the Franks on the West descended into Spain ; and the Goths on the East into Asia Minor. Asia Minor had had a long peace of three hundred years, a phenomenon almost solitary iri the history of the world, and difficult for the imagination to realize. Its cities were unwalled; military duties had been abolished ; the taxes were employed on the public buildings and the well-being and enjoyments of life ; the face of the coun- try was decorated and diversified by the long growth and development of vegetation, by the successive accumula- tions of art, and by the social memorials and reminis- cences of nine peaceful generations. Its parks and groves, its palaces and temples, were removed further by a hun- dred years from the injuries of warfare, than England is now from the ravages of the Great Rebellion. Down came the Goths from Prussia, Poland, and the Crimea ; they sailed along the Euxine, rayaged Pontus and ■Bithynia, sacked the wealthy Trebizond and Chalcedon, and burned the imperial Nicaea and Nicomedia, and other- great cities of the country ; then they fell upon Cyzicus and the cities on the coast, and finally demolished the famous temple of Diana, at Ephesus, the wonder of the world. Then they passed over to the opposite continent, sacked Athens, and spread dismay and confusion, if not •i'20 The Tradition of Civilization. conflagration, through both upper Greece and. the Peloponnese. At the same solemn era, the Franks fell upon Spain, and ran through the whole of it, destroying flourishing cities, whose ruins lay on the ground for centuries, nor stopped till they had crossed into Africa. A second time, at a later date, was Spain laid waste by the Vandals and their confederates, with an utter desolation of its territory. Famine became so urgent, that human flesh was eaten ; pestilence so rampant, that the wild beasts multiplied among the works of man. Passing on to Africa, these detestable savages cut down the very fruit-trees, as they went, in the wantonness of their fury ; and the inhabitants of the plundered cities fled away with such property as they couild save beyond sea. A new desolation of Africa took place two centuries later, when the Saracens passed in a contrary direction from Egypt into Spain. Nor were the Greek and Asiatic provinces, more than the West, destined to be protected against successive in- vasions. Scarcely a hundred years had passed since the barbarian Goth had swept so fiercely each side of the Egean, when additional blows fell upon Europe and Asia from fresh enemies. In Asia the Huns poured down upon Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Syria, scaring the pagans of Antioch, and the monks and pilgrims of Palestine, silencing at once the melody of immodest song and of holy chant, till they came to the entrance of Egypt. In Europe it was the Goths again, who descended with fire and sword into Greece, desolated the rich lands of Phocis and Bceotia, destroyed Eleusis and its time-honoured superstitions, and passing into the Peloponnese, burned its cities and enslaved its population. About the same time the fertile and cultivated tract, stretching from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was devastated by the same The Isles of the North. ' 121 reckless invaders, even to the destruction of the brute creation. Sixty years afterwards the same region was overrun by the still more terrible Huns, who sacked as many as seventy cities, and carried off their inhabitants. This double scourge, of which Alaric and Attila are the earlier and later representatives, travelled up the country northwards, and thence into Lombardy, pillaging, burn- ing, exterminating, as it went along. What Huns and Goths were to the South, such were Germans, Huns, and Franks to Gaul. That famous country, though in a less favoured climate, was as culti- vated and happy 'as Asia Minor after its three centuries of peace. The banks of the Rhine are said to have been lined with villas and farms ; the schools of Marseilles, Autun, and Bordeaux, vied with those of the East, and even with that of Athens ; opulence had had its civilizing effect upon their manners, and familiarity with the Latin classics upon their native dialect. At the time that Alaric was carrying his ravages from Greece into Lombardy, the fierce Burgundians and other Germans, to the number of 200,000 fighting men, fell upon Gaul ; and, to use the words of a well-known historian, " the scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert, and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the work of man." The barbarian torrent, sweeping away cities and in- habitants, spread from the banks of the Rhine to the Atlantic and the Pyrenees. Fifty years later a great portion of the same region was devastated with like ex- cesses by the H uns ; and in the intervals between the two visitations, destructive inroads, or rather permanent occupations, were effected by the Franks and Burgun- dians. As to Italy, with Rome as a centre, its multiplied 122 The Tradition of Civilization. miseries are too familiarly known to require illustration. I need not enlarge upon the punishments inflicted on it by German, Goth, Vandal, Hun, and Byzantine, who in those same centuries overspread the country, or upon the destruction of cities, villas, monasteries, of every place where literature might be stored, or civilization trans- mitted to posterity. Barbarians occupied the broad lands of nobles and senators ; mercenary bands infested its roads, and tyrannized in its towns and its farms ; even the useful arts were gradually forgotten, and the ruins of its cities sufficed for the remnant of its citizens. Such was the state of things, when, after the gleam of prosperity and hope which accompanied the Gothic ascendency, at length the Lombards came down in the age of St. Gregory, a more fatal foe than any before, to complete the desolation of the garden of Europe. Encompassed then by such calamities, present and hereditary, through such a succession of centuries and in such a multitude of countries, where should the Roman Pontiff look for a refuge of learning; sacred and profane, when the waters were out all over the earth } What place shall he prepare, what people shall he choose, with a view to a service, the more necessary in proportion as it was. difficult } I know where it must be ; doubtless in the old citadel of science, which hitherto had been safe from- the spoiler, — in Alexandria. The city and country of the Ptolemies was inviolate as yet ; the Huns had stopped on its eastern, the Vandals at its western boundary ; and. though Athens and Rhodes, Carthage and Madaura, Cordova and Lerida, Marseilles and Bordeaux, Rheims and Milan, had been overrun by the barbarian, yet the Museum, the greatest of all schools, and the Serapeum, the largest of all libraries, had re- covered from the civil calamities which had pressed upon The hies of the North. 123 them in a past century, and were now far away from the Lombard, who was the terror of the age. It would have been a plausible representation in the age of St. Gregory and his immediate successors, if human wisdom had been their rule of judgment,, that they must strengthen their aUiance, since they could, not with ambitious and schismatical Constantinople, at least with Alexandria. Yet to Alexandria they did not turn, and in. fact, before another century had passed, Alexandria itself was taken, and her library burned by an enemy, more hostile to re- ligion, if not to philosophy, even than the Lombard. The instinctive sagacity of Popes, when troubled about the prospective fortunes of the human race, did not look for a place of refuge to a city which had done great services to science and literature in its day, but was soon to fall for ever. The weak and contemptible things of this world are destined to bring to nought and to confound the strong and noble. High up in the North, above the continent of Europe, lay two sister islands, ample in size, happy in soil and climate, and beautiful in the face of the country. Alas ! that the passions of man should alienate from one another, those whom nature and religion, had bound to- gether ! So far away were they from foreign foes, that one of them the barbarians had never reached, and though a solitary wave of their invasion has passed over the other, it was not destined to be followed by a second for some centuries. In those days the larger of the two was called Britannia, the lesser Hibernia. The latter was then the seat of a flourishing Church, abounding in the fruits of sanctity, learning, and zeal ; the for- mer, at least its southern half, had formed part of the Empire, had partaken both of its civilization and its Christianity, but had lately been occupied, with the ex- 124 The Tradition of Civilization. termination of its population, by the right wing of the great barbaric host which was overrunning Europe. I need but allude to a well-known history ; we all recollect how some of those pagan invaders of Britain were brought for sale in the slave-market at Rome, and were taken as samples of their brethren by the great Saint so often mentioned in these pages, who succeeded at length in buying the whole race, not for any human master, but for Christ. , St. Gregory, who, amid his troubles at Rome, engaged in this sacred negotiation, was led by his charity towards a particular people, to do a deed which resulted in sur- passing benefits on the whole of Christendom. Here lay the answer to the prayers and questionings of him- self and other holy Popes, and the solution of the great problem which had so anxiously perplexed their minds. The old world was to pass away, and its wealth and wisdom with it ; but these two islands were to be the storehouse of the "past and the birthplace of the future. A divine purpose ruled his act of love towards the Anglo-Saxon race ; or, if we ascribe it to the special prescience proper to Popes, then we may say that it was inspired by what he saw already realized in his own day, in the instance of the remarkable people planted from time immemorial on the sister island. For the Celt, it cannot be denied, preceded the Anglo-Saxon, not only in his Christianity, but in his cultivation and custody of learning, religious and secular, and again in his special zeal for its propagation ; and St. Gregory, in evangeliz- ing England, was but following the example of St. Celestine. Let us on this point hear the words of an historian, who has high claims on the respect and grati- tude of this generation : — " During the sixth and seventh centuries," says Dr. The Isles of the North. 125 Dollinger, "the Church of Ireland stood in the full beauty of its bloom. The spirit of the gospel operated amongst the people with a vigorous and vivifying power ; troops of holy men, from the highest to the lowest ranks of society, obeyed the counsel of Christ, and forsook all things, that they might follow Him. There was not a country of the world, during this period, which could boast of pious foundations or of religious communities equal to those that adorned this far distant island. Among the Irish, the doctrines of the Christian Religion were preserved pure and entire ; the names of heresy or of schism were not known to them ; and in the Bishop of Rome they acknowledged and venerated the Supreme Head of the Church on earth, and continued with him, and through him with the whole Church, in a never interrupted communion. The schools in the Irish cloisters were at this time the most celebrated in all the West ; and in addition to those which have been already mentioned, there flourished the Schools of St. Finian of Clonard, founded in 530, and those of Cataldus, founded in 640. Whilst almost the whole of Europe was desolated by war, peaceful Ireland, free from the invasions of external foes, opened to the lovers of learning and piety a wel- come asylum. The strangers, who visited the island, not only from the neighbouring shores of Britain, but also from the most remote nations of the Continent, received from the Irish people the most hospitable re- ception, a gratuitous entertainment, free instruction, and even the books that were necessary for their studies. Thus, in the year 536, in the time of St. Senanus, there arrived at Cork, from the Continent, fifteen monks, who were led thither by their desire to perfect themselves in the practices of an ascetic life 126 The Tradition of Civilization. under Irish directors, and to study the Sacred Scrip- tures in the school estabhshed near that city. At a later period, after the year 650, the Anglo-Saxons in particular passed over to Ireland in great numbers for the same laudable purposes. On the other hand, many holy and learned Irishmen left their own country to proclaim the faith, to establish or to reform monasteries in distant lands, and thus to become the benefactors of almost every nation in Europe." Such was St. Columba, who is the Apostle of the Northern Picts in the sixth century ; such St. Fridolin in the beginning of the same century, who, after long labours in France, established himself on the Rhine ; such the far-famed Columbanus, who, at its end, was sent with twelve of his brethren to preach in France, Burgundy, Switzerland, and Lombardy, where he died. All these great acts and encouraging events had taken place, ere yet the Anglo-Saxon race was converted to the faith, or at least while it was still under education for its own part in extending it ; and thus in the con- temporary or previous labours of the Irish the Pope found an encouragement, as time went on, boldly to prosecute that conversion and education of the English, which was beginning with such good promise, — and not only in the labours of the Irish missionaries elsewhere, for in England itself, as the writer I have quoted intimates, they had already commenced their evangelical work. " The foundation of many of the English sees," he says, "is due to Irishmen; the Northumbrian diocese was for many years governed by them, and the abbey of Lindisfarne, which was peopled by Irish monks and their Saxon disciples, spread far around it its all-bless- ing influence. These holy men served God and not the world ; they possessed neither gold nor silver, and The hies of the North. 127 all that they received from the rich, passed through their hands into the hands of the poor. Kings and nobles visited them from time to time, only to pray in their churches, or to listen to their sermons ; and as long as they remained in the cloisters, they were con- tent with the humble food of the brethren. Wherever one of these ecclesiastics or monks came, he was re- ceived by all with joy; and whenever he was seen journeying across the country, the people streamed around him to implore his benediction and to hearken to his words. The priests entered the villages only to preach or to administer the sacraments ; and so free were they from avarice, that it was only when com- pelled by the rich and noble, that they would accept lands for the erection of monasteries. Thus has Bede described the Irish bishops, priests, and monks of Northu'mbria, although so displeased with their custom of celebrating Easter. Many Anglo-Saxons passed over to Ireland, where they received a most hospitable reception in the monasteries and schools. In crowds, numerous as bees, as Aldhelm writes, the English went to Ireland, or the Irish visited England, where the Archbishop Theodore was surrounded by Irish scholars. Of the most celebrated Anglo-Saxon scholars and saints, many had studied in Ireland ; among these were St. Egbert, the author of the first Anglo-Saxon mission to the pagan continent, and the blessed Willebrod, the Apostle of the Frieslanders, who had resided twelve years in Ireland. From the same abode of virtue and of learning, came forth two English priests, both named Ewald, who in 690, went as messengers of the gospel to the German Saxons, and received from them the crown of martyrdom. An Irishman, Mailduf, founded, in the year 670, a school, which afterwards grew into 128 The Tradition of Civilization. the famed Abbey of Malmesbury ; among his scholars was St. Aldhelm, afterwards Abbot of Malmesbury, and first bishop of Sherburne or Salisbury, and whom, after two centuries, -Alfred pronounced to be the best of the Anglo-Saxon poets." The seventh and eighth centuries are the glory of the Anglo-Saxon Church, as are the sixth and seventh of the Irish. As the Irish missionaries travelled down through England, France, and Switzerland, to lower Italy, and attempted Germany at the peril of their lives, converting the barbarian, restoring the lapsed, encouraging the desolate, collecting the scattered, and founding churches, schools, and monasteries, as they went along ; so, amid the deep pagan woods of Germany and round about, the English Benedictine plied his axe and drove his plough, planted his rude dwelling and raised his rustic altar upon the ruins of idolatry, and then settling down as a colonist upon the soil, began to sing his chants and to copy his old volumes, and thus to lay the slow but sure foundations of the new civilization. Distinct, nay antagonistic, in character and talent, the one nation and the other, Irish and English, the one more resembling the Greek, the other the Roman, open from the first perhaps to jealousies as well as rivalries, they consecrated their respective gifts to the Almighty Giver, and, labouring together for the same great end, they obliterated whatever there was of human infirmity in their mutual intercourse by the merit of their common achievements. Each by turn could claim preeminence in the contest of sanctity and of learning. In the schools of science England has no name to rival Erigena in origin- ality, or St. Virgil in freedom of thought ; nor among its canonized women any saintly virgin to compare with St. Bridget ; nor, although it has 150 saints in its calen- The Isles of the North. \2 dar, can it pretend to equal that Irish multitude which the Book of Life alone is large enough to contain. Nor can Ireland, on the other hand, boast of a doctor such as St. Bade, or of an Apostle equal to St. Boniface, or of a Martyr like St. Thomas, — or of so long a catalogue of royal devotees as that of the thirty male or female Saxons who in the course of two centuries resigned their crowns, or as the roll of twenty-three kings, and sixty queens and princes, who, between the seventh and the eleventh centuries, gained a place among the saints. Yet, after all, the Irish, whose brilliancy of genius has sometimes been considered, like the Greek, to augur fickleness and change, have managed to persevere to this day in the science of the saints, long after their ancient rivals have lost the gift of faith. But I am not writing a history of the Church, nor ot England or Ireland ; but tracing the fortunes of litera- ture. When Charlemagne arose upon the Continent, the special mission of the two islands was at an end ; and accordingly Ragnor Lodbrog with his Danes then began his descents upon their coasts. Yet they were not superseded, till they had formally handed over the tradi- tion of learning to the schools of France, and had written their immortal names on one and the same page of history. The Anglo-Saxon Alcuin was the first Rector, arid the Irish Clement the second, of the Studium of Paris.. In the same age the Irish John was sent to found the school of Pavia ; and, when the heretical Claudius of Turin exulted over the ignorance of the devastated Churches of the Continent, and called the Synod of Bishops, who summoned him, " a congregation of asses," it was no other than the Irish Dungall, a monk of St. Denis, who met and overthrew the presumptuous railer. 130 CHAPTER XI. A CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. ST. GREGORY THE GREAT. DETACHMENT, as we know from spiritual books, is a rare and high Christian virtue ; a great Saint, St. PhiHp Neri, said that, if he had a dozen really de- tached men, he should be able to convert the world. To be detached is to be loosened from every tie which binds the soul to the earth, to be dependent on nothing sub- lunary, to lean on nothing temporal ; it is to care simply nothing what other men choose to think or say of us, or do to us ; to go about our own work, because it is our duty, as soldiers go to battle, without a care for the con- sequences ; to account credit, honour, name, easy cir- cumstances, comfort, human affections, just nothing at all, when any religious obligation involves the sacrifice of them. It is to be as reckless of all these goods of life on such occasions, as under ordinary circumstances we are lavish and wanton, if I must take an example, in our use of water, — or as we make a present of our words without grudging to friend or stranger, — or as we get rid of wasps or flies or gnats, which trouble us, without any sort of compunction, without hesitation before the act, and without a second thought after it. Now this " detachment " is one of the special ecclesi- astical virtues of the Popes. They are of all men most exposed to the temptation of secular connections ; and, SL Gregory the Great. 1 3 1 as history tells us, they have been of all men least subject to it. By their very office they are brought across every form of earthly power ; for they have a mission to high as well as low, and it is on the high,, and not the low, that their maintenance ordinarily depends. Caesar ministers to Christ ; the framework of society, itself a divine ordinance, receives such important aid from the sanction of religion, that it is its interest in turn to uphold religion, and to enrich it with temporal gifts and honours. Ordinarily speaking, then, the Roman Pontiffs owe their exaltation to the secular power, and have a great stake in its stability and prosperity. Under such circumstances, any men but they would have had a strong leaning to- wards what is called "Conservatism;" and they have been, and are, of course Conservatives in the right sense of the word ; that is, they cannot bear anarchy, they think revolution an evil, they pray for the peace of the world and the prosperity of all Christian States, and they effectively support the cause of order and good govern- ment. The name of Religion is but another name for law on the one hand, freedom on the other ; and at this very time, who are its professed enemies, but Socialists, Red Republicans, Anarchists, and Rebels .■' But a Con- servative, in the political sense of the word, commonly signifies something else, which the Pope never is, and cannot be. It means a man who is at the top of the tree, and knows it, and means never to come down, whatever it may cost him to keep his place there. It means a man who upholds government and society and the exist- ing state of things, — not because it exists, — not because it is good and desirable, because it is established, because it is a benefit to the jjopulation, because it is full of promise for the future, — but rather because he himself is well off in consequence of it, and because to take care of number 132 A Characteristic of the Popes. one is his main political principle. It means a man who defends religion, not for religion's sake, but for the sake of its accidents and externals ; and in this sense Conser- vative a Pope can never be, without a simple betrayal of the dispensation committed to him. Hence at this very moment the extreme violence against the Holy See, of the British legislature and constituency and their newspapers and other organs, mainly because it will not identify the cause of civil government with its own, be- cause, while it ever benefits this world, it ever con- templates the world unseen. So much, however, is intelligible enough ; but there is a more subtle form of Conservatism, by which ecclesias- tical persons are much more likely to be tempted and overcome, and to which also the Popes are shown in history to be superior. Temporal possessions and natural gifts may rightly be dedicated to the service of religion; however, since they do not lose their old nature by being invested by a new mission or quality, they still possess the pabulum of temptation, and may be fatal to ecclesiastical " detachment." To prefer the establish- ment of religion to its purity, is Conservatism, though in a plausible garb. It was once of no uncommon occurrence for saintly Bishops, in the time of famine or war, to break up the Church plate and sell it, in order to relieve the hungry or to redeem the captives by the sums which it brought them. Now this proceeding was not unfrequently urged against them in their day as some great offence; but the Church has always justified them. Here we see, as in a typical instance, both the wrong Conservatism, of which I am speaking, and its righteous repudiation. This fault is an over-attachment to the eccle- siastical establishment, as such ; — to the seats of its power, to its holy places, its sanctuaries, churches, and palaces, SL Gregory the Great. 133 — to its various national hierarchies, with their several prescriptions, privileges, and possessions, — to traditional lines of policy, precedent, and discipline, — to rules and customs of long standing. But a great Pontiff must be detached from everything save the deposit of faith, the tradition of the Apostles, and the vital principles of the divine polity. He may use, he may uphold, he may and will be very slow to part with, a hundred things which have growri up, or taken shelter, or are stored, under the shadow of the Church ; but, at bottom, and after all, he will- be simply detached from pomp and etiquette, secular rank, secular learning, schools and libraries. Basilicas and Gothic cathedrals, old ways, old alliances, and old friends. He will be rightly jealous of their loss, but still he will "know nothing but" Him whose Vicar he is ; he will not stake his fortunes, he will not rest his cause, upon any one else : — -this is what he will do, and what he will not do, as in fact the great Popes of history have shown, in their own particular instances, on so many and various occasions. Take the early Martyr-Popes, or the Gregories and the Leos ; whether they were rich or poor, in power or in persecution, they were simply detached from every earthly thing save the Rock of Peter. This was their adamantine foundation, their starting-point in every enterprise, their refuge In every calamity, the point of leverage by which they moved the world. Secure in this, they have let other things come and go, as they would ; or have deliberately made light of what they had, in order that they might gain what they had not. They have known, In the fulness of an heroic faith, that, while they were true to themselves and to their divinely appointed position, they could not but "inherit the earth," and that, if they lost ground here, It was only 134' A Characteristic of the Popes. to make progress elsewhere. Old men usually get fond of old habits ; they cannot imagine, understand, relish any thing to which they are not accustomed. The ' Popes have been old men ; but, wonderful to say, they have never been slow to venture out upon a new line, when it was necessary, and had ever been looking about, sounding, exploring, taking observations, reconnoitring, attempting, even when there was no immediate reason why they should not let well alone, as the world would say, or even when they were hampered with diffictilties at their door so great, that you would think that they had no time or thought to spare for anything in the distance. It is but a few years ago that a man of eighty, of humble origin, the most Conservative of Popes, as he was considered, with disaffection and sedition upheaving his throne, was found to be planning missions for the interior of Africa, and, when a moment's opportunity was given him, made the most autocratical of Emperors, the very hope of Conservatives, the very terror of CathoHcs, quail beneath his glance. And, thus inde- pendent of times and places, the Popes have never found any difficulty, when the proper moment came, of following out a new and daring line of policy (as their astonished foes have called it), of leaving the old world to shift for itself and to disappear from the scene in its due season, and of fastening on and establishing them- selves in the new. I am led to this line of thought by St. Gregory's be- haviour to the Anglo-Saxon race, on the break-up of the old civilization. I am not mentioning our people for their own sake, but because they furnish an instance of that remarkable trait in the character of Popes, of which I have been speaking. One would have thouo-ht that in the age of St. Gregory, a Pope had enough to do 5/. Gregory the Great. 135 in living on from day to day, without troubling himself about the future ; that, with the Lombard at his doors, he would not have had spirit to set about converting the English ; and that, if he was anxious about the preser- vation of learning, he would have looked elsewhere than to the Isles of the North, for its refuge in the evil day. , Why, I repeat, was it not easier, safer, and more feasi- ble for him to have made much of the prosperous, secure, and long established schools of Alexandria, when the enemy went about him plundering and burning ? He was not indeed on the best terms with Constantino- ple ; Antioch was exposed to other enemies, and had suffered from them already ; but Alexandria was not only learned and protected, but was a special ally of the Holy See ; yet Alexandria was put aside for England and Ireland. With what pertinacity of zeal does Gregory send his missionaries to England ! with what an appetite he waits for the tidings of their progress ! with what a relish he dwells over the good news, when they are able to send it ! He wrote back to Augustine in words of triumph: — "'Gloria in excelsis Deo,' "he says, "'et in terr^ pax hominibus bonae voluntatis ! ' for the Grain of corn died and was buried in the earth, that It might reign with a great company in Heaven, — by whose death we live, by whose weakness we are strengthened, by whose sufferings we escape suffering, by whose love we are seeking in Britain brothers whom we know not of, by whose gift we find those whom, not knowing, we were seeking. Who can describe the joy, which was caused in the hearts of all the faithful here, on the news that the English nation, by the operation of the grace of the Omnipotent God, and by your labours, my brother, had been rescued from the shades of error and over- 1^6 A Characteristic of the Popes. spread with the light of holy faith ! If on one penitent there is great joy in heaven, what, think we, does it be- come, when a whole people has turned from its error, and has betaken itself to faith, and condemned the evil it has done by repenting of the doing ! Wherefore in this joy of Heaven and Angels, let me say once more the very Angels' words, ' Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonse voluntatis.'" What were these outer barbarians to Gregory ? how could they relieve him or profit him ? What compensa- tion could they make for what the Church was then losing, or might lose in future ? Yet he corresponds with their king and queen, urges them to complete what they had so happily begun, reminds Bertha of St. Helena, and what St. Helena did for the Romans, and Ethelbert, of the great Constantine ; informs them of the satisfaction which their conversion had given to the Imperial Court at Constantinople, and sends them sacred presents from the Apostle Peter. Nay he cannot keep from talking of these savages, apropos of anything what- ever, for they have been running in his head from the day he first saw them in the slave market; and he makes the learned Church of Alexandria the special partner of his joy upon this contemptible victory. The Patriarch Eulogius had been telling him of his own success in re- claiming the heretics of Alexandria, and he sends him a piece of good news in return : — " As I am well aware," he says, " that in the midst of your own good deeds, you rejoice in those of others, I will repay you for the kind- ness of your tidings by telling you something of the same sort." And then he goes on to speak of the con- version of the English, " who are situated in a corner of the world," as' if their gain was comparable to that of the educated and wealthy persons whom Eulogius had SL Gregory the Great. 137 been reconciling to the Church. Nay, lest he should take too much credit for his own success, and grow vain upon it, he attributes it to the prayers of the Alexandrians, or at least of their Bishop, all that way off, as if the Angles and Jutes were anything at all to the city of the Ptolemies! " On Christmas Day," he says, " more than 10,000 of them were baptized. I tell you of it, that you may know, that, while your words avail for your own people, your prayers avail for the ends of the earth. For you are by prayer where you are not, while you manifest yourself by holy labours where you are." Time went on, and the Popes showed less and less disposition to cling to past associations, or to confide in existing establishments, or to embarrass themselves in political engagements. When they were in trouble, their old friends could not, or would not, help them. Rome was almost deserted ; no throng of pilgrims mounted to the threshold of the Apostles ; no students flocked to the schools. The Pope sat in the Lateran desolate, till at length news was brought him that one foreigner had made his appearance. Whence did he come .-" from the north ; from beyond the sea ; he was one of those bar- barians whom his Holiness's predecessor, Gregory of blessed memory, had converted. The pilgrim came, and he went. An interval, and then, I think, a second pilgrim-student came : and who was he ">. Why, he was an Englishman too. A fact to remember ! one of these young barbarians is' worth a thousand of those time- servers of Constantinople. Our predecessor must have acted under some special guidance, when, at the begin- ning of this century, he set his heart upon the worship- pers of Thor and Woden ! So, when a vacancy occurs in the see of Canterbury, Pope Vitalian determines to place in it a man of his own choosing, one whom so 138 A Characteristic of the Popes. faithful a people deserves. The Irish, says the Pope, have done much for England, but teachers it still needs. Moreover, local teaching, even the best, and though saints be its organs, is apt to have something in it of local flavour, and needs from time to time to be refreshed from the founts of apostolical tradition. We vifill pick out, says he, the best specimens of learning and science, which the length and breadth of southern Christendom can furnish, and send them thither, uniting the excellence of different lands, under the immediate sanction of Rome. In this eclecticism, he did but follow St. Gregory him- self, who, when Augustine represented to him, that, while faith was one, customs were so various, made answer, " I wish that, wherever you find anything espe- cially pleasing to Almighty God, whether in the Roman, or Gallic, or any other Church, you would be at pains to select it, and introduce it into the English Church, as yet new in the faith." This line of proceeding in ecclesiastical matters was carried on by Vitaiian into the province of learning. The Greek colonies of Syria and Asia Minor, and the Roman settlements upon the African coast, had been, almost from their first formation, flourishing schools of education ; and now that they were perishing under the barbarism of the Saracens, they were abandoned, by such professors and students as remained, for the cities of Italy. In a convent near Naples lived Adrian, an African ; at Rome there was a monk, named Theodore, from Tarsus in Cilicia ; both of them were distinguished for their classical, as well as t'.ieir ecclesiastical attain- ments; and whils Theodore had been educated in Greek usages, Adrian represented the more congenial and suitable traditions of the West. Of these two, Theo- dore, at the age of sixty-six, was made Primate of Eng- SL Gregory the Great. 139 land, while Adrian was placed at the head of the monastery of Canterbury. Passing through France, in their way to their post of duty, they delayed there a while at the command of the Pope, to accustom them- selves to the manners of the North ; and at length they made their appearance in England, with a collection of books, Greek classics, and Gregorian chants, and what- ever other subjects of study may be considered to fill up the interval between those two. They then proceeded to found schools of secular, as well as of sacred learning I throughout the south of the island ; and we are assured / by St. Bede, that many of their scholars were as well acqainted with Latin and Greek, as with their native j tongue. One of these schools in Wiltshire, as the legend goes, was, on that account, called " Greeklade," since corrupted into Cricklade, and, migrating afterwards to '^Oxfo^rd, was one of the first elements of its University. Meanwhile, one of those Saxon pilgrims, who had been so busy at Rome, having paid, it is said, as many as five visits to the Apostles, went up to the north of the coun- try. Before the coming of the two foreign teachers, Bene- dict Biscop had been Abbot of Canterbury ; but, making way for Adrian, he took himself and his valuable library, the fruit of his travels, to- Wearmouth in Northumber- land, where he founded a Church and monastery. These details are not out of place in the history of Universities ; but I introduce them here as illustrating a point, much to be remarked, in the character of the Popes. It is a common observation of Protestants, that, curiously enough, the Holy See is weakest at home when it is strongest abroad, and they derive some consolation to themselves,. I do not know what, from the fact. So it is ; this weakness is an alleviation of the annoyance which they feel at the sight of a world sue- 140 A Characteristic of the Popes. cumbing to the See of Peter. They say, that after all, if the world has its mortifications, Peter, on the other hand, has his discomforts too. True, the gates of hell do not prevail against him, but then he is driven about from place to place, thrown into prison, and, if he escapes the sword of Herod, it is only that Nero may inflict upon him the more cruel death of crucifixion. What then is Peter's but a hollow power, which profits the possessor nothing, though it be ecumenical 1 Does it secure him health, strength, wealth, comfort, ease, that he is revered by millions whom he never saw.' He inherits the earth, but is not certain of a roof to sleep under, or a grave to be buried in. Ho\y is he better off, because his name is mentioned in Mass in the Brazils, and his briefs are read in the Churches of Cochin China.' This taunt does but supply a boast to the Catholic, and has a moral for the philosopher. Certainly Popes are unlike any other old and infirm men that ever were. To clutch at what is within their reach, to keep tight hold of what they have, to believe what they see, to care that things should last their own time, to let posterity shift for itself, to hate disturbance and turmoil, to com- pound for present peace, to be sceptical about improve- ments, to be averse to new plans, in a word, to live in sense, not in imagination, is the characterstic of old statesmen, old lawyers, and old traders. They cannot throw their minds into new ideas.; they cannot realize the views of others ; they cannot move out of their life- long position, nor advance one inch towards any other. Were such a person, — sound, safe, sensible, sagacious, experienced, — at the elbow of Pope Gregory, or liis suc- cessors of the seventh century, he would have advised him to fall back upon Constantinople, to come to an understanding with the Imperial Court, to link his SL Gregory the Great. 141 fortunes with those of an effete civilization, and to allow the encroachments of ah ambitious hierarchy ; as to Franks, and Prisons, and Westphalians, and Saxons, and Burgundians, and Visigoths, and Scots, to leave them to themselves. I need not take an imaginary in- stance ; not many years have passed since a Nuncio of the Holy See passed through England in his way from Portugal to Rome, and had an interview with a great warrior now no more, a man of preternatural sagacity in his own sphere of thought, — which was not Catholic and divine. When the ecclesiastic in question asked the great man's advice what the then Pope's policy should be, the Duke abruptly replied, " Let him catch hold of the coat-tail of Austria, and hang on as hard as he can." Yes, and the able statesmen of each age would have said the same to Gregory the First, to the Second, the Third, and the Seventh, as well as to Gregory the Sixteenth, — to Julius, Silverian, and Martin ; they would have counselled the Vicar of Christ a safe and pleasant course, " fallentis semita vitae," which would have ended in some uninhabitable desert, or some steep precipice, far from the haunts of man. When Pius the Ninth, foiled in his attempt to better the civil condition of his states, from the worthlessnes both of his materials and his instruments, was a fugitive and exile at Gaeta, the Protestant public jeered anc mocked at him, as one whose career was over and whose candle was put out. Yet he has but supplied a fres and the latest instance, later there cannot be, of tht heroic detachment of Popes, and has carried down tlu tradition of St. Peter into the age of railroads and news- papers. But we are entering upon a new part of tL' subject, which our present limits will not admit, ant which we cannot perhaps treat without freedom. 142 CHAPTER XIL MORAL OF THAT CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POPES. PIUS THE NINTH. A GREAT personage, within tlie last fifteen years, sent his advice to the Pope "to make sure of the coat-tail of Austria, and hold on." Austria is a great and religious power ; she inherits the prerogatives of the German Empire and the titles of the Caesars. There must ever be relations of a very peculiar kind between the Holy See and the Holy Roman Empire. Nevertheless, when the time came for taking advantage of his advice, the Pope did just the reverse. He made light of this master of political wisdom, and showed his independence of Austria ; — not that he did not honour Austria, but that he honoured the Rock of Peter more. And what has been the consequence .'' he has simply gained by his fidelity to his position. Austria has been far more truly the friend and protector, the child and servant of the Pope than before ; she has repealed the Josephine statutes, so injurious to the Church, and has opened her territories to the full religious influences of the Holy See. Here is an instance of what I have called " eccle- siastical detachment," and of its working. Again, a revolution breaks out in Europe, and a deep scheme is laid to mix up the Pope in secular politics of a contrary character. He is to be the head of Italy, to range himself against the sovereigns of Europe, and to Pius the Ninth. 143 carry all things before him in the name of Religion. He steadily refuses to accept the insidious proposal ; and at length he is driven out of his dominions, because, while he would ameliorate their condition, he would do so as a Father and a Prince, and not as the tool of a conspiracy. However, not many months pass, and the party of disorder is defeated, and he goes back to Rome again. Rome is his place ; but it is little to him whether he is there or away, compared with the duty of fidelity to his Trust. Once more, the power which restores him to his country, presumes ; and insists upon his modelling his temporal polity upon the unecclesiastical principles of a foreign code. France, too, as Austria, is a great Catholic power ; the eldest-born of the Church ; the representa- tive of the coming civilization, as Austria is the heir of the past ; but France was not likely to gain for the Code of a dead Emperor, what that Emperor, in the plenitude of his living genius and authority, could not compass for it. The Pope refuses to subject himself to France, as he had refused to subject himself to Austria ; and what is the consequence .-' It' is the old story; a new Emperor arises, with the name, and without the religious shortsightedness, of his great predecessor. He has the wisdom to run a race with Austria in doing honour to the Church, and France professes Catholicity with an ardour unknown to her since the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. These are times of peculiar difficulty and delicacy for , the Church. It is not as in the middle ages, or as in the ante-Nicene period, when right and wrong were boldly marked out, and there was a broad line between them, and little chance of mistaking one for the other. In such times detachment was another name for faith ; 144 Moral of that Characteristic of the Popes. it was scarcely a virtue, substantive and sui generis ; for attachment to any temporal possession or advantage then was practically nothing else than apostasy. Things are otherwise now ; it has not, therefore, fallen to the lot of many Popes, to have such opportunities as Pius the Ninth, of resisting temptation, of resigning himself to the political weakness incident to the Holy See, of falling back calmly upon its traditionary principles, of rejecting the arguments for innovating upon its true position, and in consequence of attaining so rapid a triumph after deplorable reverses. When Pius was at Gaeta and Portici, the world laughed on hearing that he was giving his attention to the theological bearings of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Little fancying what various subject-matters fall all at once under a Pope's contemplation, and are successively car- ried out into' effect, as circumstances require ; little dreaming of the intimate connexion of these matters with each- other, even when they seem most heteroge- neous ; or that a belief touching the Blessed Virgin m'ght have any influence upon the fortunes of the Holy See ; the wise men of the day concluded from the Pope's Encyclical about that doctrine, that lie had, what they called, given up politics in disgust, and had become a harmless devotee or a trifling school-divine. But soon they heard of other acts of the Holy Father ; they heard of his interposition in the East ; of his success in Spain; of his vigilant eye directed towards Sardinia and Switzer- land in his own neighbourhood, and towards North and South America in another hemfsphere ; of his preachers spreading through Germany ; of his wonderful triumphs, already noticed, in Austria and France ; of his children rising as if out of the very earth in England ; and of their increasing moral strength in Ireland, in proportion Pius the Ninth. 145 • to her past extraordinary sufferings ; of the hierarchies of England and Holland, and of the struggle going forward on the Rhine ; and then they exchanged contempt for astonishment and indignation, saying that it was intoler- able that a potentate who could not keep his own, and whose ease and comfort at home were not worth a month's purchase, should be so blind to his own interests as to busy himself with the fortunes of Religion at the ends of the earth. And an additional feeling arose, which it is more to our purpose to dwell upon. They were not only angry, but they began to fear. It may strike one at first with surprise, that, in the middle of the nineteenth century, in an age of professed light and liberality, so determined a spirit of persecution should have arisen, as we expe- rience it, in these countries, against the professors of the ancient faith. Catholics have been startled, irritated, and depressed, at this unexpected occurrence ; they have been frightened, and have wished to retrace their steps ; but after all, far from suggesting matter for alarm or despondency, it is nothing more or less than a confession on the part of our adversaries, how strong we are, and how great our promise. It is the expression of their profound misgiving that the Religion which existed long before the'rs, is destined to live after it. This is no mere deduction from their acts ; it is their own avowal. They have seen that Protestantism was all but extinct abroad ; they have confessed that its last refuge and for- tress was in England ; they have proclaimed aloud, that, if England was supine at this moment. Protestantism was gone. Twenty years ago England could afford, as much in contempt as in generosity, to grant to Catholics political emancipation.* Forty or fifty years ago it was * It is not meant that contempt was the feeling towards Ireland at the 10 146 Moral of that Characteristic of the Popes. a common belief in her religious circles, that the great Emperor, with whom she was at war, was raised up to annihilate the Popedom. But from the very graVe of Pius the Sixth, and from the prison of Pius the Seventh, from the very moment that they had an opportunity of showing to the v/orld their familiarity with that ecclesias- tical virtue of which I have said so much, the Catholic movement began. In proportion to the weakness of the Holy See at home, became its influence and its success in the world. The Apostles were told to be prudent as serpents, and simple as doves. It has been the simplicity of the Sovereign Pontiffs which has been their prudence. It is their fidelity to their commission, and their detachment from all secular objects, which has given them the possession of the earth. I am not pursuing the line of thought which has en- gaged me in my last chapter and my present without a drift. It bears directly upon the subject which leads me to write at all ; and it has an important bearing, intelli- gible even to the historian and philosopher, so that reason and experience would be able to extort from him what faith could not obtain. Even a pagan ought to be able to prophecy that our University is destined for great things. I look back at the early cOmbats of Popes Victor and Stephen ; I go on to Julius and Celestine, Leo and Gregory, Boniface aqd Nicholas ; I pass along the Middle Ages, down to Paul the Third and Pius the Fifth ; and thence to the two Popes of the same name, who occupy the most eventful fifty years, since Christi- anity was ; and I cannot shut my eyes to the fact, that the Sovereign Pontiffs have had a gift, proper to them- lime, which influenced Sir Robert Peel, or of the Government of the day, but that it was the feeling of the Peelite and Whig parties towards Catholicism as such. Videmir. ch. xix. p. 231. Pius the Ninth. 147 selves, of understanding what is good for the Church, and what Cathohc interests require. And in the next place, I find that this gift exercises itself in an abso- lute independence of secular politics, and a detachment from every earthly and temporal advantage, and pur- sues its end by uncommon courses, and by unlikely instruments, and by methods of its own. I see that it shines the brightest, and is the most surprising in its results, when its possessors are the weakest in -this world and the most despised ; that in them are most vividly exemplified the Apostle's words, in the most beautiful and most touching of his Epistles, " We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not of us ; as needy, yet enriching many, as having nothing, and possessing all things." I get these two points of history well into my mind ; and then I shut my book, and look at the world before my eyes. I see an age of transition, the breaking up of the old and the coming in of the new ; an old system shattered some sixty years ago, and a new state of things scarcely in its rudiments as yet, to be settled perhaps some centuries after our time. And it is a special cir- cumstance in these changes, that they extend beyond the past historical platform of human affairs ; not only is Europe broken up, but other continents are thrown open, and the new organization of society aims at embracing the world. It is a day of colonists and emigrants ; — and, what is another most pertinent consideration, the language they carry with them is English, which conse- quently, as time goes on, is certain, humanly speaking, to extend itself into every part of the world. It is already occupying the whole of North America, whence it threatens to descend upon South ; already is it the 148 Moral of that Characteristic of the Popes. language of Australia, a country large enough in the course of centuries to rival Europe in population ; already it has become the speech of a hundred marts of com- merce, scattered over the East, and, even where not the mother tongue, it is at least the medium of intercourse between nations. And, lastly, though the people who own that language is Protestant, a race preeminently Catholic has adopted it, and has a share in its litera- ture; and this Catholic race is, at this very time, of all tribes of the earth, the most fertile in emigrants both to the West and the South. These are the manifest facts of the day, which would be before our eyes, whether the Pope. had anything to say to them or no. The English language and the Irish race are overrunning the world. When then I consider what an eye the Sovereign Pontiffs have for the future ; and what an independence in policy and vigour in action have been the character- istics of their present representative ; and what a flood 'of success, mounting higher and higher, has lifted up the Ark of God from the beginning of this century ; and then, that the Holy Father has definitely put His finger upon Ireland, and selected her soil as the seat of a great Catholic University, to spread religion, science, and learning, wherever the English language is spoken ; when I take all these things together, — I care not what others think, I care not what others do, God has no need of men, — oppose who will, shrink who will, I know and cannot doubt that a great work is begun. It is no great imprudence to commit oneself to a guidance which never yet has failed ; nor is it surely irrational or fanatical to believe, that, whatever difficulties or disappointments, reverses or delays, may be our lot in the prosecution of the work, its ultimate success is certain, even though it Pius i he Ninth. 149 seemed at first to fail, — -just as the greatest measures in former times have been the most tardy in execution, as Atlianasius triumphed though he passed away before Arianism, and Hildebrand died in exile, that his succes- sors might enter into his labours. I50 CHAPTER XIII. SCHOOLS OF CHARLEMAGNE. PARIS. AS nations are inscrutably brought within the sacred fold, and inscrutably cast without it, so are they used, while within it, in this way or that, according to the supreme will and for the greater glory of Him, who has brought them into being from some common ancestor, and holds them together by unity of government or by traditionary ideas. One Catholic nation is high in the world, another low ; one rises and expands into an Em- pire, another is ever in the position of subject or even dependent. England and Ireland were, in the darkest age of Christian history, the conservators of sacred and profane knowledge : not, however, for any merit of their own, but according to the good pleasure of their Maker : and, when the time came, in His counsels, for the revival of learning on the Continent, then He dispensed with their ministry, and put them aside. It is a remarkable fact, to which I have already alluded, that the appear- ance of the Danes off the coasts of England and Ireland, the destroyers in both islands of religion and science, synchronizes with the rise of Charlemagne, the founder of modern civilization. Christianity, which hitherto might be considered as a quality superinduced upon the face of society, now be- came the element, out of which society grew into shape Paris. 1 5 1 and reached its stature. The Church had battled with the Roman Empire, and had eventually vanquished it ; but, while she succeeded in teaching it the new song of the Saints, she did not demand of it that flexibility of the organs of speech which only exists in the young. It was the case of an old man learning a foreign tongue ; its figure, gait, attitudes, and gestures, and in like man- ner its accent, belonged to an earlier time. Up to the point at which a change was imperative, its institutions were suffered toremain just as they had been in paganism; christianized just so far as to enable them to work christian-wise, however cumbrously or circuitously. And as to the system of education in particular, I suppose the primary, or, as they may be better called, the grammar schools, as far as they were not private speculations, were from first to last in the hands of the State ;■ state-institu- tions, first of pagan, then of mixed education. I do not mean to say that there are no traces in Christian antiquity of a higher pattern of education, in which religion and learning were brought together, — as in the method of teaching which St. Basil and St. Gregory brought into Asia Minor from Alexandria, and in the Benedictine Schools of Italy ; but I am speaking of what the Chris^ tian Empire did, and again of what the Church exacted from it. She for the most part confined herself to the education of the clergy, and their ecclesiastical education ; the laity and secular learning seem to have been still, more or less, in the charge of the State ; — not, however, as if this were the best way of doing things, as the attempts I have spoken of bore testimony, but, because she found things in a certain state, and used them as best she could. Her aim was to make the Empire Christian, not to revolutionize it ; and, without a revolution of society, the typical form of a Christian polity could not have been 152 Schools of Charlemagne. given to the institutions of Rome. But, when society . was broken up, and had to be constructed over again, the case was different; it would have been as preposterous, under such- circumstances, not to build it up upon Catho- licity, as it would have been to attempt to do so before. Henceforth, as all government, so all education, was to be founded on Revealed Truth. Secular teaching was to be united to sacred ; and the Church had the super- vision both of lay students and of profane learning. The new state of things began in the Prankish Empire; but it is observable how Rome after all strikes the key note of the movement. Charlemagne indeed betook himself to the two Islands of the North for a tradition ; Alcuin, an Englishman, was at the head of his educational estab- lishments ; he came to France, not with sacred learning only, but with profane ; he set up schools for laity as well as clergy ; but whence was it that he in turn got the tradition which he brought .■• His history takes us back to that earlier age, when Theodore of Tarsus, Primate of England, brought with him thither from Rome the classics, and made Greek and Latin as familiar to the Anglo-Saxons as their native tongue. Alcuin was the scholar of Bede and Egbert ; Egbert was educated in the York school of Theodore, and Bede in that of Bene- dict Biscop and of John precentor of the Vatican Basilica. Here was the germ of the new civilzation of Europe, which was to join together what man had divided, to adjust the claims of Reason and of Revelation, and to fit men for this world while it trained them for another. Charlemagne has the glory of commencing this noble work ; and, whether his school at Paris be called a Uni- versity or not, he laid down principles of which a Uni- versity is the* result, in that he aimed at educating all classes, and undertook all subjects of teaching. Paris. 153 In the first place, however, he turned his attention to the Episcopal Seminaries, which seem to have been in- stitutions of the earliest times of Christianity, though they hadbeen ingreat measure interrupted amid the dissolution of society consequent upon the barbarian inroads, as various passages in these Essays have already suggested. His restoration lasted for four centuries, till Universities rose in their turn, and indirectly interfered with the efficiency of the Seminaries, by absorbing them into the larger institution. This inconvenience was set right at a later period by the Council of Trent, whose wise regula- tions were in turn the objects of the jealousy- of the Joseph ism of the last century, which used or rather abused the University system to their prejudice. The present policy of the Church in most places has been to return to the model both of the first ages and of Charlemagne. To these Seminaries he addeJ, what I have spoken of as his characteristic institution, grammar and public schools, as preparatory both to the Seminaries and to secular professions. Not that they were confined to grammar, for they recognized Iheirivhtm and quadriviiim ; but grammar, in the sense of literature, seems to have been the principle subject of their teaching. These schools were established in connexion with the Cathedral or the Cloister ; and they received ecclesiastics and the sons of the nobility, though not to the exclusion of the poorer class. Charlemagne probably did not do much more than this ; though it was once the custom to represent him as the actual founder of the University of Paris. But great creations are not perfected in a day ; without doing everything which had to be done, he did many things, and opened the way for more. It willthrow fight upon his position in the history of Christian education, to 1 54 Schools of Charlemagne. quote a passage from the elaborate work of Bulseus, on the University of Paris, though he not unnaturally claims the great Emperor as its founder, maintaining that he established, not only the grammar or public schools already mentioned, but the higher Stiidia Getieralia. This assumption, well founded or not, will not make his account less instructive, if, as I have supposed, Charle- magne certainly introduced ideas and principles, of which the University was the result. "It is observable," says Bulaeus, "that Charles, in seeking out masters, had in view, not merely the edu- catio'n of his own family, but of his subjects generally, and of all lovers of the Christian Religion ; and wished to be of service to all students and cultivators of the liberal arts. It is indeed certain that he sought out learned men and celebrated teachers from all parts of the world, and induced them to accept his invitation by re- wards and honours, on which Alcuin lays great stress. ' I was well aware, my Lord David,' he says, ' that it has been your praiseworthy solicitude ever to love and to extol wisdom ; and to exhort all men to cultivate it, nay, to incite them by means of prizes and honours ; and out of divers parts of the world to bring together its lovers as the helpers of your good purpose ; among whom you have taken pains to secure even me, the meanest slave of that holy wisdom, from the extremest boundaries of Britain.' " It is evident hence, that Charles's intention was not to found any common sort of schools, such, that is, as would have required dnly a few instructors, but public schools, open to all, and possessing all kinds of learning. Hence tha necessity of a multiplicity of Professors, who from their number and the remoteness of their homes might seem a formidable charge, not only to the court, Paris. 155 or to one city, but even to his whole kingdom. Such is the testimony of Eginhart, who says : ' Charles loved foreigners and took great pains to support them; so that their number was a real charge, not to the Palace alone, but even to the realm. Such, however, was his greatness of soul, that the burden of them was no trouble to him, because even of great inconveniences the praise of muni- ficence is a compensation.' " Charles had in mind to found two kinds of schools, less and greater. The less he placed in Bishops' palaces, canons' cloisters, monasteries, and elsewhere ; the greater, however, he established in places which were public, and suitable for public teaching ; and he intended them, not only for ecclesiastics, but for the nobility and their chil- dren, and on the other hand for poor scholars too ; in short, for every rank, class, and race. " He seems to have had two institutions before his mind, when he contemplated this object; the first of them was the ancient schools. Certainly, a man of so active and inquiring a mind as Charles, with his intercourse with learned persons and his knowledge of mankind, must have been well aware that in former ages these two kinds of schools were to be found everywhere ; the one kind few in number, public, and of great reputation, pos- sessed moreover of privileges, and planted in certain con- spicuous and central sites. Such was the Alexandrian in Egypt, the Athenian in Greece ; such under the Ro- man Emperors, the schools of Rome, of Constantinople, of Berytus, which are known to have been attended by multitudes, and amply privileged by Theodosius, Justinian, and other princes ; whereas the other kind of schools, which were far more numerous, were to be found up and down the country, in cities, towns, villages, and were re- markable neither in number of students nor in name. 156 Schools of Charlemagne. " The other pattern which was open to Charles was to be found in the practice of monasteries, if it really existed there. The Benedictines, from the very begin- ning of their institution, had applied themselves to the profession of literature, and it has been their purpose to have in their houses two kinds of school, a greater or a less, according to the size of the house ; and the greater they wished to throw open to all students, at a time when there were but few laymen at all who could teach, so that externs, seculars, laymen, as well as clerics, might be free to attend to them. However, true as it was that boys, who were there from childhood intrusted to the monks, bound themselves by no vow, but could leave when they pleased, marry, go to court, or enter the army, still a great many of the cleverest of them were led, either by the habits which they acquired from their intercourse with their teachers, or by their per- suasion, to embrace the monastic life. And thus, while the Church in consequence gained her most powerful supports, the State, on the other hand, was wanting in men of judgment, learning, and experience, to conduct its affairs. This led very frequently to kings choosing monks for civil administration, because no others were to be found capable of undertaking it. "Charles then, consulting for the common good, made literature in a certain sense secular, and transplanted it from the convents to the royal palace ; in a word, he established in Paris a Universal School like that at Rome. " Not that he deprived Monks of the license to teach and profess, though he certainly limited it, from a clear view that that variety of sciences, human and profane, which secular academies require, is inconsistent with the profession and devotion of ascetics ; and accordingly, Paris. 157 in conformity to the spirit of their institute, it was his wish that the lesser schools should be set up or retained in the Bishops' palaces and monasteries, while he pre- scribed the subjects which they were to teach. The case was different with the schools which are higher and public, which, instead of multiplying, he confined to certain central and celebrated spots, not more than to three in his whole empire — Paris, and in Italy, Pavia and Bologna." Such certainly was the result, in which his reforms ended, even though they did not reach it ; and they may be said to have directly tended to it, considering that it was their characteristic, in contrast with the previous schools, to undertake the education of laity as well as clergy, and secular studies as well as religious. But, after all, it was not in an Emperor's power, though he were Charlemagne, to carry into effect in any case, by the resources peculiar to himself, so great an idea as a University. Benefactors and patrons may supply the framework of a Studium Generate ; but there must be a popular interest and sympathy, a spontaneous coopera- tion of the many, the concurrence of genius, and a spreading thirst for knowledge, if it is to live. Cen- turies passed before these conditions were supplied, and then at length about the year 1200 a remarkable in- tellectual movement took place in Christendom ; and to it must be ascribed the development of Universities, out of the public or grammar schools, which I have already described. No such movement could happen, without the rise of some deep and comprehensive philosophy ; and, when it rose, then the existing Trivium and Quad- rivium became the subjects, and the existing seats of learning the scene, of its victories ; and next the curiosity and enthusiasm, which it excited, attracted larger and 1 58 Schools of Charlemagne. larger numbers to places which were hitherto but local centres of education. Such a gathering of students, such a systematizing of knowledge, are the notes of a University. The increase of members and the multiplication of sciences both involved changes in the organization of the Schools of Charlemagne ; and of these the increase of members came first. Hitherto there had been but one governor over the students, who were but few at the most, and came from the neighbourhood ; but now the academic body was divided into Nations, according to the part of Europe from which they joined it, and each Nation had a head of its own, under the title of Procu- rator or Proctor. There were traces of this division, as we have seen in a former Chapter, in Athens ; where the students were arranged under the names of Attic, Oriental, Arab, and Pontic, with a protector for each class. In like manner, in the University of Paris, there were four nations, first, the French, which included the middle and south of France, Spain, Italy, and Greece ; secondly, the English, which, besides the two British islands, comprehended Germany and Scandinavia ; thirdly, the Norman ; and fourthly, the Picards, who carried with them the inhabitants of Flanders and Bra- bant. Again, in the University of Vienna, there were also four nations, — Austria, the Rhine, Hungary, and Bohemia. Oxford recognized only two Nations ; the nortli English, which comprehended the Scotch ; and the South English, which comprehended the Irish and Welsh. The Proctors of the Nations both governed and represented them ; the double office is still traceable, unless the recent Act of Parliament has destroyed it, in the modern constitution of Oxford, in which the two Proctors on the one hand represent the Masters of Paris. 1 59 Arts in the Hebdomadal Board, and on the othei have in their hands the discipline of the University. And as Nations and their Proctors arose out of the metropolitan character of a University, to which students congregated from the farthest and most various places, so are Faculties and Deans of Faculties the consequence of its encyclopedic profession. According to the idea of the institutions of Charlemagne, each school had its own teacher, who was called Rector, or Master. In Paris, however, where the school was founded in St. Gene- vieve's, the Chancellor of that Church became the Rector, and he kept his old title of Chancellor in his new office. Elsewhere the head of the University was called Provost. However, it was not every one who would be qualified to profess even the Seven Sciences, of which the old course of instruction consisted, though the teaching was only elementary, and to become the Rector, Chancellor, or Provost, of the University ; but, when these sciences became only parts of a whole system of instruction, which demanded in addition a knowledge of philosophy, scholastic theology, civil and canon law, medicine, natural history, and the Semitic languages, no one person was equal to the undertaking. The Rector fell back from the position of a teacher to that of a governor ; and the instruction was divided among a board of Doctors, each of whom represented a special province in Science. This is the origin of Deans of Faculties ; and, inasmuch as they undertook among themselves one of those departments of academical duty, which the Chancellor or Rector had hitherto ful- filled, they naturally became his Council. In some places the Proctors of the Nations were added. Thus, jn Vienna the Council consisted of the Four Deans of Faculties, and the Four Proctors. 1 60 Schools of Charlemagne. As Nations preceded Faculties, we may suppose that Degrees, which arc naturally connected with the latter, either did not enter into the original provisions of a University, or had not the same meaning as afterwards. And this seems to have been the case. At first they were only testimonials that a resident was fit to take part in the public teaching of the place ; and hence, in the Oxford forms sti 1 observed, the Vice- Chancellor admits the person taking a degree to the " lectio " of certain books. Degrees would not at that time be con- sidered mere honours or testimonials, to be enjoyed by persons who at once left the University and mixed in the world. The University would only confer them for its own purposes ; and to its own subjects, for the sake of its own subjects. It would claim nothing for them external to its own limits ; and, if so, only used a power obviously connate with its own existence. But of course the recognition of a University by the State, not to say by othdr Universities, would change the import of de- grees, and, since such recognition has commonly been granted from the first, degrees have seldom been only what they were in their original idea ; but the formal words by which they are denoted, still preserve its memory. As students on taking degrees are admitted " legere et disputare," so are they called " Magistri," that i.s, of the schools ; and " Doctors," that is, teachers, or in some places " Professors," as the letters S.T.P. show, used instead of D.D. It will be observed that the respective distributions into Faculties and into Nations are cross-divisions. An- other cross-division, on which I shall not now enter, is into Colleges and Halls. I conclude by enumerating the characteristic dis- tinctions, laid down by Bula;us, between the public or Paris. ' i6i grammar schools founded by Charlemagne, and the Universities into which eventually some of them grew, or, as he would say, which Charlemagne also founded. First, he says, they differ from each other ratione dis- ciplincz. The Scholae Minores only taught the Trivium (viz., Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric,) and the Quadrivium, {viz., Geometry, Astronomy, Arithmetic, and Music,) the seven liberal Arts ; whereas the Scholae Majores added Medicine, Law, and Theology. Next, ratione loci ; for the Minores were many and everywhere, but the Majores only in great cities, and few in number. I have already remarked on the physical and social qualifications necessary for a place which is to become the seat of a great school of learning : Bulaeus observes, that the Muses were said to inhabit mountains, Parnassus or Helicon, spots high and healthy and secured against the perils of war, and that the Academy was a grove ; though of course he does not forget that the place must be accessible too, and in the highway of the world. " That the city of Paris," he says, " is ample in size, largely frequented, healthy and pleasant in site, there can be no doubt." ' Frederic the Second spoke the general sentiment, when he gave as a reason for establishing a University at Naples, the convenience of the sea coast and the fertility of the soil. We are informed by Matamorus, in his account of the Spanish Universities,* that Sala- manca was but the second site of its University, which was transferred thither from Palencia on account of the fertility of the neighbourhood, and the mildness of its climate. And Mr. Prescott speaks of Alcala being chosen by Cardinal Ximenes as the site for his celebrated foun- dations, because " the salubrity of the air, and the sober, tranquil complexion of the scenery, on the bea.utiful • Hispan. Illustr. t. 2, p. 8oi. II 1 62 Schools of Charlemagne. borders of the Henares, seemed well suited to academic study and meditation." The third difference between the greater and lesser schools lies ratione fundatorum. Popes, Emperors, and Kings, are the founders of Universities ; lesser authorities in Church and State are the founders of Colleges and Schools. Fourthly, ratione privilegiorum. The very notion of a University, I believe, is, that it is an institution of privi- lege. I think it is Bulaeus who says, " Studia Generalia cannot exist without privileges, any more than the body without the soul. And in this all writers on Universities agree." He reduces those privileges to two heads, " Patrocinium " and " Prsemium ; " and these, it is obvious, may be either of a civil or an ecclesiastical nature. There were formerly five Universities endowed with singular privileges : those of Rome, of Paris, of Bologna, of Oxford, and of Salamanca ; but Antony a Wood quotes an author who seems to substitute Padua for Rome in this list. Lastly, the greater and lesser schools differ ratione regiminis. The head of a College is one ; but a Uni- versity is a " respublica litteraria." i63 CHAPTER XIV. SUPPLY AND DEMAND : THE SCHOOLMEN. IT is most interesting- to observe how the foundations of the present intellectual greatness of Europe were laid, and most wonderful to think that they were ever laid at all. Let us consider how wide and how high is the platform of our knowledge at this day, and what openings in every direction are in progress, — openings of such promise, that, unless some convulsion of society takes place, even what we have attained, will in future times be nothing better than a poor beginning ; and then on the other hand, let us recollect that, seven centuries ago, putting aside revealed truths, Europe had little more than that poor knowledge, partial and uncertain, and at best only practical, which is conveyed to us by the senses. Even our first principles now are beyond the most daring conjectures then ; and what has been said so touchingly of Christian ideas as compared with pagan, is true in its way and degree of the progress of secular knowledge also in the seven centuries I have named. " What sages would have died to learn, [Is] taught by cottage dames." Nor is this the only point in which the revelations of science may be compared to the supernatural revelations 1 64 Supply and Demand. of Christianity. Though sacred truth was delivered once for all, and scientific discoveries are progressive, yet there is a great resemblance in the respective his- tories of Christianity and of Science. We are accus- tomed to point to the rise and spread of Christianity as a miraculous fact, and rightly so, on account of the weakness of its instruments, and the appalling weight and multiplicity of the obstacles which confronted it, To clear away those obstacles was to move mountains ; yet this was done by a few poor, obscure, unbefriended men, and their poor, obscure, unbefriended followers. No social movement can come up to this marvel, which is singular and archetypical, certainly ; it is a divine work, and we soon cease to admire it in order to adore. But there is more in it than its own greatness to con- template ; it is so great as to be prolific of greatness. Those whom it has created, its children who have be- come such by a supernatural power, have imitated, in their own acts, the dispensation which made them what they were ; and, though they have not carried out works simply miraculous, yet they have done exploits sufficient to bespeak their own unearthly origin, and the new powers which had come into the world. The re- vival of letters by the energy of Christian ecclesiastics ■ and laymen, when everything had to be done, reminds us of the birth of Christianity itself, as far as a work of man can resemble a work of God. Two characteristics, as I have already had occasion to say, are generally found to attend the history of Science: — first, its instruments have an innate force, and can dispense with foreign assistance in their work ; and secondly, these instruments must exist and must begin to act, before subjects are found who are to profit by their action. In plainer language, the teacher is strong, not The Schoolmen. 165 in the patronage of great men, but in the intrinsic value and attraction of what he has to communicate ; and next, he must come forward and advertise himself, before he can gain hearers. This I have expressed before, in say- ing that a great school of learning lived in demand and supply, and that the supply must be before the demand. Now, what is this but the very history of the preaching of the Gospel } who but the Apostles and Evangelists went out to the ends of the earth without patron, or friend, or other external advantage which could insure their success .'' and again, who among the multitude they enlightened, would have called for their aid unless they had gone to that multitude first, and offered to it bless- ings which up to that moment it had not heard of? They had no commission, they had no invitation, from man ; their strength lay neither in their being sent, nor in their being sent for ; but in the circumstances that they had that with them, a divine message, which they knew would at once, when it was uttered, thrill through the hearts of those to whom they spoke, and make for themselves friends in any place, strangers and outcasts as they were when they first came. They appealed to the secret wants and aspirations of human nature, to its laden conscience,'its weariness, its desolateness, and its sense of the true and the divine ; nor did they long wait for listeners and disciples, when they announced the remedy of evils which were so real. Something like this were the first stages of the process by which in medieval Christendom the structure of our present intellectual elevation was carried forward. Ftom Rome as from a centre, as the Apostles from Jerusalem, went forth the missionaries of knowledge, passing to and fro all over Europe ; and, as metropolitan sees were the record of the presence of Apostles, so did Paris, Pavia, 1 66 Supply and Demand. and Bologna, and Padua, and Ferrara, Pisa and Naples, Vienna, Louvain, and Oxford, rise into Universities at the voice of the theologian or the philosopher. Moreover, as the Apostles went through labours untold, by sea and land, in their charity to souls ; so, if robbers, shipwrecks, bad lodging, and scanty fare are trials of zeal, such trials were encountered without hesitation by the martyrs and confessors of science. And as Evangelists had grounded their teaching upon the longing for happiness natural to man, so did these securely rest their cause on the natural thirst for knowledge : and again as the preachers of Gospel peace had often to bewail the ruin which perse- cution or dissension had brought upon their flourishing colonies, so also did the professors of science often find or flee the ravages of sword or pestilence in those places, which they themselves perhaps in former times had made the seats of religious, honourable, and useful learn- ing. And lastly, as kings and nobles have fortified and advanced the interests of the Christian faith without being necessary to it, so in like manner we may enu- merate with honour Charlemagne, Alfred, Henry the First of England, Joan of Navarre, and many others, as patrons of the schools of learning, without being obliged to allow that those schools could not have progressed without such countenance. These are some of the points of resemblance between the propagation of Christian truth and the revival of letters ; and, to return to the two points, to which I have , particularly drawn attention, the University Professor's confidence in his own powers, and his taking the initiative in the exercise of them, I find both these distinctly re- cognized by Mr. Hallam in his history of Literature. As to the latter point, he says, " The schools of Charlemagne were designed to lay the basis of a learned education, The Schoolmen. 167 for which there was at that time no sufficient desire " : — that is, the supply was prior to the demand. As to the former: "In the twelfth century," he says, "the im- petuosity with which men rushed to that source of what they deemed wisdom, the great University of Paris, did not depend upon academical privileges or eleemosynary stipends, though these were undoubtedly very effectual in keeping it up. The University created patrons, and was not created by them ": — that is, demand and supply were all in all. A story of the age of Charlemagne will serve in illustration. We are told that two wandering Irish students were brought by British traders to the coast of France. There, observing the eagerness with which those hawkers of perishable merchandize were sur- rounded by the populace, they imitated them by crying out, " Who wants wisdom ? here is wisdom on sale ! this is the store for wisdom ! " till a sensation was created, and they were sent for and taken into favour by the great Emperor. The professors of Greece and Rome, though pursuing the same course, had an easy time of it, compared with the duties, which, at least in the earlier periods or in certain localities, fell upon the medieval missionaries of knowledge. The pagan teachers might indeed be told to quit the city, whither they had come, on their outrag- ing its religious sentiments or arousing its political jealousy ; but still they were received as superior beings by the persons in immediate contact with them, and what they lost in one place they regained in another. On the contrary, as the cloister alone gave birth to the revivers of knowledge, so the cloister alone prepared them for their work. There was nothing selfish in their aim, nothing cowardly in their mode of operation. It was 1 68 Supply and Demand. generosity which sent them out upon the pubhc stage ; it was ascetic practice which prepared them for it. Afterwards, indeed, they received the secular rewards of their exertions ; but even then the general character of the intellectual movement remained as before. " The Doctors," says Fleury in his Discourses, " being sure of finding in a certain town occupation with recompense for their labours, established themselves there of their own accord ; and students, in like manner, sure to find there good masters with all the commodities of life, assembled there in crowds from all parts, even from distant countries. Thus they came to Paris from England, from Germany and all the North, from Italy, from Spain." Bee, a poor monastery of Normandy, set up in the eleventh century by an illiterate soldier, who sought the cloister, soon attracted scholars to its dreary clime from Italy, and transmitted them to England. Lanfranc, after- wards Archbishop of Canterbury, was one of these, and he found the simple monks so necessitous, that he opened a school of logic to all comers, in order, says William of Malmesbury, " that he might support his needy monas- tery by the pay of the students." The same author adds, that " his reputation went into the most remote parts of the Latin world, and Bee became a great and famous Academy of letters." Here is an instance of a commencement without support, without scholars, in order to attract scholars, and in them to find support. William of Jumieges, too, bears witness to the effect, powerful, sudden, wide spreading, and various, of ' Lanfranc's advertisement of himself. The fame of Bee and Lanfranc, he says, quickly penetrated through the whole world ; and " clerks, the sons of dukes, the most esteemed masters of the Latin schools, powerful laymen, The Schoolmen. i6g high nobles, flocked to him." What words can more strikingly attest the enthusiastic character of the move- ment which he began, than to say that it carried away with it all classes ; rich as well as poor, laymen as well as ecclesiastics, those who were in that day in the habit of •despising letters, as well as those' who might wish to live by them ? It was about a century after Lanfrac that from this same monastery of Bee came forth another Abbot, and he another Lombard, to begin a second movement, in a new science, in these same northern regions, especially in England. This wis the celebrated Vacarius, or Bacalareus, who from the proximity of his birthplace to Bologna, seems to have gained that devotion to the study of the Law which he ultimately kindled in Oxford. Lanfranc had lectured in logic ; Vacarius lectured in law. Bologna, which is celebrated in history for its cultivation of this august science, was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, of Universities, as far as historical evidence is ,to decide the question. Its University was commenced a little later than the first years of the School of Bee ; and affords us an observable instance, first, of the self-origi- nating, independent character of the scientific movement, — then, of the influence and attraction it exerted on the people, — and lastly, of the incidental difficulties through which it slowly advanced in the course of many years to its completion. There Irnerius, or Warner, according, to Muratori, is found at the end of the eleventh century, and opened a school of civil law. In the next century canon law was added; in the first years of the thir- teenth, the school of grammar and lite;;ature; and a few years later, those of theology and medicine. Fifty years ' later, it had ten thousand students under its teaching, numbers of whom had cor across sea and 1 70 Supply and Demand. mountain from England; so strong and encompassing was the sentiment. And as Englishmen at that time sought Italy, so in turn, I say, did Vacarius a native of Italy, seek England. Selden completes the parallel between him and Lanfranc, by making him Archbishop of Canterbury, after which he retired again to Bee. However, to England he came, and to Oxford ; and there, he effected a revolution in the studies of the place, and that on the special ground of the definite drift and direct usefulness of the science in which he was a proficient. As in the case of Lanfranc, not one class of persons, but "rich and. poor," says Wood, " gathered around him." The professors of Arts were thrown into the shade. Their alarm was increased by the rival zeal with which the medical science was prosecuted, and the aspect of things got in course of years so threatening, that the Holy See was obliged to interfere. If knowledge is power, it also may be honour and wealth ; hence the couplet, expressive of the feeling of the day, " Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores, Sed Genus et Species, cogitur ire pedes. " , • It was indeed the Faculty of Arts which constituted the staple, as it may be called, of a University ; Arts, as seems to be commonly allowed, constituted a Univer- sity ; and by Arts are understood the studies comprised in the Trivium and Quadrivium, that is, (as I have said before). Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and IVIusic. These were in- herited from the ancient world, and were the foundation of the system which was then in course of formation. But the life of Universities lay in the new sciences, not indeed superseding, but presupposing Arts, viz., those of The Schoolmen. lyr Theology, Law, Medicine, and in subordination to them, of Metaphysics, Natural History, and the languages. I have been speaking of the law movement, as it may be called ; now, about the same time that Vacarius came to Oxford, Robert Pullus or Pulleyne came thither too from Exeter, just about the time of St. Anselm, and gave the same sort of impulse to biblical learning, which Vacarius gave to law. " From his teaching," says the Osney Chronicle, "the Church both in England and in France gained great profit." Leland says, that he lectured daily, " and left no stone unturned to make the British youth flourish in the sacred tongues." " Multitudes " are said to have come to hear him, and his fame, spread to Rome, whither Pope Innocent the Second sent for him. Celestine the Second made him a Cardinal, and Lucius the Second his Chancellor. He was an intimate friend of St. Bernard's, and his influence extended to Cambridge as well as to Paris. At Cambridge the intellectual movement had already commenced, and with similar phenomena in its course. These points, indeed, are so enveloped in obscurity, and- on the other hand have so intimate a bearing on the sensi- bilities, now as keen as ever, of rival schools, that I, who look on philosophically, a member neither of Cambridge nor of Oxford nor of Paris, " turba:ntibus aequora ventis," find it necessary to state that, in what I shall say, I am determining nothing to the prejudice of the antiquity or precedence of any of those seats of learning. I take the account given us by Peter of Blois, merely as a specimen of the way in which the present fabric of knowledge was founded and reared, as a picture in miniature of the great medieval revival, whatever becomes of its historical truth. As a mere legend, it is sufficient for my pur- pose; for historical legends and fictions are made ac- 172 Supply and Demand. cording to what is probable, and after the pattern of precedents. The author, then, to whom I have referred, says, that Jeoffred, or Goisfred, had studied at Orleans ; thence he came to Lincolnshire, and became Abbot of Croyland ; I whence he sent to his manor of Cotenham, near Cam- / bridge, four of his French fellow-students and monks, / one of them to be Professor of sacred learning, the rest / teachers in Philosophy, in which they were excellently I versed. At Cambridge they hired a common barn, and \ opened it as a School of the high Sciences. They i taught daily. By the second year the number of hearers was so great, from town and country, " that not the biggest house and barn that was," says Wood, " nor any church whatsoever, sufficed to hold them." .They accordingly divided off into several schools, and began an arrangement of classes, some of which are enumerated. " Betimes in the morning, brother Odo, a very good grammarian and satirical poet, read grammar to the boys, and those of the younger sort, according to the doctrine of Priscian ;" at one o'clock "a most acute and subtle Sophist taught the elder sort of young men Aristotle's Logic;" at three o'clock, "brother William read a lecture on Tully's Rhetoric and Quintilian's Flores ;" — such was the beginning of the University of Cambridge. And " Master Gislebert upon every Sun- day and Holyday, preached the Word of God to the people;" — such was the beginning of its University Church. It will be observed, that in these accounts. Scripture comment is insisted on, and little or nothing is said of Theology, properly so called. Indeed, it was not till the next (the thirteenth) century, that Theology took that place, which Law assumed about a century before The Schoolmen. 1 73 it. Then it was that the Friars, especially the Domini- cans, were doing as much for Theology, as Irnerius, Vacarius, and the Bolognese Professors did for Law. They raised it (if I may so speak of what is divine) to the dignity of a science. " They had such a succinct and delightful method," says Wood, speaking of them at Oxford, " in the whole course of their discipline, quite in a manner different from the sophistical way of the Academicians, that thereby they did not only draw to them the Benedictines and Carthusians, to be some- times their constant auditors, but also the Friars of St. Augustine." Here we have another exemplification of the same ' great principles of the movement which we have noticed elsewhere ; its teachers came from afar, and they de- pended, not on kings and great men for their support, but on the enthusiasm they created. "The reputation of the school of Paris," says Fleury, " increased consider- ably at the commencement of the twelfth century under William of Champeaux and his disciples at St. Victor's. At the same time Peter Abelard came thither and taught them with great eclat the humanities and the AristoteHc philosophy. Alberic of Rheims taught there also ; and Peter Lombard, Hildebert, Robert Pullus, the Abbot Rupert, and Hugh of St. Victor ; Albertus Magnus also, and the Angelic Doctor." How few of these pro- fessors at Paris were fellow-countrymen ! Albert was from Germany, St. Thomas from Naples, Peter Lom- bard from Novara, Robert Pullus from Exeter in Eng- land. The case had been the same three centuries before in the same great school. Charlemagne brought Peter of Pisa from Pavia for Grammar ; Alcuin from England for Rhetoric and Logic ; Theodore and Bene- dict from Rome for Music ; John of Melrose, who was *y 174 Supply and Demand. afterwards at the head of the schools at Pavia, and Claudius Clemens, two Scots, from Ireland. Ireland, indeed, contributed a multitude of teachers to the con- tinental schools, and the more, because, great as was the fame of its earlier schools, it had now no University of its own. The names of its professors have not commonly been preserved, though Erigena and Scotus by their very titles show their origin : but we find that, when the Emperor Frederick the Second would set up the University of Naples, he sent all the way to Ireland for the learned Peter to be its first Rector ; and an author, quoted in Bulaeus, speaks of " the whole of Ireland, with its family of philosophers, despising the dangers of the sea," and migrating to the south. Such was the famous Richard of St. Victor, whose very title marks his connexion with the great school of Paris. There is a force in the words, " despising the dangers of the sea." We in this degenerate age sometimes shrink from the passage between Holyhead and Kings- town, when duty calls for it ; yet before steam-boats, almost before seaworthy vessels, we find those zealous scholars, both Irish and English, voluntarily exposing themselves to the winds and waves, from their desire of imparting and acquiring knowledge. Not content with one teacher, they went from place to place, according as in each there was preeminence in a par- ticular branch of knowledge. We have in St. Atha- nasius's life of St. Antony a beautiful account of the diligence with which the young hermit went about " like the bee," as his great biographer says, in quest of superiority in various kinds of virtue. From one holy man, he says (I quote from memory), the youth gained courtesy and grace, from another gentleness, from another mortification, from another humility; and in The Schoolmen. 175 a similar way did the knights errant of science go about, seeking indeed sometimes rivals to encounter, but more frequently patterns and instructors to follow. As then the legendary St. George or St. Denys wandered from place to place to achieve feats of heroism, as St. Antony or Sulpicius Severus went about on pilgrimage to holy hermits, as St. Gregory Nazianzen visited Greece, or St. Jerome traversed Europe, and became, the one the most accomplished theologian, the other the first Biblical scholar of his age, so did the medieval Doctors and Masters go the round of Universities in order to get the best instruction in every school. The famous John of Salisbury (as Mr. Sharon Turner tells us) went to Paris for the lectures of Abelard just on the death of Henry the First, and with him he studied logic. Then for dialectics he went to Alberic and to the English Robert for two years. Then for three years to William de Concilia for grammar; afterwards to Richard Bishop for a renewed study of grammar and logic, going on to the Quadrivium ; and to the German Harduin. Next he restudied rhetoric, which he had learned from Theodoric, and more completely from Father Elias. Meanwhile, he supported himself by teaching the children of noble persons, and became inti- mate with Adam, an Englishman, a stout Aristotelian, and returned to logic with William of Spissons and Gilbert. Lastly, he studied theology with Robert Pulleyne or PuUus, already mentioned, and Simon de Poissy. Thus he passed as many as twelve years. Better instances, however, than his, as introducing a wider extent of travel, are those already referred to, of St. Thomas, or Vacarius, or Lanfranc, or St. Anselm, or John of Melrose. The ordinary course of study, however, lay between 176 Supply and Demand. the schools of Paris and Oxford', in which was almost centered the talent of the age, and which were united by the most intimate connexion. Happy age, whatever its other inconveniences, happy so far as this, that religion and science were then a bond of union, till the ambition of monarchs and the rivalry of race dissolved it! Wood gives us a list of thirty-two Oxford professors of name, who in their respective times went to teach in Paris, among whom were Alexander Hales, and the admirable St. Edmund, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, — St. Edmund, who, as St. Anselm and St. Thomas, shows us how sanctity is not inconsistent with preeminence in the schools. On the other hand, Bulaeus recites the names of men, even greater, viewed as a body, who went from Oxford to Paris, not to teach, but to be taught ; such as St. Thomas of Canterbury, St. Richard, St. Gilbert of Sempringham, Giraldus Cambrensis, Gilbert the Uni- versal, Haimo, Richard de Barry, Nicholas Breakspeare, afterwards Pope, Nekam, Morley, and Galfredus de Vin- salfe. So intimate, or to use the word, so thick were Paris and Oxford at this time, as to give occasion to this couplet, " Et procul et propius jam Francus et Anglicus seque, Norunt Parisiis quid feceris, Oxoniseque." And this continued till the time of Edward the Third, when came the wretched French wars and the Lol- lards, and then adieu to familiar intercourse down to this day. I have not found the number of students in Paris; but from what I have said, one is led to expect two things of it, first, that it would be very great, next, that it would be very variable : and these inferences are confirmed by what is told us of the numbers at Oxford. In that Uni- The Schoolmen. 177 varsity we read of Scotch, Irish, Welsh, French, Spanish, German, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Polish Students ; and, when it is considered, as a modern writer tells us, that they would bring with them, or require for their uses, a number of dependents in addition, such as parch- ment-preparers, bookbinders, stationers, apothecaries, surgeons, and laundresses, it maybe understood that the whole number of matriculated persons was sometimes even marvellous, and as fluctuating in a long period as excessive at particular dates. We are told that there were in Oxford in 1209 three thousand members of the University, in 1231 thirty thousand, in 1263 fifteen thousand, in 1350 between three and four thousand, and in 1360 six thousand. This ebbing and flowing, more- over, suggests what it is all along very much to my pur- pose to observe, and on which, if I have the opportunity, I shall have more to say presently ; first, that the zeal for study and knowledge is sufficient indeed in itself for the being of a University ; but secondly, that it is not sufficient for its well being, or what is technically called its integrity. The era of the French wars, which put an end to this free intercourse of France and England, seems for various reasons to have been the beginning of a decline in the ecumenical greatness of Universities. They lost some advantages, they gained others ; they became national bodies ; they gained much in the way of good order and in comfort ; they became rich and honourable establish- ments. Each age has its own character and its own wants : and we trust that in each a loving Providence shapes the institutions of the Church as they may best subserve the objects for which she has been sent into the world. We cannot tell exactly what the Catholic Uni- versity ought to be at this era ; doubtless neither the 12 178 Supply and Demand. University of Scotus, nor that of Gerson, in matters-of detail ; but, if we keep great principles before us, and feel our way carefully, and ask guidance from above for every step we take, we may trust to be able to serve the cause of truth in our day arid according to our measure, and in that way which is most expedient and most profit- able, as our betters did in ages past and gone. 179 CHAPTER XV. PROFESSORS AND TUTORS. I MAY seem in the foregoing Chapter to have relapsed into the tone of thought which, created some surprise when I was speaking of Athens and the Sophists ; and my good friend - Richard, the Epicurean, may be upon me again, for my worship, as he will con- sider it, of the intellect, and my advocacy of the Profes- sorial System. This is an additional call on me to go forward with my subject, if I can do so without wearying the reader. I say " without wearying," for I beg to assure him, if he has not already found it out for himself, that it is very difficult for any one to discuss points of ancient usage or national peculiarity, as I am doing, and to escape the dry, dull tone of an antiquarian. This is so acknowledged an inconvenience, that every now and then you find an author attempting to evade it by turn- ing his book of learned research into a novel or a poem. I will say nothing of Thajaba or Kehama, though the various learning displayed in the notes appended to those pleasing fables, certainly suggests the idea, that the poetry may have grown out of the notes, instead of the notes being the illustration of the poetry. However, I believe it is undoubted, that Morier converted his un- saleable quarto on Persia into his amusing, Hadji Baba ; while Palgrave has poured out his. medieval erudition by the channels of Friar Bacon and. Marco Polo, and Bekker i8o Professors and Tutors. has insinuated archeology in the persons of Charicles and Gallus. Were I to attempt to do the same, whether for the grouping of facts or the relief of abstract discus- sion, I have reason to believe I should not displease men of great authority and judgment ; but for success in such an undertaking there would be demanded a very consi- derable stock of details, and no small ability in bringing them to bear on principles, and working them up into a narrative. On the whole, then, I prefer to avail myself, both as counsel and as comfort, of the proverb, " Si gravis, brevis ; " and to make it a point, that, weary as my reader may be, he shall not have time to go to sleep. And to-day especially, since I mean to be particularly heavy in the line of abstract discussion, J mean also to be particularly short. I purpose, then, to state here what is the obvious safe- guard of a University from the evils to which it, is liable if left to itself, or what may be called, to use the philo- sophical term, its integrity. By the "integrity" of any- thing is meant a gift superadded to its nature, without which that nature is indeed complete, and can act, and fulfil its end, but does not find itself, if I may use the ex- pression, in easy circumstances. It is in fact very much what easy circumstances are in relation to human happi- ness. This reminds me of Aristotle's account of happiness, which is an instance in point. -He specifies two conditions, which are required for its integrity ; it is indeed a state of mind, and in its nature independent of externals, yet he goes on (inconsistently we might say, till we make the distinction I am pointing out), he goes on, I say, after lay- ing down that " man's chief good is an energy of the soul according to virtue," to add, "besides this, throughout the greater part of life, — for, as neither one swallow, nor one day, makes a spring, so neither does one day, nor a short Professors and Tutors. 1 8 1 time, make a man blessed and happy." Here then is one condition, which in some sense may be said to fall under the notion of " integrity ;" but, whether this be so or not, a second condition, which he proceeds to mention, seems altogether to answer to it. After repeating that " happi- ness is the best and most noble and most delightful of energies according to virtue," he adds : " at the same time it seems to stand in need of external goods, for it is im- possible, or at least not easy, to perform praiseworthy actions without external means, for many things are per- formed, as it were by instruments, by friends, and wealth, and political power. But men deprived of some things, as of noble birth, fine progeny, a fine form, have a flaw in their happiness ; for he is not altogether capable of happiness, who is deformed in his body, or of mean birth, or deserted and childless ; and still less so, perhaps, if he have vicious children, or if they were dear and dutiful, ,and have died. Therefore it seems to demand such prosperity as this ; whence some arrange good fortune in the same class with happiness ; but others virtue." This then is how we may settle the dispute which my Epicurean introduced, and which has been carried on at intervals in the British Universities for the last fifty years. It began in the pages of the Edinburgh Review, which at that time might in some sense be called the organ of the University of Edinburgh. Twenty years later, if my memory does not play me false, it was renewed in the same quarter ; then it was taken up at Cambridge, and lately it was going on briskly between some of the most able members of the University of Oxford. Now what has been the point of dispute between the combatants t This, — whether a University should be conducted on the system of Professors, or on the system of Colleges and College Tutors. By a College was understood something 1 82 Professors and Tutors, more than the Museum of Alexandria, or such corpora- tions among ourselves, as are established for Medicine, Surgery, Engineering, or Agriculture. It was taken to mean a place of residence for the University student, who would there find himself under the guidance and instruction of Superiors and Tutors, bound to attend to his personal interests, moral and intellectual. The party of the North and of progress have ever advocated the Professorial system, as it has been called, and have pointed in their own behalf to the practice of the middle ages and of modern Germany and France ; the party of the South and of prescription have ever stood up for the Tutorial or collegiate system, and have pointed to Protestant Oxford and Cambridge, where it has almost or altogether superseded the Professorial. Now I have on former occasions said enough to show that I am for both views at once, and think neither of them complete without the other. I admire the Professor, I venerate the College. The Professorial system fulfils the strict idea of a University, arid is sufficient for its being, but it is not sufficient for its well-being. Colleges constitute the integrity of a University. This view harmonizes with what I said in a former Chapter, about Influence and Law; for though Professors may be and have been utterly without personal weight and persuasiveness, and Colleges utterly forgetful of moral and religious discipline, still, taking a broad view of his- tory, we shall find that Colleges are to be accounted the maintainers of order, and Universities the centres of move- ment. It coincides, too, with what I have lately said in a Treatise on ' University Education,* in which a Studium Generalcls considered first in its own nature, then as it * Ciscourses on the Scope and'Natuie of University Edvication. Professors and Tutors. 183 exists within the pale of Catholicism. " It is," I there say, " a place of teaching universal knowledge. Such is a University in its essence and independently of its re- lation to the Church. But, practically speaking, it can- not fulfil its object duly without the Church's assistance, or the Church is necessary for its integrity ; not that its main characters are changed by this incorporation ; it still has the office of intellectual education ; but the Church steadies it in the performance of that office." I say this passage coincides with the statements I have been making, because Colleges are the direct and special instruments, which the Church uses in a University, for the attainment of her sacred objects, — as other passages of the same Volume incidentally teach. Let us then bring the real state of the case before our minds. A University is " a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter." Two or three learned men, with little or no means, make their way to some great city. They come with introductions to the Bishop, if there is no University there yet, and receive his sanction, or they get the necessary leave, and then on their own respon- sibility they open a school. They may, or they may not be priests ; but, any how, they are men of correct principles, in earnest, set on their work, and not careful of their own ease and interest. They do not mind where they lodge, or how they live, and their learning, zeal, and eloquence soon bring hearers to them, not only natives, but strangers to the place, travelling thither from considerable distances, ©n the report of the teachers who have there congregated. If the professors have but scanty means, the pupils have not more abundant ; and, in spite of their thirst for knowledge, whatever it may be, they cannot have the staidness and gravity of 1 84 Professors and Tutors. character, or the Self-command, which years, and expe- rience have given to their teachers. They have difficulty in finding food or lodging, and are thrown upon shifts, and upon the world, for both the one and the other. Now, it must be an extraordinary devotion to science which can save them from the consequences of a trial such as this. They lodge in garrets or cellars, or they share a room with others ; they mix with the inhabitants of the place, who, if not worse, at least will not be better than the run of mankind. A man must either be a saint or an enthusiast to be affected in no degree by the dis- advantages of such a mode of living. There are few people whose minds are not unsettled on being thrown out of habits of regularity ; few who do not suffer, when withdrawn from the eye of those who know them, or from the scrutiny of public opinion. How often does a religious community complain, on finding themselves in a new home, of the serious inconvenience, in a spiritual point of view, which attaches to the mere circumstance that they have not an habitation suited to the rule which they are bound to observe ! Without elbow room, without order, without tranquillity, they grieve to find that recollection and devotion have not fair play. What, then, will be the case with a number of youths of un- formed minds, so little weaned from the world that their very studies are perhaps the result of their ambi- tion, and who are under no definite obligation to be better than their neighbours-, only bound by that general Christian profession, which those neighbours share with them .'' The excitement of novelty or emulation does not last long ; and then the mind is commonly left a prey to its enemies, even when there is no disarrange- ment of daily life such as I have been describing. It is not to be expected that the Professor, whom they Professors and Tutors. 1 85 attend, necessitous himself, can exercise a control over such a set of pupils, even if he has any jurisdiction, or can bring his personal influence to bear upon any great number of them; or that he can see them beyond the hours in which the schools are open, or, indeed, can do much more than deliver lectures in their presence. It is certain then, that, in proportion to the popularity, whether of the Professor or the place itself, granting there will be numerous exceptions to the contrary, a mob of lawless youths will gradually be formed, after the pattern of the rioters whom Eunapius encountered and St. Basil escaped, at Athens. Nor will the state of things be substantially different, even if we suppose that, instead of the indigence I have described, the fre- quenters of the schools have a competency for their main- tenance ; much less, if they have superfluity of means. To these disorders, which are of certain occurrence, others may easily be added. A popular Professor will be carried away by his success, and, in proportion as his learning is profound, his talents ready, and his elo- cution attractive, will be in danger of falling into some extravagance of doctrine, or even of being betrayed into heresy. The teacher has his own perils, as well as the taught ; there are in his path such enemies as the pride of intellect, the aberrations of reasoning, and the intoxication of applause. The very advantages of his position are his temptation.. I have spoken in a former Chapter of the superiority of oral instruction to books, in the communication of knowledge ; the following passage from an able controversialist of the day, which is intended to illustrate that superiority, incidentally suggests to us also, that, first, the speaker may suffer from the popularity of his gift, and, then^ the hearer from its fjiscinatioiL. 1 85 Professors and Tutors. " While the type," he says, "is so admirable a contri- vance for perpetuating knowledge, it is certainly more expensive, and in some points of view less effective as a means of communication, than the lecture. The type is a poor substitute for the human voice. It has no means of arousing, moderating, and adjusting the attention. It has no emphasis except Italics, and this meagre nota- tion cannot finely graduate itself to the need of the occa- sion. It cannot in this way mark the heed which should be specially and chiefly given to peculiar passages or words. It has no variety of manner and intonation, to show by their changes how the words are to be accepted, or what comparative importance is to be attached to them. It has no natural music to take the ear, like the human voice ; it carries with it no human eye to range, and to rivet the student when on the verge of truancy, and to command his intellectual activity by an appeal to the courtesies of life. Half the symbolism of a living language is thus lost, when it is committed to paper ; and that symbolism is the very means by which the forces of the hearer's mind can be best economized or most pleasantly excited. The lecture, on the other hand, as delivered, possesses all these instruments to win, and hold, and harmonize attention ; and above all, it imparts to the whole teaching a human character, which the printed book can never supply. The Professor is the science or subject, vitalized and humanized in the student's presence. He sees him kindle into his subject ; he sees reflected and exhibited in him, his manner, and his ear- nestness, the general power of the science to engage, delight, and absorb a human intelligence. His natural sympathy and admiration attract or impel his tastes and feelings and wishes for the moment into the same cur- rents of feeling, and his mind is naturally and rapidly and Professors and Tutors, 187 insensibly strung and attuned to the strain af truth which is offered to him."* It needs not this elegant panegyric of an Oxford Professor to inform us of the influence which eloquence can exert over an audience ; I quote it -rather for its able analysis of that influence. I quote it, because it forcibly suggests to the mind how fitted the talent is, first to exalt the possessor in his own eyes, and then through him to mislead his hearers. I will cap it, if I may use the expression, with the following histories or legends of the thirteenth century ; — "Simon of Tournay, a famous Parisian doctor, one day proved in a lecture by such powerful arguments, the divinity of Christianity, that his school burst out into admiration of his ability. On this he cried out, ' Ha, good Jesus ; I could, if I chose, refute Thee quite as well' " The story goes on to say that he was instantly struck dumb. A disciple of Silo, a pro- fessor of theology, died ; after a while he returned to his master from the grave, invested in a cope of fire, inscribed all over with philosophical theses. A drop of his sweat fell upon the professor's hand, and burned it through. This cope lay on him as a punishment for intellectual pride." t Considerations such as this, are sufficiently suggestive of the dangers of the Professorial system ; it is obvious, however, to mention one additional evil. We are suppos- ing a vast influx and congregation of young men, their own masters, in a strange city, from countries various, of different traditions, politics, and manners, and which have often been at war with each other. And they have come to attend lecturers, whom they are to choose out of a number of able men, themselves of various countries * Professor Vaughan f Vide F"". Dalgaims's article in the British Critic, Jan. 1843. 1 88 Professors and Tutors. , and characters too. Some of these professors are their own countrymen respectively, others are not ; and all of them are more or less in rivalry one with another, so far as their department of teaching is the same. They will have their respective gatherings, their respective hostili- ties ; many will puff them, many run them down ; their countrymen, for the sake of "la belle France," or ''merry England," will range themselves on their side, and fight in their behalf. Squabbles, conflicts, feuds, will be the consequence ; the peace of the University will be broken, the houses will be besieged, the streets will be impassable. Accustomed to brawls with each other, they are not likely to be peaceable with any third party ; they will find themselves a match for the authority of Chancellor and Rector ; nor will they scruple at compromising them- selves with the law, or even with the government ; nay, with the Church, if her authorities come in their way ; with the townspeople of course — a sort of ready-made opponent. The bells of St. Mary's and St. Martin's will ring ; out will rush from their quarters the academic youth ; and the smart blackguard of the city, and the stout peasant from the neighbourhood, will answer to the challenge. The worse organized is a country, the greater of course will be the disorder ; intolerable of course in the middle ages ; in times such as these, the magistracy or police would to a very considerable extent keep under such manifestations ; yet, in Germany, we are told that at least duels and party skirmishes are not uncommon, and even within the very home and citadel of Order, town-and-gown rows are not yet matters of history in the English Universities. Now, I have said quite enough for the purpose of showing that, taking human nature as it. is, the thirst of knowledge and the opportunity of quenching it, though 'Professors and Tutors. 189 these be the real Hfe of a great school of philosophy and science, will not be sufficient in fact for its establishment ; that they will not work to their ultimate end, which is the attainment and propagation of truth, unless sur- rounded by influences of a different sort, which have no pretension indeed to be the essence of a University, but are conservative of that essence. The Church does not think much of any "wisdom," which is not " desiirsum" that is, revealed ; nor unless, as the Apostle proceeds, it is " primum quidem pudica, deinde pacifica." These may be called the three vital principles of the Christian student, faith, chastity, love ; because their contraries, viz., unbelief or heresy, impurity, and enmity, are just the three great sins against God, ourselves, and our neigh- bour, which are the death of the soul : — now, these are also just the three imputations which I have been bring- ing against the incidental action of what may be called the Professorial system. And lastly, obvious as are the deficiencies of that system, as obvious surely is its remedy, as far as human nature admits of one. I have been saying that regularity, rule, respect for others, the eye of friends and acquaintances, the absence from temptation, external restraints generally, are of first importance in protecting us against ourselves. When a boy leaves his home, when a peasant leaves his country, his faith and morals are in great danger, both be- cause he is in the world, and also because he is among strangers. The remedy, then, of the perils which a University presents to the student, is to create within it homes, " altera Trojae Pergama," such as those, or better than those, which he has left behind. Small commu- nities must be set up within its precincts, where his better thoughts will find countenance, and his good resolutions I go Professors and Tutors. support; where his waywardness will be restrained, his heedlessness forewarned, and his prospective deviations anticipated. Here, too, his diligence will be steadily- stimulated ; he will be kept up to. his aim ; his progress will be ascertained, and his week's work, like a labourer's, measured. It is not easy for a young man to determine for himself whether he has mastered what he has been taught ;. a careful catechetical training, and a jealous scrutiny into his piower of expressing himself and of turning his knowledge to account, will be necessary, if he is really to profit from the able Professors whom he is attending ; and all this he will gain from the College Tutor. Moreover, it has always been considered the wisdom of lawgivers and founders, to find a safe outlet for natural impulses and sentiments, which are sure to be found in their subjects, and which are hurtful only in excess ; and to direct, and moderate, and variously influence what they cannot extinguish. The story is familiarly told, when a politician was advocating violently repressive measures upon some national crisis, of a dissentient friend who was present, proceeding to fasten down the hd of the kettle, which was hissing on his fire, and tO' stop up its spout. Here, in like manner, the subdivision of the members of a University, while it breaks up the larger combination of parties, and makes them more manageable, answers also the purposes of providing a safe channel for national, or provincial, or political feeling, and for a rivalry which is wholesome when it is not inordinate. These small so- cieties, pitted, as it were, one against another, give scope to the exertion of an honourable emulation ; and this, while it is a stimulus on the literary exertions of their respective members, is changed from a personal and self- ish feeling, into a desire for the reputation of the body. Professors and Tutors. 1 9 r Patriotic sentiment, too^ here finds its home ; one college has a preponderance of members from one race or district, another from another; the "Nations" no longer fight on the academic scene, like the elements in chaos ; they are submitted to a salutary organization ; and the love of country, without being less intense, becomes purer, and more civilized, and more religious. My object at present is not to prove what I have been saying, either by argument or from history, but to suggest views to the reader which he will pursue for himself It may be said that small bodies may fall into a state of decay or irregularity, as well as large. It is true ; but that is not the question ; but whether in themselves smaller bodies of students are not easier to manage on the long run, than large ones. I should not like to do either, but, if I must choose between the two, I would rather drive four-in-hand, than the fifty wild cows which were harnessed to the travelling wagon of the Tartars. 192 CHAPTER XVI. THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF UNIVERSITIES. ABELARD. WE can have few more apposite illustrations of at once the strength and weakness of what may be called the University principle, of what it can do and what it cannot, of its power to collect students, and its impotence to preserve and edify them, than the history of the celebrated Abelard. His name is closely associated with the commencement of the University of Paris ; and in his popularity and in his reverses, in the criticisms of John of Salisbury on his method, and the protest of St. Bernard against his teaching, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what a University professes in its essence, and what it needs for its " integrity." It is not to be supposed, that I am prepared to show this here, as fully as it might be shown ; but it is a subject so pertinent to the general object of these Essays, that it may be useful to devote even a few pages to it. The oracles of Divine Truth, as time gQes on, do but repeat the _ one message from above which they have ever uttered, since the tongues of fire attested the coming of the Paraclete ; still, as time goes on, they utter it with greater force and precision, under diverse forms, with fuller luminousness, and a richer ministration of thought, statement, and argument. They meet the varying wants, and encounter the special resistance of each successive Abelard. 1 93 age ; and, though prescient of coming errors and their remedjr long before, they cautiously reserve their new enunciation of the old Truth, till it is imperatively de- manded. And, as it happens in kings' cabinets, that surmises arise, and rumours spread, of what is said in council, and is in course of preparation, and secrets per- haps get wind, true in substance or in direction, though distorted in detail ; so too, before the Church speaks, one or other of her forward children speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate to a certain point what she is about to say or enjoin, he states it incorrectly, makes it error instead of truth, and risks his own faith in the process. Indeed, this is actually one source, or rather concomitant, of heresy, the presence of some misshapen, huge, and gro- tesque foreshadow of true statements which are to come. » Speaking under correction, I would apply this remark to the heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which may be considered a reaction from existing errors, and an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore unsuccessful, to meet them with those divinely-appointed correctives which the Church alone can apply, and which she will actually apply, when the proper moment comes. The Gnostics boasted of their intellectual proficiency before the time of St. Irenseus, St. Athanasius, and St. Augustine ; yet, when these doctors made their appearance, I suppose they were examples of that knowledge, true and deep, which the Gnostics professed. ApoUinaris anticipated the work oT St Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and became a heresiarcli in consequence ; and, to come down to the present times, we may conceive that writers, who have impatiently fallen away from the Church, because she would not adopt their views, would have found, had they but trusted her, and waited, that she knew how to profit by them, though she never could have need to borrow 13 1 94 The Strength and Weakness of Universities. her enunciations from them ; for their writings contained, so to speak, truth in the ore, truth which they themselves had not the gift to disengage from its foreign con- comitants, and safely use, which she alone could use, which she would use in her destined hour, and which became their stone of stumbling simply because she did not use it faster. Now, applying this principle to the subject before us, I observe, that, supposing Abelard to be the first master of scholastic philosophy, as many seem to hold, we shall have still no difficulty in condemning the author, while we honour the work. To him is only the glory of spoiling by his own self-will what would have been done well and surely under the teaching and guid- ance of Infallible Authority. Nothing is more certain, than that some ideas are consistent with one another, and others inconsistent ; and, again, that every truth must be consistent with every other truth ; — hence, that all truths of whatever kind form into one large body of Truth, by virtue of the consistency between one truth and another, which is a connecting link running through them all. The science which discovers this connection, is logic ; and, as it discovers the connection when the truths are given, so, having one truth given and the connecting prin- ciple, it is able to go on to ascertain the other. Though all this is obvious, it was realized and acted on in the middle age with a distinctness unknown before ; all subjects of knowledge were viewed as parts of one vast system, each with its own place in it, and from knowing one, another was inferred. Not indeed always rightly inferred, because the, art might be less perfect than the science, the instrument than the theory and aim ; but I am speaking of the principle of the scholastic method, of which Saints and Doctors were the teachers ; — such Abelard. 1 95 I conceive it to be, and Abelard was the ill-fated logician who had a principal share in bringing it into operation. Others will consider the great St. Anselm and the school of Bee, as the proper source of Scholasticism ; I am not going to discuss the question ; any how, Abelard, and not St. Anselm, was the Professor at the University of Paris, and it is of Universities that I am speaking ; any how, Abelard illustrates the strength and the weak- ness of the principle of advertising and communicating knowledge for its own sake, which I have called the University principle, whether he is, or is not, the first of scholastic philosophers or scholastic theologians. And, though I could not speak of him at all without mentioning the subject of his teaching, yet, after all, it is of him and of his teaching itself, that I am going to speak, whatever that might be which he actually taught. Since Charlemagne's time the schools of Paris had continued, with various fortunes, faithful, as far as the age admitted, to the old learning, as other schools else- where, when, in the eleventh century, the famous school of Bee began to develop the powers of logic in forming a new philosophy. As the inductive method rose in Bacon, so did the logical in the medieval schoolmen ; arjd Aristotle, the most comprehensive intellect of Anti- quity, as the one who had conceived the sublime idea of mapping the whole field of knowledge, and subjecting all things to one profound analysis, became the presiding master in their lecture halls. It was at the end of the eleventh century that William of Champeaux founded the celebrated Abbey of St. Victor under the shadow of St. Genevieve, and by the dialectic methods which he introduced into his teaching, has a claim to have commenced the work of forming the University out of the Schools of Paris. For one at least, out of the two 196 The Strength and Weakness of Universities. characteristics of a University, he prepared the way ; for, though the schools were not pubHc till after his daiy, so as to admit laymen as well as clerks, and foreigners as well as natives of the place, yet the logical principle of constructing all sciences into one, system, implied of course a recognition of all the sciences that are com- prehended in it. Of this William of Champeax, or de Campellis, Abelard was the pupil ; he had studied the dialectic art elsewhere, before he offered himself for his instructions ; and, in the course of two years, when as yet he had only reached the age of twenty-two, he made such progress, as to be capable of quarrelling with his master, and setting up a school for himself This school of Abelard was first situated in the royal castle of Melun ; then at Corbeil, which was nearer to. Paris, and where he attracted to himself a considerable number of hearers. His labours had an injurious effect upon his health ; and at length he withdrew for two years to his native Britanny. Whether other causes cooperated in this withdrawal, I think, is not known ; but, at the end of the two years, we find him returning to Paris, and renewing his attendance on the lectures of William, who was by this time a monk. Rhetoric was the subject of the lectures he now heard ; and after awhile the pupil repeated with greater force and success his former treatment of, his teacher. He held a public dis- putation with him, got the victory, and reduced him to silence. The school of William was deserted, and its master himself became an instance of the vicissitudes incident to that gladiatorial wisdom (as I may style it) which was then eclipsing the old Benedictine method of the. Seven Arts. After a time, Abelard found his repu- tation sufficient to warrant him in setting up a school himself on Mount St. Genevieve ; whence he waged Abelard. 1 97 incessant war against the unwearied logician, who by this time had rallied his forces to repel the young and ungrateful adventurer who had raised his hand against him. Great things are done by devotion to one idea ; there is one class of geniuses, who would never be what they are, could they grasp a second. The calm philosophical mind, which contemplates parts without ^ his suffragans were assessors with him ; or, thirdly, by means of the Bishop's court to whose diocese the accused party belonged, on report of Convocation. He consi- dered the first method to be attended by serious difh- culties : first, because the Convocation was a fcourt of final resort, which would interfere with an act of Elizabeth, vesting all ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Crown ; next, because there had been no such proceeding for the last one hundred years, during which time an Act had passed abolishing the High Commission and all like conxts here- after ; thirdly, because, in the statute annulling the writ "de haeretico comburendo," in Charles the Second's time, all established courts, and therefore that of Convo- cation, were made to give way to episcopal jurisdiction ; lastly, because the Upper House,' in 1689, had been ad- vised by counsel to leave such matters to other courts. He ended by recommending an address to her Majesty, praying her to refer the matter to the judges. This was done, and the judges were divided in opinion. Eight were in favour of the jurisdiction of the Convocation in such matters as by the laws of the realm were declared to be heresy, on the ground that an appeal to the Crown from all ecclesiastical courts was implied in the royal supremacy, whether expressly provided for in particular statute or not ; so that the Convocation might exercise its ancient and constitutional powers without incurring a breach of the act of Elizabeth. The other four judges considered that such judgments lay within the ordinary episcopal jurisdiction, and concurred in the apprehensions Tenison had expressed in his letter ; however, they allowed that heretical tenets and opinions might be examined and condemned in Convocation, without convening the authors or maintainers of them. Such a public judgment was accordingly passed in Convocation 25 386 The Convocation of Canterbury. upon Whiston's work, and all Christian people were warned against it ; it being thought prudent, in spite of the Queen's encouragement to them to .proceed judicially, to abstain from further measures. In 1 7 14, another lamentable occasion occurred for the Lower House to exert itself in maintenance of the orthodox faith. Dr. Samuel Clarke having published his " Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity," a work especially adapted to harass and confuse sensitive minds, they pre- sented an address to the Bishops, praying them to take the matter into consideration ; to which they added, at the Bishops' request, a list of objectionable passages in the work, arranged under distinct heads. The Upper House were unwilling to move in the matter, and pro- fessed themselves satisfied with a so-called submission, which Dr. Clarke was prevailed on (chiefly, it is said, by Smalridge,) to offer ; in which, without retracting any position he had published, he shut up his sentiments in an ambiguous form of words, and proposed to keep silence for the future. The most natural submission would have been for them to subscribe the Articles before the Convocation ; but Bishop Burnet had at that time great influence in the Upper House, and I have been told by a very learned person * (though he did not refer to his authority), that such was Burnet's relative regard for the Church and his Whig friends, that he wrote to dissuade Archdeacon Welchman from answering Clarke, on the ground of the embarrassment which such a pro- cedure would occasion to Protestant politics. This agrees with what we know of the conduct of the Govern- ment in the matter, before the publication of the offen- sive work ; when Godolphin and others of the Queen's ministers sent Clarke a message, to the import "that the * [I think it must have been Dr. Routh.] Views of the Lower House in opposing the Upper.2,^'] affairs of the public were with difficulty then kept in the hands of those who were at alj for liberty ; that it was therefore, an unseasonable time for the publication of a book which would make a great noise and disturbance ; and that, therefore, they desire him to forbear till a fitter opportunity should offer itself" Four years after the introduction of his name into the Convocation, he ven- tured on altering the Doxologies in the Psalm Books used for singing in St. James's parish, which brought upon him the animadversion of the Bishop of London. In 1 714, George the First succeeded to the throne, and the final suspension of the Convocation soon fol- lowed. George began his reign with an address to the Archbishops and Bishops on the subject of the " great differences" which had arisen "among some of the clergy of the realm, about their ways of expressing themselves in their sermons and writings concerning the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity," and of the " unusual liberties which had been taken by several of the said clergy in inter- meddling with the affairs of State and government, and the constitution of the realm ; " and, accordingly forbad them preaching either heterodoxy, or politics, except " in defence of the regal supremacy." The next year the Convocation was opened with a license to debate, being the third assembly which had been so favoured. This license was, so far, the result of a more liberal and enlarged policy towards the Church, than Burnet and his friends had advised previous to 1710. The subjects for consideration were (in addition to some of those already specified in former licenses) the preparing a form for consecrating churches and chapels, the better settling the qualifications of candidates for orders, the enforcing dis- cipline on the clergy, the providing more effectually for curates whose incumbents were non-residents, and the im- 388 The Convocation of Canterhiry. proving the catechetical instruction given prior to confir- mation. But the career of the Convocation was close on its termination. It soon came into collision with the ruling powers, on the subject of Hoadley's doctrines, and though truth was on the side of the clergy, the interest of the government was against them, and it was easy to see which way the contest would terminate. As early as 1705, the Lower House had ventured to attack a sermon of Hoadley's, as " containing positions contrary to the doctrine of the Church, expressed in the first and second parts of the Homily against disobedience or wilful re- bellion ; " but the Upper House suffered the matter to drop. In 1715-16, Hoadley was made Bishop of Bart- gor ; and, in the course of the following year, published his " Preservative " and Sermon, which gave rise to the famous Bangorian controversy. These writings were at once brought before the Lower House of Convocation who made a representation of them to the Bishops, on the grounds of their " tendency, first, to subvert all gov- ernment and discipline in the Church of Christ ; " nexjt, "to impugn and impeach the authority of the legislature to enforce obedience in matters of religion by civil sanc- tions." Before this representation could be taken into consideration by the Upper House, a special order come from the .King for the prorogation of the Convocation ; and from that time to this, it has only existed as a formal appendage to the first meetings of Parliament 389 + Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment. IT may be recollected that I proposed three questions for consideration on the subject of Convocation : — what was its real nature and history relatively to the Church ? what was the principle, and what the actual extent of the civil governor's jurisdiction over it and assumption of its powers ? and, thirdly, what was the place which the Lower House held in its constitution ? The last of these three has now been discussed, as, far as is necessary to illustrate the history of its suspension in the beginning of the eighteenth century. And for any other purpose, one may hope it ever will be unnecessary ; for it was (to say the least) a heavy calamity that members of the Lower House should have felt it their duty, from the circumstances of the times, to stand upon their rights against the authority of their Bishops. Not to dwell on the unbecoming appearance of such an opposition, it must be borne in mind that the privilege actually con- ceded on all hands to the Lower House, the Veto on the proceedings of the Upper, is in itself almost too liberal a grant of power for the episcopal principle ; and is only defensible (I suppose) on the ground of the size of the dioceses, ^nd the Crown's prerogative in the choice of Bishops. " Maximo enim," says Wilkins, " prae ahis nationibus presbyteri synodi Anglicanse fruuntur privi- legio in concilio provinciali, ut dissensus eorum universa domlis superioris decreta irrita reddere valeat." Having this Veto upon all proceedings of their superiors, surely VOL. 390 The Convocation of Canterbury. the clergy should have been satisfied. But perhaps those of them who had released themselves from their pledge of canonical obedience to their deprived Bishops, might consider lightly of the obligation which subjected them to those who had come into their place ; perhsTps, also, there was reasonable ground of jealousy as regards such as William's government had promoted. But, though much might have been said in their defence had they refused altogether to recognize the new prelates, one does not see the consistency of taking them for their rulers and then not submitting to them. But enough on this unpleasant subject. Now let us pass to the con- sideration of a second of the questions originally -pro- posed — viz., the nature and history of Convocation re- latively to the Church. And first a few words in state- ' meat of the controversy respecting it. Atterbury, Binckes, and their party, maintained, in the pamphlets mentioned in my first paper, that the Convo- cation was an essential part of the constitution, established by law, " by the same law as the gentleman receives his rent, or the member enjoys his privilege." When re- quired to produce the particular law which makes its assembling imperative on the sovereign, instead of its being (as the court party maintained) at his option, they allowed as much as this — viz., that his writ was abso- lutely necessary for its assembling, but they maintained, at the same time, that it was absolutely necessary that he should grant that writ, and that for two reasons : first, if the meeting of Convocation were a privilege or liberty of the English Church (which no one could deny), the King was by his coronation oath bound in two ways to issue his writ according to custom. For Magna Charta Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment, "^(^i (they argued), to which the King had sworn, pronounced "quod Ecclesia Anghcana libera sit, et habeat omnia jura et libertates illcesas ; " and again one especial part of the oath administered to him by the Archbishop, contained a promise on his part to " preserve to the Bishops and clergy of this realm, and to the churches committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them ; " so that, since the assembly of the clergy in Convocation was, beyond dispute, a privilege recognized by the law, no • particular law was necessary to bind the sovereign, who was bound ini a more solemn manner by his express oath, which the law imposed. Secondly, they maintained that their assembling was matter of constitutional right ; for the Convocation, they said, was a member or a necessary adjunct of Parliament; ■ so that, independently of law or promise, it could not constitutionally be abolished or suspended. They showed from history that from the earliest Saxon times the clergy had been summoned with the laity to the King's great Council ; that, as time went on, the mode of their assembling, from being indeterminate, became definite and regular ; then again, from circumstances, was varied ; and lastly became fixed in the particular form which had then for centuries been matter of usage ; that, on the other hand, during this process and ultimate settlement, the ordinary annual Church Synods gradually came into disuse, so that the Convocation, as then constituted, was the representative both of an important political privi- lege, and a- standing ecclesiastical ordinance of the Church ; that at first they met in one body with the Laity, or Parliament {as it is now called), afterwards separated from it, and then again themselves divided into two provincial Synods ; that this arrangement was 392 The Convocation of Canterbury. for awhile interrupted by a new writ from the King (the prcemunientes clause inserted into the Bishops' writ), summoning them to Parliament, which was a fresh evi- dence of their constitutional right, but that the former custom was again restored and had so continued to that day, the above-mentioned clause being still retained in the Bishops' writ, though not acted on, in token that their right remained where it was ; that under all these changes, under whatever irregularities of time, place, and form of meeting, the great rule obtained that they met in connexion with Parliament, as belonging to it, (closer or more detached, as the case might be,) but still as constitutionally annexed to it ; lastly, that since the Reformation the Convocation had invariably met with the Parliament and been dissolved with it, except in the solitary and extraordinary instance of 1640, when it sat after the Parliament was dissolved, and which no one would urge as a precedent, though after all, even as such, it only affected the question of the termination of Convocation, not of its assembling. They added, that anciently the same general appellation was given to both meetings, the Parliament being called a Wittena Gemote, the Convocation a Church Gemote, and that in various modern documents (besides the prcemunientes clause above noticed) the Parliament was said to include the clergy, as in a mandate of Bonner's, 1543, which has the words " prelati et clerus Prov. Cant, in pari," in a petition to the Pope in Henry the Eighth's time, speaking of the " milites et doctores in pari.," and in the phrase in the Sth of November Service, "the nobility, clergy, and commons of this land, then assembled in Parliament ; " this being the reason why a clergyman could not be a member of the House of Commons. They proceeded to argtie, that, if the Convocation was thus an adjunct to Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment. 2,'^Z the Parliament, the King's writ was but the formal instru- ment, necessary indeed (as a license of marriage may be), but not to be refused without leading to grave political consequences. The court party, on the other hand, granted that the clergy had this right to be summoned in Convocation, but they drew a distinction between assembling and con- ferring. They said that the clergy had nothing beyond a right to be summoned ; that a further license was necessary in order to their debating, and that they had ■no right to demand this ; that the utmost extent of their right did not go beyond that of framing petitions to King or Bishops when assembled under the primary writ. This ground of argument, which at first sight looks like , an evasion, was maintained, first by the fact that the Convocation had often in matter of fact met without debating ; next, by the received opinion of the Church in the century last past ; and further by the reason of the thing, the stated meetings of Convocation having been held for the purpose of granting subsidies . to the Crown, and the custom naturally coming to an end with its object. Accordingly it was professed that the Con- vocation had now become only an occasional assembly to provide for especial busmess, and that old precedents were sufficiently consulted by the King's formally con- vening them, though without suffering them to debate. To this it was replied, that the same reasons which made the granting the writ for assembling a right of the clergy, made the license for debate a right also ; but if not, then the Convocation did not, in matter of fact, supply the place of ecclesiastical Synod, and thus it be- came necessary to fall back upon the elementary and essential rights and duties of the Church, and to resume those canonical meetings which had only been suspended 394 The Convocation of Canterbury. from a wish to adjust the principles of the Church to the particular civil polity in which it had been incorpo- rated. This is an outline of the controversy, which turned upon this : — not whether the meetings of Convocation might be lawfully suspended, this no party maintained, but whether it had a right to debate as well as to as- semble, a right to demand a license as well as the writ. Atterbury, indeed, goes further than this in his view of its rights, denying in toto its need of any license for any act short of the positive enactment of a canon ; as if it might frame and pass any measure in the form of a canon, and present it for the royal assent, as a bill in Parliament. On a question of this nature materials of argument lie so widely and plentifully for either side, that it requires a mind practised in weighing evidence, and much careful attention, in order to form an opinion worth putting upon paper. So far I suppose is clear, that at the present day a valid precedent against its right " to be put into a condition to do business," (to use the phrase of Atterbury's party,) exists in the actual suspension of its debates during the last 120 years; though, to be sure, certain recent changes in the consti- tution of Parliament, seem to create an opposite prece- dent of a novel kind, in favour of insisting on inherent rights instead of custom and usage. Now for the history of Convocation. 2. The Diocesan Council is the simplest form of ecclesi- astical assembly, and that which, under the circumstances of the primitive Church, would first come into use. " That the Bishop of each diocese," says Wake, " has, by divine commission, a power of governing the Church of Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment. 395 Christ over which he is placed, and, in order thereunto, to call together the presbyters which minister under him, was the constant sense of all the ancient Councils and fathers of the Church." In our own Church these diocesan synods were held at first twice a year, but in process of time the direction of the Canon Law was followed, which made them only annual. At this stated assembly all beneficed clergy in the diocese were bound to appear, and the regulars also, except when any were exempted, as time went on,~^ from episcopal jurisdiction. If the diocese were small, and had but one archdeaconry, all the clergy met in one place ; otherwise they met by parties, the Bishop moving on from one archdeaconry to another. At these meet- ings the synodical inquiries were one part of the business, of which the ancient form still remains ; then the causes, — not only clergy, but laity, being at liberty to present complaints before the assembly; then the Bishop's charge, in which he communicated to the clergy the decisions, ii any, of the Provincial Council, and exhorted them to fulfil the ministry with which they were entrusted ; lastly, the Bishop's diocesan constitutions, if such there were, were read and agreed to by the Synod, and thenceforth became the law of the diocese, provided they were not contrary to any provincial canons. The mode of celebrating these synods was as follows : — the clergy in solemn procession came to the church where they we're to meet, at the day and hour appointed by the Bishop, and took their seats according to the date of their ordination. Then the deacons and laity (even women not excepted) were ad- mitted. The Bishop having entered, prayers were read ; and then the Bishop made an address introductory of the Synod. A sermon followed ; then the complaints were heard ; the diocesan constitutions were promulgated and 390 Xhe Convocation of Canterbury. passed, and the charge, with prayers, ended the meeting, which commorily lasted three or four days. It is easy to see that these Councils are continued to this day in the Bishop's periodical Visitation, which at any moment (were it expedient) might resume the form of a synodal meeting. They were held, as above described, down to the time of Henry the Eighth. The English Provincial Councils were as carefully conducted, after the pattern of the primitive Church. The Metropolitan summoned them, the business trans- acted related to the faith and discipline of the Church, and the members were the suffragan Bishops, to whom were sometimes added the heads of the regulars, abbots and the like ; parochial presbyters having no place -in them, by way of right, but, if summoned, summoned at the Archbishop's pleasure, and for some particular pur- pose. Here again we have the rudiments, perhaps the substance, of a Provincial Council left to us, (at least as far as political matters of debate are concerned,) in the private meetings of the Bishops in London during the Session of Parliament. So much for ecclesiastical meet- ings of the clergy ; now for civil. From early Saxon times the prelates of the Church, that is, bishops, abbots, deans, etc., were called to the great Council of the nation to assist in its deliberations, and especially to grant subsidies from the Church property for the use of the State ; it being then, as now, the stand- ing principle of the law of England, that no persons could be taxed without their own consent or that of their representatives. In Saxon times the Church lands were taxed for the three objects of castles, bridges, and expe- ditions. William the Conqueror changed their tenure, and laid the burden of a further service on them. The princes following increased these taxes. However, since Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment. -iyf^l they still reached only to a portion of the clergy, and a part only of the revenues of this portion, various methods were adopted to comprehend the general body. First, the Pope laid a tax upon the Church for the use of the King ; next, the Bishops,' on extraordinary occasions, obliged the clergy to grant a subsidy to the King by way of a benevolence, which was done by means of diocesan Councils, the clergy empowering therein, first their respective Bishops, then their archdeacons, then proctors of their own, to act for them. Thus matters stood till about the reign of Edward the First, who determined to put them on a securer basis for the interests of the Crown. Accordingly, in 1281, he, of his own authority, bade the two Archbishops .call a Council for raising subsidies "coram rege in par- liamento." The superior clergy, alarmed at the conse- quences of a first step in an infringement upon their rights, refused to obey the summons ; and the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, to meet the wishes of both parties, thanged the place of meeting so as to discon- nect it with the Parliament, while he obtained the grant of the subsidy previously by means of diocesan Councils. This was the first instance of the inferior clergy being summoned to Parliament. Twelve years afterwards, Edward made a new and more systematic attempt. On summoning his Parliament, he inserted a new clause in the writs issued to the Bishops and prelates, ^Vhich has since been called, from its first word, \kiQ. prcemuni- entes clause, by which he required them to cite such of their inferior clergy to his Parliament as he therein speci- fied, who were to act for the whole body. Here then a general representation of the clergy was introduced into the National Council, and may be called, after Wake in his learned work, (from which, with the assistance of 39^ The Convocation of Canterbury. Wilkins's Concilia, this account is compiled,) the Parlia- mentary Convention of the Clergy. From that time down to the present day (unless any change has been made since the date of Wake's book [1703]) the clergy have always been summoned to the Parliament, and accounted one of the three estates of the realm. This writ of prcBiniifiientes has been acted upon, since the Reformation, in the church of York, at the end of Henry the Eighth's reign ; in the church of Norwich, in Elizabeth's ; in Lichfield, at the end of James the First's; in Lincoln, by the authority of Laud, 1640; and, according to Burnet, by several bishops in 1701.* Nothing more was done in the reign of our first - Edward; but in that of his grandson the clergy resisted. They resolved they would not grant subsidies to the King except in provincial Councils, both as disliking the attendance in Parliament, and as hoping in this way to have more libertj' in refusing or lessening the burdens which the King's necessities put upon them. Edward was obliged to give way, and allow these provincial meetings instead of parliamentary ; securing, however, their stated meeting, first, by continuing in terrorem the prcemunientes clause in his parliamentary writ to the Bishops ; and next, by the periodical issue of a, second writ to the Archbishop, formally bidding him to summon them for the purpose of voting subsidies. This is what is now called the Convocation of the Province, the nature of which will Easily be gathered from what has been said. It is a kind of provincial Council, assembled (i) on the King's writ, (2) simultaneously in both provinces, (3) for civil, not spiritual purposes, (4) composed, not merely of • Wilkins (p. 11, vol. i. ) seems to say that the form of the prfumunientes was disused after the Restoration. On the other hand vide Wake, passim, e.g. Author, p. 253, and Burnet's History, vol. iii. pp. 389 — 395. Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment. t^(^(^ Bishops and prelates, but of representatives of the body of the ckrgy ; (5) commonly held with a reference to the time of the meeting of Parliament : — But vve must go somewhat more into particulars here, both as to the persons of whom the Convocation consists, and the matters which have come under its cognizance. As to its members, since a money-vote was the object of the meeting, it necessarily consisted of representatives of the whole clergy. This system of representation had been begun in the Legantine Councils, first held, by the Pope's authority, in 1070, with the object of taxing the clergy, in which the regulars were represented by their abbots, etc., and the chapters by their deans, and after- wards by representatives chosen by themselves. The same system obtained in the Convocation. Before the date of its institution, the archdeacon is supposed to have been the original representative of the parochial clergy, in the occasional tax-meetings; but he was pre- sent in it in his own right, two proctors being added by election of the clergy of each diocese to support their interests. The members of the Convocation remain the same to this day, (subtracting the abbots and other pre- lates of the regulars who are extinct,) viz., the bishops, deans, archdeacons, proctors for the chapters, and proctors for the clergy, the Archbishop of the province being president. It should be added, that they gra- dually formed themselves into several more or less standing committees, — of, for instance, regulars, and of seculars, and of deans and archdeacons, under the Bishops, and then at last into two permanent Houses, which has been the constitutional form of the Convocation from a period earlier than the Reforma- tion ; but on this subject I have already spoken at length. 400 yy^g Convocation of Canterbury. As to the subjects debated in the Convocation, though the King's demand of a subsidy was the direct object of their meeting, yet it was natural that other matters of debate should be brought before it. Money-votes have commonly been used as a fit introduction of grievances ; a statement of these and petitions for redress were ac- cordingly added to the addresses, in which they con- veyed to their sovereign intelligence of the grants which they had made him ; and here it was impossible to draw the line between temporal and spiritual matters. Fur- ther, a meeting of the clergy was evidently a fit oppor- tunity for discussing and deciding among themselves pure ecclesiastical questions; so that a meeting which had been called as a mere Convocation, was continued in the shape of a provincial Synod, the inferior clergy, of course, .falling back into that subordinate rank which would be fitted to the change in the matter of their deliberations, and, by so doing, preparing the way for the formation of a Lower House. Thus, by degrees, ecclesiastical 'matters were altogether drawn into the Convocation, and the provincial Synod fell into disuse. This was the condition of the Church, as regards her greater Councils, in which the Reformation found her. At the commencement of it was passed, in Convocation, the famous Act of Submission, to which allusion has been made above, and of which I shall now give the history. 3- Henry VHI., of unblessed memory, was determined, as Wake says, to " tie up the hands of the clergy, that they might be unable to oppose his designs." With this end he contrived to involve them all in a pj-ceniuuire, which lay against them for appearing in Wolsey's Synods Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment. \0\ legantine unauthorized by the Crown, or for appearing and making suit in Wolsey's courts, as it is variously represented. Wolsey had been in such full possession of Henry's favour, that to have resisted him would have been to provoke the King's anger. He had been made legate with the King's knowledge, and held, besides, the great seal ; and, when he put his commands on the clergy to appear before him, it was not for them to ask, or at least they neglected to ask, whether he, the keeper of the great seal, had an express license under that seal for what he commanded. However, by this mistake in a matter of form, they incurred the loss of liberty and estate ; and Henry made use of this their difficulty to effect his purposes against the Church. He refused to pardon them unless they paid him ;^ 100,000, and recog- nized him as her supreme Head. After some negotia- tion they submitted, and passed an Act in Convocation, which was afterwards carried through Parliament, by which the liberties of the Church (as far as they can be lost) were lost for ever. They bound themselves by it, first, not to meet in Convocation, without his authority ; and next, lest, when he had called them together (as he was obliged to do, from time to time, in order to obtain their vote of subsidies) they should proceed to act syno- dically in ecclesiastical matters, they promised henceforth only to act according to his directions, — in other words, not to attempt or 'make any canons or'constitutions pro- vincial without the royal license to make and promulge the same. This latter provision of the Act is the point of debate between Wake and Atterbury ; in what follows I have sided with Wake, as having the general judgment of the seventeenth century in his favour. The negotiations were of the following kind : — First of all, the Commons complained to the King " that they 26 402 The Convocation of Canterbury. (the clergy) made sanctions and laws of temporal things, not having nor requiring the King's royal assent to the same laws so by them made." The clergy answered, that " they had this power of God, and could not submit it to his authority ; that their authority of making laws was grounded upon the scripture of God, and determi- nation of the Holy Church ; and, as concerning the re- quiring of the King's assent to the authorizing of such laws as had been made by their predecessors, or should be made by themselves, they doubted not but that the King knew that to depend not upon their will and liberty, who might not submit the execution of their charges and duty, certainly prescribed by-God, to his assent." They added, however, some vague promise of being guided by the King's wish in their decisions. This answer (as may be supposed) not satisfying King and Commons, new forms were drawn up, and fresh debates held, how they were to compound the matter with the King, yet give up as little as might be. First, they gave up the power oi publishing canons without the King's license, reserving to themselves the power of makiitg them. But here they made several important limitations ; first, the canons spoken of must relate to the laity ; next, they must not concern faith or good manners, and the reformatio?! and correction of sin ; next, though they went so far as to offer, that they would not enact, promulge, or execute any constitutions in future, unless with his license, still this promise was limited, in the Lower House, to the King's lifetime. These admissions did not satisfy Henry, and he drew up a form himself for them, in which the clergy were to bind themselves, first, never hereafter to meet in synod without the King's writ ; and next, being assembled by it, never to proceed by virtue of authority of their own, or to make, Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment. 403 promulge, and execute canons, without the royal license previously obtained. This promise, after some discus- sion and alteration, was passed, by Convocation, in the following form : — " We, your most humble subjects, daily orators and beadsmen of your clergy of England, having our special trust and confidence in your most excellent wisdom, your princely goodness, and fervent zeal to the promotion of God's honour and Christian religion, and also in your learning, far exceeding, in ourjudgment, the learning of all other kings and princes that we have read of, and doubting nothing but that the same shall still continue and daily increase in your majesty, first, do offer and promise, in verba sacerdotii,\\s.xQ. unto your highness, submitting ourselves most humbly to the same, that we will never from henceforth enact, put in use, promulge, or execute any new canons, or constitution provincial, or any new ordinance provincial or synodal in our Convocation or synod in time coming, (which Con- vocation is always, hath been, and must be assembled only by your high commandment or writ,) unless your Highness, by your royal assent, shall license us to as- semble our Convocation, and to make, promulge, and execute such constitutions and ordinances as shall be made in the same, and thereto give your royal assent and authority," etc. It will be observed, that this submission of the clergy, ample as it is, does not go the length of binding, the successors of the clergy making it, and it seems to limit itself to the very monarch to whom it was made, by speaking of his personal qualities and endowments ; moreover, it was recalled in Convocation, in Mary's time, and never renewed. However, it became the sub- ject of an Act of Parliament in Henry's, and afterwards in Elizabeth's reign, and with a stronger- wording, by that 4^4 The Convocatioti of Canterbury. Act (with the penalty oi prcemunire to enforce it) are the clergy at present bound. Thus stood the relations between Church and State till 1664, the Church being willing to remain in a subjec- tion which the King never abused to her spiritual detri- ment. On the Restoration, a change was silently made by Sheldon and Clarendon, which was scarcely favour- able to her interests. It will be observed, that the sole remaining safeguard which she possessed against the tyranny of the State, was the power of granting subsi- dies, which gave her a hold of some sort over the earthly masters she had taken to her, " when the Lord was her king." This power gave to Convocation importance, and eventually prevented any attempt at suppressing it. At the era in question, the clergy, impoverished by the recent troubles, felt severely the weight of the subsidies required of them, and perceived (as was really the case) that they paid for their privilege by contributing to the State in a larger proportion than other subjects. An arrangement was agreed upon, in spite of a protest from Heylin against it, between the Bishops and the Commons, by which two subsidies, which the clergy had just voted, v/ere' remitted to them, while, on the other hand, they were sub silcntio, and, without formal statute, compre- hended in the wording of the money-bills passed in Parliament. The first public Act on this subject was a Tax Act of 1665 (16-17 Car. II. cap. i), which includes the clergy, discharging them from subsidies, with a saving clause as to their right of taxing themselves, which has never since been exercised. The clergy, on the other hand, soon acknowledged the arrangement by exercising the right of voting in the elections of the Commons, which before was forbidden them, as now it is foi'bidden peers of Parliament. Burnet speaks of this Its relation to the Ecclesiastical Establishment. 405 right, as generally admitted, in a pamphlet, published as early as 1700, and it is assumed in two subsequent Acts of Parliament, 10 Anne, cap. 23, and 18 George II., cap. 18. "Gibson, Bishop of London," observes Speaker Onslow (in a note contained in the last Oxford edition of Burnet's History), " told me that this (the taxing out of Convocation) was the greatest alteration in the constitu- tion ever made without an express law." It is remark- able that (according to Warburton) the clergy had as silently both become and ceased to be an estate in Parliament 300 or 400 years before. The Church soon began to feel the alarming position in which she had allowed herself to be placed. In 1675, and then in 1677, addresses from the Lords were pre- sented to the throne, praying for the frequent meetings of the Convocation, which (as Mr. Hallam justly observes) probably proceeded from the Bishops, and shows their dissatisfaction with the existihg state of things. They were not allowed, however, to feel or express their regrets for any long time. The Revolution which soon followed, " glorious " as it has ever been considered in its political effects, was fatal to the remaining liberties of the Church. William completed what Henry had begun. Nine of her Bishops were sentenced to deposition by a prince who had just ceased to be a Presbyterian, and its Con- vocation shortly after expired, except as a matter of form, while endeavouring to raise its voice against the doctrines of Hoadley. 4o6 5- Relation of Convocation to the Crown. THE third and last question I proposed to consider relative to the Convocation was as to the civil governor's de facto and de jure power over it; a large subject indeed, requiring a depth of thought and an accuracy of historical knowledge which cannot be ex- pected in such papers as I am presenting to the reader. , Asking then his indulgence for all defects in my mode of handling it, I will, in return, give him more in one respect than I engaged to do — viz., some account of the State's power over the English Church generally, not merely over the Convocation. To this undertaking I now address myself, and shall so bring my papers to an end. I. The King's power over the Church is popularly con- veyed in the title " Head of the Church," which has become a familiar phrase. It is a title, however, unknown 'as I believe) to the Law at present, having been assumed by Henry, but abandoned by Elizabeth. This would not be worth noticing, except that it is usual, with many persons, to assume it is of authority, and to proceed to deduce conclusions from it ; for instance, " the King is head of the Church, and therefore he may alter the liturgy ;" whereas it is but a generalized term, the sign and symbol of certain defined and specific prerogatives which belong to him, such as the power of appointing KeLation of Lonvocation to the Lroivn. 407 bishops. It is not correct to say, " The King appoints the bishops because he is head of the Church ; " rather, he is head of the Church because he appoints the bishops, etc. The simplest answer to such confused statements is to draw attention to the parallel supremacy of the King in civil matters. Fie is head of the State; yet no one dreams that he may therefore interfere with the constitutional rights of its separate members and functionaries. With this caution, however, the title of Head will express the relation of the King to the Church, better, perhaps, than any other. The recognized constitutional title, and that which comes nearest to it, is " Supreme Governor ; '' but this, as we shall directly see, neither includes of necessity his appointment of the bishops, in which he commonly is said to act as the representative of the laity, nor his extensive church patronage, which is held on the same tenure with other patrons, though it is so great as to be virtually a constituent portion of his power. The very vagueness of the term Head is its recommendation. I confine myself here, however, to the consideration of the supremacy , which is a supremacy of jurisdiction. The King is supposed to call the Church into being, that is, to develop that member of it existing in his own dominions, which is only in posse till he makes it actual ; and, therefore, he claims to have authority over all its movements. In the 26 Henry VIII., the King is said to have " power to visit, repress, reform, order, etc., all such errors, heresies, abuses, etc., which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought to be visited ; " and, in 37 Henry VIII., that ecclesiastical persons, such as archbishops, have " no manner of jurisdiction ecclesi- astical, but by, under, and from him, to whom, by Holy Scripture, all authority and power is wholly given to 408 Xhe Convocation of Canterbury. hear and determine all manner of causes ecclesiastical, and to correct vice and sin whatsoever." This power is claimed in more accurate language in the instrument under which Cranmer exercised his episcopate in Edward's time, as given in Burnet's His- tory. (Part ii., book i, Records.) In this document, the King declares that "omnis juris dicendi auctoritas atque etiam jurisdictio omnimodo, tum ilia qiiae ecclesiastica dicitur, quam ssecularis, i regia potestate, velut a supremo tapite ac omnium magistratuum infra regnum nostrum fonte et scaturigine, primitus emanaverit." This being a general account of the Supremacy, let us consider it under the two heads of executive and juri- dical. I. Executive ; and here I shall confine myself to the King's acts from Henry's time to the accession of the Hanoverians, not, however, professing to do more than approximate to a complete list of them. (l) Henry's first act of pure Supremacy was in 1536. In all that went before he had had the concurrence of the Convocations ; but, at this time, Cromwell published injunctions about Religion in his name, Cranmer (as it is believed) being the writer of them. These enforced upon all incumbents the reading in church of a declaration against the Pope, and in behalf of the King's Supremacy, confirmed the Articles lately set forth by the Convocation, forbade the superstitious use of relics, etc., and gave sun- dry directions relative to education, charities, temporal!-, ties, etc. Shortly before this, Henry had given orders for the translation of the Bible, but this was at the petition of the Convocation. A more remarkable proceeding of the same year, though still with the sanction of the Con- iK.eiaiion oj L.onvocatton to tfie L.row7i. 409 vocation, was his interfering in the drawing- up and correction of the Articles of Rehgion, published at that time. (2) Fresh injunctions were issued out in the King's name in 1538, calling -upon the parochial clergy to pro- vide their churches with the English Bible, to instruct their people in the true Gospel, to remove images which had been abused by superstition, to observe holydays and their eves according to the directions set forth, to omit the: commemoration of St. Thomas of Canter- bury, etc. (3) In 1539, the King bade the House of Lords appoint a committee of Bishops for framing Articles of Religion. Eight were nominated in consequence, but could not agree. Upon this, six articles were proposed and carried in the House by the Duke of Norfolk, thence passed through the Commons, and lastly received the royal assent, without the Convocation being consulted in the matter, and the Archbishop voting in opposition. (4) In 1540, a committee of divines was appointed by the King, and confirmed in Parliament, to draw up a declaration of the Christian faith, for the necessary erudi- tion of a Christian man. Some time afterwards, the King prefixed to their Report, which took the shape of a book, a Declaration requiring all his people to read and impress upon their minds the doctrine contained in it. In the same year, another commission of Bishops was appointed to examine the rites and ceremonies of the Church, and to draw up a ritual of worship. (5) In 1542, the examination of the English version of the Bible, which had begun in Convocation, was taken out of its hands by the King, and committed to-the two Universities. And, in 1544, he gave orders for the trans- lation of the prayers for processions and litanies into 4IO - The Convocation of Canterbury. English, and sent directions to Cranmer to see to its use all over his province. (6) Edward the Sixth's reign commenced with a general ecclesiastical visitation, which, during its con- tinuance, suspended all episcopal jurisdiction throughout England. Tlie majority of the commissioners appointed were laymen. Homilies were drawn up and published for general use, and preachers attended the visitors on the same authority. (7) In the second year of Edward, a committee of select 'Bishops and divines was appointed for reforming the sacred offices ; and the result of their labours was passed through Parliament. And thus the Ordina- tion Service was drawn up by a committee of Bishops and divines, named by the King, at the instance of an Act of Parliament. And several years after, a new Catechism was set forth for the use of schoolmasters by the King's letters patent. (8) Elizabeth put forth injunctions, in 1559, on the subject of supremacy, superstition, simony, and the like. She also re-enacted the Book of Common Prayer, which, in Mary's reign, had been discarded ; doing this without authority of Convocation. (9) In the reign of James the First, the conference at Hampton Court, the order for the new translation of the Bible, and the proclamation about sports and recreations, were all acts of the King, without the formal sanction of the Church. (10) Such, moreover, were Charles the First's direc- tions to preachers about the Arminian points. And in the same spirit were that religious King's instructions to Archbishops Abbot and Laud, and Laud's annual report of his province, in consequence. (i i) Charlesthe Second, in 1661, granted a commission Relation of Convocation to the Crown. 411 to a number of Bishops and clergy to review the Book of Common Prayer, which was the occasion of the Savoy Conference. In the next year, he published his directions against seditious, predestinarian, and irregular sermons, and in behalf of the due observance of the Lord's day. (12) William, in 1689, during Sancroft's suspension, addressed a letter to the Bishop of London, calling upon the Bishops to be careful in their examination of candi- dates for Orders, and exhorting the clergy to be diligent in their duties, and earnest in enforcing" the social vir- tues. Several years after, he published injunctions con- cerning ordinations, residence, pluralities, public prayers, the Lord's day, etc., and, soon after, directions concern- ing preaching on the doctrine of the Trinity. (13) Lastly, George the First published, like William, directions on the subject last mentioned, and in main- tenance of the King's power. (14) It should be added that the four State Services are imposed on authority of the King, not of the Church. Now, before summing up the prerogatives contained in this list of precedents, I would observe that some of them have been actually superseded by subsequent precedents of an opposite nature ; for instance. Articles of Religion, which were first imposed by Henry's command, were, in the reign of Elizabeth, regularly passed in Convocation. This was an acknowledgment of the Church's right, and of the informality of Henry's proceedings, while it is a final precedent, and settles the point, for all future times. Again, the liturgy, which, in Elizabeth's time, was im- posed by Act of Parliament, was sanctioned in Convo- cation at the Restoration ; which would not have been done, had not the Church's consent been necessary. In like manner, the Canons of 1603, passed in Convocation, take the place of the irregular State Injunctions of the 4^2 7]^g Convocation of Canterbury. preceding century. And the High Commission Court, which was the organ of the most exceptionable exercise of the King's power — viz., that of Visitation independent of ecclesiastical functionaries, and even in the -case of heresy, etc. — was abolished in Charles the Second's reign. As to the violent act of William, by which nine bishops, including the primate, were marked for deprivation, (a sentence which was executed on all who survived to endure it,) I have not noticed it, because it is evidently a mere part of the Revolution itself, which has always been confessedly considered to be an extreme case, and such as ought never to be cited as a precedent for future acts of usurpation. The prerogatives which remain (even supposing the above acts valid as precedents) are as follows : — i. That of appointing commissions of divines for diverse purposes, for instance, translating scriptures, compiling a liturgy, and framing articles of faith ; 2. Of sending directions to the clergy on the matter of their sermons, whether doctrinal or ecclesiastical ; 3. Of appointing State prayers ; 4. Of addressing the people, through the clergy, on various subjects ; as, for instance, the royal Supremacy, educa- tion, charities, temporalities, ceremonies, and holydays. To these powers must be added, the most important prerogative, 5. Of appointing the Bishops; and thus the account of the executive power of the King over the Church will be complete. 3- 2. Next, as to his juridical power. It is this which is more formally called his Supremacy, consisting chiefly in his presidency in all spiritual courts, and his jurisdic- tion over Convocation. And here, in order to explain the province and limits of this prerogative, it will be Relation of Convocation to the Crown. 413 necessary to give some account of the principle on which the Supremacy over the Church is granted to him. It is plain that, though our ecclesiastical system is based upon invisible sanctions, it can scarcely be realized in any country without permission from the civil power. The Apostles, indeed, to show their immediate commis- sion from above, asked no earthly aid ; and, indeed, because there was no chance of obtaining it, for St. Paul was not backward to avail himself of his existing privi- lege of Roman citizenship on fit occasions. It is certain all attempts to gain the civil power would have been un- availing, at first ; and Christians were obliged, by gain- ing influence and credit in the world, to show that they were worthy of State protection, befbre they obtained it. As soon as the chance of recognition on the part of the State appeared, they were not slow to apply for it '; and by the middle of the third century they had, on one occasion, employed the Roman power in the defence of their temporalities. This was, in a certain way, acknow- ledging the State's interference in Church matters ; for such a patronage necessarily implied, as its practical correlative, a certain claim of jurisdiction. This, then, is the principle which was publicly avowed and established at the era of the Reformation — the duty of the Church to ask leave of the State (where it could obtain it) to perform its functions, and its protection by the State, ■ and its subjection to the State, thence resulting. The essential parts of the Church system are few ; its elementary functions may be discharged this way or that, according to circumstances. The exact influence of the laity in elections, synods, etc., the form, times, and circumstances of synods, the size of dioceses, the character or the adoption of monastic institutions, 4^4 TJie Convocation of Canterbury. chapters, and the hke, the celibacy or non-celibacy of the clergy — all these, being but developments of the essential Church element, may well vary according to the country in which that element is found. In other words, the State has practically the power of calling out into existence, this way or that way, the latent energies of the apostolical ministry ; and so far forth as it does so call them out, so far as it recognizes, protects, privileges them by Law, in the same degree does it claim a juris- diction and superintendence over its own work. Such, for instance, in England are the Spiritual Courts, in which the King presides ; such, in a measure, is Convocation, over which he has kept his hand ; such the temporali- ties of the Sees, which, converting the episcopate into "the high state of prelacy," may be supposed to give him the right of appointing the Bishops. The essence itself of the Church, the Apostolical element, as it may be called, is not in his power ; the ministry of the Word and Sacraments is given to those only whom God especially calls. The developments, again, of this are not necessarily in his power. The Church may not choose to mould itself precisely after the State's design ; while its institutions are unrecognized by Law, they re- main apostolical, but as soon as it determines that they shall assume that particular mould to which the State has annexed protection and support, at once they become of a semi-civil nature, or what are commonly called (in the language of the Constitution) spiritual. To illustrate what I mean, the King has power over the Convocation, which is a "spiritual" court and assembly; I conceive he has none over the provincial or diocesan Synod, as being (I suppose) an institution unknown to the Law. Were the Archbishop to hold a metropolitan Council, its decisions indeed would not possess the sanction of civil Relation of Convocation to the Crown. 415 authority, but at the same time the civil power would have no jurisdiction over it. This, at least, will do to illustrate an important distinction. The King has juris- diction over the Church only so far as he may be sup- posed to have called its system into existence and actually sustains it. And if he has a recognized influence upon it, con- sidered merely as the magistrate well disposed towards it, much more really is he its governor, considered as a Christian prince. In this light he is the father of his subjects, a natural priest ordained of God ; and, as the head of a family is bound to superintend the instruction of his children and servants, so the King has a sort of patriarchal power over the Bishops and clergy. This power is beautifully illustrated in those reports of Laud to King Charles, with the latter's notes upon them, of which I have already spoken ; and it will justify, in some sort, many of those injunctions, directions, and the like, of Henry, Elizabeth, or William, — -which most nearly resemble encroachments, upon proper Church authority. But, after all, the distinction above drawn between apos- tolical and mere "spiritual" or "ecclesiastical" functions holds throughout. 4- Our history sanctions this view of the subject, which I have deduced from the nature of the case ; as I now proceed to show : — In the first place, I refer to the very instrument above spoken of, in which Edward claims ecclesiastical juris- diction ; for it explicitly professes, at the same time, to bestow on Cranmer something additional to his apos- tolical power, " per [praeter] et ultra ea qu£ tibi ex sacris Uteris divinitus commissa esse dignoscuntur." To the same purpose is the " Declaration made of the function 4 1 6 Xhe Convocatiofi of Canterbury. and divine institution of Bishops and Priests " (Burnet's History., part i, addenda v.), subscribed by Cromwell, Henry's minister in ecclesiastical matters, by Cranmer, the Archbishop of York, eleven other bishops, and others; in which the power of the keys and other Church functions are formally separated from the civil jurisdiction, tliat is, the apostolical from the spiritual power; and such also the judgment of eight bishops, of whom Cranmer is the first, concerning the King's Supremacy (Record x.), in which it is asserted that the Church's commission is founded, not on princes' power, but on the Word of God, while they confess that that divine commission does not impart civil power over princes, or make the Church independent of them in civil matters, but that she is in the same position towards the State as Christ was on earth, a subject yet with supernatural powers.. In further explanation, it may be observed, that Bonner took out the same commission for his bishopric from Henry as Cranmer did from Edward, clearly showing (from the concession of a Romanist) that it was merely a com- mission for exercising jurisdiction, parallel to the license which the dissenter, at this day, purchases to exercise the privilege of preaching. Further, the nature of the King's Supremacy is ex- plained in our 37th Article, (which, be it observed, is part of an Act of Parliament,) in a sense quite accordant to that which I have been unfolding, viz. — " that only prerogative which we see to have been given aliuajs to zW godly princes in holy scripture by God Himself," — viz., to rule all estates of men, and to use the civil sword. It is plain, from this account of the Supremacy, i, that it has no reference to the apostolical powers of the Church; for no one pretends, with the instances of Uzziah and Jeroboam before us, that the Jewish kings had right of Relation of Convocation to the Crown. 417 interfering with the priesthood ; 2, it is only granted to "godly," that is, Christian princes, though Henry, indeed, seemed to make it inherent in the kingly office. There can be no doubt, then, that the oath of Supremacy, in which we swear that the King is " supreme governor, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal," must be interrupted by this 37th Article, that is, as having no reference to our apostolical rights and powers. But the history of the beginning of Elizabeth's reign puts this matter in a still clearer light. The Act of Henry VHI., in which the title of "supreme head of the Church " was given to the sovereign, and which had been repealed by Mary, was not revived ; " supreme governor" being substituted for it, in the enactment of that oath which is observed to this day. "This was done," says Burnet (part 2, book iii.), " to mitigate the opposition of the popish party ; but, besides, the Queen herself had a scruple about it." Leslie, who refers to this passage, adds, (Case of the Regale,. p. 9,) " the same bishop in his travels, letter i. from Zurich, quotes a letter of Bishop Jewel's to Bullinger, dated May 22, 1559, wherein he writes 'that the Queen refused to be called Head of the Church,' and adds, 'that that title could not be justly given to any mortal. Moreover, it will be observed, that, the 37th Article refers to Elizabeth's Injunctions in explanation of its meaning. These clearly set before us the drift of the doctrine of the Supremacy, as it has been held in law ever since Elizabeth's time, whatever extravagant and im- pious notions Henry may at any time have entertained about it— viz., to secure the kingdom against foreign inter- ference, not to restrain home apostolical authority. "Then followed,"— I quote from Burnet, (part 2, book iii.)— " an explanation of the oath of Supremacy, in which the 27 4 1 8 The Convocation of Canterbury, Queen declared that she did not pretend to any authority for the ministering divine service in the Church, and that all that she challenged was, that which had at all times belonged to the imperial Crown of England, that she had the sovereignity and rule over all manner of persons under God, so that no foreign power had any rule over them" Indeed, this comment upon the sense of the words is inserted in the latter part of the oath itself. "Primate Usher," says Leslie, "gave the same ex- planation of it, in a speech at the council-table at Dublin, upon occasion of some magistrates there, who refused the said oath ; and King James sent him a letter of thanks and approbation of his speech, both which are in print. And none of our succeeding kings or parliaments have given any other explanation of it, or required that it should be taken in any other sense, but all along refer to these." Gibson might be quoted to the same effect. And, lastly, this is, in the main, Burnet's view, who cannot be accused of allowing too much independence to the Church. In a controversial pamphlet on the sub- ject of our Reformation, which he published in Holland, in 1688, he says^"It is a very unreasonable thing to urge some general expressions^' (alluding to the pream- bles introduced into some of the parliamentary Acts of Henry,) or some stretches of the royal Supremacy, and not to consider that more strict explanation that was made of it, both in King Henry the Eighth's time and under Queen Elizabeth. ... In King Henry's time, the extent of the King's Supremacy was defined in the Necessary Erudition of a Christian man, that was set forth as the standard of the doctrine of the time ; and it was upon this that all people were obliged to take their measures, not upon some expressions, either in Acts of Parliament or Acts of Convocation, nor upon some stretches of the King's juris- Relation of Convocation to the Crown. 419 diction. In this, then, it is plainly said, that with relation to the clergy the King is ' to oversee them, and cause that they execute their pastoral office truly and faithfully, and especially in those points which by Christ and His Apostles were committed to them.' " This is that patriarchal power which I have spoken of "And to this it is added, ' that Bishops and priests are bound to obey all the King's laws, not being contrary to the laws of God.' . . . The other reserve is also made of 'all that authority which was com7nitted by Christ and His Apostles to the Bishops and priests! And we are not ashamed to own it freely, that we see no other reserves upon our obedience to the King besides these. So that, these being here specified, there was an unexceptionable declaration made of the ^;tr/^«^ of the King's Supremacy. Yet, because the term ' Head of the Church' had some- thing in it that seemed harsh, there was yet a more express declaration made of this matter under Queen Elizabeth. . . . This explanation," [that is, that which is in our Articles,] "must be considered as the true measure of the king's Supremacy ; and the wide ex- pressions in the former laws must be understood to be restrained by this, since posterior laws derogate from those that were first made. . . . This is all that supre- macy which we are bound in conscience to own ; and if the letter of the law, or the stretches of that in the administration of it, have carried this further, we are not at all concerned in it. But in case any such thing were made out, it could amount to no more than this, that the civil power had made some encroachments on ecclesiastical authority ; but, the submitting to an oppression, and bearing it till some better times may deliver us from it, is no argument against our church ; on the contrary, it is a proof of our temper and patience" etc. 420 The Convocation of Canterbury. 5- To conclude ; it would seem, on the whole, that the Royal Supremacy may be viewed under the following aspects : — 1. As the prerogative of governing the Church exter- nally, that is, ruling all the members of it in civil matters, claiming their obedience, to the exclusion of all foreign jurisdiction ; and this is the prerogative of every govern- ment, as such, whether heathen or Christian. Vide Canon i, of 1603. 2. A prerogative of interfering in Church matters, " in ecclesiastical causes," appointing functionaries, di- recting usages, providing liturgies, etc., — which is only exercised by the King as Christian, and exercised on two grounds, first, because he allows the Church's jurisdic- tion in his kingdom, and creates "prelacy," authoritative courts, and the like ;. and nejct, because, by his patriar- chal power, he has a claim upon the confidence and devotion of the Church. Vide Canon 2, of 1603 ; agree- ably to which is the judgment of the Eight Bishops already referred to, which declares, that " in case the Bishops be negligent, it is the Christian prince's office to see them do their duty." 3. The King has not the power (i) of bestowing the ministerial commission, as is plain from Henry and Edward's words, in granting license to Bonner and Cranmer, "ultra ea quae tibi divinitus," etc,; (2) of ministering the sacraments, vide Art. 37; (3) of ex- communicating, vide the Declaration subscribed by Cromwell ; (4) of ministering the Word, (in which, of course, the making Articles, etc., is included,) vide Art. 37. 4. There are a number of details in which the extent of the Supremacy is undetermined — for instance, the King's power of depriving bishops, of creating or destroy- Relation of Convocation to the Crown. 421 ing bishoprics, etc. Judge Hales, indeed, places all these matters absolutely in the Crown ; " the prescrib- ing who shall be a bishop, the extent of his diocese, the circumscription of him, under pain of contempt, to act his powers of order within those limits." But here the instances, which Hales gives, impair his rule, for the prescribing who shall be bishop is not " inherent in the Crown," inasmuch as the Chapter has the right of elec- tion. And this, indeed, may be observed generally, that in these details of jurisdiction the Church has, for the most part, a concurrent voice, even where the Crown has the initiative. Thus the Chapter must elect, when the King recommends to a bishopric ; the Bishop must institute to a living ; and so of induction, confirmation, installation, etc I mean that, letting alone the aposto- lical powers of the Church, Ordination, etc., even in (so called) ecclesiastical or spiritual matters, that is, in those peculiar institutions which, in the words of the Ordination Service, "this Church and realm has received," the Church has a concurrence in the acts of jurisdiction exercised by the civil power. And this consideration throws some light on the state of the law in such cases of j urisdiction as are not clearly determined by the letter of it, for in- stance, the union of dioceses. Lastly, I have no wish to contend that the existing state of the law is, in every part, as consistent as the theory pf it is just. For instance, the power of excom- munication lies in the Spiritual Courts, of which the King is the head ; which is as great an anomaly as though he. was invested with the power of Ordination. Warburton, indeed, defends it ; but he seems to have made his theory with a view to fit on to the existing state of our law, not upon any religious and philosophical basis.' UNIFORM EDITION OF DR. NEWMAN'S WORKS. Parochial and Plain Sermons. 8 vols.^ Sermons on Subjects of the Day . . \Rivingtoh. University Sermons . Catholic Sermons. 2 vols. Present Position of Catholics in England \ Burns and Dates. Essay on Assent , Two Essays on Miracles .... Essays Critical and Historical 2 vols. Discussions and Arguments on various \Pickering. subjects Historical Sketches History of the Arians Lumley. History of my Religious Opinions (Apo-I \ Longman and Lo. logia) ' In preparation. A Second and Third Volume of Historical Sketches. Theological Dissertations. 3 V -5 S O o z a OZ-J £0 w C 5 >- o o f— t a 4* => Q S c Q o "^ C-'> -»ti :S i-o ji ■^ 01 8 tt3 3 C E = « E *J ■s 0*0 "o P aj -t c c 1 " 0} \- Ec:; s: • ^-* K. O 4) tl — gg E g a ■°-s s 2| 5 oS >. c „ s I ssi I I ^ P^ " ^ Q ^ CD 3 "- CO ^> to K ta s K 13 Q ■« 'at) "^ *i-a 00 s Q 'a^^«^