ACT V.――The curtain rises on a prison chamber in the Tower, where

Northumberland, jubilant over his certain liberation, calls upon Jane and Guilford to rejoice at their renascent fortunes. The pure-souled Jane refuses the crown once for all, and endeavors to lead her husband and his father to proper gratitude for the reprieve. But in the midst of Dudley’s “merry mood” Fakenham enters with a warrant――and not the document so confidently looked for. It is now Northumberland’s turn to despair; and the struggles of his soul, at the prospect of speedy death, are depicted with great force. Hitherto, during his imprisonment, he has been pretending to let Fakenham convert him. Now he sees the necessity of conversion indeed, yet clings to the hope of respite as the gain of professing the true Faith.

At the scaffold Pembroke meanly stings him into rage; but this obnoxious person being removed, the arch-rebel seems to turn his attention in earnest to the salvation of his soul, and after a prayer, which sounds perfectly sincere, kneels to Fakenham for absolution, then hurriedly ascends the scaffold. The scene closes, and a cannon is heard――the appointed signal that the head has fallen.

The fate of Lady Jane Grey is next determined. Mary is strongly inclined to spare her. Gardiner is to blame for the adverse decision. Fakenham, however, obtains a promise that she shall be spared if she abjure her heresy. But Mary, in the fifth scene, shows a sudden tenderness for her doomed cousin, and, after a fit of raving melancholy, sends Fakenham in all haste to bring her. It is too late. Guilford has just been executed, and his widow is being led forth even while the queen demands her presence. The sixth scene gives us the parting of Jane and her mother, and closes as the victim of another’s ambition heroically ascends the scaffold. In the last scene Mary reaches Jane’s prison to find her gone, and rushes to the window in the hope of signalling the executioner, but only in time to see him hold up the severed head.

* * * * *

We shall now introduce our readers to some of the best passages from this play. Our only difficulty will be to restrict their number within necessary limits, for there is not a page but invites quotation. Here is a fine bit of description to begin with. It is from the opening scene. Sir Thomas Wyatt is amazed to learn that the king is “sick to death.”

“WYATT. How can it be? But one short month it seems Since I beheld him on his jennet’s back, With hawk on wrist, his bounding hounds beside, Charge up the hillside through the golden gorse, Swallowing the west wind, till his cheeks glowed out Like ripened pears. The whirring pheasant sprang From the hedged bank; and, with a shout, in air The bright boy tossed his falcon; then, with spur Pressed to his jennet’s flank, and head thrown back, And all the spirit of life within his eye And voice, he drew not rein, till the spent quarry Lay cowering ’neath the hawk’s expanded wings.”

To us, this dash into description, at the very beginning of the play, shows how thoroughly our author feels himself at home. Had he not been a conscious master of his art, he would scarcely have made such a venture, for fear of exciting the suspicion that his talent lay in the direction of descriptive rather than of dramatic poetry. As it is, Wyatt’s burst of eloquence lends much to the easy strength of this first scene.

We are little prepared, however, for the daring feat of two heroines: each heroine enough to have the play to herself, yet neither overshadowing the other. So lovely is the character of Lady Jane Grey, and so keenly are our sympathies enlisted on her side, that we are astonished to find any room left in our hearts for Mary Tudor; whereas, in fact, so royal the latter’s bearing, so truly is she “every inch a” queen, so indisputable are her rights, so outrageous her wrongs, that we end by seeing only her noble qualities, and even forgive her Jane Grey’s death.

The poet introduces Lady Jane at that post where woman is always “a ministering angel”――by the death-bed of her cousin, King Edward. She has been reading him to sleep, and he has just awaked.

“JANE. How fares your Highness now?

EDWARD. Thy sweet voice, Jane, Soothes every pain. A film grew o’er mine eyes: A murmur, as of breezes on the shore, Or waters lapping in some gelid cave, Coiled round my temples, and I slept.”

This gives our author an opportunity of bringing out Jane’s modesty and humility――the very un-Protestant virtues with which he has chosen to adorn his favorite heroine conspicuously.

“JANE. Ah, cousin! Not in my voice the charm. Within this volume A sanatory virtue lives enshrined, As in Bethesda’s pool.

EDWARD. By an angel stirred.”

An answer no less just than felicitous.

Again, in the same scene, the guilelessness of her soul shines out in her protest against being made heir to the crown. The pretext put forth by Northumberland and Cranmer for persuading Edward to sign away the throne from his sisters is the safety of the Protestant cause――what Anglicans impudently call “the true church.” Jane, though an earnest adherent of the new religion, will have nothing to do with evil measures in its behalf.

“JANE. O no! not me! This remediless wrong I have no part in. Edward, you have sisters. Great Harry’s daughters, England’s manifest heirs. Leave right its way, and God will guard his own.”

But now it is Mary’s turn to win our admiration. She comes upon the scene the moment after the weak Edward has signed away the kingdom to Jane. Unaware of the injury that has been done her, she greets her “dear lost brother” with true sisterly affection, but, in another minute, shows the Tudor in her veins by the courage with which she confronts Dudley and tells the traitor she knows him at his worth. Then, discovering the plot against her, she rises――suddenly but with calmest dignity――to the attitude of queen, as though the crown had just been placed upon her head instead of stolen for another’s.

“EDWARD. It is now too late――too late! I have done what it were well had ne’er been done.

JANE. O would to God that act might be recalled!

MARY. What act?

JANE. That makes me queen.

MARY. Thou queen! O never Shall regal crown clasp that unwrinkled brow! Thou queen? Go, girl――betake thee to thy mappets! Call Ascham back――philosophize――but never Presume to parley with gray counsellors, Nor ride forth in the front of harnessed knights! _Leave that to me, the daughter of a king._”

Equally worthy is her reply to the insolent Dudley when he dares to offer her the crown on condition of her “renouncing her errors”:

“MARY. Sir, have you done? Simply I thus reply. Not to drag England from this slough of treason―― Nor save this lady’s head――nor yours, archbishop―― Not even my brother’s life――would I abjure My faith, and forfeit heaven!”

But sublimer even than this avowal of her faith is the act of charity she presently makes after her brother’s spirit has departed; and in nothing has the poet done her so much justice:

“MARY. And thou art gone! hast left me unforgiven! O brother! was this righteous? Gloomier now This dreary world frowns on me, and its cares Womanly dreams, farewell! Stern truths of life Stamp on my heart all that becomes a queen. Dudley, you have dared much: yet, standing here By my poor brother’s clay, _I can forgive_. Will you kneel, Dudley?”

After this, let the poet depict Jane in the most attractive colors he can find, he has shown his Catholic heroine the greater woman. But, in fact, we are convinced this is his aim. For although, as a Protestant, he makes Jane become a saint (according to his idea of saintship), her “path a shining light that goeth forward and increaseth to perfect day”――while Mary’s way is over-clouded to the end, and cruel wrongs goad her into rage which rouses all the Tudor and all the Spaniard in her nature, and deepens her melancholy into madness――still, even in her most painful moments, the daughter of Catherine is _great_. Her enemies do homage to her greatness. Northumberland himself is forced to say of her, in the scene we have quoted from above:

“The eighth Harry’s soul lives in her voice and eye.”

But the spell of her majestic bearing is best portrayed in the scene where she meets the rebel leaders Wyatt and Brett with their followers. Sir Thomas Wyatt, true to his character as indicated in the first scene, indulges again in fine rhetoric, declaring that he and his men have decided to stand for Mary, but putting in the condition that “all things which touch the Church” shall “rest as King Edward left them.” The queen answers this appeal by another to the consciences of “English gentlemen,” demanding for her own the liberty she willingly extends to theirs; but when, presently, Wyatt insults her by raving, like a modern fanatic, about “the dogs of persecution, insatiate brood of Rome,” and Brett sullenly refuses to march with her to London, she passes on, leaving the two insurrectionists to pay her tribute each in his own fashion.

“BRETT. Now, by all saints and martyrs calendared! I could half worship such a tameless woman, All shrewish though she be. With what a spirit, Like thunder-riven cloud, her wrath poured forth, And keen words flared! Ugly and old?――to that I shall say nay hereafter. Autumn moons Portend good harvests. Yet, that glance at parting Flashed fierce as sunset through a blasted tree! But hey! look yonder, Wyatt: half your men Are scampering after her.

WYATT. I marked, and blame not. I mar no fortune, and coerce no conscience. _There is a fascination――all have felt it―― When Royalty and Woman join in one: Austere allegiance softening into love; And new-born fealty clinging to the heart, Like a young babe that front its mother’s bosom Looks up and smiles._”

(Here let us ask, if these lines we have italicized were quoted anonymously, who would not take them for Shakspere’s?)

“BRETT. Trust me, I am much minded To join her even yet.

WYATT. It cannot be. I feel as you do: but I look beyond The tempting present. _She goes forth to conquer: So strong a heart must conquer._”

Mary’s affection for her sister Elizabeth is sincere and tender; while Elizabeth’s for her, on the other hand, has a dubious quality. It is strange that Sir Aubrey shows no enthusiasm over Elizabeth. He appears to have learnt too much truth about her. Mary’s first inquiry, after reaching Framlingham in her flight from Dudley’s machinations, is for her sister:

“Why is Elizabeth not here to greet me? Command her to the presence.”

And when the princess enters, and, kneeling, says, “Queen, sister!” Mary’s joy at seeing her is very touching.

“To my arms! Pardie, sweet Bess, You daily grow more stately. _Your great brows Like our cathedral porches, double-arched, Seem made for passage of high thought._”

A part of this scene is particularly fine.

“MARY. Never was kind counsel needed more By aching heart. Little you know my trials. The fleetness of my horse scarce saved my life; And I am queen in nothing but the name! O sister, canst thou love me? Thou her child―― Beautiful Boleyn’s daughter――who destroyed My mother――hapless queen, dishonored wife! Thou too, my brother――spurned from thy throne, thy death-bed! O no! I shall go down into my earth Desolate, unbeloved!――I wound thee, sister! Pardon! I rave――I rave――

ELIZABETH. Abate this passion! In very truth I love you――fondly pity――

MARY. Pity! not pity――give me love or nothing. _I hope not happiness: I kneel for peace._ But no: this crown traitors would rive from me―― Which our great father Harry hath bequeathed Undimmed to us――a righteous heritage―― This crown which we, my sister, must maintain Or die: this crown, true safeguard of our people, Their charter’s seal――crushes our peace for ever. _All crowns, since Christ wore His, are lined with thorns._”

And again, as the melancholy gains upon her:

“MARY. Am I mad? Think you I’m mad? I have been used to scorn, Neglect, oppression, self-abasement, aye―― _My mother’s scorching heritage of woe!_ Ha! as I speak, behold, she visits me, With that fair choir of angels trooping round her, And cherub faces, with expanded wings Upbearing her! O blessed Saint, depart not! _Breathe on my cold lips those still cherished kisses Which thine in death impressed! Sigh in mine ear Those half-articulate blessings, unforgotten, Which made my childhood less than martyrdom!_ I’ll clasp thee――mother! [_Totters forward and falls._]”

Surely this, too, is worthy of Shakspere. And so is Northumberland’s soliloquy with which the third Act opens; so much so, indeed, that we can with difficulty persuade ourselves we are not reading Shakspere.

“I have plunged too deep. The current of the times Hath been ill-sounded. _Frosty discontent Breathes chilly in the face of our attempt_: And, like the dry leaves in November winds, _These summer-suited friends fly my nipped branches_. What’s to be done? Time like a ruthless hunter, Tramples my flying footsteps! Banned and baited By my own pack, dogs fed from mine own hand Gnash fangs and snarl on me.”

What is peculiarly Shaksperian here is the profusion of metaphors. It is a sign of a great poet to deal freely with metaphors. We know how Byron heaps them up in _Childe Harold_, and Tennyson in _In Memoriam_.

Another proof of high genius――especially dramatic――is the ready use of wit and sarcasm. We have a passage of arms between Dudley and Courtenaye which is very masterly.

Dudley, having lost his way in the Tower, gets the headsman to show him to Courtenaye’s cell.

“EXETER. Ha! I should know that face; and lackeyed thus By yon grim doomster, guess my coming fate.

NORTHUMBERLAND. I greet you well, Marquis of Exeter, Noble Plantagenet!

EXETER. Hey, what means this? The half-forgotten name, and fatal heritage! Sir John of Dudley――bear and ragged staff―― Or memory fails me.

NORTHUMBERLAND. Now Northumberland.

EXETER. Indeed? Excuse me. _Prisoners limp behind The vaulting world._ You are welcome.

NORTHUMBERLAND. I would greet you With tidings of content.

EXETER. Long strangers here.

NORTHUMBERLAND. I take your hand: nor coldly, thus, hereafter Will you, perchance, vouchsafe it. I have power (In Edward’s time I only had the will) To serve you.

EXETER. Ha! how well I guessed the truth! One king the more is dead. Who now rules England? _Chaste Boleyn’s babe, or the Arragonian whelp?_ No beauty, I’ll be sworn, unless time makes one.

NORTHUMBERLAND. The house of Grey is of the royal lineage. To that King Edward’s will bequeathes the crown.

EXETER. My lady duchess queen? Now, God forbid!

NORTHUMBERLAND. All cry amen to that. Her Grace of Suffolk Yields to her wiser daughter――Lady Jane―― My son, Lord Guilford’s wife: now Queen of England.

EXETER. _O, now I do begin to read the stars, And note what constellation climbs._ My lord, Excuse the stiffness of imprisoned knees. The obsolete posterity of kings Lowly should bend to kings’ progenitors. Sir Headsman, art thou married?

HEADSMAN. Nay, my lord.

EXETER. Get thee a wife, then, in good haste: get sons! _Full-bosomed honor, like a plant in the sun, Plays harlot to the hour. Lo, thistles burgeon Even through the Red Rose’ cradle!_

NORTHUMBERLAND. My good lord, _Unseasonable wit hath a warped edge, Whereby the unskilful take unlooked for scars._ Good-night. May fancy tickle you in dreams In which nor Boleyn’s babe (I quote your phrase) Nor whelp of Arragon――kind heaven forefend!―― Nor our grim friend here, with uncivil axe, Dare mingle. Good-night, Courtenaye.”

To pass to the trial scene, in the fourth Act, a speech is put into the mouth of Gardiner――who, as chancellor conducts the prosecution――which reminds us of the unanswered arguments from Pole and other Catholic characters in _Queen Mary_:

“GARDINER. My lords, religion was the plea for this. Religion, a wide cloak for godless knaves. What! knew they not the Apostolic rule That men are bound to obey even sinful princes? Who dares insinuate that our queen’s right rule Shall be a snare for conscience? Hypocrites! _Why claim ye toleration, yet refuse it? Faith your perpetual cry, yet would ye stifle That faith which is the trust of other hearts._ Your Bible is your idol: _all must bow Before your exposition of its sense_, Or forfeit all――the very throne!”

Had our author been a Catholic, he could not have stated the case better.

Jane Grey pleads guilty so nobly, and prays so generously that her own life may be taken and her husband’s spared, that Fakenham truly says of her:

“She rises from the sea of her great trouble Like a pure infant glowing from the bath.”

Here are some of her words:

“_I wake from the vain dream of a blind sleep_: Nothing to hide, nothing extenuate. My lords, reverse to me this good hath brought; That I who dimly saw now plainly see, And seeing loathe my fault, and loathing leave it. _The bolts of heaven have split the aspiring tower Of my false grandeur; and through every rent The light of heaven streams in._

* * * * *

In time to come it shall be known, ambition Was not my nature, though it makes my crime.”

Dudley’s defence would be manly and admirable were it not for his hypocrisy. But the hour comes when hypocrisy can serve him no longer. It is a powerful scene――the first of the fifth Act――where his confident hopes are dashed to the ground for ever. And then he finds Fakenham――whom he has called “worm” and “dog” before, and for whom his hatred never could contain itself――his best friend and only succor. He seems, indeed (so well is his character sustained throughout), to cling to the hope of saving his bodily life by accepting the Catholic faith, till he stands on the very scaffold; but there he drops simulation.

“The terrible ‘to be’ is come! Time’s past! Yet all’s to do――_an age crammed to a span! Time, never garnered till thy last sands ebb, How shall my sharp need eke thy wasted glass, Or wit reverse it?_”

Lady Jane meets death like a martyr. Her resignation is shown as early as the third scene of the third Act, while she is in the Tower with her husband awaiting further tidings after learning that their cause is lost.

“JANE. Midnoon, yet silent as midnight! My heart Flutters and stops――flutters and stops again―― As in the pauses of a thunder-storm, Or a bird cowering during an eclipse. Alone through these deserted halls we wander, Bereft of friends and hope. Speak to me, Guilford.

GUILFORD. Thy heart-strings, Jane, strengthened by discipline, Endure the strain.

JANE. Say rather, my religion Has taught this good. _Nor lacks our female nature Courage to meet inevitable woe With a beloved one shared._”

And again her generosity comes out:

“We have obscured a dawn. If spared, God grant We may make bright the queen’s triumphant way Like clouds that glorify the wake of noon.”

She, too, sees the “true minister of Christ” in Fakenham:

“Fearless of danger in discharge of duty, And to the mourner prodigally kind.”

Such Protestants as she are never formal heretics: they have too much humility. When Fakenham is pleading her cause with the Tudor, who displays for a season the vindictiveness of woman against woman, Jane disallows his attestation of her innocence:

“Ah, sir, too gently have you judged me! Usurper of the consecrated crown. The sacred sceptre, how can I be pure? _Welcome Adversity, lifter up of veils!_ Before me, _naked as a soul for judgment_, Stands up my sin. ’Tis well! the worst is o’er. Suffer I must; but I will sin no longer.”

When, in the fifth Act, she approaches the scaffold, she alone is firm, she alone makes no complaint against the justice of her sentence, but, on the contrary, defends it.

“BEDINGFIELD. Madam, We fain would linger on the way. Our eyes, Blind though they be with tears, strain round to catch Some signal of reprieve.

JANE. O, seek it not! It cannot be. _My life may not consist With the realm’s safety._ Innocent am I In purpose; but the object of great crimes. Good blood must still flow on till Jane’s be shed.”

So again, in her final address to the spectators:

“My sentence hath been just: _not for aspiring Unto the crown, but that, with guilty weakness, When proffered I refused it not._ From me Let future times be warned that _good intent Excuseth not misdeeds: all instruments Of evil must partake its punishment_.”

In the meantime Mary softens somewhat after Dudley’s execution, and is inclined to spare Guilford, as well as Jane. Gardiner argues against the husband’s reprieve, on the ground of certain peril to throne, church, and commonweal; and here he carries his point easily. He is not successful in securing Jane’s doom, even though he tells the queen:

“She is proclaimed From street to street. The very walls are ciphered With traitorous scrolls that hail her ‘Jane the Queen.’ Shall such wrong go unchecked?

MARY. That is their folly; Not hers. The culpable shall smart for this.”

But here Bedingfield enters hastily to announce the escape of Suffolk and his having “joined with Wyatt.”

“MARY. Suffolk fled? Jane’s father? Henceforth let justice rule. Farewell, weak pity! We cannot, Jane, both live: why, then, die thou!”

Yet, even after this, her good genius, Fakenham, obtains from Mary a promise that Jane shall live “if she abjure her heresy.” It does not appear, however, that Fakenham had any further interview with Jane. It would have been useless, if he had; for when, just before her execution, Bedingfield says:

“At least, we may delay till the dean comes To whisper spiritual comfort,”

Jane replies:

“Infinite Is the Almighty’s goodness. In that only I put my trust. My time, sir is too short For controversy: and that good man’s duty Compels him to dispute my creed. I thank him: Pray you, sir, say I thank him, from my heart, For all his charities. In privacy My prayers――not unacceptable, I trust, To God my Saviour――have been offered up. So must they to the end.”

But in the scene before the execution――one of singular power――the unhappy queen evinces a yearning for sympathy which triumphs over rigor, and, in spite of Gardiner’s presence, makes her relent, though too late.

First we see her alone. She is vindicating herself to her conscience:

“I have no thirst for blood; nor yet would shrink From shortening earthly life: for what is life That we should court its stay? A pearl of price In festal days, but mockery to mourners. What’s life to thee, thy loved one dead, poor Jane? What’s life to me, by him I loved betrayed? I take from thee what is no loss to thee And much infects the realm. Gladly would I My life on such conditions sacrifice. _The time for thy short widowhood is come: But ye shall reunite above. For me The heart’s blank widowhood must be for ever. Jane! on thy block the throned queen envies thee!_”

She is full of her own betrayal by Courtenaye――a wrong which has left a more cruel wound than all the plots of treason have effected.

Here Gardiner and Fakenham enter to announce that Brett and Wyatt are taken. Presently, after a burst of fevered excitement, she says:

“I want To see Jane Grey-after her widowhood.

FAKENHAM [_aside_]. After?――She then shall live.

GARDINER [_aside_]. Observe, she raves.

MARY. We’ll sit together in some forest nook, _Or sunless cavern by the moaning sea_, And talk of sorrow and vicissitudes Of hapless love, and luckless constancy; And hearts that death or treachery divides.”

She then goes off into a fit of raving, and declares that “the spirit of the fatal Sisterhood riots in her veins,” and “the snakes of the Eumenides brandish their horrent tresses round her head.” Fakenham suggests music as the remedy for her “sick mind”; and Gardiner bids him throw aside the gallery doors that open on the chapel. It being the hour for service, the choir is heard.

“[_As the music proceeds, the queen’s stupor relaxes, and her sensibility gradually revives. The music ceases._]

MARY. Airs fresh from heaven breathe round me! Sing on, bright angels! tears relieve my heart―― My brain is calmed. Sing on and let me weep. [_A pause._ Would they were saved! Alas, poor widowed one! Can it not still be done? No, no――too late!”

Then she describes the “dark procession” of Guilford to the scaffold, as seen in a vision. The signal gun is heard. The head has fallen.

“MARY. He is no more! Great God, Have mercy upon both!

GARDINER. Her thoughts are changed: Her brain relieved.

FAKENHAM. Now plead for Jane!

GARDINER. Too late! Hear yonder bell.

MARY. What’s that? Again the death-bell? Hark you! I would have speech with Jane. Fly, Fakenham! My foot is weak and slow. Gardiner, attend me. Fly, Fakenham, fly!

FAKENHAM. Too late! too late! too late!”

The scene of Jane’s execution intervenes; and then comes the last scene, brief and terrible.

“_Jane Grey’s prison in the Tower. An open window in the rear._

_Enter hurriedly_ MARY _followed by_ GARDINER.

MARY. She’s gone――I come too late――forgive me, God! Myself I never, never shall forgive. Ha! from yon casement they may mark a signal! [_She leans from the window._ Hold! Hold! [_She draws back with a shriek._ Great God! it is――it is――her head That demon lifts and brandishes before me!

[_She rushes from the window, rubbing her eyes wildly._

Pah! I am choked-my mouth is choked with blood! My eyes, my nostrils, swim in blood――my hair Stiffens with blood――the floor is slippery With blood――all――blood! Mother and unborn babe Both slain! Mother and child! The cry of blood Rises to heaven――the curse of Cain is launched Upon me! Innocent victims! At God’s throne Already ye bear witness. Mercy, mercy! _Spare one who knew not how to spare._

[_She kneels._

_Enter_ FAKENHAM.

Ay, kneel To heaven――and pray! Lift up your hands to God! Lift up your voice-your heart! Pray, sinner, pray!

[_The curtain falls._”

So ends the first part of this masterly drama, and, we think, the far finer of the two plays――certainly the less painful to a Catholic reader. We have given it unqualified praise, because we have dealt with it purely as a drama. We are afraid that the real Jane Grey was a much less lovely character than the poet’s, and are thankful to know that the real Mary Tudor was a very different compound indeed. But we give the poet credit for perfect sincerity in his delineation of either character. We believe that if he was consciously partial at all, it was rather to the Catholic side――from a wish to do Catholics all the justice in his power. And this but makes us regret the more that, together with the genius he manifests, he had not the faith of the gifted son to whom he has left his mantle.

[189] _Mary Tudor: An Historical Drama._ By Sir Aubrey De Vere, Bart. London: William Pickering. 1875.

A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF TOLEDO.

“Behold,” said the owl to Prince Ahmed, “the ancient and renowned city of Toledo――a city famous for its antiquities. Behold those venerable domes and towers, hoary with time, and clothed with legendary grandeur, in which so many of my ancestors have meditated.”

We had arrived at the foot of the rocky promontory on which stands imperial Toledo. The first sight of it is exceedingly impressive. Its aspect is grave and majestic, and the thousand grand memories that hover over it add to the fascination. It is the royal city, the capital of the Gothic kings. For four hundred years it was in possession of the Moors, and in the middle ages it was so renowned for its learning as to attract numerous students from foreign parts. It is, too, _par excellence_, the ecclesiastical city of Spain, and stands proudly on its seven hills like Rome. The long line of its bishops comprises many saints, as well as mighty prelates who not only held spiritual primacy over the land, but took a prominent part in the political affairs of the nation. It looks just as a city of the middle ages, with a due sense of the fitness of things, ought to look――antique, picturesque, and romantic――surrounded by its ancient walls, from which rise, as if hewn out of the rock, the massive gray towers that still bear the impress of the Goth and the Moor. Around its base winds the golden Tagus over its rocky bed, foaming and wildly raving, in a grand, solemn kind of a way, as if sensible of its high functions and knowing the secrets of the magic caves that extend beneath its very bed――caves wrought out of the live rock by the cunning hand of Tubal, the grandson of Noe, and where Hercules the Mighty taught the dark mysteries of Egyptian art, handed down to posterity, and long after known as the _Arte Toledana_. For this ancient city claims as its founder Tubal, the son of Japhet, who, as the Spanish chroniclers say, with the memory of the Deluge still fresh in his mind, naturally built it on an eminence, and hewed out caverns as places of refuge from the watery element. So remote an origin might reasonably be supposed enough to satisfy the most owlish of antiquarians; but some hoary old birds have gone so far as to whisper that Adam himself was the first king of Toledo; that the sun, at its creation, first shone over this the true centre of the world; and that its very name is derived from two Oriental words signifying the Mother of Cities. However this may be, it was Hercules, the Libyan, who, versed in the supernatural arts, achieved labors no mere human arm could have accomplished, who gave the finishing touches to the city, and set up the necromantic tower of legendary fame, in after-years so rashly entered by Roderick, the last of the Goths, letting out a flood of evils that spread over all the land. This was “one of those Egyptian or Chaldaic piles, storied with hidden wisdom and mystic prophecy, which were devised in past ages when man yet enjoyed intercourse with high and spiritual natures, and when human foresight partook of divination,” and its mysterious fate was worthy of its origin.

But Toledo did not fully awake to its importance till the fifth century after Christ, when it fell into the hands of the Goths, who made it their capital and enlarged and embellished it, especially in the good old times of King Wamba, whose name is still popular in Castile, and corresponds to that of King Dagobert in France. It now became renowned for its splendor and wealth, and, when taken by the Moors at the end of the seventh century, they found here an immense booty, including the spoils of Alaric from Rome and Jerusalem, among which was the famous table of talismanic powers, wrought for King Solomon out of a single emerald by the genii of the East, which had the power of revealing, as in a mirror, all future events, and from which that monarch acquired so much of his wisdom.

All these and many other things were flitting through our minds as we crossed the bridge of Alcantara, with its tower of defence and tutelary saint, and wound up the steep hillside into the city. We alighted in the court of the Fonda de Lino, where we learned once more that an old bird sometimes gets caught with mere chaff. It soon became alarmingly evident that, between the Goth and the Moor, but little had been left behind――at least, at the Fonda. But “Affliction is a divine diet,” says Izaak Walton, and we took to it as kindly as possible. In this state of affairs, we gave ourselves unresistingly up to a _valet-de-place_, who lay in wait for his prey, and, for once in the world, did not regret it; for he proved quite indispensable in the maze of narrow, tortuous streets, and was tolerably versed in the archæology of the place. Few cities are more rich in historic, religious, and poetic memories, or have as many interesting monuments of the past. At every step we were surprised by something novel and curious. The streets themselves run zigzag, so that we were always dodging around a corner, like our old friend Mr. Chevy Slyme, and soon began to feel very mean and pitiful indeed. This must have been convenient in days when arrows were weapons, but to honest, straightforward folk in these pacific times they are peculiarly trying. One side of you always seems getting in advance of the other, and you soon begin to feel as if blind of one eye. It is to be hoped obliquity of the moral sense does not follow from this necessity of going zigzag. The streets are extremely clean, but so narrow as to afford passage only to men and donkeys, or men _on_ donkeys, sometimes looking, in their queer accoutrements, “like two beasts under one skin,” as Dante says. These sombre, winding streets are lined with lofty houses that are gloomy and solid as citadels, with few windows, and these defended by strong iron grates. The portals are flanked with granite columns and surmounted by worn escutcheons carven in stone. They are frequently edged with the cannon-ball ornaments peculiar to Castile, like rows of great stone beads. The doors themselves are so thick and massive that they have withstood all ancient means of assault, and the resinous wood of which they are made seems to defy the very tooth of time itself. They are studded with enormous nails of forged iron, with diamond-shaped or convex heads, sometimes as large as half a cocoanut, and curiously wrought. Frequently they are not content with their primitive forms, but go straying off into long, artistic ramifications that cover the door like some ancient embroidery. The gabled ends of the houses often project over the streets with huge beams, carved and stained, that add to the gloom. These streets do not seem to have changed for ages. Every instant we saw some trace of the Goths or an Arabic inscription, or Moorish galleries and balconies. Once we entered an old archway, and found ourselves in a court with sculptured granite pillars that supported Oriental-like galleries, to which we ascended by stairs faced with colored _azulejos_, old and glittering, as the Moors alone knew how to make them. Once the city contained two hundred thousand inhabitants; now there are not more than twenty thousand. The streets are deserted and silent, the houses empty. Everywhere are ruins and traces of past grandeur over which nothings of modern life is diffused. You seem to be wandering in a museum of antiquities. Above all, you feel it was once, and perhaps still is, a city of deep religious convictions, from the numerous monasteries and magnificent churches. Pious emblems are on the houses. Among others, we remember the cord of St. Francis, carven in stone, with its symbolic knots of the Passion. At the Ayuntamiento, built after the designs of El Greco, who, like several other eminent artists, was at once painter, architect, and sculptor, is an inscription on the side of the staircase by the poet Jorje Manrique worthy of a place over the entrance of every city-hall: “Ye noble, judicious lords who govern Toledo, on these steps leave all your passions――avarice, weakness, fear. For the public good forget your own private interests; and since God has made you the pillars of this august house, continue always to be firm and upright.”

We were now near the cathedral――one of the grandest, and certainly the richest, in Spain. Its first foundation is lost in the obscurity of legendary times. The people, however, are not so indefinite in their opinion. With a true Oriental love of the marvellous, they not only attribute the foundation of Toledo to patriarchal times, but declare this church was built by the apostles, and that even the Blessed Virgin herself took a personal interest in its erection. It is at least certain that a church was consecrated here in the time of King Ricared the Goth, after the condemnation of the Arians by the Council of Toledo, and it was probably built on the site of a previous one. It was placed under the invocation of the Virgin, and her ancient statue, which has been preserved to this day, was regarded then, as now, with special veneration. The old Gothic kings were noted for their devotion to Mary, and hung up at her altar the beautiful crowns of pure beaten gold and precious stones discovered a few years ago near Toledo, and now at the Hôtel Cluny at Paris.[190]

The Moors, when they took Toledo, seized this church, so sacred to the Christians, razed it to the ground, and erected a mosque in its place; and when Alfonso VI. triumphantly entered the old capital of the Visigoths, May 25, 1085――the very day the great Hildebrand died at Salerno, exclaiming: “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, and therefore I die an exile”――having left the Moors in possession of the building, he was forced to hear Mass in a little mosque of the tenth century, afterwards given to the Knights Templars and called the Christo de la Luz, where may still be seen the wooden shield hung up by King Alfonso, with its silver cross on a red ground.

The people, of course, were dissatisfied to see the infidel left to defile a spot where the Gospel had first been announced to their forefathers and the Christian mysteries first celebrated, and, as soon as the king left the city, determined to regain possession of it. Queen Constanza herself, though a native of France, favored the movement, and had the doors of the mosque forced open in the night. The archbishop purified it with incense, aspersions, and prayer; an altar was hastily set up, and a bell hung in the tower, which, after a silence of four centuries, rang out as soon as daylight appeared, to call the people to a solemn service of thanksgiving.

Bernard de Sédirac was now Archbishop of Toledo. He belonged to a noble family of Aquitaine, and became early in life a Benedictine monk at St. Oren’s Priory, Auch, of which he was soon made prior. This house was affiliated to the Abbey of Cluny, to which he was transferred by St. Hugo on account of his talents and eminent virtues, and when Alfonso VI. sent there for a monk capable of re-establishing monastic discipline in the convents of Castile, Dom Bernard had the honor of being appointed to the mission. He found not in the Spanish monasteries the austerity and silence of Cluny. The neighing of steeds, the baying of hounds, and the whistle of the falcon prevailed over the choral chants, and soft raiment had taken the place of haircloth and the scourge. The monks, however, were by no means depraved, and Bernard soon acquired such an ascendency over them as to effect a radical change in their habits, especially at the great Abbey of San Facundo, of which he had been made abbot.

When Alfonso VI. took Toledo, desirous of restoring the see to its ancient grandeur and importance, he endowed it magnificently, and appointed Dom Bernard archbishop. The part this prelate took in the seizure of the mosque has been alluded to. Mariana, the Jesuit historian, considers his zeal on this occasion as too lively and impetuous. The Moors were naturally enraged at losing their chief place of worship, and for a time it was feared they would break out into open revolt. But they finally concluded to send a deputation to the king to make known the violation of the treaty and demand redress.

Alfonso was then in the kingdom of Leon, and, when he learned what had occurred, he was not only alarmed for the safety of his capital, but angry with those who had endangered it. He at once set out for Toledo, resolved to punish the queen and archbishop. When the Christians of Toledo learned that he was approaching the city in such a disposition the principal citizens clothed themselves in black, and the clergy put on their sacred robes, and went forth to meet him. In the midst was the fair Princess Urraca, pale and trembling, clothed in sackcloth, with ashes on her head, sent by the queen to appease the king’s anger, knowing, if anything could turn him from his purpose, it would be the sight of his favorite daughter. But Alfonso hardened his heart when he saw them approach, and silently registered a vow not to be moved by the princess’ entreaties. Urraca had the true tact of a woman, and, divining her father’s thoughts, fell at his feet, conjuring him to grant her but one favor――to show no mercy on those who had set at naught his authority out of obedience to a higher will!

The king was taken aback by this pious stratagem, and, before he recovered from his embarrassment, a second embassy from the Moors appeared. The king, in anticipation of their renewed complaints, exclaimed: “It is not to you the injury has been done, but to me; and my own interest and glory forbid me to allow my promises to be violated with impunity.”

The messengers fell on their knees and replied: “The archbishop is the doctor of your law, and if we, however innocent, be the cause of his death, his followers will some day take vengeance on us. And should the queen perish, we shall become an object of hatred to her posterity, of which we shall feel the effects when you have ceased to reign. Therefore, O king! we release you from your promise, and beg you to pardon them. If you refuse our petition, allow us to seek in another country an asylum from the dangers that threaten us here.”

The king, who had been weighed down with sadness, broke into transports of joy: “You have not only saved the archbishop, but the queen and princess. Never shall I forget so happy a day. Henceforth you may be assured of my special protection.”

When the king entered the city a few hours after, he proceeded directly towards the mosque taken from the Moors. On the threshold stood Queen Constanza in garments of mourning, and Dom Bernard in pontifical vestments. The king kissed the archbishop’s hand, embraced the queen, and entered the church to give thanks unto God for the happy ending of so threatening a drama. And so, adds Mariana, this day of tears and lamentations was changed into a day of joy. This was in the year of our Lord 1087.

The _Alfaqui_, or Moorish doctor, whose sagacious advice the Moors had followed on this occasion, was regarded with so much gratitude by the Christians that they set up his statue in the Holy of Holies, where it is to be seen to this day among the kings of Spain and the dignitaries of the church.

The present cathedral was begun by St. Ferdinand in 1227. Eight portals give entrance to the edifice. The principal one is called the great Door of Pardon. Seven steps lead up to it, which the people often ascend on their knees. And to kneel is the attitude one instinctively takes on entering this magnificent church, which is like a great jewelled cross of marvellous workmanship. It is, in fact, a museum of sculpture and painting. The eye is absolutely dazzled by its richness, as it looks up the long aisles with their clustered columns, lit up by the finest stained-glass windows in Spain. The choir alone it would take hours to examine, so profuse are the beautiful carvings. On the lower stalls――those of the choristers――are carved jousts, tourneys, battles, and sieges, as if to figure the constant warfare of man here below. Even the very animals in the accessory carvings are represented contending. Forty-five of these stalls represent the siege of some city or fortress in the war with the Moors, and are curious for the costumes and arms of the time. The most interesting relate to the conquest of Granada, just after which they were executed. Nor is it surprising to find such things commemorated in so holy a place. The war with the Saracens was not merely a national enterprise, but a holy crusade on which depended, not only the safety of Spain, but of all Christendom, and Europe has never been sufficiently grateful to the Spaniards for saving it from the yoke of Islam. These carvings seem like a psalm of triumph for ever echoed in this choir: “The Lord hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” Each panel, labelled with its victory, seems chanting, one after the other:

“To him which smote great kings: For his mercy endureth for ever!―― Sihon, the King of the Amorites: For his mercy endureth for ever! And Og, the King of Bashan: For his mercy endureth for ever! ――And hath redeemed us from our enemies: For his mercy endureth for ever!”

On the upper stalls, where sit the canons of the church between red marble columns, are the holy mysteries of the faith, carved by Berruguete and Felipe de Borgoña, and above in alabaster is the genealogy of Christ. At the head of the choir is the archbishop’s throne, like the stalls of carved walnut, but supported by bronze pillars. Among other carvings on it is the legend of St. Ildefonso and the sacred _Casulla_, so popular at Toledo, and which has inspired the pencil of Murillo, Rubens, and other eminent artists. St. Ildefonso was Archbishop of Toledo in the seventh century, and the author of a famous work entitled _De Virginitate Mariæ_. It is said that one night, entering the church at the head of his clergy to sing the midnight office, he found the altar illuminated, and the Blessed Virgin seated on his ivory throne surrounded by a throng of angels, holding in her hand the book he had written in defence of her virginity. She beckoned him towards her, and said, as she bestowed on him a beautiful white chasuble of celestial woof: “Inasmuch as with a firm faith and a clean heart, having thy loins girt about with purity, thou hast, by means of the divine grace shed on thy lips, diffused the glory of my virginity in the hearts of the faithful, I give thee this vestment, taken from the treasury of my Son, that even in this life thou mayest be clothed with the garment of light.” And the attendant angels came forward to fasten the sacred _Casulla_ around him.

After the time of St. Ildefonso no one ever ventured to use this chasuble till the presumptuous Sisberto was made archbishop; but he experienced the fatal effects of his rashness and died a miserable death in exile. This precious garment was carefully preserved fifty-seven years at Toledo, and then carried to the Asturias to save it from the Moors――perhaps by Pelayus when he floated down the Tagus two hundred and fifty miles in a wooden chest, a second Moses destined to save his nation:

“The relics and the written works of saints, Toledo’s treasure, prized beyond all wealth, Their living and their dead remains, These to the mountain fastnesses he bore.”

When the church of San Salvador at Oviedo was completed, Alfonso el Casto had the Santa Casulla solemnly conveyed thither, and there it remains to this day.

St. Ildefonso and the holy Casulla are to be seen at every hand’s turn at Toledo. Countless houses have a majolica medallion depicting them inserted in their front walls. They are sculptured over one of the doors of the cathedral, and several times within. And among the numerous paintings that adorn the edifice are two in which the Blessed Virgin is clothing St. Ildefonso with something of the grace and majesty of heaven.

But the vision of St. Ildefonso is specially commemorated on the spot where it occurred by a beautiful little temple of open Gothic work on one side of the nave. Here the whole legend is admirably told by Vigarny in a series of bas-reliefs in marble. In the outer wall is inserted the slab on which the Virgin’s feet rested, protected by an iron grating. Both the grate and slab are worn by the fingers of the devout. No one passes without thrusting his hands through the grating to touch the stone, after which he kisses the tips of his fingers and makes the sign of the cross.

The _Capilla mayor_ is of excessive richness. Jasper steps lead up to the high altar. The retable, covered with countless sculptures, rises almost to the arches, alive with scenes from the life of our Saviour amid innumerable pinnacles, and niches, and statues of most elaborate workmanship. Around are the tombs of the ancient kings of Spain, and among them that of the celebrated Cardinal Mendoza, the _tertius rex_, who took so prominent a part in the government in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella――a tomb in the Plateresco style, and worthy, not only of that great prelate, but of the marvellous chapel in which it stands. Near by is the effigy of the _Alfaqui_, who interposed in favor of Queen Constanza and Archbishop Bernard, and opposite is a statue of San Isidro, who led Alfonso VIII. to victory at Navas de Tolosa, as well as one of that king himself in a niche. There is certainly nothing grander in all Christendom than this chapel――nothing more in harmony with the imposing rites of the church, which are here celebrated with a majesty that is infinitely impressive.

The chapel of the Sagrario contains the celebrated statue of the Virgin so honored by the Goths, said to have been saved from the Moors by an Englishman. It is of wood, black with age, but entirely plated with silver, excepting the face and hands. This Madonna stands in a blaze of light from the numerous lamps, and is absolutely sparkling with jewels. One of her mantles is of silver tissue embroidered with gold thread (that required three hundred ounces of gold to make) and thousands of pearls weighing nearly as much. There is scarcely room for the rubies, emeralds, and diamonds suspended on this mantle. That of the Child is similar in style, and took nine persons over a year to embroider.

Near by, in the chapel of Santa Marina, is a tombstone over the re-mains of Cardinal de Carrero, the king-maker of Philip the Fifth’s time, with its _Hic jacet pulvis, cinis, et nihil!_――sublime cry of Christian humility.

Every chapel in this cathedral is worthy of interest. One bears the curious name of the _Christo de las Cucharas_, or of Spoons, from the _armes parlantes_ of Diego Lopez de Padilla emblazoned here――three _padillas_, or little paddles in the form of a spoon. It was a lady of this family who, in some civil contest, stripped the statues in the cathedral of their valuable ornaments as a means of defraying the expenses of the war, but first kneeling before them to beg the saints’ pardon for the liberty she was about to take.

Then there is the beautiful chapel of _Los Reyes Nuevos_, lined with rich tombs in sculptured recesses, each with its recumbent effigy, among which is that of a daughter of John of Gaunt, “time-honored Lancaster,” who married a Spanish prince.

The chapel of Santiago, in the flamboyant style, was built before the discovery of America, by Alvaro de Luna, grand-master of the Knights of Santiago. On every side are scallop-shells, emblem of the tutelar, and the crescent, cognizance of the Luna family. The tomb of the founder is in the centre, with knights, cut in alabaster, keeping eternal watch and ward around their chief, who is lying on his tomb; while monks and nuns that have turned to stone seem to pray for ever around that of his wife.

The Mozarabic chapel, with its memories of Cardinal Ximenes, is very interesting. One side of it is entirely covered with a fresco of the battle of Oran, in which the cardinal took a leading part, full of animation and vigor. Here the Mozarabic rite which he re-established is still kept up.

What the primitive form of the Spanish liturgy was we have no certain knowledge, for it was superseded, or greatly modified, by the Goths. After the fourth Council of Toledo, presided over by St. Isidore of Seville, a uniform liturgy was established throughout the kingdom, to which was given the name of Mozarabic from that of the Christians who lived under the Moorish rule, and only had permission to maintain their own rites by the payment of an annual tribute. The Gregorian liturgy was introduced in the time of Alfonso VI. by the wish of the pope. The clergy and people were at first in consternation at the proposed change, but the archbishop, Bernard de Sédirac, was in favor of it, and he was sustained by the government. Six churches at Toledo were assigned to the Mozarabic rite, but by degrees the Gregorian acquired ascendency. Mozarabic books became more and more rare, and the rite was nearly abandoned when Cardinal Ximenes, in order to preserve a vestige of it, founded this chapel in the year 1500, and had the ancient service printed at Alcala de Henares. One peculiarity of this rite is, the Host is divided into nine parts, which are placed on the paten in the form of a cross, in memory of the Incarnation, Nativity, Circumcision, Adoration of the Magi, Passion, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and Eternal Reign.

The chapter-room of the cathedral is the richest in Spain. It is Moorish in style, and has a magnificent _artesonado_ ceiling of gold and azure, rare carvings in oak, and a profusion of paintings, mostly portraits of the archbishops of Toledo, ninety-four in number, among which is that of Carranza, the confessor of Mary Tudor, and such a favorite of Charles V. that he summoned him to his death-bed at Yuste.

But the best paintings are in the sacristy. Here is the Santa Casulla on the ceiling, by Luca Giordano, the most productive painter that ever existed, and on the wall is El Greco’s _chef d’œuvre_――the casting of lots for Christ’s garment――in which the artist introduced his own portrait as one of the soldiers. There is also a beautiful Santa Leocadia rising from her tomb, by Orrente. St. Ildefonso is cutting off a portion of her veil, according to the legend, which says that while he was celebrating Mass at the tomb of this saint on her festival, Dec. 9, in presence of the king and a great crowd, the stone that covered the tomb, which it took thirty strong men to remove, was suddenly raised, to the amazement of the assembly, and St. Leocadia came forth shrouded in her veil. Going to St. Ildefonso, she took him by the hand and said: “Ildefonso, it is by thee the Queen we serve in heaven hath obtained victory over her enemies; by thee her memory is kept alive in the hearts of the faithful.” She then returned to her tomb, but before it closed on her for ever the archbishop had presence of mind enough to commend the king and nation to her prayers, and, taking a knife from the king, cut off a corner of her veil, which is still preserved in the Ochavo and solemnly exhibited on her festival.

The Ochavo is a fine octagonal room entirely lined with precious marbles. Here are the silver shrines of St. Eugenius and St. Leocadia, with silver statues and reliquaries, and countless articles of great value. The riches of this church are still extraordinary, though the French carried off more than a ton of silver objects in their day. A dignitary who officiated in a procession while we were there wore a magnificent collar, which we afterwards examined. It was absolutely covered with pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, etc. A man followed him with a mace, as if to guard it. The silver custodia for the Host, the largest in the world, weighs four hundred pounds, and is composed of eighty thousand pieces. It is of the florid Gothic style, and contains two hundred and sixty-six statuettes. Cardinal Ximenes ordered it to be made in 1515, but it took nine years to complete it. There is another of pure gold, weighing thirty-two pounds, which Isabella the Catholic had made of the first ingots from the New World, as a tribute to the divine Host. After her death Cardinal Ximenes bought it and presented it to his cathedral.

The vestments in the sacristy are perhaps unrivalled. Many of them are hundreds of years old, of rare embroidery that looks like painting, done on cloth of gold. We remember one cope in particular, on which is the coronation of Mary, done by hands of fairy-like skill. All the crowns of the divine personages, as well as their garments, are edged with real pearls, and the whole scene, though wrought with silk, seemed to have caught something of the celestial beauty and calm rapture of Fra Angelico.

We have given only a faint idea of this magnificent cathedral, which must be seen to be fully appreciated. No wonder the proverb says: _Dives Toledana_. Leaving the church by the first door at hand, we saluted the huge San Christobalón, forty feet high, on the wall――saint of propitious omen, whom we always like to meet.

The cathedral cloister is charming with its laurels, orange-trees, and myrtles. The frescoed arcades are brilliant with the poetic legends of the church of Toledo, among which are St. Leocadia refusing to sacrifice to Jupiter, and Santa Casilda, a Moorish princess converted to the faith, visiting the Christians in her father’s dungeons. Around the gate of the Niño Perdido is painted the legend from which it derives its name, similar to that of St. Hugh of Lincoln. This “lost child” was of Christian parentage, and kidnapped in 1490 by the Jews, who carried him to La Guardia. On Good Friday they took him to a neighboring cave and made him undergo all the tortures of the Passion, finally crucifying him at the ninth hour, at which time his blind mother, who was at a distance, is said to have suddenly recovered her sight. His heart was torn out and wrapped up with a consecrated Host, as if from some dim sense of the connection between the Sacred Heart and the Holy Eucharist, and sent by a renegade to the Jews of Zamora. In passing through Avila he entered the cathedral, and, while pretending to pray, the people were surprised to see rays of light issue from his person. They thought he was a saintly pilgrim, and reported the occurrence to the holy office. He was questioned, and, his replies being unsatisfactory, was arrested and convicted of being accessory to the crime.

On the Plaza Zocodover once took place the bull-fights and other public spectacles of Toledo. It has always been a market-place, and, above the arcades, is the chapel of the Christo de la Sangre, where Mass used to be said for the benefit of the market-men, who could thus attend to their devotions without leaving their stalls.

It is on the Plaza Zocodover you may make the pleasant acquaintance of “a most sweet Spaniard, the comfit-maker of Toledo, who can teach sugar to slip down your throat a million of ways,” and by none easier than what is called the _eel_ of Toledo, which could not have been surpassed in Shakspere’s time――a most delicious compound of sweet-meats, fashioned like a huge eel, which is sold coiled up in a box. If the famous eels of Bolsena are to be compared with those of Toledo, it is not surprising that, as Dante implies, they even tempted Pope Martin the Fourth, particularly if he had been recently subjected, like us, to the “divine diet” of the Fonda de Lino!

There are numerous charitable institutions at Toledo, due to the munificence of its great prelates, who, if they had immense revenues, knew how to spend them like princes of the church. Cardinal Mendoza spent enormous sums on the magnificent hospital of Santa Cruz, which is now converted into a military academy. Here the cross, which the cardinal triumphantly placed on the captured Alhambra in 1492, and which forms the device on his arms, is everywhere glorified. This hospital is noted for its unrivalled sculptures of the Renaissance, particularly those of the grand portal, which is really a jewel of art. The discovery of the True Cross by St. Helena is appropriately the chief subject. The beautiful _patio_ is surrounded by Moorish galleries which, as well as the staircases, are sculptured. On all sides are the Mendoza arms, with its motto composed by an angel: _Ave Maria, gratia plena_. The rooms have fine Moorish ceilings. The church is peculiar in shape, being in the form of a Mendoza cross, with four long arms of equal length. The right transept is now used for gymnastic exercises, and the left one as a school-room. On the wall still hangs the portrait of its great founder, expressive of lofty purpose. He was familiar with the din of camps, as well as with the peaceful duties of charity, and does not look out of his element in this military school. The building is a grand monument to his memory, and one of the wonders of Toledo.

The hospital of St. John the Baptist was built by Cardinal de Tavera in the sixteenth century, and in so magnificent a style as to make people reverse the murmuring of Judas and say: “To what purpose is this waste? And why hath all this money been given to the poor?” The tomb of the beneficent prelate, sculptured by Berruguete, is in the centre of the nave. It is in the _cinque-cento_ style. At the corners stand some of the virtues that adorned his life: Prudence, with a mirror and mask; Justice, with scales; Fortitude, with her tower; and Temperance, pouring water from a vase. Over the tomb still hangs the cardinal’s hat, after three hundred years.

In front of this hospital is a small promenade, ornamented with rude statues of the old Gothic kings. Keeping on, outside the city walls, we passed tower after tower of defence at the left, while at the right lay the Vega, where are still some remains of an old Roman amphitheatre. At length we came to the ruined palace of Roderick, the last of the Goths, built by good King Wamba of more pleasant memory. In a niche is a rough statue, purporting to be Don Roderick himself, looking where he has no business to look――down on the baths of Florinda. An immense convent beyond towers up over the walls, like a prison with its grated windows, that are dismal from without, but which command an admirable view over the valley of the Tagus, along whose banks rise steep cliffs like palisades, with here and there an old Moorish mill. Just below, the river is spanned by St. Martin’s bridge with its ancient fortifications. On the rough hills beyond are numerous _cigarrales_, or country-seats. There is something wild and melancholy about the whole scene. The river itself rushes on in a fierce, ungovernable manner, as if it had never come under the influences of civilization. It comes from the palæontologic mountains of Albarracin, and flows on hundreds of miles, disdaining all commercial appliances, in lonely, lordly grandeur, till lost in the Atlantic. Its current is clear, green, and rapid, though poets sing it as the river of the golden waves. Don Quixote tells of four nymphs who come forth from its waters and seat themselves in the green meadow to broider their rich silken tissues with gold and pearls, referring to Garcilasso de la Vega, the poet-warrior of Toledo, who says:

“De cuatro ninfas, que del Tajo amado Salieron juntas, acantar me ofresco.…”

Farther up the river are a few Arab arches of the palace of Galiana, a heroine of ancient romance. She was the daughter of King Alfahri, who gave her this rural retreat, and embellished it in every possible way. The young princess was of marvellous beauty, and generally lived here to escape from her numerous suitors, among whom was Bradamante, a gigantic Moorish prince from Guadalajara. This redoubtable wooer endeavored, but in vain, to soften her heart. He only served to keep his rivals in check. At length a foreign prince, none other than the mighty Charlemagne himself, came to aid her father in the war against the King of Cordova. He was at once captivated by the beauty of Galiana, and, as she showed herself by no means insensible to his advances, he soon ventured to ask her hand in marriage. To dispose of Prince Bradamante, he challenged him to a private combat, and struck off his head, which he offered to the bride-elect. This obstacle removed, the wedding soon took place, and Galiana was triumphantly carried to France. Some pretend Charlemagne never crossed the Ebro, but we have unlimited faith in the legend, on which numberless songs and romances are based, and sold to this day by blind men on the public squares of Toledo.

One of the attractions of Toledo is Santa Maria la Blanca, an ancient Jewish synagogue in the style of the mosque of Cordova, which, after many vicissitudes, has become a Catholic church. The name is derived from the ancient legend of Our Lady _ad nives_――of the snow――which led to the foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, and is evidently popular in Spain from the number of churches bearing the name. That at Toledo is very striking from the horse-shoe arches, one above the other, supported by octagon pillars with curiously-wrought capitals. There are lace-like wheels along the frieze of the nave, and the roof is of cedar――a tree sacred to the Jews, and which they say only came to perfection in the Garden of Eden. In their epitaphs we often read: “He is gone down to the Garden of Eden, to those who are amongst the cedars.”

The Transito is another old synagogue, which was erected in the days of Don Pedro the Cruel by Samuel Levi, his wealthy treasurer. The architects were probably Moors, for it is decorated in the style of the Alhambra. It consists only of one nave, but this is richly ornamented. Along the walls are Hebrew inscriptions, said to be in part from the Psalms, and partly in praise of Samuel Levi. His praises were not on the lips of the people, however. On the contrary, he was very obnoxious to them on account of his exorbitant taxes, and when put to the torture by Don Pedro, he was by no means regretted. The Jews were specially detested at Toledo. It is said they opened the city to the Moors, and subsequently to the Christians, and were faithful to neither party. When expelled in 1492, this building was given to the Knights of Calatrava.

The church of San Juan de los Reyes was built in 1476 by Ferdinand and Isabella in gratitude for a victory over the Portuguese. It is now a parish church, but was first given to the Franciscans, whose long knotted cord is carved along the frieze. It is magnificently situated on a height overlooking the Tagus. An immense number of chains are suspended on the outer walls, taken from Christian captives in the dungeons of the Alhambra. These glorious trophies were brought from Granada in 1492, and cannot be regarded without emotion. It is said――but who can believe it?――that some of them were recently used by the authorities to enclose a public promenade, to save the expense of buying new ones――a most odious piece of economy, of which Samuel Levi himself would not have been guilty. The portal of this church is a beautiful example of the Plateresco style, exquisite as goldsmith’s work, with its fretted niches and sculptured shields. The building, though only intended for a conventual church, is of grand proportions and richly ornamented. The emblems of Ferdinand and Isabella, with other heraldic devices, are sculptured amid delicate foliage around the royal gallery, and over the high altar Cardinal Mendoza is painted at the foot of the cross.

The cloisters adjoining, of the florid Gothic style, are exquisitely beautiful. They are built around a pleasant court, which has a fountain in the centre, and a profusion of orange-trees and myrtles. The niches of the arcades are peopled with saints, and the columns and arches covered with an endless variety of acanthus leaves, lilies, bellflowers, ivy, holly, and even the humbler vegetables, carved with a skill that reminded us of Scott’s well-known lines:

“Thou wouldst have thought some fairy’s hand Had framed a spell, when the work was done, And changed the willow wreaths to stone.”

The convent has been sequestered, and the Gothic refectory of the friars is now the public museum. Near by was the palace of Cardinal Ximenes, who was a member of the Franciscan Order.

To say nothing about the swords of Toledo would be almost like leaving the hero out of the play. Spanish weapons have been renowned from ancient times. Titus Livius and Martial mention them. Cicero alludes to the _pugiunculus Hispaniensis_. Gratius Faliscus, a friend of Ovid’s, speaks, in particular, of the _Cultrum Toledanum_ which hunters wore at their belts:

“Ima Toledano præcingunt ilia cultro.”

Swords continued to be fabricated at Toledo in the time of the Gothic kings. Their broad, two-edged swords were probably the type of the _alfanjes_ of the Moors, which we see in the paintings in the Alhambra. The kings of Castile accorded special privileges to the corporations of _espaderos_, such as exemption from taxes on the steel they used. This was brought from the Basque provinces, about a mile from Mondragon.

“Vencedora espada, De Mondragon tu acero, Y en Toledo templada.”

――“Sword victorious, thy steel is from Mondragon, but tempered at Toledo.”

The most ancient Toledan sword-maker known is a Moor called _Del Rey_, because Ferdinand the Catholic stood as godfather at his conversion. His mark was a _perrillo_, or little dog, which was so famous that Don Quixote speaks of it. But the swords of Spain were in general renowned all over Europe in the middle ages. Froissart speaks of the short Spanish dagger with a wide blade. We know by Shakspere how much this weapon was prized in England. It was a trusty Toledo blade Othello kept in his chamber.

The great blow to the sword manufactory of Toledo was the introduction of French costumes in the seventeenth century, in which swords were dispensed with. Carlos III. resolved to revive this industry, and erected the present fabric on the right shore of the Tagus, more than a mile from the city. The swords are inferior in quality and lack their former elegance of form. They participate in the degeneracy of those who wield them. Spain, once noble, chivalrous, and of deep convictions, has lost its fine temper and keenness of thrust. The raw material out of which such wonders were wrought in the old days remains still, however, in the people as in the country. It only needs a return to old principles of faith and honor on the part of the ruling classes to prepare the way for a new Spanish history, more glorious and more advantageous to the world at large than even Spain has ever known.

[190] It was M. Hérouard, a French refugee, employed at the military academy at Toledo as professor of French, who, hunting one day, in 1858, among the hills of Guarrazar, found a fragment of a gold chain that was glittering in the sun, and, digging, discovered the crowns that have been so much admired at Paris, and which are even more valuable for their historic interest than for the gold and precious stones. Later researches have brought others to light, but smaller in size, that are now in the Armeria at Madrid.

ENGLISH RULE IN IRELAND.

No one can pass from England into Ireland without being struck by the contrast in the condition of the two countries――a contrast so marked and absolute that it is revealed at the first glance, and in lines so bold and rigid that it seems to have been produced by nature itself. In England there is wealth, thrift, prosperity; in Ireland, poverty, helplessness, decay. Into the great heart of London, through arteries that stretch round the globe, the riches of the whole earth are poured. Dublin is a city of the past, and, in spite of its imposing structures, impresses us sadly. The English cities are busy marts of commerce or homes of comfort, luxury, and learning. The Irish towns are empty, silent, decayed. Into England’s ports come the ships of all the nations; but in Ireland’s hardly a sail is unfurled. There the chimneys of innumerable factories shut out with their black smoke the light of heaven; here the Round Tower or the crumbling ruin stands as a monument of death. England is over-crowded; in Ireland we travel for miles without meeting a human being; pass through whole counties from which the people have disappeared to make room for cattle. Freedom is in the very air of England: the people go about their business or pleasure in a sturdy, downright way, and in a conscious security under the protection of wise laws; in Ireland we cannot take a step without being offended by evidences of oppression and misrule. The people are disarmed and unprotected, guarded by a foreign soldiery, the servants of an alien aristocracy.

To what causes must we ascribe this wide difference in the condition of two islands, separated by a narrow strip of sea, with but slight dissimilarity of climate, and governed ostensibly for now nearly seven hundred years by the same laws?

The explanation given universally by English writers, with the tone with which one is accustomed to affirm axiomatic truths, is based upon the dissimilarity of the two peoples in natural character and in religious faith. The Irish, they say, are by nature discontented, idle, and thriftless, and their religion is in fatal opposition to liberty and progress. The subject is worthy of our attention. Ireland is an anomaly in European history. Just at the time when the other Christian nations, after overcoming the divisions and feuds of a barbarous age, were settling down into the unity which renders harmonious development possible, the seed of perpetual discord and never-ending strife was planted ineradicably in her soil. Three hundred years of almost incessant warfare with the Dane had left her exhausted and divided, an easy prey to the Norman barons, who introduced into her national life a foreign blood and an alien civilization.

From that day to the present time Ireland’s fate has been the saddest of which history has preserved the record. There has been no peace, no liberty, no progress. Opposing races, contrary civilizations, and opposite religions have clashed in such fierce and bloody battles that we could almost fancy the furies of the abyss had been let loose to smite and scourge the doomed land. Mercy, justice, all human feelings have been banished from this struggle, which has been one of brute force and fiendish cunning. Whatever the stronger has been able to do has been done; and there is no good reason for believing that England, in her dealings with Ireland, has ever passed one just law or redressed one wrong from a humane or honorable motive. From the conquest to the schism of Henry VIII., a period of nearly four centuries, the English colonists, entrenched within the Pale and receiving continually reinforcements from the mother country, formed a nation within a nation, always armed and watching every opportunity to make inroads upon the possessions of the native princes, who were not slow to return blow for blow. There was no security for life or property; the people were left to the mercy of barons and kings, to be robbed and pillaged or butchered in their broils. Nothing could be more inhuman than English legislation in Ireland during these four centuries, unless it be English legislation in Ireland during the three centuries which followed. Henry II. confiscated the whole island, dividing the land among ten of his chief followers; though they were able to hold possession of but a small part of the country. In the legal enactments and official documents of this period the term habitually used to designate the native population is “the Irish enemy.” They were never spoken of except as “the wild Irish,” until, as an English writer affirms, the term “wild Irish” became as familiar in the English language as the term wild beast. They were denied the title of English subjects and the protection of English law. An act, passed in the reign of Edward II., gave to the English landlords the right to dispose of the property of their Irish dependents as they might see fit. All social and commercial intercourse with the “Irish enemy” was interdicted. An Irishman if found talking with an Englishman was to be apprehended as a spy and punished as an enemy of the king; and the violation of an Irishwoman was not a crime before the law. Even exile was not permitted as a mitigation of this misery; for a law of Henry IV. forbade the “Irish enemy” to emigrate. There is no exaggeration in the address which the people of Ireland sent to Pope John XXII.:

“Most Holy Father,” they say, “we send you some precise and truthful information concerning the state of our nation, and the wrongs which we are suffering, and which our ancestors have suffered from the kings of England, their agents, and the English barons born in Ireland. After having driven us by violence from our dwellings, from our fields and our ancestral possessions――after having forced us to flee to the mountains, the bogs, the woods, and caves to save our lives――they cease not to harass us here even, but strive to expel us altogether from the country, that they may gain possession of it in its entire extent. They have destroyed all the written laws by which we were formerly governed. The better to compass our ruin, they have left us without laws.… It is the opinion of all their laymen, and of many of their ecclesiastics, that there is no more sin in killing an Irishman than in killing a dog. They all maintain that they have the right to take from us our lands and our goods.”

In the second period of English rule in Ireland, to the war of races was added a war of religion, in which the “Irish enemy” became the “Popish idolater.” To kill an Irishman was no sin, and to exterminate idolatrous superstition was a mission imposed by Heaven upon the chosen people to whom the pure faith of Christ had been revealed.

Then began the series of butcheries, devastations, famines, exterminations, and exiles which have not yet come to an end. The horrors of these three centuries have not been written; they can never be rightly told, or even imagined. Ireland was not only conquered, but confiscated.

Elizabeth confiscated 600,000 acres of land in Munster after the revolt of the Earl of Desmond; her successor, James I., confiscated a million acres in Ulster. Charles I. confiscated 240,000 acres in Connaught, and would have confiscated the whole province had he been able to obtain possession of it. Under the Commonwealth 7,708,237 acres were confiscated. William of Orange confiscated 1,060,000 acres. And in these confiscations we have not included the lands of the church, which were all turned over to the Establishment. The atrocity of England’s Irish wars is without a parallel in the history of Christian nations. Women and children were murdered in cold blood; priests were burned to death; churches were pillaged and set on fire; towns were sacked and the inhabitants put to the sword; men and youths were put on shipboard, carried into mid-ocean, and deliberately thrown into the sea. Others were sold as slaves in the Barbadoes. Whatever could serve as food for man was destroyed, that famine might make way with all who escaped the sword. Spenser, the poet, who visited Ireland after the revolt of the Earl of Desmond, in the reign of Elizabeth, has left us a description of the condition of that province as he saw it: “Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came, creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them; yea, and one another soon after, inasmuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in short space there were none almost left; and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast.”[191]

Lord Gray, one of Elizabeth’s lieutenants, declared towards the end of her life that “little was left in Ireland for her Majesty to reign over but carcasses and ashes.”

Cromwell’s wars were even more cruel, and left Ireland in a condition, if possible, more wretched still. Half the people had perished; and the survivors were dying of hunger in the bogs and glens in which they had sought refuge from the fury of the troopers. Wolves prowled around the gates of Dublin, and wolf-hunting and priest-hunting became important and lucrative occupations. But it is needless to dwell longer upon this painful subject. Let us remark, however, that it would be unjust to hold Elizabeth or Cromwell responsible for these cruelties. They but executed the will of the English people, who still cherish their memories and justify these outrages. No English ruler ever feared being called to account for harshness or tyranny in dealing with Ireland. The public opinion of the nation considered the extirpation of the Irish as a work to be done, and applauded whoever helped forward its consummation. This much we may affirm on the authority of Protestant witnesses. “The favorite object of the Irish governors,” says Leland, “and of the English Parliament was the utter extirpation of all the Catholic inhabitants of Ireland.”

“It is evident,” says Warner, “from the Lords-Justices’ last letter to the Lieutenant, that they hoped for an extirpation, not of the mere Irish only, but of all the English families that were Roman Catholics.”

The feeling against the Irish was even stronger than against the church, so that the English seemed to feel a kind of pleasure in the adherence of the Celtic population to the old faith, since it widened the chasm between the two races. They really made no serious efforts to convert the Irish to Protestantism. They neglected to provide them with instructors capable of making themselves understood. They put forth no Protestant translation of the Bible in the Irish language, but contented themselves with setting up a hierarchy of archbishops, bishops, and rectors whose lives were often scandalous, and who, as Macaulay says, did nothing, and for doing nothing were paid out of the spoils of a church loved and revered by the people. Some justification for the extermination of the Irish race would be found in the fact that those who perished were only papists. War, famine, confiscation, and exile had, by the close of the seventeenth century, either destroyed or impoverished the native and Catholic population of Ireland. The land was almost exclusively in the hands of Protestants, who had also taken possession of all the cathedrals, churches, and monasteries which had escaped destruction. The Catholics, reduced to beggary, were driven from the towns and, as far as possible, from the English settlements into the bleak and barren hills of Connaught. In many instances the confiscated lands had been given to Englishmen or Scotchmen, with the express stipulation that no Irish Catholic should be employed by them, even as a common laborer. In this extremity the Irish people were helpless. Every line along which it was possible to advance to a better state of things was cut off. Their natural leaders had been driven into exile or reduced to abject poverty; their spiritual guides had been murdered or banished; or if any had escaped their pitiless persecutors, a price was set upon their heads, and they led the lives of outlaws, unable to administer the sacraments even to the dying, except by stealth.

All their institutions of learning had been destroyed; and England permitted no instruction except in the English tongue――which the Irish neither spoke nor were willing to speak――and in Protestant schools, from which she knew the Catholics were necessarily shut out. They not only had nothing, but were in a condition in which it was impossible that they should acquire anything. Indeed, the little security which was still left them to drag out a miserable existence was found precisely in their utter helplessness and wretchedness. They could no longer be plundered, for they had nothing; they could not be butchered in battle, for they were powerless and without weapons; and so their persecutors paused, not, as the poet says, to listen to their sad lament, but from sheer contempt and indifference, thinking it no longer worth while to take notice of their hapless victims.

Three-fourths of the population of the island were nevertheless still Irish Catholics; and in spite of the persistent efforts to drive them all beyond the Shannon, the moment the violence of persecution abated large numbers showed themselves in other parts of the country, especially in the province of Munster. It was at this time, and to meet any danger that might arise from the mingling of the Irish Catholics with the Protestant colonists, that the Penal Code was enacted, by which the entire population that still held to the ancient faith was deprived of all rights and reduced to the condition of helots and pariahs. This Code, the most inhuman ever contrived by the perverted ingenuity of man, was the work of the Irish Parliament, which, it is almost needless to say, represented only the Protestants of Ireland. Violence had done its work; the Catholic Irish had been reduced to a condition as wretched as it is possible for man to suffer and live; and now the form of justice and the semblance of law are invoked to make this condition perpetual. Suddenly, and for the first time, the Protestants of Ireland seem animated with religious zeal for the conversion of the Catholics. The extermination of the Irish race was abandoned as hopeless; and, indeed, there seemed to be no good ground for believing that a people who had survived the wars, famines, and exiles by which Ireland had been drained of its population during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries could be extirpated. Nothing remained, therefore, but to convert them. This was the pretext with which men sought to hide the monstrous iniquity of the penal laws. All bishops and monks were ordered to quit Ireland before the 1st of May, 1698, under pain of imprisonment and transportation; and, in case they should return, they were to suffer death. Heavy fines were imposed upon all who harbored or concealed the proscribed ecclesiastics; and rewards were offered for their discovery or apprehension. Care was taken at the same time to exclude all foreign priests. By thus cutting off from Ireland the fountain-source of orders and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it was confidently expected that in a few years the Catholic priesthood would cease to exist there, and that the people, left without priests or sacraments, would have no alternative but to become Protestants. Every exterior sign of Catholic worship was suppressed, and it was tolerated only as a hidden cult, whose ceremonies were performed with bated breath, clandestinely in cabins and unfrequented places. Whatever appealed to the heart or the imagination was condemned. The steeple that pointed to heaven; the bell whose religious tones thrilled with accents of a world of peace; the cross that told of the divinity that is in suffering and sorrow; the pilgrimages in which the people gathered to cherish sacred memories and to do homage to worthy deeds and noble lives, were all proscribed. And even the poor huts in which it was possible to offer the Holy Sacrifice were carefully watched by the officers of the law, as to-day, in the great cities, places of infamy are put under the surveillance of the police.

Having suppressed the hierarchy and shorn the Catholic religion of its splendor, the rulers of Ireland next proceeded to adopt measures by which every imaginable inducement to apostasy was held out both to the clergy and the laity. An annual pension, first of twenty, then of thirty, and finally of forty pounds sterling was offered to all priests who should abandon their religion. Whether or not they accepted this bribe was held to be of small importance, as their ranks were rapidly thinned by death, and precautions had been taken that the vacancies should not be refilled.

The Catholic people were placed in a position like that of the Forty Martyrs, who were exposed naked on the frozen lake, surrounded by warm baths and comfortable houses, which they could enter by renouncing their faith. The deepest and holiest instincts of human nature were appealed to against the most sacred convictions which man is capable of holding. If the father wished to educate his child, schools abounded, but he could enter them only by abandoning his religion. He was not, indeed, forced to send his children to these Protestant schools, but it was made impossible for him to send them to any other. His tyrants went farther. They spared no pains to make it impossible that an Irish Catholic should learn anything even by stealth. All Catholic schoolmasters were banished from Ireland, and, in case of return, were to suffer death.

The law made express provision for the money necessary to defray the expenses of transporting these obnoxious persons. Nay, it went yet farther. There were schools on the continent of Europe to which a few Irish children might possibly find their way. This danger was foreseen and met. An act was passed prohibiting Catholics from sending their children across the Channel without special permission, and the magistrates were authorized to demand at any time that parents should produce their children before them. Beyond this it was not possible to go. All that human enactments can do to degrade the mind of a whole people to a state of brutish ignorance was done. And let us remark that this applied not to the Irish only, but to all Catholics who spoke the English language. The English government took from them every opportunity of knowledge, made it criminal for them to know anything; and then they were denounced by English writers almost universally as the foes of learning and as lovers of ignorance. We know of no harder or more cruel fate in all history, nor of a more striking example of the injustice of the world towards the church. Even here in the United States we Catholics are still suffering the consequences of this unparalleled infamy. But we have hardly entered on the subject of the Penal Laws: we are as yet on the threshold.

The enforced ignorance of the Irish Catholics was but a preparation for innumerable other legal outrages. From all the honorable careers of life they were mercilessly shut out――from the army; the navy, the magistracy, and the civil service. That a Catholic was not permitted to become an educator we have already seen. As little was he allowed to perform the functions of barrister, attorney, or solicitor. He could neither vote nor be elected to office. Shut out from all public life, from every liberal profession, disfranchised, ignorant, despised, was anything else needed to make the Irish Catholic the most wretched of men? His land had been confiscated, he had been robbed; he was a beggar; but might he not hope gradually to lift himself out of the degradation of his poverty? To regain ownership of the soil was out of the question. He was disqualified by law, which, however, permitted him to become a tenant――not to do him a favor, but solely for the benefit of the landlord, to whose arbitrary will he was made a slave. This is but half the truth. The iniquity of the law mistrusted the rectitude of human nature even in an Irish landlord. He was therefore compelled to be unjust to his tenant; to give him but short leases; to force him to pay at least two-thirds of the value of the produce of his farm; to punish him for improving his land by augmenting the rent; and, lest there should be any doubt as to the seriousness of these barbarous enactments, a premium was offered for the discovery of instances of their violation in favor of Catholic tenants. The landlord was not allowed to be just, but he was free to be as heartless and inhuman as he pleased. His tenants had no rights, they belonged to a despised race, they professed an idolatrous religion, and their extermination had been the cherished policy of the English government for six hundred years. If there was no hope here for the Irish Catholic, might he not, with better prospects, turn to commercial or industrial pursuits?

Without, for the present, taking a larger view of this question, it will be sufficient to consider the restrictions placed upon Catholics in this matter. Commerce and manufacture were controlled by municipal and trading corporations of which no Irish Catholic could be a member. This of itself, at a time when monopoly and privilege were everywhere recognized, gave to Protestants the entire business of the country.

Prohibitory laws were therefore not needed. But no security could lull to rest the fierce spirit of the persecuting Protestant oligarchy. A Catholic could not acquire real estate; he could not even rent land, except on ruinous terms; he could not exercise a liberal profession or fill a public office; he was unable to engage in commerce or manufacture; he had no political rights, no protection from the law; and, to make all this doubly bitter, his masters were at once the enemies of his race and his religion. This, one would think, ought to have been enough to satisfy the worst of tyrants. But it is of the nature of tyranny that the more it oppresses, the more it feels the necessity of inflicting new wrongs upon its victims. Every motive that incites men to activity and labor had been taken from the Catholics, and yet their oppressors, with the cowardice which naturally belongs to evil-doers, were still fearful lest some of them might, by chance or good fortune, acquire wealth enough to lift them above the immediate necessities of life. A universal threat was therefore held over all who possessed anything. A Catholic was not allowed to own a horse worth more than five pounds; any Protestant in the kingdom might take the best he had by paying him that sum. Whenever it was deemed necessary to call out the militia, the law declared all horses belonging to Catholics subject to seizure; and twenty shillings a day for the maintenance of each troop was levied on the papists of the country. Whenever property was destroyed, the law assumed that the Catholics were the offenders, and they were forced to indemnify the owners for their loss. They were taxed for the support of the government, in which they were not allowed to take part and from which they received no protection; for the maintenance of the Established Church, in which they did not believe and which was already rich with the spoils of the Catholic Church.

No Catholic was permitted to marry a Protestant; and the priest assisting at such marriage was punished with death. No Catholic could be a guardian; and to the agonies of death this new pain was added: that the dying father foresaw that his children would be committed to Protestants, to be brought up in a religious faith which had been the unclean source of all the ills that had befallen him and his country. The law held out a bribe to Catholic children to induce them to betray their parents, and put a premium on apostasy.

This inhuman Code was not framed at one time, nor was there found in its enactments any system or unity of purpose, other than that which is derived from the hate of the persecutor for his victim. To this blind fury whatever helped to crush and degrade the Catholic people of Ireland seemed just.

Though it seems almost incredible, it is nevertheless certain, that the execution of these laws was worse than the laws themselves. The whole intent of the legislators being directed to the extermination or perversion of the Irish Catholics, the fullest license was granted to the caprice and cruelty of individuals. The Catholic had no protection. If he sought to defend himself, he was forced to employ a Protestant lawyer, who could bring his case only before a Protestant judge, who was obliged to submit it to a Protestant jury. In these circumstances recourse to the law was worse than useless. The great landed proprietors were accustomed to deal out justice with a high hand. They had prisons in their castles, into which, for or without cause, they threw their helpless dependents; and whenever these outrageous proceedings were complained of, the grand juries threw out the indictments. To horsewhip or beat the poor Catholics was a frequent mode of correction, and they were even deliberately murdered without any fear of punishment. This we have upon the authority of Arthur Young, whose testimony is certainly above suspicion; and he adds that the violation of their wives and daughters was not considered an offence. If the great lord met them on the road, his servants were ordered to turn their wagons and carts into the ditch to make room for his carriage; and if the unfortunate wretches dared complain, they were answered with the lash. For a Catholic to bring suit against his Protestant persecutor would have been at once most absurd and most dangerous.

The religious fanaticism which had inspired the Penal Code lost its honesty and earnestness amid these frightful excesses. The tyrant is degraded with his victim, and crimes committed in the name of religion, if they begin in sincerity, end in hypocrisy. Even the poor honesty of blind zeal vanishes, and selfishness and hate alone remain. This is the sad spectacle which Ireland presents to our view after the first fury of persecution had spent itself. The dominant class grew indifferent to all religion, and, having ignominiously failed to make any impression on the faith of the Catholics, connived at their worship.

But as zeal grew cold, self-interest became more intense. So long as the Catholics remained in poverty and helplessness no notice was taken of them; but the moment they acquired anything which could excite the cupidity of a Protestant, the law was appealed to against them. The priest, who, according to the Code, incurred the penalty of transportation or hanging for saying Mass, could violate this article with impunity, provided he possessed nothing which might serve as a motive for denouncing him. The laws against Catholic worship were kept upon the statute-book, chiefly because they served as an ever-ready and convenient pretext for robbing Catholics. Another end, too, scarcely less important, was thereby gained. The Catholics, even when left in peace, lived in continual fear, knowing that any chance spark would be sufficient to light the flames of persecution. In this way it was hoped that the martyr-spirit in them would give place to the spirit of the slave; and this hope was not altogether delusive. Since there was a kind of security in remaining in abject poverty, in lurking in secret places, in speaking only with bated breath, and in showing the most cringing servility in the presence of their masters, the Catholics came by degrees to look upon this servile condition as their normal state, and hardly dared even hope for a better. We may remark that this is another instance in which the Catholic Church is held responsible for the work of Protestants. Protestant England has enslaved Catholic Ireland; has for centuries put forth the most heartless and cunningly-devised efforts to extinguish in the Irish Catholics every noble and free aspiration of the human heart; and then she has turned round and appealed to the world, with the cant which is twin-born with hypocrisy, to bear witness that Ireland is in fetters because the Catholic Church is opposed to liberty; and the world, in whose eyes success is ever the highest and the best, has smiled approval.

Is it, then, possible that six hundred years of hereditary bondage, of outlawry, of want and oppression, should produce no evil effect upon the character of a people, however nobly endowed by God? Are we to expect industry when every motive that incites men to labor is absent? How can he who is forbidden to possess anything be provident? Or is it not natural that the hopelessly wretched should grow desperate, reckless of their deeds or their consequences?

Great misfortunes, like great successes, try men as nothing else can. In the lowest depths of misery we are apt to forget that there is a lower deep. For ourselves, the more we study the history of the Irish people, and compare their character with the wrongs which they have suffered, the more wonderful does it seem to us that they should have remained superior to fate. If they have not wholly escaped the evil influences of the worst of all tyrannies, nothing, at least, has been able to destroy their purity, their hopefulness, their trust in God, and belief in the final triumph of right. They are, in our eyes, the highest example of the supremacy of the soul, of the invincible power of faith; the most striking proof of a divine Providence that watches over the destiny of nations. It will not be thought out of place to quote here the words of a Protestant historian who, in his old age, seems to regret the impartiality and generous love of unpopular truth which characterized his earlier manhood.

“Such,” says Mr. Bancroft, “was the Ireland of the Irish――a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon and did not fear to provoke. Their industry within the kingdom was prohibited or repressed by law, and then they were calumniated as naturally idle. Their savings could not be invested on equal terms in trade, manufactures, or real property, and they were called improvident. The gates of learning were shut on them, and they were derided as ignorant. In the midst of privations they were cheerful. Suffering for generations under acts which offered bribes to treachery, their integrity was not debauched. No son rose against his father, no friend betrayed his friend. Fidelity to their religion――to which afflictions made them cling more closely――chastity, and respect for the ties of family remained characteristics of the down-trodden race.”[192]

So long as there was question of oppressing and impoverishing the Irish Catholics the Protestant Ascendency received the hearty approval and efficient co-operation of the English government. But there was danger lest these Irish Protestants, possessing a country of the richest natural resources, should come to compete with England in the markets of the world.

There are few countries in the world so fertile as Ireland. About one-half of the island consists of a fat soil, with a chalky sub-soil, which is the very best of soils. The richness and beauty of her meadows were celebrated by Orosius as early as the fifth century. The climate is milder than that of England; the scenery more varied and lovely. The frequent rains clothe the fields with perpetual verdure. From her wild mountains gush numerous rivers, which, as they flow into the sea, form the safest and most capacious harbors, while in their rapid course they develop a water-power, available for purposes of manufacture, unsurpassed in the world. This water-power of Ireland has been estimated by Sir Robert Kane at three and a half millions of horse power. The country abounds in iron ore, and three centuries ago Irish iron was exported to England. Geologists have counted in the island no less than seven immense beds of both anthracite and bituminous coal; and of turf, the heating power of which is half that of coal, the supply is inexhaustible. The soil is most favorable to the growth of the beet-root, from which such large quantities of sugar are made in France and Belgium. The flax and hemp, as is well known, are of the best quality, and the fineness of Irish wool has long been celebrated. The rivers and lakes abound in trout and salmon and pike; and the fisheries alone, if properly managed, might become the source of enormous wealth. Were it not that, in the designs of Providence, the most cunningly-devised plans, when conceived in iniquity, defeat themselves, the English statesmen would have perceived that the most efficacious means for bringing about the result at which the policy of England, in its relations with Ireland, had always aimed, would have been the encouragement of Irish commerce and manufactures. No benefit could have accrued, from such a course, to the Catholic population, which was not only disfranchised, but rendered incapable by law of acquiring or possessing wealth.

Had the descendants of the Scotch and English settlers planted by Elizabeth, James, and Cromwell been permitted or encouraged to develop the natural resources of the country, they would not only have grown strong, but opportunities of remunerative labor and hope of gain would have attracted new settlers, and in this way Ireland would have been filled with Protestants, whose loyalty would have been firmly secured by this wise and conciliating policy. The agitations which rendered some amelioration of the condition of the Catholics unavoidable as part of a general system would not have taken place; the strength of the Protestant Ascendency would have grown with increasing numbers and wealth; exile would have remained the only refuge of the Catholic remnant from misery and death; and Ireland to-day might be as Protestant as was Ulster in the reign of Charles I.

But no motive of religion or humanity has ever influenced the policy of the English government when there was question of English interests. The desire of acquiring wealth or the necessity of defending one’s possessions are, in the opinion of Englishmen, the only sufficient reasons for going to war.

“Even in dreams to the chink of his pence This huckster put down war.”

It was not to be expected that Ireland, with her harbors and rivers, her fertile fields and unnumbered flocks, would be permitted to tempt capital to her shores or to stimulate enterprise. Nothing seemed more shocking to the English traders and manufacturers than the thought of having to compete in the home and foreign markets with the products of Irish industry. It was deemed intolerable that this nest of popery, this den of ignorance and corruption, should be dealt with in the same manner as England. The Parliament was therefore called upon to “make the Irish remember that they were conquered.”

England had assisted the Protestants of Ireland to crush the Catholics; she had for this purpose placed at their service her treasures, and her armies; and now the Irish Protestants were required, in evidence of their gratitude, to sacrifice the commercial and industrial interests of their country to English jealousy.

At the end of the seventeenth century the manufacture of woollen stuffs had attained to considerable importance in the southern provinces of Ireland. The superiority of the Irish broadcloths, blankets, and friezes was recognized, and it was therefore resolved that they should no longer be manufactured. The Lords and Commons, in 1698, called upon William III. to protect the interests of English merchants; and his majesty replied in the well-known words “I shall do all that in me lies to discourage the woollen manufacture of Ireland.” Accordingly, an export duty of four shillings in the pound was laid on all broadcloths carried out of Ireland, and half as much on kerseys, flannels, and friezes. This, in fact, was equivalent to a prohibition, and the ruin of the Irish woollen manufactures which followed was not an unforeseen, but the directly intended, consequence of this measure. The linen manufacture, since there were at the time no rival English interests, was opposed only in an indirect way by offering large bounties for the making of linen in the Highlands of Scotland, bounties on the exportation of English linen, and by imposing a tax of 30 per cent. on all foreign linens, with which most of the Irish linens were classed.

Still other measures were needed for the complete destruction of Irish commerce and industry. The _Navigation Laws_ forbade all direct trade between Ireland and the British colonies; so that all produce intended for Ireland had first to be unloaded in an English port. The Irish were not allowed to build or keep at sea a single ship. “Of all the excellent timber,” said Dean Swift in 1727, “cut down within these fifty or sixty years, it can hardly be said that the nation hath received the benefit of one valuable house to dwell in, or one ship to trade with.” The forests of Ireland, which so greatly added to the beauty of the country, were felled and carried to England to build ships which were to bring the wealth of the world into English ports. Even the Irish fishery “must be with men and boats from England.”

By these and similar measures, commercial and industrial Ireland was blotted out of existence, and even the possibility of her ever entering into competition with England for the trade of the world disappeared. The unjust legislation by which Irish industry was repressed was not inspired by religious passion nor directed against the Catholic population. Their condition was already so wretched and helpless that it would have been difficult to discover anything by which it could have been made worse. “The aboriginal inhabitants,” says Macaulay――“more than five-sixths of the population――had no more interest in the matter than the swine or the poultry; or, if they had an interest, it was for their interest that the caste which domineered over them should not be emancipated from all external control. They were no more represented in the Parliament which sat at Dublin than in the Parliament which sat at Westminster. They had less to dread from legislation at Westminster than from legislation at Dublin.… The most acrimonious English Whig did not feel towards them that intense antipathy, compounded of hatred, fear, and scorn, with which they were regarded by the Cromwellian who dwelt among them.”[193]

Molyneux, who at this time came forward as the champion of Ireland and of liberty, demanded nothing for the Irish Catholics but a more cruel slavery; and Dean Swift, who gained much popularity for his advocacy of Irish rights, declared he would as soon think of consulting the swine as the aboriginal inhabitants of the island.

Indisputable as the fact is that the Irish Catholics had no direct interest in the contest in which the commerce and industry of their country were destroyed, the consequences of the iniquitous policy of England proved nevertheless most disastrous to them. Manual labor was the only work which they were permitted to do, and there now remained for them nothing but the tillage of the soil, either as tenants-at-will or common laborers. Ireland was to supply England with beef and butter, and the work of exterminating the Irish Catholics was not to be pushed further than the exigencies of successful cattle-grazing might demand. Society was constituted in the simplest manner. There were but two classes――the possessors of the soil and the tillers of the soil: the lord and the peasant; the master and the slave; the Protestant and the Catholic; the rich man and the beggar. There were but two kinds of human dwellings――the castle, with its high walls and splendid park, and the mud cabin, in which it was impossible that there should be anything but filth and rags. The multitude lived for a few men, by whom they were valued as their horses or their dogs, but not treated so humanly. A contrast more absolute has never existed, even in the despotisms of Asia. The picture is revolting; it cannot be contemplated even in imagination without loathing, or thought of with any composure. It is a blot on humanity, an infamy which no glory and no services can condone. Ireland was in the hands of the worst class of men whom history has ever made odious――an aristocracy which hated the land from which it derived its titles, despised the people from whom it received its wealth, shirked the duties and responsibilities imposed by its privileges, and used its power only to oppress and impoverish the nation. The Irish people were thus under the weight of a double tyranny――that of England and that of their lords; and the fiend best knows which was the worst.

The Southern planter felt a kind of interest in his slaves――they were his property; an Irish landlord felt no interest of any kind in the people by whom he was surrounded. It was important that they should remain slaves, beggars, and outcasts; that the chasm which separated him from them should in no way be diminished; but for the rest he gave no thought whether they starved or murdered one another or were drowned in the deep. He spent most of his time in England, living in luxury, leaving his estates to the care of brutal agents, who pleased him the better the more cruel and grinding their exactions were. English in origin and sympathy, Protestant in religion, there was no bond of union between him and his people. He cared neither for the country nor its inhabitants. He was unwilling to risk capital even to improve his own lands; for he had no faith in the permanence of a social and political state which was possible only because it outraged the holiest and best instincts of mans nature. When it was proposed to take steps to drain the bogs and bring the waste lands of Ireland under cultivation, the Protestant party strenuously opposed the measure, on the ground that this would be an encouragement to popery. Nothing, therefore, was done either by the government or the landlords to improve the soil or to introduce better methods of tillage. The great proprietors, living in London, spending their time and fortune in a life of pleasure and display, let out their estates to land speculators, who were generally capitalists. These speculators sublet them, in lots of several hundred or a thousand acres, to a class of persons called middlemen, who divided them up into portions of five, ten, or twenty acres, and rented them to the poor Catholics. By neither the proprietors nor the speculators nor the middlemen was any risk of capital made. The peasant was therefore compelled to rent his little plot of ground, bare of everything――he found on it neither dwelling nor stabling, nor implements of any kind. He had nothing himself, and those whose interest it would have been to advance him money were unwilling to risk a penny. All that he could do was to put up a mud-cabin, and to get a wretched spade with which to begin work. If by honest labor he could have looked forward to an improvement in his condition, his lot would not have been altogether comfortless. The pioneers who in this new world have led the army of civilization from the Atlantic to the Pacific began life almost as poor as an Irish peasant of the seventeenth or the eighteenth century; but for them no law of man reversing nature’s first law made labor sterile. How was the poor Irish Catholic, with but a few acres of ground, and without the necessary means for proper cultivation, to pay the exorbitant rent which was to support the landlord, the speculator, and the middleman?――for upon him alone rested the burden of maintaining all three in a life of ease and luxury. The soil refuses to satisfy the unreasonable demands made upon it; the tenant finds that he is unable to pay his rent; and without the least ceremony he and his wife and children are turned upon the road. England having destroyed the commerce and manufactures of Ireland, he can find nothing to do, and, if he is unwilling to see his wife and children starve, he must beg. And even beggary, with its frightful degradations, affords little relief; for the rich spurn him and the poor have nothing to give. Few words are needed to bring home to us the significance of this state of affairs. We have only to recall the tragedy Which was enacted under our eyes in 1849. In that one year _fifty thousand families_ were turned upon the road to die; _two hundred thousand human beings_, without shelter, without bread, sent up their piteous moan of hunger and despair to God from the midst of a Christian nation, the richest in the world. The terrible famine of 1847 and 1848, which was only an unusually startling outbreak of an evil that has long been chronic in Ireland, was not caused by excess of population. The country, if its resources were properly developed, is capable of supporting a far larger number of inhabitants than it has ever had. There were but eight millions of people in Ireland in 1847, and it has been conclusively proven that under favorable circumstances fifteen millions would not be an excessive population. In fact, in the so-called years of scarcity, when the people were dying, by thousands, of starvation, the country produced enough to feed its inhabitants; but they had to sell their wheat, barley, and oats to pay the rent, and, the potato crop having failed, they had nothing to eat. In 1846 and 1847 enormous quantities of grain and live-stock were exported from Ireland to England, and yet the people of Ireland were starving. During the four years of famine Ireland exported four quarters of wheat for every quarter imported. The food was in the country, but it had to be sent to England to pay the rent of the landlords. The people were starving, but that was no concern of these noble gentlemen, so long as their rent was paid. The cry of hunger has rarely been hushed in Ireland. All through the eighteenth century the people died of starvation. In 1727 Boulter, the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, declared that thousands of families were driven from their homes by hunger; and Dean Swift has given us an account of the condition in his time of even the better class of tenants. “The families,” he says, “of farmers who pay great rents live in filth and nastiness, upon buttermilk and potatoes, without a shoe or stocking to their feet, or a house as convenient as an English hog-sty to receive them.” In 1734 the famous Bishop Berkeley asked this question: “Is there on the face of the earth any Christian and civilized people so destitute of everything as the mass of the people of Ireland?” In 1741 the cemeteries were too small for the burial of the multitudes who died of hunger.

In 1778, while we were struggling for freedom from English tyranny, Lord Nugent declared, in the House of Commons, that the people of Ireland were suffering all the destitution and misery which it is possible to human nature to endure. Nine-tenths of them earned no more than fourpence a day, and had no nourishment but potatoes and water. In 1817 the fever, brought on by hunger, attacked one million five hundred thousand persons――nearly half of the entire population of the country. In 1825, 1826, 1830, 1832, 1838, 1846 to 1850, and finally in 1860, 1861, and 1862, the melancholy cry of multitudes dying of hunger was heard throughout the land. In 1843 Thackeray, travelling in Ireland, declared that “men were suffering and starving by millions”; and a little later we know from the most accurate statistics that more than a million of the Irish people died of hunger within a period of two years. The history of Ireland is, we are persuaded, the sublimest and the saddest of all histories. It has never been written, and the grandest of themes awaits the creative power that will give it immortal life on the pictured page. It will be written in the English language, and it will link the English name and tongue for all time with the greatest social crime which one people ever committed against another. In another article we hope, by the aid of the faint and glimmering light that shines so fitfully in this blackness, to be able to trace the doubtful and devious way along which this providential race seems to be slowly rising into the promise of a better day. For the present we shall conclude with a quotation from De Beaumont, whose careful and conscientious studies on the _Social, Political, and Religious Condition of Ireland_ we recommend to all who are interested in this subject.

“I have seen,” he wrote in 1835, “the Indian in his forests and the negro in chains, and I thought, in beholding their pitiable state, that I saw the extreme of human misery; but I did not then know the fate of poor Ireland. Like the Indian, the Irishman is poor and naked; but he lives, unlike the savage, in the midst of a society which revels in luxury, and adores wealth. Like the Indian, he is deprived of every material comfort which human industry and the commerce of nations procure; but, unlike him, he is surrounded by fellow-creatures who are enjoying all that he is forbidden even to hope for. In the midst of his greatest misery the Indian retains a kind of independence which is not without its charm and its dignity. Destitute as he is, and famishing, he is yet free in his wilderness; and the consciousness of this freedom softens the hardships of life. The Irishman suffers the same destitution without having the same liberty. He is subject to laws, has all kinds of fetters; he dies of hunger, and is under rule; deplorable condition, which combines all the evils of civilization with the horrors known elsewhere only to the savage! Doubtless the Irishman who has shaken off his chains, and still has hope, is less to be pitied than the negro slave. Nevertheless he has to-day neither the liberty of the savage nor the bread of the slave.”[194]

[191] “A View of the State of Ireland,” by Edmund Spenser.

[192] _History of the United States_, vol. v. chap. iv. p. 73.

[193] _History of England_, vol. v. p. 45.

[194] _L’Irlande: Sociale, Politique et Religieuse._ Par Gustave de Beaumont, Membre de l’Institut. Tom. i. p. 222.

A MARCH PILGRIMAGE.

On Provence’ hills the touch of southern spring―― No laggard she with footstep faltering―― Awoke with sunny blessing drowsy earth, Filled soft green glades with carollings of mirth.

In western lands, o’er turbulent seas afar, Inclement March, with blustering notes of war, Through naked trees whirled fruitless flowers of snow All scentless drifting to the earth below.

Alike on Provence’ violet-studded fields, And that bright land where loath fond winter yields, Hung the gray shadow of a solemn Lent―― The church’s sorrow with spring’s promise blent.

Yet, breaking through the penitential shade, With shining altars in glad white arrayed, In those far, frosty lands the church’s voice Bid, with all joyousness, her sons rejoice.

Through the deep, Lenten sadness of her song Notes strong and jubilant swift poured along: The long-hushed “Gloria” wond’ring echoes woke, The angels’ chant the mournful silence broke.

Without, the wild and gusty whirls of snow; Within, the throng of reverent knees bent low, And faithful hearts, that from their dear green isle Brought Patrick’s faith to make their new home smile――

In rich possession of the “Unknown God”; Blessing the rivers and the prairies broad With cities populous and cross-crowned spires, And ever-kindling sanctuary fires.

So rose, exultant, on the bleak March day The joyous notes across Lent’s sombre way: Adoring souls, before the altar shrine, Thanking for Patrick’s faith their Lord divine.

Not Provence’ blossoms such glad music woke Though happy birds in spring-time laughter broke; Veiled the sad altar in its purple pall, And church and people, sorrow-laden all.

Yet joyful echoes from that western land Spoke ’mid the lapsing waves on Nice’s strand; Stirred, with the broken sweetness of that praise, The heart of one who, through long busy days

Of years unresting, had with patience toiled, With love and zeal, to keep his flock unsoiled Amid the strong new world’s tumultuous life. With such persuasion his wise words were rife

As if the grace of Savoy’s bishop-saint Were his to loving guide the weak and faint; As if, like Padua’s dear saint benign, He bore the burden of the Child divine.

He saw afar his Irish children kneel, The clinging reverence of their hearts reveal; Longing with them his fervent prayer to pour, He sought St. Honorat’s pine-girdled shore――

There treading where St. Patrick trod of old, When gathered his young heart the words of gold That should for heaven’s King a new realm win―― A faithful fold no wolf should enter in.

Here rose the chapel where the young saint prayed, Here thoughtful paced he Lerins’ learnèd shade. Ruined the abbey ’mid its olives rests, Wide open all its doors to pilgrim guests――

Though still the chapel keeps its purpose old, And Lerins’ vines and olives still enfold A cloister shade where constant prayer ascends, And Benedictine lore with labor blends.

Here, with all holy memories possessed, With loving thoughts of that sea-severed West, The pilgrim knelt――in that peace-shadowed place Mingling his prayers with Ireland’s tearful race.

Kneeling afar at shrine his hand had raised, While hearts, his lips had taught, St. Patrick praised, In love, ’neath western clouds and Provence’ sun, The Latin priest and Celtic flock were one.

O great St. Patrick! each day grows more wide The realm thou winnest that thy Lord may bide, A King revered on royal altar throne, In patient love abiding with his own.

Pray thou that this beloved land of ours, Strong in her youth and undeveloped powers, One day with that true beauty may be crowned, That girds thy island’s mournful brows around――

The beauty of true faith in Christ, her Lord, Who in her lavish hands such wealth has poured: Win thou for her great heart’s best heritage The steadfast bearing of faith’s strongest age.

Oh! win her stars for beacon-light to guide The restless wanderers from the Cross’s side, Gracious in pure, unfaltering light arrayed―― The earthly shadow of the Heavenly Maid.

Pray that her hands be ever raised to bless Meek hearts whose prayer wins her such comeliness; Pray that her soul for evermore be free, Signed with the chrism of true liberty.

SIX SUNNY MONTHS.

BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.