CHAPTER X.

In the month of November of the same year in which the queen did visit Lord and Lady Surrey at the Charter House, a person, who mentioned not his name, delivered into the porter's hands at our gate a letter for me, which I found to be from my good father, and which I do here transcribe, as a memorial of his great piety toward God, and tender love for me his unworthy child.

"MY DEARLY BELOVED DAUGHTER (so he),--Your comfortable letter has not a little cheered me; and the more so that this present one is like to be the last I shall be able to write on this side of the sea, if it so happen that it shall please God to prosper my intent, which is to pass over into Flanders at the first convenient opportunity: for the stress of the times, and mine own earnest desire to live within the compass of a religious life, have moved me to forsake for a while this realm, and betake myself to a place which shall afford opportunity and a sufficiency of leisure for the prosecution of my design. The comfortable report Edmund made of thy health, increased height, and good condition, as also of thy exceeding pleasant and affectionate behavior to him, as deputed from thy poor father to convey to thee his paternal blessing, together with such tokens as a third person may exhibit of that most natural and tender affection which he bears to thee, his sole child, whom next to God he doth most entirely value and love,--of which charge this good youth assured me he did acquit himself as my true son in Christ, which indeed he now is,--and my good brother's letter and thine, which both do give proof of the exceeding great favor shown toward thee in his house, wherein he doth reckon my Constance not so much a niece (for such be his words) as a most cherished daughter, whose good qualities and lively parts have so endeared her to his family, that the greatest sorrow which could befal them should be to lose her company; which I do not here recite for to awaken in thee motions of pride or a vain conceit of thine own deserts, but rather gratitude to those whose goodness is so great as to overlook thy defects and magnify thy merits;--Edmund's report, I say, coupled with these letters, have yielded me all the contentment I desire at this time, when I am about to embark on a perilous voyage, of which none can foresee the course or the end; one in which I take the cross of Christ as my only staff; his words, "Follow me," for my motto; and his promise to all such as do confess him before men, as the assured anchor of my hope.

"Our ingenuous youth informed thee (albeit I doubt not in such wise as to conceal, if it had been possible, his own ability, which, with his devotedness, do exceed praise) how he acquitted both me and others of much trouble and imminent danger by his fortunate despatch with that close prisoner. I had determined to place him with some of my acquaintance, lest perhaps he should return, not without some danger of his soul, to his own friends; but when he understood my resolution, he cried out with like words to those of St. Lawrence, 'Whither goeth my master without his servant? Whither goeth my father without his son?' and with tears distilling from his eyes, he humbly entreated he might go together with me, saying, as it were with St. Peter, 'Master, I am {611} ready to go with you to prison, yea to death;' but, forecasting his future ability, as also to try his spirit a little further, I made him answer it was impossible; to which our Edmund replied, 'Alas! and is it impossible? Shall my native soil restrain free will? or home-made laws alter devout resolutions? Am I not young? Can I not study? May I not in time get what you now have got--learning for a scholar? yea, virtue for a priest, perhaps; and so at length obtain that for which you now are ready? Direct me the way, I beseech you; and let me, if you please, be your precursor. Tell me what I shall do, or whither I must go; and for the rest, God, who knows my desire, will provide and supply the want. Can it be possible that he who clothes the lilies of the field, and feeds the fowls of the air, will forsake him who forsakes all to fulfil his divine precept, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all other things shall be given to you?"' Finally, he ended, to my no small admiration, by reciting the words of our Saviour, 'Whosoever shall forsake home, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, for my sake and the gospel's, shall receive a hundredfold and possess life everlasting.'

"By these impulses, often repeated with great fervor of spirit, I perceived God Almighty's calling in him, and therefore at last condescended to let him take his adventures, procuring him commendations to such friends beyond seas as should assist him in his purpose, and furnishing him with money sufficient for such a journey; not judging it to be prudent to keep him with me, who have not ability to warrant mine own passage; and so noted a recusant, that I run a greater risk to be arrested in any port where I embark. And so, in all love and affection, we did part; and I have since had intelligence, for the which I do return most humble and hearty thanks to God, that he hath safely crossed the seas, and has now reached a sure harbor, where his religious desires may take effect. And now, daughter Constance, mine own good child, fare thee well! Pray for thy poor father, who would fain give thee the blessing of the elder as of the younger son--Jacob's portion and Esau's also. But methinks the blessings of this world be not at the present time for the Catholics of this land; and so we must needs be content, for our children as for ourselves (and a covetous man he is which should not therewith be satisfied), with the blessings our Lord did utter on the mountain, and mostly with that in which he doth say, 'Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you, and revile you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my name's sake; for great is your reward in heaven.'

"Your loving father in natural affection and ten thousand times more in the love of Christ, H. S."

Oh, what a gulf of tenfold separation did those words "beyond seas" suggest betwixt that sole parent and his poor child! Thoughts travel not with ease beyond the limits which nature hath set to this isle; and what lies beyond the watery waste wherewith Providence hath engirdled our shores offers no apt images to the mind picturing the invisible from the visible, as it is wont to do with home-scenes, where one city or one landscape beareth a close resemblance to another. And if, in the forsaking of this realm, so much danger did lie, yea, in the very ports whence he might sail, so that I, who should otherwise have prayed that the winds might detain him, and the waves force him back on his native soil, was constrained to supplicate that they should assist him to abandon it,--how much greater, methought, should be the perils of his return, when, as he indeed hoped, a mark should be set on him which in our country dooms men to a cruel death! Many natural tears I shed at this parting, which until then had not seemed so desperate and final; {612} and for a while would not listen to the consolations which were offered by the good friends who were so tender to me, but continued to wander about in a disconsolate manner in the garden, or passionately to weep in my own chamber, until Muriel, the sovereign mistress of comfort to others, albeit ever ailing in her body, and contemned by such as dived not through exterior deformity into the interior excellences of her soul, with sweet compulsion and authoritative arguments drawn from her admirable faith and simple devotion, rekindled in mine the more noble sentiments sorrow had obscured, not so much through diverting, as by elevating and sweetening, my thoughts to a greater sense of the goodness of God in calling my father, and peradventure Edmund also, to so great an honor as the priesthood, and never more honorable than in these days, wherein it oftentimes doth prove the road to martyrdom.

In December of that year my Lord and my Lady Surrey, by the Duke of Norfolk's desire, removed for some weeks to Kenninghall for change of air, and also Lady Lumley, his grace judging them to be as yet too young to keep house alone. My lord's brothers and Mistress Bess, with her governess, were likewise carried there. Lady Surrey wrote from that seat, that, were it not for the duke's imprisonment and constant fears touching his life, she should have had great contentment in that retirement, and been most glad to have tarried there, if it had pleased God, so long as she lived, my lord taking so much pleasure in field-sports, and otherwise so companionable, that he often offered to ride with her; and in the evenings they did entertain themselves with books, chiefly poetry, and sometimes played at cards. They had but few visitors, by reason of the disgrace and trouble his grace was in at that time; only such of their neighbors as did hunt and shoot with the earl her husband; mostly Sir Henry Stafford and Mr. Rookwood's two sons, whom she commended; the one for his good qualities and honest carriage, and the other for wit and learning; as also Sir Hammond l'Estrange, a gentleman who stayed no longer away from Kenninghall, she observed, than thereunto compelled by lack of an excuse for tarrying if present, or returning when absent. He often procured to be invited by my lord, who used to meet him out of doors, and frequently carried him back with him to dine or to sup, and often both.

"And albeit" (so my lady wrote) "I doubt not but he doth set a reasonable value on my lord's society,--who, although young enough to be his son, is exceedingly conversable and pleasant, as every one who knows him doth testify,--and mislikes not, I ween, the good cheer, or the wine from his grace's cellar; yet I warrant thee, good Constance, 'tis not for the sake only of our poor company or hospitable table that this good knight doth haunt us, but rather from the passion I plainly see he hath conceived for our Milicent since a day when he hurt his arm by a fall not far from hence, and I procured she should dress it with that rare ointment of thine, which verily doth prove of great efficacy in cases where the skin is rubbed off. Methinks the wound in his arm was then transplanted into his heart, and the good man so bewitched with the blue eyes and dove-like countenance of his chirurgeon, that he has fallen head-over-ears in love, and is, as I hope, minded to address her in a lawful manner. His wound did take an exceeding long time in healing, to the no small discredit of thy ointment; for he came several days to have it dressed, and I could not choose but smile when at last our sweet practitioner did ask him, in an innocent manner, if the wound did yet smart, for indeed she could see no appearance in it but what betokened it to be healed. He answered, 'There be wounds, Mistress Milicent, which smart, albeit no outward marks of such suffering do show themselves.' {613} 'Ay,' quoth Milicent, 'but for such I be of opinion further dressing is needless; and with my lady's licence, I will furnish you, sir, with a liquid which shall strengthen the skin, and so relieve the aching, if so you be careful to apply it night and morning to the injured part, and to cork the bottle after using it.' 'My memory is so bad, fair physician,' quoth the knight, 'that I am like to forget the prescription.' She answered, he should stand the bottle so as it should meet his eyes when he rose, and then he must needs remember it.

"And so broke off the discourse. But when he is here I notice how his eyes do follow her when she sets the table for primero, or works at the tambour-frame, or plays with Bess, to whom he often talks as she sits on _her_ knees, who, if I mistake not, shall be, one of these days, Lady l'Estrange, and is as worthy to be so well married as any girl in the kingdom, both as touching her birth and her exceeding great virtue and good disposition. He is an extreme Protestant, and very bitter against Catholics; but as she, albeit mild in temper, is as firmly settled in the new religion as he is, no difference will exist between them on a point in which 'tis most of all to be desired husbands and wives should be agreed. Thou mayst think that I have been over apt to note the signs of this good knight's passion, and to draw deductions from such tokens as have appeared of it, visible maybe to no other eyes than mine; but, trust me, Constance, those who do themselves know what 'tis to love with an engrossing affection are quick to mark the same effects in others. When Phil is in the room, I find it a hard matter at times to restrain mine eyes from gazing on that dear husband, whom I do so entirely love that I have no other pleasure in life but in his company. And not to seem to him or to others too fond, which is not a beseeming thing even in a wife, I study to conceal my constant thinking on him by such devices as cunningly to provoke others to speak of my lord, and so appear only to follow whereunto my own desire doth point, or to propose questions,--a pastime wherein he doth excel,--and so minister to mine own pride in him without direct flattery, or in an unbecoming manner setting forth his praise. And thus I do grow learned in the tricks of true affection, and to perceive in such as are in love what mine own heart doth teach me to be the signals of that passion."

So far my lady; and not long after, on the first day of February, I had a note from her, written in great distraction of mind at the Charter House, where she and all his grace's children had returned in a sudden manner on the hearing that the queen had issued a warrant for the duke's execution on the next Monday. Preparations were made with the expectation of all London, and a concourse of many thousands to witness it, the tread of whose feet was heard at night, like to the roll of muffled drums, along the streets; but on the Sunday, late in the night, the queen's majesty entered into a great misliking that the duke should die the next day, and sent an order to the sheriffs to forbear until they should hear further. His grace's mother, the dowager countess, and my Lady Berkeley his sister (now indeed lowering her pride to most humble supplication), and my Lord Arundel from his sick-bed, and the French ambassador, together with many others, sued with singular earnestness to her majesty for his life, who, albeit she had stayed the execution of his sentence, would by no means recall it. I hasted to the Charter House, Mistress Ward going with me, and both were admitted into her ladyship's chamber, with whom did sit that day the fairest picture of grief I ever beheld--the Lady Margaret Howard, who for some months had resided with the Countess of Sussex, who was a very good lady to her and all these afflicted children. Albeit Lady Surrey had often greatly commended this young lady, and styled her so rare a piece of perfection that no one {614} could know and not admire her, the loveliness of her face, nobility of her figure, and attractiveness of her manners exceeded my expectations. The sight of these sisters minded me then of what Lady Surrey had written when they were yet children, touching my Lord Surrey, styling them "two twin cherries on one stalk;" and methought, now that the lovely pair had ripened into early maturity, their likeness in beauty (though differing in complexion) justified the saying. Lady Margaret greeted us as though we had not been strangers, and in the midst of her great and natural sorrow showed a grateful sense of the share we did take in a grief which methinks was deeper in her than in any other of these mourners.

Oh, what a period of anxious suspense did follow that first reprieve! what alternations of hope and fear! what affectionate letters were exchanged between that loving father and good master and his sorrowful children and servants; now writing to Mr. Dyx, his faithful steward:

"Farewell, good Dyx! your service hath been so faithful unto me, as I am sorry that I cannot make proof of my good-will to recompense it. I trust my death shall make no change in you toward mine, but that you will faithfully perform the trust that I have reposed in you. Forget me, and remember me in mine. Forget not to counsel and advise Philip and Nan's unexperienced years; the rest of their brothers' and sisters' well-doing resteth much upon their virtuous and considerate dealings. God grant them his grace, which is able to work better in them than my natural well-meaning heart can wish unto them. Amen. And so, hoping of your honesty and faithfulness when I am dead, I bid you this my last farewell. T. H."

Now to another trusty friend and honest dependent:

"Good friend George, farewell. I have no other tokens to send my friends but my books; and I know how sorrowful you are, amongst the rest, for my hard hap, whereof I thank God; because I hope his merciful chastisement will prepare me for a better world. Look well throughout this book, and you shall find the name of duke very unhappy. I pray God it may end with me, and that others may speed better hereafter. But if I might have my wish, and were in as good a state as ever you knew me, yet I would wish for a lower degree. Be a friend, I pray you, to mine; and do my hearty commendations to your good wife and to gentle Mr. Dennye. I die in the faith that you have ever known me to be of. Farewell, good friend.

"Yours dying, as he was living,

"NORFOLK."

These letters and some others did pass from hand to hand in that afflicted house; and sometimes hope and sometimes despair prevailed in the hearts of the great store of relatives and friends which often assembled there to confer on the means of softening the queen's anger and moving her to mercy; one time through letters from the king of France and other princes, which was an ill shot, for to be so entreated by foreign potentates did but inflame her majesty's anger against the duke; at others, by my Lord Sussex and my Lord Arundel, or such persons in her court as nearly approached her highness and could deal with her when she was merry and chose to condescend to their discourse. But the wind shifts not oftener than did the queen's mind at that time, so diverse were her dispositions toward this nobleman, and always opposed to such as appeared in those who spoke on this topic, whether as pressing for his execution, or suing for mercy to be extended to him. I heard much talk at that time touching his grace's good qualities: how noble had been his spirit; how moderate his disposition; how plain his attire; how bountiful his alms.

{615}

As the fates of many do in these days hang on the doom of one, much eagerness was shown amongst those who haunted my uncle's house to learn the news afloat concerning the issue of the duke's affair. Some Catholics of note were lying in prison at that time in Norwich, most of them friends of these gentlemen; of which four were condemned to death at that time, and one to perpetual imprisonment and loss of all his property for reconcilement; but whilst the Duke of Norfolk was yet alive, they held the hope he should, if once out of prison, recover the queen's favor and drive from their seats his and their mortal enemies, my Lords Burleigh and Leicester. And verily the axe was held suspended on the head of that duke for four months and more, to the unspeakable anguish of many; and, amongst others, his aged and afflicted mother, the Dowager Countess of Surrey, who came to London from the country to be near her son in this extremity. Three times did the queen issue a warrant for his death and then recalled it; so that those trembling relatives and well-wishers in and out of his house did look each day to hear the fatal issue had been compassed, In the month of March, when her majesty was sick with a severe inflammation and agonizing pain, occasioned, some said, by poison administered by papists, but by her own physicians declared to arise from her contempt of their prescriptions, there was a strange turmoil, I ween, in some men's breasts, albeit silent as a storm brewing on a sultry day. Under their breath, and with faces shaped to conceal the wish which bred the inquiry, they asked of the queen's health; whilst others tore their hair and beat their breasts with no affected grief, and the most part of the people lamented her danger. Oh, what five days were those when the shadow of death did hover over that royal couch, and men's hearts failed them for fear, or else wildly whispered hopes such as they durst not utter aloud,--not so much as to a close friend,--lest the walls should have ears, or the pavement open under their feet! My God, in thy hands lie the issues of life and death. Thou dost assign to each one his space of existence, his length of days. Thy ways are not as our ways, nor thy thoughts as our thoughts. She lived who was yet to doom so many princely heads to the block, so many saintly forms to the dungeon and the rack. She lived whose first act was to stretch forth a hand yet weakened by sickness to sign, a fourth time, a warrant for a kinsman's death, and once again recalled it. Each day some one should come in with various reports touching the queen's dispositions. Sometimes she had been heard to opine that her dangers from her enemies were so great that justice must be done. At others she vehemently spoke of the nearness of blood to herself, of the superiority in honor of this duke; and once she wrote to Lord Burleigh (a copy of this letter Lord Surrey saw in Lord Oxford's hands), "that she was more beholden to the hinder part of her head than she dared trust the forward part of the same;" and expressed great fear lest an irrevocable deed should be committed. But she would not see Lord Surrey, or suffer him to plead in person for his father's life. Yet there were good hopes amongst his friends he should yet be released, till one day--I mind it well, for I was sitting with Lady Surrey, reading out loud to her, as I was often used to do--my Lord Berkeley burst into the chamber, and cried, throwing his gloves on the table and swearing a terrible oath:

"That woman has undone us!"

"What, the queen?" said my lady, white as a smock.

"Verily a queen," he answered gloomily. "I warrant you the Queen of Scots hath ended as she did begin, and dragged his grace into a pit from whence I promise you he will never now rise. A letter writ in her cipher to the Duke of Alva hath been intercepted, in which that luckless royal {616} wight, ever fatal to her friends as to herself, doth say, 'that she hath a strong party in England, and lords who favor her cause; some of whom, albeit prisoners, so powerful, that the Queen of England should not dare to touch their lives.' Alack! those words, 'should not dare,' shall prove the death-warrant of my noble brother. Cursed be the day when he did get entangled in that popish siren's plots!"

"Speak not harshly of her, good my lord," quoth Lady Surrey, in her gentle voice. "Her sorrows do bear too great a semblance to our own not to bespeak from us patience in this mishap."

"Nan," said Lord Berkeley, "thou art of too mild a disposition. 'Tis the only fault I do find with thee. Beshrew me, if my wife and thee could not make exchange of some portion of her spirit and thy meekness to the advantage of both. I warrant thee Phil's wife should hold a tight hand over him."

"I read not that precept in the Bible, my lord," quoth she, smiling. "It speaketh roundly of the duty of wives to obey, but not so much as one word of their ruling."

"Thou hadst best preach thy theology to my Lady Berkeley," he answered; "and then she--"

"But I pray you, my lord, is it indeed your opinion that the queen will have his grace's life?"

"I should not give so much as a brass pin, Nan, for his present chance of mercy at her hands," he replied sadly. And his words were justified in the event.

Those relentless enemies of the duke, my Lords Burleigh and Leicester, --who, at the time of the queen's illness, had stood three days and three nights without stirring from her bedside in so great terror lest she should die and he should compass the throne through a marriage with the Queen of Scots, that they vowed to have his blood at any cost if her majesty did recover,--so dealt with parliament as to move it to send a petition praying that, for the safety of her highness and the quieting of her realm, he should be forthwith executed. And from that day to the mournful one of his death, albeit from the great reluctance her majesty had evinced to have him despatched, his friends, yea unto the last moment, lived in expectancy of a reprieve; he himself made up his mind to die with extraordinary fortitude, not choosing to entertain so much as the least hope of life.

One day at that time I saw my Lady Margaret mending some hose, and at each stitch she made with her needle tears fell from her eyes. I offered to assist her ladyship; but she said, pressing the hose to her heart, "I thank thee, good Constance; but no other hands than mine shall put a stitch in these hose, for they be my father's, who hath worn them with these holes for many months, till poor Master Dyx bethought himself to bring them here to be patched and mended, which task I would have none perform but myself. My father would not suffer him to procure a new pair, lest it should be misconstrued as a sign of his hope or desire of a longer life, and with the same intent he refuseth to eat flesh as often as the physicians do order; 'for,' quoth he, 'why should I care to nourish a body doomed to such near decay?'" Then, after a pause, she said, "He will not wear clothes which have any velvet on them, being, he saith, a condemned person."

Lady Surrey took one of the hose in her hand, but Lady Margeret, with a filial jealousy, sadly smiling, shook her head: "Nay, Nan," quoth she, "not even to thee, sweet one, will I yield one jot or tittle of this mean, but, in relation to him who doth own these poor hose, exalted labor." Then she asked her sister if she had heard of the duke's request that Mr. Fox, his old schoolmaster, should attend on him in the Tower, to whom he desired to profess that faith he did first ground him in.

And my Lady Surrey answered yea, that my lord had informed her of {617} it, and many other proofs beside that his grace sought to prepare for death in the best manner he could think of.

"Some ill-disposed persons have said," quoth Lady Margaret, "that it is with the intent to propitiate the queen that my father doth show himself to be so settled in his religion, and that he is not what he seems; but tis a slander on his grace, who hath been of this way of thinking since he attained to the age of reason, and was never at any time reconciled, as some have put forth."

This was the last time I did see these afflicted daughters until long after their father's death, who was beheaded in the chapel of the Tower shortly afterward. When the blow fell which, striking at him, struck a no less fatal blow to the peace and well-doing of his children, they all left the Charter House, and removed for a time into the country, to the houses of divers relatives, in such wise as before his death the duke had desired. A letter which I received from Lady Surrey a few weeks after she left London doth best serve to show the manner of this disposal, and the temper of the writer's mind at that melancholy time.

"My OWN DEAR CONSTANCE,--It may like you to hear that your afflicted friend is improved in bodily health, and somewhat recovered from the great suffering of mind which the duke, their good father's death, has caused to all his poor children--mostly to Megg and Phil and me; for their brothers and my sister are too young greatly to grieve. My Lord Arundel is sorely afflicted, I hear, and hath writ a very lamentable letter to our good Lady Sussex concerning this sad mishap. My Lady Berkeley and my Lady Westmoreland are almost distracted with grief for the death of a brother they did singularly love. That poor lady (of Westmoreland) is much to be pitied, for that she is parted from her husband, maybe for ever, and has lost two fair daughters in one year.

"My lord hath shown much affection for his father, and natural sorrow in this sad loss; and when his last letters written a short time before he suffered, and addressed "To my loving children," specially the one to Philip and Nan, reached his hands, he wept so long and bitterly that it seemed as if his tears should never cease. My lord is forthwith to make his chief abode at Cambridge for a year or two; and Meg and I, with Lady Sussex, and I do hope Bess also--albeit his grace doth appear in his letter to be otherwise minded. But methinks he apprehended to lay too heavy a charge on her, who is indeed a good lady to us all in this our unhappy condition, and was loth Megg should be out of my company.

"The parting with my lord is a sore trial, and what I had not looked to; but God's will be done; and if it be for the advantage of his soul, as well as the advancement of his learning, he should reside at the university, it should ill befit me to repine. And now methinks I will transcribe, if my tears do not hinder me, his grace's letters, which will inform thee of his last wishes better than I could explain them; for I would have thee know how tender and forecasting was his love for us, and the good counsel he hath left unto his son, who, I pray to God, may always follow it. And I would have thee likewise note one point of his advice, which indeed I should have been better contented he had not touched upon, forasmuch as his having done so must needs hinder that which thy fond love for my poor self, and resolved adherence to what he calls 'blind papistry,' doth so greatly prompt thee to desire; for if on his blessing he doth charge us to beware of it, and then I should move my lord to so much neglect of his last wishes as at any time to be reconciled, bethink thee with what an ill grace I should urge on him, in other respects, obedience to his commands, which indeed are such as do commend themselves to any Christian soul as most wise and profitable. {618} And now, breaking off mine own discourse to transcribe his words--a far more noble and worthy employment of my pen--and praying God to bless thee, I remain thy tender and loving friend, "ANN SURREY."

"The Duke of Norfolk's letters to his children:

"DEAR CHILDREN,--This is the last letter that ever I think to write to you; and therefore, if you loved me, or that you will seem grateful to me for the special love that I have ever borne unto you, then remember and follow these my last lessons. Oh, Philip, serve and fear God, above all things. I find the fault in myself, that I have (God forgive me!) been too negligent in this point. Love and make much of your wife; for therein, considering the great adversity you are now in, by reason of my fall, is your greatest present comfort and relief, beside your happiness in having a wife which is endued with so great towardness in virtue and good qualities, and in person comparable with the best sort. Follow these two lessons, and God will bless you; and without these, as you may see by divers examples out of the Scripture, and also by ordinary worldly proof, where God is not feared, all goeth to wreck; and where love is not between the husband and wife, there God doth not prosper. My third lesson is, that you show yourself loving and natural to your brothers and sister and sister-in-law. Though you be very young in years, yet you must strive with consideration to become a man; for it is your own presence and good government of yourself that must get friends; and if you take that course, then have I been so careful a father unto you, as I have taken such order as you, by God's grace, shall be well able, beside your wife's lands, to maintain yourself like a gentleman. Marry! the world is greedy and covetous; and if the show of the well government of yourself do not fear and restrain their greedy appetite, it is like that, by undirect means, they will either put you from that which law layeth upon you, or else drive you to much trouble in trying and holding your right. When my grandfather died, I was not much above a year elder than you are now; and yet, I thank God, I took such order with myself, as you shall reap the commodity of my so long passed travel, if you do now imitate the like. Help to strengthen your young and raw years with good counsel. I send you herewith a brief schedule, whom I wish you to make account of as friends, and whom as servants; and I charge you, as a father may do, to follow my direction therein; my experience can better tell what is fit for you than your young years can judge of. I would wish you for the present to make your chief abode at Cambridge, which is the place fittest for you to promote your learning in; and beside, it is not very far hence, whereby you may, within a day's warning, be here to follow your own causes, as occasion serveth. If, after a year or two, you spend some time in a house of the law, there is nothing that will prove more to your commodity, considering how for the time you shall have continual business about your own law affairs; and thereby also, if you spend your time well, you shall be ever after better able to judge in your own causes. I too late repent that I followed not this course that now I wish to you; for if I had, then my case perchance had not been in so ill state as now it is.

"When God shall send you to those years as that it shall be fit for you to keep house with your wife (which I had rather were sooner, than that you should fall into ill company), then I would wish you to withdraw yourself into some private dwelling of your own. And if your hap may be so good as you may so live without being called to higher degree, oh, Philip, Philip, then shall you enjoy that blessed life which your woful father would fain have done, and never could be so happy. Beware of high degree. To a vain-glorious, proud stomach it seemeth at the first sweet. Look into all {619} chronicles, and you shall find that in the end it brings heaps of cares, toils in the state, and most commonly in the end utter overthrow. Look into the whole state of the nobility in times past, and into their state now, and then judge whether my lessons be true or no. Assure yourself, as you may see by the book of my accounts, and you shall find that my living did hardly maintain my expenses; for all the help that I had by Tom's lands, and somewhat by your wife's and sister's-in-law, I was ever a beggar. You may, by the grace of God, be a great deal richer and quieter in your low degree, wherein I once again wish you to continue. They may, that shall wish you the contrary, have a good meaning; but believe your father, who of love wishes you best, and with the mind that he is at this present fully armed to God, who sees both states, both high and low, as it were even before his eyes. Beware of the court, except it be to do your prince service, and that, as near as you can, in the lowest degree, for that place hath no certainty; either a man, by following thereof, hath too much of worldly pomp, which, in the end, throws him down headlong, or else he liveth there unsatisfied; either that he cannot attain for himself that he would, or else that he cannot do for his friends as his heart desireth. Remember these notes, and follow them; and then you, by God's help, shall reap the commodity of them in your old years.

"If your brothers may be suffered to remain in your company, I would be most glad thereof, because continuing together should still increase love between you. But the world is so catching of everything that falls, that Tom being, as I believe, after my death, the queen's majesty's ward, shall be begged by one or another. But yet you are sure to have your brother William left still with you, because, poor boy, he hath nothing to feed cormorants withal; to whom you will as well be a father as a brother; for upon my blessing I commit him to your charge to provide for, if that which I have assured him by law shall not be so sufficient as I mean it. If law may take place, your sister-in-law will be surely enough conveyed to his behoof, and then I should wish her to be brought up with some friend of mine; as for the present I allow best of Sir Christopher Heydon, if he will so much befriend you as to receive her to sojourn with him; if not there in some other place, as your friends shall best allow of. And touching the bestowing of your wife and Megg, who I would be loth should be out of your wife's company; for as she should be a good companion for Nan, so I commit Megg of especial trust to her. I think good, till you keep house together, if my Lady of Sussex might be entreated to take them to her as sojourners, there were no place so fit considering her kindred unto you, and the assured friend that I hope you shall find of her; beside she is a good lady. If it will not be so brought to pass, then, by the advice of your friends, take some other order; but in no case I would wish you to keep any house except it be together with your wife.

"Thus I have advised you as my troubled memory can at present suffer me. Beware of pride, stubbornness, taunting, and sullenness, which vices nature doth somewhat kindle in you; and therefore you must with reason and discretion make a new nature in yourself. Give not your mind too much and too greedily to gaming; make a pastime of it, and no toil. And lastly, delight to spend some time in reading of the Scriptures; for therein is the whole comfort of man's life; all other things are vain and transitory; and if you be diligent in reading of them, they will remain with you continually, to your profit and commodity in this world, and to your comfort and salvation in the world to come, whither, in grace of God, I am now with joy and consolation preparing myself. And, upon my blessing, beware of blind papistry, which brings nothing but bondage to men's consciences. {620} Mix your prayers with fasting, not thinking thereby to merit; for there is nothing that we ourselves can do that is good,--we are but unprofitable servants; but fast, I say, thereby to tame the wicked affection of the mind, and trust only to be saved by Christ's precious blood; for without a perfect faith therein, there is no salvation. Let works follow your faith; thereby to show to the world that you do not only say you have faith, but that you give testimony thereof to the full satisfaction of the godly. I write somewhat the more herein, because perchance you have heretofore heard, or perchance may hereafter hear, false bruits that I was a papist; [Footnote 123] but trust unto it, I never, since I knew what religion meant (I thank God) was of other mind than now you shall hear that I die in; although (I cry God mercy) I have not given fruits and testimony of my faith as I ought to have done; the which is the thing that I do now chiefliest repent.

[Footnote 123: There would seem to be no doubt that the Duke of Norfolk was a sincere Protestant. The strenuous advice to his children to beware of Popery affords evidence of it. Greatly, however, as it would have tended to their worldly prosperity to have followed their father's last injunctions in this respect, all but one of those he thus counselled were subsequently reconciled to the Catholic Church.

The Duke's letters in this chapter are all authentic. See the Rev. M. Tierney's History of Arundel, and the Appendix to Nott's edition of Lord Surrey's poems.]

"When I am gone, forget my condemning, and forgive, I charge you, my false accusers, as I protest to God I do; but have nothing to do with them if they live. Surely, Bannister dealt no way but honestly and truly. Hickford did not hurt me in my conscience, willingly; nor did not charge me with any great matter that was of weight otherways than truly. But the Bishop of Ross, and specially Barber, did falsely accuse me, and laid their own treasons upon my back. God forgive them, and I do, and once again I will you to do; bear no malice in your mind. And now, dear Philip, farewell. Read this my letter sometimes over; it may chance make you remember yourself the better; and by the same, when your father is dead and rotten, you may see what counsel I would give you if I were alive. If you follow these admonitions, there is no doubt but God will bless you; and I, your earthly father, do give you God's blessing and mine, with my humble prayers to Almighty God that it will please him to bless you and your good Nan; that you may both, if it be his will, see your children's children, to the comfort of you both; and afterward that you may be partakers of the heavenly kingdom. Amen, amen. Written by the hand of your loving father. T. H."

"And to Tom his grace did write:

"Tom, out of this that I have written to your brother, you may learn such lessons as are fit for you. That I write to one, that I write to all, except it be somewhat which particularly touches any of you. To fear and serve God is generally to you all; and, on my blessing, take greatest care thereof, for it is the foundation of all goodness. You have, even from your infancy, been given to be stubborn. Beware of that vice, Tom, and bridle nature with wisdom. Though you be her majesty's ward, yet if you use yourself well to my Lord Burleigh, he will, I hope, help you to buy your own wardship. Follow your elder brother's advice, who, I hope, will take such a course as may be to all your comforts. God send him grace so to do, and to you too! I give you God's blessing and mine, and I hope he will prosper you."

"And to Will he saith (whom methinks his heart did incline to, as Jacob's did to Benjamin):

"Will, though you be now young, yet I hope, if it shall please God to send you life, that you will then consider of the precepts heretofore written to your brethren. I have committed the charge of your bringing-up to your elder brother; and therefore I charge you to be obedient to him, as you would have been to me if I had been {621} living. If you shall have a liking to my daughter-in-law, Bess Dacres, I hope you shall have it in your own choice to marry her. I will not advise you otherways than yourself, when you are of fit years, shall think good; but this assure yourself, it will be a good augmentation to your small living, considering how chargeable the world groweth to be. As you are youngest, so the more you ought to be obedient to your elders. God send you a good younger brother's fortune in this world, and his grace, that you may ever be his, both in this world and in the world to come."

"To me, his unworthy daughter, were these lines written, which I be ashamed to transcribe, but that his goodness doth appear in his good opinion of me rather than my so poor merits:

"Well-beloved Nan, that hath been as dear to me as if you had been my own daughter, although, considering this ill hap that has now chanced, you might have had a greater marriage than now your husband shall be; yet I hope that you will remember that, when you were married, the case was far otherways; and therefore I hope your dutiful dealings shall be so to your husband, and your sisterly love to your brothers-in-law and sister-in-law, as my friends that shall see it may think that my great affection to you was well bestowed. Thanks be to God, you have hitherto taken a good course; whereby all that wish you well take great hope rather of your going forward therein than backward--which God forbid! I will request no more at your hands, now that I am gone, in recompense of my former love to you, but that you will observe my three lessons: to fear and serve God, flying idleness; to love faithfully your husband; and to be kind to your brothers and sisters--specially committing to your care mine only daughter Megg, hoping that you will not be a sister-in-law to her, but rather a natural sister, yea even a very mother; and that as I took care for the well bestowing of you, so you will take care for the well bestowing of her, and be a continual caller on your husband for the same. If this mishap had not chanced, you and your husband might have been awhile still young, and I would, by God's help, have supplied your wants. But now the case is changed, and you must, at your years of fifteen, attain to the consideration and discretion of twenty; or else, if God send you to live in your age, you shall have cause to repent your folly in youth, beside the endangering the casting away of those who do wholly depend upon your two well-doings. I do not mistrust that you will be mindful of my last requests; and so doing God bless you, and send you to be old parents to virtuous children, which is likeliest to be if you give them good example. Farewell! for this is the last that you shall ever receive from your loving father. Farewell, my dear Nan!"

"And to his own sweet Megg he subjoined in the same letter these words:

"Megg, I have, as you see, committed you to your loving sister. I charge you therefore, upon my blessing, that you obey her in all things, as you would do me or your own mother, if we were living; and then I doubt not but by her good means you shall be in fit time bestowed to your own comfort and contentment. Be good; no babbler, and ever be busied and doing of somewhat; and give your mind to reading in the Bible and such other good books, whereby you may learn to fear God; and so you shall prove, by his help, hereafter the better wife, and a virtuous woman in all other respects. If you follow these my lessons, then God's blessing and mine I give you, and pray that you may both live and die his servant. Amen."

When I read these letters, and my Lady Surrey's comments upon them, what pangs seized my heart! Her {622} messenger was awaiting an answer, which he said must be brief, for he had to ride to Bermondsey with a message for my Lord Sussex, and had been long delayed in the city. I seized a pen, and hastily wrote:

"Oh, my dear and honored lady, what grief, what pain, your letter hath caused me! Forgive me if, having but brief time in which to write a few lines by your messenger, I dwell not on the sorrow which doth oppress you, nor on the many excellences apparent in those farewell letters, which give token of so great virtue and wisdom in the writer, that one should be prompted to exclaim he did lack but one thing to be perfect, that being a true faith,--but rather direct my answer to that passage in yours which doth work in me such regret, yea such anguish of heart, as my poor words can ill express. For verily there can be no greater danger to a soul than to be lured from the profession of a true Catholic faith, once firmly received and yet inwardly held, by deceptive arguments, whereby it doth conceal its own weakness under the garb of respect for the dead and duty to the living. For, I pray you, mine own dear lady, what respect and what duty is owing to men which be not rather due to him who reads the heart, and will ask a strict account of such as, having known his will, yet have not done it? Believe me, 'tis a perilous thing to do evil that good may come. Is it possible you should resolve never to profess that religion which, in your conscience, you do believe to be true, nor to move your lord thereunto, for any human respect, however dear and sacred? I hope other feelings may return, and God's hand will support, uphold, and never fail you in your need. I beseech him to guard and keep you in the right way.

"Your humble servant and truly loving poor friend,

"CONSTANCE SHERWOOD."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

{623}

From The Fortnightly Review.

THE HEART AND THE BRAIN.

BY GEORGE HENRY LEWES.

Heart and brain are the two lords of life. In the metaphors of ordinary speech and in the stricter language of science, we use these terms to indicate two central powers, from which all motives radiate, to which all influences converge. They rule the moral and the physical life: the moral owes to them its continuous supply of feelings and ideas; the physical its continuous supply of food and stimulus. All the composite material which serves to build up the bodily fabric, and repair its daily waste, is only so much "carted material" awaiting the architect, until it has twice passed through the heart--until having been sent by the heart to the lungs it has there received its plastic virtues, and returns to the heart to be thence distributed throughout the organism. So much is familiar to every one; but less familiar is the fact that this transmission of the blood from heart to lungs, and its distribution throughout the organism, are rendered possible and made effective only under the influence of the brain. Life is sustained by food and stimulus. The operation of nutrition itself is indissolubly connected with sensibility. Life is a plexus of nutrition and sensation, the threads of which may ideally be separated, but which in reality are so interwoven as to be indissoluble. This is a paradox which even many physiologists will reject; but it is only a paradox because biological questions have constantly been regarded from a chemical point of view.

To render my proposition free from ambiguity, it is needful to premise that the term heart, by a familiar device of rhetoric, here expresses the whole of that great circulatory apparatus of which it is only a part; and in like manner the term brain here expresses the whole of the sensory apparatus. The reader knows perfectly well that in strict anatomical language the heart is only one organ having a definite function; and that the brain--although the term is used with considerable laxity--is only one portion of the complex nervous mechanism, having also its definite functions. But I am not here addressing anatomists, and for purposes of simplification I shall generally speak of the heart as if it were the whole of the vascular system, and of the brain as if it were the whole of the nervous system. And there is a philosophic truth suggested by this departure from the limitations of anatomical definition, namely, that if the brain as a nervous centre requires to be distinguished from all other nervous centres, it also requires to be affiliated on them: it has its special functions as an organ, but it has also a community of property--_i.e._, sensibility--with all other nervous centres.

In the study of animal organisms, the scientific artifice called analysis, which separates ideally what nature has indissolubly united, isolating each portion of a complex whole to study it undisturbed by the influences of other portions, has established a division of life into animal and vegetable. The division is as old as Aristotle, but has become the common property of science only since the days of Bichat. It is not exact, but it is convenient. As an artifice it has proved its utility, but like all such distinctions it has a tendency to divert the mind from contemplation of the real synthesis of nature. Even as an artifice the classification is not free from ambiguities; and perhaps it would be less exceptionable if {624} instead of vegetal and animal we were to substitute nutritive and sensitive. All the phenomena of growth, development, and decay--phenomena common to plants as to animals--may range under the laws of nutrition. All the phenomena of feeling and motion which specially distinguish animals, will range under the laws of sensibility. Plants, it is true, manifest motion, some few of them even locomotion; but in them it is believed that these phenomena are never due to the stimulus of sensibility.

Viewing the animal organism as thus differentiated, we see on the one hand a complex system of organs--glands, membranes, vessels--all harmoniously working to one end, which is to build up the body, and silently repair its continual waste. They evolve the successive phases of development. They prepare successive generations. On the other hand, we see a complex system of organs--muscles, tendons, bones, nerves, and nerve-centres--also harmoniously co-operative. They stimulate the organs of nutrition. They work first for the preservation of the individual in the struggle of existence; next, for the perfection of the individual in the development of his highest qualities.

But it is important to remember that this division is purely ideal--a scientific artifice, not a reality. Nature knows of none such. In the organism the two lives are one. The two systems interlace, interpenetrate each other, so that the slightest modification of the one is followed by a corresponding change in the other. The brain is nourished by the heart, and were it not for the blood which is momently pumped into it by the heart, its sensibility would vanish. And the heart in turn depends upon the brain, not for food, but for stimulus, for motive power, without which food is inert. That we may feel, it is necessary we should feed; that we may feed, it is necessary we should feel. Nutrition cannot be dissociated from sensation. The blood which nourishes the brain, giving it impulse and sustaining power, could never have become arterial blood, could never have reached the brain, had not the heart which sent it there been subjected to influences from the brain. The blood itself has no locomotive impulse. The heart has no spontaneous power: it is a muscle, and like all other muscles must be stimulated into activity. Unless the sensitive mechanism were in action, the lungs could not expand, the blood would not become oxygenated, the heart would not pump. Look on the corpse from which the life has just vanished. Why is it inert? There is food within it. It has blood in abundance. There is air in the lungs. The muscles are contractile, and the tendons elastic. So little is the wondrous mechanism impaired, that if by any means we could supply a stimulus to awaken the dormant sensibility, the chest would expand, the heart would beat, the blood would circulate, the corpse would revive.

It is unnecessary to point out in detail how dependent the brain is upon the heart; but mention may be made of the fact that more blood is sent to the brain than to any other organ in the body: according to some estimates a fifth of the whole, according to others a third. Not only is a large quantity of blood demanded for the continuous activity of the brain, but such is the peculiar nature of this great nervous centre, that of all organs it is the most delicately susceptible to every variation in the quality of the blood sent to it. If the heart pumps feebly, the brain acts feebly. If the blood be vitiated, the brain is lethargic; and when the brain is lethargic, the heart is weak. Thus do the two great centres interact. They are both lords of life, and both mutually indispensable.

There are two objections which it may be well to anticipate: Nutrition, it may be objected, cannot be so indissolubly blended with sensation as I have affirmed, because, in the first place, most of the nutritive processes go on without the intervention of {625} sensibility; and in the second place, the nutritive life of plants is confessedly independent of sensation, since in plants there is no sensitive mechanism whatever. Nutrition is simply a chemical process.

The answers to these objections may be very brief. Nutrition is a biological not a chemical process: it involves the operation of chemical laws, but these laws are themselves subordinated to physiological laws; and one of these laws is the necessary dependence of organic activity on a nervous mechanism wherever such a mechanism exists. Although popular language, and the mistaken views (as I conceive) of physiologists, allow us to say, without any apparent absurdity, that the processes of respiration, digestion, circulation, and secretion go on without feeling or sensation--because these processes do not habitually become distinct in consciousness, but are merged in the general feeling of existence--we have only to replace the word feeling, or sensation, by the phrase "nervous influence," and it then becomes a serious biological error to speak of nutrition as dissociated from the stimulus of nervous centres, as capable of continuance without the intervention of sensibility. The chemical combinations and decompositions do not of course depend on this intervention, but the _transport_ of materials does. All the disputes which have been waged on this subject would have been silenced had the disputants borne in mind this distinction between the chemical and organic elements in every nutritive process. It is not the stoker who makes the steam; but if the stoker were not to supply the fire with coals, and the safety-valve were not to regulate the amount of pressure, steam might indeed be generated, but no steam-engine would perform its useful work. In like manner, it is not the vascular system which makes a secretion; but if the blood did not supply the gland with materials, the secreting process would quickly end, and the blood can only be brought to the gland through the agency of muscular contractions stimulated by nervous influence.

Granting that plants have no sensibility, and that in them the process of nutrition must go on without such an intervention, we are able to demonstrate that in animals in whose organism the sensitive apparatus is an integral portion, the processes of nutrition are more or less under the influence of this apparatus. In saying "more or less," I indicate the greater or less perfection of the organism; for, as every one knows, the perfection of each type is due to the predominance of its sensitive mechanism. In some of the lowest types, no trace of a nervous mechanism can be discovered. A little higher in the scale, the mechanism is very slight and simple. Still higher, it becomes complex and important. It culminates in man. Corresponding with this scale of complexity in the sensitive life is the scale of complexity in the nutritive life. As the two rise in importance they rise in the scale of dependence. Thus a frog or a triton will live long after its brain is removed. I have kept frogs for several weeks without their brains, and tritons without their heads. Redi, the illustrious Italian naturalist, kept a turtle alive five months after the removal of its brain. Now it is needless to say that in higher animals death would rapidly follow the loss of the brain. A somewhat similar parallelism is seen on the removal of the heart. None of the higher animals can survive a serious injury to the heart; but that organ may be removed from a reptile, and the animal will crawl away seemingly as lively as ever. A frog will live several hours without a heart, and will hop, swim, and struggle as if uninjured. Stilling once removed all the viscera from a frog, which, however, continued for one hour to hop, defend itself, and in various ways manifest its vivacity. [Footnote 124]

[Footnote 124: Stilling, _Untersuchungen über die Functionen des Rückenmarks_, p. 38. ]

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In spite of these evidences of a temporary independence of brain and heart, as individual organs, there is nothing more certain than the intimate interdependence of the sensitive and circulating systems; and if in lower animals the interdependence of the two great central organs is less energetic than in the higher, the law of the intervention of sensibility in all processes of nutrition is unaffected. In fact, wherever the motor mechanism is muscular, as it is in all but the simplest animals, the necessary intervention of sensibility is an _à priori_ axiom. Every action in the organs of such animals is a manifestation of muscular contractility, and there is no known means of exciting this contractility except by the stimulus of a nerve.

The heart is a muscle. Some years ago there was a school of physiologists advocating the hypothesis that the action of the heart was due to the irritability of its muscular tissue, which was stimulated by the presence of blood. The great Haller was the head of this school, and his _"Memoires sur la nature sensible et irritable des parties"_ [Footnote 125] is still worthy the attention of experimentalists. And, indeed, when men saw the heart continue its pulsations some time after death, and even after removal from the body, and saw, moreover, that after pulsation had ceased it could be revived by the injection of warm blood, there seemed the strongest arguments in favor of the hypothesis. Unhappily for the hypothesis, the heart continues to beat long after all the blood has been pumped out of it, consequently its beating cannot be due to the stimulus of the blood.

[Footnote 125: Lausanne, 1756, in 4 vols. ]

In our own day the difficulty has to a considerable extent been removed by the discovery of a small nervous system specially allotted to the heart,--nerves and ganglia imbedded in its substance, which there do the work of nerves and ganglia everywhere else. Cut the heart into pieces, and each piece containing a ganglion will beat as before; the other pieces will be still. Beside this special cardiac system which influences the regular pulsations, there is the general nervous system, which accelerates and arrests these pulsations at every moment of our lives. The heart is thus connected with the general organism through the intervention of the great sensory apparatus. Filaments of what are called the pneumogastric nerves connect the heart with the spinal chord and cerebral masses; but it is not the influence of these filaments which causes the regular beatings of the heart (as physiologists formerly supposed), and the proof is that these filaments may all be cut, thus entirely isolating the heart from all connection with the great nervous centres, and yet the heart will continue tranquilly beating. What causes this? Obviously the stimulus comes from the heart's own nerves; and these are, presumably, excited by the molecular changes going on within it.

Physiologists, as we said just now, supposed that the filaments of the pneumogastric nerves distributed to the heart caused its beating. What then was their surprise, a few years since, when Weber announced that the stimulation of these fibres, instead of accelerating the heart's action, arrested it! Here was a paradox. All other muscles, it was said (but erroneously said), are excited to increased action when their nerves are stimulated, and here is a muscle which is paralyzed by the stimulation of its nerves. The fact was indisputable; an electric current passed through the pneumogastric did suddenly and invariably arrest the heart. Physiologists were interested. The frogs and rabbits of Europe had a bad time of it, called upon to answer categorically such questions put to their hearts. In a little while it appeared that although a strong electric current arrested the pulsations--and in mammals instantaneously--yet a feeble current accelerated instead of arresting them. The same opposite results followed a powerful and a gentle excitation of the upper region of the spinal chord.

{627}

To these very important and suggestive facts, which throw a strong light on many phenomena hitherto obscure, let us add the interesting facts that in a healthy, vigorous animal, the heart quickly recovers its normal activity after the withdrawal of the electric stimulus; but in a sickly or highly sensitive animal the arrest is final.

Who does not read here the physiological explanation of the familiar fact that powerful mental shocks momently arrest the heart, and sometimes arrest it for ever? That which a powerful current will do applied to the pneumogastric nerve, will be done by a profound agitation of grief or joy--truly called a heart-shaking influence. The agitation of the great centres of thought is communicated to the spinal chord, and from it to the nerves which issue to various parts of the body: the limbs are violently moved, the glands are excited to increased activity, the tears flow, the facial muscles contract, the chest expands, laughter or sobs, dances of delight and shouts of joy, these and the manifold expressions of an agitated emotion, are the after results--the first effect is an arrest, more or less fugitive, followed by an increase of the heart's action. If the organism be vigorous, the effect of a powerful emotion is a sudden paleness, indicating a momentary arrest of the heart. This may be but for an instant; the heart pauses, and the lungs pause with it--"the breath is taken away." This is succeeded by an energetic palpitation; the lungs expand, the blood rushes to face and brain with increased force. Should the organism be sickly or highly sensitive, the arrest is of longer duration, and fainting, more or less prolonged, is the result. In a very sensitive or very sickly organism the arrest is final. The shock of joy and the shock of grief have both been known to kill.

The effects of a gentle stimulus we may expect to be very different, since we know that a feeble electric current stimulates the heart's action. The nature of the stimulus is always the same, no matter on what occasion it arises. It may arise from a dash of cold water on the face--as we see in the revival of the heart's action when we throw water on the face of a fainting person. It may arise from inhaling an irritant odor. It may arise from the pleasurable sight of a dear friend, or the thrill of delight at the new birth of an idea. In every case the brain is excited, either through an impression on a sensitive nerve, or through the impulses of thought; and the sensibility thus called into action necessarily discharges itself through one or more of the easiest channels; and among the easiest is that of the pneumogastric nerve. But the heart thus acted on in turn reacts. Its increased energy throws more blood into the brain, which draws its sustaining power from the blood.

Experimentalists have discovered another luminous fact connected with this influence of the brain upon the heart, namely, that although a current of a certain intensity (varying of course with the nature of the organism) will infallibly arrest the heart, if applied at once, yet if we begin with a feeble current and go on gradually increasing its intensity, we may at last surpass the degree which would have produced instantaneous arrest, and yet the heart will continue to beat energetically.

The effect of repetition in diminishing a stimulus is here very noticeable. It will serve to explain why, according to the traditions of familiar experience, we are careful to break the announcement of disastrous news, by intimating something much less calamitous, wherewith to produce the first shock, and then, when the heart has withstood that, we hope it may have energy to meet the more agitating emotions. The same fact will also serve, partly, to explain why from repetition the effect of smoking is no longer as it is at first to produce paleness, sweating, and sickness. The heart ceases to be sensibly affected by the stimulus.

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Returning to the effects of a gentle stimulus, we can read therein the rationale of change of scene, especially of foreign travel, in restoring the exhausted energies. The gentle excitement of novel and pleasurable sights is not, as people generally suppose, merely a mental stimulus--a pleasure which passes away without a physical influence; on the contrary, it is inseparably connected with an increased activity of the circulation, and _this_ brings with it an increased activity of all the processes of waste and repair. If the excitement and fatigue be not too great, even the sickly traveller finds himself stronger and happier, in spite of bad food, irregular hours, and many other conditions which at home would have enfeebled him. I have heard a very distinguished physician (Sir Henry Holland) say that such is his conviction of the beneficial influence of even slight nervous stimulus on the nutritive processes, that when the patient cannot have change of scene, change of room is of some advantage--nay, even change of furniture, if there cannot be change of room!

To those who have thoroughly grasped the principle of the indissoluble conjunction of nutrition and sensation, such effects are obvious deductions. They point to the great importance of pleasure as an element of effective life. They lead to the question whether much of the superior health of youth is not due to the greater amount of pleasurable excitement which life affords to young minds.

Certain it is that much of the marvellous activity of some old men, especially of men engaged in politics or in interesting professions, may be assigned to the greater stimulus given to their bodily functions by the pleasurable excitement of their minds. Men who vegetate sink prematurely into old age. The fervid wheels of life revolve upon excitement. If the excitement be too intense, the wheels take fire; but if the mental stimulus be simply pleasurable, it is eminently beneficial.

Every impression reacts on the circulation, a slight impression producing a slight acceleration, a powerful impression, producing an arrest more or less prolonged. The "shock" of a wound and the "pain" of an operation cause faintness, sometimes death. Indeed, it is useful to know that many severe operations are dangerous only because of the shock or pain, and can be performed with impunity if the patient first be rendered insensible by chloroform. On the other hand, the mere irritation of a nerve so as to produce severe pain will produce syncope or death in an animal which is very feeble or exhausted. It is possible to crush the whole of the upper part of the spinal chord (the _medulla oblongata_) without arresting the action of the heart, if the animal has been rendered insensible by chloroform; whereas without such precautions a very slight irritation of the medulla suffices to arrest the heart.

A moment's reflection will disclose the reason of the remarkable differences observed in human beings in the matter of sensitiveness. The stupid are stupid, not simply because their nervous development is below the average, but also because the connection between the two great central organs, brain and heart, is comparatively languid; the pneumogastric is not in them a ready channel for the discharge of nervous excitement. The sensitive are sensitive because in them the connection is rapid and easy. All nervous excitement must discharge itself through one or more channels; but _what_ channels, will depend on the native and acquired tendencies of the organism. In highly sensitive animals a mere prick on the skin can be proved to affect the beating of the heart; but you may lacerate a reptile without sensibly affecting its pulse. In like manner, a pleasurable sight or a suggestive thought will quicken the pulse of an intelligent man, whereas his stupid brother may be the spectator of festal or solemn scenes and the auditor of noble eloquence with scarcely a change.

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The highly sensitive organism is one in which the reactions of sensibility on the circulation, and of the circulation on the sensibility, are most direct and rapid. This is often the source of weakness and inefficiency--as we see in certain feminine natures of both sexes, wherein the excessive sensitiveness does not lie in an unusual development of the nervous centres, but in an unusual development of the direct connection between brain and heart. There are men and women of powerful brains in whom this rapid transmission of sensation to the heart is not observable; the nervous force discharges itself through other channels. There are men and women of small brains in whom "the irritability" is so great that almost every sensation transmits its agitating influence to the heart.

And now we are in a condition to appreciate the truth which was confusedly expressed in the ancient doctrine respecting the heart as the great emotional organ. It still lives in our ordinary speech, but has long been banished from the text-books of physiology, though it is not, in my opinion, a whit more unscientific than the modern doctrine respecting the brain (meaning the cerebral hemispheres) as the exclusive organ of sensation. That the heart, as a muscle, is not endowed with the property of sensibility--a property exclusively possessed by ganglionic tissue--we all admit. But the heart, as the central organ of the circulation, is so indissolubly connected with every manifestation of sensibility, and is so delicately susceptible to all emotional agitations, that we may not improperly regard it as the ancients regarded it, in the light of the chief centre of feeling; for the ancients had no conception of the heart as an organ specially endowed with sensibility--they only thought of it as the chief agent of the sensitive soul. And is not this the conception we moderns form of the brain? We do not imagine the cerebral mass, as a mere mass, and unrelated to the rest of the organism, to have in itself sensibility; but we conceive it as the centre of a great system, dependent for its activity on a thousand influences, sensitive because sensibility is the form of life peculiar to it, but living only in virtue of the vital activities of the whole organism. Thus the heart, because its action is momently involved in every emotion, and because every emotion reacts upon it, may, as truly as the brain, be called the great emotional centre. Neither brain nor heart can claim that title exclusively. They may claim it together.

----

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[Transcriber: Read this section with a fixed pitch font so the two columns are correctly aligned.]

From The Month.

THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS.

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D.

[Concluded.]

§4.

SOUL.

But hark! upon my sense Comes a fierce hubbub, which would make me fear, Could I be frighted.

ANGEL.

We are now arrived Close on the judgment-court; that sullen howl Is from the demons who assemble there. It is the middle region, where of old Satan appeared among the sons of God, To cast his jibes and scoffs at holy Job. So now his legions throng the vestibule, Hungry and wild, to claim their property, And gather souls for hell. Hist to their cry.

SOUL.

How sour and how uncouth a dissonance!

DEMONS.

Low-born clods Of brute earth, They aspire To become gods, By a new birth, And an extra grace, And a score of merits, As if ought Could stand in place Of the high thought, And the glance of fire Of the great spirits, The powers blest, The lords by right, The primal owners Of the proud dwelling And realm of light, Dispossessed, Aside thrust, Chucked down, By the sheer might Of a despot's will, Of a tyrant's frown, Who after expelling Their hosts, gave, Triumphant still, And still unjust, Each forfeit crown To psalm-droners And canting groaners, To every slave, And pious cheat, And crawling knave, Who licked the dust Under his feet.

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ANGEL.

It is the restless panting of their being; Like beasts of prey, who, caged within their bars, In a deep hideous purring have their life, And an incessant pacing to and fro.

DEMONS.

The mind bold And independent, The purpose free, So we are told, Must not think To have the ascendant, What's a saint? One whose breath Doth the air taint Before his death; A bundle of bones, Which fools adore, Ha! ha! When life is o'er, Which rattle and stink, E'en in the flesh. We cry his pardon! No flesh hath he; Ha! ha! For it hath died, 'Tis crucified Day by day, Afresh, afresh, Ha! ha! That holy clay, Ha! ha! And such fudge, As priestlings prate, Is his guerdon Before the judge, And pleads and atones For spite and grudge, And bigot mood, And envy and hate And greed of blood.

SOUL.

How impotent they are! and yet on earth They have repute for wondrous power and skill; And books describe, how that the very face Of th' evil one, if seen, would have a force To freeze the very blood, and choke the life Of him who saw it.

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ANGEL.

In thy trial state Thou hadst a traitor nestling close at home, Connatural, who with the powers of hell Was leagued, and of thy senses kept the keys, And to that deadliest foe unlocked thy heart. And therefore is it, in respect of man, Those fallen ones show so majestical. But, when some child of grace, angel or saint, Pure and upright in his integrity Of nature, meets the demons on their raid, They scud away as cowards from the fight. Nay, oft hath holy hermit in his cell, Not yet disburdened of mortality, Mocked at their threats and warlike overtures; Or, dying, when they swarmed like flies, around, Defied them, and departed to his judge.

DEMONS.

Virtue and vice, A knave's pretence. 'Tis all the same; Ha! ha! Dread of hell-fire, Of the venomous flame, A coward's plea. Give him his price, Saint though he be, Ha! ha! From shrewd good sense He'll slave for hire; Ha! ha! And does but aspire To the heaven above With sordid aim, Not from love. Ha! ha!

SOUL.

I see not those false spirits; shall I see My dearest Master, when I reach his throne? Or hear, at least, his awful judgment-word With personal intonation, as I now Hear thee, not see thee, angel? Hitherto All has been darkness since I left the earth; Shall I remain thus sight-bereft all through My penance-time? if so, how comes it then That I have hearing still, and taste, and touch, Yet not a glimmer of that princely sense Which binds ideas in one, and makes them live?

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ANGEL.

Nor touch, nor taste, nor hearing hast thou now; Thou livest in a world of signs and types, The presentations of most holy truths, Living and strong, which now encompass thee. A disembodied soul, thou hast by right No converse with aught else beside thyself; But, lest so stern a solitude should load And break thy being, in mercy are vouchsafed Some lower measures of perception, Which seem to thee, as though through channels brought, Through ear, or nerves, or palate, which are gone. And thou art wrapped and swathed around in dreams, Dreams that are true, yet enigmatical; For the belongings of thy present state, Save through such symbols, come not home to thee. And thus thou tell'st of space and time and size, Of fragrant, solid, bitter, musical, Of fire, and of refreshment after fire; As (let me use similitude of earth, To aid thee in the knowledge thou dost ask)-- As ice which blisters may be said to burn. Nor hast thou now extension, with its parts Correlative,--long habit cozens thee,-- Nor power to move thyself, nor limbs to move. Hast thou not heard of those, who after loss Of hand or foot, still cried that they had pains In hand or foot, as though they had it still? So is it now with thee, who hast not lost Thy hand or foot, but all which made up man. So will it be, until the joyous day Of resurrection, when thou wilt regain All thou hast lost, new-made and glorified.-- --How, even now, the consummated saints See God in heaven, I may not explicate:-- Meanwhile let it suffice thee to possess Such means of converse as are granted thee, Though till the beatific vision thou art blind; For e'en thy purgatory, which comes like fire, Is fire without its light.

SOUL.

His will be done! I am not worthy e'er to see again The face of day; far less his countenance, Who is the very sun. Natheless, in life, When I looked forward to my purgatory, It ever was my solace to believe, That, ere I plunged into th' avenging flame, I had one sight of him to strengthen me.

ANGEL.

Nor rash nor vain is that presentiment; Yes,--for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord. Thus will it be: what time thou art arraigned Before the dread tribunal, and thy lot Is cast for ever, should it be to sit On his right hand among his pure elect, Then sight, or that which to the soul is sight, As by a lightning-flash, will come to thee, And thou shalt see, amid the dark profound, Whom thy soul loveth, and would fain approach, One moment; but thou knowest not, my child, What thou dost ask: that sight of the Most Fair Will gladden thee, but it will pierce thee too.

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SOUL.

Thou speakest darkly, angel; and an awe Falls on me, and I fear lest I be rash.

ANGEL.

There was a mortal, who is now above In the mid glory; he, when near to die, Was given communion with the Crucified,-- Such, that the Master's very wounds were stamped Upon his flesh; and, from the agony Which thrilled through body and soul in that embrace, Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love Doth burn, ere it transform. . . .

§ 5.

. . . Hark to those sounds! They come of tender beings angelical, Least and most childlike of the sons of God.

FIRST CHOIR OF ANGELICALS.

Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise: In all his words most wonderful; Most sure in all his ways!

To us his elder race he gave To battle and to win, Without the chastisement of pain, Without the soil of sin.

The younger son he willed to be A marvel in his birth: Spirit and flesh his parents were; His home was heaven and earth.

The Eternal blessed his child and armed, And sent him hence afar, To serve as champion in the field Of elemental war.

To be his vice-roy in the world Of matter, and of sense; Upon the frontier, toward the foe, A resolute defence.

ANGEL.

We now have passed the gate, and are within The house of judgment; and whereas on earth Temples and palaces are formed of parts Costly and rare, but all material, So in the world of spirits nought is found, To mould withal and form a whole, But what is immaterial; and thus The smallest portions of this edifice, Cornice, or frieze, or balustrade, or stair, The very pavement is made up of life-- Of holy, blessed, and immortal beings, Who hymn their Maker's praise continually.

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SECOND CHOIR OF ANGELICALS.

Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise: In all his words most wonderful; Most sure in all his ways!

Woe to thee, man! for he was found A recreant in the fight; And lost his heritage of heaven, And fellowship with light.

Above him now the angry sky, Around the tempest's din Who once had angels for his friends, Has but the brutes for kin.

O man! a savage kindred they: To flee that monster brood He scaled the sea-side cave and clomb The giants of the wood.

With now a fear and now a hope, With aids which chance supplied, From youth to old, from sire to son, He lived, and toiled, and died.

He dreed his penance age by age; And step by step began Slowly to doff his savage garb, And be again a man.

And quickened by the Almighty's breath, And chastened by his rod, And taught by angel-visitings, At length he sought his God;

And learned to call upon his name, And in his faith create A household and a fatherland, A city and a state.

Glory to him who from the mire, In patient length of days, Elaborated into life A people to his praise!

SOUL.

The sound is like the rushing of the wind-- The summer wind--among the lofty pines; Swelling and dying, echoing round about, Now here, now distant, wild and beautiful; While scattered from the branches it has stirred, Descend ecstatic odors.

THIRD CHOIR OF ANGELICALS.

Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise: In all his words most wonderful; Most sure in all his ways!

The angels, as beseemingly To spirit-kind was given, At once were tried and perfected, And took their seats in heaven.

For them no twilight or eclipse; No growth and no decay: Twas hopeless, all-engulfing night, Or beatific day.

But to the younger race there rose A hope upon its fall; And slowly, surely, gracefully, The morning dawned on all.

And ages, opening out, divide The precious and the base, And from the hard and sullen mass Mature the heirs of grace.

O man! albeit the quickening ray Lit from his second birth, Takes him at length what once he was, And heaven grows out of earth;

Yet still between that earth and heaven-- His journey and its goal-- A double agony awaits His body and his soul.

A double debt he has to pay-- The forfeit of his sins: The chill of death is past, and now The penance-fire begins.

Glory to him, who evermore By truth and justice reigns; Who tears the soul from out its case, And burns away its stains!

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ANGEL.

They sing of thy approaching agony, Which thou so eagerly didst question of: It is the face of the incarnate God Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle pain; And yet the memory which it leaves will be A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound; And yet withal it will the wound provoke, And aggravate and widen it the more.

SOUL.

Thou speakest mysteries; still methinks I know To disengage the tangle of thy words: Yet rather would I hear thy angel voice, Than for myself be thy interpreter.

ANGEL.

When then--if such thy lot--thou seest thy Judge, The sight of him will kindle in thy heart All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts. Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for him, And feel as though thou couldst but pity him, That one so sweet should e'er have placed himself At disadvantage such, as to be used So vilely by a being so vile as thee. There is a pleading in his pensive eyes Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble thee. And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself; for, though Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast sinned, As never thou didst feel; and wilt desire To slink away, and hide thee from his sight; And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell Within the beauty of his countenance. And these two pains, so counter and so keen,-- The longing for him, when thou seest him not; The shame of self at thought of seeing him,-- Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.

SOUL.

My soul is in my hand: I have no fear,-- In his dear might prepared for weal or woe. But hark! a deep, mysterious harmony It floods me, like the deep and solemn sound Of many waters.

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ANGEL.

We have gained the stairs Which rise toward the presence-chamber; there A band of mighty angels keep the way On either side, and hymn the incarnate God.

ANGELS OF THE SACRED STAIR.

Father, whose goodness none can know, but they Who see thee face to face, By man hath come the infinite display Of thine all-loving grace; But fallen man--the creature of a day-- Skills not that love to trace. It needs, to tell the triumph thou hast wrought, An angel's deathless fire, an angel's reach of thought.

It needs that very angel, who with awe Amid the garden shade, The great Creator in his sickness saw, Soothed by a creature's aid, And agonized, as victim of the law Which he himself had made; For who can praise him in his depth and height, But he who saw him reel in that victorious fight?

SOUL.

Hark! for the lintels of the presence-gate Are vibrating and echoing back the strain.

FOURTH CHOIR OF ANGELICALS.

Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise In all his words most wonderful; Most sure in all his ways!

The foe blasphemed the holy Lord, As if he reckoned ill, In that he placed his puppet man The frontier place to fill.

For even in his best estate, With amplest gifts endued, A sorry sentinel was he, A being of flesh and blood.

As though a thing, who for his help Must needs possess a wife, Could cope with those proud rebel hosts, Who had angelic life.

And when, by blandishment of Eve, That earth-born Adam fell, He shrieked in triumph, and he cried, "A sorry sentinel.

The Maker by his word is bound, Escape or cure is none; He must abandon to his doom, And slay his darling Son."

ANGEL.

And now the threshold, as we traverse it, Utters aloud its glad responsive chant.

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FIFTH CHOIR OF ANGELICALS.

Praise to the Holiest in the height, And in the depth be praise: In all his words most wonderful; Most sure in all his ways!

O loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame, A second Adam to the fight And to the rescue came.

O wisest love! that flesh and blood Which did in Adam fail, Should strive afresh against the foe, Should strive and should prevail.

And that a higher gift than grace Should flesh and blood refine, God's presence and his very self, And essence all-divine.

O generous love! that he who smote In man for man the foe, The double agony in man For man should undergo;

And in the garden secretly, And on the cross on high, Should teach his brethren and inspire To suffer and to die.

§ 6.

ANGEL.

The judgment now is near, for we are come Into the veiled presence of our God.

SOUL.

I hear the voices that I left on earth.

ANGEL.

It is the voice of friends around thy bed, Who say the "Subvenite" with the priest. Hither the echoes come; before the throne Stands the great angel of the agony, The same who strengthened him, what time he knelt Lone in the garden shade, bedewed with blood. That angel best can plead with him for all Tormented souls, the dying and the dead.

ANGEL OF THE AGONY.

Jesu! by that shuddering dread which fell on thee; Jesu! by that cold dismay which sickened thee; Jesu! by that pang of heart which thrilled in thee; Jesu! by that mount of sins which crippled thee; Jesu! by that sense of guilt which stifled thee; Jesu! by that innocence which girdled thee; Jesu! by that sanctity which reigned in thee; Jesu! by that Godhead which was one with thee; Jesu! spare these souls which are so dear to thee, Who in prison, calm and patient, wait for thee; Hasten, Lord, their hour, and bid them come to thee, To that glorious home, where they shall ever gaze on thee.

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SOUL.

I go before my Judge. Ah! . . . .

ANGEL.

.... Praise to his name! The eager spirit has darted from my hold, And, with the intemperate energy of love, Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel; But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity, Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes And circles round the Crucified, has seized, And scorched, and shrivelled it; and now it lies Passive and still before the awful throne. O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe, Consumed, yet quickened, by the glance of God.

SOUL.

Take me away, and in the lowest deep There let me be, And there in hope the lone night-watches keep, Told out for me. There, motionless and happy in my pain, Lone, not forlorn,-- There will I sing my sad perpetual strain, Until the morn. There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast, Which ne'er can cease To throb, and pine, and languish, till possessed Of its sole peace. There will I sing my absent Lord and love:-- Take me away, That sooner I may rise, and go above, And see him in the truth of everlasting day.

§ 7.

ANGEL.

Now let the golden prison ope its gates, Making sweet music, as each fold revolves Upon its ready hinge. And ye, great powers, Angels of purgatory, receive from me My charge, a precious soul, until the day, When, from all bond and forfeiture released, I shall reclaim it for the courts of light.

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SOULS IN PURGATORY.

1. Lord, thou hast been our refuge: in every generation;

2. Before the hills were born, and the world was: from age to age thou art God.

3. Bring us not, Lord, very low: for thou hast said, Come back again, ye sons of Adam.

4. A thousand years before thine eyes are but as yesterday: and as a watch of the night which is come and gone.

5. Though the grass spring up in the morning; yet in the evening it shall shrivel up and die.

6. Thus we fail in thine anger; and in thy wrath we are troubled.

7. Thou hast set our sins in thy sight: and our round of days in the light of thy countenance.

8. Come back, O Lord! how long? and be entreated for thy servants.

9. In thy morning we shall be filled with thy mercy: we shall rejoice and be in pleasure all our days.

10. We shall be glad according to the days of our humiliation; and the years in which we have seen evil.

11. Look, O Lord, upon thy servants and on thy work; and direct their children,

12. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and the work of our hands direct thou it. Glory be to the father and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; world without end. Amen.

ANGEL.

Softly and gently, dearest, sweetest soul In my most loving arms I now enfold thee, And, o'er the penal waters, as they roll, I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee.

And carefully I dip thee in the lake, And thou, without a sob or a resistance, Dost through the flood thy rapid passage take Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim distance.

Angels, to whom the willing task is given, Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest; And masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven, Shall aid thee at the throne of the Most Highest.

Farewell, but not for ever! brother dear, Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow; Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here, And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.

----

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From The Edinburgh Review. (Abridged.)

THE CHURCH AND MOSQUE OF ST. SOPHIA.

1. _Byzantine Architecture; illustrated by Examples of Edifices erected in the East during the earliest ages of Christianity_. With Historical and Archaeological Descriptions. By C. TEXIER and E. P. PULLAN. Folio. London: 1864.

2. _Epigraphik von Byzantium und Constantinopolis, von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum J._ 1453. Von Dr. S. A. DETHIER und Dr. A. D. MORDTMANN. 4to. Wien: 1864.

3. _Acta Patriarchates Constantinopolitani_, 1305-1402, _e Codice MS. Bibliothecae Palat. Vindobonensis; edentibus_ D. D. MIKLOVISCH et MULLER. 8vo. 2 vols. Viennse: 1860-2.

4. _Die alt-christliche Baudenkmale Konstantinopels von V. bis XII. Jahrhundert. Auf Befehl seiner Majestät des Königs aufgenommen und historisch erläutert von_ W. SALZENBERG. _Im Anhange des Silentiarius Paulus Beschreibung der heiligen Sophia und der Ambon, metrisch übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen versehen, von_ Dr. C. W. KORTÜM. Fol. Berlin: 1854.

5. _Aya Sofia, Constantinople, as recently restored by Order of H. M. the Sultan Abdul Medjid_. From the original Drawings of Chevalier GASPARD FOSSATI. Lithographed by Louis HAGHE, Esq. Imperial folio. London: 1854.

There is not one among the evidences of Moslem conquest more galling to Christian associations than the occupation of Justinian's ancient basilica for the purposes of Mohammedan worship. The most commonplace sight-seer from the west feels a thrill when his eye falls for the first time upon the flaring cresent which surmounts "Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;" and this emotion deepens into a feeling of awe at the mysterious dispensations of Providence, when he has stood beneath the unaltered and still stately dome, and

"surveyed The sanctuary, the while the usurping Moslem prayed."

For oriental Christians, this sense of bitterness is hardly second to that with which they regard the Turkish occupation of Jerusalem itself. In the latter, however they may writhe under the political supremacy of their unbelieving master, still, as the right of access to those monuments which form the peculiar object of Christian veneration is practically undisturbed, they are spared the double indignity of religious profanation super-added to social wrong. But the mosque of St. Sophia is, in Christian eyes, a standing monument at once of Moslem sacrilege and of Christian defeat, the sense of which is perpetuated and embittered by the preservation of its ancient, but now desecrated name.

To an imaginative visitor of the modern mosque, it might seem as if the structure itself were not unconscious of this wrong. The very position of the building is a kind of silent protest against the unholy use to which its Turkish masters have perverted it. Like all ancient Christian churches, it was built exactly in the line of east and west; and, as the great altar, which stood in the semicircular apse, was directly at the eastern point of the building, the worshippers in the old St. Sophia necessarily faced directly eastward; and all the appliances of their worship were arranged with a view to that position. Now, in the exigencies of Mohammedan ecclesiology, since the worshipper must turn to the Kibla at Mecca (that is, in Constantinople, to the south-east), the _mihrab_, or sacred niche, in the modern St. Sophia is {642} necessarily placed out of the centre of the apse; and thus the _mimber_ (pulpit), the prayer carpets, and the long ranks of worshippers themselves, present an appearance singularly at variance with every notion of architectural harmony, being arranged in lines, not parallel, but oblique, to the length of the edifice, and out of keeping with all the details of the original construction. It is as though the dead walls of this venerable pile had retained more of the spirit of their founder than the degenerate sons of the fallen Rome of the east, and had refused to bend themselves at the will of that hateful domination before which the living worshippers tamely yielded or impotently fled!

The mosque of St. Sophia had long been an object of curious interest to travellers in the east. Their interest, however, had seldom risen beyond curiosity; and it was directed rather toward St. Sophia as it is, than to the Christian events and traditions with which it is connected. For those, indeed, who know the grudging and capricious conditions under which alone a Christian visitor is admitted to a mosque, and the jealous scrutiny to which he is subjected during his visit, it will be easy to understand how rare and how precarious have been the opportunities for a complete or exact study of this, the most important of all the monuments of Byzantine art; and, notwithstanding its exceeding interest for antiquarian and artistic purposes, far more of our knowledge of its details was derived from the contemporary description of Procopius [Footnote 126] or Agathias, [Footnote 127] from the verses of Paulus Silentiarius, [Footnote 128] from the casual allusions of other ancient authorities, and, above all, from the invaluable work of Du Gauge, which is the great repertory of everything that has been written upon ancient or mediaeval Byzantium, than from the observation even of the most favored modern visitors of Constantinople, until the publication of the works named at the head of these pages.

[Footnote 126: _De Edificiis_, lib. i. c. i. ]

[Footnote 127: Pp. 152-3.]

[Footnote 128: A very good German version, with most valuable notes, is appended to the text of Saltzenberg's _Baudenkmale._]

For the elaborate account of the present condition of the mosque of St. Sophia which we now possess, we are indebted to the happy necessity by which the Turkish officials, in undertaking the recent restoration of the building, were led to engage the services of an eminent European architect, Chevalier Fossati, in whose admirable drawings, as lithographed in the "Aya Sofia," every arch and pillar of the structure is reproduced. The archaeological and historical details, which lay beyond the province of a volume mainly professional in its object, are supplied in the learned and careful work of M. Salzenberg, who during the progress of the restoration was sent to Constantinople at the cost of the late King of Prussia, for the express purpose of copying and describing exactly every object which might serve to throw light on Byzantine history, religion, or art, or on the history and condition of the ancient church of St. Sophia, the most venerable monument of them all.

Nor is it possible to imagine, under all the circumstances of the case, a combination of opportunities more favorable for the purpose. From long neglect and injudicious or insufficient reparation, the mosque had fallen into so ruinous a condition, that, in the year 1847, the late sultan, Abdul Medjid, found it necessary to direct a searching survey of the entire building, and eventually a thorough repair. In the progress of the work, while engaged near the entrance of the northern transept, M. Fossati discovered, beneath a thin coat of plaster (evidently laid on to conceal the design from the eyes of true believers) a beautiful mosaic picture, almost uninjured, and retaining all its original brilliancy of color. A further examination showed that these mosaics extended throughout the building; and, with a liberality which every lover of art must gratefully applaud, the sultan at once acceded to the suggestion of M. Fossati, {643} and ordered that the plaster should be removed throughout the interior; thus exposing once more to view the original decorations of the ancient basilica. It was while the mosque was still crowded with the scaffolding erected to carry on this most interesting work, that M. Salzenberg arrived in Constantinople. He thankfully acknowledges the facilities afforded to him, as well by the Turkish officials as by the Chevalier Fossati; and, although the specimens of the purely pictorial decorations of the ancient church which he has published are not as numerous as the reader may possibly expect, yet they are extremely characteristic, and full of religious as well as of historical and antiquarian interest.

Notwithstanding the beauty and attractiveness of M. Louis Haghe's magnificent lithographs of Chevalier Fossati's drawings published in the "Aya Sofia," the subject has received in England far less attention than it deserves. There is not an incident in Byzantine history with which the church of St. Sophia is not associated. There is not a characteristic of Byzantine art of which it does not contain abundant examples. It recalls in numberless details, preserved in monuments in which time has wrought little change and which the jealousy or contempt of the conquerors has failed to destroy or even to travesty, interesting illustrations of the doctrine, the worship, and the disciplinary usages of the ancient Eastern Church, which are with difficulty traced, at present, in the living system of her degenerate representative. To all these researches the wider cultivation of art and of history, which our age has accepted as its calling, ought to lend a deeper significance and a more solemn interest. St. Sophia ought no longer to be a mere lounge for the sightseer or a spectacle for the lover of the picturesque.

The history of this venerable church may be said to reach back as far as the first selection of Byzantium by Constantine as the new capital of his empire. Originally, the pretensions of Byzantium to ecclesiastical rank were sufficiently humble, its bishop being but a suffragan of the metropolitan of Heraclea. But, from the date of the translation of the seat of empire, Constantine's new capital began to rise in dignity. The personal importance which accrued to the bishop from his position at the court of the emperor, was soon reflected upon his see. The first steps of its upward progress are unrecorded; but within little more than half a century from the foundation of the imperial city, the celebrated fifth canon of the council which was held therein in 381 not only distinctly assigned to the Bishop of Constantinople "the primacy of honor, next after the Bishop of Rome," but, by alleging as the ground of this precedence the principle "that Constantinople is the new Rome," laid the foundation of that rivalry with the older Rome which had its final issue in the complete separation of the Eastern from the Western Church.

The dignity of the see was represented in the beauty and magnificence of its churches, and especially of its cathedral. One of the considerations by which Constantine was influenced in the selection of Byzantium for his new capital, lay in the advantages for architectural purposes which the position commanded. The rich and various marbles of Proconnesus; the unlimited supply of timber from the forests of the Euxine; the artistic genius and the manual dexterity of the architects and artisans of Greece--all lay within easy reach of Byzantium; and, freely as Constantine availed himself of these resources for the embellishment of the new city in its palaces, its offices of state, and its other public buildings, the magnificence which he exhibited in his churches outstripped all his other undertakings. Of these churches by far the most magnificent was that which forms the subject of the present notice. Its title is often a subject of misapprehension to those who, being accustomed to regard {644} "Sophia" merely as a feminine name, are led to suppose that the church of Constantine was dedicated to a saint so called. The calendar, as well of the Greek as of the Latin Church, does, it is true, commemorate more than one saint named Sophia. Thus one Sophia is recorded as having suffered martyrdom under Adrian, in company with her three daughters, Faith, Hope, and Charity. Another is said to have been martyred in one of the latter persecutions together with St. Irene; and a third is still specially venerated as a martyr at Fermo (the ancient Firmum). But it was not any of these that supplied the title of Constantine's basilica. That church was dedicated to the [Greek text]--the HOLY WISDOM; that is, to the Divine Logos, or Word of God, under the title of the "Holy Wisdom," borrowed by adaptation from the well-known prophetic allusion contained in the eighth chapter of Proverbs, and familiar in the theological language of the fourth century.

The original church, however, which Constantine erected in 325-6 was but the germ out of which the latter St. Sophia grew. The early history of St. Sophia is marked by many vicissitudes, and comprises, in truth, the history of four distinct churches, that of Constantine, that of Constantius, that of Theodosius, and finally that of Justinian.

Thirty-four years after the foundation of St. Sophia by the first Christian emperor, his son, Constantius, either because of its insufficient size, or owing to some injury which it had sustained in an earthquake, rebuilt it, and united with it the adjoining church of the _Irene_, or "peace" (also built by his father), forming both into one grand edifice. And, although the church of Constantius was not much longer lived than that of his father, it is memorable as the theatre for several years of the eloquence of St. John Chrysostom, while its destruction was a monument at once of the triumph and of the fall of that great father. It was within the walls of this church that his more than human eloquence was wont to draw, even from the light and frivolous audiences of that pleasure-loving city, plaudits, the notice of which in his own pages reads so strange to modern eyes. It was here that he provoked the petty malice of the imperial directress of fashion, by his inimitable denunciation of the indelicacy of female dress. Here, too, was enacted that memorable scene, which, for deep dramatic interest, has seldom been surpassed in history--the fallen minister Eutropius clinging to the altar of St. Sophia for protection against the popular fury, while Chrysostom, in a glorious exordium on the instability of human greatness, [Footnote 129] disarms the rage of the populace by exciting their commiseration for their fallen enemy. Nor can we wonder that those who had hung entranced upon that eloquent voice should, when it was silenced by his cruel and arbitrary banishment, have recognized a Nemesis in the destruction of the church which had so often echoed with the golden melody of its tones. St. Sophia, by a divine judgment, as the people believed, was destroyed for the second time in 404, in the tumult which followed the banishment of St. John Chrysostom.

[Footnote 129: _Horn, in Eutropium Patricium._ Opp. tom iii., p. 399 _et seq._ (Migne ed.) ]

The third St. Sophia was built in 415 by Theodosius the Younger. The church of Theodosius lasted longer than either of those which went before it. It endured through the long series of controversies on the Incarnation. It witnessed their first beginning, and it almost survived their close. It was beneath the golden roof of the Theodosian basilica that Nestorius scandalized the orthodoxy of his flock, and gave the first impulse to the controversy which bears his name, by applauding the vehement declaration of the preacher who denied to the Virgin Mary the title of mother of God. And it was from its ambo or {645} pulpit that the Emperor Zeno promulgated his celebrated Henoticon--the "decree of union" by which he vainly hoped to heal the disastrous division. The St. Sophia of Theodosius was the scene of the first act in the long struggle between Constantinople and Rome, the great Acacian schism; when, at the hazard of his life, an impetuous monk, one of the fiery "Sleepless Brotherhood," pinned the papal excommunication on the cope of Acacius as he was advancing to the altar. And it witnessed the close of that protracted contest, in the complete and unreserved submission to Rome which was exacted by the formulary of Pope Hormisdas as the condition of reconciliation. The structure of Theodosius stood a hundred and fourteen years--from 415 to 529, but perished at length in the fifth year of Justinian, in a disaster which, for a time, made Constantinople all but a desert--the memorable battle of the blue and green factions of the hippodrome, known in history as the _Nika_ sedition.

The restoration of St. Sophia, which had been destroyed in the conflagration caused by the violence of the rioters, became, in the view of Justinian, a duty of Christian atonement no less than of imperial munificence. There is no evidence that the burning of the church arose from any special act of impiety directed against it in particular; but it is certain that the ancient feuds of the religious parties in the east entered vitally as an element of discord into this fatal sedition; and even the soldiers who had been engaged on the side of the civil power in the repression of the tumult, and who were chiefly legionaries enlisted from among the Heruli, the most savage of the barbarian tribes of the empire, had contributed largely to the sacrilegious enormities by which, even more than by the destruction of human life, the religious feelings of the city had been outraged.

The entire history of the reconstruction exhibits most curiously the operation of the same impulse. It was undertaken with a large-handedness, and urged on with an energy, which bespeak for other than merely human motives. Scarce had Constantinople begun to recover after the sedition from the stupor of its alarm, and the affrighted citizens to steal back from the Asiatic shore to which they had fled in terror with their families and their most valuable effects, when Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles to prepare the plans of the new basilica, on a scale of magnificence till then unknown. On the 23d of February, 532, within forty days from the catastrophe, the first stone of the new edifice was solemnly laid. Orders, to borrow the words of the chronicler, [Footnote 130] "were issued simultaneously to all the dukes, satraps, judges, quaestors, and prefects" throughout the empire, to send in from their several governments pillars, peristyles, bronzes, gates, marbles, and all other materials suitable for the projected undertaking. How efficiently the order was carried out may yet be read in the motley, though magnificent array of pillars and marbles which form the most striking characteristic of St. Sophia, and which are for the most part, as we shall see, the spoil of the older glories of Roman and Grecian architecture. We shall only mention here eight porphyry columns from the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, which Aurelian had sent to Rome, and which, having come into the possession of a noble Roman widow, named Marcia, as her dowry, were presented by that pious lady to Justinian, as an offering [Greek text], "for the Salvation of her soul." [Footnote 131]

[Footnote 130: _Anonymi de Antiquit. Constantinop._ (in Banduri's _Imperium Orientale_), p. 55.]

[Footnote 131: _Anonymi_, p. 55.]

Indeed, some of the incidents of the undertaking are so curious in themselves, and illustrate so curiously the manners and feelings of the age, that we are induced to select a few of them from among a mass of more or less legendary details, supplied by the anonymous {646} chronicler already referred to, whose work Banduri has printed in his _Imperium Orientals_ [Footnote 132] and who, if less trustworthy than Procopius or the Silentiary, has preserved a much greater amount of the traditionary gossip connected with the building.

[Footnote 132: Under the title _Anonymi de Antiquitatibus Constantinopoleos_. The third part is devoted entirely to a "History and Description of the Church of St. Sophia."]

For the vastly enlarged scale of Justinian's structure, it became necessary to make extensive purchases in the immediate circuit of the ancient church; and, as commonly happens, the demands of the proprietors rose in proportion to the necessity in which the imperial purchaser was placed. It is interesting to contrast the different spirit in which each sought to use the legal rights of a proprietor.

The first was a widow, named Anna, whose tenement was valued by the imperial commissaries at eighty-five pounds of gold. This offer on the part of the commissary the widow unhesitatingly refused, and declared that she would consider her house cheap at fifty hundred-weight of gold; but when Justinian, in his anxiety to secure the site, did not hesitate to wait upon the widow herself in person, she was so struck by his condescension, and so fired by the contagion of his pious enthusiasm, that she not only surrendered the required ground, but refused all payment for it in money: only praying that she might be buried near the spot, in order that, from the site of her former dwelling itself, she "might claim the purchase-money on the day of judgment." She was buried, accordingly, near the _Skeuophylacium_, or treasury of the sacred vessels. [Footnote 133]

[Footnote 133: _Anonymi_, p. 58.]

Very different, but yet hardly less characteristic of the time, was the conduct of one Antiochus, a eunuch, and _ostiarius_ of the palace. His house stood on the spot now directly under the great dome, and was valued by the imperial surveyor at thirty-five pounds of gold. But Antiochus exacted a far larger sum, and obstinately refused to abate his demand. Justinian, in his eagerness, was disposed to yield; but Strategus, the prefect of the treasury, begged the emperor to leave the matter in his hands, and proceeded to arrest the obdurate proprietor and throw him into prison. It chanced that Antiochus was a passionate lover of the sports of the hippodrome, and Strategus so timed the period of his imprisonment that it would include an unusually attractive exhibition in the hippodrome--what in the language of the modern turf would be called "the best meeting of the season." At first Antiochus kept up a determined front; but, as the time of the games approached, the temptation proved too strong; his resolution began to waver; and, at length, when the morning arrived, he "bawled out lustily" from the prison, and promised that, if he were released in time to enjoy his favorite spectacle, he would yield up possession on the emperor's own terms. By this time the races had begun, and the emperor had already taken his seat; but Strategus did not hesitate to have the sport suspended, led Antiochus at once to the emperor's tribunal, and, in the midst of the assembled spectators, completed the negotiation. [Footnote 134]

[Footnote 134: _Anonymi_ p. 59.]

A third was a cobbler, called by the classic name of Xenophon. His sole earthly possession was the stall in which he exercised his trade, abutting on the wall of one of the houses doomed to demolition in the clearance of the new site. A liberal price was offered for the stall; but the cobbler, although he did not refuse to surrender it, whimsically exacted, as a condition precedent, that the several factions of the charioteers should salute him, in the same way as they saluted the emperor, while passing his seat in the hippodrome. Justinian agreed; but took what must be considered an ungenerous advantage of the simple man of leather. The letter of Xenophon's. condition was fulfilled. He was placed {647} in the front of the centre tribune, gorgeously arrayed in a scarlet and white robe. The factions, as they passed his seat in procession, duly rendered the prescribed salute; but the poor cobbler was balked of his anticipated triumph, being compelled, amid the derisive cheers and laughter of the multitude, _to receive the solute with his back turned to the assembly!_ [Footnote 135]

[Footnote 135: _Anonymi_, p. 59. ]

But it is around the imperial builder himself that the incidents of the history of the work, and still more its legendary marvels, group themselves in the pages of the anonymous chronicler. For although the chief architect, Anthemius, was assisted by Agathias, by Isidorus of Miletus, and by a countless staff of minor subordinates, Justinian, from the first to the last, may be truly said to have been the very life and soul of the undertaking, and the director even of its smallest details. From the moment when, at the close of the inauguratory prayer, he threw the first shovelful of mortar into the foundation, till its solemn opening for worship on Christmas-day, 538, his enthusiasm never abated, nor did his energy relax. Under the glare of the noon-day sun, while others were indulging in the customary siesta, Justinian was to be seen, clad in a coarse linen tunic, staff in hand, and his head bound with a cloth, directing, encouraging, and urging on the workmen, stimulating the industrious by liberal donations, visiting the loiterers with his displeasure. Some of his expedients, as detailed by the chronicler, are extremely curious. We shall mention only one. In order to expedite the work, it was desirable to induce the men to work after-hours. The natural way of effecting this would have been to offer them a proportionate increase of pay; but Justinian chose rather to obtain the same result indirectly. Accordingly, he was accustomed--if our authority can be relied on--to scatter a quantity of coins about the building; and the workmen, afraid to search for them in the open day, were led to continue their work till the shades of evening began to fall, in order that they might more securely carry off the spoil under cover of the darkness!

Some of the building operations which this writer describes are equally singular. The mortar, to secure greater tenacity, was made with barley-water; the foundations were filled up with huge rectangular masses, fifty feet long, of a concrete of lime and sand, moistened with barley-water and other glutinous fluid, and bound together by wicker framework. The tiles or bricks of which the cupola was formed were made of Rhodian clay, so light that twelve of them did not exceed the weight of one ordinary tile. The pillars and buttresses were built of cubical and triangular blocks of stone, with a cement made of lime and oil, soldered with lead, and bound, within and without, with clamps of iron.

It is plain, however, that these particulars, however curious they may seem, are not to be accepted implicitly, at least if they are judged by the palpable incredibility of some of the other statements of the writer. The supernatural appears largely as an element in his history. On three several occasions, according to this chronicler, the emperor was favored with angelic apparitions, in which were imparted to him successive instructions, first as to the plan of the building, again as to urging on its progress, and finally as to finding funds for its completion. One of these narratives is extremely curious, as showing the intermixture of earth and heaven in the legendary notions of the time. A boy, during the absence of the masons, had been left in charge of their tools, when, as the boy believed, one of the eunuchs of the palace, in a resplendent white dress, came to him, ordered him at once to call back the masons, that the work of heaven might not be longer retarded. {648} On the boy's refusing to quit the post of which he had been left in charge, the supposed eunuch volunteered to take his place, and swore "by the wisdom of God" that he would not depart from the place till the boy should return. Justinian ordered all the eunuchs of the palace to be paraded before the boy; and on the boy's declaring that the visitor who had appeared to him was not any of the number, at once concluded that the apparition was supernatural; but, while he accepted the exhortation to greater zeal and energy in forwarding the work, he took a characteristic advantage of the oath by which the angel had sworn not to leave the church till the return of his youthful messenger. Without permitting the boy to go back to the building where the angel had appeared to him, Justinian _sent him away to the Cyclades for the rest of his life,_ in order that the perpetual presence and protection of the angel might thus be secured for the church, which that divine messenger was pledged never to leave till the boy should return to relieve him at his post! [Footnote 136]

[Footnote 136: _Anonymi_, p. 61.]

Without dwelling further, however, on the legendary details, we shall find marvels enough in the results, such as they appear in the real history of the building. And perhaps the greatest marvel of all is the shortness of the period in which so vast a work was completed, the new church being actually opened for worship within less than seven years from the day of the conflagration. Ten thousand workmen were employed on the edifice, if it be true that a hundred master-builders, each of whom had a hundred men under him, were engaged to accelerate and complete the undertaking. For the philosophical student of history, there is a deep subject of study in the bare enumeration of the materials brought together for this great Christian enterprise, and of the various quarters from which they were collected. It is not alone the rich assortment of precious marbles--the spotless white of Paros; the green of Croceae; the blue of Libya; together with parti-colored marbles in a variety hardly ever equalled before--the costly cipolline, the rose-veined white marble of Phrygia, the curiously streaked black marble of Gaul, and the countless varieties of Egyptian porphyry and granite. Far more curious is it to consider how the materials of the structure were selected so as to present in themselves a series of trophies of the triumphs of Christianity over all the proudest forms of worship in the old world of paganism. In the forest of pillars which surround the dome and sustain the graceful arches of the gynaeconitis, the visitor may still trace the spoils of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec, of the famous Temple of Diana at Ephesus, or that of the Delian Apollo, of Minerva at Athens, of Cybele at Cyzicus, and of a host of less distinguished shrines of paganism. When the mere cost of the transport of these massive monuments to Constantinople is taken into account, all wonder ceases at the vastness of the sums which are said to have been expended in the work. It is easy to understand how, "before the walls had risen two cubits from the ground, forty-five thousand two hundred pounds were consumed." [Footnote 137] It is not difficult to account for the enormous general taxation, the oppressive exactions from individuals, the percentages on prefects' incomes, and the deductions from the salaries of judges and professors, which went to swell the almost fabulous aggregate of the expenditure; and there is perhaps an economical lesson in the legend of the apparition of the angel, who, when the building had risen as far as the cupola, conducted the master of the imperial treasury to a subterranean vault in which eighty hundred weight of gold were discovered ready for the completion of the work! [Footnote 138]

[Footnote 137: Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. p. 633.]

[Footnote 138: _Anonymi_, p. 62.]

Even independently of the building itself and its artistic decorations, the value of the sacred furniture and appliances exceeded all that had ever before been devised. The sedilia of the {649} priests and the throne of the patriarch were of silver gilt. The dome of the tabernacle was of pure gold, ornamented with golden lilies, and surmounted by a gold cross seventy-five pounds weight and encrusted with precious stones. All the sacred vessels--chalices, beakers, ewers, dishes, and patens, were of gold. The candelabra which stood on the altar, on the ambo, and on the upper gynaeconitis; the two colossal candelabra placed at either side of the altar; the dome of the ambo; the several crosses within the bema; the pillars of the iconastasis; the covers of the sacred books--all were likewise of gold, and many of them loaded with pearls, diamonds, and carbuncles. The sacred linens of the altar and the communion cloths were embroidered with gold and pearls. But when it came to the construction of the altar itself, no single one of these costly materials was considered sufficiently precious. Pious ingenuity was tasked to its utmost to devise a new and richer substance, and the table of the great altar was formed of a combination of all varieties of precious materials. Into the still fluid mass of molten gold were thrown pearls and other gems, rubies, crystals, topazes, sapphires, onyxes, and amethysts, blended in such proportions as might seem best suited to enhance to the highest imaginable limit the costliness of what was prepared as the throne of the Most High on earth! And to this combination of all that is most precious in nature, art added all the wealth at its disposal, by the richness of the chasing and the elaborateness and beauty of the design.

The total cost of the structure has been variously estimated. It amounted, according to the ancient authorities, to "three hundred and twenty thousand pounds;" but whether these were of silver or of gold is not expressly stated. Gibbon [Footnote 139] leaves it to each reader, "according to the measure of his belief," to estimate it in one or the other metal; but Mr. Neale [Footnote 140] is not deterred by the sneer of Gibbon from expressing his "belief that gold must be intended." According to this supposition the expenditure, if this can be believed possible, would have reached the enormous sum of thirteen millions sterling!

[Footnote 139: "Decline and Fall," vol. iii., p. 523.]

[Footnote 140: "Eastern Church," vol. i., p. 237. ]

It was, no doubt, with profound self-gratulation that, at the end of almost six years of anxious toil, Justinian received the intelligence of the completion of this great labor of love. At his special entreaty, the last details had been urged forward with headlong haste, in order that all might be ready for the great festival of Christmas in the year 538; and his architect had not disappointed his hopes. There is some uncertainty as to the precise date of the dedication; and indeed it is probable that the festival may have extended over several days, and thus have been assigned to different dates by different writers. But when it came (probably on Christmas eve, December 24, 538) it was a day of triumph for Justinian. A thousand oxen, a thousand sheep, a thousand swine, six hundred deer, ten thousand poultry, and thirty thousand measures of corn, were distributed to the poor. Largesses to a fabulous amount were divided among the people. The emperor, attended by the patriarch and all the great officers of state, went in procession from his palace to the entrance of the church. But, from that spot, as though he would claim to be alone in the final act of offering, Justinian ran, unattended, to the foot of the ambo, and with arms outstretched and lifted up in the attitude of prayer, exclaimed in words which the event has made memorable: "Glory to God, who hath accounted me worthy of such a work! I have conquered thee, O Solomon!"

Justinian's works in St. Sophia, however, were not destined to cease with this first completion of the building. Notwithstanding the care bestowed on {650} the dome, the selection of the lightest materials for it, and the science employed in its construction, an earthquake which occurred in the year 558 overthrew the semi-dome at the east end of the church. Its fall was followed by that of the eastern half of the great dome itself; and in the ruin perished the altar, the tabernacle, and the whole bema, with its costly furniture and appurtenances. This catastrophe, however, only supplied a new incentive to the zeal of Justinian. Anthemius and his fellow-laborers were now dead, but the task of repairing the injury was entrusted to Isidorus the Younger, nephew of the Isidorus who had been associated with Anthemius in the original construction of the church. It was completed, and the church rededicated, at the Christmas of the year 561; nor can it be doubted that the change which Isidorus now introduced in the proportions of the dome, by adding twenty-five feet to its height, contributed materially as well to the elegance of the dome itself as to the general beauty of the church and the harmony of its several parts.

The church of Justinian thus completed may be regarded as substantially the same building which is now the chief temple of Islam. The few modifications which it has undergone will be mentioned in the proper place; but it may be convenient to describe the building, such as it came from the hands of its first founder, before we proceed to its later history.

St. Sophia, in its primitive form, may be taken as the type of Byzantine ecclesiology in almost all its details. Although its walls enclose what may be roughly [Footnote 141] called a square of 241 feet, the internal plan is not inaptly described as a Greek cross, of which the nave and transepts constitute the arm, while the aisles, which are surmounted by the gynaeconitis, or women's gallery, may be said to complete it into a square, within which the cross is inscribed. The head of the cross is prolonged at the eastern extremity into a slightly projecting apse. The aisle is approached at its western end through a double narthex or porch, extending over the entire breadth of the building, and about 100 feet in depth; so that the whole length of the structure, from the eastern wall of the apse to the wall of the outer porch, is about 340 feet. In the centre, from four massive piers, rises the great dome, beneath which, to the east and to the west, spring two great semi-domes, the eastern supported by three, the western by two, semi-domes of smaller dimensions. The central of the three lesser semi-domes, to the east, constitutes the roof of the apse to which allusion has already been made. The piers of the dome (differing in this respect from those of St. Peter's at Rome) present from within a singularly light and elegant appearance; they are nevertheless constructed with great strength and solidity, supported by four massive buttresses, which, in the exterior, rise as high as the base of the dome, and are capacious enough to contain the exterior staircases of the gynaeconitis. The lightness of the dome-piers is in great part due to the lightness of the materials of the dome itself already described. The diameter of the dome at its base is 100 feet, its height at the central point above the floor is 179 feet, the original height, before the reconstruction in 561, having been twenty-five feet less. [Footnote 142] The effect of this combination of domes, semi-domes, and plane arches, on entering the nave, is singularly striking. It constitutes, in the opinion of the authors of "Byzantine Architecture," what may regarded as the characteristic beauty be of St. Sophia; and the effect is heightened in the modern mosque by the nakedness of the lower part of the {651} building, and by the absence of those appurtenances of a Christian church,--as the altar, the screen, and the ambo,--which, by arresting the eye in more minute observation, withdrew it in the Christian times from the general proportions of the structure. This effect of lightness is also increased by numerous window's, which encircle the tympanum. They are twenty-four in number, small, low, and circular-headed; and in the spaces between them spring the twenty-four groined ribs of the dome, which meet in the centre and divide the vault into twenty-four equal segments. The interior was richly decorated with mosaic work. At the four angles beneath the dome were four colossal figures of winged seraphim; and from the summit of the dome looked down that majestic face of Christ the Sovereign Judge, which still remains the leading type of our Lord's countenance in the school of Byzantine art, and even in the Latin reproductions of it fills the mind with a feeling of reverence and awe, hardly to be equalled by any other production of Christian art. The exterior of the dome is covered with lead, and it was originally surmounted by a stately cross, which in the modern mosque is replaced by a gigantic crescent fifty yards in diameter; on the gilding of this ornament Murad III. expended 50,000 ducats, and the glitter of it in the sunshine is said to be visible from the summit of Mount Olympus--a distance of a hundred miles. To an eye accustomed to the convexity of the cupola of western churches, the interior height of the dome of Sophia is perhaps somewhat disappointing, especially considering the name "aerial," by which it is called by the ancient authorities. This name, however, was given to it, not so much to convey the idea of lightness or "airiness" in the structure, as because its proportions, as designed by the architect, were intended to represent or reproduce the supposed convexity of the "aerial vault" itself.

[Footnote 141: This is not exactly true. The precise dimensions of the building (excluding the apse and narthex) are 241 feet by 226 feet.]

[Footnote 142: Later Greek authorities, for the purpose of exalting the glories of the older church, allege that the second dome is fifteen feet lower than the first; and even Von Hammer (_Constantinople und der Bosporus_, vol. i., p. 346) adopts this view. But Zonaras and the older writers agree that the height was increased by twenty-five feet. See Neale's "Eastern Church," vol. i., p. 239.]

With Justinian's St. Sophia begins what may be called the second or classic period of Byzantine archaeology. It is proper, therefore, that we should describe, although of necessity very briefly, its general outline and arrangements.

With very few exceptions, the Greek churches of the earlier period (including the older church of St. Sophia, whether as originally built by Constantine and restored by his son, or as rebuilt by Theodosius) were of that oblong form which the Greeks called "dromic" and which is known in the west as the type of the basilica. The present St. Sophia, on the contrary, may be regarded as practically the type of the cruciform structure. This cruciform appearance, however, is, as has been already explained, confined to the internal arrangement, the exterior presenting the appearance of a square, or if the porch be regarded as part of the church, of an oblong rectangle.

To begin with the narthex or porch:--That of St. Sophia is double, consisting of an outer (exonarthcx) as well as an inner (esonarthex) porch. Most Byzantine churches have but a single narthex--often a lean-to against the western wall; and in some few churches the narthex is altogether wanting. But in St. Sophia it is a substantive part of the edifice; and, the roof of the inner compartment being arched, it forms the substructure of the western gynaeconitis, or women's choir, which is also carried upon a series of unrivalled arches supported by pillars, most of which are historical, around the northern and southern sides of the nave. The outer porch is comparatively plain, and communicates with the inner one by five marble doorways (of which one is now walled up), the doors being of bronze, wrought in floriated crosses, still distinguishable, although much mutilated by the Turkish occupants. The inner porch is much more rich, the floor of watered marble, and the walls lined with marbles of various colors and with richly carved alabaster. It opens on {652} the church by nine gates of highly-wrought bronze; over the central portal is a well-preserved group in mosaic, bearing the inscription: [Greek text]--and representing our Lord, with the Virgin and St. John the Baptist on either hand, in the act of giving with uplifted right hand his benediction to an emperor (no doubt Justinian) prostrate at his feet. This group is represented in one of M. Salzenberg's plates; and it is specially interesting for the commentary, explanatory of the attitude of our Lord, given in the poem of Paul the Silentiary, according to whom the position of our Lord's fingers represents, in the language of signs then received, the initial and final letters of the sacred name, [Greek text]:

[Greek text]

The outstretched forefinger meant I; the bent second finger, C or [sigma]; the third finger applied to the thumb, X; and the little finger, [sigma]. It may also be noted that Justinian in this curious group is represented with the nimbus. During the progress of the restoration of the building in 1847, this mosaic was uncovered, and exactly copied; but like all the other mosaics which contain representations of the human form, it has been covered with canvas, and again carefully coated with plaster. It was on the _phiale_ or fountain of the outer court of this narthex that the famous palindromic inscription was placed:

[Greek text] "Wash thy sins, not thy countenance only."

The interior of St. Sophia, exclusive of the women's choir, consisted of three great divisions--the nave, which was the place of the laity; the _soleas_, or choir, which was assigned to the assisting clergy of the various grades; and the _bema_, or sanctuary, the semi-circular apse at the eastern end in which the sacred mysteries were celebrated, shut off from the soleas by the _inconastasis_ or screen, and flanked by two smaller, but similar, semicircular recesses; the _diaconicon_, corresponding with the modern vestry; and the _prothesis_, in which the bread and wine were prepared for the eucharistic offering, whence they were carried, in the procession called the "Great Entrance," to the high altar within the bema.

The position of these several parts is still generally traceable in the modern mosque, although, the divisions having been all swept away, there is some controversy as to details.

The nave, of course, occupies the western end, and is entered directly from the porch. It was separated from the soleas, or choir, at the _ambo_--the pulpit, or more properly gallery, which was used not only for preaching, but also for the reading or chanting of the lessons and the gospel, for ecclesiastical announcements or proclamations, and in St. Sophia for the coronation of the emperor. The ambo of St. Sophia was a very massive and stately structure of rich and costly material and of most elaborate workmanship; it was crowned by a canopy or baldachin, surmounted by a solid golden cross a hundred pounds in weight. All trace of the ambo has long disappeared from the mosque; but from the number of clergy, priests, deacons, subdeacons, lectors, and singers (numbering, even on the reduced scale prescribed by Justinian, 385) which the soleas was designed to accommodate, as well as from other indications, it is believed that the ambo, which was at the extreme end of the soleas, must have stood under the dome, a little to the east of the centre. The seat of the emperor was on the left side of the soleas, immediately below the seats of the priests, close to the ambo, and opposite to the throne of the patriarch. The seats assigned in the present patriarchal church to the princes of Wallachia and Moldavia correspond in position to those formerly occupied by the throne of the emperor and are directly opposite that of the patriarch. Beside its sacred uses, the ambo of St. Sophia was {653} the scene of many a striking incident in Byzantine history. The reader of Gibbon will recall the graphic picture of Heracleonas compelled by the turbulent multitude to appear in the ambo of St. Sophia with his infant nephew in his arms for the purpose of receiving their homage to the child as emperor; [Footnote 143] or his still more vivid description of the five sons of Copronimus, of whom the eldest, Nicephorus, had been made blind, and the other four had their tongues cut out, escaping from their dungeon and taking sanctuary in St. Sophia. There are few more touching stories in all the bloody annals of Byzantium than that which presents the blind Nicephorus employing that faculty of speech which had been spared in him alone, by appealing from the ambo on behalf of his mute brothers to the pity and protection of the people! [Footnote 144]

[Footnote 143: "Decline and Fall," vol. iv.. p. 403. ]

[Footnote 144: _Ibid_., vol. iv., p. 413. ]

But it was upon the bema of St. Sophia, as we have already seen, that the wealth and pious munificence of Justinian were most lavishly expended. It was shut off from the soleas by the inconastasis, which in Byzantine art is a screen resembling, in all except its position, the rood-screen of western architecture, and derived its name from the sacred pictures ([Greek text]) represented upon it. In that of St. Sophia the material was silver, the lower part being highly wrought with arabesque devices, and the upper composed of twelve pillars, twined two and two, and separated by panels on which were depicted in oval medallions the figures of our Lord, his Virgin Mother, and the prophets and apostles. It had three doors; the central one (called [Greek text], "sacred door") leading directly to the altar, that on the right to the diaconicon, and that on the left to the prothesis. The figures on either side of the central door, following what appears to have been the universal rule, were those of our Lord and the Virgin, and above the door stood a massive cross of gold. The altar, with its canopy or tabernacle, has been already described. The _synthronus_, or bench with stalls, for the officiating bishop and clergy, are at the back of the altar along the circular wall of the bema. The seats were of silver gilt. The pillars which separated them were of pure gold. All this costly and gorgeous structure has of course disappeared from the modern mosque. The eye now ranges without interruption from the entrance of the royal doors to the very extremity of the bema;--the only objects to arrest observation being the sultan's gallery (maksure), which stands at the left or north side of the bema; the mimber, or pulpit for the Friday prayer, which is placed at the right or southern end of the ancient inconastasis; the mahfil, or ordinary preaching pulpit, in the centre of the mosque; and the mihrab, or sacred niche, which is at the south-east side of the bema.

It was more difficult, in converting the church into a mosque, to get rid of the numerous sacred pictures in gold and mosaic which adorned the walls and arches. Accordingly, instead of attempting to remove or destroy them, the Moslem invaders of the church were content with covering all these Christian representations with a coat of plaster; and thus in the late reparation of the mosque, the architect, having removed the plaster, was enabled to have copies made of all the groups which still remained uninjured. Of the principal of them M. Salzenberg has given fac-similes. On the great western arch was represented the Virgin Mary, with Sts. Peter and Paul. On the side walls of the nave, above the women's choir upon either side, were figures, in part now defaced, of prophets, martyrs, and other saints. M. Salzenberg has reproduced in his volume Sts. Anthemius, Basil, Gregory, Dionysius the Areopagite, Nicolas of Myra, Gregory the Armenian apostle, and the prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Habakkuk. On the great eastern arch was a group consisting of the Virgin Mary, St. John the Baptist, and {654} the Emperor John Palaeologus, the last Christian restorer of the building; but these figures--and still more the group which decorated the arch of the bema, our Lord, the Virgin, and the Archangel Michael--are now much defaced. Much to the credit of the late sultan, however, he not only declined to permit the removal of these relics of ancient Christian art, but gave orders that every means should be taken to preserve them; at the same time directing that they should be carefully concealed from Moslem eyes, as before, by a covering of plaster, the outer surface of which is decorated in harmony with those portions of the ancient mosaic, which, not containing any object inconsistent with the Moslem worship, have been restored to their original condition. Accordingly, the winged seraphim at the angles of the buttresses which support the dome have been preserved, and, to a Christian visitor, appear in strange contrast with the gigantic Arabic inscriptions in gold and colors which arrest the eye upon either side of the nave and within the dome, commemorating the four companions of the Prophet, Abu-bekr, Omar, Osman, and Ali.

But there is one characteristic of St. Sophia which neither time nor the revolutions which time has brought have been able to efface or even substantially to modify--the strikingly graceful and elegant, although far from classically correct, grouping of the pillars which support the lesser semidomes and the women's choir. It would be impossible, without the aid of a plan, to convey any idea of the arrangement of this matchless assemblage of columns, which, as we have already observed, are even less precious for the intrinsic richness and beauty of their material than for the interesting associations which their presence in a Christian temple involves. Most of these may still be identified. The eight red porphyry pillars standing, two and two, under the semi-domes at either end of the nave, are the celebrated columns from the Temple of the Sun, already recorded as the gift of Marcia, offered by her "for the salvation of her soul." The eight pillars of green serpentine which support the women's choir, at either side of the nave, are from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus; and among the remaining pillars on the ground floor, twenty-four in number, arranged in groups of four, are still pointed out representatives of almost every form of the olden worship of the Roman empire--spoils of the pagan temples of Athens, Delos, Troas, Cyzicus, and other sanctuaries of the heathen gods.

Less grand, but hardly less graceful, are the groups of pillars, sixty-seven in number, in the women's choir above the aisles and the inner porch. The occasional absence of uniformity which they present, differing from each other in material, in color, in style, and even in height, although it may offend the rules of art, is by no means ungrateful to the eye. In the total number of the pillars of St. Sophia, which is the broken number one hundred and seven, there is supposed to be a mystic allusion to the seven pillars of the House of Wisdom. [Footnote 145]

[Footnote 145: Proverbs ix. 1.]

Such was St. Sophia in the days of its early glory--a fitting theatre for the stately ceremonial which constituted the peculiar characteristic of the Byzantine court and Church. On all the great festivals of the year--Christmas, Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Easter, Pentecost, and the Ascension; at the ceremony of the emperor's coronation; at imperial marriages; and on occasions, more rare in the inglorious annals of the Lower Empire, of imperial triumphs,--the emperor, attended by the full array of his family I and court, went in state to St. Sophia and assisted at the celebration of the divine mysteries. The emperor himself, with his distinctive purple buskins and close tiara; the Caesar, {655} and, in later times, the Sebastocrator, in green buskins and open tiara; the Despots, the Panhypersebastos, and the Protosebastos; the long and carefully graduated line of functionaries, civil and military--the Curopalata, the Logothete and Great Logothete, the Domestic and Great Domestic, the Prostostrator, the Stratospedarch, the Protospatharius, the Great AEteriarch, and the Acolyth, with the several trains of attendants in appropriate costume which belonged to each department,--combined to form an array for which it would be difficult to find a parallel in the history of ceremonial; and when to these are added the purely ecclesiastical functionaries, for whose number even the munificent provision of space allotted by Justinian's architect was found at times insufficient, some idea may be formed of the grandeur of the service, which, for so many ages, lent to that lofty dome and these stately colonnades a life and a significance now utterly lost in the worship which has usurped its place. As a purely ecclesiastical ceremony, probably some of the great functions at St. Peter's in Rome surpass in splendor such a ceremonial as the "Great Entrance" at St. Sophia on one of the emperor's days. But the latter had the additional element of grandeur derived from the presence of a court unrivalled for the elaborate stateliness and splendor of its ceremonial code.

We have said that the church of Justinian is, in all substantial particulars, the St. Sophia of the present day. In an architectural view the later history of the building is hardly worth recording. The eastern half of the dome, in consequence of some settling of the foundation of the buttresses, having shown indications of a tendency to give way, it became necessary in the reign of Basil the Macedonian, toward the end of the ninth century, to support it by four exterior buttresses, which still form a conspicuous object from the Seraglio Place. The Emperor Michael, in 896, erected the tower still standing at the western entrance, to receive a set of bells which were presented by the doge of Venice, but which the Turks have melted down into cannon. About half a century later, a further work for the purpose of strengthening the dome was undertaken by the Emperor Romanus; and in the year 987 a complete reparation and re-strengthening of the dome, within and without, was executed under Basil the Bulgaricide, in which work the cost of the scaffolding alone amounted to ten hundred weight of gold.

No further reparations are recorded for upward of two centuries. But, to the shame of the founders of the Latin empire of Constantinople, the church of St. Sophia suffered so much in their hands, that, after the recovery of the city by the Greeks, more than one of the later Greek emperors is found engaged in repairing the injuries of the building. Andronicus the Elder, Cantacuzenus, and John IV. Palaeologus, each had a share in the work; and, by a curious though fortuitous coincidence, Palaeologus, the last of the Christian emperors who are recorded as restorers of St. Sophia, appears to be the only one admitted to the same honor which was accorded to its first founder Justinian--that of having his portrait introduced into the mosaic decorations of the building. John Palaeologus, as we saw, is represented in the group which adorned the eastern arch supporting the great dome. The figures, however, are now much defaced.

How much of the injury which, from whatever cause, the mosaic and other decorations of St. Sophia have suffered, is due to the fanaticism of the Turkish conquerors of Constantinople it is impossible to say with certainty. Probably, however, it was far less considerable than might at first be supposed. Owing to the peculiar discipline of the Greek Church, which, while it freely admits painted images, endures no sculptured Christian representations except that of the cross itself, there was little in the marble or bronze of St. Sophia to provoke Moslem {656} fanaticism. The crosses throughout the building, and especially in the women's choir, have been modified, rather than completely destroyed; the mutilator being generally satisfied with merely chiselling off _the head of the cross_ (the cruciform character being thus destroyed), sparing the other three arms of the Christian emblem. For the rest, as we have already said, the change consisted in simply denuding the church of all its Christian furniture and appliances, whether movable objects or permanent structures, and in covering up from view all the purely Christian decorations of the walls, roof, and domes. The mosaic work, where it has perished, seems to have fallen, less from intentional outrage or direct and voluntary defacement, than from the long-continued neglect under which the building had suffered for generations, down to the restoration by the late sultan.

The alterations of the exterior under Moslem rule are far more striking, as well as more considerable. Much of the undoubtedly heavy and inelegant appearance of the exterior of St. Sophia is owing to the absence of several groups of statues and other artistic objects which were designed to relieve the massive and ungraceful proportions of the buttresses and supports of the building as seen from without. Of these groups the most important was that of the celebrated horses now at St. Mark's in Venice. On the other hand, the addition of the four minarets has, in a different way, contributed to produce the same effect of heaviness and incongruity of proportion. Of these minarets, the first, that at the south-east angle, was built by Mahomet II. The second, at the north-east, was erected by Selim, to whose care the mosque was indebted for many important works, intended as well for its actual restoration as for its prospective maintenance and preservation. The north-western and south-western minarets are both the work of Amurath III. These structures, although exceedingly light and elegant in themselves, are altogether out of keeping with the massive structure to which they were intended as an appendage, and the pretentious style of their decoration only heightens by the contrast the bald and unarchitectural appearance of the exterior of the church. It is not too much to say that the effect of these peculiarly Mohammedan additions to the structure is externally to destroy its Christian character.

But whatever may be said of the works of former sultans, it is impossible not to regard the late Sultan Abdul Medjid as a benefactor to Christian art, even in the works which he undertook directly in the interest of his own worship. From the time of Amurath III. the building had been entirely neglected. Dangerous cracks had appeared in the dome, as well as in several of the semi-domes. The lead covering of all was in a ruinous condition; and the apertures not only admitted the rain and snow, but permitted free entrance to flocks of pigeons and even more destructive birds. The arches of the gynaeconitis were in many places split and in a tottering condition The pillars, especially on the upper floor, were displaced and thrown out of the perpendicular; and the whole structure, in all its parts and in all its appointments, presented painful evidence of gross and long-continued neglect. M. Louis Haghe has represented, in two contrasted lithographed sketches, the interior of the mosque such as it was and such as it now is since the restoration. The contrast in appearance, even on paper, is very striking; although this can only be realized by those who have had the actual opportunity of comparing the new with the old. But the substantial repairs are far more important, as tending to the security of a pile so venerable and the object of so many precious associations. The great dome, while it is relieved from the four heavy and unsightly buttresses, is made more permanently secure by a double girder of wrought iron around the base. The lead of the dome and the roof has been {657} renewed throughout. The tottering pillars of the women's choir have been replaced in the perpendicular, and the arches which they sustain are now shored up and strengthened. The mosaic work throughout the building has been thoroughly cleaned and restored, the defective portions being replaced by a skilful imitation of the original. All the fittings and furniture of the mosque--the sultan's gallery, the pulpits, the mihrab, and other appurtenances of its worship--have been renewed in a style of great splendor. The work of reparation extended over two years, and owed much of its success, as well as of the spirit in which it was executed, to the enlightened liberality of Redschid Pacha. An effort is said to have been made by the fanatical party in Constantinople to induce the sultan to order the complete demolition of the mosaic pictures on the walls, as being utterly prohibited by the Koran. But he firmly refused to accede to the demand; and it was with his express permission that the king of Prussia commissioned M. Salzenberg to avail himself of the occasion of their being uncovered, in order to secure for the students of the Christian art of Byzantium the advantage of accurate copies of every detail of its most ancient as well as most characteristic monument.

From The Lamp.

ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.

BY ROBERT CURTIS.