CHAPTER XXIII.

The long-wished-for day appointed for this great match had now arrived, and there was not a man of a hundred in each parish beside the two leading men who had not on that morning taken his hurl from the rack before he went to prayers, inspected it, weighed it in his hand, to ascertain if the _set_ lay fair to the _swipe_, as he placed it on the ground.

Two o'clock in the afternoon had been appointed for the men to be on the ground, and punctual to the moment they were seen in two compact masses beyond opposite ends of the common. They had assembled outside, and were not permitted to straggle in, in order that their approach toward each other, in two distinct bodies, amidst the inspiring cheers of their respective parties, might have the better effect. This great occasion had been talked of for weeks, and was looked upon, not only by the players themselves, and the two great men at their heads, but it might be said by the "public at large," as the most important hurling-match which had been projected for years in that or perhaps any other district. The friends of each party, beside hundreds of neutral spectators, had already occupied the hills round what might be called the arena.

Conspicuous at the head of the Rathcash men as they advanced with their green sleeves amidst the cheers of their friends, Tom Murdock could be seen walking with his head erect, and his hurl sloping over his shoulder. He kept his right hand disengaged that he might fulfil the usual custom of giving it to his opponent, in token of goodwill, ere the game began.

He was undoubtedly a splendid handsome-looking fellow "that day." Upwards of six feet high, made in full proportion. His shirt tied at the throat with a broad green ribbon, having the collar turned down nearly to the shoulders, showed a neck of unsullied whiteness, which contrasted remarkably with the dark curled whiskers above it. His men, too, were a splendid set of fellows. Most of them were as tall and as well made as himself, and none were under five feet ten; there was not a small man among them--the picked unmarried men of the parish. Their green sleeves and bare necks, with their hurls across their left shoulders, as in the case of their leader, elicited thunders of applause from the whole population of Rathcash upon the hill to their right.

A deep ditch with a high grass bank lay between the common and the spot where Emon-a-knock and his men had assembled.

Phil M'Dermott was silent. He was not yet reconciled to the color which their leader had chosen. Of course he could not account for it, but he did not half like it. To him it looked sombre, melancholy, and prophetic. But Phil had sense enough to assume a cheerfulness, if he did not feel it.

Emon himself, though five feet ten and a half inches high, was about the smallest man of his party. In every respect they equalled, if they did not exceed, the Rathcash men.

{698}

"Come, boys," said Emon; "Tom Murdock is bringing on his men; we'll have to jump the bank. Shall I lead the way?"

"Of course, Emon; an' bad luck to the man of the hundred will lave a toe on it."

"No, nor a heel, Phil," said the wit.

"Stand back, boys, about fifteen yards," said Emon. "Let me at it first; and when I am clean over, go at it as much in a line as you can. Give yourselves plenty of room and don't crowd."

"Take your time, boys," whispered the prophet, "an' let none of us trip or fall."

"Never fear, Phil," ran through them all in reply.

Emon then drew back a few yards; and with a light quick run he cleared the bank, giving a slight little steadying-jump on the other side, like a man who had made a somersault from a spring-board.

The Shanvilla population--the whole of which, I may say, was on the surrounding hills--rent the air with their cheers, amidst which the red sleeves were seen clearing the bank like so many young deer. Not a mistake was made; not a man jumped low or short; not a toe was left upon it, as the prophet had said--nor a heel, as the wit had added. It was an enlivening sight to see the red sleeves rising by turns about eight feet into the air, and landing steadily on the level sward beyond the bank.

The cheers from Shanvilla were redoubled, and even some of the Rathcash men joined.

The two parties were now closing each other in friendly approach toward the centre of the field, where they halted within about six yards of each other; Tom Murdock and Emon-a-knock a tittle in advance. They stepped forward, with their right hands a little extended.

"Hallo, Lennon!" said Murdock; "why, you are dressed in silk, man, and have a cap to match; I heard nothing of that. I could not afford silk, and our sleeves are plain calico."

"So are ours, and I could afford silk still less than you could; but my men presented me with these sleeves and this cap, and I shall wear them."

"Of course, of course, Lennon. But I cannot say much for the color; blue would have looked much better; and, perhaps, have been more appropriate."

"I left that for the girls to wear in their bonnets," replied Lennon, sarcastically. He knew that Winny Cavana's holiday bonnet was trimmed with blue, and thought it not unlikely that Murdock knew it also.

They then shook hands, but it was more formal than cordial; and Murdock took a half-crown from his pocket. He was determined to be down on Emon-a-knock's poverty, for a penny would have done as well; and he said, "Shall I call, or will you?"

"The challenger generally 'skies,' and the other calls," he replied.

"Here then!" said Murdock, standing out into a clear spot, and curling the half-crown into the air, eighteen or twenty feet above their heads.

"Head," cried Lennon; and head it was.

It was the usual method on such occasions for the leader who won the toss to throw the ball with all his force as high into the air as possible, and, as a matter of course, as far toward his opponent's goal as he could. The height into the air was as a token to his friends to cheer, and the direction toward his opponent's goal was considered the great advantage of having won the toss.

This was, however, the first occasion in the annals of hurling where this latter point had been questioned. Emon-a-knock and Phil M'Dermott were both experienced hurlers; and previous to their having taken the high bank in such style, from the field outside the common, they had stepped aside from their men, and discussed the matter thus:

"Phil, I hope we'll win the toss," said Emon.

"That we may, I pray. You'll put the ball a trifle on its way if we do, Emon."

{699}

"No, Phil, that is the very point I want to settle with you. I have always remarked that when the winner of the toss throws the ball toward the other goal, it is always met by some good man who is on the watch for it; and as none of the opposite party are allowed into their ground until 'the game is on,' he has it all to himself, and generally deals it such a swipe as puts it half-way back over the others' heads. Now my plan is this. If I win 'the toss,' I'll throw the ball more toward our own goal than toward theirs. Let you be there, Phil, to meet it; and I have little fear that the first puck you give it will send it double as far into our opponent's ground as I could throw it with my hand. Beside, the moment the ball is up, our men can advance all over the ground, and another good man of ours may help it on. What say you, Phil?"

"Well, Emon, there's a grate dale of raison in what you say, now that I think of it; but I never seen it done that way afore."

It had been thus settled between these two best men of Shanvilla; and Emon, having won the toss, cast his eye over his shoulder and caught a side glance of Phil M'Dermott in position, with his hurl poised for action.

Contrary to all experience and all expectation, Emon-a-knock, instead of casting the ball from him, toward the other goal, threw it as high as possible, but unmistakably inclining toward his own. Here there was a murmur of disappointed surprise from Shanvilla on the hill. But it was soon explained. Phil M'Dermott had it all his own way for the first puck, which was considered a great object. Never had such an expedient (_nunc_ dodge) to secure it been thought of before. M'Dermott had full room to deal with it. There was no one near him but his own men, who stood exulting at what they knew was about to come. M'Dermott with the under side of his hurl rolled the ball toward him, and curling it up into the air about a foot above his head, met it as it came down with a puck that was heard all over the hills, and drove it three distances beyond where Emon could have thrown it from his hand. The object of the backward cast by the leader had now been explained to the satisfaction of Shanvilla, whose cheers of approbation loudly succeeded to their previous murmurs of surprise.

"Be gorra, they're a knowing pair," said one of the spectators on the hill.

But I cannot attend to the game, which is now well "on,"' and tell you what each party said during the struggle.

Of course the ball was met by Rathcash, and put back; but every man was now at work as best he might, where and when he could, but not altogether from under a certain sort of discipline and eye to their leaders. Now some fortunate young fellow got an open at the ball, and gave it a puck which sent it spinning through the crowd until stopped by the other party. Then a close struggle and clashing of hurls, as if life and death depended on the result. Now, again, some fellow gets an open swipe at it, and puck it goes over their heads, while a rush of both parties takes place toward the probable spot it must arrive at; then another crowded struggle, and ultimately another puck, and it is seen like a cannon-ball on the strand at Sandymount. Another rush, another close struggle and clashing of hurls, and puck, puck; now at the jaws of this goal, now at the jaws of that, while the cheers and counter-cheers re-echo through the surrounding hills.

It is needless to say that Tom Murdock and Emon-a-knock were conspicuous in all these vicissitudes of the game. No man took the ball from either of them if he was likely to get a puck at it _in time_; but no risk of a counter-puck would be run if an opponent was at hand to give it. This was the use of the distinguishing colors, and right curious it was to see the green and red sleeves twisting through each other and rushing in groups to one spot.

{700}

After all, Emon's color "did not look so bad;" and Shanvilla held their own so gallantly as the game went on, that betting--for it was a sort of Derby-day with the parish gamblers--which was six, and even seven, to four on Rathcash at the commencement, was now even for choice. Ay, there is one red-haired fellow, with a small eye and a big one, who shoves three thimbles upon a board at races, has offered five fippenny-bits to four upon Shanvilla; and well he may, for Emon and his men had got the ball amongst them, and Emon's orders were to keep it close--not to puck it at all, now that they had it, but to tip it along and keep round it in a body. This was quite fair, and would have been adopted by the other party had they got the chance.

They were thus advancing steadily but slowly. The Rathcash men were on the outside, but found it difficult, if not impossible, to enter the solid body of Shanvilla men, who were advancing with the ball in the middle of them toward Rathcash goal.

"To the front, to the front, boys, or the game is lost!" roared Tom Murdock, who was himself then watching for an open to get in at the ball.

Forthwith there was a body of the green-sleeves right before Shanvilla, who came on with their ball, tip by tip, undaunted.

Still Rathcash was on the outside, and could not put a hurl on the ball. It was a piece of generalship upon the part of the Shanvilla leader not often before thought of, and likely to be crowned with success. The cheers from Shanvilla on the hills were now deafening--the final struggle was evidently at hand. Rathcash on the hills was silent, except a few murmurs of apprehension.

"This will never do, boys!" said Tom Murdock, rushing into the center of Shanvilla and endeavoring to hook the ball from amongst them; but they were too solid for that, although he had now made his way within a hurl's length of Emon.

Emon called to his men to stoop in front that he might see the goal and judge his distance.

"A few yards further, boys," he cried, "and then open out for me to swipe: I will not miss either the ball or the goal."

"Steady, Emon, steady a bit!" said Phil M'Dermott; "don't you see who is, I may say, alongside of you? Keep it close another bit."

"In with you, men! what are you about?" roared Tom Murdock; and half a score of the green-sleeves rushed in amongst the red. Here the clashing of hurls was at its height, and the shouts from both sides on the hill were tremendous. Shanvilla kept and defended their ball in spite of every attempt of Rathcash to pick it from amongst them; but nothing like violence was thought of by either side.

Shanvilla seemed assured of victory, and such of them as were on the outside, and could not get a tip at the ball, kept brandishing their hurls in the air, roaring at the top of their voices, "Good boys, Shanvilla, good boys!" "Through with it--through with it!" "Good boys!"

Emon looked out. Though he did not see the stones, he saw the goal-masters--one red, the other green--ready expecting the final puck, and he knew the spot.

"Give me room now, Phil," he whispered, and his men drew back.

Emon curled the ball into the air about the height of his head, and struck it sure and home. As if from a cannon's mouth it went over the heads of Rathcash, Shanvilla, and all, and sped right through the center of the stones--hop--hop--hop--until it was finally lost sight of in some rushes. But another blow had been struck at the same moment, and Emon-a-knock lay senseless on the ground, his face and neck, shirt and sleeves, all the same color, and that color was--blood.

Tom Murdock's hurl had been poised ready to strike the all the moment Lennon had curled it into the air. Upon this one blow the whole {701} game depended. Emon was rather sideways to Tom, who was on his left. Both their blows were aimed almost simultaneously at the ball, but Tom's being a second or two late, had no ball to hit; and not being able to restrain the impetus of the blow, his hurl passed on and took Emon's head above the top of the left ear, raising a scalp of flesh to the skull-bone, about three inches in length, and more than half that breadth.

The cheers of Shanvilla were speedily quashed, and there was a rush of the red-sleeves round their leader. Phil M'Dermott had taken him in his arms, and replaced the loose piece of flesh upon Emon's skull in the most artistic manner, and bound it down with a handkerchief tied under the chin. He could see that no injury had been done to the bone. It was a mere sloping stroke, which had lifted the piece of flesh clean from the skull. But poor Emon still lay insensible, his whole face, neck, and breast covered with blood.

There was some growling amongst the Shanvilla boys, and those from the hill ran down with their sticks to join their comrades with their hurls; while the Rathcash men closed into a compact body, beckoning to their friends on the hill, who also ran down to defend them in case of need.

This was indeed a critical moment, and one that, if not properly managed, might have led to bloodshed of a more extended kind. But Tom Murdock was equal to the occasion. He gave his hurl to one of his men the moment he had struck the blow, and went forward.

"Good heaven, boys, I hope he is not much hurt!" he exclaimed. "Rathcash should lose a hundred games before Shanvilla should be hurt."

As he spoke he perceived a scowl of doubt and rising anger in the faces of many of the Shanvilla men, some of whom ground their teeth, and grasped their hurls tighter in their hands. Tom did not lose his presence of mind at even this, although he almost feared the result. He took Emon by the hand and bid him speak to him. Phil M'Dermott had ordered his men to keep back the crowd to give the sufferer air. Poor Emon's own remedy in another cause had been resorted to. Phil had rubbed his lips and gums with whiskey--on this occasion it was near at hand--and poured a few thimblefuls down his throat. He soon opened his eyes, and looked round him.

"Thank God!" cried Tom Murdock. "Are you much hurt, Lennon?"

The very return to life had already quashed any cordiality toward Emon in Tom's heart.

"Not much, I hope, Tom. I was stunned; that was all. But what about the game? I thought my ear caught the cheers of victory as I fell."

"So they did, Emon," said M'Dermott; "but stop talking, I tell you. The game is ours, and it was you who won it with that last puck."

"Ay, and it was that last puck that nearly lost him his life," continued Tom, knowingly enough. "We both struck at the ball nearly at the same moment; he took it first, and my hurl had nothing to hit until it met the top of his head. I protest before heaven, Lennon, it was entirely accidental."

"I have not accused you of it's being anything else, Murdock; don't seem to doubt yourself," said Emon in a very low weak voice. But it was evident he was "coming-to."

Still the Shanvilla men were grumbling and whispering. One of them, a big black-haired fellow named Ned Murrican, burst out at last, and brandishing his hurl over his head, cried out:

"Arrah, now, what are we about; boys? Are we going to see our best man murdered before our eyes, an' be satisfied wid a piper an' a dance? I say we must have blood for blood!"

"An' why not?" said another. "It was no accident; I'm sure of that."

"What baldherdash!" cried a {702} third; "didn't I see him aim the blow?" And the whole of Shanvilla flourished their hurls and their sticks in the air, clashing them together with a terrific noise of an onslaught.

Tom Murdock's cheeks blanched. He feared that he had opened a floodgate which he could not stop, and that if there had not been, there would soon be, murder. His men stood firm in a close body, and not a word was heard to pass amongst them.

"Don't strike a blow, for the life of you, boys!" he cried, at the same time he took back his hurl from the man to whom he had given it to hold, who handed it to him, saying, "Here, Tom, you'll be apt to want this."

The Shanvilla men saw him take the hurl, and thought it an acceptance of a challenge to fight. They now began to jump off the ground, crying, "Whoop, whoop!" a sure sign of prompt action in an Irish row.

At this still more critical moment, Father Farrell, the parish priest of Shanvilla, who had been sent for in all haste "for the man who was killed," was seen cantering across the common toward the crowd; and more fortunately still he was accompanied by Father Roche, the parish-priest of Rathcash. They were both known at a glance; Shanvilla on his "strawberry cob," and Rathcash on his "tight little black mare."

It is needless to say that the approach of these two good men calmed to all appearance, if not in reality, the exhibition of angry feeling amongst the two parties.

"Here, your reverence," said one of the Shanvilla men to Father Farrell,--"here's where the man that was hurt is lying; poor Emon-a-knock, your reverence."

Father Farrell turned for a moment and whispered to his companion, "I'll see about the hurt man, and do you try and keep the boys quiet. I can see that Shanvilla is ready for a fight. Tell them that I'll be with them in a very few minutes, if the man is not badly hurt. If he is, my friend, I'm afraid we shall have a hard task to keep Shanvilla quiet. Could you not send your men home at once?"

"I'll do what I can; but you can do more with your own men than I can. Rathcash will not strike a blow, I know, until the very last moment."

They then separated, Father Farrell dismounting and going over to where Emon-a-knock still lay in M'Dermott's arms; and Father Roche up toward the Rathcash men.

"Boys," said he, addressing them, "this is a sad ending to the day's sport; but, thank God, from what I hear, the man is not much hurt. Be steady, at all events. Indeed, you had better go home at once, every man of you. Won't you take your priest's advice?"

"An' why not, your reverence? to be sure we will, if it comes to that; but, plaise God, it won't. At worst it was only an accident, an' we're tould it won't signify. We'll stan' our ground another while, your reverence, until we hear how the boy is. Sure, there's two barrels of beer an' a dance to the fore, by-an'-by."

"Well, lads, be very steady, and keep yourselves quiet. I'll visit the first man of you that strikes a blow with condign--"

"We'll strike no blow, your reverence, if we bant struck first. Let Father Farrell look to that."

"And so he will, you may depend upon it," said Father Roche.

The Shanvilla men had great confidence in Father Farrell in every respect, and there was not a man in the parish who would not almost die at his bidding from pure love of the man, apart from his religious influence. They knew him to be a good physician in a literal, as well as a moral, point of view; and he had been proving himself the good Samaritan for the last seventeen years to every one in the parish, whether they fell among thieves or not. He had commenced life as a medical student, but had (prudently, perhaps) preferred the Church. {703} In memory, however, of his early predilections, he kept a sort of little private dispensary behind his kitchen; and so numerous were the cures which nature had effected under his mild advice and harmless prescriptions, that he had established a reputation for infallibility almost equal to that subsequently attained by Holloway or Morrison. Never, however, was his medical knowledge of more use as well as value than on the present occasion.

Shanvilla grounded their weapons at his approach, and waited for his report. Father Farrell of course first felt the young man's pulse. He was not pedantic or affected enough to hold his watch in his other hand while he did so; but, like all good physicians, he held his tongue. He then untied the handkerchief, and gently examined the wound so far as possible without disturbing the work which Phil M'Dermott had so promptly and judiciously performed. His last test of the state of his patient was his voice; and upon this, in his own mind, he laid no inconsiderable stress. In reply to his questions as to whether he felt sick or giddy, Emon replied, much more stoutly than was expected, that he felt neither the one nor the other. Father Farrell was now fully satisfied that there was nothing seriously wrong with him, and that giving him the rites of the Church, or even remaining longer with him then, might have an unfavorable effect upon the already excited minds of the Shanvilla men. He therefore said, smiling, "Thank God, Emon, you want no further doctoring just now; and I'll leave you for a few minutes while I tell Shanvilla that nothing serious has befallen you."

He then left him, and hastened over toward his parishoners, who eagerly met him half-way as he approached.

"Well, your reverence?" "Well, your reverence?" ran through the foremost of them.

"It is well, and very well, boys," he replied; "I bless God it is nothing but a scalp wound, which will not signify. Put by your hurls, and go and ask the Rathcash girls to dance."

"Three cheers for Father Farrell!" shouted Ned Murrican of the black curly head. They were given heartily, and peace was restored.

Father Farrell then remounted his strawberry cob, and rode over toward where Father Roche was with the Rathcash men. They were, "in a manner," as anxious to hear his opinion of Emon-a-knock as his own men had been. They knew nothing, or, if they did, they cared nothing, for any private cause of ill-will on their leader's part toward Emon-a-knock. They were not about to espouse his quarrel, if he had one; and, as they had said, they would not have struck a blow unless in self-defence.

Father Farrell now assured them there was nothing of any consequence "upon" Emon; it was a mere tip of the flesh, and would be quite well in a few days. "But, Tom _a-wochal_," he added, laughing, "you don't often aim at a crow and hit a pigeon."

"I was awkward and unfortunate enough to do so this time, Father Farrell," he replied. And he then entered into a full, and apparently a candid, detail of how it had happened.

Father Farrell listened with much attention, bowing at him now and then, like the foreman of a jury to a judge's charge, to show that he understood him. When he had ended. Father Farrell placed his hand upon his shoulder, and, bending down toward him, whispered in his ear, "Oh, Tom Murdock, but you are the fortunate man this day! for if the blow had been one inch and a half lower, all the priests and doctors in Connaught would not save you from being tried for manslaughter."

"Or murder," whispered Tom's heart to himself.

By this time Emon-a-knock, with M'Dermott's help, had risen to his feet; and leaning on him and big Ned Murrican, crept feebly along toward the boreen which formed the entrance to the common.

{704}

Father Farrell, perceiving the move, rode after him, and said, as he passed, that he would trot on and send for a horse and cart to fetch him home, as he would not allow him to walk any further than the end of the lane. Indeed, it was not his intention to do so; for he was still scarcely able to stand, and that not without help.

Before he and his assistants, however, had reached the end of the lane, Father Farrell came entering back, saying, "All right, my good lads; there is a jennet and cart coming up the lane for him."

Emon cocked his ear at the word jennet; he knew who owned the only one for miles around. And there indeed it was; and the sight of it went well-nigh to cure Emon, better than any doctoring he could get.

TO BE CONTINUED.

From The Month.

INQUIETUS.

We put him in a golden cage With crystal troughs; but still he pined For tracts of royal foliage. And broad blue skies and merry wind.

We gave him water cool and dear; All round his golden wires we twined Fresh leaves and blossoms bright, to cheer His restless heart: but still he pined.

We whistled and we chirped; but he Trilled never more his liquid falls, But ever yearned for liberty, And dashed against his golden walls.

Again, again, in wild despair, He strove to burst his bars aside; At last, beneath his pinion fair, He hid his drooping head and died!

And so against the golden bars-- Life's golden bars--our poor souls smite. Pining for tracts beyond the stars. Freedom and beauty, truth and light

Those bars a Father's hands adorn With leaves and flowers--earth's loveliest things-- With crystal draughts; but still we mourn With thirsting for the "living springs."

Nor crystal draughts, nor leaves and flowers, The exiled heart can satisfy: We shake the bars; and some few hours We droop and pine, and then we die,

We die! But, oh, the prison-bars Are shatter'd then: then far away, We pass beyond the sky, the stars-- Beyond the change of night and day.

{705}

From Chambers's Journal.

A KINGDOM WITHOUT A KING.

Lichtenstein is the name of the smallest principality in the great German "Vaterland," and this has hitherto been the most remarkable thing that could be said about it, for in the great political world it has as yet played no part. It appears, however, that its time has now arrived; and for the benefit of those who might receive this bit of intelligence with a sceptical smile, I subjoin a few words of explanation.

In order fully to appreciate this important question, it will be necessary to commence by going back into the past--if not so far as to the Flood, at least to some part of the twelfth century.

It will not do to believe that the Lichtensteiners are people of vulgar extraction. True, their ancestors hardly anticipated that the house of Lichtenstein would ever be reckoned among the reigning families of Europe; but this did not affect the nobleness of their quarterings. The founder of the house was a lively and enterprising Lombard, and related to the Este family. He went to Germany with the object of making his fortune, and there he married, 1145 A.D., a little princess of the house of Schwaben. They had not the slightest fraction of a principality, but they had plenty of children to educate and provide for. Their fortune was not very large, but, in his quality of Lombard, the father exercised the lucrative business of an usurer, whenever the occasion presented itself. The sovereigns of those times were often in want of money, and our Lombard supplied them with this article, proper security being forthcoming. When the time of restitution arrived, it was not always convenient to the debtors to pay in cash, and the affair was therefore generally settled by means of small pieces of land, titles, or privileges. The Lichtensteiners soon became allied to the greatest German families. In the year 1614, the Emperor Matthias ceded to them, in settlement of their pecuniary claims, the principality of Troppau, in Schlesien. Ten years later, the Emperor Ferdinand II. added to their possessions the principality of Jagendorff. Then they obtained the title of "Prince of the Holy Roman Empire;" and by this time they had purchased the districts of Vadutz and Schnellenberg, on the borders of the Rhine, and close to the Swiss frontier. These possessions form the actual principality of Lichtenstein, which has the small town of Vadutz for its capital.

The Congress of Vienna--contrary to its principles of mediatization--resolved, for reasons which we abstain from investigating, to maintain Lichtenstein as a sovereign and independent state, and gave it an entire vote in the German Confederation.

In return for these advantages, Lichtenstein had to provide a contingent of ninety men and one drummer to the federal army. It is important not to lose sight of these ninety men and one drummer, for they play a principal part in the impending question. The subjects of the principality of Lichtenstein, according to the last census, numbered 7,150; they are clever people, of a peaceable disposition, but impressed with no particular awe for authorities. They even have a slight taint of independence, undoubtedly owing to the close vicinity of Switzerland.

{706}

A year had scarcely elapsed after the remodelling of the map of Europe by the Congress of Vienna, when the inhabitants of Lichtenstein addressed themselves to their sovereign, John I., and declared with rustic frankness that they had no objection to being ruled by him, since the Congress had decided it so; but that they found it entirely superfluous to pay any civil list; beside, they were too few in number to contribute every year ninety men and one drummer to the federal army. Prince John was an excellent man, and, moreover, he was immensely rich. He informed his subjects that he could do very well without any civil list; and as for the federal contingent, he concluded a convention with the Austrian government, by which the latter undertook to furnish it together with its own. With this the loyal subjects declared themselves satisfied; and everything went on well until the year 1836, when Prince Aloysius I. ascended the throne. In the meantime, the natives of Lichtenstein had made various reflections. The conclusions arrived at were: that a prince, even if paid nothing, entails sundry expenses on the country where he is reigning; festivals have to be given, as well as solemn audiences, illuminations, fire-works, etc.

Accordingly, they sent a deputation to their new lord and master, and made it obvious, to him that he must indemnify the country for all expenses of the description alluded to. Aloysius I. was as excellent a monarch as his predecessor; he admitted the claims of his subjects, and made an agreement with them concerning an annual indemnity, which he paid with exemplary regularity.

The Lichtensteiners had now attained the object of their wishes; they led an existence entirely ideal. They occupied a position unique in Europe, nay, in the whole world; for, instead of paying for government, they actually were paid for submission to it. It would now be supposed that nothing in future could disturb the good understanding existing between prince and people. But alas! that the old saying should here find its application--namely, that he who has got yellow hair, wants it also to be curled.

John II. became Prince of Lichtenstein. One fine morning he said to himself: "Since I have no civil list, nay, since I--contrary to all established usages--pay a tribute to my subjects, I ought at least to have full liberty to live according to my tastes. This small capital is a bore. I have plenty of money; I will set out for Vienna!" No sooner said than done. John II. built a magnificent palace in the capital of Austria, and there he lived in a luxurious style. The government of the principality he intrusted to a minister, with whom he corresponded. But when were those stupid Lichtensteiners to be satisfied? They put their heads together and resolved to send a deputation to their supreme master in Vienna; and one particular morning, just as the prince had got out of bed, a dozen of the most distinguished among his subjects made their appearance. After the customary reverences and ceremonies, the deputation put forth its request with becoming solemnity, expressing itself somewhat to the following effect: "We don't pay your serene highness any civil list; on the contrary, your serene highness pays an annual indemnity to us. But your serene highness is in possession of a large fortune, and spends it in a royal manner, by the which formerly your principality benefited. If, now, your serene highness continues to reside in Vienna, you inflict a serious loss upon your subjects; and it appears therefore to us but just that you should in future inhabit at least six months of the year your own capital." Several demands of a political nature were appended to this petition. John II. granted their request, and issued, moreover, a brand-new constitution, with a parliament of fifteen members, whom he promised to pay out of his own pocket.

{707}

But what about the ninety men and the drummer? Well, now the difficulty arises, for they are exactly the cause of the present dispute.

Austria having long furnished this contingent, sent, some time ago, a bill of the resulting expenses to the prince. But the prince thought that, as he had renounced his claims to a civil list, and even paid his subjects a round sum every year, it could be no very heavy burden for the said subjects to pay their own federal contingent. This the Lichtensteiners obstinately refuse to do; the prince, on the other side, tired of so much trouble, has expressed his intention to abdicate, and to cede his dominions to Austria. But against this scheme his people protest most energetically--they would rather belong to Switzerland. Beside, if Austria annexes Lichtenstein, then Prussia will regard the transaction with an envious eye. The prince will neither pay nor govern. Such is the present state of things, of which nobody can predict the end.

From The St. James Magazine.

A NOVEL TICKET-OF-LEAVE; OR, MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

"No two things are alike." Such is the dictum of science. "Nature," say the wise men, "resembles the charms of Cleopatra, which custom cannot stale, so infinite is their variety." Even in so humble a thing as a flock of sheep there is a personal identity, and the shepherd of Salisbury Plain will vow to you that he can discriminate between the countenances of each member of his woolly family, and particularize their features. So with the herdsman and his drove, the trainer and his stud. But why pursue the theme? Why dwell upon these flocks _qui passent et ne se resemblent pas?_ Is it to prove that these resemblances are mere fallacies, and have no real existence; that they ought to be classed with Sir Thomas Browne's "vulgar errors?" No; but to lament that whereas each member of a flock of sheep, of a herd of oxen, or a stud of horses, carries his individuality so markedly, the privilege is not more extended in the genus _homo_. I solemnly aver that the number of cases of mistaken identity which have lately come to my knowledge is not only astounding, but exceedingly embarrassing; I may add, too, _quorum magna pars fui_; which, being translated, means, in which I have formed a no inconsiderable portion of the quorum. It is no pleasant sensation to know that your "counterfeit presentment" is walking the earth; in fact, it is monstrously unpleasant. The other day I felt a heavy hand placed rapidly upon my shoulder, in the most unceremonious and familiar of ways, accompanied with an equally unceremonious and familiar exclamation: "Why, Perkins, old boy, _how_ are ye? Haven't seen ye for an age! Glad to see you again in London! How are all the folks at Nottingham?"

How far this familiar stranger would have gone on in this fluent strain of amity I know not. It was time to stop his exuberance of friendship, and acquaint him with the fact that my name was not Perkins; that I had not come from Nottingham; and, I fear, added, in the bitterness and irritation of the moment, that I had never been to Nottingham, and never wished to go there. "Oh, nonsense, Perkins! I'm not going to be knocked off in that style. How are Mrs. Perkins and the chicks?" "I tell you again, sir, you are mistaken in your man; my name {708} is not Perkins." "It may not be Perkins now, but it was three months ago; and whatever your new name may be, I am not going to be turned off in this way. Not Perkins! Why, you can't get rid of that mole on your cheek with your new name; and as to your wig, old fellow, there never was but that shade of red I ever saw. Come, where shall we dine?" "I must plainly tell you, sir," I replied to my would-be friend, "you are carrying your pleasantry too far; and if you do not leave me at once, I will give you in charge of the police." The fellow, evidently chagrined, left me to chew the cud of bitter reflection. "Well, well," were his parting words, "it can't be Perkins after all; Perkins was a jolly good fellow, and this chap is------" He had by this time got out of hearing. What an unpleasant rencontre this! I thought to myself. Then again the subject took another aspect. What if the real, the true Perkins, should ever be persecuted by _my_ friends as I have been by one of his?

And this leads me on to another incident in the same category, which occurred still more recently, and might have led to very deplorable results. In fact, I am not sure that the end is yet. I had business out of town for a day or two, and returned punctually at the appointed hour. Whom should I meet on the platform of the terminus but Tom Cridlins! Now Tom is a great gossip, and an immense favorite with the ladies. He frequents the theatres and the operas, conversaziones and balls, and retails all the news and scandal of the day to his fair friends. Well, I met him accidentally at the terminus; in an instant he was full of apologies and excuses. "Hope, Sam, done no mischief; didn't mean it, didn't mean it, 'pon honor; deuced sorry, hope it's all over." "Why, what's the matter?" "Didn't know you'd gone out of town, you sly dog. I understand it all. Called at Mrs. Sam's yesterday; told her--didn't do it intentionally--saw you at the opera Monday night with Countess Tarascona; magnificent woman; saw at once made mistake. Why didn't she tell me you'd gone out of town? wouldn't have breathed a word. 'Pon honor, accidental." "Opera, Tom! I wasn't at the opera; I have been out of town since Monday morning; you're mistaken." "Capital joke, that. Why, Sam, think I'm 'flicted with color-blindness? No, my boy, nothing blinds me but friendship; wouldn't have said a word had known you didn't want it." Need I say what a miserable vista was opened up before me? A jealous wife's jealousy accidentally inflamed in this innocent manner, and even Tom Cridlins incredulous. These men of the world won't believe in--in anything.

"Tom," I said, seriously, "this is very unfortunate; but you were never more mistaken in your life. I have not been at the opera for weeks." Oh that wicked twinkle of his eye! "Well, my boy, _I_ don't want to believe you were there; disbelieve anything you like; only----" "Tom, I can stand this no longer; I must not be played with; you _must_ admit that I was not at the opera. I can bring the whole village of Cudgleton to prove an _alibi_." "Glad to hear it, for peace of home's sake. Mrs. Sam took it very ill, can assure you; sorry, 'ceedingly sorry; but really the countess is a magnificent woman." "Who the devil cares _now_ about the countess? I affirm that I have been at Cudgleton from Monday 4 P.M. till this morning 10 A.M. Left by express, and just arrived." "There's the bell, Sam; must say good-bye; remember me to your wife; purely accidental; 'ceedingly regret it; believe every word you say--will back it 'gainst all odds; remember me to your wife, and tell her _I believe you, my boy_."

"Believe me, my boy!" and that's how Tom Cridlins left me,--light-hearted and gay-spirited, after having kindled a torch which Acheron itself could not quench.

{709}

I returned home. Of course Mrs. Sam was _prepared_ to receive me. In vain I protested; in vain I insisted that Tom Cridlins was laboring under an illusion; I had brought him to confess as much. "Oh, then, you have seen him to-day; planning and scheming, I suppose, to get up a pack of contradictions. I understand; but you are not going to deceive me. Natural evidence is better than got-up evidence, and I shall prefer to take Mr. Thomas Cridlins's first statement to his second. There are some things better fresh, and testimony I take to be one of those things. Whatever you and Mr. Cridlins may choose to concoct, for the future I shall believe what I please to believe."

And so on till bedtime. Would that I could say we had had it out even then! At midnight we were only in the thick of it; and to acquire renewed vigor for future assaults, Mrs. Sam prudently fell asleep.

But what a time for me! Oh that I could reverse the hand of the clock eight-and-forty hours, or push it on until this trouble had blown over! Plague on that man, whoever he is, that looked so like me! Why was he at the opera? why was he there with a fine woman? Cridlins saw nothing of the Countess Tarascona--only seen her once--and his foolish head jumps to the conclusion it must be the countess. Ass that he is! Why isn't he honestly employed, like other people, instead of idling about on his five thousand a year, philandering and making mischief? He can scarcely count the fingers on his hand, yet he can create a devil of a row between man and wife!

Two o'clock struck. I had fallen into a distempered doze; still it was somewhat soothing. With the waking reflection came back, not quite so excited. After all it might have been worse. I remember reading of a Bishop of Siena who had a sovereign antidote against every attack of despondency.

"When I am disappointed or vexed, or embarrassed or dissatisfied," he said, "I look round upon the world and notice how many hundreds and thousands are worse off than myself, and the result invariably is, that grumbling and vexation take wings and fly away, and contentment and cheerfulness return and nestle in my bosom."

What, thought I, as I lay awake,--what if, instead of this conjugal _contretemps_, I had been wrongly seized for theft and murder, and unable to prove an _alibi_? Such cases have been. Such cases _have_ been! Why, they have taken place by scores--are taking place, and will to the end of the chapter. And my imagination vividly portrayed the mental agonies of the innocent convict. Memory ransacked the dusty tomes of history to supply fresh food for meditation, fresh fuel to feed my horror. Does not Pliny cite innumerable instances? Had not the twin brothers of Ephesus just cause to exclaim, each to his unknown counterpart, in the anguish and bitterness of his spirit, "Oh, Dromio, Dromio, wherefore art thou, Dromio?" Does not the "Newgate Calendar" teem with cases of men's lives perjured by false witnesses, or sacrificed to a false tissue of circumstances? Did not Richard Coleman and Clinch and Mackley suffer death for crimes of which they were subsequently proved to be guiltless, simply because each was mistaken for the "right man," who was not, and never is, in the "right place." Was not Hoag tried at New York, in 1804, for bigamy, through a similar misconception? And did not Redman in 1822, and Robinson in 1824, just escape the gallows by a hair's-breadth? And were not these instances enough to scarify any man's imagination, and shiver his every nerve? My "counterfeit presentment" was evidently wandering about somewhere. What sort of a character was he? Did ho belong to the dangerous classes? was he a respectable member of society or an impostor? was he cunning and clever, and capable of swindling? was he cold-blooded and resolute, capable {710} of murder? was he passionate and revengeful? was he anything and everything that could lead a man into a violent scrape?

No wonder the perspiration ran off my brow as my brain scudded through the chapter of probabilities and revealed a long gloomy vista of perils. I bethought me of the police. Should I make known that my "counterfeit" was abroad "stalking the world around?" Should I seek the protection of Scotland Yard, and warn them if they heard of a robbery or a murder, or some other villainy or felony committed by a man answering to my description, that _I_ was not the culprit? To be forewarned is to be forearmed; to tell them this might save loss of time, and spare a world of trouble, inconvenience, and annoyance. Beside, was it not exactly what my late friend Richter had done? Ah! by-the-bye, you didn't know Richter--thereby hangs a tale. Richter, poor fellow, is dead now; but there is a moral attached to his life, and we, whose eidola are walking the earth, may as well extract it.

Richter was a wealthy _rentier_, living in Vienna; and a thorough Austrian by birth, education, and nature. Quiet, inoffensive, kindly; there was nothing striking about him in person or position. He never meddled with that firebrand--politics; he had never troubled the most immaculate government of the imperial and royal apostolic Kaiser with unseasonable and unreasonable comments on its virtues or defects; he had never violated that most sacred thing, the concordat; had never offended lord or prince; had hated Hungary, and had always wished Venice at the bottom instead of on the surface of the sea. He was a peaceable citizen, obedient to the decrees of his sovereign, and pursued the even tenor of his life with well-balanced footstep, inclining to nothing that was likely to lead him or his neighbor into the dark and dreary desert of trouble and vexation. Nevertheless the Nemesis of envy marked him for her own; and he was pointed at during the latter part of his life as one who could set the vast army of spies and detectives formed and disciplined by that arch-policeman, Metternich, at absolute defiance.

It was the custom of Herr Richter of an afternoon or morning--as any one might who had nothing better to do--to stroll up and down the principal thoroughfares of Vienna, gaze into its splendid shops, and admire the beauty and the becrinolined silks and satins, muslins and grenadines, of the stately dames of that ancient and quaint city. One day--it was in the summer of 1849--Herr Richter was _flâning_ along the Kätner Strasse, and, impelled neither by curiosity nor covetousness, but that indefinable something which of directs our course and shapes our conduct without our consciousness, stopped before the "Storr and Mortimer" of the Hapsburg capital. Why did he thrust himself in amongst that band of ragged _gamins_, who, with gaping mouth and burning eyes, were devouring the splendors of the plate-glass window, and wistfully wishing that that glittering heap of rings and chains, brooches and necklaces, cassolettes and lockets, bracelets and eardrops, emeralds, diamonds, pearls, rubies, turquoises, etc., were theirs? Why did he mingle with them? He could not have told you, nor can I. Only he was there, and it was evident his heart, too, was overflowing, like Mr. Pickwick's, with the milk of human kindness. "Poor fellows!" such was his train of thought, "you can never get any of these treasures, though you should toil for a century;" and then turning away, he muttered aloud, still continuing his train of thought, "Any of them might be mine in a moment if I chose." Was he speculating on the iniquitous force of the Austrian guild laws, or the false system of political economy in vogue in Austria? was he pondering over the mysteries of _meum et tuum_, or endeavoring to solve that profound problem, "_La proprieté c'est le vol?_"

{711}

Possibly yes, possibly no; but just at that moment a strong hand was laid on his shoulder. "One word with you, if you please," said a low musical voice, imperative yet polite.

The invitation was irresistible. With the utmost complacency Herr Richter retired with the gentleman who accosted him underneath one of those huge gateways, _porte-cochères_, which form the entrance of the old Vienna houses. The stranger then took a paper from his pocket, and looking intently, now at its contents, now at the features of Herr Richter, opened the conversation in a curt and peremptory manner:

"Sir, I am under the painful necessity of requesting you to follow me."

Herr Richter, incensed, grows restiff.

"Pray, sir, who are you that dare--" and without finishing the sentence he threw himself into an attitude of defence, if not defiance.

"Had you not better give less trouble?" coolly asked the stranger. "Am I to call assistance?"

Rapidly the truth dawned upon the Herr. The stranger, though clad in the ordinary attire of a _bourgeois_, belonged to that mysterious body, dreaded by every section of the community, since it received its orders, so it was universally believed, directly from the cabinet, or a joint committee of the holy alliance itself. Yes, he must be an agent of the secret police.

Herr Richter, however, is not hurried off to the star chamber where political offenders are dealt with, but is conducted to the Scotland Yard of Vienna--the headquarters of the _gendarmerie_--the central station for criminal suspects. In Austria it is safer to be classed with common thieves and felons than to be suspected of meddling with politics. So the Herr's mind was materially relieved; though ignominious his fate, on perceiving his destination he scarcely felt enraged at the indignity offered him.

When they had arrived within the gloomy precincts of the gaol barracks, things began to explain themselves. There was evident satisfaction, not to say exultation, on the faces of the officials. The captor was specially gratified; and waving his warrant, as though it were an honorable trophy, over the head of his unfortunate prize, he exclaimed--

"I've captured him at last; I've found him and caught him, this prince of pickpockets!" and he enacted the passion of triumph so perfectly that he jeered at and derided in true Teutonic fashion his safe and sound victim in the most cold-blooded and insolent manner.

"As I was passing down the Kätner Strasse," continued this self-gratulatory detective, "I saw him looking into a goldsmith's shop, noting every article in the window, and heard him muttering to himself, with a most complacent air, 'Any one of them could be mine in a moment if I chose.'"

A superior officer was then called, and the description in the warrant being read over, there could be no doubt as to the identity of the prisoner with the most active and desperate thief in Vienna. The personal appearance of Herr Richter tallied exactly with the written portrait in the possession of the Polizer-Haus; type and antitype could not be more exact.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the alarmed captive, "I the greatest thief in Vienna! I am Herr Richter, a gentleman, a man of property, rich enough to purchase twenty jewellers' shops. I beg you to be careful how you proceed further."

"Don't excite yourself," retorted the commissioner, "we _shall_ be careful enough. You won't catch us giving you an opportunity of escape."

"_Donnerwetter!_" ejaculated the now infuriated _rentier_; "this is too much of a good thing. Just send round for my banker and he will tell you who and what I am. I'll sue you, sir--I'll sue you, sir, as sure as you are born," repeated the Herr, growing more exasperated every moment.

{712}

The superintendent, like most men of his profession, was well versed in physiognomy, and could read the features of the human face and interpret their varied expressions. "This is not feigned anger," he said to himself.

The banker was sent for, and identified the prisoner as his friend Herr Richter. As a matter of course the wealthy gentleman escaped the grasp of the Philistines.

On leaving the beetle-browed gateway of the police barracks the Herr breathed freely again, rejoicing that matters had turned out no worse in that empire of suspicion and caprice. He moved along through the principal thoroughfare of the Austrian capital, pondering over his recent unpleasant adventure. At length he called a cab to take him to his club, where he might drown the indignity of the morning in a bumper of Tokay or Johannisberg, and invite oblivion by devouring a good dinner. Hardly, however, had he placed his foot on the step than he was forced deep down into the vehicle by a mysterious personage at his back, who, whispering to the driver, "To the police station!" enters the cab also. Speechless and aghast as though a spectre were the intruder, the unfortunate Herr Richter looked wildly at his compulsory companion.

"Sir," said the spectre--

"I know all you are going to say," feebly remarked the desperate Richter, cursing his fate.

"_Of course_ you know," sneered the spectre at his side, who, however, is no spectre, but a jolly-booking individual in the prime of manhood. "_Of course_ you know." And with this he dives his hand into his pocket, and drags forth the fatal warrant.

"All right!" groans out the inevitable captive, with whom despair was fast degenerating into recklessness. "All right, you need not take the trouble to read every trait. I have read the account myself. It is very correct, wonderfully correct, terribly correct."

"For a gentleman of your profession," observed the portly detective, "you are really very civil. Half a dozen such as you would marvellously improve the manners of our modern _chevaliers d'industrie_. I say, old boy," continued the pleasant thief-catcher, poking the unresisting Herr in the ribs, "you ought to think it over, and exert yourself to instill a little politeness into your tribe. It's a large section of the community, you know. If yon get out again, think over my advice."

The only reply of Herr Richter was a faint, helpless smile.

Arrived at the station, a general shout of laughter greeted the captor and the captured.

The latter seated himself in a chair, and, composing his thoughts for a desperate harangue, thus addressed the commissioners present:

"Gentlemen, here I am again, and here I am resolved to remain. As it is, I should not be safe anywhere else a quarter of an hour until arrested and taken to the station by _all_ your detectives one after the other. Calculating from to-day's experience, and forming a moderate estimate of the rate of locomotion at which I could proceed under the circumstances, it would take me a fortnight to get home and bury myself from the now hated gaze of mankind. You will therefore have the kindness to let me keep you company and make the personal acquaintance of each member of your force, who will then, I hope, be able to recognize me when he sees me in the streets."

The commissioner-in-chief regretted that he could not assent to the Herr's proposition. "Impossible! it would never do, my dear sir," he informed the astounded Richter, "for a civilian, even a man of your respectability and appearance, to know all the detectives; the state itself would be endangered. However," he added very graciously, "I will give you a certificate, under {713} my hand and seal, that you are not the man you have been taken for; and this will make, I hope, as far as lies in my power, the _amende honorable_."

"A ticket-of-leave?"

"_Comme vous voulez_."

Poor Richter surrendered unconditionally, glad, like the Bishop of Hereford, "that he could so get away." Never from that hour did he lose sight of that precious "ticket-of-leave," the prison release of the Austrian Scotland Yard. He always carried it about with him as a kind of amulet to charm away the too active _agens de police_. In his last will and testament he inserted a special clause, ordering that the old leather sheath, containing the official permit, should be placed in his coffin.

"Who knows how many a fix it may yet help me out of?" was written in the margin with his own hand.

Why should not I, then, do like Herr Richter? thought your humble servant, as he still lay awake. If ever the dastardly hand of a peeler be laid on my shoulder, such shall be my first step. Pshaw! why should I not take time by the forelock? why should I not go that very morning to Scotland Yard and acquaint the commissioners that my counterfeit was at large, and might commit some fearful atrocity, some terrible crime, and so beg for a ticket of recognition--a ticket-of-leave?

Alas! whilst I was putting on the breastplate and buckling on my armor against imaginary foes, I had forgotten the real danger that encompassed me. Whilst I was congratulating myself on the ingenious dispensation I was to obtain from the police, I forgot that I had not yet obtained a dispensation from the partner of my joys and sorrows who was calmly reposing by my side. Calmly reposing, I say, for nothing seemed to disturb her. There are natures, it appears to me, whose repose nothing _can_ break, and it is exactly that class of natures which can most easily and effectually disturb the peace of others. It is a mighty faculty, and was possessed, _à merveille_, by Mrs. Sam.

When she woke I meekly broached my idea of police protection, thereby intending by a side-wind to establish my spotless innocence before her. Granted the necessity of police protection, the corollary would be that the story of the opera and the countess was all a myth. Mrs. Sam let me run the whole tether of suggestion with surprising complacency. I almost felt I was triumphant.

"Mr. Samuel----, you may be guilty of whatever folly you please; it is nothing strange to you," she began in her most stately and cutting manner; "but if you think of bamboozling me and throwing me off the scent, you have mistaken your woman. The herring to trail across my path must be stronger flavored than the one you have in hand if you would turn me from the pursuit. Justice I am resolved to have, and will sift the matter to the bottom. It is not yet time to get up, and I wish to finish my sleep. After breakfast, with your kind _permission_ (oh the agony of that irony!) we will together call on the countess. She, perhaps, may be able to explain."

I knew the countess had left town; but I did not dare to say so, and hypocritically assented to Mrs. Sam's proposal. She was furious when she learnt that the countess was from home. "How long had she been from home?" "A fortnight," was the testimony of the butler. "Has she not been in town since?" "No." "Was she not in town on Monday?" "Certainly not." How freely I breathed as this witness gave his involuntary and corroborative evidence in my favor. Mrs. Sam turned round upon me with an incredulous smile. "I condone it this time," she graciously observed as we descended the steps, which reminded me very forcibly of the verdict of the Cornish jury--"We find the prisoner _not_ guilty, only we advise him not to do it again."

{714}

MISCELLANY.

_An Intermittent Fountain_--M. l'Abbe Laborde, writing to _Les Mondes_, describes a simple apparatus for producing an intermittent fountain. It consists of an inverted flask fitted with a cork, through which pass two tubes of unequal length. The longer reaches nearly to the bottom of the flask, and outside has a length of some twenty inches. The shorter tube merely pierces the cork, and does not extend to any length inside, and outside it ends immediately in a jet, which can be curved round. The flask is filled with water, fitted with the two tubes, and then, with the finger on the shorter tube, is inverted, plunging the end of the longer tube in a vessel of water. The instrument may now be fixed in this position, as an intermittent jet of water begins to flow at once, continuing until the flask is empty. The column of water in the longer tube will be seen to be alternately rising and falling, from which phenomena an explanation has been given of the cause of the intermittent flow.

_On Phosphatic Deposits Recently Discovered in North Wales, by Dr. Aug. Voelcker._--An extensive mine, containing several phosphatic minerals, was accidentally discovered early last year by Mr. Hope Jones, of Hooton, Cheshire, whilst he was searching for other minerals in the neighborhood of Cwmgynen, about sixteen miles from Oswestry. Mr. Hope Jones found the phosphatic mine to be continuous for more than a mile, and to come within twelve feet of the surface. It is not far from the clay slate and lead bearing district of Llangrynag. The strata (slaty shale) contain several beds of contemporaneous felspathic ash and scoriae, and the usual fossils of the Llandillo series are found, but not in great numbers. The strata are vertical, and run east to west, or, more correctly speaking, fifteen degrees north of west (magnetic). A true vein, or fissure containing vein deposit, partially metallic, divides two phosphatic deposits. One of them is nearly three yards in thickness, and embodies phosphatic limestone beds, containing from ten to upwards of thirty-five per cent, of phosphate of lime. The other, and more valuable deposit, is a yard and a half thick, and consists of a black, graphitic shale, largely impregnated with phosphate of lime. This deposit is free from carbonate of lime, and much richer in phosphate of lime than the first-mentioned deposit. In specimens taken at a depth of about twelve feet from the surface, Dr. Voelcker found from 54 to 56 per cent. of phosphate of lime in this phosphatic shale. At a greater depth the shale becomes richer in phosphates, and, consequently, more valuable. In the deeper specimens the proportions of phosphate of lime amounted to 64-1/2 per cent. This phosphatic mine is readily accessible, and naturally drainable to a depth of about 500 miles, and contains many hundred thousand, if not millions, of tons of valuable phosphatic minerals. The discovery of this extensive mine in England appears to be of great importance to the English agriculturist, who at the present time consumes annually many tons of phosphatic minerals in the shape of superphosphate and similar artificial manures.

_Belgian Records_.--The Royal Historical Commission of Belgium, which for some years past has been doing good service by publishing records and indexes of the documents relating to the domestic history of Belgium, held its usual quarterly meeting a few weeks back. M. Galeshoot presented a copy of the "_Livre des Foudataires_" of John III., Duke of Brabant, copies of which were ordered to be distributed to the scientific and other bodies entitled to receive the publications of the commission. At the same time, M. Piot, chief keeper of the archives, submitted a proposal to publish the chartulary of the abbey of St. Trond, which was founded in the year 660. The documents of which the chartulary is composed are of high interest, and commence in the eighth century. They {715} throw much light on the civil and religious history, manners and customs, and institutions of the middle ages.

_Sun-Spot Period_.--Professor Wolf, of Zurich, has undertaken the laborious work of determining the number of Sun spots at the dyouifferent periods when the planets, more especially Jupiter, are in perihelion and aphelion. In the year 1859 he expressed his opinion that Jupiter determines the leading character of the sun-spot curve, that Saturn causes small alterations in the height and length of the undulations, and that the earth and Venus determine the indentations of the curve. More recently. Mr. Carrington and Mr. De la Rue have returned to the same subject, and the latter, in conjunction with Mr. Stewart, has found that when "the sun or a part of the solar surface approaches a planet, the spots disappear, or the brightness increases." It is the intention of Professor Wolf to calculate for every five days a mean relative number of sun-spots during the period 1811-1865. He gives the results of a portion of his labors in showing the connection of the sun-spot period of 11.11 years with the revolution of Jupiter between the years 1805 and 1816. The numbers given are certainly very remarkable, for whilst only 21 spots were visible soon after the perihelion of Jupiter in 1809, 64 were seen in 1815 at the time of the aphelion. The progression of the numbers is otherwise very remarkable.

_Plastic Wood_.--Among new inventions we hear of plastic wood, or rather of a method by which wood can be rendered plastic, and so applied to various novel purposes. The method consists in forcing dilute hydrochloric acid, under pressure, into the cells of the wood, and continuing it a sufficient time, according to the quality of the wood operated on. When completely saturated with the acid, the wood is washed in water, and subjected to pressure, which presses the fibres close together without breaking them, and reduces it to about a tenth of its original bulk, and the size and form thus impressed on it remain unaltered. Thus, if pressed in dies, the details retain all the sharpness ever afterwards, unless the wood should get soaked with water. Wood treated in this way is particularly well suited for carvings, as it cuts under the tool almost as easily as cheese; and it may be made ornamental, for various dyes can be forced in to color it at the same time with the acid. But it can also be made hard as flint and incombustible, by forcing in a preparation of water-glass or soluble flint. From all this, it seems likely that wood may be employed in new ways for ornamental and useful purposes.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny. By O. A. Brownson, LL.D. 8vo., pp. 435. New York: P. O'Shea. 1866.

This book, which was merely announced in our January number, is the fruit of Dr. Brownson's mature age, ripe experience, great learning, and extraordinary intellectual and literary culture and discipline. It would seem that his life-long labors as a philosophical and critical writer had been simply a course of preparation for this crowning achievement, and that nothing less severe could have trained his mind to grasp and handle the great principles involved with such masterly power, ease, perspicuity, and completeness.

The questions discussed are: Government; the Origin of Government; Constitution of Government; the United States; Constitution of the United States; Secession; Reconstruction; Political Tendencies; Destiny--Political and Religious. The argument throughout is sustained and connected in such a perfect manner, and the connection between the divisions of the subject so thoroughly welded, that it is impossible to make extracts at all within the compass of this notice which would give a correct idea of the work. It must be read and studied to appreciate its beauty, scope, and cogency.

Government and the origin of government are analyzed and placed on their historical and metaphysical basis. {716} The constitution of the United States is explained in a manner never before attempted or approached. The relations of the United States to the states in the Union, and their relations to her as a unit, are for the first time made clear and intelligible, and secession, while dealt with charitably as respects individuals and the erroneous premises honestly entertained by multitudes both South and North, is logically proved to be the highest of political crimes--"_state suicide_.'" The constitutional and Christian method of restoration is pointed out, and the glorious destiny of the country painted on the sky of the future with artistic beauty and prophetic grandeur.

The style is remarkable for its strength, density, clearness, and purity. It supports and carries forward the immense weight and volume of thought, argument, and historical and philosophical illustration without apparent effort, and transmits the author's meaning directly to the intellect, like a ray of light passing through a Brazilian pebble to the retina. If Dr. Brownson had done nothing else, his philological labors would entitle him to the lasting admiration of every lover of pure English.

We do not expect the work to be popular in the common sense of the term, or that it will escape the vituperation of narrow-minded men and those who have used all their feeble power in vain to pull down the structure of constitutional unity. But we do believe that it will be read and appreciated by a very large class of right-minded, thinking men South and North, and exert an immense influence in the direction of complete reconciliation and reconstruction by demonstrating the absolutely illogical character of secession, while it does justice to the honesty, manhood, courage, military skill, and fortitude displayed by the Southern people. It is the logical defeat of the rebellion. It places Dr. Brownson in the first rank as a Catholic statesman, doctor of laws, and fervent, consistent, patriot. He is the citizen who never despaired of the republic. Every man who wishes to understand the history and politics of the country must study this book, and if we are to realize the destiny distinctly indicated by the finger of Providence, the principles which it has established must become the ruling principles of the statesmen of the country. The glove is fairly thrown to the champions of the various specious and popular forms of error, falsehood, and fanaticism, both civil and religious, and they will be compelled to take it up and defend themselves successfully or be condemned by default in the final verdict of mankind. The typography, binding, and general execution are equal to the best London books.

JOURNAL OF EUGENIE DE GUÉRIN. Edited by G. S. Trebutien. 12mo., pp. 460. Alexander Strahan, London and New York.

This very remarkable and most attractive book has already received a lengthened notice in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and we have only to add that never was there penned a book so full of the highest and most refined sentiment, touching pathos, combined with so much deep philosophic and poetic thought. What a pure and innocent soul is here revealed! Not to the world. She did not write for it, but for her own soul, and the soul of her idolized Maurice. He has found renown through these tear-bedewed pages of a devoted sister. We read it, yet can hardly believe it to be, as it is, a real journal.

Her descriptions are full of the intensest interest and charming naïveté. Here is one on a first communion:

"29th. What a sweet, simple, pious, and touching ceremony! I have only time to say this, and to declare that of all the festivals the one I delight in most is a first communion in a country district: God bestowing himself simply on children! Miou, the little Françouil de Gaillard, and Augustine were exquisite, both in innocence and beauty. How pretty they looked under their little white veils, when they returned weeping from the holy table! Divine tears! Children united to God; who can tell what was passing that moment in their souls? M. le Curé was admirable in his unction and gentleness; it was the Saviour saying to children, 'Come unto me.' Oh! how lovingly he addressed them, and then how he charged them to have a care of that white robe, that innocence with which they were clothed! Poor children, {717} what risks before them! I kept saying to myself, 'Which of yon will tarnish it first?' They are not going to Paris, indeed; but earth is everywhere soiled, everywhere evil is found, seduces, and leads away."

That closing sentence was not thoughtlessly penned. It was for the eye of that brother whom Paris had seduced and led away into error, but who never read that gentle admonition. Maurice de Guérin died soon after, reconciled to the Church, in his last agony embracing the crucifix; but Eugénie continues her journal to Maurice in heaven. Here is a passage which will, if we mistake not, induce our readers to procure and read the whole of this delightful volume. They will find it, as we have found it, like a rare and beautiful picture, which, with a strange selfishness, we desire to be universally admired, yet wish it were all our own:

"This woman, this nurse who watched thee, and held thee in illness for a year on her lap, has given me a greater shock than a winding sheet would have done. Heart-rending apparition of the past--cradle and tomb! I could spend the night with thee here in this paper, but the soul needs prayer; the soul will do thee more good than the heart. Each time that my pen rests here, a sword pierces my heart. I do not know whether I shall continue to write or not. Of what use is this Journal? For whom? Alas! and yet I love it as one loves a funereal urn, a reliquary in which is kept a dead heart, all embalmed with sanctity and love. Such seems this paper, where I still preserve thee, my so beloved one: where I keep up a speaking memory of thee, where I shall meet with thee again in my old age--if I live to be old. Oh! yes, the days will come when I shall have no life but in the past; that past shared with thee; spent beside thee, young, intelligent, lovable, raising and refining whatever approached thee; such as I recall thee, such as thou wert on leaving us. At present I do not know what my life is, if, indeed, I do live. Everything is changed within and without. Oh! my God, how heart-rending these letters are! They contain so many tears for my tears! This intimate friend of thine touches me as would a sight of thyself. My dear Maurice, all thou hast loved are dear to me--seem a portion of thee."

THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, January, 1866.

This is the first number of the new, or New York, series of this publication, which is to be issued every two months. It explains the reason and object of the change which has been made in the editorship and place of publication. The Convention of Unitarians held in this city a few months ago initiated a new and important movement in that denomination. The radical and destructive element was put down, and that party which is in favor of taking a positive Christian position achieved a victory. The _Examiner_ has been made their organ, and is to be used in promoting the end they have in view. The convention solemnly and publicly recognized our Lord Jesus Christ, under that title which is indicative of his character as Supreme Head of the human race, in spite of the violent opposition of a few, which was vented in a very unseemly and vulgar manner, shocking to the Christian sentiment of the community. The declaration of belief is significant of the _animuis_ of the movement, and shows it to be a return to the principle of positive and constructive Christianity. The impress of this idea is visible in the new phase of the _Examiner_, and has given it at once a position far above that which it formerly occupied. In its scholarly and literary tone it is superior to the old series; but the superiority is more marked and evident in the exhibition of a more fixed and earnest purpose to aim at a definite result, and to make more positive affirmation of religious and philosophical ideas. The writers recognize the wide-spread scepticism in intelligent minds as a lamentable fact, and have turned their face away from the road of scepticism and disintegration as one that conducts only to intellectual, moral, and social death. They do not profess to have surveyed the road which leads away from this "valley of the shadow of death;" but they seem to be convinced that there is one, and to be resolved to look for it and to try to guide others in a search for it. It is difficult to say, in regard to men who allow themselves so much latitude in belief, and so great a liberty of independent theorizing, what are the fixed doctrines in which they agree as the fundamental basis of {718} an anti-sceptical philosophy, and what are merely tentative hypotheses thrown out for discussion. It appears to us, however, that there are several sound principles of Christian philosophy and doctrine dominating in the articles of the number before us, and which we may suppose will hereafter give a certain unity of character and tendency to the work. One of these is the affirmation of the pure theistic doctrine, in contradiction to pantheism, in connection with a manifest tendency to repudiate the sensist philosophy of Hamilton, Mansel, and that class of writers, and to look for a better one. Another is a recognition that there is something in the idea of the supernatural which is real, and above the sphere of mere natural science. A third is a principle of reverence for the Scriptures, and the religious traditions of the human race, connected with a disposition to reject the scepticism of the pseudo-critical school of Germany. A fourth is an assertion of the obligatory force of the Divine Law, and the necessity of cultivating a personal relation to God as the principle of solid virtue and morality. There is also a sort of instinctive apprehension that a more thorough investigation of the difficulties which science appears to throw in the way of revealed religion will eventually produce a more triumphant vindication of the latter than it has ever had. The topics to be discussed in the Review are the most real and living questions of the age in philosophy and theology. They will be discussed by men of no mean pretensions to learning and intellectual ability, and of superior literary cultivation. We are glad that they have undertaken the work, and we hope for good results from it. We have no fear that they will weaken the religious belief of those who have a positive, dogmatic faith in regard to any essential doctrine of Christianity. The public which will be reached by their writings and sermons, are already familiar with all the questions and difficulties they will discuss. They are full of doubt, and drifting into infidelity. All the influence which these gentlemen will gain over them will tend to check this downward progress, and initiate a salutary retrogression toward Christian truth.

Moreover, all discussions of this kind will stimulate the work of investigating and exhibiting the doctrine of the Catholic Church in its relation toward rationalism. The controversy with orthodox Protestantism is finished, and Protestant orthodoxy has gone where Ilium formerly went. The real controversy of the day relates to the very foundation of revelation itself.

SPARE HOURS: A Monthly Miscellany for the Young. Boston: P. Donahoe. January, 1866.

We have received the first number of a new magazine with the above title. It is published by Mr. Donahoe, Boston, is well printed on fine paper, and illustrated with much taste. The matter, of which there are 64 pages, is both original and selected, and displays discrimination and tact on the part of the editor. It would be well to give credit to the source from which the selected matter is taken. This magazine fills a want long felt by the Catholic community in this country. Since the discontinuance of the "Youth's Catholic Magazine" we have had no periodical that gave us any reading for our children. We cordially welcome the advent of "Spare Hours" amongst as, and trust its subscription list may show that Catholics _do_ appreciate good reading.

NICHOLAS OF THE FLUE, the Saviour of the Swiss Republic. A dramatic poem in five acts. By John Christian Schaad. 12mo., pp. 144. Washington, D.C.: McGill & Witherow. 1866.

This book purposes to give, in a dramatic form, an account of the rise of a dangerous civil dissension which took place among the brave and religious Swiss during the invasion of their country by Charles the Bold, and the happy reunion of sentiment by the wise interposition and holy prayers of a hermit. How religion, or the counsels of its ministers, can ever supplant the arbitrament of the sword or the stratagems of the politician in the successful adjustment of national difficulties, will not, we think, be so readily comprehended in our present society, and chiefly so because with us there is no unity of religion, and consequently a multiplicity of counsels, the prolific seed itself of discord. But that it is {719} possible, as it is enviable, may be seen by any one who will peruse this poem. Peace which nations enjoy is a blessing of God. "Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain who keepeth it." It is not to be wondered at then that a people thoroughly imbued with the spirit of faith should look to God for help in the day of trial, when the demon of discord sows the seeds of strife and disunion amongst them. The thought which evidently moved the writer to compose this work is the same which has often crossed our own mind during the late deplorable civil war: that if our beloved country had been one in religion, it never would have fallen a prey to such a fearful and almost fatal division, or at least would have rejoiced in a more speedy reconciliation.

MERRY CHRISTMAS. A cantata for Christmas eve. Affectionately inscribed to the children of the parish of St. Paul the Apostle, New York city. P. O'Shea.

This little brochure contains directions, with appropriate recitatives and hymns, for a religious celebration of Christmas by children, who describe, in a sort of infantine opera, the scenes of our Lord's nativity as related in the gospel. It contains, among other hymns, some of the most beautiful Christmas carols in the English language; and when sung by the voices of merry-hearted children must have a most edifying and pleasing effect. We are sure it will be welcomed in all our schools, and at the fireside of many a Christian family. It was performed with great success before an immense and delighted audience last Christmas night in the church of the Paulists, to the children of whose parish it is dedicated.

THE MONTHLY. Edited at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Chicago, III. Published by J. P. Byrne, Chicago.

The December number of "The Monthly" did not reach us until the first of January. This is rather late, and we presume is a mistake, as it has been heretofore promptly on hand. The number before us completes the second volume, and is quite interesting. It contains nine articles, the first being on "Fenianism and Secret Societies." There are two stories, one just commenced and one concluded. The former, "The Huron Chief," is a tale of the Catholic missions in the northwest, and the latter, "From June to October," is by an author not unknown to the literary world. The articles in this magazine are original, and are well written. We find in its literary notices the following hit at a class which we are sorry to say is but too numerous:

"The mission of a Catholic editor is something different from that of the mendicant who stands at a church gate with a 'Help-the-poor-blind-man' label upon his breast. And yet there are those--not a few--who look upon a pitiful subscription of three or four dollars a year to a paper or a magazine in the light of an alms, and actually imagine that they are performing one of the seven corporal works of mercy if they can be induced to subscribe, while, in justice, they are not paying a thousandth part of the interest on their lawful debts. Not long ago we happened to meet with a Catholic gentleman from New York, and among the different topics of conversation the subject of literature was brought in. This gave us the occasion to ask his opinion about 'The Monthly,' to which he replied that he was unaware of its publication, because he had never seen it noticed by a certain romantic sheet of the Quixotic stamp in that city. He is the type of a class for whose conduct there is not the shadow of an excuse. From this we might draw a general conclusion, and apply the same course of reasoning to the case of every Catholic publication in the country, for it is not rare to find Catholic families without a Catholic paper or magazine on their tables. Under these circumstances, then, it is not surprising that not a few of them should be strangers to the existence of the works which they _ought_ to possess, while they may be conversant with a class of literature whose spirit is productive either of no good at all or positively injurious, and hence without either intellectual or moral benefit."

We wish "The Monthly" a happy and prosperous year.

HANS BRINKER, ETC. By M. E. Dodge. 12mo., pp. 347. New York: James O'Kane. 1866.

We could cordially recommend this well-written story were it not for one passage relating to _autos da fe_ and the Inquisition. Those who have charge of Catholic youth are bound to {720} be extremely careful what books they place in their hands, and this becomes often a cause of perplexity, as there are so few which are entirely unexceptionable. Those who write with the express purpose of inculcating the distinctive principles of Protestantism are not amenable to our criticism. But those who do not write with this intention, and who merely seek to afford entertainment to the youthful mind with a modicum of instructive information, may perhaps consider it worth while to respect the religion of a large and increasing class of the reading public. We are not very exacting. We desire only that books written for the instruction and amusement of the young public at large should contain a sound and wholesome morality and nothing offensive to Catholics. We could not desire a better specimen of this class of books than the work of our gifted authoress, which we have read with pleasure, with the exception of the single passage alluded to; and this might have been left out without any injury to the purpose of the story. Those who are disposed to profit by our hints will find us always ready to assist the circulation of their books by our recommendation, if their literary merit renders them worthy of it.

A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, from the commencement of the Christian Era until the present time. By M. l'Abbe J. E. Darras. First American from the last French Edition. With Introduction and Notes by Archbishop Spalding. Vol. II. 8vo., pp. 627. New York: P. O'Shea.

The second volume of the history of the Catholic Church has just appeared, and it is in every respect in keeping with the first volume; is well printed on good paper, and makes a handsome book.

The Very Rev. Dr. Newman is preparing for the press a reply to Dr. Pusey's "Eirenicon," lately published in London. We shall give it to the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD at the earliest date.

The Messrs. Sadlier announce the publication of a new edition of Father Young's "Catholic Hymns and Canticles," together with a complete sodality manual. It will contain 107 hymns, arranged for all the different seasons and festivals of the Church, as well as the processions, ceremonies, etc.

Messrs. Murphy & Co., of Baltimore have in press a new and enlarged edition of "Archbishop Spalding's Miscellanea." This learned work will be carefully revised by the distinguished author, who will add nearly 100 pages of interesting matter, embracing among many other things his "Essay on Common Schools throughout the World"--his "Analysis of the Controversy into which he was forced by Professor Morse, in relation to an alleged saying of Lafayette"--his "Lecture on the Origin and History of Libraries," and his "Essay on Demonology and the Reformation." This new edition will thus embrace essays, reviews, and lectures on more than forty subjects, most of them historical, and all of more than ordinary interest.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From KELLY & PIET, Baltimore: "The Spae Wife, or Queen's Secret, a story of the Times of Queen Elizabeth," by Paul Peppergrass, Esq. 12mo., pp 742. "The Little Companion of the Sisters of Mercy." 32mo., pp 102.

From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York: Parts 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of "The Complete Works of the Brothers Banim."

From P. O'SHEA, New York: "Life of St. Antony of Padua, of the Order of Friars Minor," by Father Servas Dirks, Friar Minor, etc. 12mo., pp 341. "The Life and Miracles of St. Philomena, Virgin and Martyr, whose sacred body was lately discovered in the Catacombs of Rome, and from thence transferred to Mugnano, Naples." 12mo., pp 135.

Statuta Dioecesana ab Illustrissimo et Reverendissimo P. D. Joanne Baptists Purcell, Archiepiscopo Cincinnatensi, in variis Synodis, quae hue usque in Ecclesia sua Cathedrali vel in Sacello Seminarii, celebratae sunt, lata et promulgata. Una cum Decretis Conciliorum Provincialium et plenarii Baltimorenslum, quibus interfuerunt omnes statuum Foederatorum Episcopi et Decretis Conciliorum Trium Cincinnatensium. Nunc primum in unum collecta et publici juris facta. Cincinnati: Published for the Most Rev. Archbishop of Cincinnati by John P. Walsh.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. II., NO. 12--MARCH, 1866.

{721}

Translated from Le Correspondant

POSITIVISM.

A. COMTE, LITTRÉ, H. TAINE.

An exposition of the various philosophical systems constructed in our times against Christianity, either as means of combatting it or as substitutes for it, and showing in the false assumption with which they all start the reason of their failure, would be an interesting and instructive work. It would be a new _history of variations_, and of the impotence of the human mind when it assumes to be sufficient for itself, and the natural complement to the first, were there a Bossuet to write it. Now it is a chapter of this history not yet written, but which one day will be, that I propose to prepare in rendering an account here of the positivist philosophy, of which M. Auguste Comte was the inventor, and M. Littré is the learned and fervent defender. To enable my readers to understand, as well as may be, this pretended philosophy, I will first state through what accidents and revolutions it has passed, then set forth its chief formulas, and finally conclude by passing on them such critical judgment as an impartial examination shall suggest.

The founder and chief of the positivist philosophy, Auguste Comte, died at Paris in 1858, in the 59th year of his age. He was born in 1798 at Montpellier, of Christian parents; but, placed early in the lyceum of that city, he soon lost there, under the influence of the reigning spirit of the school, the faith of his childhood. From the lyceum he went to the École Polytechnique, in which the worship of the Convention and revolutionary ideas was at that period held in high honor. We recall these circumstances, because the childhood and youth of a man serve to explain his mature age.

It does not appear that M. Comte, on leaving the Polytechnic School, received, as is ordinarily the case, any appointment in the public service, civil or military--wherefore we know not. Whatever may have been the reason, as he was without fortune he supported himself for several years by giving lessons in mathematics. {722} After a while, however, he was appointed repeater and examiner in the Polytechnic School, which position he held till the revolution of 1848. His profession as well as his aptitudes devoted him to the study of the exact sciences; but he cherished a far higher ambition, and already aspired to be the reformer and prophet of the human race. That this thought, was early germinating in his mind, is proved by a pamphlet which he published in 1822, when only twenty-four years of age, entitled "_Système de Politique Positiviste_" (System of Positivist Politics). He subsequently greatly modified and enlarged it, and his pretensions above all greatly expanded as he advanced; but the first idea of his system, not difficult, however, to discover, it must be acknowledged was deposited in that publication.

About this time he became connected with Henri Claude de Saint-Simon, and being much younger than the founder of Saint-Simonism, he naturally yielded to his influence, and became very near being absorbed in the god of the Rue de Taitbout. But Auguste Comte could not consent to that; he would be master not disciple, and therefore, after having written some articles in the Saint-Simonian journal, _Le Producteur_, he abandoned the sect, separated from Saint-Simon, and lamented bitterly the precious time which that _depraved juggler_, as he called him, had made him lose. After this rupture he was restored to himself and freed from all restraint; he could devote himself to the finishing stroke of the great work he meditated. [Footnote 108] The solemn moment approached. Hitherto he had only staked out his ground and sown the seeds, but the synthesis, the real _cerebral_ unity, to use his language, was wanting. Without further delay he set himself resolutely at work, and a meditation continued for four score hours brought him to the conception, to the preamble as it were, of the systemization of the whole positive philosophy. [Footnote 109] But, alas! the long meditation brought with the system an access of madness. It was slight at first, he assures us, a simple passing enfeeblement of the cerebral organs, resulting from excessive labor; but the physicians took hold of it, and then the evil grew so much worse that it became necessary to shut him up in a madhouse--him who had just discovered the law of the universe! M. Littré complains that one of his collaborators in the _Journal des Débats_ threw up this fact against the doctrine of his master, and he cites instances of very superior men who have had similar accidents befal them. This cannot be denied. No one can say that he is secure from such cruel attacks; but we may be permitted to remark that there is here an intimate correlation between the doctrine and the mental malady, since both are produced at the same time and by the same intellectual effort.

[Footnote 108: M. de Chalambert forgets to add that the cause of this rapture was precisely the attempt of Saint-Simon, after having failed to kill himself, to found a new religion, which he called _Nouveau Christianisme_, and of which the positive religion professed afterwards by M. Comte is only a manifest plagiarism.--TRANSLATOR]

[Footnote 109: A useless labor, for he might have learned it from that _depraved juggler_, Saint-Simon, who had reached it as early as 1804. Auguste Comte never made any advance on his master, but to the last remained rather behind him. With all his pretensions to originality, he was never anything more than the disciple of Saint-Simon.--TRANSLATOR.]

Two or three years passed thus, after which M. Comte, having recovered his health, resumed his labors, and in 1829 published the first volume of his "_Cours de Philosophie Positive_," in which for the first time he gives the principal data of his new theory. Five other volumes, of eight or nine hundred pages each, followed at long intervals, and it was only in 1842 that the work could be completed; not that ideas were wanting, but money to pay the printers, as the author himself tells us. During that time he opened a course of lectures, in which, under pretext of teaching astronomy, he essayed to indoctrinate the public in his principles. Thanks to these several methods of propagating his views, he at length succeeded in gaining a {723} few disciples, not numerous, indeed, but enough to encourage the hope of obtaining more.

Among those who from that time adhered to the positivist doctrine we must cite M. Etex, an artist, M. Vieillard, a politician who, then unknown, afterward obtained some note, and, in fine, M. Littré, a philologist, a litterateur, and a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. This last especially was an important recruit, an unhoped-far good fortune for the new school. M. Comte (they who have tried to read him know it but too well!) was essentially deficient in the art of explaining and expressing his ideas. M. Littré knows precisely how to write, if not with brilliancy, at least with method and clearness. Moreover, he had under his influence an important public organ, _The National_, and used it to the profit of the new philosophy. In 1844, M. Littré published in that journal, of which he was an editor, a series of articles in which he extolled the positivist philosophy, declared himself its disciple, and carried his complaisance toward the master so far as to give him the brevet of a man of genius. However, unknown to him perhaps, a great transformation was about to be effected; the _affective_ element of the new doctrine, hitherto neglected, was about to make its way to the light and play its part.

Toward that epoch, M. Comte encountered a woman, still young, Madame Clotilde de Vaux, who lived separate from her husband. The misfortunes of this unhappy wife, misunderstood and deserted, touched him deeply; he received her into his house, and forthwith she became his Beatrix, or, rather, his Egeria, for it was from her that he received the revelation of the new dogmas which he hastened to promulgate to the world. All at once, under the inspired influence of Madame Clotilde de Vaux, the positivist philosophy is changed into a religion, in which the _affective_ element decidedly predominates. With dogma and morals, worship and the priesthood are promptly organized. The sovereign pontificate belonged as a matter of right to M. Comte, and he would no doubt have willingly shared it with his _holy_ companion, but she, alas! had already been removed by a premature death, and he must be resigned to proclaim himself alone, high priest or sovereign pontiff.

This metamorphosis was so much the bolder as hitherto one of the principal theses of the positivist philosophy had been precisely that the time for religion was gone, and gone for ever. It might well startle the adepts; but it failed to frighten M. Littré, the most important among them, for we find him using still _The National_ and preaching in its columns, with all the zeal of the neophyte, the dogmas of the new religion--the religion of humanity. This was, it is true, in 1851, when each day saw born and die some new sect, and M. Littré and _The National_ no doubt judged that, socialism for socialism, M. Comte's socialism was worth as much as any other, and in fact was more convenient. We are inclined, nevertheless, to believe that M. Littré was really smitten and vanquished (for what is there in the way of new religions of which a free thinker is not capable?), and we are confirmed in our belief because, not content to aid the establishment of the new worship with his pen, he actually contributed to it from his purse. The republic of 1848 was not a good mother for M. Comte, although he hailed it with enthusiastic acclamations and pronounced it immortal; it despoiled him at once of his means of subsistence. M. Comte was little relished by the _savans_, and relished them still less, especially those of the Academy of Sciences, who had obstinately refused to open their doors to him. M. Arago, to whom M. Comte attributed his disgrace, judging, doubtless, that there must be some incompatibility between the dignity of high priest and the functions of a repeater and examiner in the Polytechnic {724} School, deprived him of these two employments, from which he drew his support. M. Littré then came generously to the aid of his spiritual father, and headed an annual subscription by which the adepts must provide for the wants of their pontiff.

While these things were in progress there came the _coup d'état_ of the 2d of December. M. Comte bore this trial with a scandalous resignation. The faithful, M. Littré among others, refused henceforward all active concurrence. But, on another side he found in M. Vieillard, become a senator of the new empire, a useful protector, and, thanks to him, he could soon resume his preachments. It was, in fact, all he desired, for he was singularly free from all political ambition.

From this moment M. Comte's religious zeal only augmented, and his pen became more active and prolific than ever. From 1851 to 1854 he published four huge volumes under the title of "_Système de Politique Positiviste_;" then a "_Catéchisme Positiviste_," a "_Calendrier Positiviste_," and announced new works for the following years, when death took him by surprise and cut short his labors. It cannot be said that his efforts were crowned with success, and that the numbers of his disciples was increasing; on the contrary, solitude was gathering closer and closer around him; but his faith was not shaken, and he remained to the last full of confidence in the future. If _occidentality_ gave little, he hoped much from _orientality_, and, in 1852, he wrote to the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, and to the Sultan of Turkey, to induce them to undertake to propagate positivism in their respective dominions, by representing to them that it was the only means of salvation that remained to them.

Such is the succinct history of the positivist philosophy and religion. The religion, indeed, ended with its founder, for he declared a short time before his death that he had found no true believer worthy to succeed him in the pontificate; but the philosophy left disciples who, though they may not accept it in all its parts, yet continue to be inspired by its principles. Not long since they had an organ in the _Revue Philosophique_, in which they showed themselves much divided, and gravely discussed the question whether it must be a philosophy or a religion with which they should gratify the human race. They seem, however, after the advice of M. Littré, to have finally agreed that it is necessary first of all to reproduce the eighteenth century; that is to say, to renew, in the name of the emancipated flesh, the war against the Church and the religion of the spirit. Events have seemed to favor them, and instead of regretting the suspension of public liberty, by the establishment of the new empire, they even greet it as an advantage, since they remind us that it was under a similar _régime_ that the encyclopaedic work of which they claim to be the legal heirs was born, grew, and prospered. In short, M. Littré published, a short while ago, a new _brochure_ under the title of "_Partóles de Philosophie Positive_," in which he sustains all the principles of his master, and vindicates for himself the honor of having been his most faithful disciple.

We have joined the names of M. H. Taine with the names of Messrs. Comte and Littré, although he has never openly avowed himself an adherent of their school. But, beside the identity of his principles with those of positivism, the lightness of his philosophical luggage does not permit us to devote to him a separate study. We know of him on this subject only by the book entitled "_Les Philosophes Français du dix-neuvième siècle_" (French Philosophers of the Nineteenth Century), a superficial work, but agreeable, in which he judges with wit, sometimes with justice, the chief representatives of the eclectic philosophy, and to which he has added a concluding chapter that gives us an exposition of his method. It is to this {725} method which we shall, farther on, devote a few words. [Footnote 110]

[Footnote 110: M. de Taine has, since this article was written, published a work on English writers and literature, which has in certain quarters been well spoken of, and which really has some merit, though of a lighter sort.--TRANSLATOR. ]

II.

It will readily be perceived that we cannot even attempt to set forth within our limits the positivist religion and philosophy in all their details and developments, and that we must confine ourselves to their chief points or leading principles. We shall take our analysis from the works of M. Comte himself, and from the series of letters which M. Littré formerly inserted in _The National_, and which he has since republished in a volume entitled _Révolution, Positivism, Conservatism_, Paris, 1851. M. Littré has reproduced the ideas of the master with a fidelity and disinterestedness rare in a disciple, and he has over the master the advantage of style and method.

Positivism assumes as its starting point that modern society is suffering from a deeply rooted evil, that it is like a man in a fever who tosses and turns in his bed, seeking a position in which he may rest at ease, and finding none. Do what it will it can find no stable position. In vain has it effected immense progress, for this very progress turns to its disadvantage. Beside, what does progress avail if society cannot enjoy it in order and peace? But whence comes this evil, this trouble, this feverish and sterile agitation? Evidently it comes from intellectual and moral anarchy. Nobody any longer believes in anything; there is no longer any law, any principle, that unites all minds in a common symbol; every one draws from himself; divided egotisms are in mutual conflict, and seek each other's destruction. If such is the nature of the malady, the remedy is obvious. It must be in obtaining a doctrine which accepted by all becomes the doctrine of all, a bond of union for them, and the principle of peace.

But where is this doctrine to be found? Is it a religious doctrine-- Catholicity, for instance? The Catholic doctrine, indeed, gave formerly the result desired, and realized in the world an incomparable unity; but it has had its day; science has demonstrated the impossibility of its dogmas, and it, in fact, finds now only here and there a real believer--the great majority have ceased to believe it. Will Protestantism supply the doctrine needed? No; for Protestantism is only a degenerate and illogical Catholicism. Will Islamism give it? Islamism has certainly its grand sides, but its morality is too defective, and its dogma is hardly less repulsive than the Christian. It is, then, manifest that all existing religions are impotent for the future to rally and unite in a common bond the minds of men. But as religion cannot do it, perhaps philosophy, metaphysics, can? Metaphysics is only the abstract form of religion, resting on the same basis and sustained by it, and does nothing but substitute abstract beings that have no reality for the supernatural beings imagined by religion, and which science equally rejects. Metaphysics has, as religion, been indeed useful, has aided science to show the inanity of religions dogmas; but, if useful in the work of destruction, it is impotent in that of rebuilding, and can henceforth serve only to perpetuate intellectual anarchy--that is to say, only aggravate the evil instead of curing it. If, then, the remedy can be found neither in religion nor in metaphysics, where can it be found?

It is to be found in a doctrine which substitutes for the supernatural beings of religion, and the abstract entities of metaphysics, the real beings which science demonstrates, and the existence of which nobody disputes or can dispute. But how find or how construct such a doctrine? The experience of what has been done in the exact sciences gives distinctly enough the answer. There was a time when mathematics, astronomy, physics, did not exist, and when men explained all the phenomena {726} of nature by chimerical hypotheses. Now, how has man come forth from that ignorance? By observing instead of imagining, as he had hitherto done; and in observing phenomena he discovered their laws, and thus, with time and effort, he succeeded in creating the sciences which are called mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry. Can we doubt, after this, that by applying the same method or following the same process in regard to the science of individual man, or _biology_, and the science of society, or _sociology_, we shall obtain the same result? And let it not be said that these sciences are of another order; the distinction attempted to be established between them and the exact sciences is puerile and unfounded, as science exists only on condition of being exact, and if not exact it is not science. Biology and sociology have, it is true, not yet the character of exact sciences; but why have they not? Simply because they are as yet in their infancy, as was chemistry two centuries ago; because, on the one hand, they have been badly studied, and, on the other, because they are more complex and less easily mastered. The difficulties, it is admitted, are therefore great; but it is necessary to conquer them, since the salvation of the world can be secured on no other condition.

The terms of the problem are now distinctly stated, together with the method of its solution. The malady from which society suffers is intellectual anarchy, and intellectual anarchy will cease only when we have made of the sciences of biology and sociology (it is known what these sciences mean) sciences as exact as are mathematics, astronomy, etc.; and to do this it is only necessary to use the same method in constructing them that is used in constructing the so-called exact sciences.

However, the whole is not yet said. Observation is, indeed, the true method, but observation of what? Of moral phenomena, the operations of the soul? But what is the soul? Who has seen it? Certain metaphysicians have, indeed, pretended to derive all science from the phenomena of the soul; but this is a gross error; psychology is an impossible science. In psychology the subject, or rather the organ which observes, is precisely that which is observed--the eye striving to see itself. To what, then, is observation to be applied? To the body, to the cerebral organs, and, primarily, to the external world; to the inorganic world at first, afterward to the organic world, to minerals, plants, animals. The study of animals is especially serviceable, since man, at most, has over the animal only the advantage of some superior intellectual faculties, and even that advantage appears doubtful, observes M. Comte, if we compare the acts of the mammiferae, the most elevated, with those of savages, the least developed.

After zoology, the most useful science is phrenology, the science which best teaches us what man really is. Dr. Gall under this relation has rendered an immense service, and created the true science of man. He erred, it is true, by too minute detail, and in wishing to determine at once the organs of theft, luxury, etc., which gave fair scope to criticism; [Footnote 111] but it would be difficult to resist the accumulated proofs on which he had established his system. In short, science is now in the position to give a classification of eighteen interior functions of the brain, or a systematic _tableau_ of the soul. Thus it is neither from metaphysics nor from religion, but from zoology, and, above all, from phrenology, that we must seek the knowledge of the laws which govern intelligence.

[Footnote 111: Nothing is new under the sun, says Solomon. Any one curious on the subject of phrenology may read, as M. Cousin has well remarked, in Plato's _Timoeus_, all that Gall and Spurzheim, and their followers, have really established in their pretended science.--TRANSLATOR.]

However, _method_ alone does not suffice. There is needed also a _criterion_, and here M. Comte confesses that the difficulty is great.

To observe with profit, to be able, by observation, to abstract from the {727} phenomena their laws, we most have an anterior law, a type-law, to serve as the term of comparison, in like manner as a standard is necessary to determine the value of a coin. Now, what furnishes this type? Observation? But this is only to recommence the difficulty. The embarrassment can be relieved only by reasoning from analogy, and a historical theory. Positivism, after all, then, resorts to reasoning and theorizing! The sciences which are firmly seated on positive realities began in hypotheses, and it has been by the aid of hypotheses, ascertained afterward to be false, that observation has succeeded in discovering the real laws of these sciences! It must be the same with biology and sociology. Humanity began by religion, and religion has passed through three phases, fetichism, polytheism, and monotheism. Religion, truly, is only a fiction, but a useful fiction, and even necessary to the development of humanity. Fetichism, in offering plants to the adoration of man, taught him to cultivate them; polytheism, in creating supernatural beings, gave birth to poetry and the fine arts; monotheism, in elevating minds, has fitted them for the culture of science. After religion came metaphysics, which, by transforming the dogmas into abstractions, destroyed them; and, by destroying them, opened the way for positivism. Now, what has taken place for humanity in general must be reproduced for each man in particular; each one of us must pass through the religious state and the metaphysical state before we can arrive at the positivist state. Thus, then, in like manner as it has been by means of false hypotheses that the real laws of the science have been discovered, so by means of hypotheses equally false, religion and metaphysics, will be discovered the true laws of biology.

We confess that we do not very clearly perceive what relation there is between this theory and the problem to be solved. The problem is how to find a criterion by the aid of which the true may be distinguished from the false; but this criterion escapes us still, and we have for it only a second method superposed on the first, or history coming to the aid of physiology. True, we are not told what bond connects the two methods, or how we are to combine them, and from their combination obtain the type-law; but we must not be too difficult, and we forewarn our readers that they must not look for any real connection, any logical nexus, between the various propositions which we are about to place before them. Beyond the gross materialism which follows necessarily from the positivist premises, all is arbitrary and capricious; the master says it, and he must be believed on his word, without being asked for reasons, good or bad. Our readers will judge for themselves if this be not so, and that they may not accuse us of exaggerating anything, we shall give generally textual citations.

After having presented the formula of its method, or rather of its two methods, the positivist school proceeds to the application and exposition of the consequences which are derived from it or them.

In the very outset they assert that there are no absolute truths, that all truth is relative; the true, the good, the fair, are such only by a provisional title; what was virtue yesterday may be crime to-day, and what is crime to-day may be virtue to-morrow. Thus speaks M. Littré:

"The positivist philosophy is experimental; . . . . it is composed of relative not absolute notions. . . . When man, in the beginning of his scientific career, launched into unrestricted researches after the absolute, he had only this way open to him; now another way has been opened, that of experience and induction. This way cannot conduct the inquirer to absolute notions, and when we demand them of reason we demand of her more than she has. The mind of man is neither absolute nor infinite, and to try to obtain from it absolute {728} solutions is to go out of the _immutable_ conditions of human nature." [Footnote 112]--_Littré, Conservatism, Revolution, and Positivism_, pp. 5, 38.

[Footnote 112: M. de Chalambert might here reply, granting man has no infinite or absolute _notions_, which no finite mind can have, it by no means follows that he has no notions or conceptions of that which is infinite and absolute, or intuitions of necessary, eternal, and immutable truth, as are the first principles of all science, religion, and morals.--TRANSLATOR. ]

If there are no absolute truths, then there is no God:

"This conclusion," says M. Littré "rests on the decisive results of all scientific exploration during the long course of the ages, namely, that nothing of what is called first cause is accessible to the human mind, and the origin of the world can be explained neither by many gods nor by one god alone, neither by nature, chance, nor atoms. This result, erected into a principle, gradually takes possession of modern intelligence, and bears in its womb the social organization of the future of the race. . . . If, for a childish and individual satisfaction, the idea of some theological being, one or manifold, is retained, it is necessary to reduce the conception forthwith to a nullity, and to purely nominal and supererogatory functions; for the result of scientific investigation is, that there is in the course of things no trace of miracle or government from above, and nothing but an unbroken chain of laws modifiable, within certain limits, by the action from age to age of mankind. As Laplace says, such a being is henceforth a useless hypothesis."--_lb. pp_. 279, 298.

The soul has no existence distinct from that of the body, and therefore dies with it:

"This belief (concerning the survivance of the soul), which might be true, is not found to be so; science (always science!) has not been able to establish a single fact whatever of a life after death; and so, like a pond no longer alimented by inflowing streams, the opinion of an individual perpetuity gradually evaporates."--_lb., pp._128.

There is room for liberty only because the biological phenomena are very complex:

"No science," says M. Littré (_ib_., p. 114), "if the phenomenon has no law, and no power (liberty) if not complex enough to offer us struggles duly proportioned to the complication."

It follows from this that the effect of the progress of science must be to diminish human liberty, since in proportion as it elucidates questions it diminishes their complexity.

However, human intelligence must have an ideal:

"The ideal is its dream and its worship. Now what will be its ideal? Humanity itself. Humanity has a real existence; it is the great Being, really a great collective body, having a regular growth of its own, and provided, like every individual body, with temporary organs, which lose their activity, wither, and disappear in default of employment and nutrition" (_ib_., p. 118). "Formerly, and conformably to the medium in which they moved, theology and metaphysics, its slave, gave their demonstration of the divine existence. In like manner science to-day gives the demonstration of the existence of humanity. It is no longer possible to mistake the growth of this ideal--the solidarity of its most remote past with its most distant future, and this powerful life of which each man has been, is, and will be an organ" (_ib_., p. 283). "Humanity is a real ideal, which it is necessary to know (education), to love (religion), to embellish (the fine arts), to enrich (industry), and which therefore holds our whole existence, individual, domestic, and social, under its supreme direction" (_ib_., p. 286).

To love and serve humanity is the whole positivist moral law. M. Littré says, pp. 291, 292: "This morality is much superior to the morality of the past, which was founded on selfishness. The 'salvation' of the theologians is as much a selfish calculation as the 'enlightened self-interest' {729} of the materialists. The materialists say, 'Do good: it is for thy interest in this life;' the theologians say, 'Do good: it is for thy interest in another life.' Never was there a more perfect system of selfishness organized in the world; and if powerful instincts, and, it is but justice to add, sacerdotal wisdom, had not in part counterbalanced the disastrous effects of such an habitual direction, individual asceticism and aspiration to salvation would have dissolved all social bonds."

It is, we see, no longer God whom we are to love and serve, but humanity, and as humanity has few or no rewards to bestow, the worship we render her must needs be disinterested. Selfishness falls in proportion as the hope of reward vanishes. [But suppose one does not love and serve humanity, will he suffer punishment or lose anything in consequence? If so, what becomes of the positivist doctrine of the disinterestedness of the worship of humanity?--TR.]

Such are the solutions offered by the positivist philosophy on the principal points of biology, or the science of the individual; we proceed now to sociology, or the science of society.

Positivism, being at once a philosophy and a religion, must admit and does admit two distinct societies--a temporal society and a spiritual society. We begin with the first.

The aim of the temporal society M. Littré, _ib_., p. 119, explains in the following manner: "The historic tradition itself, without anything forced, arbitrary, fortuitous, or transitory, conducts us to the reign of industry. Before industry the whole past successively falls and disappears. For the modern man industrial activity is the only temporal occupation, the only practical activity. . . . If the accession of the industrial regimen is inevitable, it is also inevitable that the chiefs of our industry should be our temporal chiefs. We have no need of patricians or of gentlemen to lead us to war and conquest; we have no need of kings or kaisers to concentrate in their own hands the power of the sword. Their functions, formerly preeminent, are now without employment (!). But we have need of directors who can conduct the peaceful labors of industry with firmness and intelligence, labors which certainly want neither complication nor difficulty nor grandeur. It is to this end that all temporal power must aspire."

If so, if industry is the supreme and last end of humanity, evidently nothing is to be changed in the present condition of property, and that the wealth of the rich should be augmented rather than diminished. The constitution of the family must also be maintained. The marriage bond is, therefore, declared indissoluble; the positivist law is in this respect even more severe than the Christian law, for, not contented with prohibiting divorce, it even forbids second nuptials. In the purely political order the republican form must obtain.

"I have thought ever since February, 1848," said M. Littré, in 1850, p. 205, "that the establishment of the republic is definitive in France, having for it the guarantee of manners which have ceased to be monarchical, and after this wholly theoretical point of view, I have constantly lived, and engage to live, in security."

This confidence, wholly positivist, has been but poorly justified by events; yet there are compensations, and, in reality, the imperial _régime_, which has succeeded to the republic, differs not so much as might be supposed from that which the positivists themselves wished to establish. The principal conditions demanded by the positivist republic are: 1. Free discussion; 2. The preponderance of the central power; 3. The rigid restriction of the parliamentary or _local_ power to the vote of the budget; 4. In fine, the investment of the growing power in the hands of proletaries or working-men.

M. Comte and M. Littré both agree on all these points; they both have an {730} equal horror of parliamentary government, under which, says M. Littré, power passes into the hands of lawyers, pettifoggers, and sophists. Both desire three directors; but M. Comte judges it most suitable to choose three bankers, because society is industrial, and bankers, who are the lessors of the funds of industry, are in a better position than others to know its wants. M. Littré (he was writing in _The National_ in 1850) preferred three eminent proletaries. "What is the proletary," exclaims he, "operative or peasant, who, if he has equal intelligence, that he should not be as capable as M. Thiers or M. Guizot of directing political affairs?" He concedes, however, that as a counterpoise to the central proletarian power, the _Chamber of Deputies_ should be composed of rich men, who are the best fitted by habit to vote the budget.

Master and disciple both agree, that Paris should elect the executive government; and that the rest of the French people should have the right to obey. Fear you that from such a system despotism must result? M. Littré reassures you, with his strange apothegm, "what is despotism in our days but government in the hands of the retrograde parties?" That is, despotism is simply power in the hands of those whose ideas are different from ours? Could he tell his secret with a more refreshing simplicity? He has another word which might excite some uneasiness. "The philosophical genius of the Convention was not inferior to its political genius, and, indeed, they were each the necessary condition of the other. _Positivism is their direct heir_. The whole positivist political theory, therefore, like all revolutionary theories, ends at last in this: Below, as the very condition of its existence, the sovereignty of the plebs; above, as the crown of the edifice, the dictator.

But we pass to the spiritual society. We have seen under the influence of what sentiments the positive philosophy was suddenly transformed into a religion. Madame Clotilde de Vaux had the initiative, and inspired, in 1845, the religious thought of M. Comte. From that moment it was no longer the intellect but the heart, no longer intelligence but love, that predominated in the positivist school. The disciples were transformed with the master. "I recognize and profess as the positivist philosophy requires," says M. Littré, p. 298, "that this _affective_ side of human nature should always preponderate over the intellectual side." As soon as it was decided that religion should take the place of philosophy, M. Comte proclaimed a great Being and then a high priest. The great Being, who was none other than humanity itself, was defined to be "the collection of all beings, past, present, and to come, that freely concur in the completion of universal order," or more briefly, but not more clearly, "the continuous whole of convergent beings." [Footnote 113]

[Footnote 113: Aug. Comte, "_Cours de Politique Positive_," t. 1, p. 30.]

The high priest (_le grand prétre_) was, as we have said, M. Comte himself. After this came dogma and worship. The dogma had already its principal features in philosophy, and there was little to be added; but for worship, _le culte_, all was to be created. The fertile imagination of M. Comte promptly provided for it. He engaged at first in compiling and publishing a positivist catechism, by the side of which M. Littré gravely tells us "the Catholic catechism is only an embryo." He afterward constructed a calendar; he commences the new era with the year 1793, and names it _Cycle of the Great Crisis_. The year is divided into thirteen months of four weeks each; the months take the names of thirteen men of superior genius; instead of saying January, February, we must say Moses, Aristotle, etc. The days have also the names of celebrated men, but men of an inferior order. Several circular letters from the high priest to the faithful were dated the 4th of Moses, {731} 6th of the Great Crisis, or 6 Archimedes, Great Crisis 64.

There was, or rather was to have been, a college of assessor priests--the number of whom was fixed at twenty thousand for Europe, one-fourth of whom were allotted to France; positivist savans and poets were to compose the college faculty.

Time and money failed for the construction of a temple for the new worship, and the apartment occupied by M. Comte, Rue des Fosses, Monsieur-le-Prince, held temporarily its place. The faithful congregated there on appointed days, and every positivist believer was required to say three prayers daily. It was, doubtless, in consequence of one of these pious exercises that M. Littré exclaimed:

"I have too clearly perceived the efficacy of this regenerative socialism in myself and in the little group of disciples, and the calm content with which it fills the soul, not to desire to take part in it. . . . In these times, when all things seem giving way, how salutary and sweet to feel ourselves in communion with the immense existence which protects us, with that humanity which is the spirit of our globe, and the providence of successive generations!"--_M. Littré, ib._, p. 294.

The number of festival days was considerable; there were fourscore and one a year. The festival of the great Being, those of the sun, the dead, the police, the press, etc. Nine sacraments were instituted:

1. _The Presentation_, The parents present the new-born child to the priest, who accepts it, or, in some rare cases, rejects it. We are not told what becomes of the new-born child that is rejected.

2. _Initiation_. At fourteen the boy is delivered to the priesthood, who take charge of his instruction.

3. _Admission_. At twenty-one the adult is admitted to the service of humanity.

4. _Destination_. Seven years after the young man is admitted to the special office which he is judged capable of filling.

5. _Marriage_. Marriage is not permitted after thirty-five in men and twenty-eight in women. Three months continence before the definitive celebration, eternal widowhood, save in some rare cases, of which the high priest alone is the judge, are enjoined.

6. _Maturity_. At forty-two the man is admitted to the full maturity of the service of humanity.

7. _Retirement_. This takes place at sixty-three.

8. _Transformation_. Perfection is prepared by repentance.

9. _Incorporation_. Burial in a garden in the midst of flowers.

Once entered into this way, M. Comte cannot stop, and he even arrives at the Utopia of a virgin mother, at first hazarded only as a bold hypothesis, but afterward proclaimed as the synthetic _résumé_ of the whole positivist religion, in which are combined all its aspects. He was preparing a special treatise on this grand discovery when death interrupted him. A word on this conception of a virgin mother. Through the indefinite progress of positivism, the wife may one day come to conceive without ceasing to be a virgin, and so universal continence become the supreme law of the positivist religion, without in other respects abolishing the social bonds of marriage.

But at least humanity, after so many efforts, once elevated to this glorious state, will henceforth remain in it? M. Comte thinks not; he inclines, on the contrary, to the belief that in spite of the positivist virtue, humanity will end by decreasing and entirely disappearing.

But we have detained our readers long enough with these sad lucubrations of a sickly brain. We could not well pass them over in silence, for they belong to the intellectual history of our times, and it seems to us some useful lessons may be extracted from them.

We have promised to make known {732} the philosophical theory of M. H. Taine, but as the matter is small, the exposition may be short. His theory may be reduced to the three following points:

1. The philosopher in the study of science must be disinterested, and draw his conclusions after having made his observations, without disturbing himself as to their consequences. The philosopher, in a word, must set the man aside, forget that he is a son, a father, a husband, a citizen, and regard science alone, nothing but science, with the facts observation furnishes.

2. Observation is the only method, and observation must be confined exclusively to physical phenomena, which alone are real. Metaphysical beings, notions of the soul, of first cause, are pure illusions; consequently nothing survives the body, and there is no God, at least no God that can be inferred from any observable phenomena.

3. The highest synthesis to which observation can conduce is that there is a vast assemblage of laws and phenomena which we call nature.

All this resembles positivism too closely to be separated from it. If we have distinguished it, we have done so that M. H. Taine should not accuse us of making him, in spite of himself, the disciple of a master whom, perhaps, he does not wish to own.

III.

Before proceeding to examine this strange and incoherent system either in its general principles or in its particular application, we must reduce to their first value the two propositions which we set forth as its preamble, or rather as its pretext: 1. That modern society is in want of a doctrine that unites all intelligences in a common symbol, and enables them to live in peace and harmony; and, 2. That this doctrine cannot be in the future the Catholic doctrine, though that doctrine for a long time in the past filled its office, for its dogmas are now known to be irreconcilable with the discoveries of science.

One of the most common practices of the sophistical spirit is not so much to deny facts as to distort them, exaggerate their reach, or confuse those which are distinct. This is what our positivists do in these propositions. That there is at present much intellectual anarchy, that many souls, having lost their faith, or suffered it to be greatly weakened, refuse to recognize any law except the law which they make for themselves, and that thence results a mental perturbation from which society suffers not a little, is a fact too evident and too lamentable to be questioned. It is only simple justice, however, to acknowledge that M. Comte has the merit of pointing it out much earlier than the most of his friends [and Saint-Simon much earlier than even M. Comte.--TR.] Although strongly imbued with the revolutionary spirit he comprehended [had learned from Saint-Simon?--TR.] as early as 1822 that that spirit, powerful indeed to destroy, is radically incapable of establishing anything, and he never spared the illusion of those who believed that the principles of the Constituent Assembly of 1789, engrafted on religious unbelief, could serve as the basis of the social edifice.

But if the evil denounced is only too real, it is not necessary to represent it as greater than it is, or to conclude, because faith in many souls has grown feeble, that it has entirely perished, and is no longer to be found among men. We know how difficult and how delicate it is to establish the balance-sheet of religious society. Appearances are deceptive, and to reach the real facts we must explore, to the bottom, the consciences of men, which only God can do. However, there are certain exterior circumstances which may enable us even on this point to approximate the real facts in the case. It is undeniable that there are in all the degrees of society men who really believe and faithfully practise religion; others who believe but practise not; {733} and still others who make an open profession of not believing. The first division have representatives in every social class, among the poor as well as among the rich, in the sciences, in literature, in art, in industry, in politics. Their faith in general is equally firm and enlightened, for it has been thoroughly tried, and has withstood every attack, both from within and from without.

The second class are more numerous, at least in the great centres of population, and form in those centres the bulk of society. They believe, but their faith is weak, or perhaps it were more proper to say that they have not faith, but only vague and indecisive beliefs, whose level rises or falls according to events. They recoil alike from avowed apostasy and from distinct, precise, and frank affirmation of the truth. As they have abandoned the practice of their religion, it may be supposed that they have lost all belief, but that is far from being the case, for often the slightest breath from without suffices to rekindle what seems to be extinct, but is really only asleep. It is rare, above all, that at the last moment, when the passions have been appeased, when they stand face to face with reality and see it as it is, their last and solemn word is not a word of faith.

The third class, those who make an open profession of unbelief, are relatively few; but they make up for their lack of numbers by their activity and the powerful means at their disposal. They fill high positions in the state, control the greater part of the organs of publicity, and gain the multitudes to their side all the more easily because they excel in the art of caressing popular prejudices and pandering to popular passions. Beside, their hatred of truth is greater than their attachment to any doctrine whatever, and they can, therefore, hold themselves free to attack the faith without being bound to defend anything of their own against it, or to maintain any self-consistency in their attacks. What moves and governs them is not the desire to ascertain or defend the truth, but to appear to have independence and hardihood of mind, and to pose themselves as despisers of the past and precursors of the future.

But to appreciate the real situation of things, it is not enough to regard the present. We must also consider the past. No society makes itself such as it is, and every society holds infinitely more from the generation that went before than from the existing generation. Now, as the society of the past was manifestly a Christian society, it cannot be that the present should not remain Christian in the greater part of its elements; and in fact, notwithstanding the formidable efforts that have been made to unchristianize modern society, and its numerous deviations, it is still the Christian spirit that inspires the laws, manners, and institutions, and so pervades the general intelligence that even those who would attack the Christian dogmas are constrained, in order to render their attacks more effective, to appeal to the very principles which Christianity has brought to light and made predominant.

Moreover, religious faith, far from decreasing, is actually progressing, and, if it has not yet recovered all the ground it had lost, its gains since the commencement of the present century have been far greater than its losses.

It is not difficult to detect the vice of the first proposition. It consists in assuming that Christian faith is dead, while it has only been lessened; that it has lost all authority over the intelligent, while, in fact, it continues to exercise, directly or indirectly, such an empire over them that its principles are universally regarded as the foundation and support of the social edifice itself.

But not contented with assuming that Christianity is dead, the positivists go further, and pretend that it cannot be restored to life, because its dogmas are found to be incompatible with the discoveries of science. This is not {734} a fact distorted, not a fact invented, and for which no proof is offered or attempted to be offered. We have in vain sought in the writings of Messrs. Comte and Littré even the semblance of a reason of any sort in support of the allegation. The positivists announce it, affirm it, but make no effort even to prove it, or at most only stammer out by the way the name of Galileo, as if it had not been a thousand times answered, at first, that the sacred writers must have spoken the language of their times, which after all is still the language of our times; afterward that Copernicus dedicated, in 1545, to Pope Paul III., his great work, in which he sets forth and defends the new or heliocentric system of the universe; that nearly a century elapsed before any censure of it intervened; that Galileo, although technically condemned, was neither loaded with chains nor cast into a dungeon; in fine--and it is the important point--that the holy office which condemned him, though possessing great and legitimate authority, is not the Church, and has no claim to infallibility. [Footnote 114]

[Footnote 114: This was written before the Encyclical of the Holy Father, dated December 8, 1864, otherwise the noble author might have modified his expression so as not even to seem to incur its censure. Without raising any question as to the infallibility of the pontifical congregations when they render a dogmatic Judgment approved by the Holy Father, it is evident that the judgment rendered in the case of Galileo was not a dogmatic judgment in the understanding of even Rome herself, for she has since rescinded it, and has permitted the theory to be taught in her schools as science. The judgment was disciplinary, not dogmatic, and assuming, therefore, that Galileo held the scientific truth, it offers no evidence of the incompatibility of Catholic _dogma_ with science, any more than the condemnation of an unwarrantable insurrection in a monarchical country in favor of democracy would prove that the Church is hostile to liberty.--TRANSLATOR. ]

Unable to produce any facts to support their thesis, the positivists resort to historical induction. They argue that the sciences have been in a state of continuous progress for three centuries; but during the same three centuries they say faith has been in a state of continual decline; there is, therefore, an intimate correlation between the two facts, so intimate that we may assert the former as generating the latter. But to a legitimate induction, all the facts on which it depends should be carefully observed and reported, which in this case is not done.

It is not true that faith has declined in a fatal and continuous manner; nor is it true that the sciences have made their greatest progress in those epochs in which faith has most declined. Ask history. In the beginning of the sixteenth century occurred Luther's revolt; It produced in the Christian world a universal shock. During several years heresy made every day new progress, and a part of Europe was detached from the centre of unity; but very soon the movement was arrested, and before the end of that same century a reaction against it had begun, followed by a religious revival or re-birth which produced one of the grandest epochs in the history of mankind. In the eighteenth century a new attack, more formidable than the first, is made on faith; it triumphs, and seems to be on the point of destroying all truth. Yet from the beginning of the next century a second religious restoration is effected, of which it may be as yet too early to determine the full bearing on the future, but which has already had too serious results to allow its great importance to be questioned. Thus out of four centuries there are two, the sixteenth and the eighteenth, in which faith has declined, and two, the seventeenth and the nineteenth, in which faith has revived and increased. There is not then a fatal and continuous march of faith in a certain direction. There are two contrary currents that meet and combat each other, without its being lawful as yet from the point of view of science to say which will ultimately triumph.

But at least they are the centuries of doubt and unbelief in which science has made her greatest progress? Not at all. Precisely the contrary is the fact. The sixteenth century did hardly anything for science, but the seventeenth century, the age of the {735} Catholic revival, was the age of the Galileos, the Pascals, the Des Cartes, the Newtons, the Leibnitzes--the age in which not only philosophy, letters, the arts, were carried to their highest degree of splendor, but the great principles of modern science were discovered and established--principles from which have resulted all subsequent discoveries, which, it is well to remark, have been only an affair of application and patience, not of invention and genius.

But the positivists insist again that, granting there is no absolute incompatibility between science and faith, since the masters of science have been decided believers, and are so still; granting also that there is no direct relation between the progress of science and the decline of faith, since the periods in which science has grown are not coincident with those in which faith has diminished--still the general result of three centuries of activity is that science has gained and faith has lost, and it is difficult, therefore, to suppose that these two facts are wholly foreign one to the other.

We reply that if this were proposed as a mere hypothesis, it might pass, and there would be no inconvenience in admitting that the progress of science may have indirectly, and so by way of reaction, had some influence in weakening religious beliefs. In all progress, in every increase of power, there is danger. Man is naturally weak, and as soon as he feels himself in possession of a new force he suffers himself to be dazzled by it, attributes to himself all its merits, and soon comes to believe that he can suffice for himself, and dispense with all aid from above. Consider what takes place in our days. Certainly, it is impossible to conceive in what respect steam, chloroform, electricity, or photography conflicts with any Christian dogma. Religion, instead of standing aghast at these discoveries in the application of science, applauds them, and sees in them new and more efficient means of doing her own work, of ameliorating the condition of a large number, of propagating the Gospel, and drawing closer the bonds of unity throughout the world. Yet such is not the impression which they produce on all minds. Certain persons, at sight of so many marvels, are so carried away with enthusiasm as to conclude that man is on the eve of becoming God. The impression will, no doubt, soon wear away, but till it does, the intoxication continues, and hearts are inflated. In this way science may come to the aid of unbelief; not by itself, nor by the results it gives; but by the presumptuous confidence with which it too often fills the mind. As it is not and cannot be the principal and efficient cause of the success of unbelief, we must seek that cause elsewhere, in the unloosing of the passions, always impatient of the restraints of faith. History in fact teaches us that the great revolts of the intellect are contemporary with those of the will and the senses; that it was in the scandals of the revival of ancient learning in the fifteenth century that Protestantism was conceived; that more lately it was the _les petits soupers_ of the Regency and under the impure inspirations of the Pompadours and the Du Barrys that was spun and woven the conspiracy against the God of Calvary. Modern unbelief may boast of the independence it has acquired, but assuredly not, if it has any self-respect, of its shameful cradle.

So we see that the very propositions which serve as a pretext to the positivist system are belied by the historical facts in the case. Far from being ready to perish, religion is every day making new progress, and none of its dogmas have as yet been contradicted or weakened by any of the real discoveries of science.

The positivist system itself, it will be recollected, is based on the assumption that no doctrine can henceforth obtain the assent of the intelligent, save on condition of being positive, {736} that is, as rigidly demonstrable as are the physical sciences. Such a theory hardly needs refuting, so contrary is it to common sense and the universal beliefs of the race. But as it has been set forth at length in a series of huge volumes, maintained and lauded in an important political journal, counts still many adepts, has been recalled not long since to the public attention by a work written by one of their number who has the honor of being a member of the Institute [and as it is gaining no little ground, under its philosophical aspect, in Great Britain and the United States--TR.], it is not permissible to neglect it, and we feel it necessary, if not to combat it directly, at least to point out the levity and inconsistency of its originators and adherents, who claim to be reformers of the human race, and with imperturbable gravity pretend that for six thousand years mankind has been the dupe of the grossest error, and that before their advent there were only illusion and falsehood in the world.

The assumption from which the system proceeds is that the real, the positive, is restricted to the world of the senses, or the material universe, and that what transcends the material order is for us at least unreal--a thesis directly opposed to that of Des Cartes, who taught that thought is the phenomenon the most real, the most positive of all. Now which is right, the author of the "Discourse on Method" or M. Comte? No great effort is needed to prove that it is Des Cartes, and that the existence of spiritual phenomena is not only more certain than that of physical phenomena, but more positive and more easily proved, because the knowledge of spiritual phenomena is direct and immediate, while that of sensible phenomena is only indirect and mediate. All knowledge, rational or sensible, is a spiritual phenomenon. Matter may be the occasion or medium of it, but can never produce it, for it is always spirit or mind that knows even in sensation or sentiment. We may be deceived as to the meaning of the phenomenon, but never as to its existence. [Footnote 115]

[Footnote 115: As a subjective fact, there can be no doubt of its existence: but this, with all respect to M. de Chalambert, is nothing to the purpose. All phenomena are subjective, and therefore mental, if you will, spiritual; but is there an objective spiritual reality revealed by these spiritual phenomena? This is the question, and I need not say it is a question not answerable on the Cartesian principle or method. Few persons outside of France regard Des Cartes as worth citing as an authority in philosophy, for, beginning with thought as a psychological phenomenon, he never did and never could attain scientifically to any objective existence, either spiritual or material. The error of Des Cartes was in seeking to settle the question of method before settling that of principles; the principles determine the method, not the method the principles, as M. Cousin, misled by his veneration for Des Cartes, pretends: and the principles are necessarily _à priori_, prior to experience--as without them experience is not possible--given, intuitive, and therefore objective. The real existence of the spiritual or supersensible order, superior to and distinct from the material, is certain from the demonstrable fact that the sensible has its root only in the supersensible, and the material in the spiritual, both as to the order of knowledge and as to the order of being. The author maintains the truth against the positivists, but his reasoning is not conclusive, because he is misled by the Cartesian method, which is the method of the positivists themselves. Malebranche followed in one direction the Cartesian method, and lost the material world; the Abbé Condillac followed it in another direction, and lost the spiritual world; the positivists follow it in both, and lose all reality, and, with Sir William Hamilton, make truth purely relative; that is, subjective, and as pure subjectivity is impossible, thus positivism is positive nihilism. The author proceeds to refute, on the Cartesian method, the denial by the positivists of the existence of spirit, of the absolute, of God, and the immortality of the soul; but as I do not regard his reasoning, though in defence of the truth, conclusive, I omit it, and pass to his exhibition of the inconsistencies and absurdities of positivism, in which he is admirable and perfectly successful.--TRANSLATOR. ]

Nevertheless, after having denied all the truths or principles which are the basis of all moral and intellectual life, the positivists pretend to pass from negation to affirmation, and undertake in their turn to dogmatize. But to affirm any doctrine whatever it needs a method, and we have shown that on the purely negative method which they commence with, they can never legitimately affirm anything. What then can they do? They invent another method, which they call induction, because they pretend that it is from the observation of the facts of history that they induce or draw their doctrine; but the process they adopt has none of the characters of a real induction. {737} To induction three things are necessary; the principle of causality, general notions, and particular facts. [Footnote 116]

[Footnote 116: I transfer the word _notion_, although no notion is or can be general, because French writers frequently use it when they really mean not _notion_, but the object or thing noted. I do not approve of this use either in French or English. We may have notions of the general, but not general notions; a notion, if you will, as has been previously said, of the absolute (though absolute is itself a bad term for necessary, eternal, immutable, and infinite being), but not absolute notions. The _notion_ is subjective, the _noted_ is objective. To all legitimate induction there is necessary causality, the general--the universal, as say the schoolmen--and the particular, and unless the mind has _à priori_ knowledge or intuition of them, no induction is possible. This is what the author evidently means, and it is undoubtedly true.--TRANSLATOR.]

Experience gives the particular facts, and, by the aid of the principle of causality, we determine by way of induction their laws; that is, by means of particular facts we determine the general notions hitherto confused and vaguely perceived [that is, refer them to their respective genera or species.---TRANSLATOR.] The positivists, then, who recognize no principle [of causality, and deny all general notions or notions of the general prior to the particular facts.--TRANSLATOR.] can make no induction, and have no scientific basis, no logical nexus for their theories, and are left to the caprices of their own imagination. Imagination, and imagination alone, is the new method they employ.

The human mind, according to the positivists, is radically incapable of knowing causes, and if it attempts to know them it exhausts itself with fruitless efforts. This is wherefore they treat as illusions all the causes which philosophers assign to phenomena. They deny the metaphysical being, God as cause; yet they substitute the metaphysical being humanity, and not content with affirming it, they even define it, both as principle and cause, to be a great collective beings-- living a life of its own, and advancing continually through the ages from progress to progress, and from whom all individual existences proceed as their beginning, and to whom they all return as their end. Nor is this all. After having defined this metaphysical being, they explain it, and pretend to know what it has been, what it is, and what it will be--they, who declare that Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Des Cartes, and Leibnitz have done nothing, because in attempting to penetrate the mystery of human life these master minds broke against an insolvable problem--they, we say, do not hesitate to raise the veil, and to give us the complete solution of the far more formidable mystery of human destiny. They know its origin. Humanity has begun in fetichism; M. Littré, however, has discovered, since the death of his master, that prior to fetichism there was a state in which man like the brute sought only to satisfy his physical wants; but he maintains that at any rate, if fetichism was not the first it was at least the second state of humanity. If we ask him what proofs he has of this, he confesses that if direct facts are demanded he has none; but he has arguments, and here is the way in which he argues:

In America and the unexplored regions of Africa savage tribes are found who were and still are fetich worshippers, _therefore_ so was it with all men in the beginning! Such is the positivist induction. [Footnote 117]

[Footnote 117: How know the positivists that these savage tribes do not represent the degenerate man, rather than the primitive man--man cut off from communion with the central life of humanity, not man in his first developments?--TRANSLATOR.]

Positivism continues: From fetichism humanity passed to polytheism, and then from polytheism to monotheism. But it forgets that it is not permitted to take the part for the whole, and if Europe became Christian after having been pagan, it has not been the same with all the world, for on one side we find the people Jewish, who have always believed in the unity of God, and, on the other side, we find many nations still remaining immersed in the darkness of idolatry. But we must not be too exacting with the positivists. They have here really some partial facts which they can use, though not legitimately as the basis of an argument. [Footnote 118]

[Footnote 118: Truth is older than error, and man began not in error, but in the truth, the sole principle of life and growth. Monotheism preceded, historically, both fetichism and polytheism, and the earliest and most authentic historical documents that we have prove that all the world began by believing in and worshipping one God. Polytheism bears evident traces of a prior religion which asserted the unity of God, of being not a development of fetichism, but a corruption of monotheism, as positivism bears unmistakable traces of its being a corruption of Christianity; a conclusive evidence that it never could have originated in a society that had never known and believed the Christian religion.--TRANSLATOR.]

As to the future, who can doubt that humanity will be positivist? Can any one prove the contrary? Is not the future a domain open to all, and where each may imagine for himself the part that pleases him? And yet, even in regard to the future, it is necessary to be circumspect. Young as positivism is, it has had the pain of seeing more than one of its predictions falsified by the event. In 1850 M. Littré assured us that the race had arrived at that degree of civilization that rendered war henceforth impossible, and that the republic was definitively established in France. What does he think of either prediction now? He would have obliged us if he had given us his explanations of these predictions in his last publication. The first would, perhaps, have embarrassed him; the second would give him less trouble, because the destruction of the republic of 1848 by the empire accords only too well with the positivist hostility to a really representative government.

It is useless to press the matter further. There is in the positivist induction no trace of a rational process, and positivism in the last analysis is simply the product of pure imagination. Moreover, M. Littré is so well aware of it that he has taken in advance his precautions against all unfavorable criticism. It may say what it pleases, he will not hear or heed it; he professes to be a positivist, and positivist he will live and die. His decision is made. Beside, no one who has not taken his degree of doctor in the mathematical, astronomical, physical, and chemical sciences, understands or can understand anything of positivism, and is incompetent to its discussion. But if instead of opposing one is disposed to accept it, he is very accommodating, and by no means exacts so laborious and painful an initiation. He requires only one thing--namely, the denial of the supernatural order. To be received into the positivist school it is not necessary to affirm or to believe anything--simple denial suffices.

We must in concluding make a single reference to M. Taine. As the positivists, M. Taine denies metaphysics, all metaphysical (spiritual) beings, God, and the human soul, and like them he substitutes for these others of his own fashioning. From Messrs. Comte and Littré he separates only on a single point. To the cause _humanity_ he prefers the cause _nature_. There is no disputing about tastes. We add merely a word on one of the fundamental maxims of M. Taine's method. The philosopher, he says, must be in the study of science perfectly disinterested, and even to the degree of forgetting that he is a father, a son, a husband, a citizen. He must take account only of the facts furnished by observation, and in no respect trouble himself about their practical consequences. Were the facts observed to prove that paternal love, filial respect, conjugal tenderness, and devotion to one's country are empty words or dangerous illusions, he must not hesitate to immolate these sentiments on the altar of reality--or science. We do not discuss such a doctrine. The irreflection of the author (we can suppose nothing else) is so great that we need only indicate it. Does not M. Taine comprehend that the disinterestedness or indifference of the philosopher must consist not in abjuring the eternal principles of the just, the true, the good, the beautiful, and the noblest sentiments of the human heart, but simply in silencing within {739} him the voice of prejudice and passion, so as to leave his understanding free and unbiased? Knows he not that to know a fact he must study it first in himself and in its essence, and then in its manifold applications? The chemist asserts a substance only after, having resolved it into its elements, he has experimented on it in all its effects; in like manner, it is not enough for the philosopher to have studied a doctrine in its principle, he must go further, and establish that in its applications it conforms to the laws of the just, the true, and the beautiful. It is, in fact, this accordance that is, all things considered, the surest test of its truth. The moral is the counter-proof of the intellectual. M. Taine and his school recognize, it is true, no principles anterior to facts, and therefore want, as M. Comte avows, a type-law, a term of comparison, which may serve as the criterion of the judgment of facts themselves; but is there a more manifest mark of the falsity of a theory than that it leaves the human mind without any means of determining the significance of phenomena, without a touchstone to determine whether the metal be gold or copper?

But it is time to close. It is assuredly a grave fact, and one that merits more attention than it receives, that a doctrine so thoroughly materialistic and atheistic can be produced in our age, that it can obtain adherents, and be recognized by important and widely influential public journals, which, without openly displaying its flag, insinuate its principles, and strive to infuse it into the minds of their readers. Yet this fact is nothing new. There are always atheists in the world; even in the time of the Prophet King the impious said: There is no God. _Non est Deus_. But we discover in the positivist system a sign or symptom, if not graver at least more alarming, in the manifest enfeeblement in our time of reason, and the rational faculties of the soul, which it supposes. We know that society is not responsible for all that is said or done in its bosom, but we know also that people are in general treated as they deserve to be treated, and that writers, journalists, and system-mongers, when they believe they are addressing a community accustomed to think, to reason, to reflect, and to render an account to themselves of what is addressed to them, are on their guard and weigh carefully what they say. They may assign bad reasons, but they will at least assign reasons of some sort, and take great pains to do it, as the thing most essential to their success. There have always been sophists, but the sophist of former times reasoned; the sophist of to-day reasons not, he simply imagines. Do not attempt to refute him; he will not listen to you, for he understands not the language you speak; he denies or affirms with assurance, with audacity, even at the command of his passions or his caprices; he seeks not to convince, but to startle, to astonish, and neither proves nor cares to prove anything. Things have come to such a pass that Voltaire himself, if he could return, would blush with shame for his children. He might still smile approvingly on their blasphemies; his good sense would be shocked with the incoherence and extravagance of their theories; and he would say to them. Continue, my children, to deny, to crush _l'infame_, all that is well, but do have the grace not to attempt to put anything in place of what you deny. You are not equal to that, and can only render yourselves ridiculous.

The evil is very real and very great, but it has already been denounced by an authority so high, and with so much eloquence, that I need not any further insist on it. I would simply add that it calls for a prompt remedy, since the peril is great and imminent. When faith grows weak in souls, and reason remains, there is hope; for reason well directed leads back to faith, since human reason is the child of the divine reason, and {740} cannot persist in denying her mother; but when reason in her turn goes, and leaves only imagination in her place, there is no ground of hope; and everything is to be feared, for no means of salvation remain. Imagination is, indeed, one of the powers and one of the grandeurs of the human mind, which it elevates and adorns; but if it comes to predominate alone, without supporting itself on reason, it loses its virtue and its beauty, and is proper only to dazzle, to pervert, to bewilder and mislead. It sheds darkness, not light, or if it emits still some gleams, it is only to gild with a last and false splendor a dying civilization. When the barbarians thundered at her gates, Rome still imagined, but she had long since ceased to reason.

COUNT VICTOR DE CHALAMBERT

From Chambers's Journal.

PLAIN-WORK.

"Thank goodness, Lizzie! you were taught to work."

My husband is constantly repeating this sentiment to me, and I decidedly agree with him that it is a great cause for thankfulness. I may say, in passing, that I don't believe I should ever have married my husband at all if I had not been able to work, for one of his very first questions to me upon our becoming acquainted, was as to what occupation I took most pleasure in, and upon my answering "Plain-work," a pleased smile came over his face. From that moment, he has since confessed to me, he made up his mind that I should be his wife. I am now the mother of a large family, with constant demands upon my needle, and what I should do, if I had not early acquired the use of it, I cannot think. I made a point of teaching my own girls as soon as ever they became old enough to handle their needles, and if they don't all turn out good plain-workers, it certainly won't be my fault.

I look upon occupation as the true secret of happiness, and surely there is no occupation so well suited to a woman, whether she is the wife of a gentleman or a laborer, as needle-work. I would encourage the taste for it as early as possible in a girl, as I think it has such an influence for good on her character in making her womanly and sensible. It has also the effect of producing tidy habits, for no girl who can thoroughly use her needle will be content to go about the house with her frock torn or a rip in her petticoat; but, upon the first appearance of a hole, she will sit down and carefully mend it. When still quite young, she works for her doll; a little older, for some poor child in the village, or her own younger brothers and sisters. In either case, she is learning to be loving and kind, and the habit of working for others and being useful is good for her.

You wish probably to fit your daughter for her future career in life, and you naturally look forward to her marriage as the aim and object of your most ardent desires. I know _I_ do with regard to my own girls, for, being a happy and married woman myself, I cannot bear the idea of their becoming old maids. Well, if you want her to marry, and you desire to train her to be a good wife, teach her to work; you are laying the foundation of much future happiness, and her husband will bless you for it. Say she marries a man not too well off, who is constantly engaged in his profession, and she is in consequence forced to spend {741} many hours of her day alone. This is very trying to her at first, fresh from a happy home and the bosom of a large family. She turns to her needle as her companion and solace during her husband's absence, and finds her greatest interest and pleasure in working for him. She keeps his clothes in good repair, and he never finds his socks in holes or his shirts minus their buttons. Very likely--and happy I consider it for her if it is so--his wedding outfit may have been small. In that case, she can employ herself in making him a new set of shirts; whilst her odd moments may be profitably spent in knitting him a set of warm socks against the coming winter. Depend upon it, he will never find any shirts that fit him so well, or any socks so comfortable, as those made for him by his wife during the early days of their married life. This gives her so much occupation during her day that she has no time to be dull or discontented. She gladly puts away her work when she expects her husband's return, and she meets him with a cheerful smile, being happy in her own mind and feeling that she has been praiseworthily engaged. She is also ready to enter into his interests and pursuits, in which she finds an agreeable relaxation.

Then there's the coming baby to work for. What mother does not remember the delights of working for her first baby! The care and thought bestowed first upon purchasing the materials, then upon cutting them out to the best advantage, followed by many months of happy employment in making them up. The little articles, when finished, are carefully put away in a drawer set aside for the purpose, and bunches of lavender are placed amongst them.

The first baby is born, and others follow, and the cares of a family come rapidly upon your child. She now feels the real use of her needle, and she learns to thank you accordingly for the pains you took with her. Not only can she sew well, but she knows how to cut out; and she has such a first-rate eye, from long practice, that she can take her patterns from the shop-windows. She makes the best use of her powers of observation. That which makes men good soldiers, doctors, engineers, literary men, artists, and naturalists, makes her a good plain-worker. In her own line, she is not to be beaten. Perhaps she is a little proud of her talent; but she uses it to good advantage, and her husband has the comfort of seeing his children well clothed, and of finding his bills comparatively small. Constant practice has also given her a capital knowledge of the value of materials, and she understands thoroughly the textures of different cotton, linen, and woollen fabrics, so that it would be very difficult to impose upon her.

I have taken it for granted that your daughter marries a poor man, as poor men unfortunately predominate in this world, and it is always as well to be prepared for the worst. But her husband may be rich or, at all events, well enough off to render it unnecessary that his wife should be a slave to her needle. You will still find that you have done your girl no injury by imposing upon her the early habit of using that instrument. You have, at all events, given her the power of superintending her servants, and seeing that their work is properly done; and she will not so easily be taken in by her dressmaker, or trampled upon by her nurse, who will soon find out that "missis" knows how to work for her own children, and will respect her accordingly.

But supposing that your daughter does not marry at all, still her knowledge of plain-work will not be thrown away upon her. If left poorly off, she has her own clothes to make and mend, and if not, surely there are plenty of claims upon her. There is her more fortunate sister, who married young, and is now a widow, with six children on her hands--think of the comfort and use her needle may be to them! Then her brothers are {742} most of them married with families, and Aunt Susan's work is invaluable, If she has no brothers or sisters, but is left entirely alone in the world, and so well off that she does not require to work for herself, let her turn to the poor, and give them the use of her needle; she will certainly find a never-ending field amongst them. By the time she has worked for all the babies in the parish, and helped the mothers about the clothes for the elder children, she will find she has occupation enough for her fingers to keep her mind happy and interested, and to prevent her from dwelling upon her own loneliness. She can also spend some time profitably in instructing the girls in the village-school how to cut out and sew. The ignorance upon these points in some schools is perfectly lamentable. I took a nursery-maid for my eighth baby straight from a national school. She was a fine healthy girl of sixteen. It will hardly be credited that she could not hold her needle properly! She doubled it up in her hand, and pushed it into her work in the most extraordinary manner. I tried in vain to teach her by every means in my power, but if the knack of holding the needle is not learned in early life, it is rarely acquired afterward. Although so very awkward about her work, that girl had been taught to crochet ridiculous watch-pockets, and to knit impossible babies' shoes, with such wonderful pointed toes that no infant I ever saw could get his feet into them. At length I was obliged to part with her on this account, though a tidy, active girl, and satisfactory in many ways. She is not the only case I have had in my house of ignorance on the subject of plain-work. Some of my servants have been able to sew well enough, but have not had the remotest idea of cutting-out and placing their work. I have often thought, if I had only time to spare, how much I should like to teach the rising generation the little I myself know of the art of plain-work.

In these days of sewing-machines people think much less of needle-work than they did formerly. I don't approve of sewing-machines myself. My husband accuses me of being jealous of them, but in this he is unjust to me. I don't approve of them simply because I think that the work produced from them--though I grant that the stitches may be regular enough--cannot be compared to good hand-work, particularly when employed upon fine materials. I have seen machine-work in every stage, and from the very best sewing-machines, and I never could consider it equal to good hand-work. I feel convinced in my own mind that sewing-machines will have their day, and that when that day is over, plain-work done by hand will be at as high a premium again as ever. Even pillow-lace is now gradually recovering the place it once occupied in public estimation, and from which it was temporarily ousted by lace produced from that unutterable abomination, the _machine_, and which used to be called "Nottingham lace."

I acknowledge machine-work may be all very well for cloth clothes, and useful in families where there are many boys; but my ten children are mostly girls, and I don't at all covet a machine. My husband offers me one periodically, and I as often refuse it. I could not bear to have one in the house, it would be going so entirely against my own principles.

It is most important, when a girl is learning to work, that great care should be taken with her to prevent her from acquiring bad habits; such habits, I mean, as clicking her needle with her thimble, pinning her work to her knee, biting the end of her thread, and sticking her needle into the front of her dress. These habits once gained will probably stick to her all her life, and she will find the greatest difficulty in overcoming them. It is therefore advisable that she should be taught to work by her mother, rather than be left to the instruction of servants. A {743} ladylike manner of working is essential, and should be carefully cultivated, for work may be executed both neatly and rapidly without the acquirement of any of these vulgar peculiarities. A great point to be learned connected with plain-work, and one that I consider quite indispensable, is the art of cutting out accurately and without waste of material. Far too little importance is attached to that branch of work, and many women go to their graves without acquiring it, having been dependent all their lives upon their servants or some kind friend for having their work cut out and placed for them. When this is the case ladies are apt to be too much under the thumb of their ladies' maids or nurses, who are not slow to profit by their own superior knowledge, and domineer over their mistresses accordingly.

Where there are a number of the same articles of clothing to be made, it is advisable to cut out one garment first, being careful to take the pattern in paper, and to complete it before cutting out the rest of the material. By this means an opinion can be formed as to whether it fits properly and any necessary alterations may be made. The other articles may then be cut out all together, care being taken to pin the separate parts together, to avoid their being mislaid or any mistakes made. It is no doubt essential that sewing should be neatly done, but I think this need not be achieved at the entire expense of all rapidity of execution. It really is perfectly ludicrous to see some women at their work. They look at each stitch when completed, and give it a little approving pat with the top of the thimble; and at this rate, though the neatness of the work may be undeniable, still so little is accomplished, that it is hardly worth the trouble of doing it at all. Method in plain-work is also highly necessary, and much time and labor may be spared by keeping all the materials in the proper places. If every article when done with is put away carefully, it is sure to be forthcoming when again required. Thus, there is no time wasted in searching for a missing reel of cotton, or hunting up a pair of scissors. The cleanliness of the work is also thereby kept unimpaired.

The greatest care should be taken with the pieces of broken needles, which are too apt to be left carelessly about the floor, and which are most dangerous, especially when there are any young children in the house. I must confess, and I do it with shame, that there was a time when I was not as careful as I am now. I never shall forget my husband's indignation upon coming into my room one day, where our second baby was crawling about on the ground, at finding a piece of a broken needle in her hand, quite ready to put it in her mouth. I think he was more angry with me then than he had ever been before during our married life. It was certainly a good lesson to me, for I have been most careful ever since, and I'll trouble him or anybody else to find a broken needle about my carpet _now_. Waste should be carefully avoided, both with regard to ends of cotton and pieces of material. The scraps of the latter which are too small to be of any use, instead of being left littered about the room, should be thrown into a waste-basket, to be cleared by the housemaid, and the larger pieces should be tidily put away. The time will probably come when they will be required for some purpose or other; and if pinned up in a tight bundle they will not occupy much space in a drawer or basket kept for the purpose.

I trust I have not ridden my hobby to death, nor worn out the patience of my readers, but it is a subject the importance of which I strongly feel. It must not, however, be supposed that I advocate the cultivation of work to the exclusion of more intellectual pursuits, or that I wish to take the bread from the mouth of my poorer sister. I consider a thorough {744} knowledge of the science of plain-work to be essential to every woman, be she rich or poor, and that in it she will always find a sphere of usefulness. It will, if cultivated, turn out for her own benefit, and the comfort and happiness of those around her, and surely it shall be said of her that "her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her."

THE BIRTHPLACE OF SAINT PATRICK.

BY J. CASHEL HOEY.

The question of the birthplace of St. Patrick--a question which has been debated with considerable learning and acrimony for several centuries--has always seemed to me to have an interest far beyond the rival claims of clans and the jealous litigation of the antiquary. It is interesting not merely because it is in reality a curious archaeological problem, but also because it may in some measure afford a clue to the character of one of the greatest saints and greatest men of his own age or of any other--a saint who was the apostle of a nation which he found all heathen and left all Christian; who succeeded in planting the Catholic faith without a single act of martyrdom, but planted it so firmly that it has never failed for now 1,400 years, though tried in what various processes of martyrdom God and man too well know; a saint whose apostolate was the mainspring of an endless succession of missionary enterprises, prosecuted with the same untiring zeal in the nineteenth century as in the fifth, wherever the vanguard of Christendom may happen to be found, whether in Austria, in Gaul, in Switzerland, or in Iceland, as now at the furthest confines of America and of Australasia. Add to these ordinary evidences of the supernatural efficacy of St. Patrick's mission the testimony which is derived from the peculiar spiritual character of the people that he converted. The Irish nation retains the impress which it received from the hands of St. Patrick in a way that I believe no other Christian nation has preserved the mould of its apostle. If that nation has never even dreamed of heresy or schism, it is because, in terms as positive as an ultramontane of our own days could devise, [Footnote 119] St. Patrick established the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff as a chief canon of the Irish Church. Patience in poverty, an innate love of purity, prodigal alms-giving, and mutual charities, the practice of heavy penances and of long fasts, a peculiarly vivid sense of purgatory, and a strong devotion to the doctrine of the Trinity, which the saint taught in the figure of the shamrock--these have always been the distinguishing characteristics of Irish piety. They were the peculiar characteristics of the Christian of the fourth century, who had not yet learned to live at peace with the world--who felt that as yet Christians were in the strictest sense one family community--who practised mortification, as if the untamed pagan {745} blood were still burning in his veins, and the great temptation to whose faith was the heresy of Arius, and the question of the relations of the three divine persons. But St. Patrick was not only a great saint--was not merely and simply the apostle of the Irish; he was their teacher and their lawgiver, their Cadmus and Lycurgus as well. The school of letters which he founded in Ireland so well preserved the learning which had become all but extinguished throughout western Europe, that your own Alfred, following a host of your nobles and clerics, went thither to be taught, and the universities of Paris and Pavia owe their earliest lights to Irish scholars. The Brehon laws, which are at last to be published, by order of Parliament, a complete code of the most minute and comprehensive character, were, according to the evidence of our annalists, carefully revised and remodelled by St. Patrick, with the consent of the different estates of the kingdom of Ireland; and there is good reason to believe that this revision, of which there is abundant intrinsic evidence, had reference not merely to the Christian doctrine and the canons of the Church, but to the body of the Roman civil law.

[Footnote 119: "Quaecunqne causa valde difficilis exorta fuerit atque ignota cun?tis Scotorum gentis jadicils, ad cathedram archiepiscopi Hibernensium, atque hujus antistitis examinationem recte referenda. Si vero in illa, cum suis sapientibus, facile sanari non poterit talis causa praedictae negotiationis, ad Sedem Apostolicam decrevimus esse mittendam; id est, ad Petri Apostoli cathedram, auctoritatem Romae urbis habentem." This canon of St. Patrick is contained in the "Book of Armagh," the antiquity of which is instanced in the text of the present paper. The canon is of a date early in the fifth century; and it would be difficult to show so early, so emphatic and so complete a recognition of the Papal authority in the ecclesiastical legislation of any other national church.]

It would throw a certain light upon the character of a saint whose works were so various and so full of vitality, if we could arrive at any solid conclusion as to the place of his nativity, the quality of his parentage, and the sources of his education. The theory most generally accepted, and which certainly has the greatest weight of authority in its favor, is that which assumes that St. Patrick was born in Scotland, at Dumbarton, on the Clyde--the son, as we may suppose, of a French or British official employed in the Roman service at that extreme outpost of their settlements in this island, where he would have spent his youth surrounded by a perpetual clangor of barbarous battle, amid clans of Picts and Celts swarming across the barriers of the Lowland. The opinion that St. Patrick was a Scotchman has the unanimous assent of all the antiquaries of Scotland; but I am not aware that any of them has succeeded in identifying any single locality named in the original documents with any place of sufficient antiquity in or near Dumbarton; nor could I, in the course of a careful examination of the district and the recognized authorities concerning its topography, arrive at any acceptable evidence on the subject. I have to add to the Scotch authorities and pleadings, however, all the best of the Irish. That St. Patrick was born in Scotland is the opinion of Colgan, [Footnote 120] a writer whose services to the history of the Irish Church cannot be excelled and have not been equalled. The opinion of Colgan has overborne almost every other authority which intervened between his time and the present. The Bollandists [Footnote 121] accepted it without hesitation; and I hasten to add to their great sanction that of the two most learned antiquaries of the latter days of Ireland, Dr. John O'Donovan and Professor Eugene O'Curry. They, I am aware, were also of Colgan's opinion; and so, I believe, are Dr. Reeves and Dr. Todd, whose views on most points of ecclesiastical antiquities connected with Ireland are entitled to be named with every respect.

[Footnote 120: Colganus, R. P. F. Joannes, "_Triadis Thaumaturgae, sen Divorum Patricii, Columbae, et Brigidiaetrium Hiberniae Patronorum, Acta_." Lovanii, 1647.]

[Footnote 121: "_Acta Sanctorum Martii_" a Joanne Bollando, tom. il. Antverpiae, 1668.]

Still it is to be said, on the other hand, that the opinion that St. Patrick was born in France has always had a traditional establishment in Ireland. It is asserted in one of the oldest of his lives, that of St. Eleran, and indicated in another, that of Probus. Don Philip O'Sullivan Bearre [Footnote 122] is not the first nor the last of the more modern biographers of the saint who has held that he was of French birth, though of British blood. But before the time of Dr. Lanigan, the most acute, the {746} most conscientious, and perhaps the most generally learned of Irish historians, there appears to have been no really candid and scientific examination of the original documents and evidences. Irish scholars were too angrily engaged in the controversy of Scotia Major and Scotia Minor to be seriously regarded when they proposed to remove St. Patrick's birthplace from the neighborhood of Glasgow to the neighborhood of Nantes. Until Dr. Lanigan published his Ecclesiastical History, [Footnote 123] no one seems to have even attempted to identify he localities named in the various original documents which concern the saint. Dr. Lanigan came to the conclusion that he was born not at Dumbarton but in France, at or in the neighborhood of Boulogne-sur-Mer. I am able, I hope, to perfect the proof which Dr. Lanigan commenced, and which, if he had been enabled to follow it up by local research and by the light lately cast on the geography of Roman Gaul, would, I am sure, have come far more complete from his hands.

[Footnote 122: D. Philippi O'Sullevani Bearri Iberni, "_Patritiana Decas_." Madrid, 1629.]

[Footnote 123: Lanigan, John, D.D. "An Ecclesiastical History of Ireland." Dublin, 1820.]

I hold, then, with Doctor Lanigan, and with a tradition which has long existed in Ireland, and also in France, that St. Patrick was born on the coast of Armoric Gaul; and that Roman in one sense by descent--by his education in a province where Roman civilization had long prevailed, where the Latin language was spoken, and the privileges of the empire fully possessed--Roman too by the possession of nobility, which he himself declares, and of which his name was a curious commemoration [Footnote 124]--Roman, in fine, in the connection of his family which he testifies with the Roman government and with the Church, St. Patrick was a Celt of Gaul by blood. The fact that the district between Boulogne and Amiens was at that time inhabited by a clan called Britanni has misled both those who supposed he must have been born in the island of Britain and those who held that, if born in France, he must have been born in that part of it which was subsequently called Brittany.

[Footnote 124: Gibbon says ("Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," v. vi.) "At this period the meanest subjects of the Roman empire assumed the illustrious name of Patricius, which by the conversion of Ireland has been communicated to a whole nation." It is supposed that the name was conferred on St. Patrick in consideration of his parting with his nobility for a motive of charity, as he mentions in his Epistle to Coroticus. But he was certainly not the first of the name. Patricius was also the name of St. Augustine's father, born fully a century before.]

The original documents which bear on the point are only two in number --the "Confession" of St. Patrick himself, and the hymn in his honor composed by his disciple St. Fiech. Of the antiquity of these documents we have evidence the most complete that can be conceived. Not merely does written history certify the record of their age--they have borne much more delicate tests. The hymn of St. Fiech is written in a dialect of Irish that is to the Irish of the Four Masters as the English of Chaucer is to the English of Lord Macaulay. The quotations of Scripture which are given in the "Confession" of St. Patrick are taken from the version according to the interpretation of the Septuagint, and not according to the recent version of St. Jerome, which had indeed been just executed in St. Patrick's time, but had not yet been publicly received. At the same time, the "Liber Armachanus," which contains the original copy of the "Confession," contains also St. Jerome's translation of the New Testament--thus curiously marking the fact that the date of the one document by a little preceded the date of the other. The manuscript itself has been subjected to a most curious and rigorous examination. The authentic signature of Brian, Imperator Hibernorum, commonly called Brian Boroimhe, on the occasion of his visit to Armagh, carries us back at a bound eight hundred years in its history; but the scholar who is expert in the hue of vellum and the style of the scribe, will tell us that the "Book of Armagh" was {747} evidently a book of venerable age even then. The Rev. Charles Graves, [Footnote 125] a fellow of the University of Dublin, and a scholar specially skilled in the study of the Irish manuscripts and hieroglyphs, published a paper some years ago in the "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy" on the question of the age of the "Book of Amagh." That the version at present preserved in the library of Trinity College is a copy from a far older version he says there can be no doubt. The marginal notes of the scribe show that he found it difficult in many places to read the manuscript from which he was transcribing. But the same notes, the character of his writing, and a reference to the Irish primate of the time under whose authority the work was undertaken, leave no doubt that the transcript was executed by a scribe named Ferdomnach, during the primacy of Archbishop Torbach, at a date not later than the year of Our Lord 807.

[Footnote 125: Graves, Rev. C, "On the Age of the Book of Armagh: Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," vol. iii., p. 816.]

Of the "Confession," beside the original copy in the "Book of Armagh," there are several manuscript versions of great age in England: two at Salisbury; two in the Cotton library; one, I believe, at Cambridge; another very interesting and valuable copy, that which was used by the Bollandists in printing their edition of the "Confession," existed until the time of the revolution in the famous French monastery of St. Vedastus. Fragments of the precious manuscripts of that learned congregation are scattered among the libraries of Arras, of Saint Omer, of Boulogne, and of Douai; but among them I could not find any trace of the missing manuscript of St. Patrick's "Confession;" nor could the present learned representatives of Bollandus, who were good enough to interest themselves in my inquiry, give me any room to hope that it still exists. It would have been of much importance to have been able to compare the style and the text of the only existing French copy with the original in Ireland--especially as that French copy belonged to the very district from which St. Patrick originally came.

There are four localities designated in these documents; three of them in the "Confession of St. Patrick," and one in the hymn of St. Fiech. In the "Confession," St. Patrick says of himself, "Patrem habui Calphurnium Diaconum (or Diacurionem) qui fuit e vico Bonaven-Taberniae; villam Enon prope habuit, ubi ego in capturam decidi." The hymn of St. Fiech adds that the saint was born at a place called Nem-tur.

The ancient "Lives of St. Patrick" cite these localities with little variation.

The first Life, given in Colgan's collection, and ascribed to St. Patrick junior, says, "Natus est igitur in illo oppido, Nempthur nomine. Patricius natus est in campo Taburnae."

The second Life, which is ascribed to St. Benignus, is word for word the same with the first on this point.

The third, supposed to be by St. Eleran, suggests that he was of Irish descent through a colony allowed by the Romans to settle in Armorica; but that his parents were of Strato Cludi (Strath Clyde); that he was born, however, "in oppido Nempthur, quod oppidum in campo Taburniae est." This life is of very ancient date, and shows clearly enough how old is the Irish tradition concerning the saint's birth in France.

The fourth Life, by Probus, says: "Brito fuit natione . . . de vico Bannave Tiburniae regionis, haud procul a mare occidentali--quem vicum indubitanter comperimus esse Neustriae provinciae, in qua olim gigantes." Here, again, we observe the same confused tradition of the saint's French origin; for Neustria was the name in the Merovingian period of the whole district comprised between the Meuse and the Loire.

{748}

The fifth and best known life, by Jocelyn, has it: "Brito fuit natione in pago Taburniae--co quod Romanus exercitus tabernacula fixerant ibidem, secus oppidum Nempthor degens, mare Hibernico collimitans habitatione."

The sixth Life, by St. Evin, declares that he was "de Brittanis Alcluidensibus, natus in Nempthur."

The Breviaries repeat the same names with as little attempt to fix the actual localities.

The Breviary of Paris says: "In Britiania natus, oppido Empthoria." The Breviary of Armagh: "In illo Brittaniae oppido nomine Emptor." The old Roman Breviary says simply: "Grenere Brito." The Breviary of Rheims: "In maritimo Brittaniae territorio." The Breviary of Rouen: "In Brittania Gallicana." The Breviary of the canons of St. John of Lateran: "Ex Brittania magna insula."

It will be observed that in the principal of these authorities there is a concurrence in accepting the locality called so variously Nemthur and Empthoria, as well as the second of the localities, the Taberniae, named by St. Patrick himself; and also that there is no appearance of certainty in the minds of the writers as to the exact sites of the places of which they speak. None of them ventures to name the exact district or diocese where Empthoria or the Taberniae are to be found.

But certain scholia upon the "Hymn of St. Fiech," which were for the first time published by Colgan in the "Triadis Thaumaturgae," boldly lay down the proposition that "Nemthur est civitas in Brittania Septentrionali, nempe Alcluida;" and the name is also translated as meaning "Holy Tower." The same writer, however, adds in another note that St. Patrick was not carried into his Irish captivity from Dumbarton, but from Boulogne, where he and his family were visiting some of their friends at the time when the Irish pirates swept down upon the coast of Gaul. The Irish annals say that about the period of St. Patrick's captivity, Nial of the Nine Hostages lost his life on the Sea of Iccius between France and England. These long piratical forays were not uncommon at the time. [Footnote 126] A little later, the last of our pagan kings, Dathy, was killed by lightning near the Rhaetian Alps.

[Footnote 126: Totum cum Scotus Iernem Movit, et infesto spumsvit remige Tethys CLAUDIAN.]

Colgan with a curious credulity accepted this improbable solution of the scholiast, of which it may in the first place be said that it is incompatible with the statement of St. Patrick himself, who declares distinctly that he was captured at a country house belonging to his father, near the town to which his family belonged.

Usher, however, who had equal opportunities of studying the original documents, also adopted this explanation. Several Irish writers, and especially Don Philip O'Sullivan, vaguely conscious of the tradition of St. Patrick's French origin, attempted to reconcile the fact of his being a Briton with the fact of his birth in France by the supposition that he was a Breton of Brittany. This theory, however, falls summarily to the ground when it is opposed to the fact that the province now known by the name of Brittany was not inhabited by any tribe which bore the name in the time of St. Patrick, "The year 458," says the Benedictine Lobineau [Footnote 127] in his learned history of Brittany, "is about the epoch of the establishment of the Bretons in that part of ancient Armorica which at present bears the name of Bretagne." There was, however, a clan called Brittani, further toward the north of France, a clan whose territory Pliny and the Greek Dionysius Periegetes had long before designated with accuracy: Pliny in these words, "Deinde Menapii, Morini, Oromansaci juncti pago, qui Gessoriacus vocatur; {749} Brittani, Ambiani, Bellovaci." [Footnote 128] The Brittani of the time of St. Patrick are to be found in the country that lies between Boulogne and Amiens. It is there that Lanigan came upon the first authentic traces of the origin of our apostle.

[Footnote 127: Lobineau. D. Gui Alexis, "_Histoire de Bretagne_." Paris, 1707.]

[Footnote 128: Plinii Secundi, "_Historia Naturalis_; de Gallia," 1.