Part 90
till he came to the hospital of St. Lucy at Manresa, where he lived by begging among the poor, and exhausting his body, not paring his nails, letting the hair of his head and beard both grow, and never using a comb; sleeping on a board or the bare ground; passing the greater part of the night in watching, praying, and weeping; scourging himself three times a day, and spending seven hours upon his knees. Ribadeneira says, “he was so set upon curbing, and taming, and mortifying his flesh, that he allowed it no manner of ease or content, but was continually persecuting it, so that in a very short time from a strong lusty man, he became weak and infirm.” In 1523, he was so feeble and weak that he could hardly set one leg before the other; where the night overtook him, whether in the fields or high-road, there he lay; till at last, as well as he could, often falling and rising again, he made a shift to reach Rome, on Palm Sunday, where he “made the holy stations,” and visited the churches, and after remaining there fifteen days, begged his way from door to door to Venice, afterwards went to Cyprus, and arrived at Jerusalem on the 4th of September. He returned from thence in the depth of winter, through frost and snow, with scarcely clothes to cover him, and arriving at Cyprus, wanted to ship himself on board a Venetian man of war, but the captain disliking his appearance said, if he was a saint, as he said he was, he might securely walk upon the water and not fear to be drowned. Ignatius, however, did not take the hint and set sail upon his coat or a millstone, as other saints are said to have done, but embarked in “a little paltry vessel, quite rotten and worm-eaten,” which carried him to Venice in January, 1524. On his way from thence to Genoa, he was taken by the Spaniards who thought him a spy, and afterwards thought him a fool; when he got to Spain, at thirty-three years of age, he began to learn grammar, fasted as he did before, cut off the soles of his shoes that he might walk barefoot, and cut down a man that had hanged himself, who, through his prayers “returned to life.” At Paris, in 1528, he thought fit to perfect himself in the Latin tongue, and “humanity;” then, also, he studied philosophy and divinity, and made journies into Flanders and England to beg alms of the Spanish merchants, wherewith he got together a fraternity under the name of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, whom he persuaded John III. of Portugal to send to the East Indies as missionaries. He afterwards increased the number, and retired with two of his order for forty days into a ruined and desolate hermitage without doors or windows, open on all sides to wind and rain, where they slept on the ground on a little straw, and lived by begging hard mouldy crusts, which they were obliged to steep in water before they could eat: they then went to Rome on foot, begging all the way. Before entering that city, Ignatius going into an old church alone, had, according to Ribadeneira’s account, a celestial interview of a nature that cannot be here described without violence to the feelings of the reader. After the removal of certain difficulties, the pope confirmed the order of the Jesuits, and Ignatius was unanimously elected its general. He entered upon his dignity by taking upon himself the office of cook, and doing other menial services about the house, “which he executed,” says Ribadeneira, “with that readiness and desire of contempt, that he seemed a novice employed therein for his profit and mortification: all this I myself can testify, who at that time being a youth, was a scholar and brother in the society, and every day repeated St. Ignatius’s catechism. Our blessed father St. Ignatius was general of the society fifteen years, three months, and nine days, from the 22d of April in the year 1541, until the last of July, 1556, when he departed this world.”
Ribadeneira largely diffuses on the austerities of Ignatius, in going almost naked, suffering hunger and cold, self-inflictions with a whip, hair-cloth, “and all manner of mortifications that he could invent to afflict and subdue his body.” He accounts among his virtues, that Ignatius lived in hospitals like a poor man, amongst the meanest sort of people, being despised and contemned, and desirous to be so: his desire was to be mocked and laughed at by all, and if he would have permitted himself to be carried on by the fervour of his mind, he would have gone up and down the streets almost naked, and like a fool, that the boys of the town might have made sport with him, and thrown dirt upon him. He had a singular gift of tears which he shed most abundantly at his prayers, to the great comfort of his spirit and no less damage to his body, but at length, because the doctors told him so continual an effusion did impair his health, he prayed for command over his tears, and afterwards he could shed or repress his tears as he pleased.
It is especially insisted on by Ribadeneira, that “Ignatius had a strange dominion and command over the devils, who abhorred and persecuted him as their greatest enemy. Whilst he was in his rigorous course of penance at Manresa, Satan often appeared to him in a shining and glistening form, but he discovered the enemy’s fraud and deceit. Several other times, the devil appeared to him in some ugly and foul shape, which he was so little terrified with, that he would contemptibly drive him away with his staff, like a cat, or some troublesome cur. He laboured all he could one day to terrify him, whilst he lived at Alcala, in the hospital, but he lost his labour. At Rome, he would have choked him in his sleep, and he was so hoarse, and his throat so sore, with the violence the devil offered him, that he could hardly speak for a fortnight after. Another time whilst he was in his bed, two devils fell upon him, and whipped him most cruelly, and brother John Paul Castelan, who lay nigh him, and afterwards told it me, heard the blows, and rose up twice that night to help him.” In the year 1545, the college of the society (of Jesuits) which we have at our blessed Lady’s of Loretto, was first begun, and the devils presently began to make war against our fathers in that college, and to molest and disquiet them both by day and by night, making a most terrible clatter and noise, and appearing in sundry shapes and forms, sometimes of a blackamoor, then of a cat and bear, and other beasts, and neither by saying holy mass, praying, sprinkling holy water, using exorcisms, applying relics of saints and the like, could they rid themselves of that molestation, wherefore St. Ignatius, by letters, recommended a firm and strong confidence, and that he on his part would not be wanting to recommend it in his prayers; and from that very hour, (a very remarkable thing,) all those troubles ceased, nor were there seen any more spirits. This happened whilst St. Ignatius was living.” To this, Ribadeneira adds story upon story, of women and maids being tormented by devils, who were discomfited by the mere sight of Ignatius’s picture, “which kept off all the blows and assaults of the ghostly enemy, yet so great was his malice and desire of doing mischief, that he fell furiously upon the chamber walls, and cupboards, chests, coffers, and whatsoever else was in the room, beating upon them with horrible strokes, though he never touched any box wherein was kept a picture of the saint.” He affirms, that the like happened in the year 1599, to a schoolmaster of Ancona:--“These damned spirits,” says Ribadeneira, “opened the doors of his house when they were locked, and shut them when they were left open, swept the chambers, made the beds, lighted the lamps, and then on a sudden put all into disorder and confusion, and removed things from one room into another; but when the good man had hung up a picture of our blessed father in his house, all was quiet within doors, yet a most terrible tumult there was without, for they flung to and fro the doors and windows, and beat as it were, the drum round about his house till he put more pictures of the saint upon the doors, and several parts of the house, when the molestation wholly ceased.” Of the numerous devilries raised and abolished by the saint’s holiness, these specimens may suffice.
To so distinguished and efficient a member of the Romish Church, as Ignatius, the gift of prophecy is, of course, awarded, and the power of working miracles, of necessity, follows; accordingly we find instances of them, “too numerous to mention in this particular.” It is to be expected that his relics were equally miraculous, and hence Ribadeneira’s account is seasoned sufficiently high, for the most discriminating palate of the most miracle-loving epicure. Water wherein a bit of a bone of Ignatius’s body had been dipped, cured the sick at the hospital at Burgos. The letters he wrote were preserved as relics for miraculous purposes; and a later saint carried the autograph of Ignatius about him as a relic. If one of Ignatius’s autographs be coveted in England, it may probably be discovered in the reliquary of Mr. Upcott at the London Institution.
Enough has certainly been said of St Ignatius Loyola; yet less space could hardly have been devoted to the founder of the celebrated order of the Jesuits, a body which perforates and vermiculates through every part of the civilized world wherein the Romish religion predominates, or has ever prevailed. Concerning the present state of an order, composed of men of talent under a vow of poverty; devoted to the papacy, and possessing more wealth than any other catholic fraternity; wearing or not wearing a habit to distinguish them from ordinary citizens in catholic and protestant countries, as may suit their private purposes; prowling unknown, and secretly operating; there can be little gathered, and therefore little to communicate. The coexistence of a free government and a free press is a sure and safe defence from all their machinations.
One circumstance, however, related by all the biographers of Ignatius, must not be forgotten. It stands in Ribadeneira’s life of him thus: “As he was sitting one day upon the steps of St. Dominick’s church, and reading our blessed lady’s office with much devotion, our Lord on a sudden illustrated his understanding, and represented to him a figure of the most blessed trinity, which exteriourly expressed to him what interiourly God gave him to understand. This caused in him so great comfort and spiritual joy, that he could not restrain his sobs and tears, nor speak of any thing but this holy mystery, delivering the high conceit he had of it with so many similitudes and examples, that all who heard him were amazed and astonished, and from that time forward, this ineffable mystery was so imprinted in his soul, that he writ a book of this profound matter which contained fourscore leaves, though at that time he had never studied, and could but only read and write; and he always retained so clear and distinct a knowledge of the trinity of persons, of the divine essence, and of the distinction and propriety of the persons, that he noted in a treatise which was found after his death, written in his own hand, that he could not have learnt so much with many years’ study.” This pretended revelation with figments equally edifying has employed the pencil of the painter. Rubens has left a well-known picture representing Ignatius in his rapture. From a fine print of it, by Bolswert, the engraving at the head of this article has been taken; the picture is in the collection at Warwick Castle.
* * * * *
FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Great Mullen. _Verbuscum Virgatum._ Dedicated to _St. Ignatius_.
[235] Butler’s Saints.
The eighth was August, being rich array’d In garment all of gold downe to the ground: Yet rode he not, but led a lovely mayd Forth by the lily hand, the which was crown’d With eares of corne, and full her hand was found. That was the righteous Virgin, which of old Liv’d here on earth, and plenty made abound; But after wrong was lov’d, and justice solde, She left th’ unrighteous world, and was to heav’n extoll’d.
August is the eighth month of the year. It was called Sextilis by the Romans, from its being the sixth month in their calendar, until the senate complimented the emperor Augustus by naming it after him, and through them it is by us denominated August.
Our Saxon ancestors called it “_Arnmonat_, (more rightly _barn-moneth_,) intending thereby the then filling of their barnes with corne.”[236] _Arn_ is the Saxon word for harvest. According to some they also called it _Woedmonath_, as they likewise called June.[237]
The sign of the zodiac entered by the sun this month is Virgo, the Virgin. Spenser’s personation of it above is pencilled and engraved by Mr. Samuel Williams.
“Admire the deep beauty of this allegorical picture,” says Mr. Leigh Hunt. “Spenser takes advantage of the sign of the zodiac, the Virgin, to convert her into Astrea, the goddess of justice, who seems to return to earth awhile, when the exuberance of the season presents enough for all.”
Mr. Leigh Hunt notes in his _Months_, that,--“This is the month of harvest. The crops usually begin with rye and oats, proceed with wheat, and finish with peas and beans. Harvest-home is still the greatest rural holiday in England, because it concludes at once the most laborious and most lucrative of the farmer’s employments, and unites repose and profit. Thank heaven there are, and must be, seasons of some repose in agricultural employments, or the countryman would work with as unceasing a madness, and contrive to be almost as diseased and unhealthy as the citizen. But here again, and for the reasons already mentioned, our holiday-making is not what it was. Our ancestors used to burst into an enthusiasm of joy at the end of harvest, and appear even to have mingled their previous labour with considerable merry-making, in which they imitated the equality of the earlier ages. They crowned the wheat-sheaves with flowers, they sung, they shouted, they danced, they invited each other, or met to feast, as at Christmas, in the halls of rich houses; and what was a very amiable custom, and wise beyond the commoner wisdom that may seem to lie on the top of it, every one that had been concerned, man, woman, and child, received a little present--ribbons, laces, or sweatmeats.
“The number of flowers is now sensibly diminished. Those that flower newly are nigella, zinnias, polyanthuses, love-apples, mignionette, capsicums, Michaelmas daisies, auriculus, asters, or stars, and China-asters. The additional trees and shrubs in flower are the tamarisk, altheas, Venetian sumach, pomegranates, the beautiful passion-flower, the trumpet-flower, and the virgin’s bower, or clematis, which is such a quick and handsome climber. But the quantity of fruit is considerably multiplied, especially that of pears, peaches, apricots, and grapes. And if the little delicate wild flowers have at last withdrawn from the hot sun, the wastes, marshes, and woods are dressed in the luxuriant attire of ferns and heaths, with all their varieties of green, purple, and gold. A piece of waste land, especially where the ground is broken up into little inequalities, as Hampstead-heath, for instance, is now a most bright as well as picturesque object; all the ground, which is in light, giving the sun, as it were, gold for gold. Mignonette, intended to flower in the winter, should now be planted in pots, and have the benefit of a warm situation. Seedlings in pots should have the morning sunshine, and annuals in pots be frequently watered.
“In the middle of this month, the young goldfinch broods appear, lapwings congregate, thistle-down floats, and birds resume their spring songs:--a little afterwards flies abound in windows, linnets congregate, and bulls make their shrill autumnal bellowing; and towards the end the beech tree turns yellow,--the first symptom of approaching autumn.”
The garden blooms with vegetable gold, And all Pomona in the orchard glows, Her racy fruits now glory in the sun, The wall-enamour’d flower in saffron blows, Gay annuals their spicy sweets unfold, To cooling brooks the panting cattle run: Hope, the forerunner of the farmer’s gain, Visits his dreams and multiplies the grain.
More hot it grows; ye fervours of the sky Attend the virgin--lo! she comes to hail Your sultry radiance.--Now the god of day Meets her chaste star--be present zephyr’s gale To fan her bosom--let the breezes fly On silver pinions to salute his ray; Bride of his soft desires, with comely grace He clasps the virgin to his warm embrace.
The reapers now their shining sickles bear A band illustrious, and the sons of Health! They bend, they toil across the wide champaign, Before them Ceres yields her flowing wealth; The partridge-covey to the copse repair For shelter, sated with the golden grain, Bask on the bank, or thro’ the clover run Yet safe from fetters, and the slaughtering gun.
[236] Verstegan.
[237] Dr. F. Sayers.
~August 1.~
_St. Peter ad Vincula_, or St. Peter’s chains. _The seven Machabees_, Brothers, with their Mother. _Sts. Faith, Hope, and Charity_. _St. Etholwold_, Bp. A. D. 984. _St. Pellegrini_, or _Peregrinus_, A. D. 643.
_St. Peter ad Vincula, or the Feast of St. Peter’s chains._
The Romish church pretending to possess one of the chains wherewith Peter was bound, and from which the angel delivered him, indulges its votaries with a festival in its honour on this day. “Pagan Rome,” says Alban Butler, “never derived so much honour from the spoils and trophies of a conquered world, as christian Rome receives from the corporal remains of these two glorious apostles, (Peter and Paul,) before which the greatest emperors lay down their diadems, and prostrate themselves.” Be it observed, that the papacy also pretends to possess the chains of Paul: pope Gregory writing to the empress Constantia tells her he will quickly send her some part of Paul’s chains, if it be possible for him to file any off;--“for,” says Gregory, “since so many frequently come begging a benediction from the chains, that they may receive a little of the filings thereof, therefore a priest is ready with a file; and when _some_ persons petition for it, presently in a moment something is filed off for them from the chains; but when _others_ petition, though the file be drawn a great while through the chains, yet cannot the least jot be got off.” Upon this, bishop Patrick says,--“One may have leave to ask, why should not this miraculous chain of St. Paul have a festival appointed in memory of it, as well as that of St. Peter? you may take Baronius’s answer to it till you can meet with a better.” Baronius, the great Romish luminary and authority in the affairs of papal martyrs, relics, and miracles, says,--“Truly the bonds of St. Peter seem not without reason to be worshipped, though the bonds of the other apostles are not: for it is but fit, that since he has the chief power in the church of binding and loosing other men’s bonds, that his bonds also should be had in honour of all the faithful.” This is a sufficing reason to the believers in the “binding and loosing” according to the gloss put upon that power by Romish writers.
The empress Eudocia is affirmed to have brought the two chains of St. Peter from Jerusalem, in the year 439, one whereof she gave to a church in Constantinople, and sent the other to Rome, where the old lady’s chain has yielded, or not yielded, to the raspings of the file from time immemorial. This chain was pleased to part with some of its particles to the emperor Justinian, who sent ambassadors begging to the pope for a small portion. “The popes,” says Butler, “were accustomed to send the filings as precious relics to devout princes--they were often instruments of miracles--and the pope himself rasped them off for king Childebert, and enclosed them in a golden _key_ to be hung about the neck.” Childebert, no doubt, experienced its aperient qualities. They would be very serviceable to the papal interest at this period.
_Gule of August._
The first day of August is so called. According to Gebelin, as the month of August was the first in the Egyptian year, it was called Gule, which being latinized, makes Gula, a word in that language signifying throat. “Our legendaries,” says Brand, “surprised at seeing this word at the head of the month of August, converted it to their own purpose.” They made out of it the feast of the daughter of the tribune Quirinus, who they pretend was cured of a disorder in the throat, (Gula,) by kissing the chain of St. Peter on the day of its festival. Forcing the _Gule_ of the Egyptians into the _throat_ of the tribune’s daughter, they instituted a festival to _Gule_ upon the festival-day of _St. Peter ad Vincula_.
_Lammas-day._
So stands the first of August in our English almanacs, and so it stands in the printed _Saxon Chronicle_. “Antiquaries,” says Brand, “are divided in their opinions concerning the origin of _Lammas_-Day; some derive it from Lamb-Mass, because on that day the tenants who held lands under the cathedral church in York, which is dedicated to St. Peter ad Vincula, were bound by their tenure to bring a live lamb into the church at high mass: others derive it from a supposed offering or tything of lambs at this time.” Various other derivations have been imagined. Blount, the glossographer, says, that Lammas is called Hlaf-Mass, that is Loaf-Mass, or Bread-Mass, which signifies a feast of thanksgiving for the first fruits of the corn. It was observed with bread of new wheat, and in some places tenants are bound to bring new wheat to their lord, on, or before, the first of August. New wheat is called Lammas-Wheat. Vallancey affirms that this day was dedicated, in Ireland, to the sacrifice of the fruits of the soil; that _La-ith-mas_ the day of the obligation of grain, is pronounced La-ee-mas, a word readily corrupted to Lammas; that _ith_, signifies all kinds of grain, particularly wheat, and that _mas_ signifies fruit of all kinds, especially the acorn, whence the word mast.[238] From these explications may easily be derived the reasonable meaning of the word Lammas.
JULIET, CAPULET, AND PETRARCH.
_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._
Sir,
As in your little calendar of worthy observancies you sometimes notice the birthdays of those whom we most desire, and who most deserve to be remembered, and as I am one, who like yourself, am unwilling any thing should be forgotten, or trodden down under the feet of thoughtless and passing generations, that has pleasant speculation in it, pray remember that on the first day of August, Francisco Petrarca was born.--But remember also, that on that same day, in 1578, was born _our_ Juliet Capulet. “On Lammas eve at night shall she be _fourteen_. That shall she, marry; I remember it well. ’Tis since the earthquake now _eleven years_, an’ she was weaned.” Shakspeare’s characters, as we all know, be they of what country or of what age they may, speak as an Englishman would have done in his own times, and the earthquake here referred to was felt in 1580. That Juliet, _our_ Juliet, should have been born on the very same day as Petrarch was certainly accidental; yet it is a coincidence worth observing; and if a calendar of birthdays be to recall pleasant recollections, over “our chirping cups,” why may not Juliet be remembered, and her sweetly poetical existence be associated with the reality of Petrarca’s life. And where is the difference? Petrarca is,
nor hand nor foot Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man.