elsewhere, and intended for Grecian architecture, with sculpture that would have disgraced the most barbarous period of the middle ages; and consider that these arts were in their perfection in other parts of Europe. But the religion adopted by England was not only, in its nature, hostile to their progress, but proved an effectual bar to their introduction by foreign artists. For while it was a matter of drawing, hanging, and quartering, to deny the king's supremacy, or to worship the saints, there was not much chance of Italian artists, who received liberal encour agement in France and Spain, crossing the seas to teach or practise the arts, at the risk of either their faith or their necks. We are not, indeed, acquainted with a single great inspiration of the sublime or the beautiful in art, for which the world is indebted to Protestantism. Even St. Paul's, avowed copy as it is, betrays its incapacity to conceive a great original thought. The system of arches separating the nave from the aisles was retained, as we have seen, from the necessity or propriety of giving entrance to lateral chapels; in St. Paul's there are no chapels, and the rules of classical architecture have been departed from, without a plea of fitness to excuse it. The dome in St. Peter's is raised over the high altar; it is a sublime canopy to that great concentrating object; it raises the eyes and thoughts to heaven, when kneeling beneath it what meaning has that of the London cathedral? It is situated out of the precincts devoted to worship, it overshadows nothing holier than the statues of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Howard, perhaps the tomb of its architect*; and we believe it more celebrated from containing a whispering gallery, which may be visited for a shilling, than from any religious impression that it makes! One concluding word of advice to Catholics. Let them profit by Mr. Pugin's book. Let them ever remember that good taste is a prerogative of their religion, that the arts are its handmaids, and that they will have to make a reckoning with posterity. We cannot be expected to compete with our forefathers in splendour of dimension or of decoration; but we may imitate them in good taste. Let no individual follow his own caprices in buildings consecrated to God, and belonging to his religion. * St. Peter's is the tomb of the apostles: an inscription in St. Paul's tells us that it is the tomb of Sir C. Wren! This inscription, which occupies the most prominent situation in the church, is often instanced as bordering upon sublimity: to us it is at least profane, and in miserable taste. Of the greatest ancient Christian works the architect is unknown: neither Bramante nor Michelangiolo has left his name recorded anywhere in St. Peter's; wherever any such records appear in ancient churches, as at Pisa, they are either outside the church, or placed on the cornice, or some other place where they can least attract notice. Let us have nothing that can be mistaken for a dissenter's meeting-house on one side, nor for a profane building on the other; but let all our churches be so constructed, that no Catholic may pass them without an act of reverence, and no Protestant without a look of admiration. ART. V.-Histoire de Sainte Elizabeth de Hongrie, Duchesse de Thuringe. (1207-1231.) Par Le Comte de Montalembert, Pair de France. Paris. 1836. N perusing the various works which come under our hand, in our duty as reviewers, our feelings must vary according to their character. We speak not at present of such as stir up indignant and unpleasant emotions: the volume before us banishes the thought of all such from our minds. But, in turning over pages of more agreeable nature, sometimes we may be astonished at the erudition displayed by the writer-sometimes we may rather admire his sagacity and genius; some books may convey to us a high opinion of his moral qualities, and others make us long for his acquaintance as a man of amiable and virtuous character. Seldom, however, has it been our lot to experience the peculiar feelings which have accompanied the perusal of the work now on our table: feelings more akin to jealousy than to any other we have described. It was not the research, nor the rich poetical genius, nor the deep religious tone, nor the eloquent language of its youthful author, conspicuous and admirable as all these qualities are, which rivetted our attention, or secured our sympathy, it was the sincere love, the enthusiastic devotion, with which his task has been undertaken and accomplished, that has made us, so to speak, envy him the days and the years which he has spent upon its performance. So pure must have been the heart and soul while occupied with the sainted object of their spiritual affections; so closed must the feelings have been against the rude materialities of life in this sear generation, while inhaling the healthy freshness of a greener age; so full of delicious meditation, of varied hope, and of conscious success, must his pilgrimage have been, as he strayed from town to town, in thoughtful simple-hearted Germany, to cull traditions yet living in the memories of the people, or discover mouldy records in its libraries; in fine, so full of content and peace must life have seemed, while thus passed, in spite of many a trial which needed strong consolation, that gladly would we exchange many of our barren years for but a few so joyfully and yet so usefully spent. But we are forgetting, that as yet we have presented neither our author nor his book to the reader, beyond the mere ceremony of announcing their names at the head of our article; and we have been writing as though we believed him possessed of the same happiness as ourselves, of personal acquaintance with both. The best account we can give of the writer, will be our notice of his work; for his character is imprinted on every page. A few brief preliminaries will therefore suffice. The Count de Montalembert is not a visionary, who has centred his studies and meditations upon by-gone ages, to the neglect of duties required by the present. As a peer of France he has been found at his post, once indeed, in earlier days, at its bar, to plead the rights of Christian education against the barbarous monopoly of a semi-infidel university; and since, in his place, to unite the applause of all parties at his noble and eloquent vindication of ecclesiastical rights, outraged in the person of the Archbishop of Paris.__ Versed, and even fluent, in almost every language of civilized Europe; connected with our own country as well as with France by ties of blood; with Belgium by more recent domestic bonds; with Italy and Germany by repeated visits, during which he has imbibed from the one the spirit of Christian art, from the other that of Christian philosophy; with Poland by an enthusiastic admiration of its struggle for liberty against its tyrant, as well as a rare acquaintance with its literature; he is not as one asleep, nor as one walking in dreams amidst his generation, but is as able to understand its wants and their remedies, as any who will perhaps consider that time lost for public purposes, which is not spent in planning rail-roads, or discussing the budget. In England, it will be probably imagined by many, that a peer who could think of writing a saint's life must be a bigot and a Bourbonist, to say no worse. Now M. De Montalembert is neither he attaches not the happiness of his country to the augury of a name; he advocates the cause of rational liberty under the government that actually exists;-because he considers true liberty as based upon a religious, a Catholic principle, which should predominate under every form of government, and is the unalienable right of every Christian people. But let him speak for himself, at the conclusion of his beautiful introduction, of which we shall say no more just now. "It would give us pain, were it to be thought, in consequence of what we have said, that we are blind enthusiasts for the middle ages, that we consider them in every respect admirable, enviable, and blame less, and fancy that, in the age wherein we live, the nations may not * * But as "Such are the thoughts which have inspired us while writing the life of Elizabeth of Hungary, who loved much and suffered much, but in whom religion purified every affection, and comforted every grief. To our brethren in the faith we present this book, alien, both by its subject and its form, from the spirit of the times in which we live.' But the simplicity, the humility, and the charity, whereof we would recount the marvels, are, like the God that inspires them, above all claims of time or place. May this our labour only bear into some souls, simple or sorrowing, a reflection of those sweet emotions which we, in writing it, have experienced; may it rise towards the throne of God, as a weak and timid spark from that ancient Catholic flame which is not yet extinguished in all hearts."-p. cxv. These extracts will serve more than all we can say, towards disabusing any of our readers of a preventive surmise, that the author of such a work as this must be a mere dreamer, who steals from active life into the seclusion of his study, or affects a blind partiality for systems of no practical utility. And here let us indulge in a remark, that will appear almost profane in such a place, that there is more visionary inutility in the modern schemes of industriel materialism, in the plans for civilizing and bettering the condition of men in their lowest scale, according to the views of the age, than in all the desires of good and learned men to rekindle enthusiasm for the spirit of the middle ages, and even to revive its usages. The Lanark nonsense, and the Saint-Simonian madness, which pretend to improve mankind by the fuller working out of the utilitarian principles now in vogue, are more dreams than any of these, and, what is worse, are only ægri somnia, the delirious ravings of sickly phantasies, and disordered brains. But to return. We owe the present work to one of those happy combinations of circumstances, which convince the individual that is their subject, of a benevolent Providence watching over his good. Our author arrived at Marburg one 19th of November, and proceeded to examine its church, the first in which the pure pointed architecture was adopted in Germany. Though now in Lutheran hands, it was open on this day, but its only occupants were some children who played among its tombs. Such were the marks of honour that distinguished the festival of its patron saint, Elizabeth! He saw her mutilated statue upon one of the pillars of the church; he diligently studied the rich traces of early painting and carving upon its desecrated altars, representing the principal events of her life; he visited the silver shrine, now neglected in the sacristy, wherein her sacred ashes reposed, till the sacrilegious barbarity of the Reformation, in the person of one of her own descendants, tore them thence, and scattered them to the winds. Around it, he observed the stones worn hollow by the knees of pilgrims; and, having kissed these monuments of ancient piety, he resumed his thoughtful way. The image of "the dear St. Elizabeth," as she has ever been called in Germany by the people and by her biographers, and as throughout his work he has loved to call her, hovered as a sweet vision round him on his journey; he sought for records of her life, among the living as among the dead; he went as a palmer from place to place, which heretofore she had glorified by her virtues in life, and sought in the collections of ancient documents all that her age had left on record concerning her virtues. The result of his researches occupy this volume. rous Few distinguished persons of any age have found more numeor more affectionate biographers than St. Elizabeth of Hungary. The list of authorities quoted by De Montalembert, consists of thirty-eight printed, and fourteen manuscript works.* Yet, many known to have once existed, have been mislaid or destroyed. Of the writings thus enumerated, a considerable proportion were by contemporaries of our saint; some contain One of these, the MS. collection prepared by the Bollandists, contained itself fourteen different documents. |