Spencer's thoughts now seemed perpetually fluttering around the expectation of going abroad and seeing wonders. This idea comes out at most unexpected times in the journal, it forms a parenthesis in everything he considers bearing seriously upon his welfare. At one time he is disappointed in not having his brother for companion, at another he hopes his parents will not consider this trip travelling enough for him; he expects, too, that the parental reins will be slackened somewhat; and even it crosses his mind, as a kind of remote probability, that he may perchance be allowed to take a tour by himself. All that was hopeful in these day-dreams was gratified, and some of them to an extent that he was very far from imagining at the time. The great day did arrive at last; the evening before, the different branches of the family came to dine at Wimbledon, where the Earl was then staying. They were very serious, as they were going "on a formidable expedition next morning." In the morning, the different articles of luggage were sent before them on a van; and, after parting with Lords Althorp, Lyttelton, and their families, the party started for the Continent. It consisted of Lord and Lady Spencer in one carriage, George and the physician in another, and the servants in a third. They had a courier employed, Luigi Cavani, whose office it was to ride ahead of the cavalcade, and provide horses and other necessaries at the next stage. They set sail at Dover at six o'clock on the evening of the 14th September, and, after what was called a favourable passage, arrived in Calais the next morning at half-past seven o'clock. One can leave London Bridge nowadays at the time they left Dover Harbour, and be in Paris before they landed.He says in the autobiography:
"It was on the 15th of September, 1819, that we landed at Calais a day most interesting to me, as I then considered, because the first of my setting foot in a foreign land, but much more, I now must reckon, as being the first on which I trod Catholic ground and entered a Catholic church." In the journal he says: "Dr. Wilson and I walked about a little (in Calais) to the market-place and the church, both which were extraordinary to the greatest degree in my eyes. Sept. 16. We breakfasted at eight, and then started on our journey. 1st went my father and mother in their carriage with 4 horses; 2ndly. Dr. Wilson and I in a hiredcalèchewith two horses. 3rd. Drewe and the maids, in one with three horses; and last, thefourgon, with 3. This was the order of march. I was amused extremely by the difference of this and our English posting. The appearance of the postilions is so new to me, as they crack their long whips over their heads, and the little horses with their rope harness look so mean. Luigi rode post to order horses and manage everything for us, and was always found waiting at every relay."
We quote this in full to give an idea of how noblemen travelled in the not very olden time. If George was much surprised at the church in Calais, his wonder knew no bounds when he entered the Cathedral in Amiens, and saw "Mass performed by separate Priests at different Altars, and people at each." This is a mystery to Protestants who see Catholic rites for the first time. They are taught to look upon true worship as consisting in the meaning of some well-written sentences, pronounced with emphatic unction, and responded to with some degree of fervour. The service, the fine old psalms, anthems, and collects of the Prayer-Book, issuing forth in melodious accents from the lips of a God-fearing man, is about the highest kind of public worship they can have any notion of. The sermon is first with some, second with others; but whatever place the peculiar excellence of the preacher, and the effects of it on a given occasion, may gain in the heart of an individual, it may be taken for granted that the service comes before the sermon in the abstract. But service and sermon must be heard, andlistened to, and understood. With this idea in their minds, and accustomed to see the minister assume a manner and mien calculated to produce prayerful thoughts in his congregation, they are surprised, if not shocked, at the Catholic Mass. They find the Priest hurrying off through Latin prayers, and producing breathless attention by his own silence; they see him arrayed in unintelligible attire, moving one way and another, bowing, genuflecting, standing still, or blessing. They scarcely understand a word or gesture, and feel perfectly sure that the old woman who beats her breast and counts her beads by the side of their staring effrontery is as much in the dark as themselves, if not more. They have seen one evidence more of the humbug of Popery, and bless God that Cranmer procured them another ritual. It is not our object to explain Catholic mysteries, but it may be as well to hint that if a stranger to Jerusalem happened to wander to Calvary on the great day of the Crucifixion, and believed in the divinity of the Victim who hung upon the Cross, he would find more devotion in kneeling in silence at His feet, than in listening to the most eloquent declamation he could hear about it. Such is the case with the Catholic now as then; he knows the same Victim is offered up still, and when the great moment arrives in the middle of the Mass, he would have everything to be hushed and silent, except the little bell that gives him notice of the awful moment. A reason why there should be people at the different altars lies in this: that there is the same Sacrifice on each, and one may happen to come into the church at a time when it would be more convenient to hear Mass at some one place than at another. The course of their journey lay through Paris, which they entered from St. Denis by Montmartre. They remained some days there to see Notre Dame, and Paris from its summit, admire the length of the Louvre, and visit Fontainebleau. In the course they took by Auxerre, Maison Neuve, Dijon, Poligny, and Morey, in order to cross Mount Jura and to see Mont Blanc on their way to Switzerland, they have to endure many privations. The inns are bad, the cooking is inferior, and they have to undergo discomforts while sleeping inthechâletsof mountaineers, who were not accustomed to have their quiet invaded by such state visits every day. All this they bore manfully until they arrived in Geneva, which they find "crammed with English." It strikes George as extraordinary that the Genevese should have their shops in the top story of their houses. He misses the morning service in the Calvinist Church on Sunday; thinks their afternoon function very like the Scotch, and sensible. He gives vent to his indignation at finding "a number of blackguard fellows playing cards and smoking, publicly, at a cafe, whilst there were only twenty at church." He is disappointed, therefore, at not finding Geneva the devout, religious place he imagined it to be. He sees a few of the sights with Dr. Wilson, and they cross the Lago Maggiore in a boat, whilst the rest of the company go round it by land. They all meet together in Milan; there they find Lord Lucan. He goes to see theDuomo, Brera,theatres; and admires the fine streets, shops, &c., and says the Cathedral is unique. He had the pleasure of meeting the famous Angelo, afterwards Cardinal, Mai at the Ambrosian Library. He went to the Cathedral on Saturday to seeMass performed, and was disappointed at not hearing the organ. He had, however, quite enough of the rite on Sunday, October 17th:—
"At 10½ I went to theDuomo, and got into a little gallery over the choir, from whence I saw the ceremonies for the anniversary of the consecration of the church. There was a procession all round the building, with incense burning, and with the Priests singing anthems all the time, and a quantity ofother mummery, the sight of which might well have driven Calvin to the extremities which he went to in the contrary way. The whole service is always in Latin, so that the people may not reap even the smallest benefit from it."
We shall give another extract from the journal, as it shows the state of his mind at the time:—
"This day completes the second year of my journal. How quick are they flown! those two years which are supposed to be the happiest in life. I think any time in life is happy if one knows the secret of makingit so. I have not learnt it yet, and have had a great deal of unhappiness since going to College. But for what? Nothing but my own imagination and weaknesses, for everything which generally gives happiness I have enjoyed. I have made several friends, been successful enough in my College studies, and have never wanted anything; but I have a morbid constitution which makes me raise phantoms of unhappiness where there is none, and clouds the fairest scenes with a veil of melancholy. This must be conquered, somehow or other, or I shall be a creature useless to others and tormenting to myself."
He feels much distaste at what he terms the dirty style in which an Italian gentleman chooses to live, because that gentleman finds himself quite comfortable without such furniture and appliances as are deemed essential in England. He happened to be a man fond of books, and spent his spare time in libraries and academies.
The travellers leave Milan after a fortnight's stay, and proceed through Placentia, Parma, Modena, and Bologna. Here the celebrated Cardinal Mezzofanti called upon them, and Spencer remarks that the only thing worth seeing, as far as he has gone, in Italy, are churches and their ornaments. He singled out one of those latter for special remark, as we find by the following passage:—
"Oct. 30.At nine o'clock Dr. Wilson's friend, a lawyer, took him and me up to a church on the mountain, near the town, famous for a picture—done, as they say, by St. Luke! There is a fine arcade to it for 2½ miles, and pilgrims go by this to adore this nonsense!"
Their next stay is at Florence, where he had the ill-luck of not providing against mosquitoes, who took the liberty of biting him heartily the first night he slept there. News reaches him next day that a great friend of his at Cambridge, a Mr. Gambler, has obtained a fellowship in Trinity. This makes him merry all the evening. They halt again for some rest at Perugia. All he says about this classic town is, "Before breakfast the Doctor and I saw a gallery of frightful old pictures, and othermaravigliaofPerugia, and then set off, still through mountainous country, to Spoleto. They start for Rome next day, they see it fifteen miles off, but he does not seem to have had a single spark of enthusiasm as he looks upon the great mistress of the world for the first time. Of course Rome, as the capital of Christendom, was not likely to stir up his best feelings, when we remember the then frame of his religious mind. At all events, cold and listless as it might be, he entered Rome on Wednesday, the 10th November, 1819. The first thing he and his father with the Doctor did on arriving, was to pay a visit to St. Peter's. "We saw it inside and out. It was most glorious: but its size from some reason or other disappoints me, as it does all strangers; it improves upon acquaintance, I fancy." How like Byron's opinion. "Childe Harold:" Canto iv. 65:—
"Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;And why? it is not lessened: but thy mind,Expanded by the Genius of the spot,Has grown colossal, and can only findA fit abode wherein appear enshrinedThy hopes of immortality; and thouShalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,See thy God face to face, as thou dost nowHis Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by His brow."
He visits next the Capitoline, the ancient Forum, and the Coliseum; he remarks: "this last is quite stupendous, and quite answers my expectations. I could not yet understand the plan of the staircases and seats.The Pope has stuck it all over with little chapels." He meets Tom Moore, and spends a day with him and other merry companions in Tivoli.
He stayed in Rome this time only a week: for on the 17th November they all started for Naples. In passing through Terracina he meets what Catholics will recognize as asvegliarino. It is customary, when a mission is being given in some parts of Italy, for one of the missioners to go out, accompanied by a bell, and such companions, lay and clerical, as wish to take part in the ceremony, goaround the village, and preach from a table in three or four different places. This has a remarkable effect—the listless loungers who prefer basking in the sun, or swallowing maccaroni, to going to the church for the sermons, are thus roused so far as to put their heads out of the window or door and ask what's the matter. By-and-bye the crowd thickens, one looks inquisitively at the other, and when their curiosity has been worked upon sufficiently, the missioner gets up, and in a fiery zealous discourse puts the fear of God into his hearers. Thousands are brought to repentance by these means every year. The sermon, of course, is not a polished oration, with points of rhetoric to suit the laws of criticism. It is rather broken and inflamed, short and telling sentences, and delivered with all that unction and impetuosity for which Italians are remarkable; and which is anything but intelligible to an Englishman, who is accustomed to the measured discourses of a London Churchman. Accordingly we find this proceeding thus dotted down in the journal:—"At Terracina we were very muchamusedby a procession of penitents with the Bishop of Terracina, and an extravagant sermon preached by a priest from a table before the inn." At that time, how little could he foresee that he should afterwards give such a mission in Italy himself, and further, to the utmost of his power, with equal zeal, though with more sedateness, even such anextravaganza, as it now appeared to him. His style of preaching, however, as we shall hereafter see, was never such as to qualify him for an emphaticsvegliarino.
On November 21 they arrive in Naples, not very pleasantly, as Lady Spencer had suffered from the roughness of the road, and was obliged to rest a night in Capua, and George was suffering from a soreness in his eye. These inconveniences were forgotten for a moment on meeting Lord George Quin and his lady, daughter to Lord Spencer. Young Spencer was delighted with the children, though they could only speak French or Italian. The soreness of his eye keeps him at home next day, which he enjoys as he has full opportunity of chatting with his sister, whom heseems to have loved very much. He has already alluded to the plan his mother formed for his learning to play on the guitar; so we shall not quote any of the handsome greetings which the guitar-master receives as he comes to inflict the penance of making his pupil tune the strings of this romantic instrument.
The English who wintered in Naples at the same time with the Spencer family seemed to have formed, as they generally do, a special caste. They dined together, drove out together, they laughed at the churches, and crowded the opera. Their conduct in the latter place did not seem to be very edifying to the Neapolitans, who, perhaps, may have thought it was an English custom to see a nobleman "tumbling tipsy one night into Earl Spencer's box," to the no small disedification of the whole family, who were models of sobriety and decorum. The English, by forming their own circles in this exclusive manner, and by their external deportment on various occasions, keep away the higher and more pious grades of society in Catholic cities. The scoffers at monachism and priestly rule are freely admitted within the English pale, and pay for their hospitality, by catering to the worst prejudices of their entertainers, and maligning their neighbours. It is very often a repetition of the fable of the sour grapes. For this we have ample testimony in the writings of our contemporaries, which we will strengthen by quoting Father Ignatius's own words a little later. The better Italians sometimes laugh at all this, so that John Bull is become a by-word among them for exclusiveness and arrogant, selfish pride. The blame lies with the English.
They sometimes found disagreeable incidents from the clashing of tastes and customs. On the 8th of December they made the round of the churches, but were sorely piqued that the Neapolitans had too much respect for our Blessed Lady to open the operas and theatres on the eveningof the Feast of her Immaculate Conception, so they had to content themselves with whist, and discordant notes from George's guitar. Another of these crosses occurred a few days after. George made a lame excursion to Vesuvius, and when groaning from toothache on his return, heard that the father of his bosom friend, Sir Thomas Fremantle, senior, was dead. To make matters worse, the remains could not be interred in a cemetery, and theInglesihad to pay the last sad rites to their friend in a private garden. On Christmas Day they had service at the Consul's, and then they walked about, and had their whist for the rest of the day. The old year was danced out at a grand quadrille party, of which more hereafter; and George tells us very carefully that "a set of us drank in the new year indiavolone." How remarkable, at every turn, and even by such chance and off-hand expressions, to note the contrast between the George Spencer of that day and the subject of divine grace he afterwards became!
It is a relief to begin the new year 1820 with recording an exception made to the general custom above. George was presented by his father to King Ferdinand, and all thenobili Inglesiwere invited to join in the festivities with which it was customary to usher in the new year. For the rest, the evenings and early part of the mornings are spent in a continual whirl of amusement, and it would require a page to number up the balls and dances he figured in. He visits also the Carthusian and Camaldolese monasteries, but makes no comments. He goes two or three times to see Vesuvius and the crater and the lava, of which he gives a very nice description; after this he is allowed, by special favour, to be at the Royal chase: this puts him in great humour, for, besides the sport it afforded in the way of getting shots at such choice game as wild boars, it gave him an opportunity of seeing the "King and all his court, to which nothing can be similar."
Towards the end of January, Lord and Lady Spencer determined on returning to England, and offered to leave George to travel through the sights of Southern Italy. He perceives, in a few days, the tokens of an inclination in hisparents to have his company, and goes straightway to the Honourable Augustus Barrington, who was to be his fellow-traveller, and breaks off the plan they had formed. It was only after very pressing instances from his father and mother that he could be persuaded to take up the first plan anew. A portion of his autobiography will throw some light upon many things we have only just touched upon, and, therefore, it is better to quote it here, though it might come in more opportunely at the conclusion of his first tour abroad.
"It is extraordinary, indeed, that I should have remained a whole year on the Continent and never once have seriously taken into consideration the subject of the Catholic religion. Such was the case; and I returned to England, as far as I can remember, without one doubt having crossed my mind whether this was the true religion or not. ...
And now for a little recollection of the state of my mind during this period of travelling, and its moral effects upon me. During all this time I continued, thank God, wholly convinced that a course of iniquity would not answer; and had I met with any among the young men, my associates, who would have dared to speak out fully in favour of morality, I should, I believe, have been ready to agree with him. But where were such to be found? I had now grown so far more independent of the world, that I had not open assaults to bear continually against for not running with the rest. Many of the young men who maintained their character as free licentious livers, yet professed some degree of moderation and restraint in their indulgences. Some I remember, who professed to keep clear of immoral practices, and no doubt their sincerity in this might be depended on; for where no credit but dishonour would be the reward of steady conduct, there was no temptation to pretend to it falsely. But I remember now but one who dared to allude in my hearing—and that was but once, I think, in private—to the consequence of this sin in another world, and to maintain that it was better to avoid it for fear of punishment hereafter. While, then, I still knew that the way of evil was all wrong, and would have been most happy if the fashion of wickedness could have been atan end; and though I never once, as far as I know, was the first to introduce immodest conversation, and hardly ever heard it introduced by others without inward repugnance, and seldom joined in it; yet I never dared declare how much I hated it, and was still in the most awful and desperate state of wishing I had been like the worst, sooner than be thus subject to the torment of being put to shame before bold profligates. While with my parents, I have before said, I was under good surveillance, and could not think of being detected by them in any evil. How shall I ever be thankful enough for all this? My father's character was such that though many who were often in his company were men whom I have known, when out of it, to delight in most abominable things, I knew of none who ever dared in his sight to do more than covertly allude to them. I was therefore happy in this respect whenever he was near; but when once more left to myself, I again returned to those fearful deliberations of which I have before spoken of, as it were, selling myself, for a time at least, to work wickedness without restraint. It may be well conceived how miserably fallen and corrupt must have been my heart when such purposes were entertained within it; and if, partly through some remains of the holy impressions of my childhood, which still operated on my poor, degraded heart as a kind of habit not yet quite worn off; partly by a sense of the shame and misery I should have before my family and some more whom I knew in the world, who would be themselves most afflicted if they heard of my fall from the good dispositions which they had known in me; partly from a fear of ridicule, even from the profligate, if, after all, I was to fell; partly by the wonderful providence of God, which (I acknowledge) most wisely and most tenderly, yet strongly interposed at times to baffle the madness of my designs when about to be accomplished—if, I say, thus I have been in a degree preserved, God knows I have no credit due to me: God knows that from my heart I take only shame and confusion of face to myself in the remembrance, of my very preservation. Towards the latter part of my stay abroad, I began to be in some way weary of this uncertain state of mind. Iwas always expecting to take Orders when I should reach the age; and as I knew that then I should not be expected by the world to join in its fashionable vices, and should even suffer in public estimation if I did, my thoughts began to be rather better directed, and I took pains from time to time to overcome some of the evil that was in me."
"It is wonderful that any good disposition should have lived within me, when every remembrance of religion seems to have been put out of my mind. I now could hardly understand how this should have indeed been the case, if I had not a clear remembrance of certain circumstances which plainly show what was the state of my mind. On the 27th January, 1820, I went up Mount Vesuvius with Dr. Wilson, when, as we were looking into the crater of the volcano, a discharge of red-hot stones took place. I heard them whistle by me as they ascended, and though it was of no use to attempt to get out of the way, I hurried back a few steps by a natural impulse, and immediately saw a lump of red-hot stuff twice the size of one's head fall on the spot where I had been standing just before. We immediately ran down the side of the mountain, and reached a place about a quarter of a mile distant from the mouth of the crater, from whence we could see the upper cone of the mountain. Just then a grand explosion took place, which shook the whole mountain, and a vast quantity of these masses of fiery red stuff was spouted out from the crater, which in its return appeared entirely to cover the whole space over which we had been running five minutes before. Here was an evident escape which, in a mind possessed with any religion at all, could not fail of awakening some serious reflections. Alas! I never thought of the abyss into which I must have fallen had not the good angel, who watched and guided me through so many perils which I thought not of, then preserved me. When I came down in the evening to Naples, the only effect was that I was pleased and vain at having a good adventure to relate, and showing off a spirit of bravery and indifference, when some blamed me for my rashness.
"Another circumstance I may record to show how free from all religious fear my mind was. I have before noticedthe fits of melancholy which became habitual to me during the last part of my Cambridge life. These came, I think, to their greatest height in the last half of the time I spent at Naples. The interesting excitement of our journey, the company of my sister when I first came to Naples, and the gaieties of which I had my fill there, and which at first had all the charm of novelty, kept me from much thought of any kind, and I enjoyed the balls, the concerts, the grand operas, the enchanting rides of Naples, for a month or six weeks, almost without a cloud. At least I used always to count that my brightest period in the way of enjoyments. Unhappy those who have health and spirits and talents to enable them to please and be pleased long together in such a round of vanity! To my great vexation I found myself again attacked with my old enemy, melancholy; do what I would, I could not drive away those fits of gloom. They were caused partly by the effect on my health of too much good living, and bad hours; but the chief cause was the intrinsic worthlessness of all such pleasure, which will discover itself sooner or later to every one even of its most devoted lovers, and which happily showed itself to me sooner than others. Oh! what frivolous causes did my happiness then seem to depend on! Not dancing to my satisfaction in one quadrille, fancying that some of my favourite partners were tired of my conversation, and that the nonsense of some other silly youth pleased her better, was enough to turn what I flattered myself was about to be a bright and pleasant evening into gloom and sadness. Sometimes, without an assignable cause, my spirits failed, as at others an equally frivolous reason would remove my clouds and make me bright again; but gradually the gloomy moods gained ground, and grew more dark and tedious. I remember comparing notes with another young man, who was like me a victim of the dumps, and finding some satisfaction in the sympathy of a fellow-sufferer, who, with a smile at the absurdity of such feelings, of which he was well sensible while he avowed them, exactly described to me my state of mind when he said that under them he fancied himself the most unfortunate of mankind, and would willingly havechanged places with the most despicable and wretched of men, not to say with any animal almost. Poor blind fools that we were! We could not between us suggest the way to be happy which is open to all.
"I remember well coming home one night from a ball, which, by my journal, I find to be on the 25th January, when, as I wrote at that time, I was more miserable than ever I was in that way. I went to bed, and heard a noise like a creak in the ceiling of my room. I felt a wish that it would break through and crush me. How I used to wish at that time I had the sort of bold, firm heart which appeared through some of the young manly faces which I used daily to meet—to whom low spirits was a thing unknown. I knew not that I was quarrelling with the most choice of God's mercies to me, without which I should probably have been irrevocably lost. I still, to this day, am used to the visits of my feelings of dejection, but, thank God, I know better how to receive them; and, far from wishing them away, I rather fear their departure, and desire they may never leave me. For if I have within me one bright, heavenly desire, I owe it to these feelings, which first poisoned my pleasure in the world, and drew me at length to seek for it elsewhere, and now I wish never to have peace within my breast while one desire lives there for anything but God.
"Yet that thought of wishing even to be crushed, that I might escape from my miserable feelings, shows how far I was at that time from knowing how great a cause for sorrow I really had in the state of my soul—which, if I had known it, must have driven away all imaginary griefs—nor from what quarter I should seek for happiness; and it is a wonder that it took so long a time, and so many repetitions of the same lesson, before I began to correspond with the gracious purpose of my Heavenly Teacher; of Him who was thus correcting me, that I might at length love Him, and love Him willingly. How was it that I could have lived so long without being awakened to one sentiment of religious fear? ...
"But now we must return to the Catholic Faith. The main object of this memoir being to trace the steps of myprogress towards Catholicity, it would be expected that the period of my residence for a whole year in Catholic countries must be most interesting. Indeed it is wonderful that this year of my life should have been, as it appears to me to have been, quite neutral in its effects. I certainly made no progress towards my present faith. This would not be extraordinary; for how many Protestants by their travels abroad not only make no progress towards Catholicity, but are made its violent enemies. But, undoubtedly, this was the effect produced on me. It seems that at this time I was under the influence of altogether other objects and notions from any connected with religion. What I sought was, first, my own pleasure—next, only general information; what I was chiefly controlled by was human respect. Having no care at all about religion in any form, the question of which was the right form never troubled me, and so the observations which I could not help making on the Catholic religious practices which I saw, were very superficial. It might be interesting to transcribe a few passages from my journal which show what was my mind.
"It is remarkable how easily one's mind takes in and rests contented in the belief of false and prejudicial representations of things. I never had had much pains taken with me to set me against the Catholic religion; but though I knew nothing of what it was, I rested in the conviction that it was full of superstition, and, in fact, as good as no religion at all. I never opened my mind all the time I was abroad to the admission of any idea but this; and so I looked on all the Catholic ceremonies which I saw, in this perverted light. I did not fall in the way of anyone to set me right; for I was contented to go on in the stream of the English society with which almost all the towns in Italy were filled, and if any really zealous exemplary Catholics are sometimes mingled with them, they do not find it available or prudent to introduce the mention of religion; while there will be always some who have no objection to seek to please them by encouraging their prejudices, which they do effectually by telling stories—some true, perhaps, some obviously false—of the Priests and Religious. Such a person,who bore the title of Abbate, and therefore must have been professedly a true Catholic, we fell in with at Milan; he assisted my father in his search after curious books. I remember some of his conversations, and I find notice in my journal of his dining with us, and being 'very amusing in some stories about the Catholic processions.' The impression on my mind was that the whole system of religion which we saw was mere formality, people being taught to content themselves with fulfilling some external rules, and the clergy making it their business to keep them in the dark. I took little notice of religious matters till we entered Italy. There Milan was the first town we stopped at. On the Sunday after our arrival was the anniversary of the consecration of the church. I saw the ceremonies in the Cathedral, the very place where St. Augustine's heart was moved and his conversion begun, by hearing the strains of holy music, perhaps the same which I then heard. But very different was the effect on me; here are the wise remarks inserted in my journal."[Footnote 3]
[Footnote 3: The passage is given in page 60.]
The autobiography breaks off abruptly here; but in order to fit the remarks to the events which they concern, we have kept one or two paragraphs in reserve for another place.
After staying about three months in Naples, Spencer sets out with Barrington, to travel through Sicily, on the 27th February. The voyage was very smooth until they came to Stromboli, and passed near the cave of AEolus, who "puffed at them accordingly," and delayed their landing at Messina until March 2. He goes to a ceremony in the cathedral there, and says, "the priests seem nourishing and very numerous here." On his way to Mount Etna he remarks, with a kind of incredulous air, that he went to see the lions of the five chestnuts and the bridge, which has the same legend attached to its origin as the Devil's Bridge in Wales, "dogs being, in both cases, sent over first to pay the forfeit for having built it." [Footnote 4]
[Footnote 4: The most circumstantial legend bearing upon the remark in the text is that about the Bridge of Rimini. Here there was a fearful rapid, without a stone within the distance of 70 miles that was available for building purposes. The bridge-builder of the town may or may not have had the contract; but, at all events, he set down in a confused state of mind as to how it might be done. The devil appeared to him and contracted for the building of the bridge on these easy terms—getting the first that crossed it for his own. The bargain was struck, and in the twinkling of an eye some thousands of infernal imps were scampering down the mountains with a gigantic stone on the shoulder of each. One-third of them were quite sufficient, and the arch-fiend who presided over the building cried out, that no more were wanted: when each devil threw down his load where he happened to be when the master's yell reached his ears. This is said to account for the rocks one sees strewn about near this bridge. The bridge itself is a circle, and was built in one night, and indeed some kind of infernal machine would seem necessary to remove the blocks of stone of which it is composed. Now came the trial. The Christian builder of bridges had no fancy for going to hell, and he was too charitable to send anyone else there. He bethought him of an expedient, and calling out his dog he took a small loaf, and threw it across the bridge with all his might. The dog, of course, ran after it. Whereupon the devil seized him, and in a rage flung him up to somewhere near the moon, and the dog falling from this height upon the bridge, made a hole in its only arch which cannot be filled up to this day. The legend embodies at least a specimen of the Catholic instinct: viz., the anxiety of the devil for our destruction, and how all hell thinks it cheap to turn out for a day's hard labour in the hopes of gaining one single soul.]
He chiefly lodges in convents during his rambles through Sicily, the inns being so very bad that they drive travellers away. He and his companion sleep in different convents, and are very well treated; but that scarcely evokes a word of thanks. Poor monks! they have a bad name in Protestant nations, and what would be praiseworthy in others is only an equivocal quality in them. This is very sad; that men who have bid farewell to the world should, on that very account, be considered hardly entitled to the bare rights of human beings. Yet go on, poor souls, in your vocation; your Master before you received the same treatment from the world, and you are not greater than He. Spencer meets one or two monks whom he likes pretty well—one was the superior of the Carmelites at Grirgenti. The rest he calls "stupid friars," "lazy monks," and so forth, according to the tone of mind he happens to be in. In one monastery they shut the door of the room allowed them in the face of one of the brethren, because, forsooth, they were "bored by visits from the monks." His journey does not always lie through convents, and he meets others who are not monks; one of these was a wine-merchant at Marsala, a native of England. It seems the pair of tourists were received as handsomely by their countryman as they had been by the "stupid friars," for he is thus described in the journal: "He seems to think himself commissioned to keep up the English character in a strange land, for he is a John Bull in caricature in his manner." We are also told, a little lower down, that he is very hospitable to all English who pass by that way. They had the novelty of seeing anItalian Good Friday in Marsala; the impression is thus noted:
"Friday, Mar. 31.—This was Good Friday. The first, and I hope the last, I shall spend without going to church; not that I should not like to be abroad another year. We were reminded of the day by quantities of groups representing the Passion and Crucifixion, almost as large as life, carried about on men's shoulders, which, absurd as they are, seemed to make an impression on the populace. Men dressed in black accompanied them, with crowns of thorns and crosses. It strikes me as direct idolatry, nearly. The gentry were all in mourning, and the sentinels had their muskets with the muzzles inverted. We all three (Sir H. Willoughby accompanied Barrington and Spencer) took a walk up to the top of Monte di Trapani, the ancient Eryx, where is a town of the same name. We examined what was to be seen there, and came down again to dinner. We dined at 6½, and hadsome meat, which we have not been able to get for some days, it being Passion Week." He spent Easter Sunday in Palermo, and here are his comments on its observance:
"Sunday, April 2, Easter-day.—We set off from Ahamo about 7¼. I walked on for an hour, and then rode forward all the way to Monreale, where I stopped an hour till the others came up. We then proceeded together to Palermo. In the villages we passed, the people were all out in their best clothes, which was a very pretty sight. Bells were clattering everywhere, andfeux de joiewere fired in several villages as we passed, with a row of little tubes loaded with gunpowder, in the market-places, and processions went about of people in fancy dresses with flags and drums. This religion is most extraordinary. It strikes me as impious; but I suppose it takes possession of the common people sooner than a sensible one."
He completed the tour of the island by arriving in Messina, after a most successful attempt to see Mount Etna, on the 14th of April. They left Sicily for Reggio in a boat, and arrived there "with a good ducking." They both went to visit Scylla, which was guarded as a citadel by armed peasants. The sturdy yeomen refused to admit them, whereupon George, with true English curiosity, climbed up the wall toget a peep at the sea, and perhaps inside. Scarcely had he got half-way up when he was taken prisoner by the sentinel. He was accordingly invited to visit the interior of the castle, and had to gaze at the bleak walls of its keep for an hour, until Willoughby procured his release from the commandant. They travelled on, and George does not seem to be satisfied with the people of Salerno, whom he designates as "surly and gothic." He heard his companions had to get an escort of gendarmes, to save them from robbers, all along here. Returns to Naples, April 26, delighted at being safe in life and limb; he goes to the old lodgings to a party, and reflects thus on his return: "I came home about one, rather sad with seeing the representation of what I had enjoyed in the winter—but all the people changed.Gaiety after all does not pay." This last sentence is not underlined by Spencer himself. It is done to point a moral that may be necessary for a certain class of persons. It is often supposed that monks, and the like people, paint the world blacker than it is in reality, and that it is a kind of morose sourness of disposition that makes recluses cry down the enjoyments of those outside convent-walls. This line will perhaps defend F. Ignatius from such an imputation. He wrote that after the pure natural enjoyment of scenery had been compared with the excitement of a ball-room; if he thought, in his wildness, that gaiety did not pay, no wonder that his opinion was confirmed in the quiet tameness of his after-life. A passage from the autobiography, omitted above, comes in here opportunely. He was speaking of the absence of the fear of God from his miserable mind:—
"This was almost true concerning the entire period. One occasion I will mention when I was impressed with some shame at my wretched state. While I was making the tour of Sicily, my father and mother left Naples in theRevolutionnaire, a fine frigate which had been placed at their disposal, and by which they went to Marseilles, to shorten their land journey homewards. When I returned to Naples I found a long letter from my father, full of kindness and affection for me, in which he explained to me his wishes as to the course of my journey home. This letter I believe Ihave not kept, but I remember in it a passage nearly as follows: 'As to your conduct, my dear George, I need not tell you how important it is for your future happiness and character that you should keep yourself from all evil; especially considering the sacred profession for which you are intended. But, on this subject, I have no wish concerning you but to hear that you continue to be what you have hitherto been.' 'Ah!' thought I to myself, 'how horrible is the difference between what I am and what this sentence represents me.' But worldly shame was yet more powerful in me than godly shame, and this salutary impression did not produce one good resolution."
On May 3rd, 1820, he came to Rome a second time. His first visit this time also was to St. Peter's, which, he says, "looked more superb to me than ever." He attended Cardinal Litta's funeral from curiosity, and has no remark about it worth extracting. There are two passages in the journal relating to the ceremonies of Ascension Thursday and Corpus Christi, which may be interesting as being indicative of his notions of Catholic ritual:—
"Thursday, May 11.—Got up early, and wrote till breakfast. At 9½ went off with Barrington and Ford to St. John of Lateran, where there were great ceremonies to take place for the Ascension Day. The old Pope was there, and was carried round the church blessing, with other mummeries. It was a fine sight when he knelt down and prayed (or was supposed to do so) in the middle of the church, with all the Cardinals behind him. Now this goes for nothing in comparison to what it must have been when the Pope was really considered infallible (sic). We then all went out of the church to receive the blessing, from the principal window in the façade. The Pope came to this in his chair, and performed the spreading of his hands very becomingly. The whole thing was too protracted, perhaps, to be as striking as it should; but I was not as disappointed as I expected to be. The cannonry of St. Angelo and the band certainly gave effect; and the crowd of people on the space before the church was a scene to look at."
"Thursday, June 1.—To-day is the feast of CorpusDomini, one of the greatest in the Catholic Church; so at eight we went, having breakfasted [a fact, by the bye, he seldom omits to mention], to St. Peter's, to see thefunzioni, which are very grand on this occasion. There was a great procession round thecortile—first of the religious orders, about 450 monks only; and the boys of St. Michael's Hospital, of the Collegio Romano, &c. Then came curates, and priests temporal and secular, prelates, and monsignores, the ensigns or canopies of the seven basilicas with their chapters, and the priests belonging to them following; next came bishops, then cardinals, and then the Pope, carried on four men's shoulders. He was packed up on the top of the stand with his head out alone. He seemed more dead than alive, and worse than on May 11 at S. Giovanni's. The group of people about him, with their robes and splendid mitres, made a very brilliant sight. The former part of the procession rather showed the decadence of the Church from a great height, than its present glory. After the Pope came theguardia nobile, and other soldiers, in splendid uniforms. After the procession there were functions in the Church, and a benediction from the Altar, and which I did not see so well. St. Peter's never showed so well as with a crowd of people in it, when one may estimate its dimensions from the comparison of their littleness."
This is a fair specimen of how a candid, prejudiced Protestant stares at Catholic services. He puts down as undisputed that all is absurd before he goes, and if the Man of Sin himself, the poor Pope, is in the middle of it, it rises to the very highest pitch of abomination. A man who could consider holiday attire and exultation impious on Easter Sunday, and the mourning and fasting and processions of Good Friday something worse, cannot be very well qualified to comprehend the Ascension and Corpus Christi in Rome. Catholicsdobelieve in the authority of the Pope and the power of the Keys, and also in the Real Presence; will it not follow, as a natural conclusion, that the four quarters of the globe should get its spiritual Father's blessing one day in the year, and that we should try to find out the best way of honouring our Incarnate God in the Blessed Sacrament?But consistency is not a gift one finds among Protestants, especially when they give their opinion on what they think too absurd to try to understand. They must admit the Catholic ceremonial is imposing; but then it is only to quarrel with it for being so. They can understand pageantry and pomp in honouring an earthly monarch; but does it occur to them that every best gift is from above, and that the King of kings should be honoured with every circumstance of splendour and oblation a creature can offer?
One or two of the salient points of his character come out in a few extracts we shall produce from the journal now. He says, on leaving Rome—"How delightful, and yet how melancholy, was my walk about those dear rooms at the Vatican; after next Thursday I believe I am never to see them again, so farewell to them now." This illustrates his better nature; he was very affectionate, and could love whatever was really worth loving; he was not very demonstrative of this feeling, but when it came to leave-taking, he had to give vent to it. A peculiar caste of his mind was to listen to every proposition, and weigh the reasons adduced to support it. If they were unanswerable, he at once admitted it, and, if possible, tested it by experience. This was the great key to his conversion and subsequent life. In conversation, perhaps, with a medical friend, he was told that it was far the best way, whilst on the move in travelling, neither to eat nor drink. This was supported by reasons drawn from the digestive principles, and so forth. He thought it was well proved, and could find no valid objection against it, so he determined to try it, and travelled from Rome to Sienna without tasting a morsel for forty-two hours, and says in his journal—"It is much the best way in travelling." In Florence we have other tokens of the regret with which he parts from his friends; and in the same page a very different feeling on parting with some Franciscans. These "entertained him uncommonly well for mendicants," and showed him all their treasures of art and piety with the greatest kindness; yet it did not prevent him calling them "lazy old monks" when they let him away at three o'clock in the morning.