"Is it possible," replied Apicius, "that you forget Vedius Pollio, who, since you mention my poor table, has often kindly furnished it with such lampreys as no other mortal ever reared?"
The old man, whose age was not redolent of holiness, but reeking with the peculiar aroma of a life passed in boundless and systematic self-indulgence, leered with running, bloodshot eyes, and murmured that they paid him too much honor.
"Sir, you feed your lampreys well," said Pomponius Flaccus, "in your Vesuvian villa.They eat much living, and they eat well dead."
"I assure you," said Pollio, "that nothing but humorous exaggerations and witty stories have been circulated upon that subject. I can, with the strictest accuracy, establish the statement that no human being ever died merely and simply in order that my lampreys should grow fat and luscious. On the other hand, I do not deny that if some slave, guilty of great enormities, had in any event to forfeit life, the lampreys may in such cases, perhaps, have availed themselves of the circumstance. An opportunity might then arise which they had neither caused nor contrived."
"The flavor, in other words, never was the final cause of any slave's punishment," said Lucius Piso.
"You use words, sir," said Pollio, "which are correct as to the fact, and philosophical as to the style."
"Talking of philosophy," said Apicius, "do you hold with this young Greek, this Athenian Dion who has lately visited the court, that man eats in order to live? or with me, that he lives in order to eat?"
"Horror of horrors!" murmured Flaccus, "the Athenian boy is demented."
"Whenever there is any thing to eat with you, my Apicius," said Lucius Piso, "unless there be something to drink with my Pomponius here, may I be alive to do either the one or the other."
"Why not do both?" wheezed Vedius Pollio. "Whither are you even now going?"
"To the camp for an appetite," said Pomponius Flaccus, descending the steps out of the palace hall into the street, and reeling against Paulus, who held him from staggering next against Benigna.
"What do you two want here?" he suddenly asked steadying himself.
"I am accompanying," replied Paulus, "this damsel, who comes hither by Cæsar's order."
"What Cæsar?" asked Pomponius.
"Tiberius Claudius Nero," returned Paulus.
He naturally supposed that this formal-sounding answer would have struck some awe into the curious company among whom he had so unwittingly alighted with his rustic charge.
"What!" exclaimed Pomponius Flaccus, "Biberius Caldius Mero, say you?"
Paulus started in amazement.
"Ebrius, drunk," continued Piso,ex quo—How does it go on?ex quo—"
"Ex quo," resumed Pomponius solemnly, "semel factus est."[160]
The astonishment of Paulus and Benigna knew no bounds. Was it possible that in the very precincts of Cæsar's residence for the time, at the door of an imperial palace, within hearing of two prætorian sentries, in the public street and open daylight, persons should be found, not reckless outcasts maddened by desperation, but a whole company of patricians, who, correcting each other as they might do in reciting a popular proverb, or an admired song, should speak thus of the man to whom gladiators, having not an hour to live, cried, "As we die we salute thee?" The man at whose name even courageous innocence trembled?
"I said," repeated Paulus after a pause, "Tiberius Claudius Nero."
"And I said," replied Pomponius, "Biberius Caldius Mero."
"Drunk but once," added Lucius Piso, who had evidently quite recovered from his own inebriation.
"Since ever he was so first," concluded Pomponius Flaccus.
A general laugh, in which all present joined save Paulus and Benigna, greeted this sally, and, in the midst of their hilarity an elegant open chariot of richly-sculptured bronze, the work being far more costly than the material, drawn by two handsome horses, and driven by a vigorous and expert charioteer, came swiftly down the street in the contrary direction of the camp, and stopped opposite the door.
As the horses were pulled back upon their haunches, a youth, tall, well made, and eminently graceful, sprang to the ground. He had a countenance in the extraordinary beauty of which intellect, attempered by a sweet, grave, and musing expression, played masterful and luminous. He was neatly but gravely dressed, after the Athenian fashion. The four personages at the door, who were, by the by, far more floridly arrayed, and wore various ornaments, nevertheless looked like bats among which a bird of paradise had suddenly alighted. No gayety of attire could cover the unloveliness of their minds, lives, and natures, nor could the plainness of his costume cause the new-comer to be disregarded or mistaken anywhere. In the whole company Lucius Piso alone was a man of sense, solid attainments, and spirit, though he was a hard drinker. Even the others, drivelling jesters as they were, became sober now at once; they uncovered instinctively, and greeted the youth, as he passed, with an obeisance as low as that performed by theostiarius, who stood ready to admit him. When, returning these salutes, he had entered the palace, Piso said, for the information of Vedius Pollio, who had come from Pompeii, "That is he."
"What! the young Athenian philosopher of whom we have heard so much?"
"Yes. Dionysius, young as he is, I am told that he is certain to fill thenext vacancy in their famous Areopagus."
"He is high in Augustus's good graces, is he not?" asked Pollio.
"Augustus would swear by him," said Flaccus. "It is lucky for all of us that the youth has no ambition, and is going away again soon."
"What does Biberius say of him?" inquired Apicius.
"Say? Why, what does he ever say of any one, at least of any distinguished man?"
"Simply not a word."
"Well, think then what does he think?"
"Not lovingly, I suspect. Their spirits, their geniuses, would not long agree. If he was emperor, Dionysius of Athens would not have so brilliant a reception at court."
"But is it then really brilliant? Does one so young sustain his own part?" asked Pollio.
"You never heard any person like him; I will answer for that," replied Lucius Piso. "He is admirable. I was amazed when I met him. Augustus, you know, is no dotard, and Augustus is enchanted with him. The men of letters, besides, are all raving about him, from old Titus Livy down to L. Varius, the twiddler of verses, the twiddle-de-dee successor of our immortal Horace and our irreplaceable Virgil. And then Quintus Haterius, who has scarcely less learning than Varro, (and much more worldly knowledge;) Haterius, who is himself what erudite persons rarely are, the most fascinating talker alive, and certainly the finest public speaker that has addressed an assembly since the death of poor Cicero, declares that Dionysius of Athens—"
"Ah! enough! enough!" cried Apicius, interrupting; "you make me sick with these praises of airy, intangible nothings. I shan't eat comfortably to-day. What are all his accomplishments, I should like to know, compared to one good dinner?"
"You will have long ceased to eat," retorted Piso, "when his name will yet continue to be pronounced."
"And what good will pronouncing do, if you are hungry?" said Apicius.
"What has he come to Italy for?" persisted old Pollio.
"You know," said Piso, "that all over the east, from immemorial time, some great, mysterious, and stupendous being has been expected to appear on earth about this very date."
"Not only in the east, good Piso," said Pollio; "my neighbor in Italy, you know, the Cumæan sibyl, is construed now never to have had any other theme."
"You are right," returned Piso; "I meant to say that the prevailing notion has always been that it is in the east this personage will appear, and then his sway is to extend gradually into every part of the world. Old sayings, various warning oracles, traditions among common peasants, who cannot speak each other's languages and don't even know of each other's existence, the obscure songs of the sibyls, the dream of all mankind, the mystical presentiments of the world concur, and have long concurred, upon that singular subject. Moreover, the increasing corruption of morals, to which Horace adverts," added Piso, "will and must end in dissolving society altogether, unless arrested by the advent of some such being. That is manifest. Haterius and others, who are learned in the Hebrew literature, tell me that prodigies and portents, so well authenticated that it is no more possible to doubt them than it is to doubt that Julius Cæsar was murdered in Rome, were performed by men who, ages ago, much more distinctly and minutely foretold the coming of this person at or near the very time in which we are living; and, accordingly,that the whole nation of the Jews (convinced that those who could perform such things must have enjoyed more than mortal knowledge and power) fully expect and firmly believe that the being predicted by these workers of portents is now immediately to appear. Thus, Haterius—"
"No," said Pomponius Flaccus, shaking his head, looking on the ground, and pressing the tip of his forefinger against his forehead, "that is not Haterius'sargument, or rather,that is only the half of it."
"I now remember," resumed Lucius Piso; "you are correct in checking my version of it. These ancient seers and wonder-workers had also foretold several things that were to come to pass earlier than the advent of the great being, and these things having in their respective times all duly occurred, serve to convince the Jews, and indeed have also convinced many philosophic inquirers, of whom Dionysius is one, studying the prophetical books in question, and then exploring the history of the Hebrews, to see whether subsequent events really correspond with what had been foretold—that seers who could perform the portents which they performed in their day, and who besides possessed a knowledge of future events verified by the issue, were and must be genuinely and truly prophets, and that their predictions deserved belief concerning this great, mysterious, and much-needed personage, who is to appear in the present generation. And then there is the universal tradition, there is the universal expectation, to confirm such reasonings," added Piso.
The astounding character, as well as the intrinsic importance and interest of this conversation, its reference to his half-countryman Dionysius, of whom he had heard so much, and the glimpses of society, the hints about men and things which it afforded him, had prevented Paulus from asking these exalted gentlefolk to make room for him and Benigna to pass, and had held him, and indeed her also, spell-bound.
"But how all this accounts, most noble Piso, for the visit of the Athenian to the court of Augustus, you have forgotten to say," remarked Pollio.
"He obtained," replied Piso, "the emperor's permission to study the Sibylline books."
"What a pity," said Flaccus, "that the first old books were burnt in the great fire at Rome."
"Well," resumed Lucius Piso, "he brought this permission to me, as governor of Rome, and I went with him myself to the quindecemviri and the other proper authorities. Oh! as to the books, it is the opinion of those learned in such matters that there is little or nothing in the old books which has not been recovered in the collection obtained by the senate afterward from Cumæ, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and all places where either the sibyls still lived, or their oracles were preserved."
"But, after all," said Pollio, "are not these oracles the ravings of enthusiasm, if not insanity?"
"Cicero, although in general so sarcastic and disdainful, so incredulous and so hard to please," answered Piso, "has settled that question."
"He has, I allow it," added Pomponius Flaccus, "and settled it most completely. What a charming passage that is wherein the incomparable thinker, matchless writer, and fastidious critic expresses his reverential opinion of the Sibylline books, and demonstrates with triumphant logic their claims upon the attention of all rational, all clear-headed and philosophic inquirers!"
"I am not a rational, or clear-headed, or philosophic inquirer," broke in Apicius, "Come, do come to thecamp; and do pray at last allow this foreign-looking young gentleman and rustic damsel to enter the doorway."
And so they all departed together.
Theatriensishad meanwhile summoned the master of admissions, who beckoned to Paulus, and he, followed by Benigna, now entered the hall, which was flagged with lozenge-formed marbles of different hues, and supported by four pillars of porphyry. The adventurers passed the perpetual fire in the ancestral or image-room, and saw the images of the Mamurras, dark with the smoke of many generations; they crossed another chamber hung with pictures, and went half round the galleried and shady impluvium, inclosing a kind of internal garden, where, under the blaze of the sunlight, from which they were themselves sheltered, they beheld, like streams of shaken diamonds, the spray of the plashing fountains, the statues in many-tinted marble, and the glowing colors of a thousand exquisite flowers. Near the end of one wing of the colonnaded quadrangle they arrived at a door, which they were passing when their guide stopped them, and as the door flew open to his knock, he made them a bow and preceded them through the aperture.
They noticed, as they followed, that the slave who had opened this door was chained to a staple. Several slaves, who scarcely looked up, were writing in the room which they now entered.
The master of admissions, glancing round the chamber, said, addressing the slaves in general, "Claudius is not here, I perceive; let some one go for him, and say that the daughter of Crispus, of the One Hundredth Milestone, has been charged to communicate to him the pleasure of Tiberius Cæsar touching his immediate manumission; and that I, the master of admissions in the Mamurran palace, am to add a circumstance or two which will complete the information the damsel has to give. Let some one, therefore, fetch Claudius forthwith, and tell him that he keeps us waiting."
During this speech, which was rather pompously delivered, Paulus noticed that, close to a second door in the chamber at the end opposite to that where they had entered, a young slave was seated upon a low settle, with a hide belt round his waist, to which was padlocked a light but strong brass chain, soldered at the nether link to a staple in the floor. This slave now rose, and opening the door, held it ajar till one of the clerks, after a brief whisper among themselves, was detached to execute the errand which the steward had delivered. The slave closed the door again, the clerks continued their writing, the steward half-shut his eyes, and leaned against a pillar in an attitude of serene if not sublime expectation; and Paulus and Benigna waited in silence.
During the pause which ensued, Paulus beheld the steward suddenly jump out of his dignified posture, and felt a hand at the same time laid lightly on his own shoulder. Turning round, he saw the youth who had a few minutes before descended from the bronze chariot.
"Ought I not to be an acquaintance of yours?" asked the new-comer with an agreeable smile. "You are strikingly like one whom I have known. He was a valiant Roman knight, once resident in Greece; I mean Paulus Lepidus Æmilius, who helped, with Mark Antony, to win the great day of Philippi."
"I am, indeed, his only son," said Paulus.
"You and a sister, I think," returned the other, "had been left at home, in Thrace, with your nurse and the servants, when some business a little more than three years ago broughtyour father and his wife, the Lady Aglais, to Athens. There I met them. Alas! he is gone. I have heard it. But where are your mother and your sister?"
Paulus told him.
"Well, I request you to say to them that Dionysius of Athens—so people style me—remembers them with affection. I will visit them and you. Do I intrude if I ask who is this damsel?" (glancing kindly toward Benigna, who had listened with visible interest.)
Paulus told him, in a few rapid words, not only who she was, but with distinct details upon what errand she had come.
He had scarcely finished when Claudius, the slave, arrived breathless, in obedience to the summons of the magister.
"The orders of Tiberius Cæsar to me," observed this functionary in a slow, loud voice, but with rather a shamefaced glance at Dion, "are, that I should see that you, Claudius, learnt from this maiden the conditions upon which he is graciously pleased to grant you your liberty, and then that I should myself communicate something in addition."
"O Claudius!" began Benigna, blushing scarlet, "we, that is, not you, but I—I was not fair, I was not just to Tib—that is—just read this letter from the illustrious prefect Sejanus to my father."
Claudius, very pale and biting his lip, ran his eye in a moment through the document, and giving it back to Benigna awaited the communication.
"Well," said she, "only this moment have I learnt the easy, the trifling condition which the generous Cæsar, and tribune of the people, attaches to his bounty."
There was a meaning smile interchanged among the slaves, which escaped none present except Benigna; and Claudius became yet more pallid.
"The prefect Sejanus has just told Master Paulus," pursued the young maiden, "that you have only to break a horse for Tiberius Cæsar to obtain forthwith your freedom, and fifty thousand sesterces too," she added in a lower voice.
A dead silence ensued, and lasted for several instants.
Paulus Æmilius, naturally penetrating and of a vivid though imperfectly-educated mind, discerned this much, that some mystery, some not insignificant secret, was in the act of disclosure. The illustrious visitor from Athens had let the hand which lay on Paulus's shoulder fall negligently to his side, and with his head thrown a little back, and a somewhat downward-sweeping glance, was surveying the scene. He possessed a far higher order of intellect than the gallant and bright-witted youth who was standing beside him; and had received, in the largest measure that the erudite civilization of classic antiquity could afford, that finished mental training which was precisely what Paulus, however accomplished in all athletic exercises, rather lacked. Both the youths easily saw that something was to come; they both felt that a secret was on the leap.
"Break a horse!" exclaimed the slave Claudius, with parched, white lips; "I am a poor lad who have always been at the desk! What do I know of horses or of riding?"
There was an inclination to titter among the clerks, but it was checked by their good-nature—indeed, by their liking for Claudius; they all looked up, however.
"Your illustrious master," replied the magister or steward, or major-domo, "has thought of this, and, indeed, of every thing;" again the man directed the same shamefaced glanceas before toward Dion. "Knowing, probably, your unexpertness in horses, which is no secret among your fellow-slaves, and in truth, among all your acquaintances, Tiberius Cæsar has, in the first place, selected for you the very animal, out of all his stables, which you are to ride at the games in the circus before the couple of hundred thousand people who will crowd the champaign."
"At the games!" interrupted Claudius, "and in the circus! Why, all who know me know that I an arrant coward."
Like a burst of bells, peal upon peal, irrepressible, joyous, defiant, and frank, as if ringing with astonishment and scorn at the thing, yet also full of friendliness and honest pitying love for the person, broke forth the laugh of Paulus. It was so genuine and so infectious, that even Dion smiled in a critical, musing way, while all the slaves chuckled audibly, and the slave chained to the staple near the door rattled his brass fastenings at his sides. Only three individuals preserved their gravity, the shamefaced steward, poor little frightened Benigna, and the astonished Claudius himself.
"In the second place," pursued the magister or steward, "besides choosing for you the very animal, the individual and particular horse, which you are to ride, the Cæsar has considerately determined and decided, in view of your deserved popularity among all your acquaintances, that, if any acquaintance of yours, any of your numerous friends, any other person, in fine, whoever, in your stead shall volunteer to break this horse for Tiberius Cæsar, you shall receive your freedom and the fifty thousand sesterces the very next morning, exactly the same."
A rather weak and vague murmur of applause from the slaves followed this official statement.
"And so the Cæsar," said Claudius, "has both selected me the steed, and has allowed me a substitute to break him, if I can find any substitute. Suppose, however, that I decline such conditions of liberty altogether—what then?"
"Then Tiberius Cæsar sells you to-morrow morning to Vedius Pollio of Pompeii, who has come hither on purpose to buy you, and carry you home to his Cumæan villa."
"To his tank, you mean," replied poor Claudius, "in order that I may fatten his lampreys. I am in a pretty species of predicament. But name the horse which I am to break at the games."
Dion turned his head slightly toward the steward, who was about to answer, and the steward remained silent. A sort of excitement shot through the apartment.
"Name the horse, if you please, honored magister," said Claudius. Even now the steward could not, or did not, speak.
Before the painful pause was broken, the attention of all present was arrested by a sudden uproar in the street. The noise of a furious trampling, combined with successive shrieks, whether of pain or terror, was borne into the palace.
Dionysius, followed by Paulus, by Claudius, by the steward, and Benigna, ran to the window, if such it can be termed, drew aside the silken curtain, and pushed open the gaudily-painted, perforated shutter, when a strange and alarming spectacle was presented in the open space formed by cross-streets before the left front of the mansion.
A magnificent horse of bigger stature, yet of more elegant proportions, than the horses which were then usedfor the Roman cavalry, was in the act of rearing; and within stroke of his fore-feet, on coming down, lay a man, face under, motionless, a woollen tunic ripped open behind at the shoulder, and disclosing some sort of wound, from which blood was flowing. The horse, which was of a bright roan color, was neither ridden nor saddled, but girt with a cloth round the belly, and led, or rather held back, by two long cavassons, which a couple of powerfully-built, swarthy men, dressed like slaves, held at the further ends on opposite sides of the beast, considerably apart, and perhaps thirty feet behind him. One of these lines or reins—that nearest the palace—was taut, the other was slack; and the slave who held the former had rolled it twice or thrice round his bare arm, and was leaning back, and hauling, hand over hand.
The animal had apparently stricken on the back, unawares, with a fore-foot play and a pawing blow, the man who was lying so still and motionless on the pavement, and the beast, having reared, was now trying to come down upon his victim. But no sooner were his fore-legs in the air than he, of course, thereby yielded a sudden purchase to the groom who was pulling him with the taut cavasson, and this man was thus at last enabled to drag him fairly off his hind-legs, and to bring him with a hollow thump to the ground upon his side. Before the brute could again struggle to his feet, four or five soldiers who happened to be nigh, running to the rescue, had lifted, and carried out of harm's way, the prostrate and wounded man.
"That is the very horse!" exclaimed the magister, stretching his neck between the shoulders of Dion and Paulus, at the small window of the palace.
"I observe," said Paulus, "that the cavasson is ringed to a muzzle—the beast is indisputably muzzled."
"Why is he muzzled?"
"Because," replied the magister, "he eats people!"
"Eats people!" echoed Paulus, in surprise.
"O gods!" cried Benigna.
"Yes," quoth the steward; "the horse is priceless; he comes of an inestimable breed; that is the present representative of theSejan race of steeds. Your Tauric horses are cats in comparison; your cavalry horses but goats. That animal is directly descended from the real horse Sejanus, and excels, they even say, his sire, and indeed he also in his turn goes now by the old name. He is the horse Sejanus."
At these words Paulus could not, though he tried hard, help casting one glance toward Benigna, who had been with him only so short a time before at the top of the palace, listening to the conversation of the tipsy patricians. The poor little girl had become very white and very scare-faced.
"Tell us more," said Dionysius, "of this matter, worthy magister. We have all heard that phrase of ill omen—'such and such a person has the horse Sejanus'—meaning that he is unlucky, that he is doomed to destruction. Now, what is the origin and what is the true value of this popular proverb?"
"Like all popular proverbs," replied the steward, with a bow of the deepest reverence to the young Athenian philosopher, "it has some value, my lord, and a real foundation, although Tiberius has determined to confute it by practical proof. You must know, most illustrious senator of Athens, that during the civil wars which preceded the summer-day stillness of this glorious reign of Augustus, no one ever appeared in battle-fieldor festive show so splendidly mounted as the knight Cneius Sejus, whose name has attached itself to the race.
"His horse, which was of enormous proportions, like the beast you have just beheld, would try to throw you first and would try to eat you afterward. Few could ride him: and then his plan was simple. Those whom he threw he would beat to death with his paws, and then tear them to pieces with his teeth. Moreover, if he could not dislodge his rider from the ephippia by honest plunging and fair play, he would writhe his neck round like a serpent—indeed, the square front, large eyes, and supple neck remind one of a serpent; he would twist his head back, I say, all white and dazzling, with the ears laid close, the lips drawn away, and the glitter of his teeth displayed, and, seizing the knee-cap or the shinbone, would tear it off, and bring down the best horseman that ever bestrode a Bucephalus. What usually followed was frightful to behold; for, once a rider was dismounted, the shoulder has been seen to come away between the brute's teeth, with knots and tresses of tendons dripping blood like tendrils, and the ferocious horse has been known with his great fat grinders to crush the skull of the fallen person, and lap up the brains—as you would crack a nut—after which, he paws the prostrate figure till it no longer resembles the form of man. But the present horse Sejanus, which you have just beheld, excels all in strength, beauty, and ferocity; he belongs to my master Tiberius."
"Ah gods!" exclaimed poor Benigna; "this is the description of a demon rather than of a beast."
Dionysius and Paulus exchanged one significant glance, and the former said:
"What became of the first possessor, who yields his name to so unexampled a breed of horses? what became of the knight Sejus?"
"A whisper had transpired, illustrious sir," replied the steward, "that this unhappy man had fed the brute upon human flesh. Mark Antony, who coveted possession of the horse, brought some accusation, but not this, against the knight, who was eventually put to death; but Dolabella, the former lieutenant of Julius Cæsar, had just before given a hundred thousand sesterces (£800) to Sejus for the animal; therefore Antony killed the knight for nothing, and failed to get Sejanus; at least he failed that time. Dolabella, however, did not prosper; he almost immediately afterward murdered himself. Cassius thereupon became the next master of the Sejan horse, and Cassius rode him at the fatal battle of Philippi, losing which, Cassius in his turn, after that resolute fashion of which we all have heard, put an end to his own existence."
"To one form of it," observed Dionysius.
"This time," continued the magister, bowing, "Mark Antony had his way—he became at last the lord of the Sejan horse, but likewise he, in his turn, was doomed to exemplify the brute's ominous reputation; for Antony, as you know, killed himself a little subsequently at Alexandria. The horse had four proprietors in a very short period, and in immediate succession, the first of whom was cruelly slain, and the three others slew themselves. Hence, noble sir, the proverb."
By this time, the magister had told his tale, the street outside had become empty and silent, and the parties within the chamber had thoroughly mastered and understood the horrible truth which underlay the case of the slave Claudius, and this new instance of Tiberius's wrath and vengeance.
The magister, Claudius, and Benigna had returned to the other end of the room, where the slaves were writing, and had left Paulus and Dion still standing thoughtfully near the window.
Claudius exclaimed, "My turn it is at present; it will be some one else's soon!"
He and Benigna were now whispering together. The magister stood a little apart, looking on the ground in a deep reverie, his chin buried in the hollow of his right hand, the arm of which was folded across his chest. The slaves were bending over their work in silence.
Says Paulus in a low voice to Dion, "You have high credit with the emperor, illustrious Athenian; and surely if you were to tell him the whole case, he would interfere to check the cruelty of this man, this Tiberius."
"What, Augustus do this for a slave?" replied Dion mournfully. "The emperor would not, and by the laws could not, interfere with Vedius Pollio, or any private knight, in the treatment or government of his slaves, who are deemed to be the absolute property of their respective lords; what chance, then, that he should meddle, or, if he meddled, that he should successfully meddle, with Tiberius Cæsar on behalf of an offending mance? And this too for the sake, remember, of a low-born girl? Women are accounted void of deathless souls, my friend, even by some who suspect that men may be immortal. By astuteness, by beauty, not beauteously employed, and, above all, by the effect of habit, imperceptible as a plant in its growth, stealthy as the prehensile ivy, some few individual women, like Livia, Tiberius's mother, and Julia, Augustus's daughter, have acquired great accidental power. But to lay down the principle that the slightest trouble should be taken for these slaves, would in this Roman world raise a symphony of derision as musical as the cry of the Thessalian hounds when their game is afoot."
Paulus, buried in thought, stole a look full of pity toward the further end of the apartment. "Slaves, women, laws, gladiators," he muttered, "and brute power prevalent as a god. Every day, noble Athenian, I learn something which fills me with hatred and scorn for the system amid which we are living." He then told Dion the story of Thellus and Alba; he next laid before him the exact circumstances of Benigna and Claudius; relating what had occurred that very morning, and by no means omitting the strange and wonder-fraught conversation at the door of the palace, after which he added,
"I declare to you solemnly—but then I am no more than an uninstructed youth, having neither your natural gifts nor your acquired knowledge—I never heard any thing more enchanting, more exalted, more consoling, and to my poor mind more reasonable, or more probable, than that some god is quickly to come down from heaven and reform and control this abominable world. Why do I say probable? Because it would be god-like to do it. I would ask nothing better, therefore, than to be allowed to join you and go with you all over the world; searching and well weighing whatever evidences and signs may be accessible to man's righteously discontented and justly wrathful industry in such a task; and I would be in your company when you explored and decided whether this sublime dream, this noble, generous, compensating hope, this grand and surely divine tradition, be a truth, or, ah me! ah me! nothing but a vain poem of the future—a beautiful promise never to be realized, the specious mockery of some cruel muse."
Dion's blue eyes kindled and burned, but he remained silent.
"In the mean time, listen further," added Paulus. "What would the divine being who is thus expected, were he in this room, deem of this transaction before our eyes? You have heard the steward's account of the horse Sejanus; you have heard Claudius's allusion to Vedius Pollio's lampreys. Now, you are a wise, witty, and eloquent person, and you can correct me if I say wrong—in what is the man whom the horse Sejanus, for instance, throws and tears to pieces better than the horse? In what is the man whom the lampreys devour better than the lampreys? I say the horse and the lampreys are better than the man, if mere power be a thing more to be esteemed and honored than what is right, and just, and honorable, and estimable; for the lampreys and the horse possess the greater might, most indubitably, in the cases mentioned. The elephant is stronger than we, the hound is swifter, the raven lives much longer. Either the mere power to do a thing deserves my esteem more than any other object or consideration, and therefore whoever can trample down his fellow-men, and gratify all his brutal instincts at the expense of their lives, their safety, their happiness, their reasonable free-will, is more estimable than he who is just, truthful, kind, generous, and noble—either, I say, the man who is strong against his fellows is more good than he who is good—and the words justice, right, gentleness, humanity, honor, keeping faith in promises, pity for poor little women who are oppressed and brutally used, virtue, and such noises made by my tongue against my palate, express nothing which can be understood, nothing in which any mind can find any meaning—either, I again say, the lampreys and the Sejan horse are more to be esteemed, and valued, and loved than my sister and my mother, or it is not true that the mere power of Tiberius, combined with the brutish inclination to do a thing, terminates the question whether it is right to do it. The moment I like to do any thing, if I can do it, is it necessarily right that I should do it? The moment two persons have a difference, is it right for either of them, and equally right for each of them, to murder the other? But if it was the intention of this great being, this god who is expected to appear immediately among us, that we should be dependent upon each other, each doing for the other what the other cannot do for himself—and I am sure of it—then it will please him, Dion, if I consider what is helpful and just and generous. Or am I wrong? Is virtue a dream? Are contrary things in the same cases equally good? Are contrary things in the same cases equally beautiful?
"Are my brutish instincts or inclinations, which vary as things vary round me, my only law? Is each of us intended by this great being to be at war with all the rest? to regard the positive power each of us may have as our sole restriction? to destroy and injure all the others by whom we could be served, if we would for our parts also serve and help? And must women, for instance, being the weaker, be brutally used? Tell me, Dion, will it please this great being if I try to render service to my fellow-men, who must have the same natural claims to his consideration as I have? or does he wish me to hurt them and them to hurt me, according as we may each have the power? Is there nothing higher in a man than his external power of action? Answer—you are a philosopher."
The countenance of Dion blazed for one instant, as if the light of a passing torch had been shed upon amirror, and then resumed the less vivid effulgence of that permanent intellectual beauty which was its ordinary characteristic. He replied,
"All the philosophy that ever was taught or thought could not lead you to truer conclusions."
"Then," returned Paulus, "come back with me to the other end of the room."
"Benigna," said Paulus, "your kindness to my sister and mother, and your natural probity, had something, I think, to do with beginning this trouble in which you and your intended find yourselves. As you were not unmindful of us, it is but right that we should not be unmindful of you. Tiberius permits any friend of Claudius the slave to be a substitute in breaking the horse Sejanus; and Claudius is to have his freedom and fifty thousand sesterces, and to marry you, whom I see to be a good, honorable-hearted girl, all the same as if he had complied with the terms in person. This was thoughtful and, I suppose, generous of Tiberius Cæsar."
"Would any of these youths who hear me," added he turning round, "like to break the fine-looking steed at the games, before all the people, instead of Claudius?"
No one replied.
"It will be a distinguished act," persisted he.
Dead silence still.
"Then I will do it myself," he said. "Magister, make a formal note of the matter in your tablets; and be so good as to inform the Cæsar of it, in order that I, on my side, may learn place and time."
The magister, with a low bow and a face expressing the most generous and boundless astonishment, grasped his prettily-mounted stylus, and taking the pengillarin from his girdle drew a long breath, and requested Paulus to favor him with his name and address.
"I am," replied he, "the knight Paulus Lepidus Æmilius, son of one of the victors at Philippi, nephew of the ex-triumvir. I reside at Crispus's inn, and am at present a promised prisoner of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune."
While the steward wrote in his tablets, Benigna uttered one or two little gasps and fairly fainted away. The slave Claudius saved her from falling, and he now placed her on a bench against the wall.
Paulus, intimating that he would like to return to Crispus's hostelry before dark, and having learnt, in reply to a question, that Claudius could procure from Thellus, the gladiator, a vehicle for Benigna, and that he would request Thellus himself to convey her home, turned to take leave of Dion.
The Athenian, however, said he would show him the way out of the palace. They went silent and thoughtful. In the impluvium they found a little crowd surrounding Augustus, who had returned from his promenade to the camp, and who was throwing crumbs of bread among some pigeons near the central fountain.
Two ladies were of the company, one of whom, in advanced age, was evidently the Empress Livia, but for whose influence and management Germanicus—certainly not her ungrateful son Tiberius—would have been the next master of the world. The other lady, who was past her prime, had still abundant vestiges of a beauty which must once have been very remarkable.
She was painted red and plastered white, with immense care, to look some fifteen years younger than she truly was.
Her countenance betrayed to a good physiognomist, at first glance, the horrible life she had led. Paulus,whose experience was little, and, although she fastened upon him a flaming glance, which she intended to be full both of condescension and fascination, thought that he had seldom seen a woman either more repulsive or more insanely haughty.
It was Julia, the new and abhorred wife of Tiberius. Not long before, at the request of Augustus, who was always planning to dispose of Julia, Tiberius had given up for her the only woman he ever loved, Agrippina Marcella.
Tiberius so loved her, if it deserves to be termed love, that when, being thus deserted, she took another husband, (Asinius Gallus,) he, mad with jealousy, threw him into a dungeon and kept him there till he died, as Suetonius and Tacitus record.
"Ah my Athenian!" said the emperor to Dionysius, placing a hand affectionately on the youth's shoulder, "could you satisfy me that those splendid theories of yours are more than dreams and fancies; that really there is one eternal, all-wise, and omnipotent spirit, who made this universal frame of things, and governs it as an absolute monarch; that he made us; that in us he made a spirit, a soul, a ghost, a thinking principle, which will never die; and that I, who am going down to the tomb, am only to change my mode of existence; that I shall not wholly descend thither; that an urn will not contain every thing which will remain of me; and all this in a very different sense from that which poor Horace meant. But why speak of it? Has not Plato failed?"
"Plato," replied Dionysius, "neither quite failed nor is quite understood, illustrious emperor. But you were saying, if I could satisfy you. Be pleased to finish. Grant I could satisfy you; what then?"
"Satisfy me that one eternal sovereign of the universe lives, and that what now thinks in me," returned the emperor, while the courtly group made a circle, "will never cease to think; that what is now conscious within me will be conscious for ever; that now, in more than a mere poetical allusion to my fame—and on the word of Augustus Cæsar, there is no reasonable request within the entire reach and compass of my power which I will refuse you."
"And what sort of a hearing, emperor," inquired Dion, "and under what circumstances, and upon what conditions, will you be pleased to give me? and when? and where?"
"In this palace, before the games end," replied Augustus. "The hearing shall form an evening's entertainment for our whole circle and attendance. You shall sustain your doctrines, while our celebrated advocates and orators, Antistius Labio and Domitius Afer, who disagree with them, I know, shall oppose you. Let me see. The Cæsars, Tiberius and Germanicus, with their ladies, and our host Mamurra and his family, and all our circle, shall be present. Titus Livy, Lucius Varius, Velleius Paterculus, and the greatest orator Rome ever produced, except Cicero" (the old man 'mentioned with watery eyes the incomparable genius to whose murder he had consented in his youth)—"I mean Quintus Haterius—shall form a judicial jury. Haterius shall pronounce the sentence. Dare you face such an ordeal?"
"I will accept it," replied the Athenian, blushing; "I will accept the ordeal with fear. Daring is contrasted with trembling; but, although my daring trembles, yet my trepidation dares."
"Oh! how enchanting!" cried the august Julia; "we shall hear the eloquent Athenian." And she clasped her hands and sent an unutterableglance toward Dion, who saw it not.
"It will be very interesting indeed," added the aged empress.
"Better for once than even the mighty comedy of the palace," said Lucius Varius.
"Better than the gladiators," added Velleius Paterculus.
"An idea worthy of the time of Virgil and Mæcenas," said Titus Livy.
"Worthy of Augustus's time," subjoined Tiberius, who was leaning against one of the pillars which supported the gallery of the impluvium.
"Worthy of his dotage," muttered Cneius Piso to Tiberius, with a scowl.
"Worthy," said a handsome man, with wavy, crisp, brown locks, in the early prime of life, whose military tunic was crossed with the broad purple stripe, "worthy of Athens in the days of Plato; and as Demosthenes addressed the people after listening to the reporter of Socrates, so Haterius shall tell this company what he thinks, after listening to Dion."
"Haterius is getting old," said Haterius.
"You may live," said Augustus, "to be a hundred, but you will never be old; just as our Cneius Piso here never was young."
There was a laugh. The Haterius in question was he to whom Ben Jonson compared Shakespeare as a talker, and of whom, then past eighty, Augustus used, Seneca tells us, to say that his careering thoughts resembled a chariot whose rapidity threatened to set its own wheels on fire, and that he required to be held by a drag—"sufflaminandus."
Dion now bowed and was moving away, followed modestly by Paulus, who desired to draw no attention to himself, when the steward, ormagister, glided quickly up the colonnade of the impluvium to the pillar against which Tiberius was leaning, whispered something, handed his tablets to the Cæsar, and, in answer to a glance of surprised inquiry, looked toward and indicated Paulus.
Tiberius immediately passed Paulus and Dion, saying in an under tone, "Follow me," and led the way into a small empty chamber, of which, when the two youths had entered it, he closed the door.
"You are going to break the horse called Sejanus?" said he, turning round and standing.
Paulus assented.
"Then you must do so on the fourth day from this, in the review-ground of the camp, an hour before sunset."
Paulus bowed.
"Have you any thing to inquire, to request, or to observe?" pursued Tiberius.
"Am I to ride the horse muzzled, sir?" asked the youth.
"The muzzle will be snatched off by a contrivance of the cavasson, after you mount him," replied Tiberius, looking steadfastly at the other.
"Then, instead of a whip, may I carry any instrument I please in my hands?" demanded Paulus; "my sword, for example?"
"Yes," answered Tiberius; "but you must not injure the horse; he is of matchless price."
"But" persisted Paulus, "your justice, illustrious Cæsar, will make a distinction between any injury which the steed may do to himself and any which I may do to him. For instance, he might dash himself against some obstruction, or into the river Liris, and in trying to clamber out again might be harmed. Such injuries would be inflicted by himself, not by me. The hurt I shall do him either by spear, or by sword, or by any other instrument, will not be intended to touch his life or his health, nor likely to do so. If I do make any scars, Ithinkthe hair will grow again."
"He will not be so scrupulous on his side," said Tiberius; "however, your distinction is reasonable. Have you any thing else to ask?"
"Certainly I have," said Paulus; "it is that no one shall give him any food or drink, except what I myself shall bring, for twenty-four hours before I ride him."
Tiberius uttered a disagreeable laugh.
"Am I to let you starve Sejanus?" he asked.
"That is not my meaning, sir," answered Paulus quietly. "I will give him as much corn and water as he will take. I wish to prevent him from having any other kind of provender. There are articles which will make a horse drunk or mad."
"I agree," replied Tiberius, "that he shall have only corn and water, provided he have as much of both as my own servant wishes; nor have I any objection that the servant should receive these articles from you alone, or from your groom."
Paulus inclined his head and kept silence.
"Nothing more to stipulate, I perceive," observed Tiberius.
The youth admitted that he had not; and, seeing the Cæsar move, he opened the door, held it open while the great man passed through, and then taking a friendly leave of Dion, hastily quitted the palace.
Tiberius, meeting Sejanus, took him aside and said,
"We have got rid of the brother! You must have every thing ready to convey her to Rome the fifth day from this. And now, enough of private matters. I am sick of them. The affairs of the empire await me!"
TO BE CONTINUED.
BY W. MAZIERE BRADY, D.D.
It was proposed, in the first draught of Mr. Gladstone's bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, to erect some of the cathedrals into national monuments, and to set apart toward the cost of their future repair a portion of the fund derived from the sale of church temporalities. This clause, however, was set aside; but even if it had been retained, it would not have given satisfaction. If it be the sincere desire of Mr. Gladstone to do justice to Catholic Ireland, and to conciliate her people, but one course remains open to him in regard to the ancient shrines of Catholic worship, namely, to restore them to their original owners. Many of these cathedrals and churches are altogether unsuited to the requirements of Protestant religious service. Some of them are too large to be maintained by the tiny congregations which occasionally visit them. Others require a costly annual outlay too great to be undertaken at the expense of the few familiesin whose neighborhood they lie. Would it not, then, manifestly tend to the benefit alike of Catholics and Protestants, that the latter, on terms advantageous to themselves, should yield to the former the possession of those buildings which Protestants do not require forbona-fideends, but which possess, in the eyes of Catholics, a peculiarly sacred, and, at the same time, a perfectly legitimate value?
Some ancient Catholic temple is perhaps situated in a district inhabited by twenty or thirty Protestants, and five thousand or ten thousand Catholics. The Protestants cannot fill a corner of the spacious fabric. They attach no value to it as the shrine of a venerated saint. Its very capabilities for an ornate and splendid Catholic ritual render it only the less fit for the simple requirements of Protestant worship. Protestants can gain nothing by retaining such a temple, save the privilege of keeping it as a trophy of a bygone and ill-omened ascendency. But if the British Parliament were to ordain that such temples should be purchased from Protestants, who scarcely require them, and given to Catholics to supply their evident wants, then a visible proof would at once be afforded to the Irish nation that disestablishment was no coldly conceived or niggardly administered instalment of justice, but a ready instrument for cordial reconciliation of creeds and nationalities.
It is ridiculous to urge as an objection, that Protestants in general attach a value, other than a pecuniary or political one, to the sites of the shrines of ancient Irish saints. Few Protestants have any veneration for St. Patrick, St. Brigid, or St. Nicholas. Not one Protestant in a thousand has so much as even heard of the names of St. Elbe, St. Aidan, St. Colman, or St. Molana. Irish Protestant bishops often deny the sacredness of holy places, and, when consecrating a site for the erection of a church, take the opportunity to explain such consecration to be a mere form of law. Some Protestant bishops entertained objections to the selection of any titles for churches, save those of Christ and his apostles. They thought it allowable to celebrate divine service in a building called Christ church, or St. Peter's, or St. John's, but conceived it to be scarcely tolerable and semi-popish to dedicate an edifice for worship under the invocation of St. George, St. Patrick, or St. Michael. In some dioceses in Ireland, during the last century, the consecration of Protestant churches was on several occasions designedly omitted in deference to such scruples of conscience. But the very names of the ancient Irish saints are precious household words with Catholics, who dearly prize the holy shrine, the sacred well, the hallowed ruins consecrated by the lingering memories of the virgins, confessors, and martyrs whose lives were devoted to the conversion of Ireland. The Catholic peasant, as he sorrowfully gazes upon the desecrated remains of some fallen abbey, or upon the mouldering walls of a roofless oratory, often breathes a hopeless prayer that an unexpected turn of fortune would once again fill with robed monks the arched and pillared cloisters, and replace the solemn solitary hermit in his peaceful cell. The reconsecration of their sacred shrines and temples, long defaced and profaned by neglect, would realize one of the fondest dreams of Irishmen. Why do not British statesmen utilize, for the general benefit of their country, the pious sentiments which, in a religious point of view, they as Protestants may fail to appreciate, but which, in a political aspect, it seems a criminal blindness to disregard? The legislators who freely vote imperialfunds to provide Catholic priests and altars for Catholic soldiers, sailors, convicts, and paupers, cannot possibly entertain religious scruples against applying a portion of the ancient Catholic endowments of Ireland towards the purpose of restoring to their original uses some of the sites and shrines whose traditions are still potent enough in Ireland to sway the national sympathies.
No injury can result to Protestantism from the adoption of a course which would not merely increase the pecuniary resources of their church, but also tend materially to promote peace and good-will between men of different creeds. There are many ancient churches in Ireland which could be specified as almost useless to Protestants, but yet most precious and valuable if placed in the hands of Catholics. Many of the old Irish cathedrals are entirely, and some are almost entirely deserted. Ardagh, founded by St. Patrick, was reckoned among "the most ancient cathedrals of Ireland." Its first bishop—St. Mell—was buried "in his own church of Ardagh," wherein worship a few Protestants who care but little either for St. Mell or St. Patrick. The entire Protestant population of Ardagh parish is less than one hundred and fifty, while the Catholics number nearly two and a half thousands. There is but a scanty congregation of Protestants at Lismore, where St. Carthage, or at Leighlin, where St. Laserian was interred. At Howth, near Dublin, are the ruins—still capable of restoration—of a beautiful abbey and college. The college is occupied by poor tenants. The abbey is roofless, standing in a graveyard, choked with weeds and filth, of which the Protestant incumbent of the parish is custodian. St. Canice—the patron saint of Kilkenny—was buried, toward the end of the sixth century, at Aghadoe. "Aghadoe"—so wrote the Rev. M. Kelly, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Maynooth, in hisCalendar of Irish Saints—"at present is a ruin, its walls nearly perfect, but, like too many similar edifices in Ireland, all profaned by sickening desecration. Around it still bloom in perennial verdure its far-famed pastures, in a plain naturally rich, and improved by the monastic culture of a thousand years. The buildings are now used as ox-pens which were once the favorite home of the pilgrim and stranger." There are a score of other ruined temples like Aghadoe, which in their present condition are a disgrace to civilization; and yet are possessed of traditions which render them sacred in the eyes of Catholics, who would gladly rescue them from further decay and restore them to their ancient use.
Every tourist in Connemara has doubtless visited the famous collegiate church of St. Nicholas, in Galway. It is a vast temple, capable of containing six or seven thousand worshippers. Its size, the style of its architecture, and its historical traditions combine to render it eminently suitable to be the cathedral church of the Catholic population of Galway. It anciently was, not precisely a cathedral, but the church of the Catholic warden—a dignitary who possessed episcopal jurisdiction, being only subject to the visitation of the Archbishop of Tuam. It is now the church of the Protestant warden, or minister, who performs divine service, according to the Anglican ritual, in a portion of the transept, for the benefit of those members of the Anglican Church who inhabit the immediate neighborhood. There is now no Protestant bishop resident in Galway, nor has any such functionary since the era of the Reformation made Galway his headquarters. So that this once splendid building is absolutely thrown away upon Protestants,being above ten times too large for a parochial church, and being utterly useless to them for a cathedral. The fabric of this grand relic from Catholicity has been allowed to fall into decay to such an extent that about five thousand pounds are now required to restore it or put it into permanent repair. It is unlikely that the Protestants of Galway will contribute this sum, or take steps to prevent this noble national monument from sinking, at no distant period, into hopeless ruin. The population of the entire county of Galway consisted, in 1861, of 261,951 Catholics and 8202 Anglicans, only a few hundred of the latter being residents in the town of Galway and its suburbs. The Catholic wardenship was changed into a bishopric by Pope Gregory XVI., in 1830, when Dr. French, who was then Bishop of Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora, and also Warden of Galway, retired to this diocese. In the same year, Dr. Browne who was subsequently translated to Elphin, became the first Bishop of Galway. Neither Bishop Browne, nor his successor Bishop O'Donnell, nor Dr. McEvilly, who became Bishop of Galway in 1857, were able to provide a suitable cathedral for the Galway Catholics. The present pro-cathedral affords accommodation to about four thousand persons, and upon the occasion of missions is thronged to a dangerous excess. The Catholics of Galway would gladly avail themselves of any opportunity which would render it possible for them to obtain St. Nicholas, the church of their forefathers, for a cathedral. The restoration to Catholic purposes of that edifice, which is a world too wide for Protestant wants, would confer a singular benefit upon an immense number of Catholics, without inflicting the least injury upon Protestants. The present Anglican Warden of Galway is not young enough to enable him, by means of commutation under Mr. Gladstone's bill to do much toward providing an endowment for his successors. The payment of a few thousand pounds, out of the funds of the Commissioners of Church Temporalities, to the Galway Protestants, in compensation for the loss of a fabric which they find too large for use and too costly to repair, would enable them not only to obtain a more convenient place of worship than the corner of the spacious transept they now occupy, but also would help them to provide the nucleus of a local endowment for Protestant ministrations after the decease of the present warden.
The inhabitants of "the city of the tribes" entertain no higher veneration for the church of St. Nicholas than is felt by the men of Munster for the celebrated Rock of Cashel of the Kings. In ancient years the "Rock" was a natural fortress, standing high over the surrounding plain, and proudly overlooking the thronged city which lay beneath its shelter. Upon the elevated plateau which crowns the submit of the "Rock," now stand the ruins of the former cathedral, and other ecclesiastical buildings, including the famous chapel of King Cormac, all of which, to the infinite discredit of England, have long since been deliberately abandoned to decay. The Protestants of Cashel ceased, somewhat more than a century ago, to occupy the old Catholic cathedral as a place of worship. Their archbishop, an Englishman named Price, disliked the fatigue of ascending the gradual incline which leads to the "Rock," and removed his throne to the present cathedral, a barn-like edifice which stands on the level ground near to the episcopal palace. In 1838, Dr. Laurence, the last Protestant Archbishop of Cashel, died, and the see being reduced to a bishopric in union with three other dioceses, the Protestantbishop selected for his residence the city of Waterford in preference to Cashel. The beautiful cathedral, left roofless by Archbishop Price, and exposed since his time to the ravages of more than a hundred winters, is nevertheless still capable of restoration. The fabric, and the site whereon the cathedral and the other ruins stand, are at present vested partly in the Protestant dean and chapter, and partly in the Vicars Choral of Cashel. Upon the death of these officials, their rights will revert to the Commissioners of Church Temporalities. But these disestablished functionaries may perhaps find it to their personal advantage, as well as to that of their church, to make an earlier surrender of their territorial privileges. Whenever the Commissioners of Temporalities shall have become the owners of the Rock of Cashel, they will have to consider what they will do with it. They may determine to sell it, or else may transfer it as a burial-ground to the local poor-law guardians. Either alternative will be in the highest degree discreditable to British legislation. There is something atrocious in the idea of offering by public sale the temple whose almost every stone was marked by the pious workmen with the mystic tokens of their craft, and upon whose decoration kings were wont to lavish their choicest treasures to make it worthier for the worship of the Most High. It will be sacrilegious to submit to auction the soil wherein lies the mouldering dust of countless priests and prelates, chieftains and princes. On the other hand, it will be miserable and pitiable in the extreme to consign what may be termed theTerra Sanctaof ancient Ireland to the care of a pauper burial board. The zeal of rural guardians guided economically by the country squire, or his bailiff, would be worse even than the scornful vandalism of Archbishop Price. If the dead themselves could speak or feel, they would doubtless shudder in their tombs at the ring of the salesman's hammer, and protest with equal horror against the indignity of including the repair of their graves amongst the items of the county poor-rate. They would accept, in preference to such degradation, the rude guardianship of the elements. Nature, even when she destroys, is reverent, flinging a green pall of ivy around the tower which her disintegrating arms encircle, and spreading a rich carpet of moss over the dust of those whom she draws with the embrace of death to her bosom. The winds and waves, the floods and storms, may bring a more rapid dissolution upon deserted monuments of heroes, but at least they inflict no dishonor.
But why should the British Parliament suffer the national memorials of Ireland to perish without an effort to preserve them? It can be no gratification to the vanity of Great Britain thus to perpetuate, so long as a trace of the ruined temple or broken altar may be spared, the tokens of a policy able, indeed, to insult and to hinder, but powerless to supplant or destroy the faith of the Irish people. It cannot, alas! be denied that England seized by force upon that Catholic church of Cashel, banished its priests, and employed, for three centuries, its revenues to teach a hostile religion. That policy has been reversed. It would be a mode, no less honorable than wise, of confessing the folly and guilt of such a policy, were England to give back the ruins which have survived it, and allow the Catholic archbishop and clergy to restore and reconsecrate their ancient cathedral and celebrate again Catholic worship upon the Rock of Cashel.
Let us turn from Galway and Cashel to the metropolis of Ireland. It was felt, so far back as the reign ofElizabeth, that two Protestant cathedrals were too many for Dublin. "Here be in this little city"—so wrote the lord-deputy to Walsingham in 1584—"two great cathedral churches, richly endowed, and too near together for any good they do; the one of them, dedicated to St. Patrick, had in more superstitious reputation than the other, dedicated to the name of Christ, and for that respect only, though there were none other, fitter to be suppressed than continued."[161]And a few months later, the same chief governor of Ireland again reminded the queen's secretary of state of the uselessness of retaining St. Patrick's as a cathedral. "We have beside it," remarked Perrott, "in the heart of this city, Christ church, which is a sufficient cathedral, so as St. Patrick's is superfluous, except it be to maintain a few bad singers to satisfy the covetous humors of some, as much or more devoted to St. Patrick's name than to Christ's."[162]The rabid Puritanism of Lord-Deputy Perrott, who hoped that "Christ would devour St. Patrick and a number of his devoted followers too,"[163]was not utterly devoid of truth and common sense. The maintenance of the cathedral of St. Patrick has rather proved a hinderance than a benefit to Protestants. Its revenues have not been sufficient to keep up a separate choir of singers; for most of the St. Patrick's choirmen belong also to Christ church, and their efficiency is impaired by being divided between two cathedrals. But whatever may be the value of St. Patrick's as a place for the performance of church music, its inutility as a place for Protestant worship is notorious. Its situation is remote from the fashionable quarter of Dublin and from those streets which Protestants inhabit. Many Protestants flock to St. Patrick's to hear the choral music, or, as they sometimes profanely term it, "Paddy's Opera;" but very few, if any, attend that cathedral for the purposes of prayer or worship. In fact, St. Patrick's, in 1870, is what it was three hundred years ago, not only a superfluous cathedral, but one whose atmosphere is unsuited to the genius of Protestantism. There is no place in the Anglican ritual for the apostle of Ireland. His memory is not an object of religious veneration; nor was any day set apart for his honor by the compilers of the Protestant liturgy. His name, like that of any other saint, acts as a repellant, not as a stimulant, upon the devotion of Protestants. Sir Benjamin Guinness, who rescued from ruin the fabric of St. Patrick's, preferred to say his prayers and hear sermons elsewhere.
Now that disestablishment has come upon the Protestant church, the evil of having two cathedrals in Dublin appears greater than ever. How, possibly, can funds be provided by Protestants to maintain both churches, Christ church and St. Patrick's? The latter had nearly fallen to decay but for the munificence of an individual. The former is now in want of substantial repairs, absolutely necessary to preserve it from ruin. Yet it is clearly the pecuniary interest of Protestants to give up St. Patrick's rather than Christ church, because the money value of Christ church, such is its present condition, is insignificant; while that of St. Patrick's is considerable enough to defray the charge of restoring Christ church, and to leave over and above a wide margin of surplus, which the church body may employ as a Protestant endowment fund. The sum expended by the late Sir Benjamin Guinness on St. Patrick's is said to have been £100,000; and, according to a recently printed estimate of Mr. Street, a London architect of eminence,the sum of £8000 will be sufficient to rebuild one of the side aisles of Christ church, and put the rest of the building into a condition of permanent repair.
But there are other and more important considerations which make Christ church the more desirable cathedral for Protestants to retain. It is the old Chapel Royal of Dublin, the place where the deputies and chief governors were formerly sworn into office, and where the state sermons were preached before the lords and commons of the Irish parliament. The lord-lieutenant's pew is at present frequently attended by members of the viceregal staff and other government officials. The situation of Christ church in the immediate vicinity of the castle renders it suitable to be preserved as the state church in Dublin for the accommodation of royal visitors and Protestant viceroys. Christ church, moreover, is beyond question the chief cathedral of the Protestant archbishop and clergy of Dublin. The members of its chapter are few in number, consisting of a dean, archdeacon, treasurer, chancellor, and three prebendaries. The Protestant church body, if it determines upon supporting cathedral functionaries at all in Dublin, may find it practicable to do so with efficiency and some show of dignity in Christ church, without breaking up, or materially altering, the present constitution of the chapter. It is likely, moreover, that the Duke of Leinster, the head of the Protestant nobility of Ireland, who will receive a considerable sum of money under the church act, in compensation for the loss of his church patronage, will be glad to contribute toward the support of Christ church as the Protestant cathedral, especially as it is the ancient burial place of many of his ancestors, so famous in Irish annals under their historical title of Earls of Kildare.
To Catholics the gift of St. Patrick's would be precious, as the restoration to them of a cathedral which from its traditions has surpassing claims to their veneration. Their present pro-cathedral is regarded only as a temporary one, and possesses no historical memories to stir the feelings of its congregation. The constitution of the Catholic diocese of Dublin follows the model of St. Patrick's as far as regards the number and titles of the prebendaries; and little, if any, change would be necessary to render that cathedral fully answerable to the requirements of Catholic worship. And very glorious, truly, are the memories and traditions which cluster around the spot whereon St. Patrick himself erected a church, and hallowed it by his name. Near it was the fountain in whose waters the apostle baptized Alphin, the heathen king of Dublin. Usher, the learned Protestant antiquary and divine, tells us that he had seen this fountain; that it stood near the steeple; and that, a little before the year 1639, it was shut up and inclosed within a private house. The temple, built by Archbishop Comyn, on the site of the ancient church of Patrick, was styled by Sir James Ware "the noblest cathedral in the kingdom." It was dedicated to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Patrick. It was the burial-place of many Catholic prelates. In it were interred Fulk de Saunford and his brother John, and Alexander de Bicknor. Richard Talbot, brother to the famous earl, had his last resting-place before the high altar. Near the altar of St. Stephen lay Michael Tregury. Three other Catholic archbishops, namely, Walter Fitzsimons, William Rokeby, and Hugh Inge, were entombed in St. Patrick's in the early part of the sixteenthcentury—the last-named prelate dying in the year 1528. When the Reformation came, and when Henry VIII. attempted to force it upon Ireland against the will of the hierarchy and people, the cathedral of St. Patrick became exposed to the hostilities of the English despot and of Archbishop Browne, his agent. The new doctrines were urged in vain by that prelate, who is described by Ware as "the first of the clergy who embraced the Reformation in Ireland." The king's commission was as little respected as the homilies of Archbishop Browne, who advised the calling of a parliament to pass the supremacy by act, and wrote to Lord Cromwell, in 1638, complaining that "the reliques and images of both his cathedrals took the common people from the true worship, and desiring a more explicit order for their removal," and for the aid of the lord-deputy's troops in carrying out his unpopular designs. The clergy of St. Patrick's made so vigorous a stand against the reforming archbishop, that many of them were deprived of their preferments, and the cathedral itself was suppressed for nearly eight years, during Browne's incumbency. On Queen Mary's accession, St. Patrick's again resumed its Catholic splendor and dignity, but only to lose them once more when her successor, Elizabeth, thought it necessary for the security of her throne to remove utterly, if possible, the Catholic faith from her dominions. Thus the fortunes of St. Patrick's cathedral were, in a measure, identified with those of the Catholic religion in Ireland.