some few shall vindicate the purity of the Latin tongue from the rust of trivial barbarisms, we shall have to lament its total destruction; and thus all the grandeur of noble sentences will be lost by the neglect of the vulgar."* They avow their own ignorance. St. Hildephonso of Toledo wrote a book entitled De Imbecillitate propria." Who can doubt their humility towards their disciples, when they evince it to such a degree towards their literary adversaries? When Mabillon had refuted a certain work by Father Papebroch, the learned Jesuit wrote to him from Antwerp in these terms: "The only satisfaction that I feel for having treated on this matter, is from considering that I gave occasion to you for composing your admirable work. It is true I felt some pain at first in seeing myself so unanswerably refuted; but the beauty and utility of your book enabled me soon to overcome my weakness, and I felt joy to see the truth so clearly established."+ Combined with this humility, Dom Mabillon had such a scrupulous regard for truth in his literary labours, that in his last sickness he was tormented at the thought of one passage in which an error had glided in from his not having taken sufficient care in regard to the manuscript from which the extract was made. Are we not again directed to the Catholic Church, when we hear authors, without the possibility of our mistrusting them, say, with St. Gertrude, in addressing God, "I trust I can affirm safely that nothing else induced me to write this book but a wish to conform to thy will, a desire of thy praise, and a zeal for souls?" And when we read, that, like Raymond Lully, they never began, continued, or finished any work without repeating a divine invocation of the name of Christ,§ are we not reminded of the holy practices of Catholic times? Does not their indifference, or rather aversion, for human applause point in the same direction? "Beloved Lord Chuno," says the Abbot Rupertus, "I can apply to myself the words "Posuerunt me custodem in vineis; vineam meam non custodivi.' Now, especially while I describe each head of the dragon, and the crimes of each, it seems to me as if the verse were directed in anger. For as you read my writings with gracious favour, you may say, 'Ab aquilone aurum veniet;" and this praise from you may be to me the most perilous, lest I should turn all my labour to vain glory, and unholily and impudently pursue the holy things of the holy. May I be assisted by your prayers, and by those of all who love you, that I may not remain in the land of the north, whence gold * Id. ii. 10. + Chavin de Malan, Hist. de Mab. cometh, but with that gold may be enabled to pass into the regions of the brilliant south, under the warm meridian sun!"* This renowned abbot ascribed all his learning to the intercession of the blessed Virgin, whose aid he had implored when in early life he seemed slow and unable to conquer the difficulties of study, and who appeared to him in a vision, promising that he should succeed in the end, and become a most learned man.† The absence of all spiteful, uncharitable aim in Catholic erudition still further clears the path from the love of learning to the Catholic Church. "These professors," as Sidonius Apollinaris said of one, "read the ancients with reverence and the moderns without envy: cum reverentia antiquos, sine invidia recentes." With what care do they avoid wounding the reputation of others in their books! "I am unwilling to name either the monastery or the soldier," says Cæsar of Heisterbach, "lest, perchance, as he still lives, he might suffer somewhat of shame from the things I am about to relate."§ "In the town of Berge," he says again, "in the diocese of Cologne, was one-nolo eum nominare; spero quod adhuc vitam suam debeat emendare." || From observations of this kind, which might be multiplied without end, it is clear that the praises bestowed on the Benedictins of the seventeenth century by a recent French author, might in truth have been extended to all the learned teachers whom the Catholic religion inspired. Let us hear what he says. "These Benedictins are men with whom one would wish to have lived. They have no pretensions, no affectation, no vanity. When they have genius and wit, it is simply in spite of themselves, and they would avoid it if they could. They repent, but they are sure to return to this sin. On a severe rather than a sombre foundation of character, you see gliding, fugitive, almost veiled traits of refined delicacy and of good humour. The black cowl, which rises a little, discloses a pale, sweet, and wrinkled face, which smiles peaceably, and even mocks you somewhat. By the side of these monksthese Mabillons, Acherys, and Montfaucons-there are lay scholars, such as De Boze and Ducange, whose names alone alarm our ignorance, and who are all free from pedantry— amiable, united, simple men, of good and delightful company. The correspondence of all these learned men of Catholic times breathes the sweetest benevolence. The miseries and weakness of the literary life entirely disappear in them. Vanity * De Victoria Verbi Dei, lib. ix. c. 1. § Illust. Mir. et Hist. Mem. lib. iv. 93. detraction, rivalry, plagiary, calumny, all the bad mean passions of the writing-desk, corrected by the most humble devotion, the most complete obedience, the most sincere humility, give place only to an excessive ardour for study, and to a mutual friendship, which is constantly manifesting itself. All personal considerations, and the desire of renown, vanish. It is the most moving spectacle in the world. To believe it, one must see how these honourable men endure criticism when just, and combat, or rather refute it simply and gently, when it is erroneous. One who has prepared a vast work, and collected important manuscripts, hears that another of his brethren is occupied with the same subject, and immediately gives him up with joy all his materials. Another aids his colleague in his researches, escorts him on his journeys, rejoices in his triumphs. Some old men, cramped with rheumatism, mounted on mules, traverse the rocks and ice of the Apennines with a gourd full of wine and water hanging from their saddle, under a wind that struggles for their cloak and hat all the way, and bring back in triumph five bundles of copied manuscripts. Then they fall sick, and begin again as if it was nothing. Happen what will, they are impassible and immovable; provided only that no one in their presence attacks St. Benedict their Father, or the Benedictins. Then they are angry, on condition of repenting and confessing their sin. Their sorrow is sincere and bitter when they are torn from their studies, and charged with secular affairs. Not the least shade of hypocrisy enters into their love of poverty and of studious solitude. As Dom Thierry Ruinart says, They had a sincere love for poverty, and they wished that every thing they used should be the simplest that could be found. When Colbert, after Mabillon had published his Diplomatique, sent him a pension of 2000 livres, the learned man refused it. 'I am poor,' he said, born of poor parents. What would they say of me, if I should seek in the cloister what I could not have hoped for in the world?' In presence of these singular men, so simple, so calm, and learned, and all whose doctrines and ideas are the contrary of ours, we are riveted with astonishment, as before inhabitants of another planet. The least trace of pomp in their order was repulsive and a scandal to them. Their only combats were in the subterraneous depths of learning amidst the peace of cloisters; and they triumphed with such modesty, that they doubled their victory. Of their adversaries they speak with respect, as holy men whose example should teach them to distrust themselves, and to watch carefully against their own judgment being precipitate.' De Rancé had said that Mabillon wrote against his own conviction. Mabillon replied humbly, that he may have been guilty of contradictions and errors, but that he hoped, with the grace of our Lord, that he would never write against his conviction. Then he went to La Trappe, and spent a day with him. We embraced,' he says. "We were both on our knees. He said that sometimes, under the strong impression of a truth, men said things too sharply. I answered, that his book had not in the least affected the respect and veneration which I had for him.' No literary quarrel ever ended like that. It is a pity that the English writer should have forgotten it in his Quarrels of Authors.' In continuing to read their correspondence, one is often astonished at the sagacity of these poor and humble scholars. They judged rightly of Italy, France, and England. They were true philosophers. Men of the world have not always this keen and piercing accuracy of glance. The solitary life, now so disdained, is more favourable than one supposes to the observation of human things. From the depth of his silent grotto, the philosophic spectator has a clearer sight. Sometimes with one word of tranquil irony they can rally a little, without wounding, the faults of those of their own side; but it is only in extreme cases, when they have to defend their very persons, that they allow themselves even this liberty. In fine, the clearness of their style, the gravity and simplicity of their tone, the solidity and vastness of their researches, their fear of falling into eloquence or elegance, their true modesty, their aversion for disputes, for violent language, and even for the ornaments of style, isolate them completely. Their lives are without caprice, as their souls without passions, and their style colourless. It is virtue itself-a sõber, close, united stuff, strong and coherent. Every thing with them proceeds from duty, and is directed to usefulness. If they feel their pen yield to a capricious movement, they are alarmed, and believe themselves damned. They march in order, the forehead concealed, the head veiled, each like the other, and with the same grave and gentle pace, regular as one man-true procession of monks, disdaining glory for duty. I regret that I cannot show them all as they appear in their writings so worthy of the respect of a civilization to the light of which they have so much contributed. The present age, which resembles them in nothing, honours them; and it cannot give a greater proof of being just."* The moderns lament with Southey that their most learned professors being dead, are gone to a place where their Greek will be of no use to them. The pupils of Catholic schools cannot predicate this of their deceased masters, since they made every lecture a step of the ladder by which they mounted to the paradise of God. * Philarète Chasles. We cannot approach the precincts of the Catholic schools without meeting men whose names alone dispense us from attempting to show the vastness and depth of the learning which prevailed in them. Learning alone, therefore, points to the Catholic Church, and invites men who love erudition to embrace her as their mother, addressing them in words like those of Dante : "If thou follow but thy star Thou canst not miss at last a glorious haven." Even many of the books, from rudiments to the heights, which are still read in all the English schools, were composed by monks and religious men, or for the use of Catholic princes, whose names and titles in the first page startle the misguided student with the strangeness of the unaccustomed word. The Jesuit's dictionary for verse, the Minim's edition of the Principia, the Delphin Classics, the old translations of the grammars, prompt a student's question which the present teachers would generally prefer not answering. Dionysius of Genoa shows, that down to the year 1745, the one order of the Capuchins, in spite of the poverty which they so rigorously prac tised, had furnished one thousand and eighty-two solid authors, namely, 154 historians, 112 biographers, 18 geographers, 17 philologists, 37 physicians or mathematicians, and 59 poets.t What, then, must have been the fruit of the older communities? Not, however, to remain here unnecessarily with Benedictins, Franciscans, Jesuits, and Sorbonists, I would ask for a moment's pause to observe the strange combination which exists between the Catholic erudition, and the exercise of what is least of all an attendant on every other learning, namely, the most heroic charity. From the one Order of the Holy Trinity alone many very remarkable examples can be adduced, such as those of Father Michael Lacte, a Spaniard, minister-general of the Order of the Trinity in 1228, who had professed natural philosophy in Paris, where his disciples besought him to publish his lectures on physics;-of Brother Didacus d'Avila, a celebrated monk of the same order, buried in the convent of Seville, with this epitaph— 66 Egregius verbi divini præco, domusque Filius istius, saxa sub ista jacet. Calluit is linguam Hebræam, Græcam atque Latinam : Doctrina primus, nulli virtute secundus ;"§ * i. 15. + Dion. Gen. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Ord. Minorum S. Franc. Capuccinorum. Baron Annales Ord. S. Trin. pro Redempt. Captivor. 134. § Id. 183. |