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ARCHIVES OF THE VATICAN

DURING his visit to England, where he attended the Bible Congress held at Cambridge University, Cardinal Gasquet gave an interview to a writer of the London Times, who came to secure information about the eminent

scholar's work in the Vatican Archives, which have been under his care since 1918. The Cardinal, whose official title is Prefect of the Vatican Archives, has spent most of the three years of his incumbency in directing the rearrangement of the enormous collection of manuscripts, which were in chaotic confusion, never having been properly reclassified after their return to Rome from Paris, whither they had been carried by Napoleon.

Himself an Englishman, born in London in 1846, Cardinal Gasquet has devoted especial attention to the English manuscripts of the collection, and by the time he returns to Italy, twelve stout volumes will await him there to attest the success of his labors.

They are all of outstanding interest [said the Cardinal], although different manuscripts will appeal to different people for different reasons. For example, there are two letters from Edmund Burke in his

own handwriting. They are both written to the Vatican, and in one he urges with energy and almost with violence the advantages of an alliance between this country and the Holy See. Then there is a letter from Nelson, thanking the Pope for having given him permission to revictual his ships at an Italian port; and others from Hood. One particularly interesting manuscript gives a graphic description of the battle of Toulon.

In addition there is a whole series of letters from Cardinal Erskine, who was Ambassador in England during the reign of George III. He kept the Vatican very well informed of all his deeds and move

ments, and some of his comments on contemporary figures and contemporary society are exceedingly interesting. It would not be too much to say that no one who wants to study that period in English history could afford to neglect that series of letters, several hundred in number, which have hitherto been hidden away in the library at the Vatican. There are also some very interesting letters in the archives of other countries, and the French archives of the time of Napoleon are very instructive. The Pope was all for neutrality, and there are some truculent letters from France ordering him to drive all the English out of his territory with all possible speed.

Pope Leo XIII was the first to make these manuscripts and archives fairly accessible to the public, and there has always since then been a steady stream of students making use of the riches they contain. During the war they were not taken away, as the task would have been too colossal, but they remained there and were not damaged at all. Now the buildings are again thronged with students. There are probably fifty or sixty there every day; and it is a curious fact that now quite half of that number are invariably Germans. They are maintaining their reputation for the painstaking and thorough nature of their researches, which they established before the war.

The whole collection under Cardinal

Gasquet's charge contains, of course, many other manuscripts. There are thousands of bound volumes, and hundreds of thousands of loose manuscripts which are slowly being gathered up and bound into volumes. During the Middle Ages the collection suffered from successive pillagings, and the present mass of archives dates largely from the pontificate of Innocent III (1198-1216), though even these have suffered serious spoliation. Many were lost when they were being returned to Italy from Paris; and Cardinal Gasquet suggests that 'probably a large

number of others intentionally went astray.' To this day, fragments of the straw in which they were packed at this time occasionally drop from the vol

umes.

The whole collection is now fairly well sorted, classified, and indexed, and by the end of the year will probably be available for the use of scholars.

THE CONQUEST OF STORMY ROCKALL

ROCKALL the unconquerable, the solitary little crag that thrusts its stubborn rocky head above the waters of the North Atlantic, 300 miles from the nearest land, has been completely explored at last. The conquerors are Dr. J. B. Charcot and his associates on the French naval vessel, the PourquoiPas, who have effected a landing on the almost inaccessible sea-washed crag, made explorations, and brought off specimens of interest to biologists and geologists.

Rockall lies due west of the Hebrides, a single gigantic rock, the summit of a submerged mountain-peak, about a hundred metres in circumference where it breaks the sea, and rising only about twenty metres above its surface. So sheer are its sides and so fierce the waves about it, that there are only three recorded landings since the sixteenth century. No lighthouse can be built. It bears not a blade of grass, and the only inhabitants are the seabirds, which find there the safest refuge in all the seven seas.

The first landing known to have been made was due to the daring of a sailor on the English frigate Endymion, which passed close to the rock in 1810, while in pursuit of a French brig. The next landing was in 1863, when a quarter-master on the English hydrographic vessel 'Porcupine' managed to get ashore and, like his predecessor, break off a few bits of the granite. In 1887, a pair

of hardy fishermen from the Faroe Islands, men accustomed to clamber among the cliffs in quest of sea-birds and their eggs, contrived to scale the sheer sides of Rockall, and there is also a sixteenth-century legend of an Irish monk and navigator, Brennain MacFinlonga, better known as Saint Brandan, who had a meeting with a holy hermit at what may have been Rockall.

Three fragments of the rock, broken off as souvenirs by the explorers, came into the hands of English geologists, and M. A. Lacroix, Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences, finally secured a few grammes in a carefully sealed tube. Mineralogical examination of these minute fragments showed the stone to be an entirely new granite, upon which the name rockallite was bestowed. After this there were several attempts to land. Two small but carefully equipped expeditions were sent by the Royal Irish Academy in 1896, without success. The French navy also sent ships to Rockall, all of which encountered such stormy weather that landing was altogether out of the question.

Dr. Charcot managed to get men ashore by having the Pourquoi-Pas stand to at a safe distance, and sending two boats, one to make the landing and the other to render assistance in case of accident. After making several complete circuits of the rock, the party finally selected a spot on the southsoutheast where they put two men ashore and then passed over hammers and other geological equipment, with which to take specimens. Two days later, another landing was made by two other men, one of whom was the expedition's artist, who made sketches and drawings of the rock itself and observations on the habits of the seabirds living there. Specimens of the algæ growing on Rockall were secured later.

The expedition sounded and dragged the sea-bottom about the rock, nearly meeting with a serious accident in doing so. The rock-specimens which it brought back to Paris have already enabled M. Lacroix to announce, in a preliminary paper read before the Academy of Sciences, that the original conclusions as to the mineralogy of Rockall must now be modified. Rockallite, which had keen thought to constitute the entire bulk of the submerged peak, now appears to form only a part of it, and the new specimens that have been brought back have enabled the French geologist accurately to place the rocks in the geological series.

A MAORI FAITH-HEALER

WONDERFUL cures are said to have been wrought by Ratana, a Maori faith-healer who is at present touring New Zealand with several friends. At every town which contains Maoris in any number, he stops for a time to preach his gospel of faith.

One of the most amazing cures reported is that of a crippled European girl, who was brought in a taxi while Ratana was holding a special service. When he was asked to come to her at once, as she was in agonizing pain, Ratana replied, "Tell her that, when this service is over, I will go to her. Go back to her and the pain will have ceased.' He was obeyed, and the girl's attendants are said to have found that the healer was quite right, though he had not as yet seen the girl. After the service he went to the motor, bade her rise and come to the church with him, and, though she had hitherto been unable to walk, she was able to walk with him to the church and returned with the full use of her legs. Ratana is said to have returned the fifty-pound note given by him a gentleman who came to him on crutches and left without their

aid. He explained, 'I cannot accept payment. I am doing only my duty.'

The faith-healer has been very successful as cessful as an evangelist among the Waikato natives who have been obdurate to the pleas of the missionaries ever since they were attacked and defeated by white men who surprised them while they were at prayer on the Sabbath.

BENEDETTO CROCE ON SHAKESPEARE

BENEDETTO CROCE, most stimulating of present-day philosophers, approaches Shakespearean criticism with qualities which (it is scarcely too much to say) have never before been brought to the task. A metaphysician and a student of ethics and æsthetics of the first rank, he is also a man of sturdy common sense, with a scientist's pronounced penchant for bluntly stating the facts as he sees them; and to these, he adds one more quality all but unknown to scientists and rare among metaphysicians: he is a genuine lover of art and poetry for its own sake, not merely as a pretty specimen for the aestheticians dissecting-table.

Consequently his new book, Ariosto, Shakespeare, and Corneille, an English translation of which by Mr. Douglas Ainslie has just been published in London, is a contribution of distinct importance to the one field in English literature where it is especially difficult to make a new contribution of even minor value-Shakespearean criticism. For there are still things to be said about Shakespeare, and Signor Croce has many of them to say.

A large part of the essay on Shakespeare is controversial, a criticism of Shakespeare's critics and biographers, with whom the author deals sternly because, as he charges, they seek to rear too ambitious a biographical structure on the very slender foundation of

known facts. He is equally stern with the critics who seek to trace in every incident of the plays a correspondence either to the life of the dramatist himself or to the events of his day.

The Italian critic somewhat underestimates the strong vein of patriotic sentiment which most people discern in Shakespeare, and in apparent indifference to such passages as the precious

stone set in a silver sea,' he avers that the historical plays show only that Shakespeare had a keen interest in 'practical action,' and that 'this interest, finding its most suitable material in political and warlike conflicts, was naturally attracted to history, and to that especial form of it which was nearest to the soul and to the culture of the poet, of his people, and of his time, English and Roman history.'

The new book has in it a great deal of beautiful writing and some genuine ard sincere pass ges of pure appreciation. Such various characters as Othello, Falstaff, Hotspur, and Cordelia are dealt with in a fashion which,

whether for eloquence or perspicuity,

it would be hard to better.

Of King Lear he says, 'An infinite hatred for deceitful wickedness has inspired this work'; but he finds inspiration for it, also, in love and the love of goodness, as exemplified in Cordelia, 'a true and complete goodness, not simply softness, mildness, and indulgence.' There is more than a suggestion of the philosopher's long pondering of the problem of evil in such a passage as this:

Why, why does not goodness triumph in the material world? And why, thus conquered, does she increase in beauty, evoke ever more disconsolate desire, until she is finally adored as something sacred? The tragedy of King Lear is penetrated throughout with this unexpressed yet anguished interrogation so full of the sense of the misery of life.

LOT 8: RUNNYMEDE

Lor 8: On the Manor Farm is Runnymede. The armies of King John and the Confederate Barons encamped here for the signing of the Magna Charta on June 15, 1215.

THIS brief item in the auctioneer's catalogue at the sale of former Crown lands has evoked a chorus of protest from the British press, which has been

all the more bitter because the historic meadow was saved to the nation by the mere chance that there was no purchaser. The proposed sale was due to the programme of rigid economy instituted by the British Government to aid in solving post-war financial problems, which has led to the sale of various lands formerly appertaining to the Crown. No one seems to know who is responsible for placing on the list Runnymede.

If Runnymede had been sold, public indignation would probably have compelled its repurchase by the authorities. The present unanimous opposition of the press will undoubtedly result in the withdrawal from sale of the ancient site of the barons' camp, nearly a hundred acres in extent.

BOOKS MENTIONED

ESHER, VISCOUNT: The Tragedy of Lord Kitchener. London: John Murray. 10s. 6d. net.

DUMAINE, ALFRED: La dernière Ambassade de France en Austriche. Paris: Plon-Nourrit. 7fr.

The Classics in Education. Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the position of Classics in the Educational System of the United Kingdom. London. His Majesty's Stationery Office. 28. net.

CROCE, BENEDETTO: Ariosto, Shakespeare, and Corneille. Translated by Douglas Ainslie. Allen and Unwin.

10s.

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