which strong men battled fiercely in noble | tender light which is not wholly of the civil war for lofty principles; and is sur- earth. He is true, but is drawn with a rounded by the color, warmth, languor, of certain intentional unreality; he is not the soft south, and the sunny land of music, art - of misery and vice. It is the time of the afterglow of the Renaissance, with all its splendors and its shames; and Mr. Shorthouse knows thoroughly the state of Italy at that period, the corruption of the Church, the misgovernment of the people, and the general sufferings and crimes. quite actual, but is faithful to a high ideal type of partly disembodied spirit. And yet Inglesant loved the life of art and delicate luxury; loved to dress finely and to lie softly; loved to live in kings' palaces, and cared for all elegant surroundings. Mr. Shorthouse always supplies his hero with ample means; and environs him with music and all sensuous — not sensual-delights. It cannot have escaped your notice, since Very characteristic is Inglesant's subyou have been in Italy, that there is much that is rotten in the state of government, and to be jection to the teaching of the great Quietdeplored in the condition of the people. I do ist, Molinos, who has an additional attracnot know in what way you may have accounted tion for the Englishman in respect that he for this lamentable condition of affairs in your is, virtually, in antagonism to the ordinary own mind; but among ourselves there is but teaching and practice of the Romish one solution-the share that priests have in priesthood; and is, in striving for the betthe government, not only in the Pope's terri-ter life, earning the crown of martyrdom tory, but in all the other courts of Italy where they have rule. It requires to be an Italian, and to have grown to manhood in Italy, to estimate justly the pernicious influence of the clergy upon all ranks of society. in this life. The doctrines and example of Molinos differ widely from those of De Cressy; but we have, in Mr. Shorthouse, a guide who can lead us through all tentatives of spiritual struggle; and who Inglesant carried with him to Italy his writes, with full comprehension and real religious aspiration combined with free sympathy, of all movements and tendenspeculative opinion; his sorrowful striv. cies which even profess to strive for light ings after divine truth, his refinement and and guidance. A man who goes to Rome his culture; but he also bore with him for religion, may find it, as Luther did, in "his weakness and his melancholy; " and a sense that he dreamed not of; and Inhe suffered under strained nerves, de- glesant found that the ordinary clerical pressed vitalism, and an oppression and life of Rome tended to sap the foundaconfusion of the o'ercharged and weary tions of religion. He found, in high brain. He has become in part, "brain-places, the tone of pagan philosophy; and sickly." To his diseased organization, the fair earth seemed wrapped in a hot steaming mist of swooning haze. To his dream-fever, men and things appeared faint, shadowy, unreal; and all life was clouded with a vaporous veil. Illusion was his nearest actuality; and men moved about him, acted upon him, almost as spectres, which appeared to be without clear volition, or very real existence. The slight, sad cavalier, fair as was Milton in his youth, gentle and graceful, courteous, serene, and tender, breathed in a fine, delicate air of phantasy, and only half realized mortal life and human inter ests. In this highly pitched romance, all events and occurrences are subordinated to spiritual aims and ends. Love, ambition, action, revenge, in Inglesant, all play parts which tend to exemplify the sorrow ful strivings of a yearning soul. The other characters seem more actual and objective when contrasted with Inglesant's dreamy intangibility and philosophic ab. straction. He moves about in a soft and perfect tolerance of opinion, combined with lofty indifference to dogma or to doctrine. The many conversations between Inglesant and cardinals, and the like, are often as much doctrinal as dramatic; and seem to be- perhaps are meant to bethe dialogue between the "two voices " which debate in Inglesant's own restless soul. Among the "obstinate questionings" which puzzle his will is the doubt about the life of man as it is; about man as he is instead of as, according to theologians, he should be. Popular life and pagan survivals present an incessant, many-sided problem to his intellect. He cannot overcome his natural sympathy with frail, faulty humanity, acting in accordance with its natural impulses and instinctive needs. Human life may be more than any theories about life. Nay, that voice within Inglesant which is personated by the sensuous pagan cardinal finds tolerance even for the "beast within the man; even for "the worship of Priapus, of human life, in which nothing comes amiss or is to be staggered at, however voluptuous and idleness of the innumerable religious sensual, for all things are but varied manifestations of life; of life, ruddy, delicious, full of fruits, basking in sunsbine and plenty, dyed with the juice of grapes." Inglesant in this mood sympathizes with, and yet pities the natural instinct which seeks for natural pleasure, which desires to attain to those joys of sense which are agreeable to man's created nature. Inglesant, at least, never bows to the religion of personal fear; and there are times in which his thought leans to a love of mere humanity as that exists in fact. The earth claims her son. The result of Inglesant's political training was, that a life of intrigue and policy had become a necessity of his nature; but it is noteworthy that he cares for the Jesuit's craft, and not for the statesman's honor. His nature was subdued to what it worked in. He sought no open and responsible political position; but would undertake any secret mission even though it were not of a noble nature. Noble action in public affairs, or right morality in politics, had lost all meaning for him. His will was dominated by the Society of Jesus; and he had, as his merited punishment, obscured the conscience. The only form of action that he contemplated was intrigue. We have seen how, at St. Clare's bidding, he worked to introduce into England Irish Papist murderers; and now the Jesuits have found for him another ignoble mission. The old Duke of Umbria, tired of the world, is near his end, and it is the object of the Society of the Gesù to cause the old man to make over the succession of his state to the Holy See. Such a step would be taken to the prejudice of the heirs, and to the infinite injury of the poor people of the duchy. In Inglesant, "the old habit of implicit obedience was far from obliterated or even weakened, and though St. Clare was not present, the supreme motive of his influence was not unfelt; " and yet the emissary felt, in his better nature, when he saw the duke, that "his conscience smote him at the thought of abusing his [the duke's] confidence, and of persuading him to adopt a course which Inglesant's own heart warned him might not in the end be conducive to the duke's own peace, or to the welfare of the people." Inglesant was well acquainted with the cruel misgovernment to which the inhabitants of the unhappy duchy would be subjected under the rule of the Holy See; he knew the "oppression and waste caused by the accumulated wealth and orders," but, knowing all this, he yet did not decline the mission. The worldwearied and death-dreading duke tells Inglesant, "I cannot see the figure of the Christ for the hell that lies between." 66 Ah, Altezza,” says Inglesant, his eyes full of pity, "something stands between us and the heavenly life. It seems to me that your Highness has but to throw off that blasphemous superstition which is found in all Christian creeds alike, which has not feared to blacken even the shining gates of heaven with the smoke of hell." Ultimately the priests gain their point; and the success in Umbria is ascribed to Inglesant, who had characteristically juggled with his dimmed conscience by not pressing directly upon the duke the policy of bequeathing his state to Rome. The grateful old man, who had conceived a strong regard for the courteously sympathetic emissary of the Church, rewards Inglesant, in a princely manner, by the gift of a fief in the Apennines, consisting of some farms, and of the villa castle of San Giorgio, which confers the title of cavaliere upon their owner. Around the path of Inglesant flickers frequently the phantom of the murderer of Eustace- Malvolti who burns to murder the avenging brother of his former victim, and who makes several futile attempts upon the life of John Inglesant. This wretch is even a rival for the hand of Inglesant's new love, Lauretta. The dissolute and unprincipled brother of Lauretta is, unknown to Inglesant, an accomplice of the assassin of his brother; and the pair plot together to get Inglesant into their toils, and to tempt him to ruin by exposing him to a trial of the senses in which Lauretta shall, unconsciously, act as the temptress. Inglesant is selected to accompany Lauretta in a night flight from Florence to Pistoja. The lady is fleeing from the tyrannous brother who threatens to force her into a loathed union with that Malvolti, whose infamous character is well known to the Italian lady. During their night ride the lovers pause to rest and sup at a pavilion of the duchess in the forest. They find all things prepared for them at the pavilion. The moonlit night is soft and warm. The wine is good; the solitude complete. Alone with Lauretta in the lonely chamber, in the still, voluptuous hour, she reclines, in all her loveliness, on a couch, and her lover's arms encircle her; and Inglesant is exposed to a terrible tempta tion in which the senses seem about to | Malvolti can John Inglesant know peace, lead him to dishonor; to a dishonor which or attain to blessedness. The long-hauntwould have depraved his moral instinct ing problem is solved in this wise. On and confused his sensitive purity. But the road from Umbria to Rome, Ingleacross the impulse of the sorely tempted sant, clad in a suit of shining armor, girt senses arise the visions of the sacramen- with a jewelled sword, both gifts from the tal Sundays at Little Gidding-of the dying duke, rides with due escort over the pure eyes of the dead Mary Collet- and hills and down the long, wooded slope into Inglesant resists and overcomes. "It is the valley. A presentiment of some comnot so easy to ruin him with whom the ing fate or danger oppresses his weary pressure of Christ's hand yet lingers in brain, "and the recollection of his brother the palm." rose again in his remembrance, distinct Many charming episodes in this charm- and present as in life." Suddenly, in the ing book, many characteristic Italian oc- faint morning light, at the turning of the currences, must, of necessity, be passed road, face to face with Inglesant, stood over in so brief a study; but the greatest Malvolti, who had treacherously murepisode for episode only it remains-dered his brother, and had sought Inglein Inglesant's Italian life is his marriage with Lauretta. Mr. Shorthouse means, probably, to indicate that his hero was incapable of deep love, of mighty passion; and he weds a woman, the most lightly sketched figure in the book, who cannot fill his heart, or share his higher life. Lauretta touches our hearts as little as she did that of her husband. The only true love of which Inglesant was capable lies buried in the grave of Mary Collet. A typical papal election is finely described in Chapter XXX. : If, perchance, there entered into this Conclave any old Cardinal, worn by conflict with the Church's enemies “in partibus infidelium," amid constant danger of prison or death; or perchance coming from amongst harmless peasants in country places, and by long absence from the centre of the Church's polity, ignorant of the manner in which her Princes trod the footsteps of the Apostles of old, and by the memory of such conflict and of such innocence, and because of such ignorance, was led to entertain dreams of divine guidance, two or three days' experience caused such an one to renounce all such delusion, and to return to his distant battlefield, and to see Rome no more. Of course, Inglesant takes a lay part in the weariness, the perils, and terrors including the apparition of a phantom of murder of the Conclave. To one always living on the verge of delirium, the three years of marriage peace, at San Giorgio, may have been of service -but to Inglesant permanent rest was not permitted. He has won such love as he yet was capable of: he has yet to get quit of his long-projected, long-desired quest of vengeance upon his brother's mur derer. That state of chronic bitterness, of vague desire for revenge, wars against a soul which would be at rest in Christ. Not until he shall have reckoned with sant's own life. The escort, in answer to screams In an agony of terror, the wretch to Inglesant, Mercy, monsignore! mercy! I dare not, I am not fit to die. For the blessed Host, monsignore, have mercy for the love of Jesu - for the sake of Jesu!" The cruel light faded out of Inglesant's eyes. He was both above and below revenge; above it in virtue of his Christianity, below it in respect of his physical irresolution. He spares the culprit. Close by was a little chapel, in which the bell had just ceased ringing for mass. Inglesant entered, with his train, and when the priest offered Inglesant the sacrament, he took it. Inglesant then told his story to the priest, and gave up his jewelled sword, saying, "Take this sword, reverend father, and let it lie upon the altar beneath the Christ himself; and I will make an offering for daily masses for my brother's soul." 66 The good priest was one of those childlike peasant priests to whom the great world was unknown; " and to such a man "it seemed nothing strange that the blessed St. George himself, in jewelled armor, should stand before the altar in the mystic morning light;" so he took the shining sword and placed it on the altar. But Inglesant's visit seemed like unto a vision; and remained a legend. "Long afterwards, perhaps even to the present day, popular tradition took the story up and related that once, when the priest of the mountain chapel was a very holy man, the blessed St. George himself, in shining sacrament armor, came across the mountains one morning very early, and partook of the The legend was sup ported by the evidence of the sword itself; and the vision had this basis of merit, that it referred to a good priest and to a noble knight. In quest of his wife's wicked brother, Inglesant travels to Naples when the plague is raging there. Mr. Shorthouse has not Defoe's matchless imaginative realism, but his description of the pestilence in the doomed city is touched with a fine spiritual grace. Blind, disordered in brain, Malvolti once more crosses the path of Inglesant; but this time the terrible expiation imposed for terrible crimes moves Inglesant to pity. The conversion of Malvolti is, indeed, a somewhat miraculous one. During his absence, Lauretta and his boy have died at San Giorgio, and Inglesant is wifeless and is childless. În Rome the better side of his nature sympathizes in so far with the doomed Molinos that the Society of the Gesù resents his action. The general of the Society of the Gesù tells him that, in Rome, they do not need such high-class agents; we require only agents of a far lower type: " and he urges Inglesant to return to England. As this advice is given while the cavaliere is in prison in Sant Angelo, it is implicitly and even gratefully followed. 66 meet different expression to the face. His manner was courteous and polite, almost to excess. We like to look upon John Inglesant as, in his latter days, he lived, and moved, and had his being. We find him much what we should have expected him to be; and gaze upon him with pleasure before he vanishes forever from our eyes, and becomes only a possession of the fancy, a phantom of the memory. The virtuoso brought with him a violin, inscribed "Jacobus Stainer, in Absam propé Enipontem, 1647," and played upon it with mastery, after the Italian manner. tone "seemed to me," says Mr. Lee, "to exceed even that of the Cremonas." The On minds of virile force, Rome, when known intimately, exercises gradually more repulsion than attraction, and John Inglesant, who had all but joined her communion, is, as the result of his experience, ultimately repelled by her. Mr. Shorthouse does not preach against that Church, but he teaches by showing; he attacks by illustration; and he furnishes an armory of practical argument against Papacy and Jesuit. Mr. Lee said "that as Mr. Inglesant had had much experience in the working of the Romish system, he should be glad to know his opinion of it, and whether he preferred it to that of the English Church." From Mr. Inglesant's long reply we may extract the following: This is what the Church of Rome has ever We next and for the last time with John Inglesant in England and at Oxford. How changed the fair old col- done. She has traded upon the highest inlegiate city from the days in which the stincts of humanity, upon its faith and love, its young cavalier acted there before Charles denial, its imagination and yearning after the passionate remorse, its self-abnegation and I. and his queen and court! How changed unseen. To support this system it has the man himself, who returns, sadder and habitually set itself to suppress knowledge and wiser, to the old scene! How changed freedom of thought, before thought had taught the England to which he returned! The itself to grapple with religious subjects, belast glimpse we get of him is from a let-cause it foresaw that this would follow. ter of Mr. Valentine Lee, chirurgeon, of Reading, addressed to Mr. Anthony Paschall, physician, London; but in that letter Inglesant's own words are reverently recorded. He wore his own hair long, after the fashion of the last age, but in other respects he was dressed in the mode-in a French suit of black satin, with cravat and ruffles of Mechlin lace. His expression was lofty and abstracted, his features pale and somewhat thin, and his carriage gave me the idea of a man who had seen the world, and in whom few things were capable of exciting any extreme interest or attention. His eyes were light blue, of that peculiar shade which gives a dreamy and in It has, therefore, for the sake of preserving intact its dogma, risked the growth and welfare of humanity, and has, in the eyes of all except those who value this dogma above all other things, constituted itself the enemy of the human race. I have, perhaps, occupied a position which enables me to judge somewhat advantageously between the Churches, and my earnest advice is this, You will do wrongmankind will do wrong-if it allows to drop out of existence, merely because the position on which it stands seems to be illogical, an agency by which the devotional instincts of human nature are enabled to exist side by side with the rational. The English Church, as established by the law of England, offers the supernatural to all who choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, whose sun shines alike on the evil and on the good. Upon the altars of the Church the Divine Presence hovers as surely, The essence of his last utterances may be condensed into the sad, deep saying: "Absolute truth is not revealed." For he dejection arising from baffled straining after an unattainable divine ideal. He is ever striving, but never fully convinced. To the comfort of conviction in his exalted spiritual ideals of revelation he cannot fully attain, and remains in an attitude of sad, high, longing discontent. desired, with an unspeakable yearning, and through many tentatives, to see the face of God, to behold the beatific vision; though while acting in cieca obedienza, as the conscienceless automaton of priestly and immoral despotism, he could but obscure the light towards which he strained. 'John Inglesant" is a work of rare and Inglesant could reach to rapture in a temdelicate merit, and it has become a per-porary or seeming conviction of transient manent possession of our literature. It seems scarcely likely that Mr. Shorthouse will become a voluminous writer. His profound, conscientious, thoughtful art needs to work slowly, and to mature its conceptions before they are set forth in art shape and form. His intellect is, perhaps, subtle and fine rather than robust and virile; and, the creature being the product of the creator, his hero is distin guished more for sweet grace and tenderness than for strong, clear, healthy manhood. "John Inglesant " is a moral study in morbid pathology; but none the less is the study valuable and delightful, and pregnant with deep meanings. Not, therefore, is it less interesting to thoughtful readers who care for the higher things of question and of thought. Mr. Shorthouse's style is one of calm, grave flow, deep and full, and always musical and picturesque. There is, in this writer, no effervescence of mind, no tone of levity. Singularly suited to the theme, the style does not rise above the level stream of sustained dignity and philosophic seriousness. There are not many dramatic movements, nor does the writer ever soar to tragedy. Placid and even, with a sweet use of finely chosen words, narrative, action, pictures, philosophy, disquisition, and dialogue, are all maintained in the exact tone which is true to the keynote of the deep and delightful book. emotion; but in the cold light of common day, in the long hours of ordinary life, the weary wings of aspiration flagged and failed, and let the soul sink down again to question and to doubt. And then came back the nameless sorrow, drawn from the depths of some divine despair, and the renewal of languid effort after the ever-receding unseen goal. His profound reverence, his ceaseless struggle, the ever-burning flame of his devout thought, seemed to droop under the chronic depression of a down-weighed spirit. There are men who are led by the facts of life to doubt of the beneficence of an inscrutable Deity; there are men who get no comfort from their faith, who get no answer to their prayer. The faith cannot penetrate mystery, the prayer does not seem to pierce through mist; and yet such men must still endeavor to trust, will pray though no answer be vouchsafed. But the state of soul which results from the long conflicts in which they have not been victorious is joyless and is dull. They trust, not faintly but firmly, the larger hope; but they know that hope is hope, and not conviction. They have knocked, but it has not been opened to them; they have yearned, but the yearn. ing has not led to the promised result. They have failed to feel the quickening touch of the living God of revelation. They cannot hide that, as is sung in lines written long after the day of John Ingle. sant, The individual spiritual needs and strivings of John Inglesant-long since quiet Some have striven, in the grave are of moment to us, not Achieving calm, to whom was given only as they affected the individual, but as The joy that mixes man with Heaven: types of the sorrows and struggles of the soul of man. He, like so many but they also feel in deep dejection other men, stands sadly in the shadow of infinite is sung in lines written long before the light and of divine truth. He wrestles day of John Inglesant, but surely un - with as so many other men wrestle thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls, and he suffers eventually from the deep as known to him-that we are but |