John Inglesant: A Romance (Volume 2 of 2), Page 4

  *CHAPTER IV.*

  Among the letters of introduction to persons in Rome which Inglesantcarried with him, was one from Father St. Clare to the Rector of theEnglish College, a Jesuit. The Cardinal had invited him to remain aninmate of his family, but there were several reasons which inducedInglesant to decline the offer. He was desirous of observing thesituation and habits of the great city in a more unfettered way than hewould probably be able to do if attached to the household of a greatman. This reason alone would probably have decided him, but it was notthe only one. In proportion as his mind recovered its natural tone, andwas able to throw off the depression which had so long troubled him,another source of perplexity had taken its place. Most men, in thosedays, with the exception of very determined Puritans, approached Romewith feelings of veneration and awe. Inglesant's training andtemperament inclined him to entertain these feelings as strongly perhapsas any man of the day; but since he had been in Italy, his eyes and earshad not been closed, and it had been impossible for him to resist agrowing impression, scarcely perhaps amounting to conviction, that thenearer he approached the Papal capital the more wretched and worsegoverned did the country appear on every side. In the mutteredcomplaints which reached his ear these evils were charged partly uponthe abuses of the Papal chair itself, but principally upon the tyrannyand oppression of the society of the Jesuits. Inglesant made theseobservations mostly in the taverns or cafes in the evenings when thosewho were present, perceiving him to be a foreigner, were more disposedto be communicative than they otherwise would have been. But theCardinal was known to associate rather with the Fathers of the Oratorythan with the Jesuits; and men did not hesitate therefore to speaksomewhat freely on these matters to his familiar companion. Theseaccusations did not destroy Inglesant's faith in the Society, but theymade him anxious to hear the other side, and to see, if possible fromwithin, the working of this great and powerful organization, and tounderstand the motives which prompted those actions which were so muchblamed, and which were apparently productive of such questionablefruits. If this were to be done, it must be done at once. He came toRome recommended to the Jesuits' College, almost an accredited agent. Hewould be received without suspicion, and would probably be enabled toobtain an insight into much of their policy. But if at the outset heassociated himself with persons and interests hostile, or at leastindifferent, to those of the party to which he belonged, and which hewished to understand, this opportunity would doubtless soon be lost tohim. Acting upon these considerations, he parted from the Cardinal, towhom he confided his motives, and made his way to the English College orhouse, which was situated in the street leading to St. Peter's and theVatican, and not far from the Bridge and Castle of St. Angelo.

  The College was a large and fair house, standing in several courts andgardens. Inglesant was received with courtesy by the rector, who saidthat he remembered seeing him in London, and that he had also been athis father's house in Wiltshire. He named to him several Priests who hadalso been there; but so many Papists had been constantly coming andgoing at Westacre, during the time that Father St. Clare had residedthere, that Inglesant could not recall them to mind. The rector,however, mentioned one whom he remembered, the gentleman who had givenhim St. Theresa's Life. He advised Inglesant to remain some days at theCollege, as the usual and natural resort of all Englishmen connected inany way with the Court and Church of Rome, promising him pleasant rooms.He showed him his apartment, a small but handsome guest-chamber, lookingupon a garden, with a sort of oratory or closet adjoining, with an altarand crucifix. The bell rang for supper, but the rector had that meallaid for himself and his guest in his private room. The students, andthose who took their meals at the common table, had but one good meal inthe day, that being a most excellent one. Their supper consisted of aglass of wine and a manchet of bread.

  The rector and Inglesant had much talk together, and after the latterhad satisfied his host, as best he could, upon all those points--andthey were many--connected with the state of affairs in England uponwhich he desired information, the rector began in his turn to give hisguest a description of affairs in Rome, and of those things which heshould see, and how best to see them.

  "I will not trouble you now," he said, "with any policy or Stateaffairs. You will no doubt wish to spend the next few days in seeingthe wonderful sights of this place, and in becoming familiar with itssituation, so that you may study them more closely afterwards. A manmust indeed be ill-endowed by nature who does not find in Rome delightin every branch of learning and of art. The libraries are open, and thestudents have access to the rarest books; in the Churches the mostexquisite voices are daily heard, the palaces are crowded with picturesand with statues, ancient and modern. You have, besides, the statelystreets and noble buildings of every age, the presence of strangers fromevery part of the world, villas covered with 'bassi relievi,' and theenjoyment of nature in enchanting gardens. To a man who loves thepractices of devotion I need not mention the life-long employment amongthe Churches, relics, and processions. It is this last that gives theunique completeness of the Roman life within itself. To the abundanceof its earthly wealth, to the delights of its intellectualgratifications, is added a feeling of unequalled security andsatisfaction, kept alive, in a pious mind, by the incessantcontemplation of the objects of its reverence. I do not know if you areby taste more of a scholar than of a religious, but both tastes areworthy of cultivation, nor is all spiritual learning necessarilyconfined to the last. There is much that is very instructive in thelessons which the silent stones and shattered monuments of the fallencities over which we walk teach us. It has been well observed thateverything that has been dug out of the ruins of ancient Rome has beenfound mutilated, either by the barbarians, fanaticism, or time; and oneof our poets, Janus Vitalis, seeing all the massive buildings moulderedor mouldering away, and the ever-changing Tiber only remaining the same,composed this ingenious and pleasing verse--

  'Disce hinc quid possit fortuna; immota labascunt; Et quae perpetuo sunt fluitura, manent.'

  You will find that the Italian humour delights much in such thoughts asthese, which make the French and other nations accuse us of melancholy.The Italian has a strong fancy, yet a strong judgment, and this makeshim delight in such things as please the fancy, while at the same timethey are in accordance with judgment and with reason. He delights inmusic, medals, statues, and pictures, as things which either divert hismelancholy or humour it; and even the common people, such as shoemakers,have formed curious collections of medals of gold, silver, and brass,such as would have become the cabinet of a prince. Do you wish to beginwith the Churches or with the antiquities?"

  Inglesant said he wished to see the Churches first of all.

  "You will, no doubt," said the rector, "find a great satisfaction insuch a choice. You will be overcome with the beauty and solemnity ofthese sacred places, and the sweetness of the organs and of the singingwill melt your heart. At the same time, I should wish to point out toyou, to whom I wish to speak without the least reserve, that you will nodoubt see some things which will surprise you, nay, which may evenappear to you to be, to say the least, of questionable advantage. Youmust understand once for all, and constantly bear in mind, that thiscity is like none other, and that many things are natural and properhere which would be strange and ill-fitted elsewhere. Rome is thevisible symbol and representation of the Christian truth, and we livehere in a perpetual masque or holy interlude of the life of the Saviour.As in other countries and cities, outward representations are placedbefore the people of the awful facts and incidents on which theirsalvation rests, so here this is carried still farther, as indeed wasnatural and almost inevitable. It was a very small step from therepresentation of the flagellation of Christ to the very pillar on whichHe leant. Indeed, where these representations were enacted, the simplecountry people readily and naturally conceived them to have taken place.Hence, when you are shown the three doors of Pilate's house in whichJ
esus passed and repassed to and from judgment, the steps up which Hewalked, the rock on which He promised to build His Church, the stone onwhich the cock stood and crowed when Peter denied Him, part of His coatand of His blood, and several of the nails of His cross,--more possiblythan were originally used, over which the heretics have not failed tomake themselves very merry;--when you see all these things, I say, andif you feel, as I do not say you will feel--but if you feel anyhesitancy or even some repulsion, as though these miraculous things wereto you matters more of doubt than worship, you will not fail at once tosee the true nature and bearing of these things, nor to apply to themthe solution which your philosophy has doubtless given already to manydifficult questions of this life. These things are true to each of usaccording as we see them; they are, in fact, but shadows and likenessesof the absolute truth that reveals itself to men in different ways, butalways imperfectly and as in a glass. To the simple-hearted peasantthat pavement upon which in his mind's eye he sees Jesus walking, isverily and indeed pressed by the Divine feet; to him this pillar, thesight of which makes the stinging whips creep along his flesh, is thepillar to which the Lord was tied. Our people, both peasant and noble,are of the nature of children--children who are naughty one moment andsincerely penitent the next. They are now wildly dissolute, the nextday prostrate before the cross; and as such, much that is true andbeautiful in their lives seems otherwise to the cold and world-taughtheart. But our Lord honoured the childlike heart, and will not sendaway our poor peasants when they come to Him with their littleofferings, even though they lay them at the feet of a Bambino doll."

  "But do you not find," said Inglesant, "that this devotion, which is soephemeral, is rather given to the sensible object than to the unseenChrist?"

  "It may be so," said the rector; "there is no good but what has itsalloy; but it is a real devotion, and it reaches after Christ. Grantedthat it is dark, no doubt in the darkness it finds Him, though it cannotsee His form."

  "Doubtless," said Inglesant, who saw that the rector did not wish todwell on this part of the subject, "as we say in our service in England,we are the sheep of His pasture, and we are all branded with the markwhich He puts upon His sheep--the innate knowledge of God in the soul.I remember hearing of a man who believed that he had a guardian spiritwho awoke him every morning with the audible words, 'Who gets up firstto pray?' If this man was deluded, it could not have been by Satan."

  In the morning, when Inglesant awoke, he saw from his window, over thecity wall, the Monte Mario, with its pine woods, and the windows of itsscattered houses, lighted by the rising sun. The air was soft andbalmy, and he remained at the open window, letting his mind grow certainof the fact that he was in Rome. In the clear atmosphere of the Papalcity there was a strange shimmer of light upon the distant hills, and onthe green tufts and hillocks of the waste ground beyond the walls. Thewarm air fanned his temples, and in the stillness of the early morning adelicious sense of a wonderful and unknown land, into the mysteries ofwhich he was about to enter, filled his mind.

  It was indeed a strange world which lay before him, and resemblednothing so much as that to which the rector had aptly compared it thenight before, a sacred interlude full of wild and fantastic sights;Churches more sublime than the dreams of fancy painted, across whosemarble pavements saints and angels moved familiarly with men; pagansepulchres and banqueting chambers, where the phantoms flickered as inTartarus itself; vaults and Christian catacombs, where the cry ofmartyrs mingled with the chanting of masses sung beneath the sod, andwhere the torch-light flashed on passing forms of horror, quelledeverywhere by the figure of the Crucified, that at every turn kept theplace; midnight processions and singing, startling the darkness andscaring the doers of darkness, mortal and immortal, that lurked amongthe secret places, where the crimes of centuries stood like ghastlycorpses at every step; and above all and through all the life of Jesus,enacted and re-enacted year after year and day by day continually, notin dumb show or memorial only, but in deed and fact before the eyes ofmen, as if, in that haunt of demons and possessed, in that sink of pastand present crime, nothing but the eternal presence and power of Jesuscould keep the fiends in check.

  The rector took Inglesant over the College, and showed him the life andcondition of the inmates under its most pleasing aspect. As he then sawit it reminded him of a poem he had heard Mr. Crashaw read at LittleGidding, describing a religious house and condition of life, and hequoted part of it to the rector:--

  "No cruel guard of diligent cares, that keep Crowned woes awake, as things too wise for sleep: But reverend discipline, and religious fear, And soft obedience, find sweet biding here; Silence and sacred rest, peace and pure joys."

  When they had seen the College the rector said,--

  "We will go this morning to St. Peter's. It is better that you shouldsee it at once, though the first sight is nothing. Then at three o'clockwe will attend vespers at the Capello del Coro, where there is finemusic every day in the presence of a cardinal; afterwards, as Rome isvery full, there will be a great confluence of carriages in the Piazzaof the Farnese Palace, which is a favourite resort. There I can showyou many of the great ones, whom it is well you should know by sight,and hear something of, before you are presented to them."

  As they passed out into the street of the city the rector began adisquisition on the discovery of antiquities in Rome. He advisedInglesant to study the cabinets of medals which he would meet with inthe museums and palaces, as they would throw great light upon thestatues and other curiosities.

  "A man takes a great deal more pleasure," he said, "in surveying theancient statues, who compares them with medals, than it is possible forhim to do without some such knowledge, for the two arts illustrate eachother. The coins throw a great light upon many points of ancienthistory, and enable us to distinguish the kings and consuls, emperorsand empresses, the deities and virtues, with their ensigns and trophies,and a thousand other attributes and images not to be learnt orunderstood in any other way. I have a few coins myself, which I shallbe glad to show you, and a few gems, among which is an Antinous cut in acarnelian which I value very highly. It represents him in the habit ofa Mercury, and is the finest Intaglio I ever saw. I obtained it byaccident from a peasant, who found it while digging in his vineyard."

  Inglesant was too much occupied watching the passers-by in the throngedstreets to pay much attention to what he said. The crowded pavements ofRome offered to his eyes a spectacle such as he had never seen, and tohis imagination a fanciful pageant such as he had never pictured even inhis dreams. The splendid equipages with their metal work of massivesilver, the strange variety of the clerical costumes, the fantasticdresses of the attendants and papal soldiers, the peasants and pilgrimsfrom all countries, even the most remote, crossed his vision in anentangled maze.

  As they crossed the bridge of St. Angelo, the rector informed him of theinvaluable treasures of antique art which were supposed to lie beneaththe muddy waters of the river. They passed beneath the castle, and a fewmoments more brought them to the piazza in front of the Church.

  The colonnade was not finished, one side of it being then in course ofcompletion; but in all its brilliant freshness, with the innumerablestatues, white from the sculptor's hand, it had an imposing and statelyeffect. The great obelisk, or Guglia, as the Italians called it, hadbeen raised to its position some seventy years before, but only one ofthe great fountains was complete. Crossing the square, which was fullof carriages, and of priests and laymen on foot, the rector andInglesant ascended the marble stairs which had formed part of the oldBasilica, and up which Charlemagne was said to have mounted on hisknees, and passing through the gigantic porch, with its enormous pillarsand gilt roof, the rector pushed back the canvas-lined curtain thatclosed the doorway, and they entered the Church.

  The masons were at work completing the marble covering of the massivesquare pillars of the nave; but though the work was unfinished, it wassufficient to produce an effect of inexpressible
richness and splendour.The vast extent of the pavement, prepared as for the heavenly host withinlaying of colours of polished stone, agate, serpentine, porphyry, andchalcedon; the shining walls, veined with the richest marbles, andstudded with gems; the roof of the nave, carved with foliage and rosesoverlaid with gold; the distant walls and chambers of imagery, dim withincense, through which shone out, scarcely veiled, the statues andtombs, the paintings and crucifixes and altars, with their glimmeringlights;--all settled down, so to speak, upon Inglesant's soul with aperception of subdued splendour, which hushed the spirit into a silentfeeling which was partly rest and partly awe.

  But when, having traversed the length of the nave without uttering aword, he passed from under the gilded roofs, and the spacious dome,lofty as a firmament, expanded itself above him in the sky, covered withtracery of the celestial glories and brilliant with mosaic and stars ofgold; when, opening on all sides to the wide transepts, the limitlesspavement stretched away beyond the reach of sense; when, beneath thisvast work and finished effort of man's devotion, he saw the high altar,brilliant with lights, surmounted and enthroned by its panoply ofclustering columns and towering cross; when, all around him, he wasconscious of the hush and calmness of worship, and felt in his inmostbeing the sense of vastness, of splendour, and of awe;--he may bepardoned if, kneeling upon the polished floor, he conceived for themoment that this was the house of God, and that the gate of heaven washere.

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