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Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints,
Whose bones lie scattered upon the Alpine mountains cold!
 

Amid such bitter recollections it is good to remember also the message of Cromwell to the Pope, that "if favor were not shown to the people of God, the thunder of English cannon should be heard in the castle of St. Angelo."

It seems as if it were a just retribution for those crimes of a former age that the Pope in these last days has had to walk so long in the Valley of Humiliation. Not for centuries has a Pontiff had to endure such repeated blows. The reign of Pius IX. has been longer than that of any of his predecessors; some may think it glorious, but it has witnessed at once the most daring assumption and its signal punishment – a claim of infallibility, which belongs to God alone – followed by a bitter humiliation as if God would cast this idol down to the ground. It is certainly a remarkable coincidence, that just as the dogma of Infallibility was proclaimed, Louis Napoleon rushed into war, as the result of which France, the chief supporter of the Papacy (which for twenty years had kept an army in Rome to hold the Pope on his throne), was stricken down, and the first place in Europe taken by a Protestant power. Germany had already humbled the other great Catholic power of Europe, to the confusion and dismay of the Pope and his councillors. A gentleman who has resided for many years in Rome, tells me that on the very day that the battle of Sadowa was fought, Cardinal Antonelli told a friend of his to "come around to his house that night to get the news; that he expected to hear of one of the greatest victories ever won for the Church," so confidently did he and his master the Pope anticipate the triumph of Austria. The gentleman went. Hour after hour passed, and no tidings came. It was midnight, and still no news of victory. Before morning the issue was known, that the Austrian army was destroyed. Cardinal Antonelli did not come forth to proclaim the tidings. He shut himself up, said my informant, and was not seen for three weeks!

And so it has come to pass – whether by accident or design, whether by the violence of man or by the will of God – that the Pope has been gradually stripped of that power and prestige which once so acted upon the imaginations of men, that, like Cæsar, "his bend did awe the world," and has come to be merely the bishop, or archbishop, of that portion of Christendom which submits to the Catholic Church.

I find the Rome of to-day divided into two camps. The Vatican is set over against the Quirinal. The Pope rules in one, and Victor Emmanuel in the other; and neither of these two sovereigns has anything to do with the other.

It would take long to discuss the present political state of Rome or of Italy. Apart from the right or wrong of this question, it is evident that the sympathies of the Italian people are on the side of Victor Emmanuel. The Roman people have had a long experience of a government of priests, and they do not like it. It seems as if the world was entering on a new era, and the Papacy, infallible and immutable as it is, must change too – it must "move on" or be overwhelmed.

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PRISONER OF THE VATICAN

Rome, October 15th.

It is a great loss to travellers who come to Rome to see the sights, that the Pope has shut himself up in the Vatican. In the good old times, when he was not only a spiritual, but a civil potentate – not only Pope, but King – he used to ride about a great deal to take a survey of his dominions. One might meet him of an afternoon taking an airing on the Pincian Hill, or on some of the roads leading out of Rome. He always appeared in a magnificent state carriage, of red trimmed with gold, with six horses richly caparisoned, and outriders going before, and the Swiss guards following after. [What would poor old Peter have said, if he had met his successor coming along in such mighty pomp?] The Cardinals too, arrayed in scarlet, had their red carriages and their fine liveries, and their horses pranced up and down the Corso. Thus Rome was very gay. The processions too were endless, and they were glorious to behold. It was indeed a grand sight to see the Pope and all his Cardinals, in their scarlet dresses, sweeping into St. Peter's and kneeling together in the nave, while the muskets of the Swiss guards rang on the pavement, in token of the might of arms which then attended the spiritual power.

But now, alas! all this is ended. The spoiler has entered into the holy place, and the Holy Father appears no more in the streets. Since that fatal day when the Italian troops marched into Rome – the 20th of September, 1870 – he has not put his foot in a carriage, nor shown himself to the Roman people. The Cardinals, who live in different parts of the city, are obliged to go about; but they have laid aside all their fine raiment and glittering equipage, and appear only in solemn black, as if they were all undertakers, attending the funeral of the Papacy. The Pope has shut himself up closely in the Vatican. He is, indeed, just as free to go abroad as ever. There is nothing to prevent his riding about Rome as usual. But no, the dear old man will have it that he is restrained of his liberty, and calls himself "a prisoner!" To be sure he is not exactly in a guard-house, or in a cell, such as those in the Inquisition just across the square of St. Peter, where heretics used to be accommodated with rather close quarters. His "prison" is a large one – a palace, with hundreds of richly furnished apartments, where he is surrounded with luxury and splendor, and where pilgrims flock to him from all parts of the earth. It is a princely retreat for one in his old age, and a grand theatre on which to assume the role of martyr. Almost anybody would be willing to play the part of prisoner, if by this means he might attract the attention and sympathy of the whole civilized world.⁷

But so complete is this voluntary confinement of the Pope, that he has not left the Vatican in these five years, not even to go into St. Peter's, though it adjoins the Vatican, and he can enter it by a private passage. It is whispered that he did go in on one occasion, to see his own portrait, which is wrought in mosaic, and placed over the bronze statue of St. Peter. But on this occasion the public were excluded, and when the doors were opened he had disappeared. He will not even take part in the great festivals of the Church, which are thus shorn of half their splendor.

How well I remember the gorgeous ceremonies of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday, and ending with Easter. I was one of the foreigners in the Sistine Chapel on Good Friday, when the Pope's choir, composed of eunuchs, sang the Miserere; and on the Piazza of St. Peter's at Easter, when the Pope was carried on men's shoulders to the great central window, where, in the presence of an immense crowd, he pronounced his benediction urbi et orbi; and the cannon of the Castle of St. Angelo thundered forth the mighty blessings which had thus descended on "the city and the world." I saw too, that night, the illumination of St. Peter's, when arches and columns and roof and dome were hung with lamps, that when all lighted together, made such a flame that it seemed as if the very heavens were on fire.

But now all this glory and splendor have gone out in utter night. There are no more blessings for unbelievers – nor even for the faithful, except as they seek them within the sacred precincts of the Vatican, where alone the successor of St. Peter is now visible. It is a great loss to those who have not been in Rome before, especially to those enthusiastic persons who feel that they cannot "die happy" unless they have seen the Pope.

But I do not need anything to gratify my curiosity. I have seen the Pope many times before, and I recognize in the photographs which are in all shop windows the same face which I saw a quarter of a century ago – only aged indeed by the lapse of these many years. It is a good face. I used to think he looked like Dr. Sprague of Albany, who certainly had as benevolent a countenance as ever shone forth in kindness on one's fellow creatures. All who know the Pope personally, speak of him as a very kind-hearted man, with most gentle and winning manners. This I fully believe, but is it not a strong argument against the system in which he is bound, that it turns a disposition so sweet into bitterness, and leads one of the most amiable of men to do things very inconsistent with the meek character of the Vicar of Christ; to curse where he ought to bless, and to call down fire from heaven on his enemies? But his natural instincts are all good. When I was here before he was universally popular. His predecessor, Gregory XVI., had been very conservative. But when Cardinal Mastai Ferretti – for that was his name – was elected Pope, he began a series of reforms, which elated the Roman people, and caused the eyes of all Europe to be turned towards him as the coming man. He was the idol of the hour. It seemed as if he had been raised up by Providence to lead the nations in the path of peaceful progress. But the Revolutions of 1848, in Paris and elsewhere, frightened him. And when Garibaldi took possession of Rome, and proclaimed the Republic, his ardor for reform was entirely gone. He escaped from the city disguised as a valet, and fled for protection to the King of Naples, and was afterwards brought back by French troops. From that time he surrendered himself entirely to the Reactionary party, and since then, while as well meaning as ever, he is the victim of a system, from which he cannot escape, and which makes him do things wholly at variance with his kindly and generous nature.

Even the staunchest Protestants who go to see the Pope are charmed with him. They had, perhaps, thought of him as the "Giant Pope," whom Bunyan describes as sitting at the mouth of a cave, and glaring fiercely at Pilgrims as they go by; and they are astonished to find him a very simple old man, pleasant in conversation, fond of ladies' society, with a great deal of humor, enjoying a joke as much as anybody, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, and a face all smiles, as if he had never uttered an anathema. This is indeed very agreeable, but all the more does it make one astounded at the incongruity between such pleasant pastime and his awful spiritual pretensions – for this man who stands there, chatting so familiarly, and laughing so heartily, professes to believe that he is the vicegerent of the Almighty upon earth, and that he has the power to open and shut the gates of hell! God forgive him for the blasphemy of such a thought! It seems incredible that he can believe it himself; or, if he did, that the curses could roll so lightly from his lips. But anathemas appear to be a part of his daily recreation. He seems really to enjoy firing a volley into his enemies, as one would fire a gun into a flock of pigeons. Here is the last shot which I find in the paper of this very day:

"The Roman Catholic papers at The Hague publish a pastoral letter from the Pope to the Archbishop of Utrecht, by which his Holiness makes known that Johannes Heykamp has been excommunicated, as he has allowed himself to be elected and ordained as archbishop of the Jansenists in Holland, and also Johannes Rinkel, who calls himself Bishop of Haarlem, who performed the ordination. The Pope also declares to be excommunicated all those who assisted at the ceremony. The Pope also calls this ordination 'a vile and despicable deed,' and warns all good Catholics not to have any intercourse with the perpetrators of it, but to pray without ceasing that God may turn their hearts."

It is noteworthy that all these anathemas are simply for ecclesiastical offences, not for any immorality, however gross. The Queen of Spain may be notorious for her profligacy, yet she receives no rebuke, she is even as a beloved daughter, to whom the Pope sends presents, so long as she is devout and reverent towards him, or towards the Church. So any prince, or private gentleman, may break all the Ten Commandments, and still be a good Catholic; but if he doubts Infallibility, he is condemned. All sins may be forgiven, except rebellion against the Church or the Pope. He has excommunicated Döllinger, the most learned Catholic theologian in Europe, and Father Hyacinthe, the most eloquent preacher. Poor Victor Emmanuel comes in for oft-repeated curses, simply because in a great political crisis he yielded to the inevitable. He did not seize Rome. It was the Italian people, whom he could no more stop than he could stop the inrolling of the sea. If he had not gone before the people they would have gone over him. But for this he is cut off from the communion of the Catholic Church, and delivered over, so far as the anathema of the Pope can do it, to the pains of hell.

And yet if we allege this as proof that some remains of human infirmity still cling to the Infallible Head of the Church, or that a very kind nature has been turned into gall and bitterness, we are told by those who have just come from a reception that he was all sweetness and smiles. An English priest who is in our hotel had an audience last evening, and he says: "The Holy Father was very jolly, laughing heartily at every pleasantry." It does one good to see an old man so merry and light-hearted, but does not such gayety seem a little forced or out of place? Men who have no cares on their minds may laugh and be gay, but for the Vicar of Christ does it not seem to imply that he attaches no weight to the maledictions that he throws about so liberally? If he felt the awful meaning of what he utters, he could not so easily preserve his good spirits and his merriment, while he consigns his fellow-men to perdition. One would think that if obliged to pronounce such a doom upon any, he would do it with tears – that he would retire into his closet, and throw ashes upon his head, and come forth in sackcloth, overwhelmed at the hard necessity which compelled the stern decree. But it does not seem to interfere with any of his enjoyments. He gives a reception at which he is smiling and gracious, and then proceeds to cast out some wretched fellow-creature from the communion of the Holy Catholic Church. There is something shocking in the easy, off-hand manner in which he despatches his enemies. He anathematizes with as little concern as he takes his breakfast, apparently attaching as much solemnity to one as the other. The mixture of levity with stern duties is not a pleasant sight, as when one orders an execution between the puffs of a cigar. But this holy man, this Vicegerent of God on earth, pronounces a sentence more awful still; for he orders what, according to his theory, is worse than an execution – an excommunication. Yet he does it quite unconcerned. If he does not order an anathema between the puffs of a cigar, he does it between two pinches of snuff. Such levity would be inconceivable, if we could suppose that he really believes that his curses have power to harm, that they cast a feather's weight into the scale that decides the eternal destiny of a human soul. We do not say that he is conscious of any hypocrisy. Far from it. It is one of those cases, which are so common in the world, in which there is an unconscious contradiction between one's private feelings and his public conduct; in which a man is far better than his theory. We do not believe the Pope is half as bad as he would make himself to be – half so resentful and vindictive as he appears. As we sometimes say, in excuse for harsh language, "he don't mean anything by it." He does mean something, viz., to assert his own authority. But he does not quite desire to deliver up his fellow-creatures to the pains of eternal death.

We are truly sorry for the Pope. He is an old man, and with all his natural gentleness, may be supposed to have something of the irritability of age. And now he is engaged in a contest in which he is sure to fail; he is fighting against the inevitable, against a course of things which he has no more power to withstand than to breast the current of Niagara. He might as well take his stand on the brink of the great cataract, and think by the force of prayers or maledictions to stop the flowing of the mighty waters. All the powers of Europe are against him. Among the sovereigns he has not a single friend, or, at least, one who has any power to help him. The Emperor of Germany is this week on a visit to Milan as the guest of Victor Emmanuel. But he will not come to Rome to pay his respects to the Pope. The Emperor of Austria came to Venice last spring, but neither did he, though he is a good Catholic, continue his journey as far as the Vatican. Thus the Pope is left alone. For this he has only himself to blame. He has forced the conflict, and now he is in a false position, from which there is no escape.

All Europe is looking anxiously to the event of the Pope's death. He has already filled the Papal chair longer than any one of his two hundred and fifty-six predecessors, running back to St. Peter. But he is still hale and strong, and though he is eighty-three years old,⁸ he may yet live a few years longer. He belongs to a very long-lived family; his grandfather died at ninety-three, his father at eighty-three, his mother at eighty-eight, his eldest brother at ninety. Protestants certainly may well pray that he should be blessed with the utmost length of days; for the longer he lives, and the more obstinate he is in his reactionary policy, the more pronounced does he force Italy to become in its antagonism, and not only Italy, but Austria and Bavaria, as well as Protestant Germany. May he live to be a hundred years old!

CHAPTER XXIV.
PICTURES AND PALACES

Before we go away from Rome I should like to say a few words on two subjects which hitherto I have avoided. A large part of the time of most travellers in Europe is spent in wandering through palaces and picture galleries, but descriptions of the former would be tedious by their very monotony of magnificence, and of the latter would be hardly intelligible to unprofessional readers, nor of much value to anybody, unless the writer were, what I do not profess to be, a thorough critic in art. But I have certain general impressions, which I may express with due modesty, and yet with frankness, and which may perchance accord with the impressions of some other very plain, but not quite unintelligent, people.

One who has not been abroad – I might almost say, who has not lived abroad – cannot realize how much art takes hold of the imagination of a people, and enters into their very life. It is the form in which Italian genius has most often expressed itself. What poetry is in some countries, art is in Italy. England had great poets in the days of Elizabeth, but no great painters, at a time when the churches and galleries of Italy were illuminated by the genius of Raphael and Titian and Leonardo da Vinci.

The products of such genius have been a treasure to Italy and to the world. Works of art are immortal. Raphael is dead, but the Transfiguration lives. As the paintings of great masters accumulated from century to century, they were gathered in public or private collections, which became, like the libraries of universities, storehouses for the delight and instruction of mankind. Such works justly command the homage and reverence which are due to the highest creations of the human intellect. The man who has put on canvas conceptions which are worthy to live, has left a legacy to the human race. "When I think," said an old monk, who was accustomed to show paintings on the walls of his monastery, "how men come, generation after generation, to see these pictures, and how they pass away, but these remain, I sometimes think that these are the realities, and that we are the shadows."

But with all this acknowledgment of the genius that is thus immortal, and that gives delight to successive generations, there are one or two drawbacks to the pleasure I have derived from these great collections of art.

In the first place, there is the embarrassment of riches. One who undertakes to visit all the picture galleries, even of a single city like Rome or Florence, soon finds himself overwhelmed by their number. He goes on day after day, racing from one place to another, looking here and there in the most hurried manner, till his mind becomes utterly confused, and he gains no definite impression. It is as impossible to study with care all these pictures, as it would be to read all the books in a public library, which are not intended to be read "by wholesale," but only to be used for reference. So with the great collections of paintings, which are arranged in a certain order, so as to give an idea of the style of different countries, such as the Dutch school, the Venetian school, etc. These are very useful for one who wishes to trace the history of art, but the ordinary traveller does not care to go into such detail. To him a much smaller number of pictures, carefully chosen, would give more pleasure and more instruction.

Further, it has seemed to me that with all the genius of the old masters (which no one is more ready to confess, and in which no one takes more intense delight), there is sometimes a worship of them, which is extended to all their works without discrimination, which is not the result of personal observation, nor quite consistent with mental independence. Indeed, there are few things in which the empire of fashion is more absolute, and more despotic. It is at this point that I meekly offer a protest. I admit fully and gratefully the marvellous genius of some of the old painters, but I cannot admit that everything they touched was equally good. Homer sometimes nods, and even Raphael and Titian – great as they are, and superior perhaps to everybody else – are not always equal to themselves. Raphael worked very rapidly, as is shown by the number of pictures which he left, although he died a young man. Of course, his works must be very unequal, and we may all exercise our taste in preferring some to others.

In another respect it seems to me that there is a limitation of the greatness even of the old masters, viz., in the range of their subjects, in which I find a singular monotony. In the numberless galleries that we have visited this summer, I have observed in the old pictures, with all their power of drawing and richness of color, a remarkable sameness, both of subject and of treatment. Even the greatest artists have their manner, which one soon comes to recognize; so that he is rarely mistaken in designating the painter. I know a picture of Rubens anywhere by the colossal limbs that start out of the canvas. Paul Veronese always spreads himself over a large surface, where he has room to bring in a great number of figures, and introduce details of architecture. Give him the Marriage at Cana, or a Royal Feast, and he will produce a picture which will furnish the whole end of a palace hall. It is very grand, of course; but when one sees a constant recurrence of the same general style, he recognizes the limitations of the painter's genius. Or, to go from large pictures to small ones, there is a Dutch artist, Wouvermans, whose pictures are in every gallery in Europe. I have seen hundreds of them, and not one in which he does not introduce a white horse!

Even the greatest of the old masters seem to have exercised their genius upon a limited number of subjects. During the Middle Ages art was consecrated almost wholly to religion. Some of the painters were themselves devout men, and wrought with a feeling of religious devotion. Fra Angelico was a monk (in the same monastery at Florence with Savonarola), and regarded his art as a kind of priesthood, going from his prayers to his painting, and from his painting to his prayers. Others felt the same influence, though in a less degree. In devoting themselves to art, they were moved at once by the inspiration of genius and the inspiration of religion. Others still, who were not at all saintly in their lives, yet painted for churches and convents. Thus, from one cause or another, almost all the art of that day was employed to illustrate religious subjects. Of these there was one that was before all others – the Holy Family, or the Virgin and her Child. This appears and reappears in every possible form. We can understand the attraction of such a subject to an artist; for to him the Virgin was the ideal of womanhood, to paint whom was to embody his conception of the most exquisite womanly sweetness and grace. And in this how well did the old masters succeed! No one who has a spark of taste or sensibility can deny the exquisite beauty of some of their pictures of the Virgin – the tenderness, the grace, the angelic purity. What sweetness have they given to the face of that young mother, so modest, yet flushed with the first dawning of maternal love! What affection looks out of those tender eyes! In the celebrated picture of Raphael in the Gallery at Florence, called "The Madonna of the Chair," the Virgin is seated, and clasps her child to her breast, who turns his large eyes, with a wondering gaze, at the world in which he is to live and to suffer. One stands before such a picture transfixed at a loveliness that seems almost divine.

But of all the Madonnas of Raphael – or of any master – which I have seen, I prefer that at Dresden, where the Virgin is not seated, but standing erect at her full height, with the clouds under her feet, soaring to heaven with the Christ-child in her arms. When I went into the room set apart to that picture (for no other is worthy to keep it company), I felt as if I were in a church; every one spoke in whispers; it seemed as if ordinary conversation were an impertinence; as if it would break the spell of that sacred presence.

Something of the same effect (some would call it even greater) is produced by Titian's or Murillo's painting of the "Assumption" of the Virgin – that is, her being caught up into the clouds, with the angels hovering around her, over her head and under her feet. One of these great paintings is at Venice, and the other in the Louvre at Paris. In both the central figure is floating, like that of Christ in the Transfiguration. The Assumption is a favorite subject of the old masters, and reappears everywhere, as does the "Annunciation" by the Angel of the approaching birth of Christ, the "Nativity," and the coming of the Magi to adore the holy child. I do not believe there is a gallery in Italy, and hardly a private collection, in which there are not "Nativities" and "Assumptions" and "Annunciations."

But if some of these pictures are indeed wonderful, there are others which are not at all divine; which are of the earth, earthy; in which the Virgin is nothing more than a pretty woman, chosen as a type of female beauty (just as a Greek sculptor would aim to give his ideal in a statue of Venus), painted sometimes on a Jewish, but more often on an Italian, model. In Holland the Madonnas have a decidedly Dutch style of beauty. We may be pardoned if we do not go into raptures over them.

When the old masters, after painting the Virgin Mary, venture on an ideal of our Lord himself, they are less successful, because the subject is more difficult. They attempt to portray the Divine Man; but who can paint that blessed countenance, so full of love and sorrow? That brow, heavy with care, that eye so tender? I have seen hundreds of Ecce Homos, but not one that gave me a new or more exalted impression of the Saviour of the world than I obtain from the New Testament.

But if it seems almost presumption to attempt to paint our Saviour, what shall we say to the introduction of the Supreme Being upon the canvas? Yet this appears very often in the paintings of the old masters. I cannot but think it was suggested by the fact that the Greek sculptors made statues of the gods for their temples. As they undertook to give the head of Jupiter, so these Christian artists thought they could paint the Almighty! Not unfrequently they give the three persons of the Trinity – the Father being represented as an old man with a long beard, floating on a cloud, the Spirit as a dove, while the Son is indicated by a human form bearing a cross. Can anything be more repulsive than such a representation! These are things beyond the reach of art. No matter what genius may be in certain artistic details, the picture is, and must be, a failure, because it is an attempt to paint the unpaintable.

Next to Madonnas and Holy Families, the old masters delight in the painting of saints and martyrs. And here again the same subjects recur with wearying uniformity. I should be afraid to say how many times I have seen St. Lawrence stretched on his gridiron; and youthful St. Sebastian bound to a tree, and pierced with arrows; and old St. Anthony in the desert, assaulted by the temptations of the devil. No doubt these were blessed martyrs, but after being exhibited for so many centuries to the gaze of the world, I should think it would be a relief for them to retire to the enjoyment of the heavenly paradise.

Is it not, then, a just criticism of those who painted all those Madonnas and saints and martyrs, to say, while admitting their transcendent genius, that still their works present a magnificent monotony, both of subject and of treatment, and at last weary the eye even by their interminable splendors?

Another point in which the same works are signally defective, is in the absence of landscape painting. It has been often remarked of the classic poets, that while they describe human actions and passions, they show a total insensibility to the beauties of nature. The same deficiency appears in the paintings of the old masters. Seldom do they attempt landscape. Sometimes a clump of trees, or a glimpse of sky, is introduced as a background for figures, but it is almost always subordinate to the general effect.