From the earliest times music has had a place in the public worship of all peoples—among the pagans, among the Jews, among Christians. Its use in this connection has been dictated by God himself in the act of constituting the human mind; it has, moreover, received his express sanction, as we learn from the ordinances of the Jewish people. In the new law it has even been consecrated by his own divine example, since we read that our Lord and his apostles sang hymns together. His birth was heralded to the world by the song of his angels, and heaven is represented to the Christian as a place where we shall sing for ever the praises of God.
Church music, therefore, dates from the origin of Christianity, and has constituted ever since an integral, though not an essential, part of public worship among Christians.
The church has her simple offices and her solemn offices, and she has made the use of music one of the chief marks by which they are distinguished.
Church music grew with the growth of the church. As Christians increased and prospered, music was more and more cultivated, and was more largely introduced into their solemn exercises of worship.
The extent to which sacred music was cultivated in the early church cannot be easily determined; we have no reason to think it was very great.
When Europe emerged from that sad state of confusion which came over it with the invasion of the northern barbarians, and music was revived as a science and an art, it was, like the other branches of learning, at first confined mostly to the clergy, and its productions were for a long time almost exclusively of a sacred character.
The church being an indestructible institution, her traditions are handed down by one generation of her children to another. It was thus that in a dark day of confusion and destruction she preserved for us the treasures of ancient learning and the arts; and the world to-day owes to her not only the modern developments of poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture, but also the beautiful and varied combinations of modern music.
At first, as we have just said, there was no music but that which was dedicated to holy purposes, except such rude melodies as nature in all ages teaches the most uncultivated.
The musical drama did not exist; and music does not seem to have made any essential part of the pageants or spectacles destined for the public entertainment.
It was from the church that music was introduced into the chamber, the hall, and the street, and [pg 655] in the beginning secular music imitated and borrowed the forms of that which was sacred.
The music used in the sacred offices at first and during many centuries was the plain chant. How much of this chant was taken from pagan or Jewish sources cannot be determined, for authorities differ widely; but in any case it was so modified and improved by the fathers of the Eastern Church, and afterwards in the West by SS. Ambrose and Gregory, when they adapted it to the purposes of Christian worship, that it is now frequently called the ecclesiastical chant, though it is oftener called Gregorian, from the pope just mentioned.
In the beginning it was what its name indicates—plain and simple. It was sung in unison, and its melodies did not exceed the compass of the most ordinary voices.
But unison was found monotonous, as also the uniformity of time or measure generally observed in plain chant. The first departure from the old and severe forms was made when, about the middle of the IXth century, they introduced a sort of rude harmony constructed on the chant.
But this did not satisfy the craving for change, and the love of novelty, once indulged, led the way to many excesses.
Baini gives us an example of the abuses that then became prevalent. “They would write, for example, a Mass,” he says, “taking as a subject the melody of the Gregorian Ave Maria. Three parts in the harmony would sing portions of the Kyrie, Gloria, and Credo at the same time, while a fourth would take up at intervals the entire Ave Maria.”
Not merely were the sacred words of the composition itself “shaken together in most admired confusion,” but, as we have just said, the words of other sacred pieces were foisted among them, so that they no longer expressed any one idea. Worse far, the gaps were even sometimes filled up “with snatches of old songs,” the ballads of the day, and those not always of the most unexceptionable character.
Attempts were also made to vary the stately measure of the chant.
Indeed, all sorts of devices were introduced in the search for novelty, and so great had become the abuse about the period of the Council of Trent that a celebrated cardinal declared that some of the church music of his day was so unfit to be offered to God that nothing but invincible ignorance could excuse from mortal sin those who offered it.
At this juncture arose the illustrious Palestrina.
Born in an age of the most vitiated taste, and himself not quite exempt from its unfavorable influences at the opening of his professional career, his exalted and discriminating genius was guided to disentangle the sweet spirit of song from the mazes in which it was well-nigh lost, and to rescue his art from the merited reproaches which it was receiving on every side. He was encouraged and assisted in his task by two saints, S. Charles Borromeo and S. Philip Neri. When his celebrated Missa Papæ Marcelli was first heard in 1565, it at once banished from the churches all the profane novelties that had preceded it, and became the model for church compositions during the next hundred years, when with Carissimi began the change to what is modern.
When Pius IV., the reigning pontiff, heard it, he declared it satisfied all the requirements of sacred music; in fact, so charmed was he by [pg 656] its exquisite strains that he compared it to the melodies that the Apostle S. John had heard in the heavenly Jerusalem, saying that another John (Palestrina's Christian name was John) had given us in the earthly Jerusalem a foretaste of the music in heaven.
From that day to this the use of Palestrina's music has been retained in the Pope's own choir, to the exclusion of all other except the simple plain chant, with which it is made to alternate. Even when the Pope officiates or presides at any celebration outside his own chapel, his choir accompanies him and sings the same music.
It is this music, alla Palestrina, that travellers go to Rome to hear, especially during Holy Week. One generation has thus followed another to Rome for three hundred years; and the harmonies of Palestrina, though ever ancient, are, like the beauty of divine truth, found to be ever new.
Though Palestrina has retained his hold on the Papal choir at Rome, music far different in character from his has been introduced into the other choirs, even of Rome.
The perfection of the organ and of other instruments used to accompany the voices of singers, and the consequent discovery of other and more scientific complications in the art of harmony, especially since the introduction of the natural discord, the development of melody, joined with much greater skill in execution and the incessant thirst for novelty, have led to the introduction into nearly all the churches of compositions in which the voices and instruments are heard together in every variety of combination.
Add to this that about two centuries ago the opera took its rise, and the dramatic style, followed in it and developed by it, made its influence felt in the church.
For kings and princes then began the practice of selecting the same musician to preside over the performances of their theatres and of their chapels; nay, the whole staff of the theatre was brought into the chapel on Sundays, as is done to-day in Dresden. Nothing better and nothing different was required for the chapel, except the substitution of other words and a toning down of the measures of the drama, and thus the chapel became merely a sort of sacred concert-room.
But the maîtres de chapelle at these courts were the first musicians of their day, and their success in operatic music, sounded over all Europe, caused their sacred compositions to be looked on with undiscriminating favor by the public. And as the weakness of human nature is such that inferiors naturally imitate their superiors, and sometimes even copy their faults, it became the fashion to sing in churches the sacred music used in court-chapels, especially as this was more easily obtained, being printed at the expense of the courts.
Besides this, the modern composers of opera seem to have the ambition of composing also for the church. But they generally forget how very different the church and the theatre are, and they seldom care to follow a different method in the church from that which gains them applause in the theatre; and the public are frequently as forgetful in this matter as the composers.
It must be added that the directors of choirs seem to have a fatal habit of following, even in church, if they are allowed, the prevailing [pg 657]style set by the latest and most popular writers for the stage.
When the model so successfully set by Palestrina was first departed from, and instrumental music used in conjunction with vocal, there may have been a certain gain, as the chant became more melodious and less monotonous without losing its depth and solemnity. Gradually, however, the grave style of the older musicians disappeared, and the music of the church has become, at least in some places, almost as light and as airy as that of the theatre.
This music sometimes seems written in derision or contempt of the sacred words; as, 1, when a prayer of supplication, such as the Kyrie eleison and Dona nobis pacem, is set to numbers as lively as those of a jig (frequently the case with Haydn). 2. When the words are omitted, even though they be of importance; as the words of the Creed, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit (nearly always omitted, even in the longest Masses of Haydn). 3. When they are interminably repeated or senselessly inverted. In Mozart's Twelfth Mass we have: Crucifixus, et homo factus est.
What shall we say of the operatic solos, duos, trios, etc., instrumental interludes, sincopations, etc., which, to any one who reflects, are in direct contradiction to all our notions of what is reverent and appropriate to the church?
From what has been said in the preceding pages, there are three general forms of church music: the plain chant, the music termed alla Palestrina, and modern figured music.
(a.) Plain chant is the old and original song of the church, of which the forms, like those of a dead language, are fixed and immutable. Long, long ago the secret of plain chant composition was lost, and it is probable that we have lost in great measure also the secret of its proper execution.
“The leading idea which is represented by plain chant,” says Canon Oakeley,156 “and in no degree by any other style of music, except that which consists in bare recitative, is that in certain cases music best discharges her office by retreating, as it were, in despair before certain divine words, and contenting herself with merely providing a vehicle for their utterance, so simple as not by any studied beauty of its own to detract from their intrinsic majesty and power. This, I think, will be admitted to be the leading idea of plain chant, though I am far from denying that accidentally this idea produces some of the most attractive charms of the divine art in its results.... In many of these accidental instances plain chant not only excels other music, but absolutely sets it at defiance in its own particular line.” Hence a celebrated musician is reported to have said that he preferred the plain chant of the Preface and the Pater Noster to all he himself had ever written.
In the beginning this chant was not even harmonized. It was plain and unadorned, as its name implies—cantus planus.
(b.) The music of Palestrina is the last and triumphant result of the efforts that were made in his time and before it to vary, to modify, and to adorn the plain chant, which all had found too simple and too monotonous.
Pope John XXII., elected in 1316, [pg 658] complains of the novelties introduced into the execution of plain chant in his day. These innovations he condemns as unbecoming and undevotional, especially the attempts to vary the measure; but he immediately adds: “We do not intend by this to prohibit that occasionally, especially on festival days, either at the solemn Masses or the other divine offices, some harmonious combinations (consonantiæ quæ melodiam sapiunt), viz., harmonies of the octave, the fifth, the fourth, and such like, on the simple ecclesiastical chant, be sung; in such manner, however, that the integrity of the chant remain untouched, and nothing of this grave and stately music (musica bene morata) be changed, especially since these harmonies delight the ear, excite devotion, and prevent the spirit of those who sing to God from drooping” (torpere non sinunt). (Extr. Comm., lib. iii., cap. 1, Docta Sanctorum.) This Constitution is the earliest utterance of the popes concerning church music—at least since innovations were attempted—that we possess. The abuses of which Pope John XXII. complained continued to exist, and even to increase, till the time of the Council of Trent, when Palestrina produced that style of music which is known by his name, and which, though built upon the plain chant, is as unlike it as Grecian is unlike Italian architecture. It is equally unlike modern music. It differs from plain chant, being an unbroken series of artistically-constructed harmonies, in which unison is unknown. It differs from modern music by the absolute disuse of instruments of any kind (even the organ), by the exclusion of all passages for soli, and by being written in plain chant tonality. “With the grave Gregorian melody, learnedly elaborated in rigorous counterpoint, and reduced to greater clearness and elegance without any instrumental aid,” says Picchianti, “Palestrina knew how to awaken among his hearers mysterious, grand, deep, vague sensations that seemed caused by the objects of an unknown world, or by superior powers in the human imagination.”157
(c.) Modern music differs essentially from all that went before it, and this difference is attributable to two principal causes: 1. The improvement in the manufacture and the use of instruments, and their introduction into the church; and, 2, The influence of theatrical music on that of the church, before alluded to. Modern music could not be in ancient times, for the want of modern instruments. As the perfection of the art of vaulting gave us that advance on the simple lines and heavy masses of Grecian architecture which we have in Gothic and Italian architecture, so the modern developments in orchestration have changed the whole character of music in the church and out of it.
The influence of operatic music on that of the church is seen in the attempt of modern composers of church music to make it dramatic. Church music, as Palestrina and the other great masters of the old Roman school had conceived it, had been treated as an emanation of pure sentiment, stripped of all human passion—as something ideal. The modern composers, on the contrary, pretend by their music to express dramatically the sense of the text. They say that, to be dramatic, it is not necessary to be theatrical, and they point to certain compositions [pg 659] of Cherubini, Beethoven, Hummel, and even Haydn, in which they say the contrary is practically demonstrated.158
It must, however, be confessed that modern composers, by trying to be dramatic, have more frequently fallen into the great fault of being theatrical than they have avoided it.
The use of instrumentation and of dramatic expression has given them immense scope, but their success bears no proportion to their talents, their opportunities, their numbers, and the immense quantity of their compositions.
Like the Athenians of old (Acts xvii.) spoken of by S. Paul, they incessantly crave something new, and, in their search for novelty, more often give us what is novel and strange than what is beautiful and appropriate, so that their compositions hardly ever continue to be used for a long time; they are soon thrown aside and forgotten; and, indeed, we think it no exaggeration to say that, if all their compositions, except a very few, were burned, or should otherwise perish, the church would suffer no loss.
In consequence of the failure of modern composers to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion, though their music has been introduced into our churches and given every chance of trial, complaints against it are heard on every side. We grumble about it in our conversations; we write against its excesses in the public journals; bishops complain of it in pastoral letters; provincial councils are forced to issue decrees about it; the Sovereign Pontiffs themselves not unfrequently raise their voices, sometimes in warning, sometimes in threats—in a word, the evil seems to have attracted general attention, as a similar evil did in the time of John XXII. and at the period of the Council of Trent, and a remedy is called for.
I. On account of the unsatisfactory character of most modern compositions, some have proposed that we should go back plainly and simply to the original or plain song. This was proposed in two able articles in The Catholic World, Dec., 1869, and Feb., 1870, and the Paulists of New York have actually made the experiment.
The reasons in favor of the resumption of plain chant and the exclusion of all other music may be stated thus:
1. It is the original song of the church; it is of venerable antiquity; it was originated under ecclesiastical influences, and has been sanctified by having been always associated with what is best and holiest in the history of the church.
2. It is so dissimilar from the music of the world that it is recognized at once and by everybody as ecclesiastical, and can never be confounded with secular music.
3. It possesses, when well sung, an air of stateliness and solemnity which is never reached by all the refinements and artifices of modern music. If it is less dramatic than figured music, it is also more expressive, because in it the words of the ritual speak for themselves naturally and without affectation, and therefore most eloquently; whereas in figured music the words are made so subservient to the musical numbers, are so senselessly repeated and so jumbled together, that their meaning is disguised rather than conveyed, and they cannot speak intelligibly to the mind, especially of the uneducated. Now, [pg 660] S. Paul says that psalmody should speak to the understanding; and Benedict XIV., speaking of S. Augustine, who used to be moved to tears by the Ambrosian chants he heard at Milan, says: “The music moved him indeed, but still more so the words he heard. But he would weep now also for grief; for although he heard the singing, he could not distinguish the words.”
No one will dare to say that to the ninety-nine one-hundredths of every congregation the Requiem of Mozart, with all its beauty of melody and its wealth of harmony, would be as expressive and as provocative of the feelings proper to the funeral service as the old and ever-charming plain chant Requiem.
4. Plain chant is the best safeguard against vainglorious display and its host of attendant evils, because it allows no scope for personal exhibition, and does not give undue prominence to individuals.
5. It is the only chant used in many places, and is found sufficient for the purposes of worship.
6. It alone has had the express authorization of the church.
This is a fair exposition of the arguments in favor of plain chant.
We admit the full force of the arguments derived from the venerable antiquity of plain chant, its Christian origin, its long and exclusive connection with the rites of religion, its dissimilarity with the music of the world, its simplicity, its impressiveness, and its incompatibility with individual display; but it must be remembered against it that it requires for its execution, especially here, where the knowledge of it and the taste for it are to be acquired, conditions not easily fulfilled; that its range is very limited; and that, however grand the impression it sometimes creates, its resources are soon exhausted; whence to those who for a long time hear it and nothing else it becomes extremely monotonous, and burdens the ear with a dull weight of sound not always tolerable. This will be admitted by all who in seminaries and monasteries have been most accustomed to hear it.
In those countries where plain chant is exclusively used every sort of device is resorted to on festival days to escape its monotony, e.g., by harmonies on the chant which are out of all keeping with it, as also by interludes on the grand orgue, by which one-half of the words of the text are absolutely omitted, and the recollections of the world are frequently as vividly brought to mind as by any modern vocal compositions.
No one will deny the appropriateness and impressiveness of plain chant on certain solemn occasions, especially those of sorrow, but it is confessedly unequal to the task of evoking and expressing the feelings of Christian joy and triumph. If the plain chant Requiem is superior to Mozart's, the Masses of Haydn are far more suitable to the joys of Easter-day than anything we can find in plain chant.
The writer in The Catholic World before alluded to tells us that plain chant prays. Give me, he says, the chant that prays. But prayer is fourfold, like the Sacrifice of the Mass; viz., it is latreutic—that is, the homage of adoration; it is propitiatory, inasmuch as it tries to appease God's anger; it is impetratory—that is, it asks and supplicates for what we need; but it is also eucharistic—that is, it gives God praise and thanksgiving. Now, if plain chant expresses better our feelings of adoration and [pg 661] supplication, it certainly must borrow from figured music the triumphant strains of praise and thanksgiving.
However, if the argument from authority for plain chant held good, notwithstanding all we have said, we should instantly waive further discussion. But the force of this argument we absolutely deny.
Dr. Burney has created the impression that the Council of Trent was at one time on the point of banishing figured music from the church. This was not the case. Benedict XIV. (l. xi., c. 7, De Syn. Diœc.), following Cardinal Pallavicini, the historian of the council, says: “It was proposed by some bishops, zealous for ecclesiastical discipline, that musical chant should altogether be banished from the churches, and the plain chant alone retained; [but] as others observed that this novelty [sic] would give rise to innumerable complaints and immense trouble, it was finally resolved, not that musical chants should be prohibited, but that they should be reformed, according to certain rules, to the requirements of piety and gravity.” And, in fact, the Council of Trent merely decreed that Ordinaries should banish from their churches that music in which, either by the organ or by the chant, “anything lascivious or impure is introduced, in order that the house of God may seem to be and may be a house of prayer” (Sess. xxii., Decr. de obs. et ev. in cel. Missæ.) The other decree (Sess. xxiv., cap. 12, De Ref.) adds nothing to this.
The teaching of the theologians is much more lenient than that of many of our modern dogmatists.
The great theologian, Suarez (De Orat. Voc., lib. iii., c. 8), arguing against Navarre, a rigorist of his day, says: “It is a sufficient argument that this use (of organic or figured music) is retained throughout the church, and that in the very church of Rome itself, and in the chapel of the Sovereign Pontiff, the divine offices are sung after this manner.” He then proceeds to comment as strongly as any one on the danger of excesses and abuses; only he does not seem to feel, either with the objectors of his day or with some writers of the present time, that figured music is intrinsically mischievous, any more than that it is ecclesiastically irregular.
A later and better authority, Benedict XIV., speaking as a theologian in his work De Synodo Diœc., loco cit., and as Pope, in his Constitution Annuus; 19th Feb., 1749, addressed to the bishops of the Pontifical States, says that it would be an extreme measure to banish figured music from the church, and that he considers it sufficient to banish such music as is theatrical (modi theatrales).
Much has been made of the plea that plain chant is the only chant that has ever been expressly authorized.
Now, it must be remembered, 1, that when plain chant originated, music was not used outside of the church, and that in the dark ages churchmen were the only ones who knew music, and that the church was necessarily its guardian; and, 2, that for three hundred years the church has treated her authorized version with strange incuria; for of this chant there is now no version commanded (though the differences of versions are very remarkable indeed), and till within a year or two there was no version to which any special authorization or even recommendation was given by the popes. Even the version now [pg 662] being prepared under the supervision of the Roman Congregation of Rites is merely recommended.
We must be excused for this long argument about plain chant, but we have been forced into it by the exaggerations of the advocates of this chant, who are, like some of the advocates of Gothic architecture, extremists, and in their zeal fear not to censure the whole church, and even the Pope himself.
They indeed censure the church; for the use of figured music has penetrated everywhere with episcopal sanction and Papal toleration, and, say what we may, it must be admitted that all the theories advanced for the exclusive use of plain chant have invariably fallen to the ground under the hand of practice.
We deny, then, the obligation of confining ourselves to plain chant, if we except that which is in the Missal and the Pontifical, and which contains what is sung by the priest or bishop at the altar.
But while we deny the obligation of using the plain chant exclusively, we would retain a large portion of it, 1, because there are parts of it so appropriate to special services that we can invent nothing better; such as the Requiem, the Lamentations, the Veni Creator, and many hymns, and the incomparable psalm tones, as charming to-day as when heard by S. Augustine, who says of them: “As the voices flowed into my ears, truth was instilled into my heart, and the affections of piety overflowed in tears of joy.” 2. Because, like our vestments and other appendages of our ceremonial, it carries us back to the never-to-be-forgotten past. 3. Because by being used alternately (as in the Papal choir) with music of a different and more modern character, it contributes most powerfully, by the effect of contrast, to the dignity and grandeur of church celebrations.
To Be Concluded Next Month.
Certainly, no more am I gladdened by the emulous reflections which the earth and sea, with dark shades and distant projections, form; when alike in charms and powers the sparkling foam competes with snow-white flowers, for the garden, envious of the curling waves of ocean, loves to imitate their motion, and the amorous zephyr gives back the perfumes which it drinks in by blowing over the shining waters, and makes the waving leaves an ocean of bright flowers; when the sea, sad to view the natural beauties of the garden, while it tries to adorn its own realm, destroys its majestic mien, and, subject to second laws, blends with sweet effect fields of blue with waves of green; colored now like heaven's blue dome, now plumed with various hues, the garden seems a sea of flowers, and the sea a garden of bright foam.—Calderon.
I return to some incidents in our journey to and arrival at Dublin. Goold's Cross is the nearest station to the Rock of Cashel, from which it is distant about five miles. We alight here. We go to visit one who is kin and more than kind. His lares are enshrined at Mora House. An Irish conveyance, called a covered car, takes us thither pretty comfortably. There are three kinds of cars for the transportation of travellers in Ireland, not including the “low-backed car” which is, or was, designed for the movement of farm produce, and, according to Sam Lover, of rustics on ante-nuptial expeditions intent. Apropos, I did not see a specimen of the “low-backed car” from Queenstown to Kingstown. That time-honored and poetical vehicle seems to have given place to a modern box-cart, in the East and South at least. The three varieties of car above mentioned belong to the genus known as jaunting-cars. First, there is the “outside car,” on which the passengers are seated facing outward and back to back. The space between the backs of the sitters is railed off into a place for baggage—or, Anglicé, luggage—called the “well.” It is one of the wells in which truth is not always to be found. At the front end of “the well” is a raised seat for the driver. The “outside car” furnishes seats for from two to three persons on each side. When the seats are not full, the driver usually sits on a side “to balance the cyar.” The “inside car” is the converse of the “outside.” In the former the sitters face each other; their legs are in a space between the wheels, instead of outside them, as on the latter. It is entered by a small door at the back. The driver occupies a raised seat in front. The “covered car” is an “inside” with a high, square covering of black oil-cloth. It is used in rainy weather. It has some disadvantages. You can see only through the curtain at the back. There are no openings at the sides, and the small glazed apertures in front are placed too high to admit even of an occasional glimpse of the face of Nature. You can only see the dame from behind. Both the “inside” and the “covered car” have a tendency to tilt backwards. You are eternally slipping down the seat toward the door. A sudden start may drop you out like a too well-warmed plate from the hand of a greedy guest. I came near dropping out once or twice in a ride of a few miles. In one of these conveyances it is wise to take a double hitch around infant America.
A hearty welcome meets us at Mora House. It is situated in the heart of a most lovely country. The house is embowered in trees [pg 664] and shrubbery. The walls, offices, and outhouses are covered with ivy. Along the front of the house is a conservatory. Around it are parterres with evergreens and early flowers, and borders of dark-green box. Broad pastures, spreading their green slopes into the distance, are relieved here and there by clumps of tall oaks. Cattle and sheep dot the landscape, giving it life without taking from its beautiful repose. In the background the Rock of Cashel, with its ruins and lofty round tower, rears its grim silhouette against the evening sky. The frame of the picture is completed by the mountains of misty blue in the far distance. Among them towers the peak from which, according to tradition, his sable majesty—in a very hungry moment doubtless—is said to have taken a “Devil's Bit.” Over all this is spread a sky half blue, half cloud, with the softest of clare-obscures. What a feeling of peace steals over my soul as I look upon this sweet landscape! What a lovely spot for that retirement, “friend to life's decline,”
Alas! there is no such gentle decline for us, poor nomads of the New World! We must work with tongue, or pen, or sword, or pencil by the failing light of the lamp until the last of its flickering rays dies into darkness for ever.
After luncheon our gentle cousin takes us to look at his horses and his dogs. One is a Mount St. Bernard, a colossal brute and a prime favorite. Then we visit his kitchen garden, and his cows, and his bee-hives, and, in short, everything that is his. Next we examine the paintings and the photographs; among the former a life-size oil-painting, by O'Keefe, of an uncle, a university man, a brilliant scholar, who sat in more than one professor's chair.
Thus we occupied the time until dinner was announced. Then we sat down to one of those long-drawn-out, old-fashioned dinners which commence at six in the evening and end any time before midnight. Gentle cousin, having heard the Lady from Idaho express a desire to see an Irish turf-fire, had one made in the dining-room; and a bright, pleasant, cheerful, cleanly fire it is. We persuaded the ladies to honor in the breach, for this once, the absurd British custom of withdrawing from the table after the dessert. What a pleasant evening we spent!
Next morning we found rain still falling. It softened the atmosphere without obscuring it. The Rock of Cashel loomed up grimly but distinctly in the distance.
There is now little that is regal about “Cashel of the Kings.” It has its ruins, but nothing else. The approaches to the ruins show more of poverty and discomfort than I remember to have seen in any other town in Ireland. There is a majesty about the ruins. The rock on which they stand is about three hundred feet high. There is a lofty round tower in a good state of preservation. The frescos in one of the halls, said to have been the council-chamber, are in a state of wonderful freshness. The floors of some of the apartments in the second story seem as perfect as ever they could have been. The carved stone-work over the porch of one of the entrances—to Cormac's Chapel, I think—is the admiration of connoisseurs. Every foot of this ground awakens a historical [pg 665] remembrance. I see the rude rulers of ancient Ireland assembled in their regal state. The second Henry and Edward Bruce pass before my mind's eye. I see that fierce and unscrupulous nobleman, the eighth of the Geraldine earls of Kildare, and think of his astonishing ideas of right and wrong. When Mormon Harry took him to task for burning the Cathedral of Cashel, he pleaded as his excuse that when he fired the church he thought the bishop was in it! What a pleasant neighbor Lord Gerald must have been!
We have a delightful drive to the little old town of Thurles. The green of the fields and the hedges is enhanced by the contrast of thousands of soft, yellow primroses. How purely fresh those primroses look! Here bunches of violets peer forth bashfully, their modest little faces freshly washed by the gently-dropping rain!
Thurles is a station on the Great Southern and Western Railway. There we take rail for Dublin. It is an old town with a quaint old ivy-mantled tower which dates from the XIIIth century. The tower stands by a bridge, and watches over an infant stream that becomes a broad river before it reaches the sea. It is a relic of the time when Thurles was a walled town. Thurles is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel. There are two convents, the Presentation and the Ursuline. The Sisters of the former institution devote themselves to the education of the poor. The Ursuline Sisters have an academy for young ladies of the wealthier and more aristocratic classes. The Presentation school gets a share of the Government educational fund, and is subject to the supervision of the Government inspectors. The mode of teaching in the Presentation school is very similar to that of the public schools in New York. The children sang in chorus remarkably well. There is also a collegiate institution for the education of candidates for the priesthood. We visited both convents, and were kindly and hospitably received.
Among the objects most worthy of a visit is the cathedral, which in taste and magnificence of decoration promises to surpass all modern ecclesiastical buildings in Ireland. It has rich marbles from Italy, fine specimens of native marble, lapis lazuli and verd-antique, in stones that are worth their weight in gold. Some of the work on the altars is exquisite. The cathedral will be a superb memorial of the piety and taste of the present archbishop, Dr. Leahy. We had the pleasure of visiting, and being visited by, that distinguished ecclesiastic and most refined and courteous gentleman. Very kindly and hospitably did he entreat us.
About four or five miles from Thurles are the ruins of Holy Cross Abbey. Our ride thither was through a delightful country in all the humid beauty of an Irish spring. The ruins are not extensive. They have been so often and so minutely described that a detailed description is not necessary here. Besides, I am not writing a guide-book. I must mention, however, a stone balustrade which is quite artistic in its effect. The principal window is a splendid piece of work. It is in excellent preservation. There are a number of tombs of considerable age in the abbey. Near the principal window is one to which a singular legend is attached. It was related to us by the guardian of the [pg 666] place, an old woman of eighty, but hale and hearty, chatty and cheerful—such a pleasant female Old Mortality as the immortal Sir Walter would have loved to study and depict. I have often wondered at the cheerfulness with which the old among the Irish poor bear the burden of lengthened existence. The tomb is of stone, and in its upper surface is a hollow. The old woman told us that it was worn by a rain-drop which for many years fell unceasingly from the roof until the constant dropping wore into the stone the hollow that we saw. The drop began to fall on the commission of some crime, or some offence against the church—she did not recollect which—by “one of the family”—“perhaps some trouble with the priest of the parish.” It continued to fall, drip, drip, drip, rain or shine, year in and year out, until the crime was atoned for, or the offence pardoned, or the family sold out and left the country. Then the drop ceased to fall, and has never fallen since.
“Do you think the story is really true?” asked the Lady from Idaho of the old custodian.
“Do I think its thrue, ma'am?” said the old woman, giving her territorial ladyship a diplomatic look. “Shure, it isn't for the likes o' me to be denyin' the likes of that. And shure, ma'am, can't you see the hole for yourself?”
“Of course. There is no better proof than that.”
“And don't you see, ma'am, that it's rainin' now at the very minnit that I'm talkin' to ye?”
“There certainly can be no doubt about that,” replied the Lady from Idaho, glancing upwards at the umbrella which Cousin George held over her head.
“And don't you see, ma'am, that niver a dhrop falls on the tomb where the hole is, now?” added the old woman triumphantly.
“I do indeed,” replied Mme. Idaho. “That last argument is conclusive. Even if it were not, I am of easy faith in such matters.”
“And wisely so,” chimed in Cousin George. “Doubting Thomas makes a miserable traveller. He loses the pleasures of travel in the search for proofs that he is not enjoying himself without proper warrant. If he finds evidence for us that our pleasures of association are not justified by fact, that we have no right to be pleased by legends he can disprove, we tell him he is a fool for his pains. We do not want his facts. We are determined to believe in our favorite legends, in spite of him and all the Gradgrinds in the world.”
The old woman looked at Cousin George with rather a puzzled air. She had listened most attentively, leaning her old head forward, and with withered forefinger pushing back her mob-cap from her time-dulled ear; but Cousin George's harangue was evidently Greek to her. She instinctively divined, nevertheless, that George was talking on her side of the question; for she said, nodding her head approvingly the while:
“Faith, and shure it's mighty right ye are, yer honor!”
A gratuity, calculated according to the American standard, resulted in a series of blessings and a succession of antique “dips,” known as “courtesies” by the Irish peasant women of a past generation.
We took the cars again at Thurles on our way Dublin-ward.
There is an air of comfort and solidity about the few farm-houses we notice on our route, but they were indeed few. The proportion [pg 667] of land under tillage was comparatively very small. The country seemed generally to be in pasturage. Large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were to be seen. The small proprietors and farmers had disappeared. We saw a couple of women working in the fields. This annoyed the Lady from Idaho very much. She said that no matter how beautiful the landscape might be, that blot destroyed all her enjoyment of it. Our travelling companion, Viator, bade her season her admiration for a while until she reached the interior of Germany, where she would see many a team of wayward sisters harnessed to the plough and driven by a beery lord of the creation. Mme. Idaho said she did not want to go where such sights could be seen.
We pass Kildare, with its world-famed “Curragh,” an extensive flat, on which a few thousand British troops were encamped at the time. At every station we find a policeman or two casting argus eyes over things in general. Physically, the policemen—the “Royal Irish Constabulary”—are among the finest specimens of the genus homo I have seen. They are tall, generally over six feet, and magnificently moulded. Their uniform, though somewhat sombre, is in good taste: a dark, green tunic and trousers, with a small, visorless forage-cap ornamented in front with a harp in scarlet.
Clondalkin, which is within a few miles of Dublin, possesses a round tower in excellent preservation. It is about eighty feet high. The entrance is about twelve feet from the ground. It has four openings or windows some ten feet below the roof.
We are in Dublin, at King's Bridge terminus, so called from being near the bridge erected over the Liffey to commemorate the visit to Dublin of the fourth of the royal personages so unflatteringly designated by the author of Childe Harold. A charming Irish landscape greets the eye as you approach the city; on the left the prettiest portion of the Liffey and the Phœnix Park; on the right a gently-undulating expanse of green fields bordered by old trees and dotted with ancient churches and picturesque cottages, bounded in the distance by the soft outline of the Wicklow Hills.
One of our party expected to meet a brother whom he had not seen since they were both boys nearly a quarter of a century ago. Arrived at the terminus, and once more restored to liberty by the unlocking of the carriage-doors, he looked around anxiously for the individual he expected to find waiting for him. He could pick out no one in the crowd whom he could claim as a brother.
“I do not think there is any one here,” said Mr. Hibernicus with an air of disappointment, after vainly peering into the faces of a dozen gentlemen, who seemed rather surprised by his close scrutiny.
“What kind of a brother do you expect, Mr. Hibernicus?” asked the Lady from Idaho.
“I assure you, my dear madam,” replied Mr. Hibernicus, “I have not the remotest idea what Jack looks like now. He was quite a boy when we parted, and I have not seen even a photograph of him since. I hoped that instinct would reveal to me, as to honest Jack Falstaff, the ‘true prince.’ ”
We stood irresolute for a moment, when a gentleman with a long beard à l'Américaine approached [pg 668] our group. Raising his hat, and acknowledging the presence of ladies by a bow, he said to Mr. Hibernicus, who was still endeavoring to bring his instinct into play:
“May I ask, sir, if you are looking for anybody?”
“I am looking for my brother, sir,” replied Mr. Hibernicus. “Permit me to inquire if you expect any one?”
“I expect my brother,” returned the gentleman.
“Are you Jack?”
“I am Jack.”
“How are you, Jack?”
And the brothers, after a vigorous hand-shake and some inquiries after “So-and-so,” took things as coolly as if they had only been parted a quarter of an hour instead of a quarter of a century.
Decidedly, people born to the English tongue have a horror of anything approaching to demonstrative sensibility. They have nothing dramatic about them. What a scène two Frenchmen or two Italians would have made out of such a meeting after many roving years! During the days when a generous and romantic credulity gave me undeserved credit for burning the midnight oil over Homer and Horace, I had a French student-friend named l'Orient—an ami intime of six months' standing. L'Orient made a six weeks' trip to England, and I was at the station to receive the great traveller when he returned.
“Te revoilà toi! Comment vas-tu?” said I, putting forth my hand for a friendly shake. But l'Orient was not to be put off with anything so commonplace as the usual English pump-handle reception.
“Enfin, je te revois!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms around me, “ce cher ami! Ce brave Jeem! Ce vieux de la vieille!” And putting a hand behind each of my ears, thus rendering escape impossible, he kissed me vigorously on both cheeks. Then we walked toward our hotel, l'Orient holding my hand in his. We met Jules; and l'Orient left me, and threw himself on Jules: “Ce cher Jules! Ce brave Jules!” etc., etc., and performed a double osculation on Jules. Next we met Victor, and then Benoit and several others, each of whom was accosted by l'Orient and embraced in the same effusive manner. Our two brothers meet after a separation of half a century with a simple “How are you, Jack?” and a hand-shake. What demonstration would be lively enough for my old friend l'Orient under such circumstances? Yet l'Orient did not feel a tithe of what Jack and his brother felt. I often think it would be better for us if we were more demonstrative. We should perhaps be better satisfied with ourselves, and perhaps others would be better satisfied with us also.
I had directed my telegram from Queenstown to a wrong number, but the telegraph people took the trouble to find the person to whom it was addressed. I have had occasion frequently to use the postal telegraph. I have found its management admirable. The post-office department is also excellently well conducted. If there is any possibility of delivery, a letter is sure to be delivered. One of my friends writes a hand so hard to decipher that I can generally achieve most success in unravelling its mysteries by turning his missives upside down and studying his hieroglyphics in an inverted position. He wrote to me at Dublin, and addressed me at a street [pg 669] unknown to the Dublin directory. In New York this would have been the last of the letter. The Dublin post-officials referred the letter from one postal district to the other until the person to whose care it was addressed was found, and it was forwarded to Paris, where I happened to be at the time.
Dublin occupies both sides of the Liffey. The river runs through the city from east to west. The streets along its banks are subdivided into “quays.” The banks are faced with granite, of which the parapets are also constructed. The river is spanned by nine handsome bridges, seven of stone and two of iron. The river streets extend about three miles on either side. Each block, as we would say in New York, has a different name. Thus there is Usher's Quay, Merchants' Quay, Wellington Quay, etc., on the north side, extending from the Phœnix Park gate to the North Wall Lighthouse. On the south side are Arran Quay, King's Inn Quay, where the Four Courts are situated, Upper Ormond Quay and Lower, Eden Quay, Custom-House Quay, etc. The entire street reaches from King's Bridge to the end of the South Wall at Dublin Bar Lighthouse. The Liffey may be considered as the diameter of a circle in which Dublin is contained; the circular roads which run around it describe the circumference. West of Carlisle Bridge, which is the head of navigation, the Liffey is a dull and uninviting stream, especially at low water. It is not more than eighty yards wide. The mouths of the sewers which empty into it are some feet above low-water mark. Their contributions to its by no means pellucid flood are not agreeable to contemplate either from an æsthetic or from a sanitary point of view. I should suppose the quays to be unhealthy places for residence. One must have the suicidal mania very strong indeed who would throw himself into the Liffey between King's and Carlisle Bridges. Beyond King's Bridge you get into the country, where the stream is not defiled by the filth of the city.
Sackville Street is the principal street of Dublin. It is about twice as wide as Broadway, but is not longer than from Canal Street to Houston Street. Its shortness takes away from its impressiveness. At the foot of Sackville Street stands Nelson's Pillar, a Doric column about a hundred and twenty feet high, with a figure of the great admiral leaning against a capstan on the summit. A fine view can be had on a clear day (which is not always to be had) from the top of the monument, to which you may ascend by a spiral staircase in the interior on payment of a small fee. The steps at the base of the column are generally occupied by squatting idlers of all ages. On a fine day—i.e., when it does not rain—every inch of sitting space is occupied. Belated “squatters” may be seen waiting for hours until place is made by the retirement of some of the sitting members. Then a general rush is made for the vacant place. Here the politics of the nation and of the universe are discussed by the unwashed politicians of the Irish capital. I endeavored to ascertain how these squatters manage to live; but I was told that it is one of those mysteries which no one can penetrate.
The General Post-Office and the Rotunda are near the monument. The Post-Office is a fine structure [pg 670] of stone with a portico of Ionic pillars five feet in diameter. Its pediment is surmounted by three statues: Ireland at the apex, Fidelity on the left, and Mercury on the right. In certain post-offices that we wot of Mercury would indeed be the right statue in the right place, and might be considered to have a double significance—as a celestial messenger and a patron of thieving post-office clerks.
Certain tourists have claimed for Sackville Street the proud pre-eminence of being “the finest thoroughfare in Europe.” I do not think the claim well founded. I do not consider it equal to some of the new boulevards in Paris, or even to some of those in Brussels. It is certainly grand and imposing as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Sackville Street, however, presents a lively scene on a fine afternoon. Beautiful women, well-dressed gentlemen, rich toilets, and magnificent equipages may then be seen; the toilets superior to anything to be seen out of Paris, the equipages not to be equalled out of London. Nothing that I have seen on the Continent of Europe can compare with the “turn-outs” and “cattle” driven in Dublin. The most beautiful equipage I have noticed, and at the same time the chastest in its elegant simplicity, was that of Earl Spencer, the present viceroy; four dark bays—blood-horses—with postillions and outriders in a dark livery almost black, with white buckskin breeches and top-boots. Not a brass button or strip of tawdry gold lace to be seen. Compared with this equipage, the state carriages at Buckingham Palace and those at Versailles looked like circus wagons.
Carlisle Bridge, the embouchure of Sackville Street, being considerably narrower than the street, is generally the scene of something like a “Broadway jam.” On a busy day it reminds one of the Fulton Street crossing—even to the policeman.
The élite of Dublin, however, will be found in Grafton Street about four p.m. This street, though narrow—narrower even than Broadway—is the brightest, cheeriest street in Dublin. It is laid with asphaltum, and is delightfully free from mud or noise. It is the fashionable shopping-street. Equipages in the very perfection of good taste may be seen in long lines at both sides of the street in front of the principal shops, while ranks of magnificent “Yellowplushes,” in rich liveries and powdered heads, wait, with the grand imperturbability of flunky dignity, to open the carriage-door for madame or “my lady.”
I have already said that the Irish in Ireland are becoming a serious people. I did not meet a single specimen of the Irish joker, indispensable to the tourist in Ireland a quarter of a century ago. If he ever existed as they represented him, the railways have killed him. Now there is no time for display of wit, so called. I think the extinction of the genus “joker” is something to be grateful for. I did not see any evidence of suffering among the laboring classes or any more raggedness than in England, France, or Germany. Artisans are becoming scarce, and can command good wages. It is hard to get agricultural laborers; they can almost set their own terms. Those who may be obtained cannot be kept very long; they work merely to save enough to join their relatives and friends in the Land of the Free.
[pg 671]The traditional costume of the stage Irishman is as rarely seen in Ireland as the short-waisted, long-tailed coat, and striped trousers of the stage Yankee in the United States. I saw but one pair of “knee-breeches” between Cork and Kingstown.
I did not encounter a single shillelah.