The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning. Edward Berdoe
because in Spain it will not be required; in Spain drops cloth too cumbrous for Algiers; linen goes next, and last the skin itself, a superfluity in Timbuctoo. The poor fool was never at ease a minute in his whole journey. I am at ease now, friend, worldly in this world, as I have a right to be. You meet me,” continues Blougram, “at this issue: you think it better, if we doubt, to say so; act up to truth perceived, however feebly. Put natural religion to the test with which you have just demolished the revealed, abolish the moral law, let people lie, kill, and thieve, but there are certain instincts, unreasoned out and blind, which you dare not set aside; you can’t tell why, but there they are, and there you let them rule, so you are just as much a slave, liar, hypocrite, as I – a conscious coward to boot, and without promise of reward. I but follow my instincts, as you yours. I want a God – must have a God – ere I can be aught, must be in direct relation with Him, and so live my life; yours, you dare not live. Something we may see, all we cannot see. I say, I see all: I am obliged to be emphatic, or men would doubt there is anything to see at all” Then the Bishop turns upon his opponent and presses him: “Confess, don’t you want my bishopric, my influence and state? Why, you will brag of dining with me to the last day of your life! There are men who beat me, – the zealot with his mad ideal, the poet with all his life in his ode, the statesman with his scheme, the artist whose religion is his art – such men carry their fire within them; but you, you Gigadibs, poor scribbler, – but not so poor but we almost thought an article of yours might have been written by Dickens, – here’s my card, its mere production, in proof of acquaintance with me, will double your remuneration in the reviews at sight. Go, write, – detest, defame me, but at least you cannot despise me!” The average superficial reasoner is in the constant habit of setting down as insincere such learned persons as make a profession of faith in the dogmas of Christianity. The ordinary man of the world considers the mass of Christian people as bound to their faith by the fetters of ignorance. Such men, however, as it is impossible to term ignorant, who profess to hold the dogmas of Christianity in their integrity, are actuated, they say, by unworthy motives, self-interest, the desire to make the best of both worlds, unwillingness to cast in their lot with those who put themselves to the pain and discredit of thinking for themselves, and casting off the fetters of superstition. So, say these cynics, the dignified clergy of the Established Church repeat creeds which they no longer believe, that they may live in splendour and enjoy the best things of life, while the poorer clergy retain their positions as a decent means of gaining a livelihood. When such flippant thinkers and impulsive talkers contemplate the lives of such men as Cardinal Wiseman or Cardinal Newman, who were acknowledged to be learned and highly cultivated men, they say it is impossible such men can be sincere when they profess to believe the teachings of the Catholic Church, which they hold to be contemptible superstition; they must be actuated by unworthy motives, love of power over men’s minds, craving for worldly dignities and the adulation of men and the like. That a man like Newman should give up his intellectual life at Oxford “to perform mummeries at a Catholic altar” in Birmingham, was plainly termed insanity, intellectual suicide, or sheer knavery. The late Cardinal Wiseman was an exceedingly learned man, of great scientific ability, and such admirable bonhomie that this class of critic had no difficulty whatever in relegating his Eminence to what was considered his precise moral position. Mr. Browning in this monologue accurately postulates the popular conception of the Cardinal’s character in the utterances of one Gigadibs, a young man of thirty who has rashly expressed his opinions of the great churchman’s religious character. The poet, though completely failing to do justice to the Bishop’s side of the question, has presented us with a character perfectly natural, but which in every aspect seems more the picture of an eighteenth-century fox-hunting ecclesiastic than that of a bishop of the Roman Church, who would have had a good deal more to say on the subject of faith as understood by his Church than the poet has put into the mouth of his Bishop Blougram. As it is impossible to see in the description given of the Bishop anybody but the late Cardinal Wiseman, it is necessary to say that the description is to the last degree untrue, as must have been obvious to any one personally acquainted with him. A review of the poem appeared in the magazine known as the Rambler, for January 1856, which is credibly supposed to have been written by the Cardinal himself. “The picture drawn in the poem,” says the article in question, “is that of an arch hypocrite, and the frankest of fools.” The writer says that Mr. Browning “is utterly mistaken in the very groundwork of religion, though starting from the most unworthy notions of the work of a Catholic bishop, and defending a self-indulgence which every honest man must feel to be disgraceful, is yet in its way triumphant.”
Notes. – “Brother Pugin,” a celebrated Catholic architect, who built many Gothic churches for Catholic congregations in England. “Corpus Christi Day,” the Feast of the Sacrament of the Altar, literally the Body of Christ; it occurs on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. Che, che, what, what! Count D’Orsay (1798-1852), a French savant, and an intellectual dandy. “Parma’s pride – the Jerome” the St. Jerome by Correggio, one of the most important paintings in the Ducal Academy at Parma. There is a curious story of the picture in Murray’s Guide to North Italy. Marvellous Modenese– the celebrated painter Correggio was born in the territory of Modena, Italy. “Peter’s Creed, or rather, Hildebrand’s,” Pope Hildebrand (Gregory VII., 1073-85). The temporal power of the popes, and the authority of the Papacy over sovereigns, were claimed by this pope. Verdi and Rossini, Verdi wrote a poor opera, which pleased the audience on the first night, and they loudly applauded. Verdi nervously glanced at Rossini, sitting quietly in his box, and read the verdict in his face. Schelling, Frederick William Joseph von, a distinguished German philosopher (1775-1854). Strauss, David Friedrich (1808-74), who wrote the Rationalistic Life of Jesus, one of the Tübingen philosophers. King Bomba, a soubriquet given to Ferdinand II. (1810-59), late king of the Two Sicilies; it means King Puffcheek, King Liar, King Knave. lazzaroni, Naples beggars – so called from Lazarus. Antonelli, Cardinal, secretary of Pope Pius IX., a most astute politician, if not a very devout churchman. “Naples’ liquefaction.” The supposed miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius the Martyr. A small quantity of the saint’s blood in a solid state is preserved in a crystal reliquary; when brought into the presence of the head of the saint it melts, bubbles up, and, when moved, flows on one side. It is preserved in the great church at Naples. On certain occasions, as on the feast of St. Januarius, September 19th, the miracle is publicly performed. See Butler’s Lives of the Saints for September 19th. The matter has been much discussed, but no reasonable theory has been set up to account for it. Mr. Browning is quite wrong in suggesting that belief in this, or any other of this class of miracles, is obligatory on the Catholic conscience. A man may be a good Catholic and believe none of them. He could not, of course, be a Catholic and deny the miracles of the Bible, because he is bound to believe them on the authority of the Church as well as that of the Holy Scriptures. Modern miracles stand on no such basis. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762-1814). An eminent German metaphysician. He defined God as the moral order of the universe. “Pastor est tui Dominus,” the Lord is thy Shepherd. In partibus, Episcopus, A bishop in partibus infidelium. In countries where the Roman Catholic faith is not regularly established, as it was not in England before the time of Cardinal Wiseman, there were no bishops of sees in the kingdom itself, but they took their titles from heathen lands; so that an English bishop would perhaps be called Bishop of Mesopotamia when he was actually appointed to London. This is now altered, so far as this country is concerned.
“Bishop orders his Tomb at St. Praxed’s Church, The” (Rome, 15 – . Dramatic Romances and Lyrics – Bells and Pomegranates No. VII., 1845). – First published in Hood’s Magazine, 1845, and the same year in Dramatic Romances and Lyrics; in 1863 it appeared under Men and Women: St. Praxed or Praxedes. An old title or parish church in Rome bears the name of this saint. It was mentioned in the life of Pope Symmachus (A.D. 498-514). It was repaired by Adrian I. and Paschal I., and lastly by St. Charles Borromeo, who took from it his title of cardinal. He died 1584; there is a small monument to his memory now in the church. St. Praxedes, Virgin, was the daughter of Pudens, a Roman senator, and sister of St. Pudentiana. She lived in the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. She employed all her riches in relieving the poor and the necessities of the Church. The poem is a monologue of a bishop of the art-loving,