MIDDLE-AGE ART AND CHRISTIANITY.•
ONE comes rather frequently, in these days of rapid writing and much reading, upon books which would be valuable additions to well•stocked libraries, were it not for defects of construction and arrangement. Writers seem in too great a hurry to deliver them- selves of the information they have acquired, and neglect to classify their facts, to be systematic, lucid, and terse. Or, if they do happen to have duly classified the stores in their mind—if they strive to be terse—they become obscure ; for they have failed to give to the acquirement of literary art, to style, in fine, the time and labour unhesitatingly bestowed upon the gathering of materials. This state of things produces strange phenomena in modern literature. Sometimes the men who know the most can say the least ; and we, who try to read their works, flounder in a * A History of Mediaeval Christianity and Sacred Art in Itze.y. By Charles Hemans. London: Williams and Norgate. 1869. mass of facts without form or sequence. Sometimes the men who can say things best have very little to say, and readers leave them
with faculties relaxed by a current of words without know- ledge,—a mental draught of aerated waters, whose after effect is depression.
Something of the first of these two faults may be noticed in the book before us, though to speak of it as a mass of facts without form or sequence would be to condemn it very much too strongly.
Still, much value is lost to the book, either through want of better arrangement, or because the author has attempted too much,— probably because of both. Mr. Hemans is full of information ; and, taking each piece of information separately, we do not find that it is badly conveyed. But the whole produces a different impression. Instead of a readable volume, containing a fair pro- portion of hard fact, clothed in such vivid description as to impress it on the mind, we have a book of reference that lacks an attrac-
tiveness it might well have possessed. We question whether Mr. Hemans has done quite wisely in treating each century in a pair
of chapters; the first chapter being an abstract of its history, the second an account of its artistic productions. There seem to us two or three objections to this plan ; though, for all we know, -objections as potent might be raised to any other. First, it is too likely to produce the impression that with the close of the century there necessarily closed a particular epoch iu politics, religion, or art. The distinction, we fancy, may be a little too arbitrary, and without really existing too definitely in the mind of the writer, it may be produced in that of the reader.
Then, again, it seems to divide too completely the progress of art from the movements of men and parties ; we pass from history to -art-criticism, and then go back to history with something of a shock. Besides, repetition becomes necessary from time to time, and thus additional space is occupied without any amplification of interesting detail or vivid description. To give one instance out of many, the historical chapter devoted to the tenth century tells us the story of Marozia, a mediaeval Cleopatra, who fascinated suc- cessively different leaders, and through this exercised sway ; while in the chapter devoted to a consideration of the art-work of that period she is again, of necessity, introduced. One or two other failings—faults of omission, rather than of commission—may be noticed. To each chapter there should have been prefixed a short synopsis, or the book should have been supplied with a serviceable table of contents, or the index that is given should have been made more comprehensive. The volume has been printed abroad, and we cannot wonder that its proof-sheets were what is called ." dirty," when we remember the strange mass of mistakes with which English printers reproduce such of their " copy" as happens to be of a foreign tongue. But more care might possibly have been exercised; repeated revision should have secured the correct- ness which is attained in our best Reviews, instead of which we have here not only " errata," but " additions to errata."
But, faults apart, Mr. Hemans has produced a book which does -credit to his industry and to the spirit in which that industry is -exercised. The author writes in no partizan mood. Where errors of government, errors of policy—above all, personal crimes—are perceptible, he admits them and condemns them. He is not retained to make a bad case seem a good one. Perhaps, too, he 'thinks that in the darkest times there was light enough to lead -men out of them. At all events, we do not see that he extenuates the faults of the succession of Popes—some of them absurdly _young, many of them bad, most of them foolish—who, in one
sense, ruled Christendom, if they could not rule Rome, during the -earlier years of the Middle Ages. He follows, indeed, with seem- ing impartiality the chequered course of events during the whole
period whose history and whose art he endeavours to explain ; and it is towards the end of his book, in closing his consideration of -the Avignon exile, that he describes Papal corruption in terms not gentler than those he used at the beginning. Sketching very briefly the career of the last three pontiffs whose sway was exer- cised from the city of Provence—men of more marked ability and -energy, and by personal character less discreditable than many of their predecessors—he thus concludes his notice of the period dur- ing which the Popes were banished from Rome :—
" The ecclesiastical Court at Avignon obtained the triste distinction of being held up to the opprobrium of Europe by the maledictions of Genius. Dante and Potrarch raised their voices against the compromising posi- tion of the Pontificate at this period; and the Latin letters of Potrarch 'draw the darkest picture of hideous corruptions at that luxurious retreat on the banks of the Rhone. The greatest writers of the age thus confirmed the idea which now began to prevail,—that the Pontifical Avignon presented the fulfilment of prophetic visions, in which the decay of the Church had been typified by the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse! At that city the Cardinal's hat used to be given to youths of eighteen, who were just the same gay Lotharios after, as before, assuming that badge. Venus and Bacchus divided worship with Mammon in prelatic palaces ; hoary old sinners disgraced the mitre, which was no check upon their self-indulgence ; a Heliogabalue might be recognized in the disguise of a priest; and the Provencal shores might have seemed the Capri to a groat many ecclesiastical Tiberiuses. All Europe might have been impressed by the patent fact of these scandals, and also by the circumstance that the laureate poet who re- vealed them most fully was not alone distinguished by the pure spirit of his exalted genius, but also by his earnest religiousness, his orthodox fidelity to the Church."
Even at this period of discredit and depression to the Papacy, its influence in distant countries was often beneficial ; and Mr. Hemans has remarked that its vocation could not be absolutely forgotten. Ile says that the part assigned to that power by God in the furtherance of human interests, of Christian civilization, continued to be, "more or less worthily," sustained by individuals otherwise unfit for their exalted rank. Clement promoted the cause of missions among the Tartars. John the Twelfth inter- posed to require Charles le Bel to check the conspiracies of his sister, the wife of our second Edward. But a general comparison between the condition of the Middle Ages and that of more recent times confirms us, says Mr. 'Imam—and he is not the first to. remark it—in the conviction that the inmost meaning of history" is the irrepressible progress of the race.
In the artistic portions of his volume the author does not give to Rome so large a proportion of his space as in the narrative. And here, of course, be does wisely. These portions will be interesting to those who get the book, especially if readers are themselves familiar, or meaning to be familiar, with the sites and monuments described. But the descriptions are, so far as we are aware, more remarkable for correctness than for literary power. Nothing would be gained by quotation, for the book must not be judged by fragments. Looked at as a whole, though not exactly " readable," it is an evidence of wide appreciation and devoted industry. These can never be valueless.
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