BOOKS.

CARDINAL WISEMAN'S LAST POUR POPES.* THIS ample volume contains the reminiscences of Cardinal Wise- man at Rome during a residence of more than twenty years, at a period when Hope and her realizations shed a halo over life. In December 1818, after a rough sea-passage and an almost equally rough journey by land from Leghorn, the youthful Wiseman arrived in Rome, as one of the first pupils to the English Col- lege then just restored. The reestablishment of that institu- tion, the arrival of a batch of youth from the " penitas toto divisos orbe Britannos," and possible expectations of gather- ing the lost heretics sheep to the Catholic fold, in part through their very means, naturally excited the attention of Pius the Seventh. His Holiness commanded that the new arrivals should be presented to him ; and as many as could be clad in academic uniform had the honour of an interview. Among them was the future Cardinal Wiseman ; and from that period till 1840 he was continually in communication with the four successive Popes Pins the Seventh and Eighth, Leo the Twelfth, and Gregory the Sixteenth,—as student, priest, Vice-Rector and Rector of the English College, as well as in other po- sitions, that led to an intercourse more or less close and con- fidential,—increased, no doubt, by Dr. Wiseman's zeal and ability. Of observations made under such advantages of time and position the Recollections of the Popes consist; though theyare not confined to the character or behaviour of the Popes, but extend- ed to the circumstances of their reign, their public appearance on striking occasions' . and many matters which have little to do with the Pope, though they have some connexion with the Papacy or with Romanism All, however, claims to be the repetition of an actual impression.

"This is not a history, nor a series of biographies, nor a journal, nor what are called memoirs. It is so much of a great moving picture as caught one person's eye and remained fixed upon Ins memory : that portion of it which came nearest to him, touched him most closely, interested most deeply his feelings. The description of all this he has endeavoured to give with fidelity, by recalling, as vividly as possible, the impressions which it pro- duced at the time it passed before him, piece by piece."

Unfortunately for itslinterest, the book is scarcely composed on the principle here laid down. Thoughts too often predominate over facts, suggested by something at Rome as a starting-point for a commentary or disquisition, but by no means the genuine recollections of character, actions, or objects of sense. There is a good deal of these last-named things in the volume, but commen- tary, and very often digressive commentary, accompanies them, not always lowering -the attraction of the particular topic but rather overlaying the subject, and decidedly the book as a Whole.

This is the more felt because the Cardinal's style is rhetorically rounded if not prolix ; nerve and muscle are embedded in an en- bon-point of words. Coupled with the "purple light of love" in which everything connected with the Popes and the Papal re- ligion, is regarded, these defects tend to substitutegeneral panegyric for that individuality which is necessary to give force and freshness to portraiture and description. The higher Itomish ecclesiastics, when collected together on occasions of ceremony, may look like the Senators of Rome when the Gauls of Brennus entered the Senate-house, or embody: ideas of all that is grand for the his- torical painter ; but it requires in the first place the eye of a Ro- manist to see such things in this light even as a spectacle ; for we know that to persons who are by no means bigoted for or against them, these gorgeous processions have a theatrical character and sometimes an air of mummery. Even when a fault is hinted by the Cardinal, it is accompanied by an apology. The reader not only feels a want of criticism, but still more of its free expression.

This remark does not apply to the favourable view of the charac- ter of the four Popes for virtues peculiar and appropriate to each ; nor to the advantages of the ecclesiastical government, the rights of the Pope as a secular ruler, the wickedness of revolutionists and pseudo-reformers ; nor to the beneficent rule of the respective Popes in different branches of government. A prince of the Church will naturally shut his eyes to faults of the ecclesiastical government, and open them widely and sharply enough to merits. This kind of onesidedness is to be expected, and to some degree it is avowed by the author. "It may be said, that a darker and shadier side mhst exist in every pic- ture: there must have been many crimes within and without the walls of Rome, as well as of Troy, which are not even mentioned here; there must have been men of wicked life as well as men adorned by Christian virtues who are not alluded to; much vice, corruption, misery, moral and physical; which form no part of our description. True; there no doubt was and no doubt is yet, plenty of all this. But there is no want of persons to seize uponon it.. and give it to the public in the most glowing or most loathsome eiuring."

It is not Mon' the eyes upon the good only which forms the Pervading Peculiarity if not the defect of this book. It is the manner already alluata to, losing sharpness and crispness in a cloud of words, so that little of distinct impression remains upon the mind. The Romish Cardinal has much in common with the platform orator, though he is not so strong and not so coarse. There is in both of them the practice of iteration—of taking up an idea and repeating it in various ways which being needless In the written word becomes tedious. Both of them pitch their style loftier than the theme requires, and occasionally pass into something like fustian.

• Recollections of the Last Your Popes, and of Rome in their limes. By H. E. Cardinal Wiseman. Published by Hurst and Blackett. These peculiarities diminish as we pass from the Popes, the Popedom, and the Papal religion, into descriptions of eminent scholars or churchmen who resided at or visited Rome durj the long period the author lived there. The most interesting personal sketch is that of Dr. Lingard,—a man neglected by the Pope ; and, though the Cardinal does not say so, or probably think so, his panegyrics confirms the fact. The 'best and most cri- tical sketch is that of the Right Reverend Dr. Baines an Eng- lish Bishop who narrowly missed a Cardinalship. The rotund style is there also ; but the dogmatic not to say domineering manner and other little peculiarities of Dr. Baines are indi- cated without reserve, though with wonderful smoothness. Another sketch of interest both for the man and the manner of telling is that of the celebrated Mai, a further example of the ne- cessity of labour. " His habits were most simple and temperate. He rose very early, and after mass sat down to his books before six, and studied the whole morning, with the interruption of a light meal. Of course at one period of his life, both before and after his carduialate, he had official audiences to give, and he never was absent from any religious service at which others of Its rank attended. Still every moment that could be snatched from these duties, which were always thoroughly discharged, was seized for his favourite pur. suits ; and I should doubt if, during the few moments that a secretary might take in going to the next room for a paper and returning with it, a line was-not copied or translated from the open manuscript on the table. He rarely went into society, except for a few minutes, where courteous duty imperatively demanded it. A solitary drive, which I have sometimes counted it an honour to deprive of that epithet, perhaps a short walk, was almost all the robbery that he permitted recreation to make from his do- mestic converse at home, with that chaste wisdom that had early captivated his heart. Soon after dusk his servants were dismissed, his outer door was inexorably bolted, and alone with his codices he was lavish of his midnight oil, protracting his studies to an unknown hour."

The following account of the discomfort of the late Banterer Nicholas in his celebrated interview with Pope Gregory the Sixteenth is, like various other matters in the volume, not strictly a personal recollection of the author, but a report frO* sbme- b°dy. -

"It has been already mentioned, that the subject and particulars of the

conference were never revealed by its only witness at Rome. The Pope's

own account was brief, simple and full of conscious power. said to him all that the Holy, Ghost dictated to me.' "And that he had not spoken vainly, with words that had beaten the air, but that their strokes had been well placed and driven home, there was evidence otherwise recorded. An English gentleman was in some part of the palace through which the Imperial visitor passed as he returned from his interview, and described his altered appearance. He had entered with his usual firm and royal aspect, grand as it was from statuelike features, stately frame, and martial bearing ; free and at his ease, with gracious looks and condescending gestures of salutation. So he passed through the long suite of anterooms, the imperial eagle' glossy, fiery, with plumes un- ruffled and with eye unquenched,' in allthe glory of pinions which no flight had ever wearied, of beak and talon which no prey had yet resisted. He came forth again, with head uncovered, and hair, if it can be said of man dishevelled ; haggard andpale, looking as though in an hour he had passed through the condensation of a protracted fever ; taking long strides, with stooping shoulders' unobservant, unsaluting : he waited not for his carriage to come to the foot of the _stairs, but rushed out into the outer court, and hurried away from apparently the scene of a discomfiture. It was the eagle dragged from his eyrie among the clefts of the rocks, from his nest among the stars,' his feathers crumpled and his eye quelled by a power till then despised."

In the course of the narrative bits of information respecting the Papal government or its practices frequently, turn up. Here is a morsel touching the freedom of election in the Conclave. In theory, the Pope is chosen by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost ; but in practice, it seems, powers of another kind interfere. "The Conclave after the death of Pius commenced in the middle of De- cember, with the observance of all usual forms. At one time if seemed likely to close by the election of Cardinal Giustiniani, when the Court of Spain interposed and prevented it. Allusion has been made to the exist- ence of this privilege, vested more by usage than by any formal act of re- cognition at least in three great Catholic powers. Should two-thirde of the votes centre in any person, he is at once Pope, beyond the reach of any prohibitory declaration. It is therefore when the votes seem to bt con- verging towards some one obnoxious, no matter why, to one of those sove- reigns, that his ambassador to Conclave, himself a Cardinal, by a circular admonishes his colleagues of this feeling in the court which he represents. This suffices to make them turn in another direction. "Thus in the Conclave preceding the one now before us Cardinal Seve- roll was nearly elected, when Cardinal Albankon behalf of Austria, to which Severoli had been formerly Nuncio, inhibited his election by a note considered far from courteous. And in like manner in this Conclave' on the 7th of January, Cardinal Giustiniani received twenty-one votes, the number sufficient for election being twenty-nine, when Cardinal Marco, Spanish Envoy, delicately intimated, first to Giustiniani's nephew Odes- calchi, then to the Dean recce, that Spain objected to that nomination.

Every one was amazed. • •

"Every one in that Conclave, however, bore witness to the admirable conduct of that excellent and noble prince on the occasion. I have heard Cardinal Weld and his secretary, in Conclave Bishop Riddell describe how wretched and pining he looked while the prospect of "the Papacy hull be- fore him, for he was scrupulous and tender of conscience to excess ; and how he brightened up and looked like himself again the moment the vision had passed away. Indeed, no sooner had the note of the Spanish lay Am- bassador Labrador been read in his presence by the Dean, than Cardinal Giustiniani rose, and, standing in the middle of the chapel, addressed his colleagues."

[And he made a complaining speech.]

There are a good many anecdotes, sometimes relating to Popes, Cardinals, or the priesthood, others extending to laymen. The following story comes from a chapter on the brigandage that flourished under. Pius the Seventh, perhaps encouraged through the amiable Pope's want of energy. The chapter is written to defend the Pope, or at least to explain the difficulties of the case.

"If the reader wishes to refresh his memory on the exploits of the ban- ditti of that period, and recall their practices and mode of life, he has only to turn to Washington Irving's Tales of a Traveller,' where, in the third part, he gives The Painter's Adventure' among his robber stories. In his preface he says that the Adventure of the Young Painter among the ban- ditti is taken almost entirely from an authentic narrative in manuscript.' True: and astonished and disappointed was the poor French artist, when he found that the manuscript which he used to lend freely to his friends had been translated and published without his permission or knowledge by M. Wassinton, as he called his literary pirate. The writer had read it as a work of fiction by the amusing American tourist ; for who believes the ac- count in prefaces of manuscripts, whether found in a Cura's leather trunk, or Old Mortality's wallet,' or Master Humphrey's clock,' or nowhere in particular ? There was a contradiction, indeed, in calling that the adven- ture of a young painter, in which the author attributed his coolness and serenity among the robbers, to his having been schooled to hardship during the late revolutions,' that is, at the end of the last century. This might indeed easily be passed over ; but it was too true for M. Chatillon, the art- ist, that he had passed into the stage of the lean and slippered pantaloon,' when he was taken, as he describes, from the Villa Ruffinella, in 1818, by brigands, in mistake for its owner, Prince Lucien Bonaparte. The band had seized the chaplain, as he strolled in the neighbouring woods before dinner, and detained him till dusk, when they compelled him to be their guide to the house.

M. Chatillon lent his manuscript, among other neighbours, to us of the English College ; and I believe we were the first to discover and inform him that it was already published in English, with such alterations as made the account apocryphal, but with such a charm as would deprive the original, if printed, of all chance of success."

There are some singular errors in the volume, which have the effect of printer's errata, and such they may occasionally be. At page 181, in noting the escape of the brigands into the Neapolitan territory and so defying arrest, the Cardinal compares it to the thieves of London escaping through Temple Bar, till a "conven- tion was made between Rome and Westminster on the one side and Naples and the City on the other"; in which sentence " Rome " and "the City" should change places. In like manner, when wishing, at page 197, that the "Eighth Pius" may break "the charm" which kills each Pope before he "reaches the years of Peter," Pius the Ninth is evidently. meant. Occasionally the error goes beyond printing. In discussing hereditary and elective monarchy in reference to the .Popedom, and saying that in the hereditary there can be no interregnum, the Cardinal intro- duces the saying of " le roi est mort, vive le roi," but applies it to the funeral ; though that would give an interregnum between death and burial. The words, we all know, were used at the mo- ment of death, when the proper officer, duly prepared, stepped from a particular window at Versailles, and, breaking one wand, mournfully announced, "Le roi eat mort," and then, waving another wand, joyfully shouted " Vive le roi !"

The four portraits prefixed to the notices of the four reigns do not argue increasing spirituality in the Popes. Pius the Seventh, after the well-known portrait of Lawrence, looks rather touched by time, and a little worn by care ; and if a slight expression of more than wariness is traceable, there is something spiritual in the countenance. Leo the Twelfth looks at you with an almost childish undisguise, and a somewhat feminine east of face, with a touch of mischief lurking behind. The two latter Popes, Pius the Eighth and Gregory the Sixteenth, are more fleshy and coarse ; Gregory especially has a cross of Oliver Cromwell and an Alder- man.