WYCLIF ON THE POPE.*

WE might expect that Wyclif's works would have found an editor among his fellow-countrymen, who have good right to be proud that the first of the great Reformers was an Englishman. This is so far from being the case, that nine-tenths of his Latin writings still remain in MS., while the few that have been pub- lished were edited by Germans, except the fragments contained in Dr. Shirley's Fiasciculi Zizaniorum. Dr. Buddensieg now adds one more tract to our scanty stock. The piece he has chosen to print is a vehement attack upon the Papacy, written in the last years of Wyclif's life, when to the Reformer, as to many modern Protestants, the Pope was the unmistakable Anti- christ. The tract opens with setting forth the ideal of the Church, which consists of all the elect, and which should be one body, made up by the triple membership of rulers, priests, and commons, with Christ for head. But, so Wyclif complains, this body is torn asunder by sects and divisions. Worldly pre- lates, monks, canons, and friars, and the infinite subdivisions of all these, break up unity, and impose rules other than Christ gave. The root of the evil is that men have set up Peter and his successors as heads of the Church, instead of Christ. Wyclif admits that the claim of primacy among the Apostles derives some colour from the charge to Peter, and the power of binding and loosing conferred upon him by Christ. But he urges that this power was shared by the other Apostles, and that they did not look to Peter for sanction, as if he wielded Papal authority. More than this, Paul asserts his independence, and even ven- tures to withstand Peter ; while among those who seemed to be pillars, he gives James the place of honour. It is hard for us to suppress a yawn as we look through these arguments, the battered shuttlecocks of numberless Protestant and Roman Catholic controversialists; but even the common-places of Exeter • Ds Christ°, a Sue Adoersarto Antichrist°. Elo Poloratschor Traciat Johan!: Wiclifa, Heraugegeben von Dr. Rudolf BadAensieg. Gotha: Forth's. 1880.

Hall were once fresh, and must have sounded strangely audacious, when propounded by the solitary reformer of the fourteenth century.

Wyclif then goes on to ask how far the Popes can be said to be successors of St. Peter. Their power, he says, does not come from Peter, who, like Christ, appointed no vicar ; and it has no foundation in Scripture unless, " ut loquar ironice," from the text, " The Kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship but ye shall not be so." The true source of the Papal authority he finds in the fatal gift of Constantine to Sylvester, and he makes the curious remark that an evil spirit must have moved the Popes to set up their Court at Rome, the place most of all profaned by the blood of the martyrs. Then, with a profession of willingness to learn better, if any will teach him, Wyclif sums up that the Pope is " precipuus Antichristus, et coraula ducens exercitum dyaboli contra Christum."

Having thus settled the question of the origin of the Papal dominion, the tract goes on to deal with the Popedom from its practical side. For, as some have published " in wulgari," if it were good to have a Pope who was a follower of Christ and Peter, it must be bad to have one who goes directly contrary to them. Wyclif then draws a series of contrasts between the humble and useful life of Christ, who went about on foot preaching to the people, and the pride, luxury, and ambition of the Pope, sitting like another Chosroes in his castle, striving perpetually for wealth and sway, and hindering those who' would preach the Gospel in sincerity. All this reasoning and invective, however monotonous, has its value to the student who wishes to trace the rise and growth of the Protestant Reforma- tion; while, as regards Wyclif personally, we cannot help being struck by the boldness of his attack, at a time when all his followers had been silenced by prosecution, and he was left old, palsied, and alone. Dr. Buddensieg has done his editorial work thoroughly. He gives careful collations from the different MSS., and his notes, though few, are enough to show his scholarly qualities. We are glad to see that one so competent has taken up the task which seems of late to have dropped from the hands of Dr. Lechler. Valuable as Dr. Buddensieg's preface is, its most interesting passage is that in which he tells us that he has copied from the Vienna MSS. almost all the controversial works of Wyclif. One thing alone delays their publication,—the ex- pense of an undertaking which cannot attract a publisher by any hope of profit. We should be glad to find that the Uni- versity of Oxford would provide the funds, in honour of one of her most distinguished sons ; but if not, there should still be enough regard for Wyclif in England to ensure that Dr. Bud- densieg's enthusiasm and labour shall not be wasted.

THE LAND QUESTION IN ITALY.* THE volume on contemporary Italy which M. de Laveleye, the eminent economist, has published as the result of a personal tour through the most part of the Peninsula, is full of painful but instructive information upon that great question of the Land and the People which seems to be perpetually destined to be at the root of all difficulties and discussions arising out of the social order. It is the picture of Ireland on a vast scale which is presented to our eyes, by the account of the social con- dition of many parts of Italy. The cares which hang heavily round the necks of the Liberal administrators of Irish affairs are not unknown to the advisers of King Humbert. Even the Davitts and the Egans have parallels and congeners far surpassing them in crudeness of suggestion and violence of denunciation, among the Socialist leaders who from time to time seek to take advantage of the popular discontent in central Italy and Sicily, and who probably are not without an honest com- miseration for the wretched people whose rain their panaceas would only complete. It is a hard task to govern men, and if it were not, it would be an infinitely less noble undertaking. M. de Laveleye himself does not hesitate to draw a comparison between Italy and Ireland, and there are few portions of his narrative of the scenes which met his eye, and which the lead- ing statesmen of Italy deplored in common with him, that will not strike upon an English ear like so many chapters out of our own Irish experiences. " Every year," he writes, " the number of emigrants from Italy the Beautiful goes on increasing. Signora Minghetti and Luzzatti even intro- duced a Bill last year to protect them from the frauds of every kind of which they are the victims. And yet what fertile lands

• VItalie detuelle. Par E. de Laveloye. Paris : Hachette et Cie. 1880.

are lying unoccupied, on which millions of families could live ! The Italian who emigrates must be miserable, indeed. And so he is, and the cause of it is the vicious distribution of property. Latifundia perdidere lialiam ! The large farms were the rain of Italy. The maxim is as true to-day as in the days of Pliny." The petition of the peasants of Lombardy, in reply to a Minis- terial circular which warned them against the dangers of emigra- tion, is a terrible exposition of rural misery :— "What do you mean by the nation, Signor Minister ? Is it the multitude of the miserable ? Then we, indeed, are the nation. Look at our pale and emaciated faces, at our bodies exhausted by excessive labour and insufficient food. We sow and reap the wheat, but never eat white bread. We cultivate the grape, but never drink its wine. We raise the cattle, but never taste meat. We are clad in rags. We dwell in dens of infection. We freeze in winter, and in the summer we starve. Our only nourishment on Italian soil is a handful of maize, made costly by the tax. The burning fever devours us in the dry regions, and in the wet ones we are the prey of the fever of the marsh. Our end is a premature death in the hopital, or in our miserable cabins. And, in spite of all this, Signor Minister, you recommend us not to expatriate ourselves ! But can the land, where even the hardest labour cannot earn food, be called a native country ?"

The horrible pellagra., the leprosy of ill-feeding, extends its ravages among the rural population. In 1830, says de Laveleye, there were 20,000 victims of the disease in Lombardy ; to-day, there are 97,000 :— " Twelve and eleven per cent. of the Lombard and Venetian popu- lation are smitten, and those who are not actually struck by the plague are debilitated by the bad nourishment. The statistics of the conscription for the army give horrifying results. In 1878, the re- port of General Torre shows that the number of conscripts excused for constitutional infirmity was 20 per cent. in Lombardy and 18 per cent. in Venetia Thus in the fairest country in the world a fifth of the population, in the flower of their life, are incapable of mili- tary service, in consequence of extreme poverty The Com- mission of Inquiry on the subject of the pellagra truly says, The cause of this malady is extreme misery, so that under the medical question we find the social question. "

In every centre of culture and thought, from Padua to Naples, M. de Laveleye found the thinkers and statesmen of Italy pre- occupied by the social question.

Something of the poverty of the people is due to the heavy taxation, but, as Professor Luzzatti, co-editor of the Giornale degli Economisti, told M. de Laveleye, "it is too late to talk of

Virgilian eclogues. We are a modern people. We have a great debt, a strong army, and our unity to consolidate by great public works. We have accordingly a necessity for money and crushing taxes." The statistics of the seizures of landed estates by the State in consequence of non-payment of land-tax are the most convincing proofs of the burthen which is laid upon the country. "The Treasury devours the small properties that are too deeply involved. From 1873 to 1878, 35,000 small pro- prietors have lost their estates by compulsory expropriation." M. de Laveleye, whose love of Italian liberty allows him to speak with candour, does not conceal the evils which have crept into the public administration ; but he rightly attributes the crushing character of the heavy taxes and the general inability of the contributors to meet the requirements of the State in so many instances, to the fundamental evil of the existing land. system, and both by examples of the results of the system of

Latifundia, or huge estates farmed by middlemen and cultivated by labourers and tenants-at-will, and by examples of the contrary system of ownership or part-ownership by the actual cultivators, he shows that the prosperity of Italy is merely a question of the establishment of a population of independent and provident cultivators, instead of a population of dependent, and, therefore, improvident, dispirited, and miserable peasants, who neither will nor can work, because they have no security or guarantee for the enjoyment of the fruits of their work. It is the Irish question which reveals itself under the blue skies of Italia la

Bella.

M. de Laveleye summarises the excellent work of Baron

Sidney Sonnino on the Mezzeria in Toscana, which describes the mdtayer system followed by Tuscan land-owners and farmers. Even this system of imperfect ownership, and which by no means absolutely secures the tenant from a grasping landlord, is sufficient to make Tuscany one of the encouraging exceptions to the general wretchedness of agricultural Italy. According to M. Sonnino, where the ancient regulations of the radtayer system have not been changed for the profit of the pro- prietors, the condition of the cultivators is very tolerable.

In bad years, they suffer and get into debt, but the pro- prietors are not hard on them, and as the terms of their contract are fixed not by competition, but by custom, the danger of rack-rents is removed. There is no war of classes, an ancient, patriarchal spirit prevails, and the country is cultivated like a garden. Signor Minghetti is a strong partisan of the 3fezzeria,

and he supports his preference by the example of the Bolognese regions, where perfect cultivation and a contented peasantry are found together.

"Naked and desolate fields, where the cultivator dies of famine in the fairest climate and on the most fertile soil, such is, on the other band, the result of the Latifundia. Economists who defend the sys- tem of huge properties, visit the interior of the Basilicata and Sicily, if you want to see the degree of misery to which your huge properties reduce the earth and its inhabitants."

In the very neighbourhood of those regions, cursed by the evil genius of excessive landholding, M. de Laveleye could dis- cover specimens of what the contrary system can do for soil, and owner, and cultivator alike. On the domain of Campo- reale, in the centre of Sicily, the property of Prince Camporeale, whose mother married Signor Minghetti, there exists fixity of rent, as well as fixity of tenure. More than 4,000 tenants are established on a system of livello, or hereditary lease. " The cultivator is thus a quasi-proprietor, and the comfort of the Camporeale tenantry forms a striking contrast with the misery of the cultivators who are subject to the rack-renters." The picture which M. de Laveleye gives of the island of Capri is atill more eloquent. Here the cultivator becomes actual pro- prietor of the soil he tills or reclaims. And what a happy result !—

" Not an inch of ground is lost The houses are well kept

and scrupulously whitewashed The people have the look of comfort Though the very girls work hard, labour seems

a pleasure, and the race is beautiful, because the native grace of the

Italian blood is not spoiled by misery I know no more striking lesson of political economy than is taught at Capri. Whence come the perfection of cultivation and the comfort of the population? Certainly not from the fertility of the soil, which is an arid rock.

Before obtaining the crops, it was first necessary, so to speak, to create the soil. It is the magic of ownership which has produced this prodigy."

M. de Laveleye's volume treats of many subjects, according as they occurred in conversation with the noblest and worthiest of the Italian kingdom ; but the most precious part of his ex- periences is assuredly his invaluable contribution to the discus- sion of the agrarian difficulty. It is the Italian question in Ireland, or the Irish question in Italy, and it is the lesson of Camporeale and Capri which has to teach the common remedy.