Record of the Months.

From: The Dial, Vol. III, No. IV (April 1843)
Author:
Published: E. P. Peabody 1843 Boston

  No work of fiction that has appeared of late has met with so kindly a reception, on all hands, as this. In part this may be ascribed to our pleasure at getting a peep into the domestic life of a country hitherto little known to us, except in the broader, colder outline of history, but far more to the intrinsic merit of the work, its lively nature, wisdom, and gentle affectionate morality. The representation of character, if not deeply “motived” is faithful, and, though best in the range of such persons as Bear and his charming little wife, yet the holder attempts in the sketches of Ma chère mère, Bruno, and Serena do not fail, if they do not entirely succeed. These persons are painted, not indeed as by one of their own rank, but as they may be seen from Fanny’s point of view. The playfulness of the book seldom rises to wit, but is very light and pretty; the dew is on the grass, the insect on the wing, round the happy country home. The common sense is truly “the wisdom of nations,” not the cold prudence of skepticism, but the net result of observations taken by healthy hearts and heads, educated in that golden mean which most harmoniously, if not most rapidly, unfolds the affections, the intellect, and the energies for active life.

  IN a very different temper from the Swedish novel is this new volume from Bulwer, even more melodramatic than his last. It has his usual merits of lively conception, and flexibility of talent; there is no better scene painter than Bulwer; no writer weaves his plot more skilfully. The incidents do not indeed grow necessarily out of the characters; only in the works of highest genius, only in Shakspeare, Cervantes, Goethe, do we find this merit; but they fit the characters very well, they allow free play to its gestures. We are sure to read the book through once, as sure ne,·er to touch it again.—It is sad to see this man, with such desire for a deeper, simpler life, and not without glimpses at its nature, yet never taking a path that could lead him one step nearer to it. Always he is beating the bushes for game that has fled, always is on the outskirts of truth. He began at the wrong end, and has never, with all his defiance of cant, clearly seen that “the misery of our age is that we must get rid of the false, to arrive at the true.” The apprenticeship of Zanoni, the “large, fatherly heart” of Warwick are seen with an eye to the bystander, never simply for his own sake. How tedious the man of talent becomes when he would philosophize, would moralize, when he would enforce by a thousand repetitions what he supposes some great leading thought about “humanity,” “democracy,” the “Man of the Age.” O fashionable writer, burn your books, burn off’ the ambitious crust from your life; be still and lonely in yourself a little while, be a child, then, perhaps you may grow to be a man, and know how to write about “humanity.” But you will never pierce that secret, from without, as you hope. At present, all your talents, your industry, your quick perceptions, and your pains, for these, it must be confessed, are real, only serve to make you a more striking illustration of the falsities of your time.

  This little book brings just what is wanted by many among us, an account of the technical terms of the art, the scope and capabilities of the different instruments, and different kinds of composition. For it is not music explained, for that were an impossibility, but the modes of expression in music, defined and discriminated one from the other. It will be of use to the many who, with a pleasure in hearing music that they cannot let go, are continually disappointed and puzzled, because ignorance, as to the means and resources of the art, has occasioned their forming expectations which cannot be realized, and prevents their appreciating the degree in which expression is attained.

  Music has been, in a sense, popular here, during the winter; that is to say, musical entertainments have drawn large audiences, but the frequent rudeness of talking during the finest performance, has shown that no small part of the audience were regardless of the divine expressions of thought they thus insulted, no less than of the feelings of those who might have enjoyed them, but for the neighborhood of these intruders. It ought to be understood that half a dollar buys a seat, and the privilege of hearing, but not that of making the same useless to all around. Strange, strange, that it should be necessary to say such things! Das versteht sich: that is understood of itself, say the Germans.

  The Academy concerts have not satisfied the expectations excited by the ability with which they were conducted the previous winter. They have indeed repeated several times the fifth symphony of Beethoven, which is always heard with renewed delight, and the second symphony, but the Pastoral, not at all, and have given us no new piece from this master. The Jupiter was given only once; we cannot guess why; hearing it once, and coldly performed, as it seemed to be, it made no impression; but the course the academy has heretofore pursued, was to study and repeat fine compositions, till they were understood, both by the performers and hearers. This winter they have preferred to amuse the public with showy overtures, well enough in their way, but not adapted to raise or purify the taste of those who are so immediately pleased with them, or to gratify those who have any deep feeling of music. One concert was made up of overtures, which reminded us of Timon’s feast, only substituting bottles of cider (we can’t say Champagne) for the warm water which he had prepared to balk his hungry guests.

  The Handel and Haydn society have given the Messiah, Mendelsohn’s St. Paul, and Rossini’s Stabat Mater, as well as is possible with such a lack of good solo singers.—The Stabat is a splendid and flowing composition, unworthy the theme, and unworthy the echoes that have answered to the sublime choruses of the Messiah, but full of life, of winged melody, and such excellencies as may be expected from Rossini. As Scott to Shakspeare is Rossini to Handel, so wide the gulf of difference, both as to depth of insight, and poetic power of representation;—but then again, wide as the distance between Bulwer and Scott is that between the imitators of Rossini and himself, the great green tree, blossoming full of vigor and joy, the fountain overflowing with enchanting, though superficial melody. It is Italy, it is Naples in its high coloring and profuse growths.

  The younger Rakemann, who came to this country last autumn, has added a new and important page to our musical experiences. He has enjoyed the benefits of intercourse with the most wonderful pianists in this day of wonderful execution, and adds, to the great command of the instrument attainable by early and ardent study of their methods, a depth of feeling, range and force of expression far more admirable. He has a wide range, doing justice to delicate, to magnificent, or simple and solemn compositions. If it be possible that his genius be worthily developed in a country where is, as yet, no musical atmosphere, we hope he will remain to educate us for the enjoyment of his performance, and of the thoughts of his masters.

  This is a charming book, full of free breezes, and mountain torrents, and pictures of romantic interest. Mr. Borrow is a self-sufficing man of free nature, his mind is always in the fresh air; he is not unworthy to climb the sierras and rest beneath the cork trees where we have so often enjoyed the company of Don Quixote. And he has the merit, almost miraculous to-day, of leaving us almost always to draw our own inferences from what he gives us. We can wander on in peace, secure against being forced back upon ourselves, or forced sideways to himself. It is as good to read through this book of pictures, as to stay in a house hung with Gobelin tapestry. The Gipsies are introduced here with even more spirit than in his other book. He sketches men and nature with the same bold and clear, though careless touch. Cape Finisterre and the entrance into Gallicia are as good parts as any to look at.

  Mr. Browning was known to us before, by a little book called “Pippa Passes,” full of bold openings, motley with talent like this, and rich in touches of personal experience. A version of the thought of the day so much less penetrating than Faust and Festus cannot detain us long; yet we are pleased to see each man in his kind bearing witness, that neither sight nor thought will enable to attain that golden crown which is the reward of life, of profound experiences and gradual processes, the golden crown of wisdom. The artist nature is painted with great vigor in Aprile. The author has come nearer that, than to the philosophic nature. There is music in the love of Festus for his friend, especially in the last scene, the thought of his taking sides with him against the divine judgment is true as poesy.

  WE would call attention to this little tale, which is remarkably well translated. It is, in itself, very pleasing, and the natural affinities of character, as developed by means of the trance of animal magnetism, are treated with fineness of observation and sympathy. Nothing can be more graceful than the little scene in which the Rose is given, and the way in which it is made to bear on the conduct of the story. The sweet and sustained tone of the magnetized, the aloofness with which the soul regards the blemishes of its personal, temporal existence, are what may be divined by those who have ever seen so much as the smile which accompanies this sleep in the body, awaking into the spirit.

  HISTORICAL records, as ordinarily presented, may raise in us the idea, that great minds are only permitted occasionally to appear, and but now and then, at long distant periods, one starts forth suddenly as a solitary, flitting meteor, leaving the welkin dark again. But were it possible, which we may safely affirm it is not, for the historian correctly to report the facts as they occurred, so that the reader shall be as well instructed as if he had been present, the course of humanity would give evidence of a very different law. God’s spiritual dominion on earth is as continuously occupied by stars, as the material firmament. There is an unintermitted stream of inspiration and progress; and it is because it is observed only in part, and reported disjointedly, that we are insensible of the fact. Behind Shakspeare may be discovered a nebula of dramatic authors, whose success built up his, and whose genius aided the fame which eclipses their own. Milton is but the crowning stone until a happier poet shall carry the apex of sacred song one course higher.

  Thus of Savonarola. Luther’s eminence overshadows his fame; and the public mind having done justice to the idea of church reform, few readers, and fewer worshippers, are interested in apportioning shares of merit to the several persons who promoted it. Historic justice is, however, as beautiful in literature as pecuniary payment is needful in commerce. We, therefore, accept with gladness this effort to rescue the comparatively unknown Savonarola from undue obscurity. He was one link in that chain of intense minds which binds age to age, and man to man, which gives fresh evidence of the universal brotherhood of humanity, and which fails not to instruct us of that inmost and ruling Love, whose common paternity generates that brotherhood. Successively student, lover, monk, poet, reformer, priest, politician, prophet, enthusiast, contemplator, legislator, victim, martyr, he was undeviatingly the friend of man, the affectionate expounder of truth, the persevering writer, and the faithful servant of the most high, u far as consciousness was granted to him.

  Born in times (1452) when the corruptions of the Church were quite or nearly at their height, such an ardent and true being must needs enter on a career ultimately involving his fate. The forms of virtue, always most rigidly maintained by man as he forgets the spirit in them, are yet sufficiently vivid to develop in such a soul the divine feelings of which they were originally the result.

  Passing, in his studies, through the subtleties of Aristotle, and the sublimities of Plato, to the divine intuitions in the New Testament Scriptures at a period when a sincere and faithful appeal to them was very rare, he became elevated to the position of the Italian Luther, antecedent in time to the German reformer, and as distinguished above him by more gentleness and nobler poetic tone. In practical tendency of being, the martyred Italian monk was no less eminent than the sturdy German student. The two qualities of divine love and moral action were united in him, without the intervention of a calculating rationality which not unfrequently deadens the holiest emotions. Hence his preference for the Dominican order. For the zeal he brought to that brotherhood could well employ the controversial learning they could teach him; and without an activity in “doing good” his soul could not be satisfied.

  At the age of twenty-three years he abruptly quitted his paternal home at Ferrara, and entered the Dominican monastery at Bologna, as lay brother, where his talents and fervor were too justly appreciated to allow him the humble occupations he would have selected, and he was appointed to the highest offices for which nature and learning qualified him. His temperament, described as the “sanguine-choleric,” rendered him equally susceptible of “hope and anger;” and such a nature, in connexion with an undefiled conscience and pure piety, aroused in him the highest indignation and energy, when he discovered that the brotherhood were as far estranged from holy principles and practices as the world he had quitted.

  He hesitated long before he could accept the priestly office from hands so ill qualified to give it validity. Notwithstanding his poetic feelings, he was not a little opposed to the scientific music introduced into the Church, as he said, “by the devil to prevent mental devotion, and to delight the senses without producing spiritual fruits.” He found no gospel commanding that we should keep in the church crosses of gold or silver, or other precious things, but he had found in the gospel, “I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink I “His tendencies were all favorable to a purely personal, rather than a ceremonial religion. And his then unprecedented study of the divine written oracle did not close his soul against the immediate presence of the same divine authority,—a fact doctrinally countenanced by every formal church only so long as its priesthood retains the exclusive power of interpreting the Spirit’s voice. So far as Savonarola claimed the right of interpretation for himself, he may be considered as essentially a Protestant, and his memory has not remained unassailed on this ground. Contemplating all words and outward things from inward life, the defections of priests and people were alike manifest to him. His writings generally partake strongly of this mystic character. Spread over nearly thirty years, they are numerous and varied, chiefly, however, consisting of poems, epistles, sermons, and scripture paraphrases in Italian and Latin, a complete catalogue of which Mr. Heraud has now furnished.

  Seven years were passed by Savonarola in his lay noviciate, travelling from place to place by the direction of his order, and teaching from cloister to cloister; thus carrying out the reforming idea with which he was so strongly impressed. He remained unspoiled even in the priestly office; the degradation in the Church having the effect rather of exciting him to firmer speech, than of quelling the truth within him. “Would you have your son a wicked man,” he was wont to say, “make him a priest; O, how much poison will he swallow!” On the subject of prayer, he writes, “Those who will always use vocal and not mental prayer, act as if they chose to take medicine perpetually, and never to be cured. If it happen, by the grace of God, that the soul unites itself with him in such love and contemplation, that vocal prayer cannot longer be continued without hindering this contemplation, the suppliant should omit the remainder of his vocal, and continue his mental orisons, the great object of prayer being attained by such converse with God.”—p. 82.

  Savonarola continued his literary instructions subsequent to his ordination, his talents rendering him popular, and his lectures successful. In private remonstrance he was no less happy, and instances of conversion by his means are recorded. The monastery having removed to Florence during a war, he was selected to preach; and, although at the outset he entirely failed in the new capacity, he became, by diligent study and deeper inward communion, no less renowned in the pulpit than at the lecture-table. He exposed vices in the highest persons, assailed the wickedness of the most powerful, even in the pulpit of the church itself denouncing the crimes of its rulers with so much sincerity, truth, and eloquence, that the people hailed him as a prophet. This popular attribution, the means by which hi, fame and influence were spread abroad, he did not so distinctly explain or deny, but that it could he ultimately used, as it was used, for his accusation and death. He seems, indeed, rather to have confirmed the notion; and one of his contemporaries reports, “began to enumerate some mysteries about an impending destruction, although he concealed them under cover of sacred scripture, that impure men might be prevented from perceiving them, fearing lest the holy thing should be given to the dogs. The sword of the Lord,” he repeatedly exclaimed, “will soon and suddenly come upon the earth.”

  So long as no great or immediate danger threatened the authorities from such preaching, the talents and solemnity of the preacher ensured him respect and even promotion. He was chosen Prior of the Dominican monastery of San Marco at Florence, erected by Cosmo di Medici at great expense, and favored by a rich library. The great Lorenzo di Medici in vain endeavored to seduce him by acts of courtesy and munificence. He remained faithful to conscience, and even proceeded so far as to put himself in opposition to him, on account of the social evils resulting from aristocratic privileges which no benevolence can gloss.

  “In person be was of middling stature, rather small than large, but erect and easy; fair, almost florid in complexion, with a high, bold forehead remarkably furrowed; his eyes were brilliant, and of such a blue as the ancients called glauci, shadowed by long, reddish, eye-lashes; his nose was prominent und aquiline, which added much to his beauty; his face was rather plump than thin; his cheeks somewhat rounded, and a full underlip gave sweetness to his countenance; the face was well placed, and every other part of his person proportioned and firmly knit, exhibiting in all his gestures and movements an air of gentleness and gracefulness. His hands were bony, and so little covered with flesh, that when held against the light they seemed almost transparent; his long spreading fingers ended in very pointed nails. His carriage was upright; his manners grave, equal, resolute, tempered by humble courtesy, polished and agreeable in every action.”—p. 141.

  On the death of Lorenzo, political events succeeded, in which Savonarola bore an important part, and was enabled to carry some of his reformatory ideas into practice, at least as respected monasteries. Practical measures roused up enemies at Rome; accusations were brought against him, and after various vicissitudes he was cited to Rome for having predicted future events. Sickness and some apology to the Pope purchased his excuse, and on recovery he again entered the pulpit. The Pope, like Lorenzo, tried, without success, to attract him from his duty, by offer of a cardinalate, but he would have “no other red hat than that of martyrdom covered with his own blood.” In every successive sermon his principles were developed in opposition to the vices of authority. His preaching was suspended, he was again cited to Rome, and put upon his defence. He vindicated himself,—was again ordered to preach. Proceeding in his reforming career, he proposed a council of the Church, and brought himself into such antagonism with the papal authority, that he was excommunicated. Again he was permitted to preach, and penned warm remonstrances to the Pope. He attacked more unsparingly than ever the depravity of the clergy. He declares,

  “The scandal begins at Rome, and goes through the whole; they are worse than Turks and Moors. Begin only with Rome, and you will find that they have won all their spiritual benefices by simony. Many seek them for their children and brothers, who enter them with insolence and a thousand sins. Their covetonsness is monstrous; “they will do any thing for money. Their bells sound avarice, —call to nothing else but money and ease.”—p. 322.

  Conduct like this necessarily brought affairs to a crisis. He was committed to the merciless inquisition, and underwent the most cruel tortures, constantly refusing, in his restored moments, to sanction any doubtful expression like recantation, which might have escaped in the extremity of physical anguish, peculiarly painful in his case from mental sensibility and sanguine temperament.

  Failing to obtain a genuine recantation, his persecutors fabricated one. His condemnation being determined on, sentence was pronounced, and with two of the fraternity, he was burnt to death in Florence, on the 22d of May, 1498.

  These are the main incidents in a life which could not fail, under any circumstances, of being deeply influential, but whose fame has not until now acquired a place in English literature, although within the last six years no fewer than three elaborate biographies have appeared in Germany from the pens of Rudelbach, Maier, and Rapp. In the design of introducing to a further portion of the reading public a character so distinguished, we are indebted to Mr. Heraud for this work, the general reception of which, we hope, will induce further efforts in bringing out the spirit-chosen minds. The present volume, though in its pains-taking erudition it grows occasionally discursive, and in needless efforts to prove that the Roman Catholic Church is really the protestant establishment, becomes somewhat controversial, is yet a valuable addition to our standard literature. In his summary Mr. Heraud observes that,

  “Religion with Savonarola was love,—commenced, contiued, ended in love. He was of the seraphic, rather than cherubic, nature. He was ever kindled and consumed with the zeal and energy of the affections; he unavoidably exhibits the soaring and flowing fire of an erotic spirit. He began life with an affair of the heart, in which he was disappointed, and commenced poet by composing amorous lyrics, which perished with the destruction of his hopes, and their elevation to celestial attachment,—then, too, his muse became devout, but still the lyre was attuned to lays of love. Virtue, truthfully severe, and benevolently active, was then the beauty be turned to woo; and he pursued it, under all circumstances, even to suffering and death. Hence it was, that his precepts and example became so attractive and generative. Multitudes caught the magnetic influence,—the flame spread from heart to heart,—enthusiasm was communicated from soul to soul.”—p. 337.

  “In his last perplexity, Savonarola conducted him self nobly,—not retracting, as is pretended, though still distinguishing,—willing to submit to constituted right; yet protesting against misconstituted wrong,—obedient to authority, but resisting its abuse. Savonarola, though weak in body, strong in spirit, manifested a dignity which compels us to confess, that his imitation of Jesus of Nazareth was so perfect, as scarcely to want any of the attributes which accredit the messengers of divine truth, except that of miraculous power.”—p. 338.

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