until exhausted nature was ready to sink under his severe austerities, his voluntary beggary, his growing reputation for sanctity, his flight from public notice and reverence whilst he pursued the very means to obtain them, his being stamped a saint, his application to human learning, the unfolding of his views, the alteration in his austerities, in his habits of life and mode of dress, and he will probably be of a different opinion. Enthusiasm was doubtless the inspiring fountain at which he first drank; not so much, however, the enthusiasm of an ardent and noble mind, as a preternatural excitement caused by the sort of reading to which accident invited him, working on a debilitated and feverish frame. His enthusiasm, after the first ebullition, seems to have had a method in it; it led him to just so much voluntary suffering as was necessary to gain him the reputation of a saint, and it was probably at that species of fame that he at first aimed his affected humility was ostentation; his pretended seclusion, notoriety; he did not conceal from his left hand what his right hand did, he distributed the alms he had acquired to beggars, and as soon as he had done began to beg himself, to the admiration of the professors of mendicity; and it was no wonder they should cry out, A SAINT, A SAINT! He did not retire into trackless deserts like the eremites' of old, but like a retiring beauty, suffered his flight from the world to be seen, and was shocked when he was followed. Whilst rendering himself an object of loathing and disgust, and attenuating his body to the proper point of sanctity, it was swelling with holy pride and inward gratulation; but as soon as this part of his object was once accomplished, he threw off his tattered robes, and iron chain, he diminished his hours of prayer, and grander prospects and mightier power began to open before him. Not that he would have hesitated to continue them for the purpose of preserving his reputation or securing an important object; but what is to be remarked, is, that those things which he had formerly considered indispensable, were now no longer thought so, and that without any change of the circumstances which originally made them necessary, and it is not sufficient to resort to visions to account for the change. For, although an enthusiastic imagination might see such things in dim perspective,' the whole of the conduct of Ignatius marks him to be a cool persevering and calculating politician', and the visions themselves ceased, when 1 Though his biographers considered him of an ardent temperament, his physicians thought him of a phlegmatic constitution. no longer required to spread his name and consolidate his power. Though influenced by motives of ambition, they were not those of wealth or rank, but of real, substantial power; and, although some obscure thoughts of framing a religious Order might have obtruded upon his meditations at Manreza, it is probable that the precise nature of it was only gradually unfolded, and not completed until he was about to leave Paris The latter part of the life of Ignatius Loyola, bears no proportion to its outset. Enthusiasm had abated, and policy was the cynosure of his subsequent career. In this he differs from Alexius; as he became more active, he became less a SAINT; and as his mind opened, and reason assumed her proper station, he gradually lost the fanatic in the designing founder of a sect. What he retained of fanaticism was chiefly external, and artificial; but the leading features of his life, accord surprizingly with the legendary character of the text. Had Loyola remained always ignorant, he had been always a bigot; and, judging by the commencement of his life, * * RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW, No. XVII. would have died as useless and as burdensome to society as the son of the senator Eufemian. NOTE 13. Page 80. "What I expended, I have; what I gave away, I have." From hence, in all probability, Robert Byrkes derived the quaint epitaph, which is to be found, according to Gough, in Doncaster church, "new cut" upon his tomb in Roman capitals. "Howe Howe who is heare: I, Robin of Doncaster, and Margeret my feare 1. That I gave, that I have: That I left, that I lost. A.D. 1579. Quod Robertus Byrkes, who in this worlde did reygne thre score yeares and seaven, and yet lived not one." NOTE 14. Page 81. The story seems here to be defective; "what I expended, I have: what I gave away, I have," re 1 Wife-properly companion, comrade. ceives no explanation. It may be filled up thus: "What I expended, I have," that is, having expended my property with judgment, I have received various benefits which remain to me in my posterity. "What I gave away, I have," that is, my donations have procured for me the thanks of the poor, and the blessing of heaven. NOTE 15. Page 86. "Must and vinegar." Must, is new wine. "Vinum igitur mustum, quomodo Cato loquitur, idem est, quod novum, sive Ovos porxidos. Nonius: Mustum, non solum vinum, verùm novellum quicquid est, rectè dicitur." Vinegar, Lat. acetum. "Optimum, et laudatissimum acetum a Romanis habebatur Ægyptum, quod acrimoniam quidem habebat multam, sed mixtam tamen dulcedine aliqua, quæ asperitatem tollerit, nec horrorem gustandi injiceret." Facciol. The vinegar spoken of in the text, was probably sweetened. NOTE 16. Page 90. There are several popular stories not unlike the |