The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-10 00:00:00

A Literary Boasting.

A Roasting eo scientifically conducted that Mr
Fullom may be said to have been just delightfully
done to a turn by a very chef among the Saturday
Reviewers: and so " done to a T" in the manner
following—the criticism here quoted being hpropos
to the novelist's new book about " Rome under
Pius IX,"

Whenever, says the " Saturday Reviewer," a
writer begins his book with a statement that
",it is a maxim with an Englishman to respect
religious convictions, however they may differ from
his own," we are at once ready for a roaring tirade
either against some particular creed or against creeds
in general. If a man in private life opens his attack
by assuring you that he is not angry, you know
that it is only the prelude to a display of excep-
tional fury, and, in the same way, a disclaimer of
bigotry is the unmistakeable sign of a ferocious
outburst of narrowmindedness.

Mr Fallow begins his book, in the ordinary way,
by a brief account of his sensations on first arriving
at Rome. He tells us how his memory teemed with
associations of a "stirring and varied" kind—among
others, with the slightly original idea that " here
freedom was born," which is about as absurd as if his
memory had teemed with the reflection that " here
original sin" or " here human nature was born."
Then, besides the gratification of being in the
birthplace of freedom, he felt a glow of satisfac-
tion on remembering that Rome had been the sub-
ject of " the first romance from his pen," and in
finding the romance still circulating both in Eng-
lish and French. But Mr. Fullom soon comes to
business. His indignation is first aroused at
finding that he meets a shrine of the Virgin at
every corner, until at length he is "forced to ex-
claim, Great is Mary of the Romans' "—an ex-
clamation that is followed by some Spurgeonic
attempts to be funny. " The winking Virgins have
done the Church some service—is there nothing to
be done by a black one ?" There is nothing under
the sun out of which a traveller with the true
Cockney spirit, especially if it be spiced with a
strong religious antipathy, will not complacently
extract his joke. A shower of potato parings falls
on Mr, Fullom's head from an attic window, and,
remembering that he is in the city of miracles
and prodigies, he is quite disappointed to find that
" the downpour is artificial." The. Pope's carriage
passes him, and yet "the road Stands firm. as if it
had not been traversed by IltiaVeti's vicegerent:'
A patrol of the Papal army goes by, and be reflects
—" the Church is now militant' indeed, and has
abandoned bulls for balls." The Swiss guard make
a fine appearance, "though it is is the style of the
soldiers in Henry the Fourth' at Drury Lane."
Even a funeral only makes Mr Fullom remark how
the howl of the Capuchins " would horrify Mark
Tapley." Bat trumpery witticisms of this sort are
more amusing than the author's efforts when he is
serious. At first he seems to have been rather
astounded that the Roman Church did not base its
pretensions on the episcopate of St Paul rather than
upon that of St. Peter, which, as he very truly says,
is quite unsupported and apocryphal. But some
friend, we presume, pointed out to him that th
foundation of a church " upon this rock"
could scarcely be transferred to St. Paul. He
then sees that " the design is to give Rome the
primacy of Christendom." "We know," he con-
tinues, " what use is made of the address to St.
Peter, when his confession of faith is styled 'this
rock,' and the term could not be twisted to apply
thus to St. Paul, who was not present ; hence Peter,
takes the higher place with Rome, as affording more
capabilities." And then follows an extraordinary
piece of Scriptural exigesis :—" In fact, none of the
Apostles less resembled a rock, and the term would
never be applied to Peter by his Master, who cone
tinually approved his unsteadfastness." This coin-
cided with Mr. Fullom's remark about Rome being
the birthplace of freedom to convince us that, like
Mr. Spurgeon, he thinks all the worse of a man for
knowing Greek. There is no reason why ignorance
of Greek should have prevented him from writing
a good book upon Rome or the Papacy, but, under
these delicate circumstances, not even the example
of a celebrated London divine should have
tempted him into the discuesion of matters turn-
ing entirely on the meaning of Greek words.
He only quotes Latin on one occasion, and then not
with such success as to justify a secor.d attempt.
Tasso is made to " murmur a line from Seneca,"
which, as reproduced by Mr Fullom, runs thus :--
" Magnifica verba more prope admotu axcutit.'
Even in ordinary English it is not always easy to
see what Mr Fullom means. When he saw a car-
dinal for the first time he tells us he looked at him
with interest, but " a few days in Rome takes away
the strangeness, and cardinals become caviare." In
another place he says the Italian flunkey is " civil
as an orange," and we humbly recognise the inscrue
tability of proverbial expressions. But when car-
dinals are said to be caviare, surely the author has
ingeniously stated the exact reverse of what he
meant. Caviare is a proverbial emblem of all rare
delicacies; and therefore to express the cheapness
in which he began to hold cardinals by likening
them to caviare is abcut as silly as to say of par-
tridges
~ a few days takes
atthemthwat, on theithinte Ist Se
interest,"
butptember, you " looked
away the strangeness," and partridges become
pearls. Mr Fullom's knowledge of English
history would seem to be as imperfect as his know-
leege of the nature of caviare. He performs a sort
of pardonable war-dance over the tomb of the prince
whom he unpardonably calls " the last of the
Stuarts," meaning Charles Edward. He talks after-
wards about the Cardinal Yurk, but apparently has
no suspicion that this was the surviving, brother of
"the last of the Stuarts." but Mr Fullom has a
very curious theory of history which may, perhaps,
explain any trifling eccentricities in his statements
of fact. After becoming tremendously excited at
seeing " the low wall that divides the camps of the
two brothers, and Remus take the leap which gave
the chie!dom to his brother," and imagining the
Repo of the Sabine women, avd various other inch
dents of the same eort, he suddenly seems to have
remembered hearing something about Niebuhr.
But the chill upon his teeming associations only
lasts for a moment. It is true that " the early Roman
chronicles are pronounced fables, but the voice of our
nature speaks in the record and attests its truth ; we
read in it of heroism and devotedness, but not 01
more than is credible, and they are linked with we
ness, the taint of humanity." In other words, t. e
truth of history is to be tested simply by our feel-
hinge. A story like that of Turpeia Jr Manlius " ii
its own voucher, because in some way or other we
feel the probability of it. Manlius did really save
the Capitol, because Mr. Fullom, standing on the
spot, feels
the scene. So on the tame principle, we

suppose, we ought to believe that ellerles Edward
was the last of his line, because Mr. Fullom, stand-
ing at his tomb, felt and thought that he was.
The spirit in which the author went about Rome
is evidently that of a man full of the vulgarest
notions about Romanism, and resolutely determined
to find support for them. He at once knosis a
young Jesuit on the Pincian hill by " his eye and
look before we note his shovel hat." ",Craft and
knavery are spread over his cheek like its bloom,
and make the bloom a blight—a blight that
seems to shrivel his frame. His very man.
ner is treacherous, " for he is lurking rather
than standing, and looks down." Then—still, witb
a bland disregard of rule about the verb being in the
plural when its nominative is plural—" a few yards
further brings to light one of his brethren peering
at him through the trees, and pretending abstrscs
tion, so thorough is their system of trickery and
deception." The plats at Rome may be an uns
worthy crew, but any body can see that Mr. Fullom's
talk about craft and knavery and shrivelled frames
is simply the result of an over-excited Protestant
inagination. Any weak-minded English traveller
comes home with just the same story: A Roman
clenched his fist when Mr. Fullom asked his opinion
of the confessional, and the questioner understood
the gesture, " for the Roman was a husband cad a
father." Then, on another occasion, he saw a lady
enter a church by the Farnesi Gardens :
It was unfrequented at that hour, and I followed her in,
thinking she was one of my friends whom I know to be ex-
ploring. I found she had been met by a priest half-way
up the church, and they were walking on together, but
heard me enter, and turned with a startled look. The
lady had come to confession, and I perceived she was not
the person I thought, and withdrew, leaving her and the
priest alone.

We do not for a moment doubt that Mr Fullom is
honestly describing his own notions, but there is a
dramatic tone about the incident which very pro-
bably produces a wholly untrue impression of what
really took place. The " startled look" has rather
the appearance of being an artistic touch; And
how does Mr Fullom know that the lady had come
to confession? She might be the priest's sister, or
his aunt, or his mother; at all events, it would only
have been consistent with the charity which hopeth
all things to give them the benefit of the doubt.
This scene recalled to the author another incident
of the confessional which he saw at St. Peter's :
The penitent there was standing with her lips at the
auricle, and pouring her soul into the priest's eir, She
spoke low, but with passionate 'vehemence, and her voice
was broken by sobs which could be heard around. Tho fall
of her bonnet looped, and I caught a glimpse of her face,
which was wet with tears, while the burning oheek told a
story of shame. This was in the glare of St. Peter's, and
how might it be with the lady in the sequestered church,
stripped in the same and protected by no observer ?
" After such manifestations," Mr Fullom deci■
sively concludes, "I believed the shocking stories
afloat." That is to say, he visits a Roman Catholic
country, sees a woman sobbing in the confessional,
and another woman, whom he knows nothing
about, in a church talking to a priest, and thinks
these two facts sufficient reason for believing all the
dreadful stories which make the capital of polemical
divines, fanatical newspapers, and itinerant lee-
turers. What did he expect to find, in the very
centre of the Roman Catholic religion except
the Roman Catholic discipline ? The followers
of that religion hold the necessity of coats
sion to a priest as a fundamental doctrine of their
belief, and yet Mr Fullom seems quite horrified be-
cause he saw one woman at confession, and thought
he saw another. One need have no sort of
admiration for the particular institution to
see how laughable the author's argument is.
Suppose an Italian traveller in England were to
write in the same style, anybody would detect the
absurdity. The traveller might describe with pious
or prurient horror how, on being ushered into a
drawing• room, he found the curate and the daugh-
ter of the house sitting together, and that, on the
door being opened, they " turned with a startled
look." To him this freedom would be an incom-
prehensible abomination, and, if he were like.,lllr
Fullem;Lhe, Would rush home acd declare in his
bnok that all the shocking stories of the Haymarket
and the Divorce Court fail to give any idea of the
gross immorality which pervades English life. Yet
we know that after all, the curate and his beloved
were only engaged in the mildest love making.
Then, again, one cannot imagine anything more
childish than to wind up a very fairly written ac-
count of a great illumination of St. Peter's and the
Vatican by the complacent exclamation, " Yet all
was darkness 1 These pious ejaculations are simply
impertinent when the business in hand is descrip-
tion, not piety. Neither can we admire the tiste
of the stupid generalization that, among foreigners,
"politeness is seen to be gained at the coat of sin-
cerity, and a want of good feeling is apparent
through the show of kindness." Has Mr. Fullom
passed so many years abroad as will justify him in
this calm assumption ? From the whole tone of
his work we should suspect that he has had pecu-
liarly slender means of forming any judgment in
the matter, and that here, as throughout his book,
he has simply made it his business to echo the igno-
rant national prejudices of which all sensible Eng-
lishmen are thoroughly ashamed. It is quite
possible distinctly to prefer an Englishman to a
Frenchman and Protestantism to Popery, without
calling all foreigners hypocrites, and denouncing
all Roman Catholics as poor benighted idolators.

HORSE BREEDING.—The annual show of the
Wigton Agricultural Society, the first of the more impor-
tant of the autumnal shows in Cumberland—was held at
Wigton on Wednesday. At le dinner held in the evening
the Hon. P. Wyndham, MX., was ono of the speakers. In
responding to the toast of his health, he referred to the sub-
ject of breeding horses as one in which he took great inte-
rest, and urged the farmers of Cumberland to pay more at-
tention to it. In breeding horses,as in many other matters.
one success brought another. The:county of York and other
counties had gained a name for horses, and the farmers of
Cumberland might depend upon it that if they produced
three or four very high-class horses and sold them, they
would not only get a very great deal for them, but the fame
of their horses would go abroad, and before many years
they would have the London dealers coming and buying
good horses at an age when it was most advantageous to
part with them—when they were two or three years old.
Many parts of that county were extremely well fitted for
the purpose. True, it was very wet, but that was counter-
balanced by warmth of climate. The farmers had been
blamed for not sending their mares to the best horses. No
doubt they had not the command of good stallions at a price
at which they ought to have them. They could get their
stock served by the best short horn bulls for two or three
guineas, but if they wished to employ really a first-class
stallion they had to pay £lO 10s. The reason was that they
were employed for racing. That had been the means of tak-
ing out of the way of farmers the services of the best horses,
because the value of their produce was fictitious, from being
employed in a purely fictitious and gambling pursuit. What
was felt was that the turf, with its income of £200,000 a-
yeir,did not want the small subsidy of £5,000 given in the
shape of Queen's plates, which was given originally for the
improvement of the breed of horses, not to help the amuse-
ment of the people, although that was a geed object. If
that sum were given into the hands of proper persons,
who were ready to take it, to create a branch establish-
ment to the Royal stud at Hampton Court, where the
soundest and stoutest mares should breed stallions to
be sent through the country, covering mares at not more
than 405., it would give a great stimulus to horse-breeding
in the country. If they produced a good horse and he got
to be known ho would be bought up at once ; and if this
comity gut the start of the rest of England in horse-breed-
ing it would be very much to its benefit in every point of
view'. Mr W. Lawson, M.P., said he had not been able to
pay as much attention to this subject:of horse-breeding as
he ought to have done, but he was sure, from the remarks
his hon. friend (Mr Wyndham) had made, that it was in
very good hands.. And it was in other hands besides; his.
Some time ago ho went one evening into the Reuse of
Lords, and took his stand in the position allotted to teem-
bora of the Ilou:o of Commons. The house wad uncom-
monly full, and he heard a very interesting and lively de-
bate upon this very question—whether it is desirable that
the system of light weights shr,uld be encouraged by Go-
vernment. He cbservfd upon that occasion that the bench
of bishops was crowded. Therefore ho was quite content to
leave the light weights in the hands of the bishop and his
friend Mr Percy Wyndham.
" SEE THE CONQUERING HERO COMES,''—At the
late annual meeting of the Ohio State Medical Society Pro-
fessor Webber offered the following resolution, which was
adopted amid tremendous applause :—" Resolved, that the
thanks of this society, as well as the good wishes of all the
good citizens in the land, are eminently due to our, venerable
felow member, J. U. Rogers, M.D , of New Richmond,
Ohio, for the skilful manner in which, on the morning of
the 2d of April, 1822, he assisted into this world Ulysses
Simpson Grant, the commander of the American armies,
the hero of Vicksburg, and the predestined destroyer of the
great rebellion,'; Q?(01 enfaw ta.rib'e ,'—Lancet.