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

A Literary Roasting.

A Roasting so 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

*ollowing—the criticism here quoted being apropos
;o the novelist's new book about "Rome under

Pius IX,"

Whenever, says the " Saturday Itgviewer," a
writer begins his book with a statement that

";it is a Maxim with an Englishman to respec'

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 Fullom 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-

ect 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
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 Heaven's vicegerent."

A patrol of the Papal army goes by, and he reflects
—" the Church is now militant indeed, and has
abandoned bulls for balls." The Swiss guard make
a fine appearance, " though it is in 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 1113
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 cons
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 Landon divine should have
tempted him into the discussion of matters turn-
ing entirety on the meaning of Greek words,
He only quotes Latin on one occasion, and then not
with such success as to
justify a second attempt.
Tasso is made to " murmur a line from Seneca,"
which, as reproduced by Mr Fullom, runs thus :
" Magnifica verba more propo 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 inscrus
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
idneliweahciieehs ;
hea began to hold cardinals by likening
ndtherefore to express the cheapness
them to caviare is about as silly as to say of par-
tridges that, on the Ist of September, you "looked
at them with interest," but " a few days takes
away the strangeness," and partridges become
pearls. Mr Fullom's knowledge of English
history would seem to be as imperfect as his know-
letge 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 York, 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 chiefdom to his brother," and imagining the
Rape of the Sabine women, and various other incl•
dents of the same sort, 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 of
more than is credible, and they are linked with wee k•
ness, the taint of humanity." Ia other words, t: e
truth of history is to be tested simply by our feel-
lings. A story like that of Tarpeia Jr Manlius "is
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
So on the same principle, we