such. There is no reason to suppose that Milton took up his views on divorce until the question came practically home to him in 1643; it is impossible to determine when he formed his ultimate opinion on the natural mortality of the soul. The ascription of "Nova Solyma" to Milton certainly requires that it should have been written during his Horton residence at the latest, and hence we cannot think that Mr. Begley strengthens his case by attributing so much influence to Hartlib. If Hartlib had much to do with the book, it would be difficult to avoid referring its composition to nearly the same date as the tractate on "Education," in which case Milton could not be the author. Fortunately for the Miltonic hypothesis this view seems inconsistent with the absolute want of allusion to the politics of that exciting time. We should be quite ready to believe that Hartlib knew the book in manuscript, and that his instances prevailed upon Milton to exhume it from his desk, and send it into the world without the revision which he knew to be necessary, but which he had no time to bestow. He might well be disinclined to prefix his name to it under such circumstances, and without his name so abstruse a work may well have fallen dead from the press. On this view Hartlib and other friends who had led him into humiliating failure may well have thought that least said was soonest mended; and this opinion may account for the utter silence of contemporaries respecting book and author,

-a formidable difficulty, however, in any case, of which Mr. Begley makes too light. It should be added that the "Autocriticon " appended to the reissue uses the word institutum in a sense almost peculiar to Milton. This is but a sample of the numerous small indications Mr. Begley is able to produce which tend to fix the authorship upon Milton, while, so far as we know at present, they have no relationship to any other author of the period. Mr. Begley, we think, goes too far in apparently regarding this impossibility of producing another candidate as an unequivocal proof of Miltonic authorship. We have heard of mute, inglorious Miltons! At the same time, the improbability of the existence of such a person is augmented by the fact that he can only be sought for in a narrow circle, since, whatever else may be predicated of the author of "Nova Solyma," it is evident that he is an Englishman, that his Puritanism is of an exceptional type, and it is almost certain that he belonged to the University of Cambridge.

In endeavoring to determine the problem with which Mr. Begley has presented us, we find ourselves confronted with two powerful and adverse lines of argument. On the one hand, there is the difficulty of conceiving Milton to have produced anything not "organically Miltonic," anything whose Miltonic origin requires to be established by the consid

eration of a multitude of minutiæ. On the other hand, it is equally difficult to believe that such a number of significant indications should be entirely fallacious. The book has not yet received the critical attention it demands, and it may be long before it does, for Mr. Begley has not reproduced the Latin text, indispensable to accurate investigation, and not more than six copies are known to exist. When this investigation comes, it may bring to light particulars inconsistent with Miltonic authorship; should it fail to do so, Mr. Begley's theory will be greatly fortified. Yet, even then, it will be felt that one passage of which it could be confidently affirmed, Aut Milton aut Diabolus, would supersede all other testimony. At present we can but watch with Satan,

"The golden scales still hung

Betwixt Astraea and the Scorpion sign,"

yet, unlike Satan, without observing either argument to kick the beam. No balance, however, is needed to weigh the merit of the editor and translator with nicety. All necessary qualifications have met in Mr. Begley,the interest in exceptional research which alone could have induced him to study a book at first sight so little attractive as "Nova Solyma," the discernment which revealed its substantial merit, the acumen which conjectured its possible relation to Milton, the courage which published a view certain to excite violent incredulity, the erudition which has furnished such wealth of illustrative commentary, and the literary gifts which have produced so excellent a translation, alike of his original's prose and of its verse. These qualities are equally admirable whether they have enabled Mr. Begley to enlarge, though he cannot enhance, our estimate of Milton, or whether they have merely added another to the insoluble problems of literature.

MARQUIS FILIPPO CRISPOLTI

ROME

HE POPE has been chosen by the last three conclaves, not because of his politics, but for his character. In 1846, 1878,

T

and 1903, the cardinals who were most conspicuous for their determined policy, with whom the Sacred College had voluntarily collaborated, were respectively, Lambruschini, Bilio, and Rampolla. All received votes but none were elected. Each time cardinals have been chosen, who, having been bishops in the provinces, far from Rome, had very little occasion to deal with the general affairs of the Holy See, or to form and enunciate a clear and complete programme; these were Cardinals Mastai, Bishop of Imola, Cardinal Pecci, Bishop of Perugia, Cardinal Sarto, Patriarch of Venice. The Sacred College knew only the character of the cardinals, and during fifty-seven years, in much diversity of public circumstances, these retained the same temperaments which had pleased their conclaves; their spirits were entirely sacerdotal, judgment well poised, and dispositions indulgent and conciliatory. It would seem that the Sacred College had said in its heart these three times: "We do not wish to determine the way which the new Pope shall take, we prefer, on the contrary, not to know it. We will be content if the person elected has the piety, charity, and prudence necessary to be worthy of the high office. As for the use he will make of it we will trust in Providence

and him."

The ways that were taken by Pius IX. and Leo XIII. (and so it will be with Pius X.) were chosen for personal reasons, different one from the other, and quite independent of the considerations which prompted their election. But if their subsequent history had been prophesied the day they were elected, accepting as a basis for this prophecy the reasons which led the Sacred College to their election, one would have said that the three pontificates would act alike, so identical were they in character. It is consequently very difficult to know which road will be taken by Pius X. The history of his pontificate is only a few months old, his work as bishop was extraneous to the vast and manifold problems of the Vatican; the conclave in which he was elected said clearly, that his person had the opportune qualities for a pontiff, but did not define clearly what the cardinal electors expected him to make of these qualities.

Translated by Salvatore Cortesi of Rome.

Copyright, 1904, Frederick A. Richardson, all rights reserved.

Cardinal

Gibbons, whom I met at the station at Turin, after the election of Pius X., said to me that he was one of the cardinals who, the night of August third, supplicated Cardinal Sarto to accept the nomination, and, very pleased at the Patriarch's decision, added: "Pius X. is a man of God and a man of the people, thus he has the two qualities necessary in our days." This is the opinion and the confident hope of all those who elected him, this is the reason of the immediate world-wide success that his selection has had, but from this there is not sufficient light to divine the future acts of the pontiff. The intention is one thing, the means to carry it out another. Love of the divine cause and the cause of the people might suggest most diverse methods and actions. Probably all of the fifty cardinals who gave Pius X. their vote would willingly adopt the formula of the American cardinal, but there would be a great divergence of opinion as soon as each tried to form a concrete programme.

The only indication of the future of Pius X., which can be deduced from the way he was elected, is founded on the characters of the five cardinals who voted for him in the first scrutiny, and who, making themselves in a certain sense his guarantors with their colleagues, launched his candidature. Of these five, four are known to have been Svampa, Ferrari, Satolli, and Respighi. If the pontificate of the newly elected corresponds to the opinions of these four, it will be in several ways reformative and progressive. Cardinal Svampa, Archbishop of Bologna, has roused much comment in these days by encouraging Italian priests to undertake with confidence the study of historical criticism, which up to now has been more feared than cultivated. He has written in the "Rivista delle Riviste" ("Review of Reviews") for the clergy, which is published at Macerata: "Our clergy is just beginning now to be educated to this new intellectual movement, and it is therefore advisable to warn the ignorant, wake up those who sleep, and encourage the timid, giving at the same time a wide field to those willing to consecrate their intelligence and strength to the service of science and faith. The important work which is being accomplished throughout the Catholic world, and which has had splendid encouragement from the Roman pontiff, will undoubtedly end in the glorious triumph of holy religion." Cardinal Ferrari, Archbishop of Milan, is known for his great desire to see ecclesiastical discipline revived in the world, rendered more sound, and in part revised according to the necessities of the times; he would introduce more alacrity and simplicity, and let fall those obstacles which in various grades of the priesthood, beginning with the highest, are mostly a residue of antique etiquette, rather than the eternal necessity of rite and rule. Cardinal Satolli, when apostolic delegate in America, said to Catholics, in

the name of the Pope, " March ahead on the road of progress, carrying in one hand the laws of Christian truth and the Evangelists, and in the other, the Constitution of the United States"; when he was in New York, in the first direct contact between Rome and the great republic, he seemed sometimes the representative of the Latin slowness in comparison with American alacrity, but he returned to Rome to be one of the authoritative and favorable witnesses to the liberal and fresh spirit which agitates the American world. Cardinal Respighi, Vicar of His Holiness in Rome, although somewhat diffident of the invasion of the modern spirit, is distinguished for his constant and prudent work, with which he seeks to abolish abuses and unjust privileges, which, under the form of pecuniary gain, during the centuries, have crept into religious life and affairs in the Eternal City. These four cardinals were the principal electors of the new Pope, and although they themselves knew rather the virtues than the particular ideas of their candidate, still they certainly thought that these qualities represented in themselves a natural inclination towards their own ideas of reform, and one of the four cardinals on the eve of the conclave declared that to have Pius X., "Rather a good Minister of the Interior than a Minister of Foreign Affairs of the, Church," was the great necessity of the present hour.

The moral qualities of Pius X., which were revealed to the world by the minute investigations of the press into his history as priest and bishop, are such as to recommend him easily as "Minister of the Interior." Like Leo XIII., he has a very high idea of the papacy, but shows it in quite the opposite manner from Pope Leo. The former thought that it was necessary to raise his person, and thus become less disproportionate to the great office, even to appear the living incarnation of the papacy. Pius X. seems, instead, to believe that the more humility he shows in his person, in contrast to the height of the position, so much the more would it have from him an undoubted and efficacious testimony. Pope Leo, accepting with iron discipline all the decorousness and the inconveniences of sovereignty, always appeared as a sovereign in solemn rites as in intimate conversation. Pius X., maintaining as much as possible his native and loved simplicity, allows the people and those whom he receives, to consider the external and inevitable signs of his new splendor as a thing extraneous to him, accepted from duty, not from vocation. Certainly the head of Leo XIII. was more erect on his death-bed than that of his successor in the sedia gestatoria.

Now the world seems to have well understood this identity, of aim under the diversity of method, and with only fifteen days interval it gave the same reverent and enthusiastic reception to the two popes, although