THE

FOREIGN REVIEW.

ART. I.-La Vie de Saint Ignace, Fondateur de la Compagnie de Jésus, par le R. P. Bouhours, de la même Compagnie. Nouvelle Edition, revue et soigneusement corrigée, ornée d'un Portrait. 1820.

THE

HE restoration of the Jesuits was so remarkable an event both in itself, and as an indication of the spirit which prevails in the Romish church, that though it did not excite quite so much attention at the time in France, as the affair of Fualdes,' or in England, as the murder of Mr. Wear, or the execution of Fauntleroy, it did not pass in either country without remark. The old contest concerning the society was renewed; pens were again drawn on both sides, and ink shed, little to the credit of the authors, or the country on either* part; and as little, it may be suspected, to the advantage of the publishers. The years which have elapsed have shown that the apprehensions then entertained, however injudiciously expressed, would have appeared well founded, if the authors who expressed them had been masters of their own case. A sect may change its character, as the Anabaptists, the Quakers, the Moravians, and, in a less degree, the Wesleyan methodists, have done; and yet to understand the constitution and nature of these sects rightly, it is necessary to be acquainted with the circumstances of their rise and progress. So is it with regard to the Jesuits, and the probable consequences of their restoration for speculations concerning the future must, in such things, be altogether worthless, unless they are founded upon a knowledge of the past. The character of that society is indeed indelible. Linguet said of its founder, that the only miracle which he worked after his death, was that of inspiring two and thirty authors with the desire of writing his life. Linguet himself made the thirty-third; and it will not be performing a superfluous task if we add another to the list. The original

:

*The New Conspiracy against the Jesuits detected and briefly exposed, with a short Account of their Institute, and Observations on the Danger of Systems of Education independent of Religion. By R. C. Dallas, Esq., 8vo.' This was a bad book, written by a man of good principles, upon an erroneous view of the subject. It called forth a History of the Jesuits, to which was prefixed a Reply to Mr. Dallas's Defence of this Order, in two vols. 8vo.' This was a worse book, in which the right cause was maintained by an advocate too ignorant even to suspect his own incapacity for the task which he had undertaken.

VOL. V.-NO. X.

T

authorities

authorities are not easily accessible in this country, even to the few studious persons who might be desirous of perusing them; and for the compilations and abstracts which are to be found in our biographical dictionaries and books of common reference, the manufacturers of those miserable articles have generally been as careless in research as they were deficient in ability.

Yñigo de Loyola y Oñez was born in 1491, of an old and honourable family, at the castle of Loyola, not far from Azpeytia, in the province of Guipuzcoa. His father's name was Beltran lañez de Loyola y Oñez, his mother's, Marina Saenz de Licona y Balda, and he was the youngest of thirteen children. That he was born, for the purpose of signifying a mysterious conformity, in the stable, is a tradition which, though asserted by some of the earlier Jesuits, the later and more critical admit to be apocryphal; and that before he was christened, he desired to be called Ignatius (the name by which he latinized Yñigo) is a circumstance, they say, which requires stronger evidence than can be adduced to prove it-so careful are they not to offend with gnats the throat which is to swallow a string of camels, each with a high-piled load upon its back. Well would it be for the Jesuits if their whole history could bear investigation as well as the genuine and unadorned memoirs of their founder might do! Ignatius, however, being the name by which he was canonized, and is generally known, is that whereby he may most conveniently be called. It was appointed, say his disciples, that he should be born of noble blood on both sides, to the end that men of like noble extraction in all parts of the world should not disdain to come under the strict and severe, but well considered laws which he instituted; and it was also appointed in the ways of Providence, that he should be trained in war, because, in that school, he could best obtain a practical knowledge of discipline, and of the sufferance, the promptitude, the enterprise, and the unhesitating obedience to be required in the members of the society which he was to found. Having received the first part of his education at home, it seems that he was placed by his father at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella; and nothing more is known of him, till, in the thirtieth year of his age, he appears as a soldier in garrison at Pamplona, then besieged by the French. Till that time he has described himself as having been devoted to the vanities of the world; his eulogists have discovered in him all the latent qualities of a lamb; and his enemies, with that slanderous malice which characterises bigotry in whatever communion it is found, represent him as a monster of ferocity. But that he was a brave soldier, and a person of no little con

sideration

sideration at that time, is evident from the account which he gave of himself at the close of his life. Pamplona, he said, had been reduced to such a state, that the governor was urged to surrender, upon the single condition, that their lives should be spared; he alone opposed this proposal; urged that the place was still defensible, and ought to be defended till the last, and succeeded in bringing over the other officers to his opinion. That he was, even at that time, religiously disposed, is also shown by the fact, that on the day when the assault was expected, he called aside one of his companions in arms, to whom he made, and received from him in return, a confession of his sins. And that at the same time the vanities of the world had strong hold on him, is abundantly proved by the remarkable circumstance which presently led to his conversion, or, as it may more properly be called, his change of life.

In the action a ball broke his right leg, and wounded the other seeing him fall, the garrison, who had only held out because of his exhortations, capitulated; he was made prisoner with them; and though in that age war was carried on with great barbarity, he was most humanely and generously treated by the French. They allowed him to occupy his own quarters, the best surgeons of their army attended him for about a fortnight: he was then set at liberty, and sent on a litter to his father's house. The removal, though he had been carried by men the whole way, injured him; the wound became worse, and it was necessary to reset the bone, his present surgeon being of opinion that it had either been ill set at first, or dislocated by the journey. To this he submitted with his wonted fortitude, neither then, nor under the former operation, uttering a sound of complaint, nor manifesting any sign of suffering, except that he was observed to clench his hands forcibly. After this his strength decreased, his appetite failed, other ill symptoms came on; he was advised to prepare himself for the worst, and having made what he supposed to be his last confession, he was told in the evening, that if no favourable change took place before midnight, there would remain no further hope. This was on the eve of the joint festival of St. Peter and St. Paul; to St. Peter, Ignatius had been especially devoted, and had composed in Spanish a hymn to his honour; the favourable change took place: he fell asleep, and awoke from that sleep with a sense of convalescence. Subsequent biographers have added that St. Peter appeared to him in a dream, bringing with him healing from heaven in acknowledgment of the devotion shown towards him by Ignatius, and the hymn composed to his praise. His recovery now proceeded well in all respects: but such

had been the nature of the fracture, or the unskilfulness of his surgeons, that the upper part of the bone overlapt the other, so that the leg was shortened; and there was a protuberance under the knee, which rendered it impossible for him to wear what was then the fashionable military boot. He asked whether the protuberance could be removed, and the leg stretched? the reply was that both could be done, but that it would cost him greater suffering than all the former operations. But in his state of mind, full as he was of ambitious hopes, no suffering was to be put in competition with his personal appearance: he chose to undergo the operation; the wound was re-opened, the bone sawn off, and the contracted limb extended by some machinery for that purpose. This occasioned a long confinement; and when, in other respects, he had perfectly recovered, a weakness remained in that leg which compelled him to remain in bed. There he beguiled the time with reading: he was passionately addicted to romances of chivalry; but there were none of these in the castle of Loyola; no Amadis of Gaul or Greece, no Palmerin of Oliva or of England, nor any history of the heroes of their chivalrous and imperial lines: for lack of such, they brought the Spanish translation of a Life of our Saviour, written by Landolphus, a Carthusian; and a volume of the Lives of the Saints, in Spanish also. In this latter he found fictions wild as the wildest inventions of romance, but far more powerfully impressive, because they came to him with the sacred stamp of religious truth; no wonder then that they should have soon possessed the already feverish imagination of one whose bodily frame had been weakened by long suffering, and who was left to himself in solitude. What ensued, resembles so closely the origin of Don Quixote's madness, that Cervantes would beyond all doubt be supposed to have intended that the likeness should be perceived, if he had not elsewhere given proof that he was himself imbued with the superstitions of his countrymen. But had Ignatius taken in his insanity a chivalrous turn, his mistress would in reality have had all the advantages of birth and station which the knight of La Mancha so gratuitously imputed to Dulcinea,-for he was in love with a princess ;*

*Non era condesa ni duquesa, mas era su estado mas alto que ninguno destas. It is remarkable that in such of the three and thirty biographers of Loyola as we have looked into, (and they are not a few,) the only one who has noticed this fact is the Jesuit whose account was dictated by the saint himself, and first (in a Latin version) published in the Acta Sanctorum. (Jul. t. 7) A.D. 1731. Yet Ribadaneira certainly had this account before him; nor can it be doubted that both Maffeius and Orlandinus must have possessed it also. Their motive for suppressing all mention of the fact, was probably the same which induced Codrettus to omit the words here quoted, in his Latin version of P. Luiz Gonçalves' original, which was written part in Italian, part in Spanish. They thought it prudent to withhold a fact, which was in itself decisive proof of a disordered intellect. and

and when he began to read, his attention was frequently diverted from the book before him by this passion, and he lay three or four hours upon his bed, day-dreaming, how he should obtain access to her, what he should say to her, what exploits in her honour he should perform, and how he should obtain her favour, wholly forgetful of the insuperable obstacle which fortune had placed between him and the object of his desires.

But his book weaned him from these fancies gradually, and not without a struggle. Whether the turn which they took has produced most good or evil to mankind, is a question which men will answer differently according to their degree of knowledge; that charity which hopeth all things would determine one way when it regarded the Jesuits in South America, in California, and perhaps in Canada,—another, when it called to mind their history in every part of Europe. But for Ignatius himself, undoubtedly the determination was a happy one; he himself perceived at this time, that as his thoughts alternated between views of secular and views of spiritual ambition, he was left by the former with an uneasiness and a sense of hollow and deep dissatisfaction, though they began in cheerful and exhilarating feelings; but that the more he indulged in spiritual aspirations, the more was he satisfied with himself, and delighted with the views that opened before him. What if I were to do this, which St. Francis, or St. Dominic has done?' was the question which rose in his mind as he read; and then as he dreamt over the open book, he dwelt less upon what it might be difficult to execute, or grievous to endure, than upon the means of overcoming all difficulties,-the resolution which he knew he possessed, of attempting any enterprise however arduous, and the patience and perseverance whereof he was equally conscious, the one of which was not to be wearied, the other not to be subdued. St. Dominic has done this, therefore I can do it! St. Francis has done this, therefore so can I.' Thus in after life he described what were then his secret imaginations. To go on pilgrimage barefoot to Jerusalem; to feed on herbs, to macerate his body by abstinence, to subdue it and punish it by self-inflicted pains-these became his favourite thoughts. What the heroes of ecclesiastical romance had achieved, he also could accomplish: he had the same enemy to resist, the same Lord to serve; the same celestial support to look for and to rely on: wherefore then should he delay to enter upon that service with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength! There was an image of the Virgin in his chamber; he rose from his bed at midnight, and falling prostrate before it in soul and body, he prayed that she would deign

to