be spared out of the brilliant pages which describe the muster of the princes, men of letters and artists, to witness the coronation of Charles, is the illustration (vol. i. pp. 36, 37) where the effort to discredit the grace of the Sacraments is of no service in adding point or force to the passage. This and similar passages which occur from time to time throughout the book are unworthy of the pen which can produce so masterly a description as that which sums up the tragic effects upon Italy of the Spanish rule, a description which may be said to form the keynote to those dark masterpieces by Morone in which he has preserved for posterity, alike in the sombre dress introduced by the Emperor into Italy and the determined melancholy of the expression, a record of the eclipse cast by Spain over what is so ably described as the constellation of commonwealths from which all intellectual culture, arts of life, methods of commerce, and theories of political influence had been diffused' (p. 54). The following chapter is devoted to what is described by the writer as the counter-Reformation, a term which, he carefully explains in a note, is intended

་

to denote the reform of the Catholic Church which was stimulated by the German Reformation, and which, when the Council of Trent had fixed the dogmas and discipline of Latin Christianity, enabled the Papacy to assume a militant policy in Europe, whereby it regained a large portion of the provinces that had previously lapsed to Lutheran and Calvinistic dissent.'

The full significance of the term becomes evident when the writer, passing in review the Councils which preceded the Council of Trent, points out the two methods which were the result of the deliberations of the Council of Constance 1414.

1. The way suggested by John Hus, 'that the Church should be reconstituted after a searching analysis of the real bases of Christian conduct, an appeal to Scripture as the final authority, and a loyal endeavour to satisfy the spiritual requirements of individual souls and consciences.'

2. An inquiry into the existing 'order of the Church, and detailed amendment of its flagrant faults, with preservation of the main system' (vol. i. p. 100).

The first of these two methods, commending itself to the Teutonic race, produced in the next century the rapid and palpable result of the Reformation, while the counter-Reformation was a tardy result of the adoption of the second method by the Latin races in the reforms suggested for the purgation of the Church by the Council of Trent.

If the organization of the counter-Reformation was slow and deliberate by comparison with the rapid propagation of the Reformation doctrines, yet when at last it began to take shape and effect there was neither hesitation nor delay in its action, and the Council of Trent convened by the Emperor Charles V. and the Pope Paul III.-two of the most astute politicians who have ever worn the imperial diadem or the papal tiara--was able to cast up in defence of the Church of Rome a bulwark which was of strength and durability sufficient to stem the wave of reformation, then at the high tide of enthusiasm, and against which it has ever beaten in vain.

'Rome,' it is commonly said, 'was not built in a day,' and it took nearly a quarter of a century to erect the bulwark which so effectually propped the tottering foundation of her spiritual power.

Officially opened at Trent in 1542 by Cardinals Pole and Morone, legates of Pope Paul III., it was transferred to Bologna lest the powerful influence of the Emperor Charles V. should carry the reforms urged by the Spanish bishops, which were to secure the independence of their episcopate, and then back again to Trent in 1551, where it continued its deliberation under the successive pontificates of Julius III. and Marcello II.

In 1555, in the domineering influence of Cardinal Caraffa, who under the title of Paul IV. succeeded to the Holy See, the Papal ascendency became again manifest in proportion as the Imperial influence subsided; the reins which had fallen from the powerful hands of Charles V. being feebly lifted by Ferdinand, while on behalf of Spain Philip II. made a vain attempt to contend with the fierce will which was divided between two objects-the emancipation of Italy from the Spaniards, and the establishment of the most rigid orthodoxy in the Church. Yielding the former point, even when Alva stood triumphant before the gates of Rome, he became afterwards, in the Pope's iron grasp, a fitting tool with which to manipulate the process of the counter-Reformation, the other supreme ambition of this determined successor to the chair of St. Peter; and for ever associated with their two names will be the first outline of the dark shadow cast by the Inquisition upon the history of the time.

The genuine reformation of ecclesiastical abuses which had been the declared object of the reign of Paul IV., while it worked a miracle at Rome, stimulated the efforts of the Tridentine Council, and brought it to a conclusion under the succeeding pontificate of Pius V., with the result of leaving

an undisputed sovereignty in theological and ecclesiastical affairs, with the Papacy.'

It only remained for Pius V. to support the spiritual supremacy with temporal authority, and by organizing an alliance between the sovereigns of Europe and the Holy See so maintain his position against the aggressive advance of the Protestants.

Such an alliance was the crowning success for Rome of the Tridentine Council. The steps by which this result was attained, the clever diplomatic stroke by which the ecclesiastical authorities on the Council were transformed, at the conclusion of their labours for ecclesiastical reform, into so many ambassadors from the different Courts of Europe; and the solemn Conclave into a political conference, are described with vigorous touches as the subject reaches its climaxtouches which would have lost none of their interest, and gained instead of alienating the full confidence of the reader, if the profane satire with reference to the Holy Ghost (p. 121) had not been quoted as an illustration, or at least not repeated three times, and twice in one page (p. 131).

The Council terminated, its decrees were ratified (December 26, 1563) by a Bull reserving to the Pope the sole right of interpreting them in doubtful or disputed cases.

Throughout the pages of this brilliant chapter upon the Tridentine Council it seems as if each successor to the Holy See became instinct with life as he approaches in turn to occupy the chair of St. Peter, and by his individual characteristics, whether it is the caution of Paul III., the fiery nature of the Neapolitan Paul IV., the far-sighted powers of calculation and diplomacy of Pius IV., or the ascetic severity of Pius V., each and all contribute their quota to produce for the Papacy that position of absolute sovereignty, that acknowledged headship of Christendom which, remaining as a fact for more than three centuries in Europe, has hardly lost its influence, even when divested of actual temporal dominion.

With the Council of Trent the first epoch of Ultramontanism is closed. It had commenced with the Council of Constance, when, as we have seen, the two methods or principles ́of reformation were balanced in the scales of Christendom.

Had the opposite method been adopted, the religious schism would not have been completed, and the Church would have remained catholic without the narrowing epithet of Roman- a direct result of the Ultramontane policy, but which formed no part of the wide scheme of Hildebrand, the greatest Pope (Gregory VII.) who ever occupied the chair of

St. Peter. His election to it has been considered one of the four landmarks of history, the turning point of the Middle Ages, which began with the coronation of Charlemagne and closed with the fall of Constantinople. And as in modern history the Council of Trent may be looked upon as the pivot upon which the affairs of the Papacy and the Roman Church may be said to turn, it will not be out of place to consider two events of such vital importance together.

We are indebted to Mr. Lilly for reminding us in his Chapters on European History of a striking metaphor which, by seizing upon the imagination, fixes the first two epochs in our minds. 'Charlemagne,' remarks M. Villemain in his rhetorical way, 'in decorating the Pope with so many titles, had merely wished to raise a gilt statue which should place the Imperial crown upon his own head. After Charlemagne, when his empire was ruled with a feeble hand, and divided by factions, the pontifical statue came to life and wanted to reign.'1

But, although in the person of Hildebrand 'the statue wanted to reign,' it was not from motives of personal ambition; and the investigations of the last half-century, especially those of MM. Villemain and Guizot, have gone far to remove the popular conception of him as a man of insatiable ambition and spiritual pride, and to represent him as an earnest reformer upon the basis of morality, justice, and order. His idea was a reform at once voluntary and thorough, purely for the spiritual welfare of the Church, not, as in the case of the Tridentine Council, a concession wrung from the Pope at the last moment because his temporal position would be endangered by a refusal to permit it.

The honest policy of Hildebrand has its full value when contrasted with the manoeuvres and subterfuges by which each succeeding Pontiff throughout the eighteen years' session of the Council of Trent endeavoured to mask his determination to uphold the temporal supremacy of the Holy See at whatever cost-a determination which would even lead them to invite the assistance of Soliman and his Turkish forces, or side with the Protestants when they could be made a thorn in the side of the Emperor, although, as Sarpi observes, 'ben voleva la depressione dei Protestanti ma non con aumento delle cose di Cesare.' 2

1 Lilly's Chapters in European History, vol. i. p. 119; see also Rosmini's Five Wounds of the Holy Church, chap. iv. pp. 194-5.

2 He earnestly desired the damage of the Protestant cause, but not if it was to result in the advantage of Cæsar [the Emperor].'—Ist. del Conc. Trid. vol. ii. p. 49.

For the same reason also, as we have seen, Paul III. moved the Council from Trent to Bologna, that he might more effectually crush the claims of the Spanish episcopate. It was not for such treatment as this that Hildebrand rescued episcopal investiture from lay hands. It was no wish of his that the Bishops should become so many police officers whose duty it was to sacrifice all claim of national independence or individuality at the slightest sign from the Vatican. His conception of the position of the Church was such as to put to shame any notion so petty and so vulgar, and it has been well described by Mr. Lilly in one of his most eloquent passages:

'His aim was the liberty of the Church. To free her from the fetters whether of vice or earthly tyranny, and vindicate her claims to absolute independence in carrying out her mission-as a society perfect and complete in herself, divine in her constitution, divine in her superiority to the limit of time and space, in the world, but not of it, a supernatural order amid the varying forms of secular polity.' '

Before so grand a conception as this even the proud urbi et orbi appears infinitely small, for such an ideal would seem to be reserved the fulfilment of the Divine promise that 'all things are possible,' because it implies the full persuasion of the belief which is the first condition of the promise. In all his battles for the Church Hildebrand never lost sight of her spiritual character; when he fought for her liberties, it was not for the aggrandizement of the Papal dominions by this or that petty State; it was not for the indulgence of evil passions which were sufficient to bring the Holy See into perpetual disrepute it was for the voice of conscience, the principle of responsibility to One whom it is better to obey rather than man; it was for the liberty with which Christ has made us free to serve Him and accomplish His work--that liberty which Hildebrand, by his famous non possumus, refused to surrender when, seized in the dead of night, while celebrating mass on Christmas Eve 1075, he hardly escaped the fate of Beckett at the hands of a baron as ruthless as Tracy or Morville, the servant of a master as unscrupulous as our English Henry.

Out of that struggle, characteristic of a fierce nation and a barbarous period, he came forth victorious. The result of the Council of Trent was also to leave the victory with the Papacy; but if it is a vain speculation as to what might have been the position of the Church had there been then a Hilde1 Vol. i. p. 137.

VOL. XXV.-NO. L.

BB