The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning

Book XI., Guido – is now in the prison cell awaiting execution. He is visited by Cardinal Acciaiuoli and Abate Panciatichi, who are to remain with him till the fatal moment. He is pleading with them for their aid; he reminds them of his noble blood, too pure to leak away into the drains of Rome from the headsman’s engine. He protests his innocence; he has only twelve hours to live, and is as innocent as Mary herself. He denounces the Pope, who could have cast around him the protection of the Church, whose son he is. His tonsure should have saved him. It was the Pope’s duty to have shown him mercy, but he supposes he is sick of his life, and must vent his spleen on him. He asks the Abate if he can do nothing? They used to enjoy life together, but he concludes that his companions have hearts of stone. He wishes he had never entangled himself with a wife; he was a fool to slay her. Why must he die? It need not be if men were good. If the Pope is Peter’s successor, he should act like Peter. Would Peter have ordered him to death when there was his soul to save? What though half Rome condemned him? the other half took his part. The shepherd of the flock should use the crumpled end of his staff to rescue his sheep, not the pointed end wherewith to thrust them. The law proclaims him guiltless, but the Pope says he is guilty; and he supposes he ought to acquiesce and say that he deserves his fate. Repent? not he! What would be the good of that? If he fall at their feet and gnash and foam, will that put back the death engine to its hiding-place? He reflects that old Pietro cried to him for respite when he chased him about his room. He asked for time to save his soul: Guido gave him none. Why grant respite to him if he deserves his doom? Then he reproaches his companions: had they not sinned with him if he had done wrong? had they ever warned him, not by words, but by their own good deeds? He declares that he does not and cannot repent one particle of his past life. How should he have treated his wife? Ought he to have loved or hated her? When he offered her his love, had she not recoiled with loathing from him? Had she not acted as a victim at the sacrifice? Was it not her desire to be anywhere apart from him? What was called his wife was but “a nullity in female shape” – a plague mixed up with the “abominable nondescripts” she called her father and her mother. It was intended that he should be fooled; it happened that he had anticipated those who wished to fool him: yet this boast was premature. All Rome knows that the dowry was a derision, the wife a nameless bastard; his ancient name had been bespattered with filth, and those who planned the wrong had revealed it to the world. Yes, he had punished those who fooled him so. He had punished his wife, too, who had no part in their crime; and why? Her cold, pale, mute obedience was so hateful to him. “Speak!” he had demanded, and she obeyed; “Be silent!” and she obeyed also, with just the selfsame white despair. Things were better when her parents were present; when they left she ran to the Commissary and the Archbishop to beg their interference, and then committed the “worst offence of not offending any more.” Her look of martyr-like endurance was worse than all: it reminded him of the “terrible patience of God.” All that meant she did not love him; – she might have shammed the love. As it was, his wife was a true stumbling-block in his way. Everything, too, went against him. It was so unlucky for him that he did not catch the pair at the inn under circumstances when he could lawfully have slain them both together. There is always some —

 
“Devil, whose task it is
To trip the all-but-at perfection.”
 

Unhappily, he had just missed his chance of appearing grandly right before the world. When he took his assassins to the villa he was fortunate, it is true, in finding all at home – the three to kill; but he had been unlucky in not escaping, as he had arranged. Then, when he thought he had killed his wife (with his knowledge of anatomy too!), she must linger for four whole days, the surgeon keeping her alive that every soul in Rome might learn her story. All the world could listen then. Had it not been for that he would have had a tale to tell that would have saved his head: he would have sworn he had caught Pompilia in the embraces of the priest, who had escaped in the darkness. And now she has lived to forgive him, commend him to the mercies of God, while fixing his head upon the block. And then at his trial all was against him: the dice were loaded, and the lawyers of no service to him. Yet he is sure that the Roman people approve his deed, though the mob is in love with his murdered wife. He says “there was no touch in her of hate.” The angels would not be able to make a heaven for her if she knew he were in hell, she would pray him into heaven against his will; for it is hell which he demands, so heartily does he hate the good! Yes, he is impenitent, – no spark of contrition. Would the Church slay the impenitent? He passionately tells the Cardinal that he knows he is wronged, yet will not help him. As he sees no chance of their relenting, he tries to influence them by suggesting how he could have helped their chances at the next election of a Pope, which cannot be long delayed. Then he falls to entreaty again: “Save my life, Cardinal; I adjure you in God’s name!” begs him go, fall at the Pope’s feet, tell him he is innocent; and if that serve him not, say he is an atheist, and implore him not to send his soul to perdition. “Take your crucifix away!” he cries. Then, when all seems hopeless, he begins to abuse the Pope, the Cardinals, and all. He hates his victims too, he protests, as much as when he slew them; and while he curses, impenitent, scornful and full of malice, he hears the chant of the Brotherhood of Mercy, who sing the Office of the Dying at his cell-door. Then he shrieks that all he had been saying was false; he was mad:

 
“Don’t open! Hold me from them! I am yours,
I am the Grand Duke’s – no, I am the Pope’s!
Abate, – Cardinal, – Christ, – Maria, – God, …
Pompilia, will you let them murder me?”
 

Notes. – Line 13, Certosa: a Carthusian monastery, La Certosa, in Val’ Emo, is situated about four miles from Florence. It was founded about 1341. It is Gothic, and is built in a grand style, like that of a castle. l. 186, mannaia: an instrument for beheading criminals, much like the guillotine. l. 188, “Mouth-of-Truth” – Bocca della Verità: S. Maria in Cosmedin, in ancient Rome. From the mouth of a fountain to the left is the portico, into which, according to a mediæval belief, the ancient Romans thrust their right hands when taking an oath. l. 261, “Merry Tales”: the novels and tales of Franco Sacchetti (1335-1400). He wrote some three hundred novelle in pure Tuscan. l. 272, Albano, or Albani, Francesco (1578-1660): a celebrated Italian painter, who was born at Bologna. He lived and taught in Rome for many years. Among the best of his sacred pictures are a “St. Sebastian” and an “Assumption of the Virgin,” both in the church of St. Sebastian at Rome. l. 274, “Europa and the bull”: Europa was the daughter of Agenor, king of Phœnicia. Jupiter became enamoured of her, and assumed the form of a beautiful bull. When Europa mounted on his back he carried her off. l. 291, Atlas and axis are bones of the neck on which the head turns: the atlas is the first cervical vertebra, the axis is the second cervical vertebra; symphyses, the union of bones with each other. l. 327, “Petrus, quo vadis?” “Peter, whither goest thou?” On the Appian Way at Rome there is a small church called Domine Quo Vadis, so named from the legend that St. Peter, fleeing from the death of a martyr, here met his Master, and inquired of Him, “Domine, quo vadis?” (“Lord, whither goest Thou?”) to which he received the reply, “Venio iterum crucifigi” (“I come to be crucified again”) – whereupon the apostle, ashamed of his weakness, returned. l. 569, King Cophetua: an imaginary king of Africa, who fell in love with a beggar girl. He married her, and lived happily with her for many years. l. 683, “and tinkle near”: at the mass, when the priest consecrates the elements, a small bell is rung by the server to acquaint the worshippers with the fact that the consecration has taken place. This, of course, is the most solemn part of the mass, when the worshippers are most attentive. l. 685, Trebbian: from Trevi, in the valley of the Clitumnus. l. 786, “Hocus-pocus”; Nares says these words represent Ochus Bochus, an Italian magician invoked by jugglers; but there are other explanations. Vallombrosa Convent: a famous convent near Florence. Milton says, “Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa” (Paradise Lost, i. 302). But the trees are pines, and not deciduous. l. 1119, “the Etruscan monster”: Mr. Browning was a student of Etruscan art and archæology. The Etruscans were the nation conquered by the Romans, and their antiquities are abundant in the district between Rome and Florence. The monster is the Chimæra, represented with three heads – those of a lion, a goat, and a dragon. Bellerophon, mounted on the horse Pegasus, attacked and overcame it. l. 1413, Armida: a beautiful sorceress, a prominent character in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. l. 1416, Rinaldo, in the same poem, was the Achilles of the Crusaders’ army. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen, and was enrolled in the adventurers’ squadron. Rinaldo fell in love with Armida, and wasted his time in voluptuous pleasures. l. 1420, zecchines, or sequins: Venetian gold coins, worth about 9s. 6d. l. 1669, stinche: a prison. l. 1808, “Helping Vienna”: this refers to the second siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683, when 150,000 Turks sat down before the city, Cara Mustapha being their leader. Pope Innocent XI. and John Sobieski, king of Poland, entered into a league to oppose the common enemy of Christian Europe. The whole Turkish army was defeated, and fled in the utmost disorder after the great battle fought under the walls of Vienna on Sept. 12th, 1683. l. 1850, Gaudeamus, “let us be glad.” l. 1925, Jove Ægiochus: Jupiter was surnamed Ægiochus because, according to some authors, he was brought up by a goat. Properly the name is from the ægis which the god bore. l. 1928, “Seventh Æneid”: Virgil’s great poem was the “Æneis,” which has for its subject the settlement of Æneas in Italy. The passage referred to is in the Eighth Book (426), and begins “His informatum, manibus jam parte politâ.” l. 2034, “Romano vivitur more”: Life goes on in the Roman way. l. 2051, “Byblis in fluvius”: Byblis fell in love with her brother, and was changed into a fountain. l. 2052, “sed Lycaon in lupum”: a cruel king of Arcadia, named Lycaon, was changed into a wolf by Jupiter, because he offered human sacrifices on the altar of the god Pan. l. 2144, Paynimrie, heathendom. l. 2184, Olimpia, in Orlando Furioso: Countess of Holland and wife of Bireno: when her husband deserted her she was bound naked to a rock by pirates, but Orlando delivered her and took her to Ireland. Bianca: wife of Fazio. She tried to save her husband from death; failed, went mad, and died of a broken heart. l. 2185, Ormuz wealth: the island Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, is a mart for diamonds. l. 2211, Circe: a sorceress, who turned the companions of Ulysses into swine. Ulysses resisted the metamorphosis by virtue of the herb moly, given him by Mercury. l. 2214, Lucrezia di Borgia: she was thrice married, her last husband being Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. Through her influence many persons were put to death. Her natural son Gennaro having been poisoned, she died herself as he expired. l. 2414, “Who are these you have let descend my stair?” They were the Brothers of Mercy, whose duty it was to attend criminals on the scaffold. Their chant was the Office of the Dying.

Book XII., The Book and the Ring. – On Feb. 22nd, 1698, Guido and his confederates were executed. We have, in the concluding book of this long poem, the reports of the execution, and the comments made concerning it in Rome, from four persons. The first which the poet gives is a letter from a stranger, a man of rank, on a visit to Rome from Venice. He begins his letter on the evening of the day in question, by stating that the Carnival is nearly over, the city very full of strangers, the old Pope tottering on the verge of the grave, and the people already beginning to discuss his probable successor. The Pope took daily exercise a week ago by the river-side, for the weather was like May. Then, after more gossip about politics, he says he has lost his bet of fifty sequins by the execution of the Count: he had felt, up to two days ago, that he would win the wager, as everybody seemed to think the Count would save his head; but the Pope’s was the one deaf ear to every appeal for a reprieve, and so “persisted in the butchery.” One of the writer’s friends was so annoyed at the Pope’s refusal to spare the life of a man with whom he had dined, that he would have actually stayed away from the execution, had it not been for a lady, whose presence on that occasion made it a desirable amusement for him. Of course, everybody of any importance was there, and the people made a general holiday of the occasion. Then he narrates how the ecclesiastics who had attended Guido on the eve of his execution considered that their efforts to prepare him for the next world had been crowned at last with complete success. The procession from the prison to the place of execution is described; and severe exception is taken to the choice of the Piazza del Popolo, as a deliberate affront to the aristocracy residing there. Still, it had its compensations, as it afforded a fine spectacle, and made, on the whole, a very pleasant day. There were the usual incidents of a street crowd: the man run over and killed; the pushing and struggling for good places; outcries there were, also, against the Pope for forbidding the Lottery; and a miracle was worked upon a lame beggar by the prayer of the holy Guido as he glanced that way. The Count was the last to mount the scaffold steps, and the nobility were so occupied with observing him and his behaviour in the presence of death, that they paid no attention to the peasants who dangled on their respective ropes at the gallows. The Count made a speech to the multitude, and comported himself as became a good Christian gentleman. He begged forgiveness of God, and hoped his fellow-men would put a fair construction on his acts; asked their prayers for his soul, suggesting that they should forthwith say an “Our Father” and a “Hail, Mary!” for his sake. Then he turned to his confessor, made the sign of the cross, and cast a fervent glance at the church over the way; rose up, knelt down again, bent his head, and with the name of Jesus on his lips received the headsman’s blow. That functionary showed the head to the populace in due form, and the spectacle was over. The strangers present were a little disappointed at the Count’s height and general appearance. They understood he was fully six feet high, and youngish for his years, and if not handsome, at least dignified; but his face was not one to please a wife. No doubt something was due to the rough costume in which he committed the murder, – a coarse and shabby dress enough. His end was peace. If his friend wishes to bet on the next Pope, he will give him a hint; and now will conclude with the last new pasquinade which has amused the city.

There were three letters which were bound up with Mr. Browning’s famous “find” at Florence. One of these was written by the Count’s advocate, De Archangelis, concerning certain fresh points intended to be used in mitigation of the sentence; but the lawyer explains that the Pope had set every plea aside, and had hastened the execution. The letter is addressed to the friends of the Count, and the client is referred to as a gallant man, who died in faith in an exemplary manner. He considers that no blot has fallen on the escutcheon of his noble house, as he had respect and commiseration from all Rome, and from the cultivated everywhere. He concludes by hoping that God may compensate for this direful blow by sending future blessings on the family. Enclosed with this communication is another, not intended for the noble persons to whom the above polite effusion is addressed. This is for their lawyer, and is to be kept to himself. He tells him that their “Pisan aid” was of no avail: the Pope was determined to see Guido’s head drop off, and would not listen to reason. Especially annoying was it that his superb defence was wasted: he got nothing for his work, and he does not care how soon the obstinate and inept Pope dies. He tells his correspondent, who is his boy’s godfather, how much the lad enjoyed the fine sight at the execution. He had promised him, if his defence failed to save the Count’s head, that he should go and see it chopped off. This was exactly to the boy’s taste; and he sat at a window with a great lady, who twitted the boy on the triumph of his father’s opponent Bottini, saying that his “papa, with all his eloquence, cannot be reckoned on to help as before.” The boy cleverly replied that his “papa knew better than offend the Pope and baulk him of his grudge against the Count; he would else have argued off Bottini’s nose.” He would have his opponent see that he was a man able to drive right and left horses at once. – The next letter is from the Fisc Bottini, who says the case ended as he foresaw: Pompilia’s innocence was easily proved. Guido had made very good sport, and “died like a saint, poor devil!” Bottini regrets he had not been on the other side. Pompilia gave him no opportunity to show his skill; he could have done better with the Count. He can imagine how De Archangelis crows and boasts that he kept the Fisc a month at bay; he knows how he would grin and bray; but the thing which most annoys him is the behaviour of the monk, whose report of the dying Pompilia’s words took all the freshness from his best points; and then, when preaching at San Lorenzo yesterday about the case, from the text “Let God be true, and every man a liar,” said this, which he encloses from a printed copy of the sermon all Rome is reading to-day. “Do not argue from the result of this trial,” said the preacher, “that truth may look for vindication from the world.” God seems to acquiesce with those who say ‘He sleeps,’ and will not always put forth His hand and be recognised:

 
“Because Pompilia’s purity prevails,
Conclude you, all truth triumphs in the end?”
 

Of all the birds that flew from the ark, one only returned: how many perished? So —

 
“How many chaste and noble sister-fames
Wanted the extricating hand, and lie
Strangled, for one Pompilia proud above
The welter, plucked from the world’s calumny?”
 

Truth has to wait God’s time; for how long did the pagans of old Rome point to the Catacombs and say, “Down there, below the ground, foul and obscene rites are practised, far from the sight of men”? The most hideous and fearful practices were charged upon the early Christians, who worshipped in those places of refuge; but not for ages did God’s lightning expose to the world those holy receptacles for the mangled remains of His martyred saints, and permit the gaze of the multitude to penetrate the sacred chambers, where the faith of Christ was kept alive in those dreadful centuries of persecution. Then, when God did call the world to see the whole secret so long preserved from the world above, what was there to behold? – a poor earthen lump by the rock where the corpse lay, the grave which held the treasured blood of the martyr:

 
“The rough-scratched palm branch, and the legend left
Pro Christo.”
 

And so these abhorred ones turned out to be saints. The best defence the law can make for Pompilia is to say that wickedness was bred in her, and after this specimen of man’s protection, one wave of God’s hand bids the mists dispel, and the true instinct of a good old man, who hates the dark and loves the light, adduces another proof that “God is true, and every man a liar”: he who trusts to human testimony for a fact thereby proves himself a fool: man is false, man is weak, and “truth seems reserved for heaven, not earth.” As for himself, added the friar, “he has long since renounced the world, yet he is not forbidden to estimate the value of that which he has forsaken. If any one were to press him as to his content in having put the pleasures of the world aside, he would answer that, apart from Christ’s assurances, he dare not say whether he had not failed to taste much joy; how much of human love in varied forms he had lost; how much joy, from ‘books that teach and arts that help,’ he had missed. He might have learned how to grow great as well as good. Many precious things, no doubt, he had forsaken; but there was one – the chief object of men’s ambition – earthly praise and the world’s good repute; in renouncing these, his loss, he is sure, was light, and in choosing obscurity he was convinced he had chosen well.” Bottini thinks this is vanity and spite: how dare he say “every man is a liar”! What next? He finds that the sermon has already had its effect for Gomez, who had decided to appeal to another court, and declines to have any more to do with lawyers; he has resolved to let the liars possess the world, and so he must whistle for his job and his fee. He is happy to say, however, that he shall soon be able to show the rabid monk whether law be powerless or not; for by a great piece of luck the convent to which Pompilia was first sent has claimed all her property which she had willed to those who were to act as trustees for her son and heir; as Pompilia had not been relieved at the trial from her imputed fault, the convent had a right to claim its due, and take the whole of the property. It has therefore become the lawyer’s duty to institute procedure against this very Pompilia, whom last week he held up as a saint, and charging her with having been a very common sort of sinner, perform a volte-face before the selfsame court which he had so recently addressed, and show this “foul-mouthed friar” that his white dove is a sooty raven. The Pope, however, soon rectified this bad business, and issued an “instrument,” which the poet says is contained in his precious little account of the trial, by which the Supreme Pontiff restores the perfect fame of the dead Pompilia, and quashes all proceedings brought or threatened to be brought against the heir, by the Most Venerable Convent of the Convertites in the Corso. So was justice done a second time. Two years later died good Innocent XII., after a rule of nine years in Rome; and so there is an end of the story. Mr. Browning is unable to say what became of the boy Gaetano, the child of Guido and Pompilia.

Notes. – Line 12, Wormwood Star: a star which (it was fabled) appeared at the approach of death. l. 43: If the writer did bet on Spada for Pope he lost, as Cardinal Albani became the next Pope, in 1700. l. 62, Holy Doors: certain doors in St. Peter’s, at Rome, which are opened only at the commencement of a Papal jubilee, and at its close are at once bricked up again. l. 65, “Fenelon will be condemned”: Fenelon was one of the Jansenist leaders in France, and Jansenism was on its trial in Rome. l. 89, Dogana-by-the-Bank: a new customhouse. l. 104, Palchetto: a balcony made of scaffolding, used for public spectacles. l. 105, The Pincian: the Pincian hill, beyond the Piazza del Popolo, is a hill of gardens. Here were once the gardens of Lucullus, in which Messalina celebrated her orgies. This is a fashionable drive in the evening for the modern Romans. l. 114, The Three Streets diverge from the Piazza del Popolo on the south; to the right is the Via di Ripetta; to the left the Via del Babuino, leading to the Piazza di Spagna; in the centre is the Corso. l. 139, The New Prisons – Carceri Nuovi: these were built by Pope Innocent X. They are situated in the Via Giulia, leading to the Bridge of St. Angelo. l. 140, Pasquin’s Street: the street in Rome where there stands a mutilated statue in a corner of the palace of Ursini; so called from a cobbler who was remarkable for his sneers and gibes, and near whose shop the statue was dug up. On this statue it has been customary to paste satiric papers. Hence a lampoon à Pasquinade is a piece of satirical writing (Webster’s Dict.). Place Navona: the Piazza Navona is the largest in Rome after that of St. Peter. It is officially called Circo Agonale. The name is said to be derived from the agones (corrupted to Navone, Navona), or contests which took place in the circus. l. 158, Tern Quatern: a tern is a prize in a lottery, resulting from the favourable combination of three numbers in the drawing; a quatern is a combination of four numbers; and a combination of these is, I presume, some very exceptional prize for the holders of the tickets. l. 178: “Pater,” the Lord’s Prayer; “Ave,” the angelical salutation to the Virgin. l. 179, “Salve Regina Cœli”: a hymn to the Virgin, sung at Vespers, which begins with the words “Hail, Queen of Heaven!” l. 184, This is a satire against relic-worship, and not in very good taste. l. 199, just-a-corps: a short coat fitting tightly to the body. l. 208, quatrain: a stanza of four lines rhyming alternately. l. 217, socius: an ally, a confederate. l. 224, Tarocs: a game at cards played with seventy-eight cards. l. 277, “Quantum est hominum venustiorum”: and all men who have any grace. l. 290, “hactenus senioribus”: hitherto for our superiors. l. 320, Themis: a daughter of Cœlus and Terra, who married Jupiter against her own inclination. She is represented as holding a sword in one hand and a pair of scales in the other. l. 326, “case of Gomez”: this was a legal matter before the courts, and which was referred to in one of the manuscripts consulted by Mr. Browning when engaged upon the poem. l. 327, “reliqua differamus in crastinum!” the rest let us put off till to-morrow; estafette: courier. l. 361, “Bartolus-cum-Baldo”: the names of two eminent Italian jurists. l. 367, “adverti supplico humiliter quod”: I have observed, I humbly beg that. l. 435, Spreti: the subordinate of “De Archangelis”; he is “advocate of the poor.” l. 504, “their idol god an ass”: the early Christians were accused by their pagan persecutors of all sorts of horrible and degrading superstitions, amongst other things of worshipping the head of an ass. There has recently been discovered amongst the wall scratchings on some relics of ancient Roman buildings the figure of a crucified man with the head of an ass; and an inscription roughly scratched implying that this was the god of some Christian thus held up to ridicule. l. 520, “the rude brown lamp”: used in the Catacombs, both for light and for burning at the martyrs’ tombs to honour them. l. 521, the cruse: thousands of these have been discovered, and are exhibited in the museum at the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome. l. 522, “the palm branch”: graven in countless parts of the Roman catacombs, as a sign that the martyr buried beneath it had won the victory, and had conquered by his faith. l. 523, “pro Christo,” for Christ: that is to say, the martyrs had shed the blood presented in the cruse for Christ’s sake. l. 647, ampollosity: windbag behaviour. l. 679, “claim every paul”: paolo, an Italian coin worth sixpence. l. 715, “Astræa redux”: justice brought back. l. 745, “Martial’s phrase”: Mart. iv. 91. l. 787, Gonfalonier: Lord Mayor, who bore the standard, or gonfalon. l. 811, Buonarotti == Michael Angelo. l. 812, Vexillifer, standard-bearer. l. 813, The Patavinian: i. e., Livy of Padua. l. 815, “Janus of the double face”: Janus, a Roman deity represented with two faces, because he was acquainted with the past and future, or because he was taken for the sun who opens the day at his rising and shuts it at his setting (Lemprière). l. 865, “Deeper than ever the Andante dived”: a movement or piece in andante (rather slow) time, as the andante in Beethoven’s fifth symphony. l. 872, “Lyric Love”: the poet’s dead wife invoked in the first part of this work. Her poems on Italy are referred to in the last line. – The Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. xiii., p. 85, says that Innocent XI. was the Pope of The Ring and the Book. Mr. Browning, however, says that Antonio Pignatelli (Innocent XII.) was the Pope in question. The character of the earlier sovereign pontiff certainly agrees better with the story told by the poet than does that of the latter. It may be, as has been suggested by Mr. George W. Cooke, in his Guide-Book to Browning, that the poet confounded the two men with each other, or, what is more probable, that he deliberately gave to Innocent XII. qualities which belonged only to Innocent XI. (p. 339). The following sketch of the life of Innocent XI. (Benedetto Odelscalchi) is taken from the Encyclopædia Britannica: “He was Pope from 1676 to 1689; was born at Como in 1611, studied law at Rome and Naples, [and] held successively the offices of protonotary, President of the Apostolic Chamber, Commissary of the Marca di Roma, and Governor of Macerta; in 1647 Innocent X. made him cardinal, and he afterwards successively became legate to Ferrara and bishop of Novara. In all these capacities the simplicity and purity of character which he displayed had, combined with his unselfish and open-handed benevolence, secured for him a high place in the popular affection and esteem; and two months after the death of Clement X. he was (Sept. 21st, 1676), in spite of French opposition, chosen his successor. He lost no time in declaring and practically manifesting his zeal as a reformer of manners and a corrector of administrative abuses. He sought to abolish sinecures, and to put the papal finances otherwise on a sound footing; beginning with the clergy, he endeavoured to raise the laity also to a higher moral standard of living. Some of his regulations with the latter object, however, may raise a smile as showing more zeal than judgment. In 1679 he publicly condemned sixty-five propositions, taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suarez, and the like, as ‘propositiones laxorum moralistarum,’ and forbade any one to teach them under pain of excommunication. Personally not unfriendly to Molinos, he nevertheless so far yielded to the enormous pressure brought to bear upon him as to confirm in 1687 the judgment of the inquisitors by which sixty-eight Molinist propositions were condemned as blasphemous and heretical. His pontificate was marked by the prolonged struggle with Louis XIV. of France on the subject of the so-called ‘Gallican Liberties,’ and also about certain immunities claimed by ambassadors to the papal court. He died after a long period of feeble health on August 12th, 1689. Hitherto repeated attempts at his canonisation have invariably failed, the reason popularly assigned being the influence of France. The fine moral character of Innocent has been sketched with much artistic power, as well as with historical fidelity, by Mr. Robert Browning in The Ring and the Book.” – Innocent XII. (Antonio Pignatelli), whose name Mr. Browning expressly gives, as fixing the identity of the Pope whose character he portrayed, was born at Naples in 1615. He took Innocent XI. for his model. This pontiff made him, in 1681, cardinal, bishop of Faenza, legate of Bologna, and archbishop of Naples. “His election as pope took place February 12th, 1691. At the beginning of his reign he endeavoured to abolish nepotism by means of a bull, in 1692. His nepotes were the poor – the Lateran his hospital. The Bullarium magnum contains many rules relating to cloister discipline and the life of the secular clergy. His efforts for the restoration of discipline were so great, that scoffers boasted he had reformed the Church both in its head and members. He died on September 27th, 1700. Shortly before his decease he settled a large sum on the hospital he had erected, and ordered that his goods should be sold and the proceeds given to the poor. He was a benevolent and pious prelate” (Imp. Dict. Univ. Biog.). There is such frequent reference to Molinos and the doctrines of Molinism or Quietism in The Ring and the Book, and the subject is so unfamiliar to the general reader, that I have thought it wise to extract the following admirable note on the question from Butler’s Lives of the Saints, under the date November xxiv., “St. John of the Cross”: – “Quietism was broached by Michael Molinos, a Spanish priest and spiritual director in great repute at Rome, who, in his book entitled The Spiritual Guide, established a system of perfect contemplation. It chiefly turns upon the following general principles. 1. That perfect contemplation is a state in which a man does not reason, or reflect, either on God or himself, but passively receives the impression of heavenly light without exercising any acts, the mind being in a state of perfect inaction and inattention, which this author calls quiet. Which principle is a notorious illusion and falsity: for even in supernatural impressions or communications, how much soever a soul may be abstracted from her senses, and insensible to external objects, which act upon their organs, she still exercises her understanding and will, in adoring, loving, praising, or the like, as is demonstrable both from principle and from the testimony of St. Teresa, and all true contemplatives. 2. This fanatic teaches, that a soul in that state desires nothing, not even his own salvation; and fears nothing, not even hell itself. This principle, big with pernicious consequences, is heretical; as the precept and constant obligation of hope of salvation through Christ is an article of faith. The pretence that a total indifference is a state of perfection is folly and impiety, as if solicitude about things of duty was not a precept. And so if a man could ever be exempt from the obligation of that charity which he owes both to God and himself, by which he is bound, above all things, to desire and to labour for his salvation and the eternal reign of God in his soul. A third principle of this author is no less notoriously heretical: that in such a state the use of the sacraments and good works becomes indifferent; and that the most criminal representations and motions in the sensitive part of the soul are foreign to the superior, and not sinful in this elevated state; as if the sensitive part of the soul was not subject to the government of the rational or superior part, or as if this could be indifferent about what passes in it. Some will have it that Molinos carried his last principles so far as to open a door to the abominations of the Gnostics; but most excuse him from admitting that horrible consequence (see F. Avrigny, Honoré of St. Mary, etc.). Innocent XI., in 1687, condemned sixty-eight propositions extracted from this author as respectively heretical, scandalous and blasphemous. Molinos was condemned by the Inquisition at Rome, recalled his errors, and ended his life in imprisonment in 1696 (see Argentere, Collect. Judiciorum de Novis Erroribus, t. iii., part 2, p. 402; Stevaert, Damnat. Prop., p. 1). Semi-Quietism was rendered famous by having been for some time patronised by the great Fenelon. Madame Guyon, a widow lady, wrote An Easy and Short Method of Prayer, and Solomon’s Canticle of Canticles interpreted in a Mystical Sense, for which, by order of Lewis XIV., she was confined in a nunnery, but soon after enlarged. Then it was that she became acquainted with Fenelon; and she published the Old Testament with explanations, her own life by herself, and other works, all written with spirit and a lively imagination. She submitted her doctrine to the judgment of Bossuet, esteemed the most accurate theologian in the French dominions. After a mature examination, Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, Cardinal Noailles, Fenelon, then lately nominated archbishop of Cambray, and M. Trowson, superior of S. Sulpice, drew up thirty articles concerning the sound maxims of a spiritual life, to which Fenelon added four others. These thirty-four articles were signed by them at Issy in 1695, and are the famous ‘Articles of Issy’ (see Argentere, Collectio Judiciorum de Novis Erroribus, t. iii.; Du Plessis, Hist. de Meaux, t. I., p. 492; Mémoires Chronol., t. iii., p. 28). During this examination Bossuet and Fenelon had frequent disputes for and against disinterested love, or divine love of pure benevolence. This latter undertook in some measure the patronage of Madame Guyon, and in 1697 published a book entitled The Maxims of the Saints, in which a kind of Semi-Quietism was advanced. The clamour which was raised drew the author into disgrace at the court of Lewis XIV., and the book was condemned by Innocent XII. in 1699, on the 12th of March, and on the 9th of April following, by the author himself, who closed his eyes to all the glimmerings of human understanding to seek truth in the obedient simplicity of faith. By this submission he vanquished and triumphed over his defeat itself, and, by a more admirable greatness of soul, over his vanquisher. With the book, twenty-three propositions extracted out of it were censured by the Pope as rash, pernicious in practice, and erroneous respectively; but none were qualified as heretical. The principal error of Semi-Quietism consists in this doctrine, – that, in the state of perfect contemplation, it belongs to the entire annihilation in which a soul places herself before God, and to the perfect resignation of herself to His will, that she be indifferent whether she be damned or saved; which monstrous extravagance destroys the obligation of Christian hope. The Divine precepts can never clash, but strengthen one another. It would be blasphemy to pretend that because God, as a universal ruler, suffers sin, we can take a complacence in its being committed by others. God damns no one but for sin and final impenitence; yet, whilst we adore the Divine justice and sanctity, we are bound to reject sin with the utmost abhorrence, and deprecate damnation with the greatest ardour, both which by the Divine grace we can shun. Where, then, can there be any room for such a pretended resignation, at the very thought of which piety shudders? No such blasphemies occur in the writings of St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, or other approved spiritual authors. If they are, or seem to be, expressed in certain parts of some spiritual works, as those of Bernieres, or in the Italian translation of Boudon’s God Alone, these expressions are to be corrected by the rule of solid theology. Fenelon was chiefly deceived by the authority of an adulterated edition of The Spiritual Entertainments of St. Francis of Sales, published at Lyons, in 1628, by Drobet. Upon the immediate complaint and supplication of St. Francis Chantal and John Francis Sales, brother of the saint, then bishop of Geneva, Lewis XIII. suppressed the privilege granted for the said edition by letters patent given in the camp before Rochelle in the same year, prefixed to the correct and true edition of that book made at Lyons by Cœurceillys in 1629, by order of St. Francis Chantal. Yet this faulty edition, with its additions and omissions, has been sometimes reprinted; and a copy of this edition imposed upon Fenelon, whom Bossuet, who used the right edition, accused of falsifying the book (see Mem. de Trev. for July, anno 1558, p. 446). Bossuet had several years before maintained in the schools of Sorbonne, with great warmth, that a love of pure benevolence is chimerical. Nothing is more insisted on in theological schools than the distinction of the love of chaste desire and of benevolence. By the first, a creature loves God as the creature’s own good – that is, upon the motive of enjoying Him, or because he shall possess God and find in Him his own complete happiness, – in other words, because God is good to the creature himself, both here and hereafter. The love of benevolence is that by which a creature loves God purely for His own sake, or because He is in Himself infinitely good. This latter is called pure or disinterested love, or love of charity; the former is a love of an inferior order, and is said by most theologians to belong to hope, not to charity; and many maintain that it can never attain to such a degree of perfection as to be a love of God above all things; because, say they, he who loves God merely because He is his own good, or for the sake of his enjoyment, loves Him not for God’s own increated goodness, which is the motive of charity; nor can he love Him more than he does his own enjoyment of Him, though he makes no such comparison, nor even directly or interpretatively forms such an act, that he loves Him not more than he does his own possession of Him – which would be criminal and extremely inordinate. So this love is good, and of obligation, as a part of hope; and it disposes the soul to the love of charity. Bossuet allowed the distinct motives of the loves of chaste desire and of benevolence; but said no act of the latter could be formed by the heart which does not expressly include an act of the former; because, said he, no man can love any good without desiring to himself at the same time the possession of that good or its union with himself, and no man can love another’s good merely as another’s. This all allow, if this other’s good were to destroy or exclude the love of his own good. Hence the habit of love of benevolence must include the habit of the love of desire. But the act may be and often is exercised without it, for good is amiable in itself and for its own sake; and this is the general opinion of theologians. However, the opinion of Bossuet, that an act of the love of benevolence or of charity is inseparable from an actual love of desire is not censured, but is maintained also by F. Honoratus of St. Mary (Tradition sur la Contempl., t. iii., ch. iv., p. 273). Mr. Morris carries this notion so far as to pretend that creatures, in loving God, consider nothing in His perfections but their own good (Letter 2, ‘On Divine Love,’ p. 8). Some advised Fenelon to make a diversion by attacking Bossuet’s sentiments and books at Rome, and convicting him of establishing theological hope by destroying charity. But the pious archbishop made answer that he never would inflame a dispute by recriminating against a brother, whatever might have seemed prudent to be done at another season. When he was put in mind to beware of the artifices of mankind, which he had so well known and so often experienced, he made answer: “Let us die in our simplicity” (moriamur in simplicitate nostrâ). On this celebrated dispute the ingenious Claville (Traité du Vrai Mérite) makes this remark, – that some of those who carried the point were condemned by the public as if they lost charity by the manner in which they carried on the contest; but if Fenelon erred in theory he was led astray by an excess in his desire of charity. By this adversity and submission he improved his own charity and humility to perfection, and arrived at the most easy disposition of heart, disengaged from everything in the world, bowed down to a state of pliableness and docility not to be expressed, and grounded in a love of simplicity which extinguished in him everything besides. Those who admired these virtues in him before were surprised at the great heights to which he afterwards carried them: so much he appeared a new man, though before a model of piety and humility. As to the distinction of the motives in our love of God, in practice, too nice or anxious an inquiry is generally fruitless and pernicious; for our business is more and more to die to ourselves, purify our hearts, and employ our understanding in the contemplation of the Divine perfections and heavenly mysteries, and our affections in the various acts of holy love – a boundless field in which our souls may freely take their range. And while we blame the extravagances of false mystics, we must never fear being transported to excesses in practice by the love of God. It can never be carried too far, since the only measure of our love to God is to ‘love without measure,’ as St. Bernard says. No transports of pure love can carry souls aside from the right way, so long as they are guided by humility and obedience. In disputes about such things, the utmost care is necessary that charity be not lost in them, that envy and pride be guarded against, and that sobriety and moderation be observed in all inquiries; for nothing is more frequent than for the greatest geniuses, in pursuing subtleties, to lose sight both of virtue, of good sense and reason itself. (See Bossuet’s works on this subject, t. vi., especially his Mystici in Tuto, in which he is more correct than in some of his other pieces; also Du Plessis, Hist. de l’Eglise de Meaux, t. I., p. 485; the several lines of Fenelon, etc.)” Mr. Browning in this poem is like a demonstrator of anatomy in a famous school of dissection – some Sir Charles Bell lecturing to a crowded room full of students; taking up nerve after nerve, following it through all its ramifications, tracing it from its origin in brain or spinal cord, and never leaving it till it is lost in microscopic fibres at the periphery. He is as impartial as the anatomist, who asks no questions as to the presence of the subject on his table: all he has to do with is the science to which he is devoted. Mr. Browning is as happy with Guido in his dungeon as with the Pope in the Vatican, or Pompilia in the presence of the angels waiting to conduct her to God. The matter in hand is the human soul; and as the greatest poet of the soul that the world has ever seen, he is lost in his work. Count Guido never could have thought or said so much for himself as Browning has said for him. Pompilia’s innocent, unsophisticated heart never attempted to formulate such a meditation on her brief history. Caponsacchi, we may be sure, never rose from his sonnets and gallantry to such a conscious elevation of soul as burst suddenly forth in the splendour of Pompilia’s soldier-saint on his defence. If the Pope himself, the Vicar of Christ, came to his decision by any such conscious process of reasoning and high-toned Christian philosophy – Catholic because it is the highest expression of the highest thought and noblest impulse of the human heart – as that with which Mr. Browning has invested him, then Innocent XII. was a man of genius second only to the poet who has “created” him nearly two hundred years after he died. But no! These people lived indeed; they wrought all which their histories tell of them; but how and why, they never knew. God alone perfectly reads the human heart; and a few men like Browning are privileged to catch a word of the record here and there.