It is a common-place that, thanks to Boswell, we know Dr. Johnson more intimately than any other Englishman who has ever lived. It is just as true that, thanks to himself and his wonderful gift for letterwriting, we know Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, almost as well. Moreover, beneath all Walpole’s affectation, his assumed cynicism, his mask of cold indifference, his anxiety never to be thought serious or in earnest, those who have read with understanding his Letters have found a heart as tender as that of the Sage of Fleet Street whom he always so frankly detested, and have recognized in him a like devoted love of country, a similar filial piety, the same wish to help the poor and the outcast, and an equally passionate devotion to those who showed that they cared for him. In the light of our fuller knowledge to-day, Macaulay’s harsh and bitter judgment on Walpole would be wholeheartedly endorsed by very few.

Walpole’s pseudo-Gothic castle of Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, was one of the show-places of the eighteenth century. No foreigner of distinction came to these shores without visiting it. From the Royal Family downwards, every member of English society had been received there. The art centres of Europe had been ransacked to provide its treasures. The productions of its printing-press were eagerly sought after. Contemporary literature is full of allusions to it. It has been admired or laughed at by each subsequent generation. Stripped of its collections these eighty years and more, it still stands lovingly tended and carefully restored by its successive possessors, as quaint, as odd, as grotesque as ever, but mellowed and softened by time.

Though it is not as much visited as other capitals, Palermo, still the chief town of Sicily, has been a great metropolis in its time. That time is now long ago, but one can still see in it traces that it has wielded sway once, and had the course of history been but slightly different, that it might have rivalled many of the capitals of ununified Italy and all of those of Spain. For fate played Palermo a nasty turn, as we shall see, by subjecting Sicily through her own assent and foolish will to the Aragon domination, long after her quasi-native rulers had ended in Queen Maria. But we are anticipating. Let us go back to earlier times. Palermo began—if we can say that of any town in ancient Sicily, one of the oldest of European countries—as a Phoenician settlement, for Sicily twice was the European outpost against the African invaders, first the Phoenician Carthaginians and then later the Saracens. It, like the rest of Sicily, fell under Greek rule, under Phyrrus, King of Epirus, 276 b.c., but, unlike Syracuse, has no remains redolent of Greece. Then like all Sicily it became Roman (there is a casa romana opposite the Royal Palace), but all the Romans wanted of Sicily was a beautiful province to be filled by cruelly entreated slaves for the benefit solely of the free Romans. After invasions of Goths, Vandals, and other conquerors who passed like locusts, the Byzantines held sway and Palermo was reduced by Belisarius, but they concerned themselves much more about Messina and the slopes of Etna than the Western side of the island in which Palermo lies. The Saracens took it about 835 a.d. Under the African Fatimite Khalifs, in 948, an hereditary Emirate, with its seat in Palermo, was established.

We have no wish, nor capability, to offer a criticism of the astronomies and mathematics of Professor Einstein. Whilst some of the experts capable of giving a sound judgment are not yet on Einstein’s side, the vast bulk of scientific opinion would seem solidly in his favour. By profession he is a mathematican. If then he has succeeded in giving a new simplification of cosmic mathematics, his life’s work has fitted him for discovery.

But even as far back as Plato it was agreed that it is hard for a mathematician to be a philosopher. If then we offer some criticisms on the philosophy of Professor Einstein, it is not that we who are students of the Scholastic Philosophy are impertinently prying into mathematics, but, on the contrary, a genius in mathematics has been tempted beyond his furrow into the field of Philosophy.

A friend of mine, an Anglican clergyman, has written to tell me that he has just returned from his first visit to a Catholic country, thanking God that this experience has been enough to put an end, once and for all, to certain doubts and fears once entertained by him, that it might be his duty to ‘go over to Rome.’ What has caused the recoil is no part of Catholic dogma, with practically all of which (save for some academic difficulties concerning the Primacy of the Pope) he is in almost complete agreement. What has offended him is not Catholic theory, but Catholic practice. In other words, he has found himself for the first time in a Catholic atmosphere, and has discovered that it is little to his liking.

As examples of the sort of thing which has alienated his sympathies he relates how he went into the Santo at Padua, and found the Tabernacle (after some difficulty) in a deserted side-chapel, while the first thing that attracted his eye when he entered the vast church was the shrine of S. Anthony, which was thronged with worshippers. Now my friend has, in theory, a good deal of sympathy with the cultus of the saints. What disedified one who had fought so valiantly for the reserved sacrament in his own Church was the fact that the shrine of S. Anthony was so full, and the side-chapel so neglected. And this was not the worst of his experiences. Proceeding south by slow stages, punctuated by duty visits to churches containing a bewildering number of pictures alleged to be miraculous, which seemed to absorb practically the whole devotion of the people, he came to Rome.

It is a relief to turn from the nebulous emotionalism and egoistical self-centredness of the recent articles on My Religion which have recently appeared in the daily press to Mr. Chesterton’s Everlasting Man—a work which comes upon us as a fresh breeze from the mountain tops. It is a challenge, and a noble one, ranging from scientific theories to religious dogmas. It is quite impossible to give more than the briefest of brief outlines of its scope and treatment, and one can only hint at the faultless and fearless fathoming of flaws in the attitudes of the modern mind. But it is not until we come to the end of the book that we find, what we had all along surmised, that most of the theories attacked are popular rather than really scientific, and the author’s conscience smites him with the thought that he ‘may sometimes have given an impression of scoffing at serious scientific work.’ The book is really meant to be a popular criticism of popular fancies, often, indeed, of very vulgar errors, and it is never meant to be ‘an impertinence to the truly learned.’ So we know where we are, or, at any rate, where we have been, when we come to the Appendix.

In pointing this out we do not mean to imply that his strictures are beside the mark—in point of fact, they hit it every time, and he is inimitably accurate in detecting the weak points in many popular theories.

The art of music has a very important place in Dante’s Commedia, and there are several reasons which make it a matter for no surprise that this should be the case. Firstly, music has always been associated with worship, and it is natural that the prayers of the Church Suffering in Purgatory and the Glorias of the Church Triumphant in Paradise should be expressed in song. Secondly, music was very extensively studied in Dante’s time, and certain branches of the art had been brought to a high pitch of perfection. Thirdly, Dante himself had, besides a considerable knowledge, a very real and intimate love of music, as is attested by his biographers Boccaccio and Bruni and also by many allusions in his own works.

Owing, no doubt, to the high stage of development which music has reached in the present epoch, there is a tendency nowadays to underrate the importance of mediaeval music, to overlook the fact that music of great artistic merit was composed, and that it was studied not only as an abstruse science but also as a living art.

It is true that instrumental music was, if judged by the standards of to-day, of a most elementary description. A great variety of instruments existed, but—as far as we can tell—their quality was very poor, and they appear only to have been used to accompany singing, dancing and marching, never independently. The orchestra as we know it, or even as it was known in the seventeenth century, was non-existent.

Ever since the Council of Trent defined that ‘in the Mass is offered a true and proper Sacrifice’ (Conc. Trid. Sess. XXII, De Sacrificio Missae. Can. I), theological speculation in the schools has been rife evolving multifarious theories as to how the Mass is a Sacrifice, or what it is that formally determines the sacrificial character of the Mass. Various views have been advanced with which famous names of the Society of Jesus are identified, as, for instance, Vasquez, de Lugo, Perrone, Franzelin, Schouppe, Pesch and Billot. These theologians unanimously agree that the immolation of the Victim in the Sacred Passion is itself the complete Oblation or Sacrifice of Redemption, and that this Immolation was an Act of Sacrificial Oblation distinct from, and subsequent to the Last Supper. Not one of these theologians even implies that Immolation is not itself the complete act of Sacrificial Oblation. For example, Cardinal Billot, whom justly Père de la Taille calls a Prince of Theologians, teaches that Immolation is the Sacrificial Oblation of a bloody Sacrifice whether the term be applied to the Mosaic Sacrifices or to the Sacred Passion (cf. Billot, De Sacrific. Miss. Thesis liv, § 2). In the elaboration of their views—although conceivably we may not entirely agree with any one of them—it is notable that on the subject of the Redemptive Sacrifice they keep strictly within the limits traced by theological Tradition and the Council of Trent.

The state of the Catholic Church in Latin-American countries is so often and so glibly misrepresented by ‘our separated brethren’ who sometimes succeed in misleading even Catholics, that it may be of interest to some to read the impressions of one who spent some two years in Peru, several months in Chile, and made short visits to Panama, Brazil and Argentina.

Some of the impressions gained are necessarily superficial, as they were gleaned in the course of visits of no more than a few days’ duration in Panama, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. In Chile, however, and still more in Peru, there was more time and more opportunity for observation, conversation and the forming of definite opinions.

Setting forth from San Francisco for that most fascinating voyage down the coast of Mexico and South America to Callao, I had considerable misgivings as to the state of affairs I might expect to find upon my arrival in Peru, and I carried with me a plentiful supply of prejudice. Arriving at Panama early one Sunday morning, I took the electric tram to the old Spanish city in order to hear Mass. It was half-past eight, and, to my dismay, the policeman of whom I enquired my way to a church informed me that I was too late, there were no more Masses. A kindly passer-by, however, told me that at nine the Bishop of X would be present at Mass in the Church of Las Mercedes; so thither I went, thankful to exchange the torrid, sweltering streets for the cool bareness of the church with its glassless windows. The edifice was already packed, but a well-dressed negro courteously insisted on giving me his place.

Many attempts have been made to fasten upon Capitalism the ‘blame for the evils of this age. In spite of the unrivalled eloquence of our leaders and the courage of their followers, no one has succeeded in making out an unanswerable case, founded upon unimpeachable authority, until now. It has remained for one unworthy to put his pen to the word, and therefore to the argument, which shall give Capitalism, and its attendant monster, Industrialism, their death-blow. The word is RESPONSIBILITY.

Before we proceed to the unanswerable argument we must name the unimpeachable authority and, as words are useless unless defined and definition is the one thing words lack in these days, we must first of all give definitions. But, we shall find, merely to define the words is to imply the argument. The words being understood, the compatibilities and incompatibilities are obvious. It will only be necessary to add some notes. This we shall do, and the blow will have been struck.

The first and most important thing to do is to define Catholicism; for the Catholic Church is the unimpeachable authority. Here we have our backs against the wall. Unless it be admitted that the Catholic Church speaks with the authority of God Himself, we cannot proceed. It is useless to proceed; for there is no other person or institution that makes even the claim to such authority, and no lesser authority can be called unimpeachable.

There is just at present an extraordinary revival of interest in the early Academicians. The publication, volume by volume, of the wonderful Farington Diary, the new annotated edition of J. T. Smith’s Life of Nollekens, and Dr. Williamson’s recent sumptuous quartos on Ozias Humphrey and Johann Zoffany, are all evidences of this. And that interest is quite as much literary as artistic; for no one can forget that in the first years of the Royal Academy, Dr. Johnson was its Professor of Ancient Literature, Goldsmith and Gibbon held successively the Chair of History, while James Boswell was Secretary for Foreign Correspondence.

Among the first Royal Academicians there were two women members, though strangely enough there have never been any since. One of these, Mary Moser, is to-day even more of a shadow than she was in her lifetime. But the other, Angelica Kauffmann, after long years of temporary eclipse, appears now to be coming into her own again, and to be fast regaining the popularity and esteem which were undoubtedly hers during the decades preceding the Revolution.

History has a slovenly way of beginning a new question before she has cleared up half-a-dozen old ones. Here we are with the Russian problem as great a problem as ever, and with no definite settlement of the Franco-German difficulties arrived at, yet, lo and behold, there is an inexplicable turmoil in China, and the cruise of the American Fleet to Australia and New Zealand reminds us that there is a Pacific question.

‘Yes,’ says the Labourite, ‘there is a Pacific question solely because Washington will not let sleeping dogs lie, but must needs arouse them by letting off her big guns all around the Hawaiian Islands. America has created the Pacific question about which you speak.’

‘ON a gloomy and foggy day, one of the worst and foggiest which even London can produce,’ James Elroy Flecker was born in Gilmore Road, Lewisham. The date was November 5th 1884, and his father, the Rev. W. H. Flecker, was the first headmaster of the City of London College School. The future poet

As a child he was obstinate, very observant, and sensitive, with a nervousness which ‘rendered him liable to all kinds of fears,’ and a passionate temper which often’ culminated in outbursts of almost uncontrollable screaming.’ He had an early terror and dread of water, and ‘he screamed until he was taken out of sight and sound of the sea.’ When he was older, having been forced at the age of five to accept the drastic remedy of being taught to swim, he found his great delight in bathing, whether in sea, lake, or river, and,

For us Anglicans it is, of course, open to question whether the latest Papal exposition of the doctrine of inspiration has not imposed restrictions on exegesis which embarrass rather than assist the modern Catholic expositor.’

Since the Reformation the Church has been told that she does not encourage people to read the Bible, that she is opposed to its translation, that she is obscurantist, traditionalist, ultra conservative, etc. Sometimes ‘our erring sister’ is gently chided, but there is always a hardly-veiled air of superiority in rebukes thus delicately administered. Nearly thirty years have elapsed since Leo XIII published his Encyclical, Providentissimus Deus,on the study of Scripture, and it is nearly three-and-twenty years since he established the Biblical Commission, which published its first decision, that on the Pentateuch, in 1906. Of the writers in the various Biblical reviews during the subsequent years some ‘accord us the praise at least of their silence’ ; others are hostile; many contemptuous: few show any conception of the meaning and value of such Papal pronouncements. The disheartening feature is the fact that hostile and ignorant criticisms are not confined to effusions of the daily Press or irresponsible writers in magazines; they emanate from scholars who should know better. Such criticism continues to this day. Dr. Gore can even now speak of ‘this amazing Encyclical’ and add a hope that ‘this assertion of verbal inspiration in its most stringent sense as the doctrine of the Church’ may not be infallible.

Mrs. E. M. Simpson has recently published a study of Donne’s prose works. The author of such a study could not avoid giving some account of those ideas which writers on Donne usually label his ‘Medievalism.’ For no one can read either Donne’s poetry or his prose intelligently unless he is fairly well acquainted with what Donne himself calls the philosophy of the ‘Schoole.’ Seemingly conversant with the whole range of scholastic writers, he had studied St. Thomas Aquinas with particular diligence, and he admired his genius profoundly : indeed he puts him on a level with St. Augustine, and in one place, addressing God, he speaks of St. Thomas as ‘that other instrument and engine of thine, whom Thou hadst so enabled that nothing was too minerall and centrick for the search and reach of his wit.’