dr. russell and "the dublin review"

Irish Jesuit Province

Dr. Russell and "The Dublin Review"Source: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 23, No. 259 (Jan., 1895), pp. 51-56Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20498762 .Accessed: 14/06/2014 15:02

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.214 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 15:02:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ijphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/20498762?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

d l )

DR. RUSSELL AND THE DUBLiN RE VIEW.

B EFORE resuming our account of Dr. 0. W. Russell's serious work in the great Catholic Quarterly which he

helped to found and to sustain for forty years, let us reveal some lighter efforts of his pen.

There are very few that have devoted themselves with zest and perseverance to literary composition, who have not written verses from time to time, without making the slightest pretence to a poet's inspiration. Dr. Russell's early correspondence betrays occasionally his relish for the poets. Somewhat late in life, he had sufficient taste to procure the poems of Jean Iingelow-and to be disappointed in them. The youngest verses of his own that I have discovered were printed in the first number of Dolman's M1agaz6ine, March 1845, but written earlier, on a little incident which occurred with his friends, the Ellises of Mariaville, near Maynooth. Giordano Bruno called his defence of the Copernican theory "An Ash Wednesday Supper." The young Maynooth Professor named his verses "Shrovetide Festivities Prolonged."

What! feasting still, though long ago Midnight hath chimed on high,

And the waning stars more faintly glow Along the eastern sky,

Depart, thou thoughtless one, depart! Or stay-to pray and mourn,

To mourn and think that " Dust thou art, To dust thou shalt return."

Ah, thus our changeful life flies past Alternate joys and tears.

The cares 6f manhood follow fast On the sports of boyish years.

Still pleasure's merry bound makes way For the languid step of woe:

As autumn's fairest flowers decay Before December's snow.

And oft the bridal robe prepares A victim for the tomb;

And the merry smile that beauty wears But marks its early doom;

And all that seems the fairest May be soonest doomed to sorrow,

And the laugh that now thou hearest May be changed to wail to-morrow

Then strew the mnystic ember Upon thy fair young brow;

And remember. oh! remember This morning's awful vow.

Be it ever in thy heart 'Twill be graven on thy urn

IDust and ashes, man, thou art, -And to dust thou shalt return.


http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

52 The Irish Monthly.

In honour of the holy season of Christmas let us slip in here another little sample of the President's verse-making which occurs i one of the many tales for children which he translated from the

German of Christopher von Schmid, Canon of Augsburg. At this moment, as in so many bygone Decembers, Christendom is kneel ing in adoration " At the Crib:

My infant God! at this rude throne, Whose power the conscious Angels own,

I humbly bow the knee ! Humbly with Mary I adore, While Angel-choirs on high outpour

Their hymn of praise to Thee.

Son of the eternal God above! My Saviour! ah, what earthly love

Can with Thy lore compare? Thy little lips are silent now:

Yet who can scan that infant brow, Nor read this lesson there:

"Whoe'er thou art, 0 child of woe, Look on this homeless Babe, and know

Thy Saviour and thy Friend: On Him in all thy sorrows rest Turn to His all-enfolding breast,

He loves thee to the end.

And let His heaven-descended love A guiding beacon ever prove

To thine own charity; Spur not the houseless from thy door But show thou mercy to the poor,

As Christ hath shown to thee."

Much more finished efforts of this grave Muse are the contributions to Dublin Acrosties, signed " C. W." There " C. W." entered into competition with clever young barristers and more important personages. The miost striking revelations that this Magazine has ever been privileged to make in literary matters were those con cernmg the very distinguished and very composite authorship of that briilhint little quarto, incomparably the best of its kind, in

which bishops and judges condescended to be accomplices. As the late Mr. Robert Reeves, Q.C, wrote out for me at full length the answers to all these acrostics, and as I may consider myself the literaxy representative of two of these contributors-one of them the acknowledged leader of the little band-I intend to print them by instalments, and to furnish the solutions, after allowing a proper interval for such of my readers as may care to exercise their ingenuity upon them. I refrain, therefore, from citing here any of the contributions of C. W. R. The only other proof I shall now adduce of his poetical taste will be his letter to a young lady whose first poem had just appeared in The Cornhill Jfagazine with



Dr. Russell and the Dublin Review. 53

an illustration from the pencil of Sir John Millais The following criticisms refer to "Irene," a poem which will be foind amongst

Miss Mulholland's Vagrant Verses

MY DEAR RosA, I am indeed very happy at this recognition of your unquestion

able merit, and I most cordially congratulate you upon it, as I trust, the opening to much more and much better fortune.

You will, I know, not take it amiss that I should point out two or three things, which, it strikes me, weaken your otherwise very

beautiful lines and which five minutes would set right. I am not sure that I understand the lines about "lulling

thought to rest " and "I drawing the curtain o'er the sleeper;" but if they mean what I suppose, the passage is at best obscure, and I think the image far-fetched and overstrained.

I think you could easily have avoided the laboured line about "Earth the mourning, earth the faded; "-and I should say the same about the " shoulder's cloudy vesture." But I am sure that if you would but lay these little pieces aside for a few weeks so as to forget their details and would then come back to them with your mind fresh and unprejudiced as well as relieved from the actual effort of seeking for rhymes and evading or surmounting difficulties of composition, you would be your own best critic. It is a bad thing to be too ready. It begets carelessness, and the habit is best corrected by some such plan as J suggest. I know you will believe that I do so wlth the most friendly and affectionate concern for your success.

In great haste, Ever affectionately yours,

0. W. RUSSEL.

Two days later, I find him writing to myself on the same subject: "The letter you send me interests me exceedingly, and I sincerely trust that this dear good girl will, be blessed by God with the full realization of all her hopes."

Al er dallying too long in these flowery by-paths of poesy, let us resume our explorations in the more rugged region of The Dublin Review. Last month we attempted a catalogue raisonnJ of Dr. Russell's more important contributions to its first twenty half-yearly vNolumes-the first decade of its rosary, which has already run tbrough the chaplet of five decades and bids fair to accomplish the full fifteen. That will bring us on to the year 1984; and it is hardly apractical question to go further. The reader who has access to a Eeries of The Dublin Review is stronagly recommended to consult the Number of our Magazine which appeared in February 1893

[IRISH MONTHLY, volume xxi] and there, at page 85, he will find a list of writers which will probably tempt him to take down the volumes one by one and turn with keen interest to the various articles whose authorship is revealed. The twentieth voluime, which we had reached last month in our survey, is one of the most interesting, for Dr. Newman's name makes its almost solitary



54 The Irish 2lonthly.

appearance among the Dublin Reviewers. But volume XXI has an excellent staff of contributors: Professor Augustus de Morgan on Mathematical Bibliography, Dr. W. G.

Ward on the charge of Mariolatry, Dr. George Crolly on Carlyle's Cromnwell, the Rev. John Brande Morris on the Tridentine Canon of Scripture, Dr. Russell on Hen drik Conscience's Tales, Dr. Murray on Dickens's unworthy "' Pictures from Italy," Canon Oakely on Church Music, Dr.

Wiseman on the Fate of Sacrilege, and an article on the Benedic tines of St. Maur which Mr. Bagshawe's list attributes to the Rev.

Dr. Murphy of Maynooth-a mistake for the Rev. Matthew Kelly, for the other not uncommon name has never yet figured on the academic staff. The articles enumerated form the first half of the twenty-first volume, to which Dr. Russell's contribution in the second half was a doctrinal discussion of the epitaphs found in the Catacombs, with illustrations and numerous quotations which must have made these thirty-three pages a very expensive item in the printer's bill.

If the history of The Dublin Review could be written in full, we suspect it would be as interesting as the narrative of an eventful human life. Probably Father John Morris, SJ., would have given to it, in the life of Cardinal Wiseman which he had begun when his own life with startling suddenness came to an end, a much larger space then will be allotted to it in Mr. Wilfrid NWard's bio graphy of this great man which to our surprise we see already announced as in the press. Though we cannot hope that this clever writer will do the same justice to the Cardinal as to his own father, his work will have some merits no doubt that Father Morris's would have lacked, but it will also fail to supply much that we might have hoped from the Cardinal's whilome secretary. This Father John Morris is to be carefully distinguished from the Rev. John Brande Morris who contributed largely to The Dublin Review at the period with which we are dealing. To this period belongs the following letter from Cardinal Wiseman, which is merely dated

Corpus Christi Eve. Dr. Murray's article on Hood's Poems, to which it refers, begins at page 386 of volume XX (June 1846). A very brilliant article it is, separated by one of Dr. Ward's from Cardinal Newman's beautiful paper on Keble's Lyra Innocentium. Yet I suppose the subscribers to The Dublin Reviewc grumbled in those days also. Unreasonable grumbling is not a lost art.

MY DEAR DR. RUSSELL-The note herewith sent has been lying on my table some days and has been overlooked. I have thus the opportunity of answering your second letter about the Review. I have written to Richardson t) let me know exactly how we stand for next Number; and, if there be room, the two papers you mention shall be put in, to the exclusion of myself and others, as Mr. Morris (an excel ent article) Mr. Ward and Mr. Oakley. Mr. Newman is safe in.



Dr. Russell and the Dublin Review. 55

I do not know what the curtailment or alterations in Dr. Murray's or Dr. Crolly's papers can be, as I lhave seen the proofs always, and have not noticed any such. In the the article on Michelet (which I was obliged to go to Derby to correct, from press of time) there were some words which on reference to the MS. I could not make out, even

with the help of another, and I may have changed a phrase or omitted a name in consequence; but that was all. In Dr. Murray's article on Hood I have taken the liberty of altering one phrase because I feared its giving pain in a certain important quarter. But I thould wish the same to be done with any expression in a paper of my own which any one qualified to judge might think likely to do so.

tf he Pope's death is a heavy blow, and to me a personal loss, for he was an old and kind friend as well as a spiritual superior. We have had a solemn Dirge for him to-day.

Remember me most kindly to all my friends. I am ever, my dear Dr. Rtussell-Yours affectionately in Xt,

+ N. WISEMAN.

As a piece of posthumous scandal, we have poked out the article on Michelet written so illegibly as to defy Dr. Wiseman and another. Our malevolence has been defeated, for the article is found in the nineteenth volume of the Review: whereas, if the reader refers back to page 85 of our twenty-first volume (February 1893) he will find that a long gap occurs in our revelations of authors' names and that this gap ends with but includes the Number enriched by the pen of Michelet's illegible Reviewer.

We may give another of Cardinal Wiseman's letters about Tlze Dublini in which we find he has anticipated an observation we made about the pathetic interest that might be excited by the true history of such a literary enterprise if it could be fully set forth. This letter is dated from St. Mary's College, Ded. -SS. Salv. 1844 " that is, Oscott, November 9th.

MY DEAR DR. RUSSELL-Richardson takes the Review upon our terms, and I shall have a meeting with him this week to arrange all matters. While we were negotiating with Dolman, he said to a friend of mine that D, could Inot keep it a year, and then he hoped that he should get it. Indeed he seemed most eager to have it, said that he had made his calcuilations to a penny, and found that he could do it but that Dolman could not possibly,-that he would build new premises expressely &c. You may judge of his capabilities by the work which he has already created. The other day he had, when a friend of mine called on him, three steam-presses and a hand-press employed on Catholic books. Jones of London printed some years ago an edition of Challonor's Missionary Priests, and Richardson put off publishing his edition for nearly two years to let him get off 70 or 170 copies. He has now published his, and tholugh he always takees off many thousands, he has now orders for 1600 more than he has by him. His stock of Butler's Lives of the Saints consist of 40,000 copies which he is quite sure of selling as soon as the work is completed. I mention this to show how by his energy and capital he does what our other publishers cannot attempt. I feel confident therefore that in his



56 The Irish Monthly.

hands the Review will be pushedforwardverydifferentlyfromthe past.' Still we must look for great outcry and opposition from our old publishers and booksellers. Richardson wil lower its price to five shillings. The next thing to be thought about is articles. Now that you can promise retribution, I hope you may be able to get your friends to write for us. Montalembert told me he had not time himself to write but would have an article on education writteu for us by Mr.

Audley (the Paris correspondent of The Tablet) and wished to know our terms. I have not answered, as we did not know them, but will to day. I shall write immediately an article on Perrone, &c. (a long article) and one on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius which are going to be translated; for I feel we must now be punctual to the day. I am thinking (as Mr. Bagshawe has been so anxious about re tiring from the editorship) of managing it all here, with your assist ance as heretofore. Mr. Renouf will have an article on the testimonies of the Greek Church to the Supremacy. These are all I know of; so please to use all your efforts for the next Number, which must be a superior one, so as to crush all opposition and drown outcry. Water ton's Essays ought to be reviewed, also the Oxford Lives of the Saints,

particularly St. Augustine and St. Wilfrid. I am sorry all the reports about Newman should have turned out

false; but no doubt the waters are being moved, and a commotion ending in a crisis may, I think, be expected.

I shall anxiously await your reply. If the secret history of the D. R. were known to the public, how strange it would appear! So often on the point of sinking, yet always rescued-it looks as if heaven regarded it propitiously. No one has an idea of the extent of anxiety, trouble, and sacrifice by which it has been kept up. I now really begin to look up to it with hope. Much will depend on our next Number, and \we

must all exert ourselves. With kind regards to Dr. Murray and all friends, I am ever,

My dear Dr. Russell, Yours very sincerely in Xt,

. N. WISEMAN

But six days later the Coadjutor Bishop (as the Cardinal then was) wrote to say that Sir Arnold Knight had, under threat 'of paralysis at least, condemned him to a complete cessation of labour, and that he would not be able to write a line for that next Number of the D. R. on which so much depended. " Just when all was so nicelv arranged. But fiat voluntas Dei. You must therefore take on yourself the editorship of the next Number and press and make a tremendous effort for once. I hope Renouf's article will not clash with your work. But, if you fear it, I will stop him." This seems to refer to some projected work on the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff which was never accomplished. Though Dominus complevit labores illius is one of the blessings promised to the just

man in the Book of Wisdom, there are completions of many kinds, and the just man will be rewarded by God etemally for many

works which seem in the eyes of men to be left incomplete.



Article Contentsp. 51p. 52p. 53p. 54p. 55p. 56

Issue Table of ContentsThe Irish Monthly, Vol. 23, No. 259 (Jan., 1895), pp. i-viii, 1-56Volume InformationFront MatterThe First Lord Coleridge and His Brother [pp. 1-15]Foreshadowing [p. 16-16]The Disgrace of Knockmoney [pp. 17-19]Three Noble Hearts [pp. 20-21]My Acquaintance with Ireland and Mrs. Atkinson [pp. 22-25]St. Ita. Patroness of the Diocese of Limerick (Jan. 15) [p. 26-26]Right Rev. Dr. Bacon, First Bishop of Portland, Maine, New England, U.S.A.: The Bishop: His Orphans: His Mother [pp. 27-31]Another! [p. 31-31]Review: Notes on New Books [pp. 32-38]Fleeting [pp. 38-39]Kilaveena. An Ulster Story [pp. 40-50]Dr. Russell and "The Dublin Review" [pp. 51-56]

dr. russell and "the dublin review"

Documents