233 ART. VII.-Annales Ecclesiastici: quos post Cæsarem S. R. E. Cardinalem Baronium, Odoricum Raynaldum ac Jacobum Laderchium, Presb. Cong. Oratorii de Urbe; ab anno MDLXXII. ad nostra usque Tempora continuat Augustinus Theiner, ejusd. congreg. Presbyter. Roma: e Typographiâ Tiberinâ. Folio Tom. I. 1856, pp. 560; Tom. II., 1856, pp. 642; Tom. III., 1856, pp. 844. Ir ever the adage-'a great book, a great evil'-received a palpable and striking exemplification, the new Annales Ecclesiastici may claim to have impressed it on their readers. We approached the work with very great interest; we hoped that, as the new Bollandists in Brussels are forwarding and successfully prosecuting the gigantic labours of former generations, and slowly but surely accomplishing the enormous edifice of the Acta Sanctorum -so the prodigious undertaking of Baronius was now, though his two immediate successors had ceased from their labours, to receive its tardy accomplishment. One word on the original Annales, before we speak of their continuation. It was nascent Protestantism which first seized on the idea of an Universal History of the Church, as a means to fortify its own position, and propagate its own tenets. The Magdeburg Centuriators, whatever were their deficiencies both in learning and moral qualities, and however defective-when tried by the rules of a truer criticism-they are found, won for themselves a prodigious reputation, and amazed Europe with their ponderous and gigantic learning. Rome found that she needed her own labourers in the same field; and, with her usual tact, she sent forth the fitting champion to preserve her reputation. Cæsar Baronius, born at Sora in the year 1540, and entered as a member of the Oratory at an early age, commenced his Annales Ecclesiastici at thirty, laboured on them till seventy, bringing them down, in what now form nineteen folio volumes, to 1198. His mantle descended on Odoricus Raynaldus, of the same congregation, who closed his labours with his fifteenth volume, and at the year 1565. To these Mansi added his notes, and Pagi such laborious chronological researches, as almost to have made that part of the history his own. Laderchius took up the history in 1565, and brought it down seven years further. There it remained unfinished, and many had been the wishes expressed that it were possible 'To call up him who left half told or, failing that, that Moses might find his Joshua, and Elijah be succeeded by his Elisha. The late Pontiff, Gregory XVI., entreated and almost commanded another member of the same congregation, Augustine Theiner, to continue a work which seemed to belong to his own order. After the labours of twenty years, we have the first-fruits of the result in the three volumes of which we have just quoted the title. The first thing which will strike the ordinary reader, is the vast length to which these Annals run. The first volume, in 560 pages, contains only three years; the second, in 642, only four; the third, with 844, is made to embrace seven years. It is easy to calculate that, at a similar length of narration, it would require between sixty and seventy volumes to reach the present time. What estimate M. Theiner may have made of the probable existence of human life we know not; but at the end of his preface he speaks of intending, when his task is accomplished, to re-edit the continuation of Raynaldus, with large additions. One is reminded of the question asked by the Pope, when the plan of Bollandus for the Lives of the Saints was first laid before him,- Does the man expect to live two hundred years?' Of course, when we see an ecclesiastical history issuing from a Roman press in all the elegance of the Tiberine typography, and with the imprimatur of the master of the palace and other Roman officials, we know exactly what its sentiments will be. It would be absurd to look for anything but Ultramontanism, according to the straitest sect of that religion. On that score, therefore, we are not about to make any complaint; but we are bound to confess, at the very outset, that, coming as we did to the perusal of this work with every expectation of finding it a worthy continuation of the greatest of annalists, we have been most grievously and bitterly disappointed. Putting aside the classical elegance of the Latinity, we can hardly conceive a more complete historical failure than these ponderous volumes. Having thus expressed a strong opinion, it is but fair that we should endeavour to make our assertions good. We are not now called to consider the question, whether any history can be satisfactorily written in the shape of annals; whether a great work of art can condescend to be thus fettered by the trammels of chronology; whether of all histories, that of the Church is not the most impatient of such restrictions, leaping, as it necessarily must do, from East to West, narrating a little event in Asia, and then another little event in America, and finishing off with an occurrence in Africa. Baronius had chosen the form of annals; Theiner had to continue his work. He professes to arrange his materials thus. He commences each year with the affairs of Germany; he proceeds to those nations, including Scandinavia, which are in any way connected with the German empire; next relates the events which occurred in France; then goes to Spain and Portugal, and to the American and Asiatic colonies of both. The plan would seem theoretically excellent; and as, on the avowed principles of the author, we are to expect no account of the Eastern, Russian, or English Churches, except so far as Roman missions to them may be concerned, we have no ground of complaint on that head. But what we do complain of is this: that instead of taking the trouble to cast the documents placed at his disposal into a history, to give the sense in his own words, to separate the dross from the gold, to evolve one lucid narrative from a farrago of parchments, our annalist prints brief after brief, letter after letter, one official document after another, leaving the reader to find the grain, very often a single one, and sometimes not even that, if he can, in a heap of chaff. This is our first charge, and we will proceed to prove it. The year 1572, the first of Gregory XIII., the ninth of the Emperor Maximilian II., occupies seventy-two pages. Let us see how they are composed. It commences thus: : 'The Piacular Sacrifices, which are commonly called Novendialia, having been, in the accustomed manner, offered to God for the Pontiff who had departed this life, and all things else having been well and wisely disposed, for the preservation of order, and the government of the city, the Cardinals, as many as were then present in Rome, to the number of forty-seven, entered the conclave on Monday, the 12th day of May, in order that, by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they might decide on him whom it might be thought meet to elevate to the chair of S. Peter.' Then follows a very long extract from the diary of Mucanzi, Master of the Ceremonies, as to the official proceedings of the occasion, including a list of all the cardinals, their titles at full length, as well those who were as those who were not in the conclave. The three pages which this account occupies might have been compressed into twice as many lines. Mucanzi is indignant, as well he may be, that, on account of the confusion and preparations, the first vespers of the Ascension and of Pentecost, as well as mass on Ascension-day, were entirely omitted by the cardinals. We may remark that their brother dignitaries at S. Paul's seem to have a happy knack of imitating these proceedings, at least, at S. Peter's. Hugo Boncompagni, having been unanimously elected, assumed the title of Gregory XIII. And now see how M. Theiner overwhelms us with documents. First we have a letter from the Emperor Maximilian, commending his ambassador, Count Archis, to the new Pope. Take a literal translation of it as a specimen of the worth of such documents. 'To the most blessed Father in Christ, the Lord Gregory XIII., by Divine Providence Chief Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his most reverent Lord. 'Most blessed Father in Christ, most reverend Lord, after our most earnest commendation, accept the continual increase of our filial observance. When the most desirable and happy tidings were some days since brought to us, that your holiness was, on the late death of Pius V., Chief Pontiff, of happy memory, elected and assumed, by the unanimous consent of the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, as successor of the same, we entrusted our well-beloved cousin, Prosper Count Archis, of our council, and our ambassador to your Holiness, with the charge of making some communications to you in our name, as you will understand from himself. Therefore we earnestly request your Holiness, not only to give your favourable attention to our aforesaid ambassador on those subjects on which he is about to speak in our own words, and to honour him with the same credit which you would give to us; but also, since the affair committed to him is of such a kind as is of deep importance to the dignity of ourselves and of the holy Roman Empire, our authority and jurisdiction, and therefore naturally is very close to our heart, that your Holiness would adopt such a line of conduct as we have every reason to expect will be the case, from your Holiness's singular equanimity, of which we have heard from many witnesses, and your desire for the public quiet and tranquillity. In which your Holiness will pursue a line of conduct worthy of your own reputation, just in itself, and most acceptable to us, which on every occasion we will endeavour to merit, by the effort of our filial observance. For the rest we beseech God, best and greatest, that He may long vouchsafe to preserve your Holiness in health and safety, for the benefit of His Church. 'Given in our Castle of Ebersdorff, the 23d day of the month of May, in the year of our Lord 1572, and of our reigns, the Roman the tenth, the Hungarian the ninth, the Bohemian the twenty-fourth. 'And of your holiness And can our annalist really have persuaded himself that to conglomerate documents of this kind is to write history? The one fact that Count Archis was accredited by the Emperor to the new Pope, might surely have been dismissed in one line. But if the reader thinks that he is to get off for this single letter, he is very much mistaken. M. Theiner unfortunately had at his elbow the thirty-sixth manuscript volume of the Literæ Principum, in the Vatican Library, and the consequence is, that after the word 'Maximilian,' as above, he proceeds thus: : 'He did the same thing in other letters, in which he info rms the Pontiff, that the ambassadors who were to profess obedience to him in the Emperor's name, might soon be expected at Rome.' To the most blessed Father in Christ, the Lord Gregory XIII., by Divine Providence Chief Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, his most reverent Lord. ""Most blessed Father in Christ, most reverend Lord: after our most earnest commendation, a perpetual increase of filial observance. In sending our present ambassadors, the noble and honourable and learned, trustworthy subjects of ourselves as of the holy empire, Seyfrid Preyner, Baron of Stubing, Hadnitz, and Rabenstain, and John Hegenmüller, doctor of both laws, our Aulic Counsellors to your Holiness, to express in our name the singular joy which we have received from the happy assumption of your holiness to the chief office and dignity of the Apostolate, and to declare also the desire of our filial observance to your Holiness, and our most sincere good-will, as your Holiness will learn from themselves-we again and again entreat your said Holiness to give your favourable attention to our aforesaid ambassadors, and not only to trust them, as regards those things which they will say in our name, with the same confidence with which you would honour us, but to vouchsafe in the same place, and at the same time, to embrace ourselves together with the holy empire, over which by Divine will we are placed in authority, and our hereditary kingdoms and dominions, with the same paternal benevolence which we fully expect from your Holiness. Your Holiness may, in return, promise yourself from us, all the duty of an obedient son. For the rest, we beseech God, best and greatest, that He would vouchsafe long to preserve your Holiness in health and safety, for the benefit of His Church. "Given in our city of Vienna, the 28th day of the month of June, in the year of our Lord 1572, and of our reigns, the Roman the tenth, the Hungarian the ninth, and the Bohemian the twenty-fourth. "And of your holiness "The obedient Son, "MAXIMILIAN." Is that enough? By no means. Our indefatigable historian proceeds : "The Archdukes Rodolph and Ernest united themselves with their loving father in their illustrious testimony of affection to the Pontiff. "To the most blessed lord and father in Christ, the Lord Gregory XIII., by Divine Providence Chief Pontiff of the Holy Roman and Universal Church, their venerable lord. "Most blessed father and lord in Christ, our venerable lord: after our humble commendation, the continual increase of filial observance. Since his sacred Imperial Majesty, our ever-to-be-respected lord and father, has, for the manifesting his reverence to the Holy Apostolic See, despatched the noble and honourable and learned, our faithful and beloved Seyfrid Preyner, Baron in Stubing, Hadnitz and Rabenstain, and John Hegenmüller, doctor in both laws, Aulic Counsellors of his Majesty to your Holiness, in order to express his congratulations-"”' But we shall send our readers to sleep; and we can assure them that no more composing anodyne could be prescribed than |