THE IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. AGE SOCIETY is now formed, for the purpose of providing lodgings for those discharged from Smithfield, and employed in Dublin. Four sets of lodgings are now occupied, and we understand that most excellent results are already appearing. The subscription to the PATRONAGE SOCIETY is limited to one pound. All information will be afforded by Mr. J. P. Organ, who can be addressed at Smithfield Institution, or at Mespil Lodge, Mespil Parade, Upper Leeson street, Dublin. We have, just as we were going to press, received the following Circular : Smithfield Refuge for Exemplary Prisoners, This Institution, founded by the Directors of Convict Prisons in Ireland, and which has now been in successful action during the past eight months, affording to the most exemplary class of convicts a place of probation between the prison and the world, and admitted by the most competent authorities to be the best solution to the great and important question- "WHAT CONVICTS?" SHALL WE DO WITH OUR Satisfied as all the friends of this Institution are with its success, they believe that that success cannot reach its fullest point of developement without the agency of a PATRONAGE SOCIETY, which will aid in procuring employment for the men, and also in securing lodgings in reputable although humble portions of the city, and for which the men will be, as is well known, most happy to pay. A few gentlemen well acquainted with, and interested in, Reformatory Systems and Prison Discipline, have agreed to act as a Committee until later in the year, when the inhabitants of Dublin shall have returned to the city at the close of the season, when it is proposed that a public meeting shall be called, and at which the objects of the Society can be explained at length. Meanwhile all communications may be addressed to Mr. J. P. ORGAN at the Institution, Smithfield, where he attends each evening from 5 to 7 o'clock. Among those who have already subscribed are the following:- Captain Walter Crofton, Chairman of the Directors ... 10 0 1 John Lentaigne, Esq., D.L., Director of Convict ... Captain Whitty, Director of Convict Prisons in Ireland 1 Patrick Joseph Murray, Esq, ... Hon. William Joseph Duane, Philadelphia 1 0 0 0 ... N.B. The Subscription is limited to £1. Lives of the most eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects of the Order of S. Dominic. Translated from the Italian of Father Marchese of the same Institute, with Notes, &c. By The Rev. C. P. Meehan. 2 vols. 2 vols. Dublin: James Duffy. 1852. Some fifty years ago the title of these volumes would have appeared to many that of a romance, and even in these days. when the conviction that a man may be a Catholic priest, or even a monk, and yet a scholar or an artist, forces itself reluctantly on a large portion of the public. Ignorance and prejudice have combined with malice to misrepresent and blacken the monastic character. It is in no spirit of religious partizanship that we write, when we condemn, with every fair and judicious man, the attempts of those prejudiced and uncandid writers with whom a monk is a word synonymous with superstition, ignorance, and brutality. If the character, as drawn by them, possesses the least ingenuity or intellect, these are sure to be applied to the worst, ends, to the gratification of every debased and sensual passion, and, under the pretence of the advancement of religion, to personal aggrandisement and advancement. Few, however, now a days, with the least pretensions to the title of educated, are ignorant of the history of what are called the Dark Ages-few who do not know that, for six centuries, the lamp of learning, of science, and of art, was preserved from extinction, and fed with its supporting oil, within the walls of the monasteries and convents. Boundless hospitality, true hospitality, knowing no distinction of rank or creed, hospitality that welcomed with even hand the beggar and the prince, the heretic and the true believer, that threw open wide the gates, and gave the cheerful welcome to all comers, was the characteristic of the convent in the olden time. The weary traveller, foot-sore and fainting on his lone journey, beheld the convent walls rising to his view in the dim twilight, and his frame was animated with renewed vigor. He entered without hesitation, assured of the welcome, and was greeted with courtesy tempered with humility. The cheerful board was set, and the good things from which the monastic rule debars themselves, were plentifully set forth to be enjoyed by the guests of the brotherhood. Then went round those ancient legends, some of which have descended to us illustrated by the pencils of their narrators, and in which historic truth and fiction were so curiously blended; and while some of the community remained to dispense the hospitality of the house, others retired to their cells, some to prayer and meditation, and some to pursue the tasks of transcription or illumination, to which to this hour literature is so much indebted. Truly those men well merited the name of slothful by whose unceasing toil, early and late applied, barren and desolate tracts grew into fruitful farms or bloomy gardens; well were they called ignorant and brutal whose hands produced those manuscripts, those pictures, and those statues which still exist for our admiration; well were they styled avaricious and grasping whose boundless hospitality embraced all comers. In every age, and to the present hour, the monastery has been a refuge for men who, sated with the pleasures of the world, and convinced of the hollowness and nothingness of its delusions, desire to close their days in seclusion and the practice of devotion. We have never visited any of the noble continental monasteries, a few of which still remain, and marked the many noble though attenuated faces that meet the view, the flashing eye, subdued by religious feeling, which glances forth from under many a dark cowl, without thinking of the monk of St. David's, and fancying we see the melancholy half pitying glance which he throws upon the rough warrior who dismisses so carelessly his admonitory counsel : "Again on the knight looked the churchman old, And again he sighed heavily, For he had himself been a warrior bold, And fought in Spain and Italy; And he thought of the days that were long since by, And again : "The monk gazed long on the lovely moon, Then into the night he looked forth, And red and bright the streamers light The youth in glittering squadrons start And hurl the unexpected dart."* But it is not alone to the weary and disappointed man that the monastery affords a refuge. Numbers enter at an early age, feeling conscious that its seclusion and repose are best fitted to the contemplative turn of their minds. The majority of these are persons of intellect and education, many of genius, and some of high birth and connexions, and here they all experience the truth of the words, "Bonum est nos hic esse, quia homo vivit purius, eadit It is little surprising that the arts of painting and sculpture, in especial, should have had in the ancient monasteries their refuge and asylum. The inen who had forsaken rank, and power, and wealth, and broken all worldly ties, to consecrate to Religion, not alone their mortal frames, but their powers of mind and genius, could have had no higher or more glorious object for the exercise of those powers than the exemplification and illustration, by the labors of the chisel or the palette, of the history and mysteries of that religion to which they were body and soul devoted. To raise fitting temples for the practice of Religion, architecture was studied and improved; to adorn these temples, and to impress the unlettered multitude, painting and sculpture were employed, and by their means were brought vividly before the eyes those great events in the history of Christianity which formed the fundamental part of the general belief. No inspiration could equal that which flowed from a religious source into the minds of these men, no sublunary motive could animate their toil, and lend that perfection to their labors. which the desire to glorify their Creator and exalt his name and works supplied; nor could they ever have imparted to the countenances of their painted figures the sweetness and beauty and refined spirituality which characterize them, had they not in their own minds and hearts, a perennial spring and fountain of heavenly charity and love. When the history of all the painters, architects and sculptors which the monastic orders produced in the middle ages, has been written, the world will perhaps be willing to acknowledge what is due to that institution. In the writer of the original of the volumes before us, the Dominican order have found an able and enthusiastic historian, who in his turn has been happy in the labors of an accomplished and elegant translator. The Rev. Mr. Meehan is a ripe and well read scholar, he expresses himself eloquently, and we cannot avoid heartily commending the spirit in which he has devoted himself to his task, and while he has established, by bringing before the general reading public, the claims of the Dominician order to the respect and admiration of the artist, and the lover of art, he has shewn that the Catholic priesthood, in these days, is not without its men of ability and merit. The history of the origin and progress of the Dominican, or preaching friars, is now pretty generally known. The names of Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, and Savonarola, are familiar to all, but in the volumes before us we have a want supplied. Though they embrace an account of the sculptors and architects, they are principally devoted, and justly, to the history of the painters of the Dominican order. Of these the highest places have by general consent been assigned to Fra Angelico da Fiesole and Bartolommeo della Porta. Fra Angelico was born near Florence, in the year 1387. His family name is unknown, but the purity of his life gained for him the designation by which he is now known," Angelico," and he was also distinguished by that of "Beato," or Blessed, Fra being a familiar word for Frate, or Brother. His early instruction in painting is unknown, but it appears that he at first devoted himself to the illuminating Choral books, which practice was at the time the usual introduction to more ambitious efforts. Having entered the Dominican order, Fra Angelico subsequently joined the Convent at Fiesole, founded by Giovanni de Domenico Bacchini, and having been by religious and political |