THE

DUBLIN REVIEW.

OCTOBER, 1863.

ART. I.-DR. HOOK'S LIVES OF THE ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY.

Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. By Walter Farquhar Hook, D.D., Dean of Chichester. Vol. II. Anglo-Norman Period. Second edition. London: Bentley. 1862.

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THEN the last successor of S. Augustine the monk in the See of Canterbury had been buried in the person of Reginald Pole, Cardinal of S. Maria in Cosmedin, by the tomb of S. Thomas-emptied of the sacred relics-Matthew Parker, who had obtained possession of some of their estates, collected materials for writing the Lives of the Archbishops, Primates of All England and ex officio Legates of the Holy See. He was assisted in this work by his friends, but his principal strength lay in his secretary, John Jocelyn, who is probably the real compiler of the book "De Antiquitate Britannica Ecclesiæ," from which Godwin pilfered without shame when he wrote the Lives of all the English Bishops.

Jocelyn's book is scarce-perhaps it was never published in the modern sense of that word; it was reprinted abroad, and, except as a curiosity, is worth nothing now, owing to the elaborate edition of Drake. The original editions of Godwin are also valueless in the presence of the last edition by Richardson, who has corrected the many blunders which Henry Wharton, in his zeal for Jocelyn, pointed out with no small indignation, and perhaps not without some satisfaction also.

Until our own day Parker and Godwin have had no successors, though the need may have been felt, and the materials have grown abundant. Kings and queens, chancellors and chief justices, and the judges generally have had their biographers. The archbishops had no remembrancers till Dr. Hook, Dean of Chichester, arose, who with discordant sounds breaks the silence of two centuries and a half, not in the spirit of Parker VOL. I.—NO. II. [New Series.]

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and of Godwin, who hated, and in a manner feared, the archbishops gone to their rest, but in a spirit altogether his own, scoffing, sceptical, and unjust. Parker dealt with the archbishops as with men who belonged to another world, and of another order, with whom he had nothing in common. To him they were a race extinct, without successors, never to return in any form. He hated them and their ways, but he was afraid of them somehow, and never had the stupid courage to make jests at their expense. The old hierarchy in its stately pomp had disappeared, and even the outward signs of the old religion were gone for ever in his eyes: to him a deluge seemed to have intervened between himself and Cardinal Pole. With Dr. Hook it is quite otherwise: he labours to identify the successors of Matthew Parker with the successors of S. Augustine, and would persuade his readers, if he could, that Dr. Longley is as much the Archbishop of Canterbury as Lanfranc. Matthew Parker lived too near the great catastrophe and the traces of the deluge were too visible-to deceive himself, or attempt to deceive his readers. He had lived, as it were, in the days. before the flood, for he was an apostate priest, and knew what was said and done by the men whose lives he described. It was therefore impossible for him even to imagine that there could be any resemblance between the bishops and preachers whom he made by the new rites of man's invention, and the old prelates and priests who said mass and obeyed, however imperfectly, the mandates of the Pope. Not so Dr. Hook: he lives in another generation, in which Joseph is unknown; and though a minister of a new religion, would rather trace his relationship to the Pope, than be acknowledged as the elder brother of the dissenting gentleman who preaches in Salem Chapel. Thus we hear from him, that "the Archbishop of York was a sound Anglican" (p. 252); and that "a very simple daily service was ordered" (p. 592) in the twelfth century. Again: "a special form of prayer was appointed" (p. 560); S. Anselm finds "comfort in the daily service" (p. 275); S. Thomas "celebrates the Holy Communion" (p. 490); and Archbishop Baldwin, going into Wales to preach the Crusade, reminds him "of the manner in which the cause of the African mission was supported on a late occasion, by the co-operation of one of our most gifted prelates, in conjunction with the most eloquent of our lawyers and statesmen" (p. 560). Speaking of S. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, who arranged the "Use of Sarum," he says that he was "appointed to act as precentor of the Episcopal College, and to conduct the services whenever the prelates assembled in synod. The title is still retained by the indefatigable, learned, and pious prelate who

occupies the See of Salisbury at the present time; who has, indeed, proved himself to be the worthy successor of Bishop Osmund, by helping to prepare, and by giving his sanction to, a hymn-book for his diocese, which is likely soon to become the use of the whole province" (p. 165). If this passage had been intended for irony it might pass, but even then it would be clumsy; but as a serious comparison of the labours of S. Osmund with those of Dr. Hamilton-compiling a hymn-book-it becomes ridiculous and offensive. But Dr. Hamilton is the person to complain of it. Dr. Hook, not satisfied with violence done to historical facts, descends to a lower deep, and interprets what he does not understand by the help of unbelieving men, whom he prefers to the saints he vilifies. Thus, S. Peter Damian becomes "a canonized fanatic " (p. 438); S. Anselm, because he obeyed his confessor, sank into "moral imbecility" (p. 267). Of Hubert Walters, Archbishop of Canterbury, he says, without a shadow of reason, that he was one of those who "accepted bishoprics without believing in the Divine institution of Episcopacy" (p. 600). To Pope Callixtus II. he applies the words, "like a tall bully who lifts his head and lies" (p. 292). Of the Holy See he says, "what was called the Apostolic See" (p. 32); and finally, adopting the language of infidelity, he writes, "of all the phenomena of insanity, the Crusades were the most astonishing" (p. 35).

This spirit of hatred is relieved, for the benefit of another class of readers, by the spirit of buffoonery, as it shows itself in the modern way. Lanfranc, providing books for the library of the monks at Canterbury, founded "a lending library (p. 107). "From the monastery went forth the Scripturereader to visit the sick" (p. 20). The labours of Eustace of Flaye, in denouncing fairs and markets, with their attendant evils, on Sunday, are called the "Sabbatarian Controversy' (p. 648). When S. Anselm by the bedside of William Rufus refused to be invested with the staff and ring, he is said to have "put his hands in his pockets" (p. 192); and when he received the pallium before the high altar of Canterbury he "unpacked the box" (p. 215) in which it had been brought from Rome. Lanfranc's meditations on the Four Last Things is called "Eschatology" (p. 84).

There are many phrases in this work which seem to proceed from a spirit which has shaken off early impressions, and eliminated from its received opinions-for faith we cannot speak of-most of the doctrines current among the better sort of Protestants. If we are to judge of Dr. Hook by the statements he makes, we should say that he has abandoned almost

every definite proposition of theology, and has come down into the thick darkness, where all is obscure and where nothing is certain. The following passage will make plain our meaning, for we prefer that, in a matter of this importance, Dr. Hook should be the expounder of his own views:

Amid all diversities of opinions, however, the unity of the Church is preserved, and, in the language of primitive Christianity, its orthodoxy is affirmed, so long as it adheres to the one centre doctrine of the whole Christian scheme, asserted by the Council of Nice, and zealously watched by each succeeding council, assuming to be cecumenical-the Incarnation of the Eternal Son of God. This has always been called the Catholic faith. So long as he relies on the one Mediator between God and man, the Son of God incarnate, a Christian remains a Christian, however much his mind may be deformed by strange doctrines not inconsistent with this fundamental fact; just as man is man, whether seated on the throne of an emperor, or pining upon inadequate food in the hut of the Esquimaux.-(P. 760).

We make no reflections on this passage, and pass on to the consideration of the historical value of Dr. Hook's work. After an elaborate "introduction," in which he misrepresents, but without intending to do so, the whole spirit and character of the Middle Ages, he enters on the life of Lanfranc, who became Archbishop of Canterbury at the Conquest.

Lanfranc had refused the archbishopric of Rouen, and was with difficulty persuaded to accept that of Canterbury. He had left Pavia, his native place, and had settled at Avranches, in Normandy, where he taught with great success, and was attended by crowds who listened to him with the most careful attention. Divine grace moved him to abandon the world, and to retire into the cloister. He was not disobedient to the heavenly voice, and, quitting Avranches, made his way to Rouen, and finally to Bec, where a new monastery was struggling under the great Herluin. Dr. Hook, unable to comprehend the vocation of Lanfranc, says that he was now "subjected to one of those sudden conversions" (p. 79) which he traces to the loss of his wife;" a supposition perfectly groundless, for, though none of Lanfranc's biographers say that he was never married, yet, as Dr. Hook himself admits, there is nothing recorded of him which tends in the slightest degree to give the least excuse for this strange explanation of an act which is not uncommon. He quitted Avranches suddenly, without giving notice to his auditors; but that fact was not without precedent nor extravagant, and is perfectly consistent with previous deliberationperhaps even a proof of Lanfranc's careful weighing of what he was about to do. At Bec he was received by Herluin, and admitted among the monks :

It was Brother Lanfranc's turn to read in hall. He was proceeding with a sentence in which the word "docere" occurred, and he of course pronounced it properly, with the middle syllable long. "Docere, docere," said the prior, rather pompously, and "docere" was repeated by Brother Lanfranc.-(P. 88).

Dr. Hook has failed to understand the story, and has also told it inaccurately. There is no evidence that the corrected word was "docere;" that word is used by way of illustration, but it is not given as the word in question. The pomposity of the prior is a pure myth; and when Dr. Hook says that "Lanfranc may have amused his friends by relating the occurrence, for he had a sense of the ridiculous," he confesses that he has not comprehended the fact. Lanfranc was a monk learning obedience, and if he had amused himself with the prior's correction, he would have himself failed precisely as Dr. Hook has failed. The prior was a man of great simplicity, not learned, and Lanfranc was a novice of great fame for learning the story is perfectly natural; but Dr. Hook, with his intrepid carelessness, has disfigured it. Thus in the matter of the " lending library" which Lanfranc founded at Canterbury, we are told that the librarian "handed over to the chapter a list of the books lent, and of the persons to whom they had been allotted" (p. 108). The monks of Canterbury assembled in the chapterhouse on the appointed day, returned the books previously lent, and received each another, when the librarian made a minute. of the transaction in the chapter-room, all the monks being present; and this Dr. Hook translates "handed over to the chapter."*

Blunders of this kind prove beyond all doubt that Dr. Hook is not to be trusted. He has written in haste; and being not very learned in the manners and speech of the people about whom he writes, falls naturally into mistakes, and avoids none which sustain his prejudices. It is therefore by no means difficult to ascertain the true value of Dr. Hook's historical labours. They show that he is not familiar with the history of the times he describes; that he does not understand the language in which most of it is written; and that he has not ascertained the sources of his information.

At page 127 he makes mention of the trial on Penenden Heath, where Lanfranc recovered the possessions of his seo from Odo of Bayeux, who, though a bishop as well as an earl, had stolen many manors from the Church of Canterbury. "Every reader," says Dr. Hook, "will have read of the celebrated suit on Penenden Heath; but unless he has the

* Distributis per ordinem libris, præfatus librorum custos in eodem capitulo imbreviet nomina librorum, et eos recipientium.—Const. Lanfranc,