The "Foreign Contrast."

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uninteresting, a gauge is supplied by which the increasing depth and fervour of the main action is measured. For reasons which have been already given, the foreign contrast in "Lear" could not be external; Shakespere has therefore made it internal. It is in the very bosom of the play. The hearts of Regan and Goneril constitute the foreign contrast in "King Lear." By the time that the affairs of Gloster begin to interest us too much to allow of their retaining this office, the characters of the two daughters have been fully developed, for small is the development required by utter selfishness. The hearts of "these daughters," once known to us, like the earthen pyrometers of the chemist, remain unchanged in the furnace of feeling, only gauging the surrounding heat by their shrinking.

Coleridge, perhaps the only great, and at the same time perfectly candid critic upon Shakespere, professes his inability to regard the characters of Regan and Goneril otherwise than as disturbing forces. Schlegel attempts to justify the foreign contrast in "Romeo and Juliet," and portions of that in "Othello," by observing that they withdraw the action from the sphere of the purely domestic. Are not the admission of the one, and the weak explanation of the other, powerful arguments for the validity of these views, if indeed anything more than their plain statement is required to stamp their truth upon the mind of the reader?

Let us warn the reader that he is only to expect to find the foreign contrast where systematic harmony is to be found; for we have already shewn that the former is in some of its relations intimately connected with the latter. The airiness of the comedies of Shakespere would have been destroyed by a foreign contrast; and the "histories" could have little external foreign contrast for a reason exactly the reverse of that for which "Lear" has none. The latter is independent per se, the former by their nature are dependent for their effect upon each other, or upon the knowledge of the reader. There are unequivocal traces of the foreign contrast in some of the "histories;" but this only happens when their transitive character has been in a great measure destroyed by isolation. In "King John," for instance, among the various ends gained by the introduction of Faulconbridge, perhaps the most important is the gauge to the depth of the action, supplied by the occasional glimpses that we catch of his uniformly cold and ironical character, which in no one of its relations appears to be capable of amalgamating with the main interest.

The reader will be at no difficulty in tracing with more or less distinctness, the foregoing principles in many other of the plays of Shakespere, besides those which we have mentioned. It is with much regret, however, that we find ourselves compelled, for want of space, to leave those principles with little more than a bare statement of them.

One more very general practice of Shakespere must be noticed ere we conclude. The development of a remarkable character is often measured by its continual juxtaposition with another character,-the relation between the two being at first that of identity. Take, for example, Macbeth and Banquo. When first we become acquainted with these personages they hold similar positions in the army of Duncan, who, when he has occasion to mention them, speaks of his "Captains, Macbeth and Banquo." The "bleeding soldier," in one breath, eulogizes the valour of both, and all that we know of either of them, at the first stage of the action, is, that they possess in common this single attribute of personal courage. The play progresses, Macbeth's character deepens, Banquo's remains stationary to the very last, and to the very last presents itself in constant and diligently maintained juxtaposition with that of Macbeth. When first we see them, they enter together; the witches, after making communications of equal importance to each of them, twice "all hail" "Macbeth and Banquo" in two consecutive lines. Duncan lavishes promises upon Macbeth; and, in the same speech, addresses "noble Banquo, who has no less deserved." Macbeth meets Banquo just before the great murder scene, and they hold a dialogue which is very elaborately constructed with a view to contrast; when the predictions of the witches have been fulfilled to Macbeth, we find Banquo soliloquizing on those "verities" upon Macbeth "made good;" and at the same time calling attention to the prophecies respecting himself; and the finishing stroke is given to the development of Macbeth's character by the murder of Banquo, who is thus, with much art, got rid of by the very blow through which his further services as a stationary gauge to the development of that character are rendered unnecessary.

We trust that we shall not be charged with making a fanciful comparison, if we say that this relation of identical characters unequally developed, produces an effect of shadow; while one of colour is the result of the juxtaposition of characters that are different.

With many apologies to our readers for the occasional obscurities that may have been caused by the brevity to which we have been compelled, we take leave of a subject which can scarcely be too much studied,-though probably it is seldom really studied at all. If poetry be indeed "the most philosophical of all writing," the higher kinds of it ought certainly to be approached with reverence and gravity. There is an etymological pun of Coleridge's which may be meditated with profit. He complains that, in these days, we too often commit the folly of going to the muses for a-musement.

The Temporal Supremacy of the Pope.

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ART. VI.-Pouvoir du Pape au Moyen Age, ou Recherches Historiques sur l'origine de la Souveraineté Temporelle du Saint Siège, et sur le Droit Public du Moyen Age relativement à la déposition des Souverains. Par M. ***, Directeur au Séminaire de Saint Sulpice, (Abbé Gosselin.) Paris, 1845.

IN our Number for May last, we gave an account of the general character and objects of this important work of the Abbé Gosselin, which presents in a very favourable light the views now generally maintained by continental Romanists on the interesting subjects it discusses. These subjects are sometimes comprehended under the general head of the temporal power of the Pope. But this general topic admits of an obvious twofold division, into the Pope's right as a temporal prince to the government of the States of the Church, or his temporal sovereignty, and his claim to exercise jurisdiction generally in temporal matters, to dispose of kingdoms, to depose sovereigns, and absolve subjects from their oaths of allegiance, which may be properly designated his temporal supremacy. The first part of Gosselin's work is occupied with an investigation of the history and grounds of the Pope's temporal sovereignty, and this topic we have already explained and discussed. The second part of the work is devoted to an investigation of the more extensive and interesting subject of the Pope's temporal supremacy, and to this we would

now invite the attention of our readers.

This subject of the Pope's temporal supremacy, or, more generally, of the right of the Church, and of the Pope as ruling and representing it, to interfere authoritatively in the regulation of civil and secular affairs, has been for above 700 years discussed and debated within the Church of Rome itself, and it has been one main occasion of internal divisions and contentions among its adherents. It has led to a great deal of interesting discussion as to the origin, grounds, and objects of civil and ecclesiastical power, and the functions and relations of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The Roman Catholic Church of France long reckoned it one of its chief glories, that it had always strenuously opposed the Pope's temporal supremacy, and maintained the independence of the civil power; and many of its most illustrious men-such as Richer, Launoi, De Marca, Natalis Alexander, Bossuet, Fleury, and Dupin-have exerted their great talents and learning in defending views upon this subject which were sound and scriptural, but very distasteful to the Court of Rome. The defence of the Pope's temporal jurisdiction and supremacy by the

immediate adherents of the Papal Court, commonly called by the French, Ultramontanists, and the opposition made to it by the divines of the Gallican Church, and by Protestants, form a very important and interesting department of the great controversy between the empire and the priesthood, the State and the Church, the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities; and a survey of it affords abundant materials for confirming the great truth, of the distinctness and mutual independence of the civil and ecclesiastical powers, and of the unlawfulness of the one claiming any jurisdiction or right of authoritative control over the other. The Popes had succeeded in getting themselves generally acknowledged as the vicars of Christ and the monarchs of the Church, and had established themselves as temporal sovereigns in the imperial city, before they ventured to claim a general right of authoritative interference in temporal matters, and before they presumed to depose kings and to absolve their subjects from their oaths of allegiance. Gregory VII., in the latter part of the eleventh century, was the first Pope who claimed and exercised the power of deposing a sovereign and absolving his subjects from their oaths and obligations, and this has procured for him a very unenviable notoriety. Ever since that time, the generality of the immediate adherents of the Popes have defended this power as justly and lawfully belonging to the head of the Church. Not one of his successors in the Papal chair has ever disclaimed this power, while not a few of them have both claimed and exercised it. Innocent III., Innocent IV., Boniface VIII., Clement VII., Paul III., Pius V., Sixtus V., and Gregory XIV., have pronounced sentences of deposition upon emperors of Germany and kings of England and France, and have pretended to absolve their subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and to impose it upon them as a Christian duty to carry the Pope's sentence of deposition against their sovereign into practical effect. These proceedings of the Popes have been defended by many of the most eminent Roman Catholic theologians, but they have been vigorously assailed by others, especially by the defenders of what are called the Gallican Liberties, and they have been much dwelt upon by Protestant writers, as affording interesting indications of the character and policy of the Church of Rome, and valuable materials for the exposure of some of the claims which she puts forth.

Notwithstanding the lengthened discussion that has taken place in regard to some of the topics involved in the investigation of this subject, there is no great difficulty in tracing the leading outlines of the history of this claim to temporal supremacy, and of the grounds on which it was based.

There can be no doubt, that the primitive doctrine of the

Independence of the Church.

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Church, in regard to the proper relation of the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities, was that which Scripture so clearly sanctions, viz., that the State and the Church are, in their constitution, and by God's appointment, distinct and independent societies, each supreme in its own province, and neither having any jurisdiction or authoritative control over the other. Very unequivocal assertions of this great truth, so flatly inconsistent, both with the doctrine of the Erastians, and with that of the Church of Rome in its palmiest days, have been produced from the Popes of the fifth and sixth centuries-from Gelasius, Symmachus, and Gregory the Great. Similar statements have been produced from Popes even in the eighth and ninth centuries, after they were established as temporal princes, and were generally acknowledged as the heads of the Church. These statements are produced and commented upon by the defenders of the Gallican liberties; and they afford ample warrant for the title which Simon Lowth, one of the nonjuring clergy of the Church of England, gave to a curious work which he published in 1716"The independent power of the Church, not Romish, but primitive, and Catholic." It is true, that long before the Popes ceased to disclaim jurisdiction in temporal things, there had been a large intermixture or confusion of the secular and the spiritual. Long before the civil establishment of Christianity by Constantine, the bishops had been accustomed to decide many of the civil questions that arose among Christians in the capacity of arbiters, and their right to decide some questions of this sort was sanctioned and ratified by the first Christian emperors. As they came, in the course of time, to be possessed of large property, this, combined with their influence over the minds of the people, gave them political power, a right to interfere, and a capacity of interfering with effect, in the management of national affairs; and all this they were careful to improve for increasing their authority. The Bishops of Rome had, in their own sphere, their full share of the influence in temporal matters which was derived from these sources, and which, when tried by a mere worldly standard, irrespective of scriptural principles, might be reckoned legitimate; and when they had once succeeded in getting themselves acknowledged as the rulers of the Church, as supreme judges in all ecclesiastical matters, they had no great difficulty in persuading men that they had some right of interfering, in the last resort, in all those temporal matters, in the management of which their subjects the bishops had a share.

It is certain, that no sooner were they established as temporal princes, and recognised as supreme rulers and ultimate judges in all spiritual matters, than they determined to bring the whole world and all its affairs under their control, by dragging to their