that it was not the region around Damascus, where the Arab legends have placed it. M. de Larroque is a conscientious critic, who has no preferences of his own, and comes to the case with true scientific calmness and indifference as to the result. His work is a skilful dissection, out of which he has no idea of raising any new or special construction. At the close, indeed, he advances a theory of the kind of person that the writer of the "Imitation" must have been, but does not presume to say who he was, when he lived, or where he lived. He simply sets aside the pretensions of one favorite claimant, leaving it to other investigators to do the same work, if they can, with the pretensions of the other claimants. He does not allow himself to be biassed by the authority of great names, but discusses the question entirely from the internal evidence furnished by the book itself. He makes Thomas à Kempis himself the decisive witness, that he is not the author of the book attributed to him.

According to their character and spirit, the disputes concerning the authorship of the "Imitation" may be classified either as national or as monastic. Nationally classified, we may reckon three parties, the German, the Italian, and the French. The German party uphold the claim of Thomas à Kempis; the Italian party uphold the claim of John of Cabanaco, more frequently called Gerson; while the French party are strenuous in maintaining the claim of the more celebrated Gerson, Chancellor of Paris. It must not be supposed, however, that all the writers on this theme, in each of these nations, are united in their opinion. There are French writers who defend the Italian claimant, and Italian writers who defend the German claimant. Farandi in the seventeenth century, Fovra in the eighteenth, and Cesari in the nineteenth, all of them Italian monks, have given their voices for the Teutonic candidate; while the Dutch Canon Weigl decides for the mythical Piedmontese, taking care only to insist that he was German by lineage, and was baptized as a German. France, moreover, has generously furnished defenders for all the candidates. Naudé, Janvier, Quérard, and Lalanne, with others that might be mentioned, are zealous "Kempists"; while Marillac, Valart, Languinais, Nolbac, Buchan, Mon

talembert, and Renan are as decided "Gersonists." But, on the whole, the opinion of each nation has been given in favor of its own son. Germany, Holland, and substantially all nations speaking Teutonic dialects, have agreed that Thomas à Kempis shall be the author of the sacred book; the Canon Weigl is almost a solitary renegade. Here Protestants and Catholics alike consent that the monk of Saint Agnes, and no other man, shall have the great honor. In Italy, the voice is nearly as unanimous for the ascetic of Piedmont; the dissenters are few in a large company. And in France, if the arguments have been more moderate in tone, and the heretics more numerous, the conclusion of the majority asserts the "Imitation as a lawful work of the great orator of the Council of Constance, the champion of learning and liberty.

There are French writers, nevertheless, who, even in abandoning the claim of the Chancellor Gerson, still maintain that the "Imitation" is a genuine French production. Michelet, Ampère, and J. V. Le Clerc are the eminent advocates of the long and multifarious origin of this marvellous book. It is a French growth, in successive ages, and its authors are "legion." These critics assign such an origin to "The Imitation of Christ," as some German critics have given to the poems of Homer, and others to the books of Moses; it is a compilation of fragments by many hands. Not a Frenchman, but France itself, has produced this immortal religious song, better as the work of a nation than the work of a man. The book was built like the cathedrals of which it was contemporary, by the steady piety of succeeding generations. This theory is pleasant enough, but not more tenable than the theory of the Homerida. If any devotional book has unity of style, unity of sentiment, unity of tone and thought, it is "The Imitation of Christ." It were as reasonable to deny the unity of Thomas Aquinas's "Sum of Theology," or of Augustine's "City of God," as of "The Imitation of Christ." In these compositions the spiritual identity and coherence are far less striking than in the "Imitation." This theory, it may be remarked, is not original with these liberal critics of our own day. It was sustained two centuries ago by sound Catholic authority. In 1662, the librarian of the Vatican, a

bishop as well as a scholar, published a quarto volume, in which he gave the names of four separate authors of the several books of the "Imitation," leaving only to poor Thomas à Kempis the humbler task of compiling and setting in order these earlier writings.

In the national dispute concerning the authorship of "The Imitation of Christ," there are three parties; in the monastic dispute there are only two; on the one side are the Augustinians and Jesuits, on the other, the Benedictines. Even in the lifetime of À Kempis, in 1464, the Augustinian Buschius had claimed for his order the paternity of the "Imitation," and a long line of regular canons of the order followed and repeated his opinion. From the time of Sommalius, in 1600, the Jesuits, to a man, have espoused the same cause. То deny the right of Thomas à Kempis in this book is, in Jesuit judgment, as much sacrilege as to deny the right of the Pope, or the holiness of Saint Ignatius, or the dogma of the God made man. To the Benedictines, on the contrary, it is a matter of duty to assert at all hazards that the "Imitation" is the work and property of their order. Gerson, and not A Kempis, is the author, because Gerson is a Benedictine. No matter how fit the one or how unfit the other may be for the composition of the book, it is enough that the ecclesiastical relation of the one is right, while the ecclesiastical relation of the other is wrong. "The Imitation of Christ" is not the only religious book which has been claimed by one order or another on this purely monastic ground. "The Spiritual Combat," a famous Catholic work, is disputed by Benedictines, Jesuits, and Theatins, the first assigning it to the Spaniard John of Cattanisa, the second to the Jesuit Gagliardo, and the third to the Theatin Scupoli. Brignon, a French Jesuit, who published, in 1688, a translation of the work from Italian into French, very quaintly remarks in his Preface, that he will not venture to decide in the dispute, since he prefers to leave each party in possession of its own rights, rather than make enemies by coming out openly for any one of them.

The claims of the French and Italian candidates not being here in question, we shall make no further mention of them ; observing only in passing, that some sagacious critics are bold

enough to doubt if the very existence of "Gerson" be not a myth, a hasty and forced deduction from very insufficient philological premises. The history of the "Gerson" theory is one of the curiosities of Italian literature in the seventeenth century. Thomas à Kempis, with whom here we have to deal, is in no sense a mythical character. His lineage, his age, his place of birth and of death, his occupation, capacity, and temper, are all perfectly well known, as well known as those of any historical personage of the fifteenth century. His father, Hemerken, was an humble artisan of Kempen, in the diocese of Cologne. His brother, John à Kempis, fourteen years older than himself, began to serve in a Dutch convent when he was fifteen years of age, rose by successive steps to be at the head of more than half a dozen large monasteries, and at his death, in 1432, was equally distinguished as a builder of religious houses, a copier and illuminator of religious manuscripts, and a framer of rules for the brethren of his order. Thomas à Kempis followed and surpassed his brother in the walk which he had chosen. At twelve years

of age, in 1391, he was a pupil in the school at Deventer; at seventeen, he belonged to a religious fraternity, associated to pray and study together and to copy manuscripts; and at twenty, he was a novice in the monastery of Mount Saint Agnes, near Zwoll, of which his brother was at that time the Prior. From a novice, he became in due time a monk, and received priest's orders from the hand of his brother. His preaching gift soon became widely known; students flocked to his teaching, and novices besieged his monastic abode. He was chosen Sub-Prior; accompanied his monks in their exile and dispersion; and, after a life of various and harassing toil, died in 1471, at the great age of ninety-two years. His character was elaborately drawn by more than one contemporary biographer. A brother of his convent writes, in rather rude Latin: "Frater Thomas à Kempis sustinuit ab exordio monasterii magnam penuriam, labores et tentationes Scripsit autem Bibliam nostram totaliter et alios multos libros pro domo et pro pretio. Insuper composuit varios tractatulos ad ædificationem juvenum plano et simplici stylo, sed prægrandes in sententiis et operis efficacia. Fuit etiam multos annos amorosus in pas

sione Domini et mire consolatorius tentatis et tribulatis." This description of the pious monk's style is, as we shall have occasion to see, not absolutely accurate. The "opinions" may be "prægrandes," but the diction is certainly not plain or simple. Another biographer somewhat more eloquently says of him: "Thomas à Kempis fuit brevis staturæ, sed magnus in virtutibus; valde devotus, libenter solus et nunquam otiosus; custos oris sui præcipuus et tamen cum devotis valde libenter de bonis loquebatur, ut puta de antiquis moribus et patribus et tunc proprie jucundus erat. In loquendo et scribendo magis curabat affectum inflammare quam acuere intellectum. Compositus erat in moribus; ab aliena et secularia referentibus recedens; incompositos et excedentes diligenter redarguit; monebat dulciter, adhortans ad meliora; dulcis et affabilis erat omnibus, maxime devotis et humilibus." Putting out of view the great work on "The Imitation of Christ," which is disputed, the number of genuine works of this famous monk is very considerable. They have been published in every form, folio, quarto, octavo, - and translated into several languages. The German translation, published in 1834, is in four quarto volumes. Though the subjects are various enough, nearly all the treatises have an ascetic tone, spirit, and purpose. There are thirty Sermons to the "Novices"; nine Sermons to the "Brethren "; a "Soliloquy of the Soul"; on the three tabernacles, "Poverty, Humility, and Patience"; "The Little Garden of Roses"; "The Valley of Lilies"; "The Discipline of the Cloister"; "The Hospital of the Poor"; "Dialogues of the Novices"; "Spiritual Exercises"; a "Manual for Youth"; on "Compunction of Heart"; on "Solitude and Silence"; on the "Recognition of one's own Frailty; on "Mortification"; "Humility"; a "Peaceful Life"; and others, the titles of which we have no space to insert. A volume of “ A volume of "Spiritual Songs" also came from his hand, for a part of which he composed the music. The manuscript Bible transcribed entire by the hand of Thomas à Kempis was in existence in Holland in the seventeenth century, in four folio volumes, but has since been lost. A manuscript New Testament transcribed by him, however, is still remaining, and other manuscripts by his hand are in the libraries of Holland.