to be. But why is Setebos cold and ill at ease? Well, Caliban thinks there may be a something over Setebos, that made Him, something quiet, impassible – call it The Quiet. Beyond the stars he imagines The Quiet to reside, but is not much concerned about It. He plays at being simple in his way – makes believe: so does Setebos. His mother, Sycorax, thought The Quiet made all things, and Setebos only troubled what The Quiet made. Caliban does not agree with that. If things were made weak and subject to pain they were made by a devil, not by a good or indifferent being. No! weakness and pain meant sport to Him who created creatures subject to them. Setebos makes things to amuse himself, just as Caliban does; makes a pile of turfs and knocks it over again. So Setebos. But He is a terrible as well as a malicious being; His hurricanes, His high waves, His lightnings are destructive, and Caliban cannot contend with His force, neither can he tell that what pleases Him to-day will do so to-morrow. We must all live in fear of Him therefore, till haply The Quiet may conquer Him. All at once a storm comes, and Caliban feels that he was a fool to gibe at Setebos. He will lie flat and love Him, will do penance, will eat no whelks for a month to appease Him.
There are few, if any, systems of theology which escape one or other of the arrows of this satire. Anthropomorphism in greater or less degree is inseparable from our conceptions of the Supreme. The abstract idea of God is impossible to us, the concrete conception is certain to err in making God to be like ourselves. That the Almighty must in Himself include all that is highest and noblest in the soul of man is a right conception, when we attribute to Him our weaknesses and failings we are but as Caliban. The doctrine of election, and the hideous doctrine of reprobation, are most certainly aimed at in the line —
“Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.”
The doctrine of reprobation is thus stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith, iii. 7. “The rest of mankind [i. e. all but the elect] God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious grace.” Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, taught that “God has predestinated some to eternal life, while the rest of mankind are predestinated to condemnation and eternal death” (Encyc. Brit. iv., art. “Calvin,” p. 720).
Camel Driver, A. (Punishment by Man and by God: Ferishtah’s Fancies, 7.) A murderer had been executed, the criminal acknowledging the justice of his punishment, but lamenting that the man who prompted him to evil had escaped; the murderer reflected with satisfaction that God had reserved a hell for him. But punishment is only man’s trick to teach; if he could see true repentance in the sinner’s soul, the fault would not be repeated. God’s process in teaching or punishing nowise resembles man’s. Man lumps his kind in the mass, God deals with each individual soul as though they two were alone in the universe, “Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee,” said Ferishtah, “then stand or fall by them!” Ignorance that sins is safe, – our greatest punishment is knowledge. No other hell will be needed for any man than the reflection that he deliberately spurned the steps which would have raised him to the regard of the Supreme. In the Lyric it is complained that mankind is over-severe with mere imperfections, which it magnifies into crimes; but the greater faults, which should have been crushed in the egg, are either not suspected at all or actually praised as virtues.
Caponsacchi (The Ring and the Book), the chivalrous priest, Canon of Arezzo, who aided Pompilia in her flight to Rome from the tyranny of Count Guido.
Cardinal and the Dog, The. (Asolando, 1889.) The Papal Legate, at the later sessions of the Council of Trent in 1551 and 1552, was Marcel Crescenzio, who came of a noble Roman family. At the fifteenth session of the Council (March 20th, 1552) he was writing to the Pope nearly the whole night, although he was ill at the time; and as he rose from his seat he saw a black dog of great size, with flaming eyes and ears hanging down to the ground, which sprang into the chamber, making straight for him, and then stretched himself under the table where Crescenzio wrote. He called his servants and ordered them to turn out the beast, but they found none. Then the Cardinal fell melancholy, took to his bed and died. As he lay on his death-bed at Verona he cried aloud to every one to drive away the dog that leapt on his bed, and so passed away in horror. The poem was written at the request of William Macready, the eldest son of the great actor. He asked the poet to write something which he might illustrate. This was in 1840, but the work was only published in the Asolando volume in 1889. Howling dogs have from remote times been connected with death. In Ossian we have: “The mother of Culmin remains in the hall – his dogs are howling in their place – ‘Art thou fallen, my fair-haired son, in Erin’s dismal war?’” There is no doubt that the howling of the wind suggested the idea of a great dog of death. The wind itself was a magnified dog, heard but not seen. Burton, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, says (Part I., sect ii., mem. 1, subs. 2): “Spirits often foretell men’s death by several signs, as knockings, groanings, etc., though Rich. Argentine, c. 18, De præstigiis dæmonum, will ascribe these predictions to good angels, out of the authority of Ficinus and others; prodigies frequently occur at the deaths of illustrious men, as in the Lateran Church in Rome the popes’ deaths are foretold by Sylvester’s tomb. Many families in Europe are so put in mind of their last by such predictions; and many men are forewarned (if we may believe Paracelsus) by familiar spirits in divers shapes – as cocks, crows, owls – which often hover about sick men’s chambers.” The dog is such a faithful friend of man that we are unwilling to believe him, even in spirit-form, the harbinger of evil to any one. Cardinal Crescenzio, had he been a vivisector, would have been very appropriately summoned to his doom in the manner described in the poem. If the men who, like Professor Rutherford of Edinburgh University, boast of their ruthless torturing of dogs by hundreds, should ever find themselves in Cardinal Crescenzio’s plight, there would be a fitness in things we could readily appreciate. The devil in the form of a great black dog is a familiar subject with mediæval historians. Not all black dogs were evil, though – for example, the black dog which St. Dominic’s mother saw before the birth of the saint. Some of the animals called dogs were probably wolves; but even these appeared not entirely past redemption, such as the one of which we read in the Golden Legend, who was converted by the preaching of St. Francis, and shed tears of repentance, and became as meek as a lamb, following the saint to every town where he preached! Such is the power of love. In May 1551 the eleventh session of the Council of Trent was held, under the presidency of Cardinal Crescenzio, sole legate in title, but with two nuncios – Pighini and Lippomani. It was merely formal, as was also the twelfth session, in September 1551. It was Crescenzio who refused all concession, even going so far as to abstract the Conciliar seal, lest the safe-conduct to the Protestant theologians should be granted. He was, however, forced to yield to pressure, and had to receive the Protestant envoys in a private session at his own house. The legate in April 1552 was compelled to suspend the Council for two years, in consequence of the perils of war. There was a general stampede from Trent at once, and the legate Crescenzio, then very ill, had just strength to reach Verona, where he died three days after his arrival (Encyc. Brit., art. “Trent,” vol. xxiii.). Moreri (Dict. Hist.) tells the story in almost the same way as Mr. Browning has given it, and adds: “It could have been invented only by ill-meaning people, who lacked respect for the Council.”
Carlisle, Lady. (Strafford.) Mr. Browning says: “The character of Lady Carlisle in the play is wholly imaginary,” but history points clearly enough to the truth of Mr. Browning’s conception.
Cavalier Tunes. (Published first in Bells and Pomegranates in 1842.) Their titles are: “Marching Along,” “Give a Rouse,” and “Boot and Saddle.” Villiers Stanford set them to music.
Cenciaja. (Pacchiarotto, with other Poems, London, 1876.)
“Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato.”
The explanation of the title of this poem, as also of the Italian motto which stands at its
