[In the following excerpt, Janelle compares Southwell's Mary Magdalens Funeral Teares with the Italian original, praising the emotional force and literary craftsmanship of the translation, and also comments on the neglected Epistle of Comfort.]

A considerable portion of Southwell's work is made up of translations, adaptations and imitations. This may to some extent mean that he lacked self-confidence; but the chief reason is that the directions of his superiors did not require the creation of an original literature, but merely the transformation for pious purposes of what already existed. In his early years especially, he adhered to this plan most conscientiously. Mary Magdalens teares is a case in point; for like the [Hundred] Meditations, this work had an Italian original, and was begun at Rome. In his edition of Southwell's Complete poems, Grosart describes the contents of MS. A.V.4 in the library of Stonyhurst College. He states that he has found in it “a ‘Discourse on Mary Maudelyn’, and ‘Alas, why doe I lament’, in English prose, both extrinsically valuable from their relation to the published ‘Mary Magdalen's Funerall Teares’, of which indeed I believe them to have been the first form.”¹ Though Grosart's surmise was entirely unjustified in regard to the latter piece, it is correct in regard to the former, from which, as we shall show, Mary Magdalens Teares were in fact expanded. But this “first draft” is not an original piece of work. A stroke of luck, which has brought new evidence to light, enables us now to prove this.

In the very same library in which it is preserved, there is a small manuscript volume bound in vellum, which contains a few short devotional treatises in the Italian tongue. The sixth—which Southwell translated and later expanded into the Teares—is described as follows in the table of contents: “Le infrascripte cose sono cauate dal libro de sancto bonauentura et chiamase stimulus amoris.”² We shall not here discuss the fascinating little problem of the real authorship of this piece. It is not found among the published writings of St Bonaventura,³ but it is so closely akin to them in style, that it must either be his work, or at any rate belong to his school. The spelling is that of the fourteenth century. Some of the verbal forms used belong to the Roman dialect, and others are Spanish; and the copyist may have been a resident at the English College, Rome, previously educated at one of the Spanish seminaries. Southwell's attention had been drawn to the theme of St Mary Magdalen by Valvasone's Lagrime della Maddalena. He was pleased enough with the Italian meditation to turn it into English first, then to polish it and eventually to take up his adaptation again and turn it into a finished piece of work: for three successive versions of the Teares are extant, the first two being contained in the Stonyhurst manuscript above-mentioned.

The earliest draft is a mere translation of the Italian text, faithful enough in regard to the sense, but free as to its style, which is far more elaborate than that of the original.⁴ Southwell apparently meant to read it as a sermon on some feast-day, for it begins with the words: “In this present solemnity hauynge (to speake)(vtter) to speake in (the fearynge) this audience of your charityes we ar put in mynde how that Mary Maudelyn … ctc.”⁵ However he left the translation unfinished⁶ and was dissatisfied with it, for he cast the beginning into another shape, which illustrates his effort towards literary elegance. This second version is a mere fragment, and runs to seventeen lines only.⁷ Last of all, in the enforced leisure of his secluded life in England, he took up the whole of the Italian text anew, and while retaining the framework and a good deal of the phrasing of the original, expanded it considerably, adding to it very much of his own, and improving its literary quality beyond recognition.

This was indeed no difficult task, for the workmanship of the Italian meditation is at best very indifferent. It is a prosy string of reflections on Mary Magdalen's sorrow at Christ's tomb, couched in the shape of a dialogue between the writer and various Scripture characters. The repetitions are so frequent that the thirty-six short pages of the text appear lengthy and tedious. The pegs, so to say, on which the fabric of the meditation is hooked, are the successive events recorded in the Gospel of St John: Mary's coming to the tomb, and staying there bravely, while the two disciples had turned back; her tears on finding the grave empty; the apparition of the two angels; their words to her, “Why weepest thou?”; the coming of Jesus, and his repetition of the same words; Mary's mistake of him for the gardener, her request to him to say where he has hidden the corpse; Jesus' answer, “Touch me not.” The piece ends here with some spiritual advice to the reader. But though the Scripture story be closely followed, there is a curious discrepancy between its pathetic simplicity and the means used by the writer to create dramatic interest, and account for Mary's obstinate tearfulness. The dialogue in which both he himself, Mary, the Angels and Jesus take part, is not the expression of spontaneous, genuine human feeling, but a succession of arguments between the various characters, in which the conduct of each and the incidents which determine it are discussed in a logical frame of mind; not drily though, but with the colloquial garrulousness of Southerners, who are too familiar with holy things to view them with awe. As in the case of the Hundred meditations, Southwell's English temperament was bound to bring about a complete change in the atmosphere, and the substitution for prosy, babbling loquacity of a rhythmical, dignified harmony. A comparison of two corresponding passages, one from the Italian, one from the first English draft, will be in point here. In the former, Mary's flow of words is so plentiful and hurried as to produce some obscurity, which is skillfully avoided in the latter. The moment is that of the apparition of the angels, when the “weeper” refuses to derive comfort from their presence:

O grande dolore quale he [e] questa visitatione, ad me e molesto ogni consolatione, per che ogni consolatore non me consola, ma anti [anzi] me he [e] molesta ogni creatura; et non uoglio adiuto de creatura; non voglio vedere angeli; non uoglio io stare cum li angeli, per che piu presto me acrescono dolore & non me lo possono tollere. Se me vogliono dire molte cose et io non voglio respondere, temo ne impediscono lo mio amore & non me lo accrescano. E nota che lo parlare de li angeli dubita non impediscano lo amore de lo dolce dilecto Yesu. Considera lo parlare de li altri. Finalmente io non cerco angeli, ma quello che a creato li angeli et me. Ano [hanno] me tolto lo mio signore & esso solo cerco, solo esso me po consolare. Ma io non so doue lo habiano posto. Guardo intorno se io lo uedesse et non lo vedo. Yo uorria trouare lo loco doue & [e] posto e non lo trouo. Oyme doue andaro yo, che faro io, doue fusse andato lo mio dilecto maiestro …⁸

Alas for woe, what a could comfort is this, what a comfortless visitation. Combersome are all comforters vnto mee, they aggreeue me (much) and relieeue me not. I seeke my creatoure, and therefore loathsome is the syght of euery creature. Angels will I not behold, with angels will I not remayne; for encrease my sorow they may, but release it quyte they can not. If they begynne to parley at la [rge] with me and I (yeld) afford them an answere to euery demande, I feare me that my loue will be rather spent then spedd. Finally Angells are not my arrant but the maker of me and Angels. I seeke not for the Angels but for the Angels and my Lord. (They haue taken away) my lorde haue they taken away; him onely will I seeke who onely is able to solace my sorrow. I cast my eyes on euery syde to (…?) if happely I could se him, but see him I cannot. I would fynd the place where they haue putt him but fynde it I cannot. (Alas wretche that I am) Alas wretch that I am, what shall [I] doe, whether shall I go, whether is my loue gone …⁹

The transformation of the passage in Southwell's hands is particularly suggestive. The general features of his style are the same as in the Hundred meditations—clearness, analytical conciseness, fullness, harmony and balance. He evidences the same good taste, the same sense of accurate proportion, in breaking up lengthy sentences, or skipping repetitions. But now he is attempting something more. His diction is no longer plain and direct, but forced to fit into a ready-prepared mould. One feels an effort towards a striking originality of form, which almost produces quaintness. This impression is especially due here to a mannerism which is absent from other parts of the draft, and from the final version of the Teares; and in which Southwell seems to have indulged for the present as an experiment. It consists in placing corresponding grammatical terms in accented positions at the beginning of corresponding clauses, so as to create a kind of hammering symmetry.

This deliberate aiming at preciosity, meant as an allurement to literary connoisseurs, will appear even more clearly if we compare the beginning of the Italian original with Southwell's first and second drafts. The Italian text, which is much plainer and shorter than the English versions, runs as follows:

Maria staua fore de lo monumento et piangeua … Audiamo Maria stare fora ct lamentare. Vediamo se potemo per che sta et per che piange, e faciamo che lo suo stare e lo piangere faccia ad noi [proficto.] Lo amore la facea stare, lo dolore la facia piangere. Staua e guardaua de la e de qua intorno se per niuno modo vedere potesse quello che amaua. Piangeua per che stimaua fosso tolto quello che amaua, e cercando lo dolore se renouaua.¹⁰

The first draft translates this with sufficient accuracy and fullness:

We ar put in mynde how that Mary Maudelyn (louynge our lord aboue all creatures, when his oune disciples fled) (as in loue of Christ so) as she surpassed many in loue so passed she (most) Christs oune disciples in loyalty, folowed him goynge vnto deathe ct kindle[d] with the sparkles of intier loue, burnynge with most earnest desyre and incessantly weepynge neuer departed from his tombe. For Marye as the Euangelist reporteth did stand (at the tombe without) without at the tombe weepynge. We haue herd of Marie at the tombe without standyng, lett us now also here of her wepynge. Lett vs see if we be able wherefore she (stoode vpp) did [stande] vpp and let vs see why so many teares (trickled) did trickle doune. Lett vs (ga) take some profitt by her standynge, some profit lett us take by her weepynge. Loue was the cause of her standynge and sorow enforced her to weepynge. She did stand and looke about her whether she could happely see him that was deere vnto her. She did weepe because she doubted that shee had bene robbed of (that) Christ whome shee so sorowfully seeked. Her griefe was renewed …¹¹

The second draft takes advantage of the opportunity for rhetorical expansion:

… as she surpassed many in loue so she passed (most) Christes oune disciples in loyalty, not fleetyng when they fled, not leauynge in death whome she had loued in lyfe, but incessantly weepynge at the tombe of his body, whose body was the tombe of her soule. For Mary as the Euangelist reporteth did stand without at the tombe weepynge. Without she standeth and without she weepeth, but (within) in the tomb she lyeth and within she sleepethe. In her body she standeth vpp but in(h) Christes body she lyethe doune;in her oune eyes she weepeth, in Christes eyes she sleepethe. But let vs prayse [appraise?] the cause of her standynge, lett us peruse the occasion of her weepinge. She stood for loue and she wept for sorow. (Loue wisheth sorow washeth) Sshe stoodd to looke about her whether she could haphely see him that was so deere vnto her. (Loue watcheth) (Loue standeth in watche ct sorow wayled) (washeth) Loue (setteth) keepeth the eyes in watche, sorrow (washeth) keepeth the same in water. (Loue) The one wisheth and the other washeth. Her (eagre desyre) busy (cure) serche in seekynge whome she desyreth kindleth affection (but) Her doubtfull feare of not fyndynge whome she seeketh causeth her lamentation …¹²

A careful study of the corrections in the above fragments illustrates the twofold motives of Southwell in gradually altering the original. His delicate ear suggested such emendations as “without at the tombe weepynge” for “at the tombe without weepynge”; and his sense of the harmonious distribution of weight in a sentence led to the substitution of “did stande vppe” and “did trickle doune” for “stoode vpp” and “trickled doune.” But even in the earlier draft another influence is felt, that of the fashionable style of writing. In the very first sentence we meet with parallel clauses connected by “so … as …”; and later we come across instances of direct or reversed parallelism. The second draft goes one step farther and improves upon the first. It adds verbal oppositions (“without” and “within,” “standeth vpp” and “lyethe doune”); and enables us to watch Southwell's somewhat amusing efforts to bring in at last a full-blown, long thought-out conceit in the punning vein, on “wisheth,” “washeth,” “watche” and “water.” This is clearly the work of an apprentice in quest of a suitable means of expression, who tries his hand at preciosity, and in his eagerness to do well occasionally overreaches himself.

The same mood is reflected in the second prose fragment referred to by Grosart.¹³ It was not, however, to be a lasting feature in Southwell's writings. When he came to write the final version of Mary Magdalens teares, he had already freed himself from the most objectionable kind of mannerism. Yet, before we study the style of this work, we must consider its subject. Southwell's choice of the doleful lamentations of Mary Magdalen for semi-poetical treatment was not a matter of mere chance, nor was it merely the consequence of his personal preferences. He was but following in the wake of numerous contemporary writers, and complying with contemporary fashions; for the theme of Mary Magdalen's remorse, and of remorseful tears in general, was then highly popular in the devotional literature of Italy, France and Spain.

The story of Mary Magdalen had held a prominent place in Christian letters from the beginning, and had frequently been told in prose and verse, or acted on the stage,¹⁴ throughout the Middle-Ages and early Renaissance. Pietro Aretino himself had chosen it for one of the pious writings with which he interspersed his scandalous productions, and towards the middle of the sixteenth century, a French correspondent of his, Jean de Vauzelles, a lawyer at Lyons, had planned a collection of all the pieces hitherto indited to the glory of Mary Magdalen, which was to bear the following title: Il Magdalon della Maddalena.¹⁵ But as we have shown, there was especial reason why the Counter-reformation, with its mood of self-reproachfulness, should grant paramount honour to her, who was dwelling in perpetual sorrow for the sins of her past life. The remorse felt for the moral perversion of the Renaissance period accounts for the tearfulness in fashion after the Council of Trent. which inspired Erasmo Valvasone's poems, Le lagrime della Maddalena (before 1580),¹⁶ no less than Tansillo's Lagrime di San Pietro; and was fast gaining ground, both in Italy and in other countries, at the time of Southwell's stay at Rome. This fashion accounts for the appearance, shortly after his departure for England, of a poem by Giuseppe Policreti, La conversione di Maddalena (Vicenza 1588), and of another one by Giovanni Ralli, Le lagrime di Santa Maddalena (soon after 1588);¹⁷ of Torquato Tasso's Stanze … per le lagrime di Maria Vergine santissima, ct di Giesv Christo Nostro Signore (Venice 1593); of a Nvova raccolta di Lagrime (Bergamo 1593), including the poems of Tasso and Valvasone, and two others of the same kind; of an anonymous piece of verse in the French tongue, La Magdelene repentie (Paris 1597) and of a metrical composition in Spanish, the Breve Suma de la admirable conversion y vida de la gloriosa Magdalena, (Lisbon 1598). The direct source of Southwell's Mary Magdalens teares is indeed earlier than this flowering of “maudlin” lyrics. Yet there is good reason to think that his mind was arrested by this earlier text precisely because Valvasone had handled a kindred theme in his Lagrime della Maddalena. That this poem was known to Southwell previous to his departure from Rome cannot be proved; but by then, he was certainly acquainted with Tansillo's Lagrime di San Pietro. Now both works were to be printed jointly in 1587, 1592 and 1599, and to all likelihood they were associated in men's minds, if not in the press, even before the earliest one of these dates. It is, in any case, a striking coincidence that the subjects of two of Southwell's compositions, both begun in Italy, should be precisely the same; especially since they were afterwards to be regularly published together.

Thus the Jesuit was, to all appearances, the first to introduce into England the post-Trentine literature of “Tears.” But this should lead to no mistake as to the contents of his own pieces of this description. Far from indulging in unrestricted sentimentality, in gushing emotion of the late eighteenth century type, he remains true to the spirit of the Italian meditation, which is predominantly intellectual. Mary, indeed, insists on weeping for weeping's sake; yet if the fountain of tears is opened up anew whenever it seems to run dry, this is done not through an appeal to the weeper's heart, but to her mind, suitable reasons being provided as an inducement to further dolefulness. This character is persistent throughout the transformations of the piece. From the beginning, the influence of theological thinking is uppermost in the questions and answers, arguments and distinctions, which make up the imaginary dialogue. It leads away from real life, to an abstract consideration of ideas in themselves; and from this again there is an easy transition to the over-ingenuity which was to be Southwell's main literary fault in his early years. Thus in the Italian meditation, the author relates how Mary Magdalen would have preferred to join her Lord in death, and applies to her the words: “Love is stronger than death.” He then adds the following reflections: Diteme che po fare la morte, se non che fa la creatura insensibile? Questo haueua facto lo amore in Maria, per che non erano li sentimenti de l'anima cum lei, non sentiua, non uedeua, ne audiua, ct non staua doue staua, per che tucta staua doue staua lo suo maiestro; per che l'anima non staua [sic] doue sta, ma doue ama; et non sapendo doue fosse lo dilecto maestro, meno sapeua doue fosse essa medesma; cerchaua aduncha e non lo trouaua …”¹⁸

The instance is a striking one. In these few lines we find the “intellectual preciosity” in which Southwell was to excel, and that partiality for proverbial sayings which was to become a current feature of English prose in the late sixteenth century. Taken in conjunction with other quotations, it will suffice to show the unquestionable kinship of inspiration between the Italian meditation and the final version of Mary Magdalens teares. In his prose poem, Southwell takes pleasure in establishing subtle, sometimes purely formal, relations, between successive ideas, and making them fit in together, like the pieces of a skillfully contrived jigsaw puzzle. Thus, in the course of his dialogue with Mary Magdalen, he attempts to comfort her by hinting that Jesus' corpse may have been taken from the grave not by his foes, but by his friends. Even were this so, Mary answers, “yet whosoever hath taken him, hath wronged mee, in not acquainting mee with it: for to take away mine without my consent, can neither be offered without injury, nor suffered without sorrow: “and then she goes on to prove that Jesus is actually hers. “But what, the writer rejoins, if hee hath taken away himselfe, wilt thou also lay injustice to his charge? … It may be thou wilt say, that a gift once given, cannot bee revoked, and therefore though it were before in his choice, not to give himselfe unto thee: yet the deed of gift being once made, he cannot bee taken from thee, neither can the donor dispose of his gift without the possessor's privitie.” Then, suddenly, changing his line of approach:

But to this I will answer thee with thine owne ground. For if he be thine by being given thee once, thou art his by as many gifts, as dayes, and therefore hee being absolute owner of thee, is likewise full owner of whatsoever is thine: and consequently because he is thine, he is also his owne, and so nothing liable unto thee, for taking himselfe from thee.¹⁹

Here the writer has entirely lost sight of the realities of human life, and merely delights in intellectual juggling. This artificiality is indeed preciosity of a kind, though less purely verbal than the word generally seems to imply. Shall we advance one step further, and endorse the expression used by a modern critic of note, Fr Herbert Thurston, who entitled an article of his on Mary Magdalens teares, “Father Southwell the Euphuist?”²⁰ It is indeed true that Euphues had appeared five or six years only before Southwell wrote the early drafts of his prose poem, which are more precious in style than the final version; that Lyly's mannerism was then in the height of fashion in England, and that echoes of what was going on in the literary circles at home sounded as far as the precincts of the English college at Rome, owing to constant arrivals of young Catholics fresh from the universities or from the court. And the question therefore necessarily arises: did Southwell owe his “Euphuistic” inspiration to his English environment in Italy, or did he, through his classical and patristic readings, gain access independently to the sources of “Euphuistic” preciosity? Or again, if his rhetorical mannerism mainly hailed from ancient Rome and medieval Italy, was it however modified in the latter part of his stay at Rome, by his English surroundings?

That the over-subtle, finicking, even punning tendency was already present in his Latin poems, we have shown in a previous chapter. That in regard to prose, he directly imitated the oratory of the Fathers, will appear as generally true when we come to consider the Epistle of Comfort. It will also be shown how the very Italian meditation which he translated and then adapted was true to the tradition of St Bonaventura's patristic predecessors. Now one of the most striking peculiarities of the Italian source of the Teares, a sort of rough-hewn preciosity, lasts on into the final version of Southwell's adaptation. We come across numerous instances of every form of parallelism, as in the following cases:

… perche tu cercaui vno e trouastine doi, cercaui lo huomo e trouasti li angeli, cercaui lo morto e trouasti li uiui …”²¹

“… et tu yesu quando la uedesti contristata per consolarla te contristasti cum essa et vedendo la lacrimare lacrimasti …²²

while internal rhymes add to the effect in several places:

Manchaua che vngesse e non mancaua che piangesse …”²³

“E tanto era lo dolore quanto era lo amore …²⁴

or again parallelism is strengthened with alliteration:

Questo corpo defunto non macula li mundi, ma munda li immundi.²⁵

We also meet with what may be called the intellectual side of preciosity. Not only words, but thoughts are here and there ingeniously constrated:

Guai ad me, ho uoluta seruare la lege ct non ho guardato quello a chui obediscono tucte le lege …²⁶

Thus what is generally considered as the framework of Lyly's preciosity is already present in the meditation ascribed to St Bonaventura. It is true that to a certain limited extent, Southwell's patristic rhetoric is coloured by the fashions of the day. A careful reader will gather, in the final version of Mary Magdalens teares, some passages in which are found two of the most clearly-marked features of Lyly's style: the synthetic way in which he connects related ideas, expressed in parallel or contrasted clauses, by means of such expressions as “… more … than …”, “rather … than …,” “less … than …,” “as … so …” “though … yet … ;” and the endless repetition of the same or kindred ideas in a succession of similar word-groups. The most striking instances are as follows: “For her thirst of thy presence was so exceeding, and the sea of thy joye so well able to afford her a full draught, that though every parcell in her should take in a whole tide of thy delights, shee would thinke them too few to quiet her desires.”²⁷ And again: “The time hath beene that fewer tears would have wrought greater effect, shorter seeking have sooner found, and less paine have procured more pittie.”²⁸ Lyly's partiality for symmetry is matched in sentences of this type: “And as all this while she hath sought without finding, wept without comfort, and called without answers; so now thou diddest satisfie her seeking with thy comming, her teares with thy triumph, and all her cryes with this one word, Mary.”²⁹ Or more typically still: “But alas, let her heavinesse excuse her, and the unwontednesse of the miracle plead her pardon, sith dread and amazement have dulled her senses, distempered her thoughts, discouraged her hopes, awaked her passions, and left her no other liberty but onely to weepe.”³⁰ Again, the parallel build of the sentences, which is everywhere found, is occasionally matched by assonance in the words, as in the case of the well-known conceit: “It were too happie an exchange to have God for goods, and too rich a povertie to enjoy the onely treasure of the world.”³¹

But such instances are exceptional. If we take the work as a whole, far from favouring the trick of verbal repetition in any shape whatsoever, Southwell shuns it, and the corresponding terms in his sentences, instead of being paired through alliteration or rhyme, are almost in every case different in sound, though not in weight. He is aware of the fact that the beauty of ornate prose lies in an easy, graceful, unimpeded flow, and that when parallelism becomes a regular symmetry, the sentence is constantly bridled up by the very words on which it is supported. In his avoidance of Lyly's fault in this respect, Southwell proves the nicety of his ear. Besides, the general colouring of the vocabulary and style is utterly different from what it is in Lyly's work. The picturesqueness which we had descried in the early drafts is now almost wholly absent. Quaint words or phrases are rare. In one case only do we find an expression which recalls Lyly's farfetched metaphors, when Mary vainly tries to speak through her tears, and her sighs are described as “unsyllabled breath.” As for the fanciful and grotesque similes which diversify every page of Euphues, nothing of the kind is to be met with here. A few images, indeed, are in the true line of preciosity, and recall time-honoured conceits, as in the long passage in which Mary's weeping is described by means of successive comparisons: “Repentant eyes are the cellers of Angels, and penitent teares their sweetest wines … Till death dam up the springs, they shall never cease running; and then shall thy soule be ferried in them to the harbour of life …”³² But as a rule the images used are plain and forcible, and akin to those of the Hundred meditations; often scriptural, and occasionally graphic: Mary's remembrance of her Saviour, “like a flash of lightening in a close and stormie night, serveth [her] but to see [her] present infelicitie, and the better to know the horrour of the ensuing darknesse.”³³

It is indeed true that at the beginning of the Teares Southwell indulges in a flourish of preciosity, as if he wished to catch the eye of the reader with a gaudy ensign. But even here he is merely borrowing the old conceit on “death” and “life” from his own Latin poems. Mary Magdalen, he says, “not finding the favour to accompagny him [Jesus] in death, and loathing after him to remaine in life, the fire of her true affection inflamed her heart, and her inflamed heart resolved into incessant teares, so that burning and bathing betweene love and griefe, shee led a life ever dying, and felt a death never ending. And when hee by whom shee lived was dead, and shee for whom hee dyed enforcedly left alive, shee praised the dead more than the living: and having lost that light of her life, shee desired to dwell in darknesse, and in the shadow of death, chusing Christs Tombe for her best home, and his coarse for hear chiefe comfort.”³⁴ In any case, such instances of pronounced mannerism do not occur again. Whatever the seeming likeness between the Teares and Euphues, the difference in style is fundamental. When compared to his contemporaries of the Euphuistic school, Southwell appears to us as remarkably modern. He has got rid of the many-limbed unwieldiness of Lyly's prose, of its uncouth lumber and gaudy stage-properties. He has discovered good taste. Take a passage at random in his work, and compare its analytical conciseness with the synthetical heaviness of Euphues: “Remember what they [the angels] are, where they sit, from whence they come, and to whom they speake. They are angels of peace, neither sent without cause, nor seene but of favour. They sit in the tombe, to shew that they are no strangers to thy losse. They come from heaven, from whence all happy newes descendeth. They speake to thy selfe, as though they had some speciall embassage to deliver unto thee. Aske them therefore of thy master, for they are likeliest to returne thee a desired answer.”³⁵

Therefore, though it be true that Southwell did best at first to put on a literary disguise, for a pious purpose, it is no less true that he did not succeed. The fantastic exuberance of Euphuism was distasteful to the precise neatness of his nature and to the acquired elegance of his classical education. The judgment of Fr Thurston needs qualifying. It is indeed a fact that Mary Magdalens teares enjoyed considerable popularity; the work was first printed while its author was being kept in prison as a traitor; it ran through no fewer than nine English and two continental editions within the thirty-two years that followed his death; it was widely imitated in prose and verse, amongst others by Thomas Lodge, Nicholas Breton and Gervase Markham; and the tearful sentimentalism which it ushered into English literature lasted on as late as Crashaw's Weeper. Quite possibly also, the show that Southwell made of gratifying the tastes of his fellow-contrymen, may have won him some admirers. But he was definitely outside the run of Elizabethanism, and his success must have been due to other and more enduring causes.

For one thing, Mary Magdalen's teares may be termed a popular work. Its subtlety is neither deep not abstruse; it makes easy reading for the homeliest of perusers, and never strays beyond the simplest and most obvious psychological facts. Southwell's contemporaries were fond of proverbial sayings, and liked to hear general truths broadly stated. They would find pleasure in such assertions as the following: “In true lovers every part is an eye, and every thought a looke,”³⁶ or “Love increaseth the conceit of [her] losse, which endeareth the meanest things, and doubleth the estimate of things that are precious.”³⁷ Besides, Southwell's preciosity is not recondite. His simple imagery was such as to provide literary pleasure to unsophisticated readers. Religious emotion, just like profane love, finds an ever-reviving freshness about such hackneyed similes as those of flames, fire and ice, scorching and freezing, tears and sighs. Even Magdalen's unnatural and irritating obstinacy in weeping would not be repellent to those who had truly sounded the depths of remorse. Once again, artificiality in the outward form does not spell insincerity; especially as Southwell often rises above mawkishness, and reaches the height of tender pathos. There is no mistaking the warmth of his devotion in the passage in which he imagines that Christ might have come to life again in the arms of Mary Magdalen:

All hazards in taking him should have beene with usury repaid, if lying in thy lappe, thou mightest have seene him revived, and his disfigured and dead body, beautified in thine armes with a Divine Majesty. If thou haddest hoped so good fortune to thy watery eyes, that they might have beene first cleared with the beames of his desired light: or that his eyes might have blessed thee with the first fruits of his glorious lookes: If thou haddest imagined any likelihood to have made happy thy dying heart with taking in the first gaspes of his living breath, or to have heard the first words of his pleasing voyce: Finally, if thou haddest thought to have seene his injuries turned to honours, the markes of his misery to ornaments of glory, and the dept (sic) of thy heavinesse to such an height of felicite, whatsoever thou haddest done to obtaine him had beene but a mite for a million, and too slender a price for so soveraigne a peniworth.³⁸

The following lines are even more touching. They are Southwell's final rendering of a passage of the Italian meditation, in which the writer gently upbraids Jesus for his question to Mary Magdalen: “Why weepest thou?” The insistent repetition of these words, with its plaintively melancholy effect, was borrowed by the Jesuit from his model, but he used it to the best possible effect. The passage is a perfect instance of sweetness of feeling allied to musical softness in the style:

O desire of the heart, and onely joy of her soule, why demandest thou why shee weepeth, or for whom shee seeketh? But a while since she saw thee, her onely hope hanging on a tree, with thy head full of thornes, thy eies full of teares, thy eares full of blasphemies, thy mouth full of gall, thy whole person mangled and disfigured, and dost thou aske her why shee weepeth? Scarce three dayes passed, shee beheld thy armes and legges racked with violent puls, thy hands and feet boared with nayles, thy side wounded with a speare, thy whole body torne with stripes, and goared in blood, and doest thou, her onely griefe, aske her shee weepeth? Shee beheld thee upon the Crosse with many teares, and most lamentable cries, yeelding up her Ghost, that is, thy owne Ghost, and alas, askest thou why shee weepeth? And now to make up her misery, having but one hope alive, which was, that for a small releefe of her other afflictions, shee might have anointed thy body, that hope is also dead, since thy body is removed, and shee now standeth hopeless of all helpe, and demandest thou why she weepeth, and for whom she seeketh? Full well thou knowest, that thee onely she desireth, thee onely she loveth, all things beside thee she contemneth, and canst thou finde in thy heart to aske her whom she seeketh? …³⁹

A comparison with the original reveals the source of both feeling and expression in Mary Magdalens teares; but it also forthwith reveals Southwell's huge superiority in regard to literary craftsmanship. Such fervency of love, expressed in such noble prose, accounts for the appeal of his lyrical work. It may appear tedious to the modern reader, because it is lacking in every element of colour and relief, and has been intentionally reduced to a neutral tint. Yet, though its plainness be diversified by no touch of quaint fancifulness, though its psychological commonsense seldom reach to depth of thought; its restrained soberness in the expression of glowing emotion testifies to the writer's keen sense of artistic beauty, which, once unhampered by the leading strings of imitation, will freely blossom out.

.....

Mary Magdalens teares is the only one, among Southwell's prose works, that has come to occupy a recognized position in the history of English literature. This may give rise to some wonder, for it is by no means the most original, the pithiest or the richest in poetical inspiration. The Epistle, which comes next in date, shows an advance in every respect, and will amply repay the trouble taken by the modern reader to seek out the few scattered copies now extant. Though it ran through four editions between 1587 and 1616, it is now as good as forgotten. The reason of this neglect probably lies in its controversial character, which brought about the destruction of most of the issues by order of the government, and which will clearly appear from the following summary.

The Epistle of comfort to the Reverend priestes, & to the Honorable, Worshipful, & other of the Laye sort restrayned in Durance for the Catholicke Fayth, is meant to strengthen the constancy of those whose freedom has been lost, whose goods and lives have been jeopardised or sacrificed for the sake of the “old religion.” It purposes to fortify them against “tribulation”—the very word, as well as the title itself, remind one of Thomas More's work composed in the Tower, the Dialogue of comfort against tribulation. But the mood of the Jesuit is altogether different from that of Henry VIII's chancellor. Where More is content to advise and persuade in the style of friendly, though grave, conversation, Southwell assumes the part and dignity of a priest and a teacher, who earnestly, almost solemnly, unfolds to the Catholics and to their adversaries the spiritual consequences, good or evil, of the course of action they choose to follow. In the first few chapters he addresses his own co-religionists, and explains why tribulation in this world should be acceptable, nay welcome to a true Christian. The greater the stress, and the more we are sure, he says, that we are in the right path; for the devil aims “his strongest dints” against virtue; and the sufferings to which he subjects our flesh prove that we “be Gods children tenderly beloved of him.” Tribulation must be suffered willingly, and “best agreeth with the estate, and condition of our life;” besides, it is but “little in respect of our desertes.”⁴⁰

Here the author passes on to more controversial ground. He asserts that the Catholic cause is just. This justice alone, he says, ennobles “the estate of the persecuted,” makes imprisonments, torments and death “honourable,” and martyrdom “glorious.” He affirms “that heretikes cannot be martyrs;” proclaims the “vnhappinesse of the scismatikes,” who, though Catholics at heart, attend the public worship of the State Church; and magnificently describes the beauty of the reward promised in Heaven to those who die for the faith.⁴¹ In the last chapter, “A warning to the persecutors,” Southwell carefully avoids the threatening tone that was so common a feature in the polemical writings of contemporary Puritans; he tranquilly, composedly, argues with Elizabeth's ministers, first describing the spiritual benefits which they unwillingly bring to their victims, and then the evils which they are certain to draw upon themselves; evils from which, he says, the Catholics would be ready to save them at the cost of their own blood. From end to end, the tone is one of supreme serenity. The writer is quietly convinced that he speaks the absolute and final truth, which will vanquish in the end. There is no need for bitterness or violence in one who is certain of victory. He soars high up above the paltry happenings of this world, and only views their spiritual consequences. His very love of his fellow-men is hardly of this earth; and yet he speaks out of the fullness of his heart, in order to make both friend and foe the sharers of the happiness he has already arrived at for himself, and of the eternal bliss which lies in store for all, if they care to take it.

Yet, despite the intense lovingness once again displayed in the Epistle, the general atmosphere is far removed from the sentimentality of the Teares. Manliness, plain, straightforward and square-dealing, is now uppermost. The harder spiritual realities have to be faced, and the Jesuit makes no attempt to gloze them over, in his advice to the Catholics or in his warnings to their adversaries. To the former, he asserts that true religion ought to be viewed by them not in its gentler but in its sterner aspect. Christ himself has chosen awful shapes for his prefiguration in the Old Testament.: “Do we thinke that his rigour and justice, signified by these terrible semblances, is relented, that he should shew himselfe vnto vs, only in amiable and louely countenances: Surely we are greatly deceiued, if we feed our selves with this vain persuasion.”⁴² When he turns to Elizabeth's ministers, his admonition, though charitable, is none the less severe. You persecute men, he says, and then you are foolish enough to send them as ambassadors to Heaven, “there to be continuell soliciters with God for reuenge against their murderers, the effect of whose prayers you partely proue: and if Gods mercy be not the greater, more shall you proue hereafter.”⁴³

A corresponding change in Southwell's literary style might be expected, and does, in fact, to some extent take place. His newly-found directness would, however, be reflected in the Epistle far more than it really is, if it were not for two counter-currents which make against excessive austerity. For one thing, the influence of classical oratory upon him is far from wearing away. It is now strengthened by his patristic learning, which appears as quite considerable. Opening the book at random we find quotations of Clemens Alexandrinus, Eusebius of Emesa, St John Chrysostome, St Macarius, St Bernard, St Cyprian, St John Damascene, Anselm, Tertullian, St Jerome, St Ignatius—the list is far from complete. What is more, the Latin text of these quotations is followed by English translations; and a comparison of both proves beyond a doubt the patristic origin of turns of phrase which, on a first view, would unhesitatingly be termed Euphuistic. The following passage is a case in point. Southwell expresses regret that, when attracted by the beauty of creatures, man should love the image of God, and neglect “whome it resembleth.” To show that God is more excellent than any created beauty, he adds a few lines of St Augustine: “Deus a quo auerti cadere, in quem conuerti resurgere, in quo manere consistere est. Deus a quo exire mori, in quem redire reuiuiscere, in quo habitare uiuere est. Deus quem nemo amittit nisi deceptus, nemo quaerit nisi admonitus, nemo inuenit nisi purgatus …” Southwell's English rendering runs as follows: God, “from whome the reuolting is falling, to whome the returning is rising, in whome the staying is sure standing, God from whome to depart, is to die, to whome to repaire is to reuiue, in whome to dwell is to liue. God whome none leeseth, but deceiued, none seeketh but admonished, none findeth but the clensed.”⁴⁴

The impetus gained from this translation is such, that the writer proceeds in the same vein a few lines further on: “Shall the presence of his picture, wherein he is rudely expressed, make vs lauish of our wealth, carelesse of our liberty, and prodigall of our luies …”⁴⁵ Parallelism in sound as well as in sense is found in a quotation from Eusebius Emissenius: “Virus amaritudinis obscurat fraude dulcedinis; prouocat prius odor poculi, sed praefocat infusus sapor in virus: mel est quod ascendit in labia, venenum & fel, quod descendit in viscera.” Southwell's sense of the beauty of prose led him to avoid the internal rhymes in his rendering “He shrowdeth his bitter poyson vnder a deceiptfull sweetnesse: the pleasant sauour of the cup inuiteth, but the sweet taste of the poyson choketh: it is hony that commeth vp to our lips, but gall and poyson that goeth downe into our bowels …”⁴⁶ But almost immediately after we come across an instance of elaborate symmetry: “Where God purposeth to heale, he spareth not to launce, he ministreth bitter syroppes to purge corrupt humors, and sendeth embassies of death & reuenge, where he meaneth to affoard eternal life and felicity.”⁴⁷

Other features of “Euphuism,” which were absent from the Teares, appear in the Epistle, such as the more or less fantastic natural history which Lyly uses with such gusto. It is found especially in the early part of the book; for it seems that here again, Southwell begins with a flourish. We hear of the serpent which is struck dead by the smell of the vine,⁴⁸ of the “libard” that tears the picture of a man,⁴⁹ of the blood-coloured juice shown to elephants to induce them to fight,⁵⁰ of the bees and honey found in the lion's mouth.⁵¹ There is however no reason to think that Southwell followed upon Lyly's footsteps when thus rehearsing strange legends from the imaginary life of beast and plant. Whenever the origin of these stories—sometimes more really true than believable—can be traced, we are again brought face to face either with Scripture or with the Fathers. The unnaturalness of the “ostrige,” that leaves her eggs lying about, is mentioned in the book of Job.⁵² The tale of the viper that kills the male and is in turn killed by its own brood, is borrowed from Eusebius Emissenius;⁵³ and John Damascene, long before Southwell, imagined or repeated the parable of the man who, being pursued by a unicorn, holds on to a tree by the side of a well.⁵⁴

Such fantastic tales, however, are only the dross with the pure metal. Southwell's innate sense of the beautiful, strengthened and guided by his scriptural and patristic models, leads him straight, most of the time, to the most natural, forcible, and poetical imagery. This concurs with the influence of classical rhetoric in turning what might have been the drab fabric of a dry homily into shot silk bright with every hue of the rainbow. Southwell's images follow hard upon one another, almost breathlessly, melt into one another in endless change. And the thread out of which this splendid tissue is spun is the text of the Bible, whether it be directly quoted or used as a source of inspiration. In his last chapter, the writer enlarges upon the words of St Jerome: “Sanguis martyrum Seminarium Ecclesiarum,” and addresses the “persecutors” in the following words: “You haue laboured to suppress vs this 30 yeares: and yet of our ashes spring others, and our dead bones (as Ezechiel prophesied) are come to be exercitus grandis, a huge army. With your thundering both the clowd of errour is dissolued, the enclosed light of truth displayed, & the earth watered with profitable showers to the ripening of Gods corne. New slips are euer engrafted, when the old bough is cut off; and the vertue of the roote that the bough leeseth, the slip enioyeth. You cut open fruit and shed the kernell on the earth, where for one that you spoyle, many will spring vp of it. We are the wheate of Christ (as S. Ignatius said) and are ready (if you will) to be ground with the teeth of wild beasts, or if you will not suffer that, with the mill stones of your heauy persecution, that we may become pure and cleane bread in the sight of Christ …”⁵⁵

Concettism and Biblical imagery stand at opposite poles. No wonder that under the influence of Scripture and scriptural writers, Southwell should slough the remnants of his juvenile artificiality, and come into closer touch with nature; that his gifts of observation should be sharpened, and lead him to a direct and exact, though still lyrical, view of reality. The similes in the Epistle which appear as original testify to the keenness of the Jesuit's view and to the wealth of his experience. Some of them are borrowed from the work of craftsmen. This is how he shows that the sufferings inflicted upon the Catholics will be so many titles to heavenly glory: “As a cunning Imbroiderer, hauing a peece of torne or frettet veluet for his ground, so contriueth and draweth his worke, that the frettet places being wrought ouer with curious knots or flowers, they farre excell in shew the other whole parts of the veluet: so God being to worke vpon the ground of our bodies, by you so rent and dismembred, will couer the ruptures, breaches, and wounds, which you haue made, with so vnspeakable glory, that the whole partes which you left, shall be highly beautified by them.”⁵⁶ And Southwell adds another simile from the crafts, that of the paperer who makes fine paper out of old shreds. Here again, however, the Fathers are closely followed, and a model is supplied by a passage quoted from St Macarius: “If the potter tempereth his fornace agreeably to the vessell, that he mindeth to frame: if the golden smith vse great care, not to haue his fire to great, or to litle, for the quantity of his metall: if the carier hath a regard not to load his beast, more than he is well able to beare: How much more wary is God … in not suffering vs to be tempted aboue our force.”⁵⁷

Some of Southwell's images are so vivid in tone, so full of the substance of material objects, that it seems as if the influence of his native country were gaining ground already at the expense of his classical upbringing. That English love of things which Rupert Brooke was to express so richly, is gradually ousting, in the Epistle, that abstract neutrality of tint which its writer had up till then schooled himself to. This is particularly striking in the case of that nautical imagery which he had already used in his Latin poems and was to revert to so frequently. The following passage is among the most beautiful in the work; it is worth reading to the end on account of the purity and cleanness of its style, of the noble majesty of the simile; but the first few lines are a lively picture, which almost brings the smack of the salt spray to the reader's lips: “As the Shippe, while it is vpon the maine sea, is in a manner a Castle or commonwealth by it selfe; and hauing all the sayles hoysed vp, and swolne with the wind, and the Banners displayed, with a very loftie shew daunceth vpon the waues, and allureth euery eye to behold the pride therof: but when it is come into the Hauen, it is streight ransacked by the searcher, forced to pay custome, and the sayles being gathered, the banners taken in, the ankers cast, it lyeth quietly at rode and is little regarded: So they, that while they sayled vpon the surges of worldly vanities, and followed the tyde of a consciencelesse course, might range vncontroled, & hauing the fauourable gale of authority to waft them forward, and honours and pompe to set them forth, were admired of the people: if they chaunce by Gods calling to retire themselues into the Porte of true faith, and vertuous life, to worke their saluation, they are straight searched and sacked, their sayles gathered, the accustomed wind set, their glory disgraced, and they litle or nothing esteemed.”⁵⁸

Not only is Southwell capable of realistic observation; it seems as if he occasionally added to it the merest touch of sly humour. One can hardly get away from this impression when reading the passage in which he takes up the same theme as Thomas More in one of his early poems,⁵⁹ and contends that man should be no less earnest in his love of God than in his love of woman. The first part only—which refers to human love—will be quoted here: “We see, that an enamoured knight hath no greater felicity, then to doe that, which may be acceptable to his Paramour. & the fading beauty of a faire Ladies Countenance, is able to worke so forceably in mens mindes, that neyther losse of riches, danger of indurance, menacinges of tormentes, no not present death is able to withhold where she inuiteth, or make the barke ride at anker that is wafted in her streames. Euery perill vndertaken for her, seemeth pleasant, euery reproach honourable, all drudgery delightsome, yea the very woundes that come from her, or are suffered for her, are voyd of smart: and more reioyced is the wounded wretch, with hope that his hurt will purchase fauour, then aggreeued that his body hath receiued such a mayme. The colours that like her seeme fayrest, the meate that fitteth her tast sweetest, the fashion agreable to her fancie comeliest, her faultes are vertues, her sayings oracles, her deeds patternes. Finally whatsoeuer pleaseth her, be it neuet so vnpleasant seemeth good, and whatsoeuer commeth from her, be it neuer so deare bought, and of litle valew, is deemed pretious, and a cheape penyworth …”⁶⁰

Southwell was too earnestly mindful of the spiritual consequences of human actions “tiam in minimis,” to indulge for long in psychological analysis for its own sake, or indeed to take the same pleasure as other Elizabethan writers in the changeful and variegated show provided by man's life. But he feels that his delight in the beauty of this world is permissible and praiseworthy, since it brings to him a foretaste of the infinite beauty of God. Artistic creation is an act of piety, and Heaven itself will be a palace of art: “Let this for the glory of the place suffice, that all the ornaments, delights, and inuentions, that either nature hath bred, or art deuised, or man imagined, shall there meete to the furniture of these roomes: and whatsoever hath beene, is, or shall be of rare beauty to set any thing forth, shall there be present; & all this in a thousand-fold more delicious & exquisite manner, then euer hath been seene or conceiued in this world …”⁶¹

This passage is a fit conclusion to the study of Southwell's early prose works. Both the Hundred meditations, Mary Magdalens teares, and the Epistle of comfort repay the critic's perusal; they all cast a light upon the development of the English style, and upon the ancient and independent origin of much that is generally regarded as Euphuism. But their interest does not lie merely in the contribution they bring to the history of literature. They are works of more lasting value. In them appear Southwell's love and sense of beauty—not indeed the riot of colour and swarming life of Elizabethanism—but pure, transparent like the morning sky, fresh like a breeze at sea; not darkly aglow with the lusts of man, but clearly alight with his heavenward hopes; manifested in the careful neatness of the form, and in the author's wondering contemplation of the fairness of God's created world.

Notes

1. The Complete poems [of Robert Southwell. Edited by Alexander Grosart, London, 1872], p. lxxxii.

2. Stonyhurst [College] MS. B. VI. 11, title-page.

3. Careful research has failed to find any such piece either in the older editions of St Bonaventura's works, such as Sancti Bonaventurae … opusculorum tomus primus, Lugduni M.DC.XLVII, or in the latest complete edition, Doctoris Seraphici S. Bonaventurae … Opera omnia, ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi) prope Florentiam.

4. Stonyhurst MS. A.V.4, ff. 56a-62a, also numbered 249a-254a., with the exception of 61 a-b.

5. Ibid., f. 56a-249a. The words erased and replaced by others in the original are here printed between brackets.

6. It stops at the bottom of p. 21 of the Italian text.

7. Stonyhurst MS. A.V.4, fol. 61b.

8. Stonyhurst MS. B.VI.11, pp. 12-13 of the meditation on St Mary Magdalen. The text is obscure, and even the new punctuation added here does not make sense everywhere. The sentence beginning “E nota …” is spoken by the writer and addressed to the reader.

9. Stonyhurst MS. A.V.4, f. 58b-59a, or 251b-252a. The letters or words missing in the MS. are here supplied in square brackets.

10. Stonyhurst MS. B.VI.11, pp. 1-2 of the Italian meditation.

11. Stonyhurst A.V.4, f. 56a or 249a.

12. Stonyhurst MS. A.V.4, f. 61^b.

13. Ibid., f. 37^a.

14. See for instance in the Digby plays, ed. by F. J. Furnivall, Early English Text Society, vol. lxx, 1896, a play on Mary Magdalene, written in the Midlands in the late XVth century.

15. Pierre Ronzy, Un humaniste italianisant, Papire Masson (1544-1611), Paris, 1924, p. 20, n. 2.

16. Cf. Fr Herbert Thurston in the Month, vol. cvi, p. 318, article entitled Father Southwell and his Peter's Plaint.

17. Vincenzo Cremona, Erasmo da Valvasone (1523-1593), Monteleone 1919, pp. 59-60.

18. Stonyhurst MS. B.VI.11, pp. 4-5 of the Italian meditation.

19. Saint Peters complaint, Mary Magdalens teares etc., 1636 ed., sigs N3b-N5a.

20. In a series entitled Catholic writers and Elizabethan readers, N^o II, Month, February, 1895, pp. 231-245 (Vol. lxxxiii.)

21. Stonyhurst MS. B.VI.11, p. 6 of the Italian meditation.

22. Ibid., p. 8.

23. Ibid., p. 3.

24. Ibid., p. 5.

25. Ibid., p. 16.

26. Ibid.

27. St Peters complaint etc., 1636 ed., sig. L6b-L7a.

28. Ibid., sig. L3a.

29. Ibid., sig. P9a.

30. Ibid., sig. Lb.

31. Ibid., sig. N12b. The pun on “God” and “Goods” is already found in Tottel's Miscellany, ed., Arber, 1870, p. 129: “If God for goodes shalbe vnplaced …”

32. St Peters complaint etc., 1636 ed., sig. P7a-P8a.

33. Ibid., sig. N1b.

34. Ibid., sig. K6a-b.

35. St Peters complaint etc., 1636 ed., sig. L2b.

36. Ibid., sig. L6b.

37. Ibid., sig. M12b.

38. Ibid., sig. P5a-b.

39. St Peters complaint etc., 1636 ed., sigs. O5b-O6a.

40. An Epistle of comfort …, 1605 ed., headings of chapters I-V.

41. Ibid., chapters VI-XV and especially chapter XV.

42. An Epistle of comfort, 1605 ed., p. 62.

43. Ibid., p. 390.

44. Ibid., p. 68.

45. An Epistle of comfort, 1605 ed., p. 70.

46. Ibid., p. 40.

47. Ibid., p. 42.

48. Ibid., p. 14.

49. Ibid., p. 15.

50. Ibid., p. 51.

51. Ibid., p. 58.

52. Ibid., p. 412; cf. Job, xxxix, 14.

53. Ibid., p. 407.

54. Ibid., p. 82.

55. An Epistle of comfort, 1605 ed., pp. 385-386.

56. Ibid., p. 397.

57. Ibid., p. 47.

58. Ibid., p. 14.

59. T. E. Bridgett, Life and writings of Sir Thomas More, London 1892, p. 430.

60. An Epistle of Comfort., 1605 ed., p. 67.

61. Ibid., p. 370.