ART. VI.-THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF The Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White, written by him- London. 1845. As the Editor of this Autobiography is also a joint Editor of the Prospective Review, there would be an obvious impropriety in noticing his publication in these pages, if it were in any way our purpose to animadvert, either for praise or for blame, on the mode in which he has fulfilled the task entrusted to him by the express wishes of his venerable friend. But the Editor has so completely kept himself out of view, and left the various records of Mr. White's mind to produce their own impression, that he has altogether relieved us from any delicacy we might have felt on this head. It is with Mr. White alone, as he has revealed himself in these volumes, that we are now concerned. We shall look at the mental portrait drawn by his own hand, without considering the frame in which it is set. The memorials of such a mind are an instructive witness of the spirit of the times, through which it struggled and suffered; and we should feel, that we had not discharged the duty which a periodical devoted to the interests of moral and religious truth, imposes on its conductors, if we failed to call the attention of our readers to the many questions of deep and solemn interest-the many themes for pregnant reflection -which these confessions of an earnest and truthful spirit suggest. Although the careful analyst of character will easily detect the latent thread of psychological identity which runs through every period of Mr. White's recorded experience, connecting his first outbreak from the thraldom of Catholicism with the views in which he at length tranquilly awaited his dismissal from earth-the key-note, as it were, of spiritual feeling, ever distinctly audible, with its characteristic expression, through all his changing moods of trust and despondency-yet the transient hue and visible manifestation of his opinions were often so deeply tinged by the warm sympathy of his affectionate heart with the social connections into which he was brought by the course of events, that the history of his mind only becomes thoroughly intelligible, through that of his outward life. He has himself furnished us with much of the information required, by leaving behind him a narrative of the events of his life up to the year 1826, written at Oxford, and addressed originally in the form of letters to Archbishop Whately. To this he added afterwards a Sketch of his Mind in England, which he did not continue beyond the year 1824-though the interval between that period and his death, is very fully illustrated from his Journals and his Correspondence. As a preparation for understanding his spiritual history, we shall present our readers with a brief survey of the most important incidents of his life. Joseph Blanco White † was descended from an ancient Irish family which had been reduced in circumstances by its attachment to the Roman Catholic religion, and one branch of which, emigrating to Spain about the beginning of the last century, had risen to wealth and distinction through a flourishing mercantile establishment at Seville, and was admitted by a royal patent to all the privileges of the Spanish noblesse in perpetuity. To this branch, which was subsequently impoverished by a failure, the subject of these remarks belonged. He was born at Seville in 1775. By his mother's side he was connected with the ancient nobility of Andalusia. Both his parents-of whose sincerity and conscientiousness he always speaks with affectionate veneration-were bigotedly devoted to the Church of Rome, and brought up their son with that jealous watchfulness, and severe restraint on the innocent and natural inclinations of childhood, which their gloomy superstition inculcated among the first of parental duties. His childhood was not happy. The discipline to which he was sub These two fragmentary memorials of his outward and his inward life are incorporated with the first volume of his Autobiography. It is hardly necessary to remark, that Blanco was only the Spanish rendering of the original designation of the family, which was resumed, and appended to the Spanish name, when Mr. White came over to England. His full description in Spain was, Don Jose Maria Blanco y Crespo; Crespo being his mother's name, which, according to Spanish custom, was sometimes added and sometimes omitted.-See the Appendix to his Autobiography, No. I. jected, ill accorded with the endowments bestowed on him by nature a heart of uncommon tenderness and susceptibility, a lively fancy, extreme sensitiveness of organization bodily and mental, and an intellect active and inquisitive almost to restlessness. In addition to these qualities, he early discovered a rectitude of moral feeling and a love of truth, which formed through life the noblest features of his character. With such tendencies-unless they could be deadened into acquiescence and formalism-there was little prospect of happiness for a Spanish Catholic, and still less for a Spanish Ecclesiastic. He tells us, that from the windows of his father's house, to which he was rigorously confined for fear of contamination in the world, he often looked with envy on the children of the poor that were at play in the street. His earliest impressions of religion were darkened with gloom and fear. The thought of heaven was actually painful and oppressive to him, from the images of it with which religious books had filled his mind; and he describes a dream of his childhood that occurred to him under these influences, the melancholy vividness of which remained with him to his dying day. Even at this early age, doubts penetrated through the strong defences of superstition which parental anxiety and priestly jealousy had thrown up around his mind, and, in spite of the deafening clamour of Church dogmatism, the voice of reason and humanity made itself heard in his young heart. The reading of Telemachus-one of the few books of entertainment which chance had thrown in his way-very naturally suggested the inquiry, why the heathens, whose many virtues are there held up to admiration, should be shut out from heaven, because they had not the religion of Catholics. The doubt was confided to his Confessor, and dismissed with a friendly warning, not to trouble his head with such foolish speculations. His early education was exceedingly confined; for his father, having destined him for mercantile life, had placed him, when only eight years old, in his counting-house, where the servile drudgery of copying letters and invoices so disgusted him, that he gladly embraced the idea, which his mother had always secretly cherished, of becoming a clergyman. Her wishes prevailed, and he now entered on the preparatory studies of his future vocation. During this course, he devoured with avidity the best intellectual aliment that was offered him. He mastered the works of Feyjoo, a Spanish Benedictine, who, under the protection of the liberal ministry of Ferdinand VI., had attacked the old scholastic system; and through him he acquired some insight into the Baconian philosophy. He afterwards obtained access to the writings of Bacon himself. The first fruits of his enlightenment he exhibited in a public remonstrance against the stupid instructions of a Dominican friar, who lectured on logic in the college where he had been placed by his father. With some young men of superior minds, he formed a sort of Academy for the encouragement of literary tastes, and even held for a time the professorship of Belles Lettres, which had been founded at Seville by a patriotic association. In the meantime, he perfected his knowledge of Latin, went through the classes in divinity, with the aid of a learned and well-written, though somewhat antiquated, text book, studied the poetry of his own country, acquired the languages of France and Italy, and obtained a considerable acquaintance with their polite literature. Such pursuits enlarged and liberalised his mind, but they did not increase his liking for the sacerdotal office. He disclosed the change in his views, and expressed a wish to enter the naval profession, which possessed in his eyes the twofold recommendation of demanding a higher scientific culture, and opening a prospect of more extensive intercourse with the world. But his friends insisted, that the only alternative was returning to the counting-house or going into the Church; and this necessity, with the pain which he saw his alteration of plan occasioned to his mother, determined him to abide by his original destination-the first recorded instance, in which his affections, uniting with outward circumstances to sway his judgment, forced him into a situation at variance with his latent convictions and natural disposition. In Doblado's Letters, which contain, under a semblance of fiction, many passages from his own life, he has given a very animated description of the progress of his feelings from the time when he again turned his thoughts to the priesthood-the artificial stimulus by which the exercises of St. Ignatius brought back and exalted his religious sensibilities-the overpowering emotions and devout ecstasy which possessed his soul, when, on the day of his investiture with the priestly character, amid strains of inspiring music, and clouds of incense, he saw his parents kneeling down in the crowd of devotees, to kiss the hands of their own child, just consecrated to the sublime office of creating, and dispensing to them, the body of the Lord-the spiritual deadness which soon followed this unnatural elevation of feeling-the ceaseless rise of doubts which no efforts and remonstrances could subdue -the almost involuntary escape of his state of mind in unguarded communication with a friend, which, having already compromised him to the utmost, took away the motive for any further disguise, and revealed to him at once the whole extent of his spiritual hollowness and desolation. By the laws of the Catholic Church, the sacerdotal character was impressed indelibly upon him, and he could not attempt to throw it off, without incurring the last penalties of the Inquisition. He would have fled from Spain, and sought refuge in the United States, but the thought of the wretchedness which such a step would inflict on his parents, deterred him. He resolved, therefore, after the example of many enlightened men among the ancients, to keep his private opinions to himself, and, without any hypocritical display of zeal, to execute his official duties decorously, and direct them, as far as it was possible, to a good moral result. But this state of habitual disingenuousness was intolerable to such a mind. From intercourse with the higher clergy, he found the most complete unbelief-rarely stopping short of Atheism -widely prevalent among them. The revolution that was taking place in other parts of Europe, had penetrated by stealth into Spain. Numbers of the clergy were great readers, in secret, of the French philosophy. He mentions a dignified ecclesiastic, who always carried about with him the Système de la Nature concealed in the folds of his gown. It was a polluted atmosphere in which his spirit breathed; for the licentiousness of the clergy was as general as their unbelief-sometimes veiled under a great external show of devotion and sanctity. Blanco |