DR. BAYNE'S LIFE OF LUTHER. pro THE EDITOR OF THE
" SPECTATOR:"J
STR,—With reference to the notice of my book on Luther which appeared in your last issue, permit me to suggest that the mistake of saying that Savonarola died when Luther was born, instead of when he was a boy of about fifteen—a mistake which arose from mere accidental lapse of memory—is somewhat too narrow to serve as basis for the inference that I am disqualified to treat of personages who "came into contact with Luther."
I am much more concerned, however, to find that your critic has derived from my account of the relations between Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, and Luther a very different impression from what I intended to convey. He speaks of my "grudging praise" of Frederick, and of my" ungenerous quibbling over his praise." Now, my feeling towards Frederick is one of affectionate veneration. I cite by way of proof the follow- ing passage :—" With the simplicity and sincerity of an antique shepherd-king, he made it his ambition to rule his Saxons well, and to fill worthily the first place among the Electoral Princes of the German Empire. He was the most clement and kind of sovereign personages. Why hang a poor thief?' he would say : you cannot bring him to life again.' Of him alone, perhaps, among princes, it is on record that having raised money by taxation, and finding that shift could be made without it, he returned it to the pockets of his subjects. It was one of his special pleasures to deal out corn to poor farmers in compensation for injury done to their crops by game. There was a poverty about the court of Frederick more illustrious than all the splendours of opulence ; and it could be truly said of him that he liked bettor to know that the brown loaf was on the peasant's board than to see the glittering of gold-plate on his own. On the wall of his bedroom he had inscribed the Homeric adage that the shepherd of the people must watch while the people sleep ; and in his case this was not the vapid boast of a sovereign coxcomb."
Is this "grudging praise "P Your critic instructs me as follows :—" Had the Elector been an excitable, enthusiastic dis- ciple of Luther, he certainly could not have rendered the services to the Reformation which Dr. Bayne has to acknowledge from time to time." I do not assume to speak with the confidence of my censor, but I am careful to give Frederick the benefit of the doubt. I point out, in short, that the difference in the ages of the men, and the fact that the younger was a man of genius, suffice to explain, in a manner honourable to both, the occasional friction between them. Here is the proof:—" How much might have worn a different aspect if Frederick had been born in the same year with Luther ! In that case, twenty years of the world's most awakening history, twenty years of Columbus voyaging, of printed books, of Erasmus Commentaries, would have passed over him while still in the fervid recipiency of youth. And he would have come into touch with Luther while the fiery blood of opening manhood was in his veins as well as in Martin's. Had the prince believed in the prophet as young men believed in him, who can tell what might have been the result ! Whether, all things considered, such a state of things would have been better for the world may, however, be doubted. The force of Luther was volcanic—wanted tempering rather than fanning—and" Frederick's mode of tempering it was morally very noble and not injudicious." I put into italics the sentences which, though inseparable from the context, show expressly that I was not blind to the aspect of the matter on which your critic insists.
I am simply shocked and horror-struck at the idea suggested in your inference from the passage quoted from me about Philip of Hesse. But I cannot allow myself to doubt that, if you will reflect for one moment on the relation in which that passage stands to my general object of showing what Luther had to say for himself in permitting Philip to have a second wife, you must see that I would absolutely cut away Luther's ground from beneath his feet if I excused or palliated the profligacy described in it. It was to escape from profligacy which agonised his own conscience, that Philip came to Luther ; it was because even second marriage seemed to Philip and to Luther a less evil than such profligacy, that the second marriage took effect. So bad,. in fact, was that profligacy that it was necessary for me, believing as I did that Philip was a religious man, to mention circumstances which might render it conceivable and credible that he could both have fallen into such sin and have suffered anguish of conscience on account of it. Had it ever occurred to me as within the verge of possibility that any expressions made use of in the quoted passage could convey the idea that I excused profligacy, I should have struck them out. But all attempts, I say, not to vindicate Luther's conduct in the matter, but to show with lucidity, as I aim at doing, the reasons he alleged for his conduct, start from the proposition that Philip wished to be delivered from vagrant and execrable profligacy by a marriage which, however irregular it might be, he held, and Luther held, to be less profligate. As for the brevity with which I have dismissed the closing period of Luther's life, I need only say that his work as an organiser is discussed in a separate chapter, that his pastoral work is presented again and again to the reader in its various aspects, and that therefore the reason stated for my compression, "Martin Luther's work was done," stands nnimpeached. The episode of John Frog's marriage had for me a particular fascination, and I wrote of it in the tone of gaiety with which I should speak of it among friends. "Johann Frosch " and "John Frog" are simply the same name, word for word, with not more of dialectical variety than might, I dare say, be met with in districts not farther remote from each other than Cornwall and Durham. I used the precise English equiva- lent of Johann Frosch because it suited my fancy, and in the exercise of a right which, I trust, is not to be sacrificed to the stern formalities of criticism, that, namely, of presuming that my readers will be genial. I now put in as my plea that wise and kind aphorism of the ancients, dulce est desipere in loco.—I
[The first passage of which Dr. Bayne complains did not speak of "personages," but of "Popes and other Italians who came into contact with Luther." Such a lapse of memory as confuses the beginning and end of Savonarola's active career, is quite enough to show that the writer is not familiar with the Italian history of the period and with the men who played a part in it. As to Frederick, Dr. Bayne seems to us to do full justice to his moral character, but to give "grudging praise" to his capacity ; and the passages that we quoted justify our expression. After all, this is a matter on which an author and his critic may fairly differ. Our criticism on Dr. Bayne's treatment of the case of Philip is more important, as it was one which ought not to be made lightly ; but we do not see that we have anything to retract or apologise for. We do not for a moment suppose that Dr. Bayne intends to excuse profligacy, but his words (which we quotef in full) seem to bear no other meaning as they stand. We can make nothing else out of a plea for "a patient audience to physiological science" on behalf of a profligate adulterer, or of the description of his profligacy as "a bowing down in the temple of Rimmon," as though it were some slight outward compliance with the errors of others. But we can quite believe that Dr. Bayne did not fully realise the effect of his words, and are heartily glad to know that he indignantly disavows the meaning which to us seems the one certain to be put on them by the ordinary reader.—En. Spectator.]
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