Volumes I. and II. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons. 1861. 8vo.
pp. xii. and 515, 549.
These volumes form the first instalment of a work in which one of the
great lights of the Romish Church in our day proposes to recount the
glories of Western Monasticism, and to narrate the lives of some of the
remarkable men who successively passed from the cloister to the Papal
throne, or in positions scarcely less conspicuous permanently affected
the history of the Church. His original design, however, does not appear
to have extended beyond writing the life of St. Bernard of Clairvaux,
which he intended to make in some measure a complement to his life of
St. Elizabeth of Hungary. But he judged rightly, that, in order to
exhibit the character and influence of that remarkable man under all
their various aspects, it was needful at the outset to retrace the early
history of monastic institutions in the West, and to show how far
they tended to prepare the way for such a man. Only a part of this
preliminary task has been accomplished as yet; but enough has been done
to show in what spirit the historian has approached his subject, how
thoroughly he has explored the original sources of information, and
what will probably be the real worth of his labors.
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