CHAPTERS IN EUROPEAN HISTORY

Mr. W. S. Lilly, who has written "Chapters in European History" (Chapman and Hall), appears to be an English Catholic, with very strong and original opinions of his own, that is to say with many prejudices. These, however, are so picturesque and stated with so much frankness, not to say simplicity, as to be very interesting. His object seems to be to maintain that in spite of movements which the rest of the world has hitherto considered to be progressive, humanity has not progressed. His meaning of progress, however is a little different from that which is commonly attached to the word. Progress means the advance of mankind in the recognition of certain teachers commissioned to reveal new truths. The modern theory of evolution he scouts with a fervour which sometimes becomes amusing. His Renaissance, under which title Mr. Lilly apparently includes the Reformation, is roundly denounced as a movement the most fatal to intellectual and moral growth. In art, in literature, in religion and in philosophy it was not a new birth but an eclipse and an obscuration of vitality. The men and the events which do not square with this theory Mr. Lilly disposes of by a very summary process. They were not of the Renaissance, but the last of the old and heathen age. The Sixteenth Century, which other historians have held to be the beginning of a new epoch, to Mr. Lilly was but the brilliant close of the old era. Shakespeare and Michael Angelo were of the mediaeval type, not of the modern and newly awakened school. All that came of the Renaissance was bad and poisonous, including the French Revolution, which is the special object of Mr Lilly's aversion. Of this great movement and of its influence on Frenchmen Mr. Lilly writes with amusing abhorrence. "I know the country well," says he, "and every time I visit it I discern terrible evidence of ever increasing degeneracy. The man seems to be disappearing. There is a return to the simious type. The eye speaks of nothing but dull esuriency. The whole face is prurient. The voice has lost the virile ring, and has become shrill, gibberish, baboon-like. Go into the Chamber of Deputies, the chosen and too true representative of the people. The looks, the gestures, the cries remind you irresistibly of the monkey house in Regent's-park." It is needless to say that Rousseau, as one of the apostles of the Revolution, comes in for a full share of Mr Lilly's wrath. He scarcely allows him to be a serious thinker. He avers that there never was a contrat social, that men are not born free and equal, and that the "noble savage" is a pernicious humbug, the degraded specimen, not the primitive type, of humanity. As for England, if she has escaped from the evil influences of the Renaissance, it was because she was never wholly controlled by them as her neighbours were, and has always clung to the faith in the supernatural. The one true and always pure influence has been the Papacy, which has secured for the modern world the rights of free speech and free thought, and remains the consistent champion of liberty. These ideas—little in accordance with the spirit of modern history— Mr Lilly propounds with perfect candour, and maintains with great spirit, in a singularly bright and lucid style.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Saturday 12 June 1886, page 13