To trace their wild impetuous course; She gave him words to paint in varied scene O'er all the poet's genius hath been Pass further yet. Behold that countless throng Nor envy's voice complain If such we count as worthy sons of song. Foremost amid that host, Who sang of mysteries of heavenly grace. Who deemed it not beneath his state See the vast sainted crowd Whose voices cry aloud From canticle and hymn. At Poesy's fount they laved their tongue, The glorious Cherubim. Poesy, hear our prayer! Blest maid, thou did'st enchant the men of old : Disdaining not to look upon thy brow And gather beauty there. Did with thine accents sing, And praise Creative and Redeeming Love. And sing in words of melody All noble truth that the whole earth shall move. Send thou on us with impulse swift A piercing ray of true poetic fire. May our enkindling eye Draw wealth from earth and sky, And in thy praise our voices never tire. J. C. F. MEMOIRS OF DISTINGUISHED GREGORIANS, No. VI. Fr. LEANDER JONES, Abbot of Cismar. First President-General of the present Anglo Benedictine Congregation. FR. Leander Jones, better known as Fr. Leander a Sancto Martino was born, as Weldon tells us, in Wales A.D. 1575, and Cressy says of him "that his learning and piety were famous throughout christendom." His family lived at Llan Wrinach, in Brecknockshire, and was a branch of the noble Herefordshire family of the Scudamores of Kentchurch. His parents were Protestants; or perhaps it would be more correct to say that they were not among those who, in spite of the persecution of the twenty five years since Mary's reign, had remained staunch to the ancient faith. By A.D. 1575, Elizabeth had been on the throne for half of her long reign, and although there had perhaps been little active persecution of the Catholic portion of her subjects, the uncompromising policy of repression conceived by Parker had led to the rapid decay of the traditional faith of three fourths of the nation. The main cause of this decay lay in the gradual extinction of the Catholic priesthood and the substitution of a new Protestant clergy in their place. The old clergy, even though they had acquiesced in the change of ritual and doctrine, were like their flocks undoubtedly at heart utterly hostile to its spirit and teaching. But the lapse of twenty five years did its work in making parishes vacant and the new clergy who took the place of the dying priesthood were actuated by Parker's spirit, and ultra-Protestant in their repression of Catholic faith and practice. The people left to themselves were gradually cheated out of their Catholicism, and thus the Jones family at the time of the birth of their son appear to have abandoned their old faith and to have accepted the teaching and practice of Elizabeth's clergy. At this time a great change was also rapidly spreading over the social aspect of English society which affected more particularly the country population. Side by side with the rapid and alarming growth of a pauper population consequent on the suppression of the monastic houses, there sprung up a taste for more lavish expenditure on household and domestic matters. The rough wattle farm houses of the agricultural portion of the people were quickly superseded by more permanent and ornamental buildings, and from this period of Elizabeth's reign we can date the rise of what is now so peculiarly an English conception, that of domestic comfort. The transformation was almost more distinctive and rapid in the towns than in the country, and the city population grew quickly as people began to discover that in them family life could be more readily carried out than in the country districts. When their son was hardly a year old the family, actuated, it may be, by the spirit of the time, resolved to leave their old Brecknockshire home and take up their abode in London. As John Jones grew up it became evident that he was possessed of abilities far above the average and gave good promise of a successful career, while his handsome personal appearance and charming disposition, combined to make him a remarkable child. He was soon sent to school at a small country establishment preparatory to the greater London schools. Weldon tells us that his parents selected Westminster for him. If this be so, he must have been a fellow student with Ben Johnson, under the historian Camden who, in the intervals of rest he could snatch from the work of usher and under-master, was just then engaged on the composition of his "Britannia." It appears certain however that the boy did not remain to finish his school course in the old Abbey School, but was transferred to the newly established school of Merchant Taylors which was then held in high repute, and where he studied with two at least who became well known-Lancelot Andrews, and Juxon, afterwards Bishop of London, Lord Treasurer to Charles I, and his attendant on the scaffold. Attached to the school are several scholarships at St. John's College, Oxford, founded by Sir Thomas White for its scholars. These were obtained by no mean public contests, a description of which may be here given. "An arduous training is passed through by each candi"date before the day of the contest arrives, under one who has already "been through the ordeal, and a most interesting feature of the business "is the zeal of the assistants for their 'men' as they call them. Morn"ing, noon and eve they are constantly by their side teaching them all "the tactics of the intellectual carte and tierce for which they are "preparing. The great event commences at last. The candidates are "arranged according to their forms and places. The helps' are at hand "to give them all possible assistance. A lesson, some Greek epigrams, 'perhaps, is set, and the two lowest boys, figuratively speaking enter the 66 arena. The lowest of these is the challenger, and now calls upon his "adversary to translate one of the epigrams, to parse any particular "number of words in it, and to answer any grammatical questions con"nected with the subject. Demand after demand is made and correctly "replied to. Baffled, but still determined the challenger pursues, and at "last some unlucky mistake is made; the head master who sits as judge, "is triumphantly appealed to-"It was a mistake," is the decision; the "challenger and the challenged change places on the form, and then the 66 66 "latter with fierce eagerness repeats the process by putting his questions. "This continues till one of them is exhausted, feels he is beaten and resigns the contest. The conqueror, flushed with victory, now turns to "the boy above him, and supposing him to be one of those heroes who "occasionally "flash amazement" on all around, will pass step by step "upwards." At the age of sixteen or thereabouts, Fr. Leander won for himself, in some such contest as this, a scholarship at St. John's College, Oxford. The years he had spent in London were eventful ones in the history of England. In 1587 he must have witnessed the bonfires which blazed in the streets of London on the news of the execution of the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringay, and the year following, the boys of the London schools would no doubt have been eager to join the "train bands" that hurried down to Tilbury on the news that the Armada had arrived off the English coasts, and took their part no doubt in the public rejoicings when the bells of every steeple and tower proclaimed to England that the national danger was past. It was about the year 1591, that Fr. Leander became an inmate of St. John's, Oxford. A wonderful revival of literature had begun at this period in England, and particularly in the universities. In the storm of the Reformation, classical learning had well-nigh perished in the schools and colleges and especially in Oxford, and it was only towards the close of the 16th century, that it again revived. The growth of grammar schools in different parts of the country, where the sons of the middle class were brought into contact with the best masters of Greece and Rome began to tell upon the taste and culture of the country generally, and particularly on the older seats of learning at Oxford and Cambridge. In religious matters, at the period when Fr. Leander-then a youth of sixteen-came up to the University, the policy of Parker and the strict enforcement of the Act of Supremacy and other tests, had cleared the schools of every adherent to the ancient faith. With other Church property the seats of learning had been seized, and creatures of the state placed in the positions of those who-like Dr. Allen the founder of Douai Seminary-were driven abroad by religious persecution. Still in the pages of Wood's "Athenæ Oxoniensis are to be found the names of many celebrated university scholars who during Elizabeth's reign returned to the old faith, just as Fr. Leander himself was constrained to do a few years after he had been entered at Oxford. At St. John's, Fr. Leander shared his rooms with William Laud afterwards the celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury, whose bosom companion he became, and with whom he formed a friendship that was not severed by the two very opposite paths taken by them in after life. He gave himself chiefly to the study of Law, and his wonderful abilities soon made him a noted scholar in the University. Besides his natural cleverness, he was possessed of a most subtle judgment, and a charming eloquence which showed itself to advantage in the frequent academic disputations of his day. The fame of his dialectic skill soon became known, and brought many to the schools to listen to him. His studies. led him, no doubt through the providence of God, to ponder over many of the religious difficulties of his time, and to contrast his belief with the belief of the past. In a public disputation he proposed some Theological questions which no one could answer satisfactorily, and when the Professors came to the assistance of their pupils, Fr. Leander pushing his advantage, completely silenced them. The applause of the audience could not be withheld from the youth, and this served to embitter the ill-feelings of the discomforted masters. He was sent for by the authorities of the University on more than one occasion and charged with being secretly a Catholic, and having in his possession catholic books from which he drew his arguments, This he vehemently denied and offered to bring his friends to confirm what he said, but in spite of his protestations it was decided that he should be sent away from the University as being in reality a Catholic. While he was in great grief at this unjust decision, he encountered in Oxford a Jesuit father disguised as a layman. The father having entered into conversation with him, at last asked him the reason of his grief. Fr. Jones confided the whole matter to him, not knowing to whom he was speaking. The father asked what the arguments were that had resulted in the confusion of the professors. He repeated them to him, " And could not your professors answer these?" asked the Jesuit. "No," returned the youth, “But I suppose you could reply to them yourself"? "Certainly not, for it was to get them answered that I really proposed these difficulties," "But my dear friend," proceeded the Jesuit father, "what if they cannot be answered, and are really true?" The conclusion which would follow as to the truth of Catholic doctrines, struck the logical mind of the youth with irresistible force, and that night, after a long talk with the father in his rooms, he made up his mind to take his advice and leave England to study abroad. The resolution once taken, he did not delay in the execution of his design, but returned immediately to London to wish his friends good-bye. On his arrival at home, he found both his parents ill of a plague which in a few days proved fatal, and this loss hastened his departure for Spain feeling certain of his divine vocation. The first night at sea a vision in his sleep seemed to confirm this belief, and to a Jesuit father who was on board with him, he made |