The dumpy book has been much read, was at some time the
property of Mr. John Philips, and bears one touching manuscript note, of
which more hereafter. It is, I presume, a copy of the translation by Sir
Toby Matthew. The author of the Preface declares, with truth, that the
translator "hath consulted so closely and earnestly with the saint that
he seemeth to have lighted his torch att his fire, and to speak in the
best and most significant English, what and how he would have done had he
understood our language."
There can be no better English version of this famous book, in which
Saint Augustine tells the story of his eager and passionate youth--a
youth tossed about by the contending tides of Love, human and divine.
Reading it to-day, with a mundane curiosity, we may half regret the space
which he gives to theological metaphysics, and his brief tantalising
glimpses of what most interests us now--the common life of men when the
Church was becoming mistress of the world, when the old Religions were
dying of allegory and moral interpretations and occult dreams. But, even
so, Saint Augustine's interest in himself, in the very obscure origins of
each human existence, in the psychology of infancy and youth, in school
disputes, and magical pretensions; his ardent affections, his
exultations, and his faults, make his memoirs immortal among the
unveilings of the spirit. He has studied babies, that he may know his
dark beginnings, and the seeds of grace and of evil.
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