The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-16 00:00:00

1192 lAy the next chapter we learn that the French peasantry have never shrunk from the practice of diabolical arts, in order, like Glendower, to summon " spirits from the vasty deep," or the bowels of the earth, to reveal to them the future or to aid them in their necessities; and we see that they are even provided with the means of raising the Devil himself, also with the formula neces sary for selling themselves body and soul to his Satanic Majesty, in case there should be no more lawful way of gaining any object they may have in view. We learn, too, that they are in possession of certain prayers and forms, strongly resembling unintelligible jargon, by the recital of which they can keep themselves and their fields free from all manner of mis fortunes ; also that they possess talismans which scare foxes from hen-roosts and wolves from sheep-folds. We see besides that they know how to make a certain ointment from the hand of an executed criminal which will sm invisible, and enable them, if it •ed with due precaution, to rob 1 banks without detection. Aud know as well as anybody what the and all his imps, sorcerers, and son , in their grand midnight meetings, and when they hold their famous •.ght suppers on unbaptised babies. :ening and divination, too, it appears works that the good people must ly well versed, as they possess in therein of all kinds, from the the learned Apomazar, Philosopher to the famous Alnaamoum, Caliph down to peculiar explanations of the palm Of the hand, and of coffee breakfast-cups. For diseases in and their eattle they have, more remedies than any physician or surgeon can boast of : they know, ,e, that a dead toad dressed in salt, ausaftttida, and worn round the man or beast, enjoys extraordinary next chapter at which we arrive we have an amusing proof of the mania of the French people to consider themselves and be considered as is plus spirituel de la terre ; and specimens of the jokes, bon-mots, and stories which they take the trouble to learn by heart in order to gain that end are given. The following chapter treats of books on the corn pagnotiage of workmen, and of those which provide cut-and-dry dialogues for every possible occasion ; though of what use the dialogues can be it is not easy to perceive. We have next a specimen of mock sermons, which would be if they were less profane. Of noted malefactors, and of imagi , the next chapter shows us that great many—also that the well id of the Wandering Jew is as as it was in its infancy, a thou to. The two next chapters are religion and morality, and on canticles ; and they are to us the ling of any, as they show most •eligious and moral state of the 'rench people. And what do we ' The author himself thus speaks . to which they refer : is not so much religion they teach as practices and 'Mies which it ie not easy even for the most robust 4to accept. Very few reasons, rarely any elevation of .yle or thought, a very small desire to win souls, bet a clearly expressed intention of striking them with terror, find, more still, to place them at their ease by presenting to them puerile obligations, in the accomplishment of which consists, they are told, salvation—such is the spirit of most of these publications. I may add that the simple possession of the works is sometimes recommended, as if pitch of them were a relic calculated to secure all sorts of blessings in this world and in the world to come. The author continues: — It has often been remarked that there are in the Bible histories which demand to be treated with the greatest cir cumspection, in order to adapt them to the intt.lligence of peHtsants, and especially of children. But this is what the Whom of the canticles and other works destined to engrave thesehistories in the minds of the people have made not attempt to do. Joseph interpreting the dream of Pharaoh, gad leaving his cloak in the hands of the wife of Potiphsr ; Judith employing the language and the artifices of a Co trtesan to seduce and immolate Holophernes ; Susannah and the old men ; the Prodigal amusing himself with loose *o ten—all that is put into dogg, el or is treated in a way not et all calculated to inspire grave or edifying thoughts. To spins is the ease with certain *MOO intim lives of some of tbe saints. jltitttri ,e, render them be employe houses and then they ki foul fiend an ogresses do i and where a Saturday-nit In fortune-ti tl•om these m be singular]; *tractions t treatises of I in Ordinary or Babylon, the signs in grounds in themselves over, better veterinary s for example garlic, and neck of m, virtues. In the 3 more amusing biographies of nary persons, there are a gi known legend popular now a Band years agi on works on collections of most interesti clearly the 11 pass of the F 1 find in them ? of the works ti It is not soma THE PRESS. The author might have used much stronger language; for it really seems to be the object of the books he quotes to bring religion into contempt by familiar and profane treatment of the most holy persons and things—or, worse still. to make it the vehicle for inculcating the grossest licentiousness. Striking examples might be adduced, but we must not pollute our columns with them. In one book we have the Saviour repre sented as coming down from Heaven to show to some woman the injuries he received before his crucifixion : I shed for you (said Het seventy-two thousand two hundred tears, and the number of drops of my blood in the Garden of Olives was ninety-seven thousand three hundred and seven. I received on my body one thousand six hundred and sixty-seven blows ; on my cheeks, one hundred and ten ; on my neck, one hundred and seven ; on my hack, three hundred and eighty. And He continues to recapitulate the blows on different parts of His person in the same methodical though far from edifying way. In other of these books, under pretence of giving counsels against sin, the most abominable allu sions are made, and iniquities of which per haps nobody would have the idea are indi cated ; others contain soi-disant " pious" anec dotes which would merit a prosecution by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, if there were such a society in France. Others give copies of letters represented to have been written by God in Heaven ! In another we have the history of how a certain Abbe Chanu forced his way into Paradise in spite of St. Peter, and how he duped, and ridiculed, and wrangled with the saint. When such is the style in which the most holy subjects aro treated, we can hardly be surprised at finding, in the next chapter, a description of books in which counsels as to the best way of seducing girls and married women are gravely given, together with specimens of letters to be written on the commencement and rupture of immoral connections. How the French police could have allowed such books, which M. Nisard justly describes as " infamous," to have been circulated for years it is not easy to understand. The last chap ter of the book is happily of a very different character : it treats of the old romances and tales, all of which, in spite of their well-known absurdities, are well worth perusal, and many of which are new to Englishmen. From this rapid sketch it will be perceived that M. Nisard 's book fully merits the com mendation we have ventured to bestow upon it. Blemishes it has, no doubt : the author, for example, indulges in rather too much of the Frenchman's proverbial fondness of put ting himself forward and talking of himself ; he goes into too much development on some subjects and not into enough on others ; he makes a parade of scholarly reading in some places, and in others, where it was equally called for, displays none at all ; and, not paving the fear of the elder Disraeli, Mr. Douce, and other literary' antiquaries, before his eyes, he claims for Irance the honour of having originated the "Dance Macabre "—all the singular engravings of which, by the way, he admirably reproduces. We notice, too, that he says nothing at all about the people's songs, though France possesses as many as any country, seine of them of great antiquity ; neither has he meddled at all with proverbs, though the French, like Sancho Pansa, have always made a free use thereof, and must, one would think, have printed collections of them. But, in spite of blemishes and omissions, the .book is one which the statesman and the moralist will consult with interest, from which the student can derive instruction, and by which the reader for amusement will be pleased; and, by preserving in a permanent form specimens of a branch of literature which is about to he transformed or swept away alto gether, it will, beyond doubt, be highly es teemed by posterity. The Bungalow and the Tent ; or, a Visit to Ceylon. By Edward Sullivan. London: Bentley. Ma. SUL:IVAN is a young traveller, and in this light, sketchy volume has given us his first impressions upon the men and manners of Ceylon. It is smartly written, to use the term in an American sense, and entertaining SATURDAY, throughout. En route to India, Mr. Sullivan stopped at Ceylon for a few weeks, paid flying visits to the principal towns, rode through the country, hunted elephants, made notes of all he saw and heard, and, after the due period of gestation, produces, as he him self says, " this old picture in a new light." To the archaeologist Ceylon would prove a most interesting study. Favorably situated at the western entrance of the Bay of Bengal, and bounded upon its southern and eastern shores by the Indian Ocean, Ceylon is, by position alone, intended as an emporium for the trade between India, Africa, and China, and though now, comparatively speaking, a country without commerce or population, it was once a powerful State, engrossing a vast eastern trade, and rapidly advancing in civili- sation and wealth. However, with the causes of its decay and ruin we have no present concern. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, the country being torn with civil war, and in vaded at the same time from Malabar and Arabia, the King purchased the assistance of the Portuguese by the promise of an annual tribute of cinnamon. His wary allies, how ever, having once obtained a tooting in the island, resolved, as history shows us has always been the case under similar circum stances, to strengthen themselves in their own position, as well as assist their ally the King of Kandy, and, from some trifling pri vileges in trade, gradually encroached upon their assigned limits till ultimately, after severe fighting, they subjected the principal maritime provinces, and, in spite of the many and desperate efforts of the Kandians to expel them, retained a fair hold of their conquests for nearly 150 years. At length, in 1632, the Kandians called in the Dutch to their assistance, and in a short period, by their united efforts drove out the Portu guese. But the Cingalese soon found that, it they had got rid of a bad master, they had exchanged him fur a worse. The Dutch, more powerful and energetic than their prede coessors, attempted the entire conquest of the island; but' the fatal jungle fever destroyed their troops, and for a century or so still left the central provinces unconquered, though the maritime provinces, with all that remained of the trade and commerce of the country, fell to the successors of the Portuguese. During the last great war,when we were opposed to Holland, we executed a series of successful operations against the Dutch provinces of Ceylon, which were ultimately ceded to us by treaty, and in our possession they have remained ever since. However, the native kingdom of Kandy still occupied the central districts of the island. In 1803 we became embroiled with that king dom, and a long and bloody war was, as in the former case of the Dutch, unsatisfactorily ter minated with " a tacit suspension of hostili ties." In 1815 the cruelties and oppressions of the reigning King of Kandy had so alienated the affections of his subjects and chiefs that they invited the assistance of the British power to deliver them from his tyranny. A small force suddenly entering the kingdom took possession of the country , captured the King, and firmly established the British do minion within the interior of the island. Such is a slight sketch of the more modern history of Ceylon. The vast commerce of the island was in the first instance checked by the re strictions of the Portuguese and destroyed by the monopolies of the Dutch. It has remained for us, by the judicious abolition of such re strictions, and by a careful attention to the internal improvement of the country and the encouragement of cultivation, to revive the old commercial spirit of the people, and to lay the foundation of a progressive prosperity. On the antiquities and chronicles of the island Mr. Sullivan scarcely tenches : even the scenery, which is allowed to be, in some parts of the island, the finest in the world, does not much please him. He cannot enjoy fine scenery after a lung ride and when he is hungry, or even when it is to be found at the top of a high hill. It must be "made to fit for him. Sonic of his remarks, however, are wade in better spirit and with more discruninatiou. His description of the effect produced by the first 4ppearance of the Cingalese with their _._.~._.