The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-22 00:00:00

""” , e licisra. Ile did not assail the Church of Rome as a creed ; be only put down an order which, upon national and political grounds, he had reason to f ear . In a later period the Roman Catholic States of Europe had to implore Rome to suppress the Jesuits, and finally the Emperor Alexander h a d to get rid of them. In the last Emperor's Act of Accusation against the Jesuits there occur two passajes, which we extract. One of them is to this elect MI the actions of the Jesuits are prompted by self interest alone, being directed solely to the acquisition of un li m ited power; dexterous in finding excuses for each and all of their illegal proceedings, by some regulation of their Company, they have made for themselves a conscience as elastic as it is extensive. The phrase " a conscience as elastic as it is exten sive" is a happy one, and critically describes the Order of Jesus. And, again, this passage is worthy of note : The conduct of the Jesuits having placed them beyond the protection of the law of the empire, RS they have not only forgotten the sacred duty of gratitude, but also those duties imposed upon them by their oath as subjeots, they will be sent beyond the frontiers of the empire, under the care of the police, and will never be allowed to re-enter the empire under any other character or denomination whatsoever. Thus they had to be driven out of the country which had extended hospitality towards them, and which they bad ungratefully repaid. One of the most interesting parts of this tract is the notice of that extraordinary writer, Count Joseph de Maistre, author of "Du Pape," and other polemical works. 'We recollect that La martine happily described De Maistre as " a man " whose faith in ancient things amounted to a " deficiency of reason, and to the paradox of the " servitude of the human mind." De Maistre was Sardinian Ambassador at St. Petersburg in the times when the Jesuits were at their intrigues, and he supported them with great art, and the Russian Court had finally to request his recal. Nobody could start a paradox so well as De Maistre, and he did in his day a vast deal of ser vice to the Court and Church of Rome. He wrote up the idea of " the Pope" with great art, and supported his views with much ingenuity. But his eccentric theories, his audacious sophisms, and his disr of facts make him a dangerous follfr cause. The Church of Rome has itself of De Maistre's services, without acknowledging the orthodoxy of his views. De Maistre, as quoted by M. Lutteroth, thus attempted to reason against the argument that Jesuits are an Imperium in imperio : Jesuits, it is said, wish to create a state within the What an absurdity! they might as well say that a • wished to create a state within the state, because to depend only upon their own colonel, and .consider themselves humbled, even insulted, if they subjected to the examination and control of a strange The regiment is not shut up in its quarters to go their exercise, they exercise in the public place. they manoeuvre ill, the lnspector•General or the Empe• himself could see it, and place them in order. But if, 'r the pretext of unity, they should deprive this regi ' which I suppose to have been celebrated and irre e for three centuries) of the power of regulating that they should place such a regiment, and its under the control of a captain of citizen militia, never drawn a sword, such an idea would be if the consequences were not likely to be exceed fatal. See, then, M. le Comte, to what we have this burlesque bugbear of a state within the state; within a state is a state concealed, or a state inde -f the state. The Jesuits, like all other legitimate and more so than others, are under the hand of sovereign : he has only to let it fall, and they are - analogy of the regiment completely fails. A r egiment—English, I rench, or German—is a of a national army, and is commanded by nominated by the Sovereign. A regiment affiliated branches in other countries • its m anoeuvres are not in secre t ; it s f orce i s visible ; discipline is known and authorized ; and it is Periodically subject to the close inspection of the national authorities. It is not a political or pro- Pagandist body, and it does not meddle with private families, or addict itself to intrigues. great merit in this essay of M. Lutteroth shows how De Maistre had acquired such extraordinary zeal in propagating Romanism. have erroneously supposed that he was an d thinker, living in his study ; but it is that the Jesuits in Russia aided him largely. a sort of "lay Jesuit," in point of fact. curious passages from his writings are / M. Lutteroth. Amongst them is one we quote as a specimen of the way in an intellectual Romanist of the high .. ~ The zonduct the protection only forgotten t duties imposed will be sent bey care of the poll the empire and whatsoever. Thus they b which had c and which th One of the is the notice Joseph de A other polemi martin happ " whose faitl " deficiency c " servitude c was Sardinia' the times whi and he supp Russian Cou Nobody cowl Maistre, and vice to the 0 up the idea c supported his his eccentric and his disrei advocate for I availed itself acknowledgin De Maistr attempted to the Jesuits at The Jesuits, state. What an regiment wishes they like to d would consider were subjected colonel. The r through their e If they manteuv re himself coo under the prete went (which I proachable for itself, and that I officers, under t who had never laughable, if the ingly fatal. Sc reduced this bu a state within a pendent of the societies, and x the sovereign : crushed. The analogy r ---egimentt portion of a officers vomit has no affiliat manceuvres a its discipline Periodically 8 national auth P/andist b e private famili It is a grea that it shows extraordi nr) Many have e: isolated thin plain that the lie was a fa Several curii cited by M. Which we Which au . THE PRE S S, MAY 22, 1858. Jesuit school would " reason " against reverence to the Bible:— " All should shudder," said he, " at the fundamental sophism of a system which has unfortunately divided Europe. The partizans of that system say, 'We believe nothing but the word of God.' What an abuse of words ! what a strange and perverse ignorance of the Divine will!—we alone believe lie word, whilst our dear enemies persist in believing nothing but what is written, as if God could or would change the nature of things, of which He is the author, and give a life and efficacy to writing which it has not. Are not the Holy Scriptures writings? Were they not traced with a pen and a little black fluid Do they know what ought to be told to one man, and hidden from another? Do not Liebnitz and his maid read the same words there ? Can writing be any thing but the portrait of a word? and though very much to be respected on that account, if people come to interro gate it, must it not keep a holy silence? If you attack it or insult it, can it defend itself in the absence of its father? Glory be to Truth, if the Word living to all eternity doss not vivify the writing, never can it become the word; that is to say, life. Let others, then, invoke as much as they please the dumb word. We laugh in peace at the false god; waiting with tender impatience for the moment when its undeceived partizans shall throw themselves into our arms, which have been extended to wards them for nearly three hundred years." We say nothing of the tone of this palisage—but let us mark M. Lutteroth's comment : The originality of this passage arises, above all, from the singular idea conceited by Joseph de Maistre, of borrowing his principal arguments from Plato: all the passages underlined, and they were so underlined by the author himself, belong to Plio3don, to whi , :h he refers us. That which Plato says of writing, or of books in general, the Count de Maistre applies to the holy writings; by which means he places them on an equality, and he refuses to them all that Plato refuses to human books. The comment is critical and judicious, and is an effective antidote to the coarse poison of De Maistre's perverted logic. Elsewhere M. Lutteroth's quotes some pas sages from De Maistre : Joseph de Maistre shows, in the first place, that a violent death is the natural death of princes, and that in their ease natural death is the exception. Then he in quires, What is the influence of religion on the duration of reigns? According to him, an average reign in Christian countries may amount to twenty-five Years ; and according to a calculation, which embraces three hundred years, that is precisely the average reign in France. The Reformation, if we believe him, has shortened reigns in Protestant countries. Before that time the average length of reigns in England was three-and-twenty years : since the Reformation, it is only seventeen years ; and in Sweden, the reigns have shortened in the same proportion. As to the length of the reigns in France and Sweden, we shall not enter into calculation here, but De Maistre's assertion about England is erroneous. We suppose that a Romanist reasoner would date the Reformation, quoad length of reigning, from the time when Henry VIII. married Anne Boleyn in 1532. From that date to 1837, when William IV. died, was a period of 305 years, including the eleven years of Cromwell's rule. Thus there were Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, four Stuarts, William 111., Anne, four Georges, and William IV. Taking off eleven years for Crom well, there are fifteen reigns to 294 years, or an average of nineteen and a half years. But that is not the proper way to calculate the average, for the Reformation could not be said to be per manently established until Queen Elizabeth's reign, as her immediate predecessor was a Romanist. Queen Mary died in 1558, and omitting Cromwell's Protectorate, and counting down to the end of William IV.'s reign, there were twelve rulers from the accession of Eliza beth to 1837—a period of 268 years—making an average of twenty-two years and a fraction. That is very different from De hlaistre's asser tion of "seventeen years" being the average length of our English reigns "since the Reforma tion." Or let us takeit in another way. From the death of Queen Mary (1555) to the present year is a riod of three hundred years, and counting the Protectorate of Cromwell, and the reign of our present Gracious Sovereign, there are four teen rulers, giving an average of twenty-one years and a quarter to every reign. De hlaistre, however, is rather more right in his calculations upon the average length of reigns in England prior to the Reformation. But "since the Refor mation in England " we have had only one Sovereign put to death, and another banished ; while before the Reformation, taking an equal number of anterior years, we would remind the Jesuits that two of the I'lantagenets (Edward 11. and Richard II.) were murdered—of the House of Lancaster, Henry VI. was deposed, and died in the Tower, it is supposed, by violence—of the House of York, Edward V. was murdered— and Richard 111. was killed fighting for his Crown. ‘Ve have entered into these calculations because it is well to meet a Jesuit on his facts, and it sounds plausibly to assert that the reigns are shorter in England "since the Reformation." We have noticed this tract at such length be cause we may soon have occasion to criticize the works of De Maistre, whose writings are to mo dem intellectual Romanists what the essays of David Hume were to esprit forts and philosopher in the last century. Although we are aware of what Count Krasmski has written of the Jesuits in his " Religious History of the Sclavonic Nations," yet we have derived fresh views of their policy in Russia from M. Lutteroth's curious and valuable publication. We almost despair of ever seeing a complete history of the Jesuits, but to those who are interested in studying that con fraternity we recommend this tract, which has the additional value of giving additional light for studying the real motives of De Maistre in his works. The tran4lator has exect ted his task with neatness and precision, but we could desire that a few notes were added in a second edition. Some Observations upon the Recent Addition of a Reading-room to the British Museum. By William basking, Professor of Architecture at King's College. London : Stanford. llosiciNo is an architect with two grievances, one of which he sets forth on public grounds, the other on his own behalf. In the first place, he charges the Trustees of the British Museum with having misappropriated the space at their disposal in the interior court by applying it to the erection of a reading-room. Islo new read ing-room, he says, was necessary, because the already-existing King's Library was perfectly well adapted for the purpose. Further, he says, the edifice now built is objectionable—first, from its circular shape, which will accommodate only 300 readers, while an oblong room of the same area would have admitted 400; next, from its occupying a site which might have been applied in a better way. For some structure, he main tains, was required, calculated to serve as a central hall to the whole building, and afford commodious access to its various parts ; and he had himself; in 1848, submitted to the Trustees certain architectural proposals with a view of supplying this deficiency. His plan was to erect a smaller, but in other respects exact, copy of the Pantheon at Rome, in the centre of the quad rangle, and unite it to the four sides by other masses of building containing staircases and halls of communication, and to move the grand stair case from its present position to one immediately opposite the chief entrance. At this point Mr. Hosking's complaint against the Trustees (who, it is unnecessary to eay, altogether disregarded these plans) merges in his own special grievance. It may possibly have passed through the mind of a reader of the last two or three sentences, that the plan we have described is very much like the one which has been actually carried out. We have (it may be said) the Pantheon, or some thing very like it, built in the middle of the quadrangle, only it is not a central hall, but. a reading-room. And this is exactly the idea that Mr. Hosking would desire to suggest. He charges Mr. Panizzi—to whom the credit of having designed the present building is usually attributed—with having plagiarized the idea from the plans which Mr. Hosking had, though with a somewhat different object, previously published. This charge is illustrated by drawings, in which the first design which Mr. Panizzi laid before the Trustees is disadvantageously contrasted with the present beautiful building, conceived (it is alleged) after he had had an opportunity of see ing Mr. Hosking's project. So much for the scope and purpose of Mr. llosking's pamphlet. llis charge against the Trustees need not, we think, detain us. It is no doubt very aggravating that when we have dreamed for thirty-five years of seeing the Pantheon naturalized in England, a public body which has the power will not consent to gratify us (and at the same time benefit the nation) by erecting it. But seriously, we do not see that the necessity of this central hall has been at all made out ; or that it has been proved that the King's Library would make a good reading room : at any rate, as we may say of the matter, solcitur ccdificando, the point is now of no