The Press. — London, England, 1858-06-26 00:00:00

ittr a t iir t, ••• rx - Irx•F -),I, .11.11111.111.1 Wanderings and Iffuslngelit the Valleys of the Waldenses. By Jam A. Wylie, LL.D. London : Nisbet. THOSE who look at a good map of Piedmont—the magnificent one, for instance, drawn by Signor Brambilla for the Sardinian Government—will observe, south-west of Turin, and a little to the north of Monte Viso, a system of valleys running up into the heart of the Alps towards the French frontier, and having from their geographical shadings somewhat of the appearance of vine leaves, the stems of which would be represented by the central river of each district, and the radiating veins by the streams which water its tributary valleys. This mountain region, irri gated by innumerable torrents, and comprehending within itself a fertile soil at various elevations of temperature, from the Alp only fit for the pas turage of cattle, down to the rich low-lying mead ripened by the rock-reflected rays into exuberant productiveness, is the home of a people which, sturdy as the oak of Algidus that supplied the Roman poet with a comparison for the perennial vigour of his race, has handed down from sire to son, through the.blasts of persecution, the torch of a true religion and the symbols of an antique faith. Numerous as are the books which have been written on the subject of the Waldenses, the subject is one which a tolerably readable writer, even if his work was not abAolutely neces sary, may be readily forgiven for attempting. Dr. Wylie evidently feels a genuine enthusiasm, and his literary pretensions, though not first-rate, are such as to entitle him to a favourable hearing. His object has been in the first place to deal with the country, and to advert to the history of its inhabitants only so far as will actually serve to illustrate the localities he describes. Those who are acquainted with the works of Arnaud, Mait land, Faber, and Gilly will not find much that is new in Dr. IVylie's pages. The first of these writers would supply the general history, the second and third the controversial antiquities, the fourth the topography and the aspect of the country as it appears to a traveller. Dr. Wylie conceives that full justice has not hitherto been done to its natural beauties, and this is accor dingly the point to which he first directs our attention—pausing by the way to commemorate the heroism of the Vaudois struggles and to moralize (a fertile topic) on the wickedness of the Romanism which caused them. Yielding to him not at all in our admiration for scenery, and feeling with him both as to the courage of the martyrs and the cruelty of their persecutors, we are still sensible of a certain discordance and undue elevation of style to which he is addicted, and by which the effect of his descriptions and reflections is greatly marred. He has tried, ap parently, to emulate Mr. Ruskin ; "gates barred with storm " and " red swollen torrents" impede his path, and he occasionally gives way to a sort of platform eloquence, venting itself in turgid paragraphs to which " Hear, hear !" seems the natural and necessary appendage. The following passages are specimens of the Jowl mem er to which we allude : 0 .1 When we go to Italy and ask, " Where is the primitive Church—the Church which Paul planted in this land, and which was renowned throughout the earth for its faith 7' the Pope and the Cardinals rep:y, " There it is," pointing to the Vatican. We examine narrowly; we look beneath the purple, and fine linen, and gold, for the marks of the Church primitive and apostolic: we reed only the image anti superscription of Cesar. "No," we say, " this can not be the primitive Church: that Church must be some where else." Following the indications of history, we leave the marble threshold of the Vatican, and turn to the Alps. " Here is a Church," we exclaim, " buried deep mid the shadows of the mountains, with an open bible grawail upon it as its symbol. This must be the Church MOW*. 004 apostolic." • t • • In ' over us there are many summits, but only 4Q • one Monteidib: In heaven there are powers and princi palities, but only one Mediator. His function and dignity are supreme and alone. And just as the splendour of Monte Viso, like a veil, hides all the other summits that steed around him, so stands our Great high Priest, pre- eminent and s•ipreme amid the thrones and dominions of %le upper world. Nor does the Doctor disdain to borrow from so profane an author as Byron : Oier these fel-retreating ravine*, lure a treinen.lons wave on the paint of breaking, the mountain hang its wiry, tinting ridge. THE PRES Dr. Wylie discusses at some length the ques tion of the origin of the Waldenses, and adheres, as might be expected, to the theory that they were a race who had preserved the true form of doctrine from the very earliest times, uncon taminated by any mixture of I i 1 ul superstition ; and rejects altogether the notion that they were derived from Peter Waldo of Lyons. His reasons are ably stated, but we think he has not given sufficient weight to those which have been urged by Dr. Maitland (whose views on this point appear to have the support of Mr. Hallam) on the other side. It would undoubtedly be more satisfactory if we could adopt the tbrmer opinion, but our enthusiasm for the Waldenses need not be lessened because we suppose them to have originated only in the eleventh century. Their creed and practice is pure, front whatever source it may have flowed ; and if they effected their own reform, the greater credit is due to them thr having done so in an age so directly urovourable to it. II •, !II 'I The general features and arrangement of the district are indicated in the following extract : Suppose, reader, you are standing at La Torre, with your face towards the Alps, running right out before you is the Valley of Luserna—the great trunk valley, we may call it. It is a grassy strsth, with a well of rock on either hand climbing to the clouds, and gigantic doors of rock closing it at its further extremity. On your right hand is the Valley of Angrogna, and on the lelt is the Valley of Bora. These three valleys spread out like the spokes of a wheel, the spot on which you stand being the nave. Of course they ore divided, the one from the other, by ►ines of moun tains, with chailets and chestnut trees climbing up their aides, and hanging on to almost their naked ridges. Be yond the mountains whigh shot in the three valleys just named, lie the valleys of Pradi,lttgloretto, San Martino, and Peruse, forming, as it were, the rim of the wheel. If you go round that rim, you fall in again at the entronee of Luserna Thus the Waldensiaa territory iii what in Scot land would be called " self-contained." It is shut in on all aides by a wall exceeding great and high," and rising up to heaven. I t has but one gate properly—the Valley of Luserna ; and even that is strongly barricaded by the heights of Prarustino and Ran Giovanni, which lie along in front of the entrance of Luserna. These are the out works of this great citadel. Each valley is a fortress in itself. It has its own wall of defence, and its gate of ingress. It has within numerous places of defence and of retreat, and labyrinths and sur prises, so admirably planned that the highest engineering skill in the world could not have better adapted them to their end. And while it is the fact that these valleys form a congeries of fortresses, it is also a remarkable fact that they are so connected together, and so open into one an other, that, taking tnem as a whole, they form one fortress of mighty and matchless strength. The fertile character of the Valleys, without which all their rocky defences'would have been useless, is a point to which Dr. Wylie gives due importance in the following observations, which place in a clear light the kind of natural ad vantages which the population enjoyed during their severe struggles:— When ascending to this village, I had a fine opportunity of atutlying the arrangement of these mountains, and of satisfying myself as t, the amount of fruit bearing soil which lies concealed amongst them, and which is far greater than one who confines his wanderings to the bottom of the valleys can have any idea of. Had I contented myself with simply passing along through the Valley of Pra I [mould have thought of it as being but a narrow strip of pasturage and corn land, lying within mountains covered over with pine forests and great rocks; bat now I found that I had seen bnt a portion of its arable soil. Looking across to tLe mountains opposite, I could see on the top of what, when in the valley below, I had taken to he naked precipices ending in the clou Is, a large plateau, with a village, and several hundreds of acres of corn lend lying around it. Running ont from the plateau were other streths, each with its village or villages, and their mom panying cornfields and plantations of fruit-trees. The traveller below sees nothing of all this. To him the country is like a map folded up and put into its box. He wonders where the many thousands of the IYa'dense, can dwell, or where the corn can grow that is to feed them. It is only when von climb the mountains that the country unfolds itself. There opens to your delighted eye more than silent wilds and solitary herdsmen. Stratbs gleam ing with ripening grain, slopes shady with fruit trees, and vocal with the noise of falling torrents, stretch out before Ton ; while dotting these high lying valleys are namerous farmhouses, with their etymal rivulet hard by, murmuring within their fringe of verdite. Every such strath has, too, its own special scenery—its fairy nooks, newtr visited by tourists, its wild crags and its dark summits—of which it is possible the traveller may catch a glimpse, as the valley opens momentarily to his eye as he hurries past. One of these upland " straths," the Pra del Tor (meadow of the tower), was the scene of an exploit memorable in a country where every spot which did not show the valour of Ther mopylie would have shared the fate of Cawn pore or Plattea:— It was the year 15611, and the Coda Trinita, with his s 'ldlers, lay encamped at the entrance of the Valleys. Having lulled the suspicions of the Vaudois by engaging ,••••••• •. • •. them in negotiations for peace, he perfidiously essaulted the Valley of Angrogna on the morning of the 19th of April. To the Pra del Tor, as the strongest position which their mountains afforded, bad almost all the Waldensian families been removed fur asylum. They had assembled at day- break, as their custom then was, to engage in united social prayer. The first rays of the sun were beginning to lit up their mountains, and the last cadences of their morning psalm was dying away in the Pra del Tor, when the slam was given that La Triode, with his soldiers, was advancing to attack them. On the instant six of their bravest mountaineers, dash ing down the valley, posted themselves in the narrow defile. The first two knelt down ; the second two stood erect, pri_pared to fire over the heads of their compatriots ; the renthicing two charged themselves with the loading of the muskets. The host came on, in long glittering tile, two abreast. The first two were shot down; the second shared the same fate; and so, too, did the third. The Piedmontese were confounded and staggered by an attack that was as deadly as it was unexpected ; and these six men were able to keep in check the whole army, till seetiour had time to arrive from those behind them. Meanwhile the less warlike of the Waldenses betook them to the hill side, and began to roil down stones and rocks on the host below. The forces of La Trinita were unable to advances they were unable even to fight. Jammed in the narrow defile, they perished where they stood, by the firing kept up upon them in front, and the rocks that were rolled upon them from above, and which crushed them by dozens at a time. Panic seized them. In their haste to escape they jostled and trod upon one another, and, falling swot the precipices, were dashed on the rocks, or drownsCha tha river. ft.; But they were not alw a y s so f ortunate; aid sWii great massacre of 1655, perpetrated by sohliery whom they had been induced by false i ts to admit into their f as t nesses , excee d s in its extent and the horrible nature of its details the worst cruelties which have been attributed to the natives of India during the present mutiny. The aspect of the people themselves is such as might be expected from traditions and ex periences like these, so different to anything which the rest of Italy can show : The dress of the people is plain to severity. The garments of the men are of coarse woollen ; and those of the women of equally coarse cotton, made up in the most primitive style. Nor is there any variety of colour to atone for the homely materials which compose their attire ; the colour of all is a deep blue, and the sombre aspeet presented by a mass of several hundreds may easily be imagined. The monotonous and dreary expanse is un relieved, save by the white caps of the iv iwen, and the high shirt-necks of the men. Crinolines have not yet found their way into the Valleys. In fact the commonest ornaments with us are unknown to them, cud would he accounted a most extravagant finery. Anil the wind* aspect o: the people is in keeping with their dress. -Their appearance bespeaks continual familiarity with privation and toil. They are of low stature, their frames are, as it were, pressed down, their faces are farrowed, many of them wrinkled with premature age. There is, with them, an entire absence of that unthinking clownish gaiety, that childish mirthfulness, which mark the faoes of the pea, sentry of the surrounding country. The Vaudois fate is earnest, deep, grave —grave to sadness. It betokens, nevertheless, a most extraordinary power of passive en durance. Through the air of sorrowful seclusion that hangs upon that face, there can be traced a quiet resolute courage, which could enable its owner to face death a thousand times rather than yield—a settled purpese of soul not to be shaken or overborne by any power that may be brought against it, and investing the very sentiment which Wordsworth has clothed in so fitting expression:— Btu who would force the soul, tilts with a straw Against a champion eased in adamant. We must bear in mind that the Vaudois face was moulded under persecution —a persecution which far ex ceeded in severity, as it did in duration, any persecution that ever befel any other race. The Waldenses have, from first to last, endured upwards of thirty perseentions. In these we do not include the perpetual kidnappings of their children, the ever-recnrring martyrdoms of their pastors and missionaries, the civil and political grievances under which they lay, which made their state, for five long cen turies, a normal state of persecution : we have respeet, in this enumeration, to ontstanding periods of violence and martyrdom which were inflicted upon them, Between the years 1501 and £686, there were no less than sixty-eight enact ments against them, which is at the ra:e of rather more than one every two years. How impossible that such a state of things should not leave its impress upon the reenact and the faces of the people! It has unquestionably done so in the blending of opposite qualities. Timidity and endurance, a manner betraying at once submission and a lofty indomitable courage, mark the inhabitants of the Valleys. Their great woes project their dark shadows back upon them. True, they are now etnaneiptlad; ink their liberty dates only from In-19, sad the belkaillbe existing generation grew up under a state ofinfilefis and cranapin; bondage. !• off sit The extracts we have given are favourable specimens of the style of the book, which would have been better if written in a quieter tone. Though it cannot be said that the author's en thusiasm is misplaced, either as regards the country or the inhabitants, it is pitched in so lofty a key as occasionally to become rather monoto, nous from the evident effort required to sustain it. This is especially observable in the more am bitious descriptions, which, however, we suspect Clll zw rf