The Press. — London, England, 1858-09-04 00:00:00

ley es- It was the golden age of religion, literature, nd the fine arts, that is, the religion and the iterature and the fine arts of Rome and its which aspired to 01 V A1,61Y 1 LOW. tiousness and all the crime, and all the grossness of licentiousness and all the reckless ness and cruelty of crime, the priestly caste still maintained its own wicked pre-eminence ; the Court of Rome was always the wellspring of cor ruption and Italy the most cursed, because the nearest to the source. It was the memorable saying of the great Florentine Secretary, that if any one would know what the influence of Rome was, he should be able to transport its Court into some new place—into the least corrupt and severest that could be found, into Switzerland, for instance ; and he would soon see that the Pope and his Cardinals would in a brief space make it such a sink of profligacy and misery as it could only be brought to be by centuries of any other regimen. And yet if Rome was worse than other Courts, convents were worse than the Court of Rome. BEMBO, himself profligate, a courtier and a cardinal, writes, in 1530, "It is " with great reluctance that I have any thing to " do with the affairs of frati, for many a time " underneath I find every human atrocity, and on " top a cover of diabolical hypocrisy." To find a lower depth than this low deep it would be necessary to enter into the private chambers of the Popes themselves ; to read the lives of such of their bastards as CESAR BORGIA, PIER- LUIGI FA RNESE, OT that ALESSANDRO MED ICI of whom BorrA says, "he makes it " doubtful whether, in the most barbarous and " most ferocious times, the most lascivious " tyrants had ever gone beyond him in cruelty "or outrageous last." But perhaps the most striking testimony of all to the character of this Augustan age of the Church is that borne by ADRIAN VI., whose short reign followed that of II ~, THE PRESS, 4, ‘ SEPTEMBER lB5B • 843 To spoil the spoiler as we may, It was the golden age of religion, literature, TIIE INDIAN QUES TION. And from the robber rend the prey, and the fine arts, that is, the religion and the {'it}; controversy between Mr. LAYARD and though its consequences necessarily extend literature and the fine arts of Rome and its n ewspaper assailants leave s the former in far bey ond the g uilt y individuals, seems natural convents, and of the Courts which aspired to su ndry a better position than his antecedents as a and in a sense politic. Few, perhaps, of i m itate the model set by the LEos, and the the retributive measures brought officially CLEMENTS, and the PAULS. Never were the political orator would have led us to expect. llis before us in our public prints, are such as dogmas of the Faith or the discipline of the tem perament is a sore hindrance to his forming to shock us in the perusal. But it should Church so commonly become the subjects of a dispassionate judgment. He has large bene- be remembered (and those who have extensive discussion and debate, and never had ecclesias- i valence with little mildness—is more courageous correspondence with India will know what we tics held so high a place in the public administra- than discreet —more sincere than accurate. It mean) that a frightful mass of suffering has been tion of affairs. Printing and the translation of inflicted on the native population, the innocent as the Bible set s all men upon religious controversy, • would not, therefore, have much surprised us if, well as the guilty, which eludes notice, or at least and the rivalry and ambition of kings not only I in his recent speech on the subject of the - Indian escapes publicity. We hear that a village has delivered CLEMENT from Castle Sant Angelo, but e war, he had been guilty of some misstatements been burnt—but the aged and helpless, the made him seem arbiter in politics, and his car- t sufficiently grave to neutralize the effect of his widows and orphans left behind in the desolating dinals, indeed (what their name impudently progress of our troops, have no one to tell of the sounded), the hinges of the world. As simple well-meant pleadings, and to throw doubt on the want and exposure under which they pine and legates of the Pope the names of such men as I mo ti v es and character s - die. We know that crops are destroyed—but to Cosrranisn, MORONI, POLE, still ring loud in nately, however, for the interests of humanity, he e an ordinary English mind this is suggestive only history, but in Spain and Germany, in France U a ppears to have escaped this . . danger. The report of waste and of pecuniary loss, like the burning and England, cardinals were often Prime Ministers it of his address contained, it is true, certain ex- o f a r i c k-y ar d at home. We do not think of as well as legates,and, from what we all know so well a pressions which w ere o p en to question or cavil, wholesale deaths by famine—of that more than of Wor,suir, we may guess what were D'Amlionne i• but little that might not be fairly accounted for stoical patience of the llindoo which shows itself and DUPRAT, XIMENES and TORTOSA, Du BELLAY it by the effect of compression on a somewhat i n ca l m l y awa iti n g the direst extremity. The and LORRAINE. Some few, indeed , of these g reat a diffuse style, or e x c used b y the ordinary license same native who would extort from his co- ecclesiastics did their work of pride austerely of rhetoric. Mr. LAYARD has done well in T , religionist the grant of a petition by the threat, en ough ; but when the requirements of their ir calling public attention to the deep need of our seriously uttered, to die at his door, will resign priestly rank and dignity were set forth and en- it avoiding in our own Indian operations that himself to death when the staff of his bread is forced, the pomp and magnificence of Cardinals w charge of wanton cruelty which at the outset of broken ; but how little has this element of human in those days were beyond what stinted royalty g the struggle we urged so effectively, and, we must suffering entered into our calculations! The must now put up with. As for the Papal en- confess, so unscrupulously, against the mutinous mute sufferers—the thousands of weak, helpless, couragement of literature, Rome was still sitting and revolted fanatics whom we had to chastise and dependent beings, who have lost their bread- as a Queen and without a fear. In spite of the d, or reconquer. His appeal to the gentler feelings winner or their bread, have not come to " sit warning which PoLE so wisely gave of danger at of his countrymen is not well-grounded only, dhurna " at our doors. They have died, and from the patronage of general literature, the be but well-timed. In the earlier stage of the made no sign. And whilst our writers and name of LEO is more identified with letters than re struggle, sanguinary retaliation, even where not speakers have been battling to establish or to that of FRANCIS; and PAUL 111. was in this re- e strictly } justifiable, was almost a matter of nece s- in s h y. The vindictive feeling of our troops, refute the frightful tale of one Englishwoman exposed to outrage worse than death —while the Englishwoman, spect another LEO; and the days of A RIOSW, and TASK), and ERASMUS were the days of NI deepened as it doubtless was by casual or malig- Advertiser has been straining to satisfy i n q uir y n, mint exaggeration of the outrage s to be aven g ed, by telling of the " beautiful woman , " w ho limits RAPHAEL and MICHAEL ANGELO. But, for the most part, literature and the fine arts were the to could scarcely be withstood, or even checked, her confidence to that most credulous of prints — panders of their patron. They helped to p ro p a- bt with safety. But we have now arrived at a n ew how should we be appalled were t here suddenly gate the corruption which what was called reli- nr phase of our operations which may fairly suggest laid before us a statement of all that has been gion bred wherever it was carried. Vice and of a change of system. We have probably seen the su ffered by native women from our soldie r y , crime were everywhere just in proportion to the last of pitched battles against regular armies, or especially from those more recently recruited! wealth and influence of the clergy, and they were ne sieges of great towns, and must prepare fora .T his r is is a subject too painful to dwell on ; we of everywhere enormous. Words are unequal to harassing guerilla warfare—for desultory move- ile only hint at it as one of the reasons for wishing d escr ib e , with any regard to modesty, the real meets against irregular bodies of freebooters, and eh that the thirst of vengeance may at length be state of higher society. Corruption almost laid for the surprise and storm of detached hill forts. quelled in English hearts. To regret is to pity ; aside hypocrisy. There was hardly place left for se. We may hope to hear no more of large British sy to blush is to relent. And such as i s the feelin g shame whe re adulter y and incest were alike open, divisions, perfectly armed for slaughter, and no of the English people, such will be su bstantiall y assassinatio n b y p oison and the dagger a fashion a less wonderfully equipped for suicide, mo ving by the course of our re-established rule in India. of the day, and no treachery, no cruelty shrunk )151 forced marches against fivefold numbers, under in llappily, the Governor-General is a man to whom from, or pretended to be shrunk from, if conve- a sun hotter and more deadly than the enemy's en merciful counsels are congenial—who can be firm nient for any purpose of a Pope, a King, a Car- fire. Oude itself, which by a sort of retributive to when need is, but is naturally averse to cruelty. justice became the scene of our greatest difficulty, dinal, or petty prince. The tales of BOCCACCIO We most cordially concur in Mr. LAYARD'S and of MARGUERITE of VALOIS are chronicles as In- as it had been of our last injustice, now requires the 3 . - panegyric on Lord CANNING. With the excep- services of our soldiers rather in the character of well as tales, and MACHIAVELLI'S "Prince" is tion of one single unfortunate proclamation, a strong police than of troops in the field. We hastily issued and speedily recalled , i n all his almost a biography of the Car dinal Duke of VALEsrrisio. But amidst all the licen- ,ry have routed with frightful loss every native force public acts he has most judiciously tempered tiousness and all the crime, and all the ley which has ventured to encounter us. We have justice with mercy. If retribution has anywhere grossness of licentiousness and all the reckless- N- inflicted on the mixed population of two capital been carried to excess, the blame is not on him. ness and cruelty of crime, the priestly caste still .ge cities the horrors of siege and storm. We have The proclamation in Bundelcund and Central maintained its own wicked pre-eminence ; the rid burnt scores of villages which had given shelter, India of a discriminating amnesty similar to that Court of Rome was always the wellspring of cor- all perhaps reluctantly, to sepoys in arms against already proclaimed in Oude has been one of the ruption and Italy the most cursed, because the $e our authority. Of the deluded native soldiery most satisfactory announcements in the recent nearest to the source. It was the memorable by who proved false to their oath and their colours, Indian correspondence. And if Lord CANNING'S saying of the great Florentine Secretary, that if Is' we have slain thousands by martial law, and tens views be judiciously seconded by the local autho- any one would know what the influence of Rome to of thousands in the field. With one exception, rities throughout India, we trust to see multitudes was, he should be able to transport its Court into of every chief who obtained a "bad eminence" in of defeated rebels, now scattered through the some new place—into the least corrupt and ion organizing the mighty movement against our wilder districts in a state of brigandage, slipping severest that could be fou nd, into Switzerland, m l race and religion has undergone signal punish - qu i e tly back to their peaceful occupations , not for instance ; and he would soon see that the Ille went. Our vengeance has been prompt, far- sadder, but wiser, men. It would be a blessed Pope and his Cardinals would in a brief space iry reaching, and comprehensive, if not indiscrimi- result that the season which witnesses the make it such a sink of profligacy and misery as it nate. Thus far even The Friend of India will bringing our vast Indian empire under the could only be brought to be by centuries of any ta, not accuse us of having been too merciful. A direct rule of Queen Vicroma should also behold other regimen. And yet if Rome was worse than ii British journalist may now appeal to the gentler the inauguration of a system combining the other Courts, convents were worse than the eil feelings of his countrymen without laying himself gentle attributes of feminine influence with the Court of Rome. BEMBO, himself profligate, a nit open to the charge of that mock-philanthropy, n erei So vereign. roc energetic sway of a greatovg. me too oft en c h arac t er i s ti c o f modern liberalism, cour tier and a cardinal, writes , in 1530, " It is " with great reluctance that I have any thing to ng which reserves all its sympathies for the guilty. " do with the affairs of frati, for many a time or And we would therefore earnestly beg our readers " underneath I find every human atrocity, and on IQ to entertain a few considerations which may tend JESUITISM. " top a cover of diabolical hypocrisy." To find lag to mitigate that rancour of feeling against our he mis guided fellow - subjects in the East which at THE era of the Reformation was in every way a lower depth than t his low dee p it would be ich an ea r li er s t age o f h os tiliti es w e felt ourselves a wonderful and an eve ntful one. The new necess ary to enter into the private chambers of the Popes themselves ; to read the lives re , scarcely justified in condemning. We would Indies were growing into America, Muscovy into of such of their bastards as C.ESAR BORGIA, sly sufferedentreat them to compare what we at first with what we have since inflicted. Russia; modern comme rce was beginning its P I ER-LUIGI FARNESE, or that ALESSANDRO That for of Genoa and Wiwi of whom I I orra says, "he makes it de in every British Christian foully massacre d great carreer in the Republics ful whether, in the most barbarous and ll' the first outbreak of the revolt a human Venice ; the Grand Turk was crowned king at " doubt h " most ferocious times, the most lascivious flt hecatomb has been slain, is but a small portion of Bagdad ; CHARLES V. and FRANCIS I . and the case. We `:, tyrants had ever gone beyond him in cruelty of can spare little pity for troops or outrageous last." But perhaps the most who have cemented mutiny by blood, and GUSTAVUS VASA and HENRY VIII., were the lay falstriking testimony of all to the character of this iii- murderers taken red-handed. Pillage, too, has sovereigns of Europe ; and the MEDICI and the in such a case its obvious though not always FARNESE were Christendom's acknowledged Augustan age of the Church is that borne by aound defence. a Vicars of the ALIAWILTY. ADRIAN VI., whose short reign followed that of a . ..a4.- -........................ I .