The Press. — London, England, 1856-01-26 00:00:00

88 author's talent in compressed narrative. Here is " The Sicilian Vespers" descrioed by the Dean of St. Paul's in the fifth volume : At this juncture the crisis was precipitated by one of those events which no sagacity could have foreseen, which all the übiquitous activity ascribed to John of Procida could not have devised—an outburst of popular fury ex cited by one of those acts of insulting tyranny which goad an oppressed people to madness. The insurrection of Palermo received the darkly famous name of the " Sicilian Vespers." The Sicilians still crowded to their religious festivals with all the gaiety and lightheartedness of a southern people. Even their churches, where they assembled for the worship of that God whose representative on earth had handed them over to their ruthless tyrant, where alone they found consolation under the grinding tyranny, were not secure against the all present agents of that tyranny. The officers of the revenue watched the doors of those churches: as all who had not paid their taxes went in or carne forth, even from within the sanctuary itself they dragged off their miserable victims, whom they branded with the name of heretics—" Pay, ye Paterins, pay ! " It was at a festival on Easter Tuesday that a multitude of the inhabitants of Palermo AO the neighbourhood had thronged to a church, about half a mile out of the town, dedicated to the Holy Ghost. The religious service was over, the merriment began; tables were spread, the amuse ments of all sorts, games, dances under the trees, were going gaily on ; when the harmony was suddenly inter. rupted, and the joyousness chilled by the appearance of a body of French soldiery, under the pretext of keeping the peace. The French mingled familiarly with the people, paid court, not in the most respectful manner, to the women ; the young men made sullen remonstrances, and told them to go their way. The Frenchmen be gan to draw together. " These rebellious Paterins mast have arms, or they would not venture on such inso lence." They began to search some of tbem for arms. The two parties were already glaring at each other in angry hostility. At that moment the beautiful daughter of Roger Mastrangelo, a maiden of exquisite loveliness and modesty, with her bridegroom, approached the church. A Frenchman named Drouet, either in wantonness or insult, came np to her, and, under the pretence of searching for arms, thrust his hand into her bosom. The girl fainted in her bridegroom's arms. He uttered in his agony the fatal cry, " Death to the French!" A youth rushed for ward, stabbed Drouet to the heart with his own sword, was himself struck down. The cry, the shriek, ran through the crowd, " Death to the French!" Many Sicilians fell; but of two hundred on the spot, not one Frenchman escaped. The cry spread to the city: Mastrangelo took the lead ; every house was stormed. every hole and corner searched; their dress, their speech, their persons, their manners, denounced the French. The palace was forced : the Justiciary. being luckily wounded in the face, and rolled in the dust, and so undetected, mounted a horse, and led with two followers. Two thousand French were slain. They denied them decent burial, heaped them together in a great pit. The horrors of the scene were indescribable; the insurgents broke into the convents, the churches. The friars, especial objects of hatred, were massacred ; they slew the French monks, the French priests. Neither old age, nor sex, nor infancy, was spared; it is a charge more than once repeated in the papal acts, that they ripped up Sicilian women who were pregnant by Frenchmen, in or ler to exterminate the hated brood. A government was hastily formed; Roger Mastrangelo, Arrigo Barresi, Nic caloso d'Ortoleva ( knights), with Niccolo de Ebdemonia, were summoned by acclamation to be captains of the people. They then proclaimed the " Good estate and liberty," unfolded the banner of the city, an eagle on a field of gold; the keys of the Church were still quartered upon it. The Justiciary was pursued to Vicari, thirty miles distant; the people rose at the cry of "Death to the French!" The garrison at first refused to capitulate, and to he sent safe to Provence ; it was now too late, the Justiciary was shot down by a random arrow, every French man massacred. Sicily was everywhere in arms; Corleone first followed the example of Palermo. Everywhere the French were hunted down and murdered. One man alone was spared. No one will deny the variety and vigour of that description, yet it occupies but a small space. The circumstances both before and after the foregoing scene receive all adequate treatment from the historian, who thoroughly understands the method of being " classical and compendious " In the same volume the history of the disso lution of the Knight Te►nplars is treated at full length, about eighty pages being assigned to it, and it forms the most interesting ep►sode in the whole volumes The subject is a remarkable one, and iu English literature we have no adequate work upon it. Mr. C. G. Addison's treatise has a certain formalised air of professional legality in its pages, and his volume is neither profound nor brilliant. 'We may remark that in England historical writers become dull when they treat of remote topics, while on the other hand the French writers glow with ardour in illustrating medieval history, and the Germans display extraordi nary profundity in their discussion of it. On the subject of the Knight • Templars, Von Hammer's (Count Purgstall) " Mysterium Baphometis RevOatum" is a most singular exhibition of far...qought erudition, whatever THE PRESS. may be thought of its theories ; and what Michelet has recently written on the subject is also very striking. In pursuing such historical exercitations we are frequently reminded of the account of the lectures of a certain German professor in Mr. Disraeli's " Contarini Fleming," " That which to a common student appears " but a barren tradition, became in his magi " cal mind a record teeming with deep " knowledge and picturesque interest. Hordes " who hitherto were only dimly distinguished " wandering over the deserts of antiquity, now " figured ns great nations, multiplying in " beautiful cities, and moving in the grand " and progressive march of civilisation ; and I " listened to animated narratives of their " creeds, their customs, their manners, their " philosOphy, and their arts. I was deeply " impressed with the mystical creation of a " critical spirit. I revelled in the sagacious " audacity of his revolutionary theories. I " yielded to the full spell of his archaic " eloquence." This remarkable passage de scribes a certain class of foreign writers in our own time, and we wish that some of their " archaic eloquence " would animate our Eng lish Dryasdusts. But of course there are two sides to the value of historical works resulting from " the mystical creations of a critical spirit." Dean Milman writes in a concluding note to his account of the Knight Templars A modern school of history, somewhat too prone to make or to imagine discoveries, has condemned the Templars upon other grounds. These fierce unlettered warriors have risen into Oriental mystics. Not merely has their inter course with the East softened off their abhorrence of Mohammedanism, induced a more liberal tone of thought, or overlaid their Western superstitions with a layer of Onental imager)—they have become Gnostic Theists, have adopted many of the old Gnostic charms, amulets, and allegorical idols. Under these influences they had framed a secret body of statutes, communicated only to the initiate. who were slowly and after long probation admitted into the abstruser and more awful mysteries. Not only this, the very branch of the Gnostics has been indicated that of the Ophitse, of whom they are declared to be the legitimate Western descendants. If they have thus had precursors, neither have they wanted successors. The Templars are the ancestors (as Wilcke thought, the acknowledged ancestors) of the secret societies, which have subsisted by regular tradition down to modern times —the Freemasons, Illuminati, and many others. 'Von Hammer's theory is far from being adopted by German historians. M. de Cham bure published in 1840 the statutes of the order. The work of Rayuonard, in defence of the Templars, is the best work, we think, on that side of the question. In French histori cal criticism the whole subject has assumed a party character, the Church and the Clown having both their literary partisans and assailants. It is singular that Michaud, whose work on the Crusades is so much in favour of the Church and the Crown, should lean strongly to the side of the Knight Templars. Dean Milman, also, is most lenient in his opinion of them. He %%rites : Beyond the confessions of the Templars themselves there was absolutely nothing but the wildest, most vague, most incredible tales of superstition and hatred. In France alone, and where French influence prevailed, were confes sions obtained. Elsewhere, in Spatn, in Germany, parts of Italy, there was an absolute acquittal; in England, Scotland, and Ireland there appears no evidence which in the present day would commit a thief, or condemn him to transportation. In France these confessions were invaria bly, without exception, crushed out of men imprisoned. starved, disgraced, under the most relentless tortures, or under well-grounded apprehensions of torture, degradation. and misery, with, on the other hand, promises of absoln Lion, freedom, pardon, royal favour. Yet on the instant that they struggle again into the light of day, on the first impulse of freedom and hope: no sooner do they see them selves for a moment out of the grasp of the remorseless king; under the judgment, it might be, of the less re• morseless Church, than all these confessions are for the most part retracted, retracted fully, unequivocally. This retractation was held so fatal to the cause of their enemies that all the bravest were burned and submitted to be burned rather than again admit their guilt. The only points on which there was any great extent or unanimity of confession were the ceremonies at the reception. the abnegation of Christ, the insult to the Cross, with the other profane or obscene circumstances. These were the points on which it was the manifest object of the prose cutors to extort confessions which were suggested by the hard, stern questions, the admission of which mostly satis fied the court. Admit to the utmost that the devout and passionate enthusiasm of the Temple's had died away, that familiarity with other forms of belief in the East had deadened the fanatic zeal for Christ and his Sepilthr.t; that Onental snperstitions, the belief in magic, talismans, amulets, had crept into many minds; that in not a few the austere morals had yielded to the wild life, the fiery snn, the vices of the East; that the corporate spirit of the order, its power, its wealth, its pride, bad absorbed the Migions SATURDAY, spirit of the first knights : yet there is something utterly inconceivable in the general, almost universal, requisition of a naked, ostentatious, offensive, insulting renunciation of the Christian faith, a renunciation following immedt. ately on the most solemn vow ; not after a long, slow initiation into the order, not as the secret, esoteric doc. trine of the chosen few, but on the threshold of tits Order, on the very day of reception. Our own opinion on the question is somewhat different, but we have not space for entering upon its discussion at length. We think that a stroll gprionafacie case can be made out for either side ; and there is no lack of materials in sup plying evidence, or what may be argued upon as such. But whenever an institution tends to become an impenuni in imperio, and whenever collective organisation of a formidable charac ter is applied to lofty social objects, in all such cases there is a tendency to evil and corrup tion, as has been seen in the Jesuits ; and even in the modern journalists of France a similar tendency could be discerned. In medite% al perioda we think that it was a mere question of time when the Crown would pounce upon the Templars. They were too ambitious, and too absorbent of bold spirits, to remain in secure isolation ; and we are con vinced that there must have been much immo rality amongst them. In a popular point of view the sixth and con cluding volume is the most interesting of this work. Its dissertations on the creed, letters, poetry, and architecture of Latin Christianity are written with philosophic power and critical acumen, and display copious erudition. The concluding views of the Dean of St. Paul's will be thought by many. as we consider them, far too liberal anti too indulgent to Latin Chris tianity; but as they are merely speculative, rather than historical, it is not here necessary to combat them. The whole work must raise the Dean of St. Paul's still higher in literature, and we have no doubt that it will supersede Mosheim in this country. It has the charms of style, besides a fund of ancient and modern learning in its notes. It is beyond question one of the greatest works of the current age, and is at once useful and brilliant. 1. 7'ho Englishrrotnnn in (America. London: Murray. 2. Letters from the United States, Cuba, and Canada. By the Hon. Amelia M. Murray. London : J. W. Parker and Son. Ws are inclined to believe that both these ladies made the voyage to America together. They both sailed in the same vessel, the Canada ; both started in the middle of summer ; both left Liverpool on a Saturday ; both arrived in Halifax Harbour by moonlight ; and the first-named authoress has taken care to inform us that there was a lady on board who was the scion of a ducal house. It is certainly diverting to think of the two budding authoresses amicably conversing, eating. and drinking together, without the slightest sus picion on the part of either lady that her companion was a rival. Perhaps it was well for the peace of the ladies'cabin that such was the case - 1. — The Englishwoman, who is not the " Englishwoman in Russia," has given us a very lively and observant volume. Her sketches of American and Canadian manners and customs arc uncommonly graphic. They display a vivid sense of the humorous, though evincing no disposition to sneer. Here is an amusing specimen of American curiosity : " You're from down east, I guess ? " said a sharp nasal voice behind me.—This was a supposition first made in the Portland cars, when I was at a loss to know what dis tinguishing and palpable peculiarity marked me as a " down-east.er." Better informed now, I replied, " I am... " lining west? "—" Yes." " Travelling alone? "—" NO.; " Was you raised down east? "—" No, in the Old Country. " In the little old island ? well, you are kinder glad to leave it, I guess? Are !you a widow?"—" No." " Are yon travelling on business"—" No." What business do you follow ?"—" None." " Well, now, what are you travelling for ? "—" Health and pleasure." " Well, now, I guess you're pretty considerable rich. Coming to settle out west, I suppose ?"—" No, I'm going back at the end of the fall." " Well, now, if that's not a pretty tough hickory . - nut ! I guess you Britishers are the queerest critturs as ever was raised !" The portions of the volume which we have read with the greatest interest and pleasure are those which relate to Canada—whether to bush life or to town life. The authoress's friends, Mr. and Mrs. Forrest., had a farm in