Castile and Portugal. Governments, | butchered by scores without a trial, even arbitrary governments, saw with drowned, shot, hung on lamp-posts. pleasure the progress of this philoso- Thousands fled from their country to phy. Numerous reforms, generally take sanctuary under the shade of laudable, sometimes hurried on with- hostile altars. The churches were out sufficient regard to time, to place, closed; the bells were silent; the shrines and to public feeling, showed the ex- were plundered; the silver crucifixes tent of its influence. The rulers of were melted down. Buffoons, dressed Prussia, of Russia, of Austria, and of in copes and surplices, came dancing many smaller states, were supposed to the carmagnole even to the bar of the be among the initiated. Convention. The bust of Marat was substituted for the statues of the mar tyrs of Christianity. A prostitute,

The Church of Rome was still, in outward show, as stately and splendid as ever; but her foundation was under-seated on a chair of state in the chancel mined. No state had quitted her communion or confiscated her revenues; but the reverence of the people was every where departing from her.

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of Nôtre Dame, received the adoration of thousands, who exclaimed that at length, for the first time, those ancient Gothic arches had resounded with the accents of truth. The new unbelief was as intolerant as the old superstition. To show reverence for religion was to incur the suspicion of disaffection. It was not without imminent danger that the priest baptized the infant, joined the hands of lovers, or

The absurd worship of the Goddess of Reason was, indeed, of short duration; but the deism of Robespierre and Lepaux was not less hostile to the Catholic faith than the atheism of Clootz and Chaumette.

The first great warning stroke was the fall of that society which, in the conflict with Protestantism, had saved the Catholic Church from destruction. The order of Jesus had never recovered from the injury received in the struggle with Port-Royal. It was now still more rudely assailed by the phi-listened to the confession of the dying. losophers. Its spirit was broken; its reputation was tainted. Insulted by all the men of genius in Europe, condemned by the civil magistrate, feebly defended by the chiefs of the hierarchy, it fell and great was the fall of it. The movement went on with increasing speed. The first generation of the new sect passed away. The doctrines of Voltaire were inherited and exaggerated by successors, who bore to him the same relation which the Anabaptists bore to Luther, or the Fifth-Monarchy men to Pym. At length the Revolution came. Down went the old Church of France, with all its pomp and wealth. Some of its priests purchased a maintenance by separating themselves from Rome, and by becoming the authors of a fresh schism. Some, rejoicing in the new license, flung away their sacred vestments, proclaimed that their whole life had been an imposture, insulted and persecuted the religion of which they had been ministers, and distinguished themselves, even in the Jacobin Club and the Commune of Paris, by the excess of their impudence and ferocity. Others, more faithful to their principles, were

Nor were the calamities of the Church confined to France. The revolutionary spirit, attacked by all Europe, beat all Europe back, became conqueror in its turn, and, not satisfied with the Belgian citics and the rich domains of the spiritual electors, went raging over the Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. Throughout the whole of the great war against Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the base of the Catholic operations. Spain was now the obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy was subjugated by them. To her ancient principalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian republic, and the Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped of the treasures piled up by the devotion of six hundred years. The convents of Rome were pillaged. The tricoloured flag floated on the top of the Castle of St. Angelo. The successor of St.

Peter was carried away captive by the unbelievers. He died a prisoner in their hands; and even the honours of sepulture were long withheld from his remains.

society, had, through great part of Catholic Europe, undergone a complete change. But the unchangeable Church was still there.

Some future historian, as able and It is not strange that, in the year temperate as Professor Ranke, will, we 1799, even sagacious observers should hope, trace the progress of the Catholic have thought that, at length, the hour revival of the nineteenth century. We of the Church of Rome was come. An feel that we are drawing too near our infidel power ascendant, the Pope own time, and that, if we go on, we dying in captivity, the most illustrious shall be in danger of saying much prelates of France living in a foreign which may be supposed to indicate, country on Protestant alms, the noblest and which will certainly excite, angry edifices which the munificence of for- feelings. We will, therefore, make only mer ages had consecrated to the wor-one more observation, which, in our ship of God turned into temples of opinion, is deserving of serious attenVictory, or into banqueting-houses for tion. political societies, or into Theophilanthropic chapels, such signs might well be supposed to indicate the approaching end of that long domination.

During the eighteenth century, the influence of the Church of Rome was constantly on the declinc. Unbelief made extensive conquests in all the But the end was not yet. Again Catholic countrics of Europe, and in doomed to death, the milk-white hind some countries obtained a complete was still fated not to die. Even be- ascendency. The Papacy was at length fore the funeral rites had been per- brought so low as to be an object of formed over the ashes of Pius the derision to infidels, and of pity rather Sixth, a great reaction had commenced, than of hatred to Protestants. During which, after the lapse of more than the nineteenth century, this fallen forty years, appears to be still in pro- Church has been gradually rising from gress. Anarchy had had its day. A her depressed state and reconquering new order of things rose out of the her old dominion. No person who confusion, new dynasties, new laws, calmly reflects on what, within the new titles; and amidst them emerged last few years, has passed in Spain, in the ancient religion. The Arabs have Italy, in South America, in Ireland, in a fable that the Great Pyramid was the Netherlands, in Prussia, even in built by antediluvian kings, and alone, France, can doubt that the power of of all the works of men, bore the this Church over the hearts and minds weight of the flood. Such as this was of men, is now greater far than it was the fate of the Papacy. It had been when the Encyclopædia and the Phiburied under the great inundation; losophical Dictionary appeared. It is but its deep foundations had remained surely remarkable, that neither the unshaken; and, when the waters abated, moral revolution of the eighteenth cen it appeared alone amidst the ruins of tury, nor the moral counter-revolution a world which had passed away. The of the nineteenth, should, in any perrepublic of Holland was gone, and ceptible degree, have added to the dothe empire of Germany, and the great main of Protestantism. During the Council of Venice, and the old Heive- former period, whatever was lost to tian League, and the House of Bour-Catholicism was lost also to Christianity; bon, and the parliaments and aristo- during the latter, whatever was recracy of France. Europe was full of gained by Christianity in Catholic young creations, a French empire, a countries was regained also by Cathokingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only territorial limits and political institutions. The distribution of property, the composition and spirit of

licism. We should naturally have expected that many minds, on the way from superstition to infidelity, or on the way back from infidelity to superstition, would have stopped at an in

termediate point. Between the doctrines taught in the schools of the Jesuits, and those which were maintained at the little supper parties of the Baron Holbach, there is a vast interval, in which the human mind, it should seem, might find for itself some restingplace more satisfactory than either of the two extremes. And at the time of the Reformation, millions found such a resting-place. Whole nations then renounced Popery without ceasing to believe in a first cause, in a future life, or in the Divine mission of Jesus. In the last century, on the other hand, when a Catholic renounced his belief in the real presence, it was a thousand to one that he renounced his belief in the Gospel too; and, when the reaction took place, with belief in the Gospel came back belief in the real presence.

We by no means venture to deduce from these phænomena any general law; but we think it a most remarkable fact, that no Christian nation, which did not adopt the principles of the Reformation before the end of the sixteenth century, should ever have adopted them. Catholic communities have, since that time, become infidel and become Catholic again; but none has become Protestant.

Here we close this hasty sketch of one of the most important portions of the history of mankind. Our readers will have great reason to feel obliged to us if we have interested them sufficiently to induce them to peruse Professor Ranke's book. We will only caution them against the French translation, a performance which, in our opinion, is just as discreditable to the moral character of the person from whom it proceeds as a false affidavit or a forged bill of exchange would have been, and advise them to study either the original, or the English version, in which the sense and spirit of the original are admirably preserved.

LEIGH HUNT. (JANUAry, 1841.) The Dramatic Works of WYCHERLEY, CONGREVE, VANBRUGH, and FARQUHAR, with Biographical and Critical Notices. By LEIGH HUNT. 8vo. London: 1840. WE have a kindness for Mr. Leigh Hunt. We form our judgment of him, indeed, only from events of universal notoriety, from his own works, and from the works of other writers, who have generally abused him in the most But, unless we are rancorous manner. greatly mistaken, he is a very clever, a very honest, and a very good-natured man. We can clearly discern, together with many merits, many faults both in his writings and in his conduct. But we really think that there is hardly a man living whose merits have been so grudgingly allowed, and whose faults have been so cruelly expiated.

In some respects Mr. Leigh Hunt is excellently qualified for the task which he has now undertaken. His style, in spite of its mannerism, nay, partly by reason of its mannerism, is well suited for light, garrulous, desultory ana, half critical, half biographical. We do not always agree with his literary judgments; but we find in him what is very rare in our time, the power of justly appreciating and heartily enjoying good things of very different kinds. He can adore Shakspeare and Spenser without denying poetical genius to the author of Alexander's Feast, or fine observation, rich fancy, and exquisite humour to him who imagined Will Honeycomb and Sir Roger de Coverley. He has paid particular attention to the history of the English drama, from the age of Elizabeth down to our own time, and has every right to be heard with respect on that subject.

no means concur.

The plays to which he now acts as introducer are, with few exceptions, such as, in the opinion of many very respectable people, ought not to be reprinted. In this opinion we can by We cannot wish that any work or class of works which has exercised a great influence on the human mind, and which illustrates the character of an important epoch in letters, politics, and morals, should dis

society as that in which we live, is yet afraid of exposing himself to the influences of a few Greck or Latin verses, acts, we think, much like the felon who begged the sheriffs to let him have an umbrella held over his head from the door of Newgate to the gallows, be cause it was a drizzling morning, and he was apt to take cold.

The virtue which the world wants is a healthful virtue, not a valetudinarian virtue, a virtue which can expose itself to the risks inseparable from all spirited exertion, not a virtue which keeps out of the common air for fear of infection, and eschews the common food as too stimulating. It would be indeed absurd to attempt to keep men from acquiring those qualifications which fit them to play their part in life with honour to themselves and advantage to their country, for the sake of preserving a delicacy which cannot be preserved, a delicacy which a walk from Westminster to the Temple is sufficient to destroy.

appear from the world. If we err in this matter, we err with the gravest men and bodies of men in the empire, and especially with the Church of England, and with the great schools of learning which are connected with her. The whole liberal education of our countrymen is conducted on the principle, that no book which is valuable, either by reason of the excellence of its style, or by reason of the light which it throws on the history, polity, and manners of nations, should be withheld from the student on account of its impurity. The Athenian Comedies, in which there are scarcely a hundred lines together without some passage of which Rochester would have been ashamed, have been reprinted at the Pitt Press, and the Clarendon Press, under the direction of Syndics and delegates appointed by the Universities, and have been illustrated with notes by reverend, very reverend, and right reverend commentators. Every year the most distinguished young men in the kingdom are examined by bishops But we should be justly chargeable and professors of divinity in such works with gross inconsistency if, while we as the Lysistrata of Aristophanes and defend the policy which invites the the Sixth Satire of Juvenal. There is youth of our country to study such certainly something a little ludicrous in writers as Theocritus and Catullus, we the idea of a conclave of venerable were to set up a cry against a new fathers of the church praising and re-edition of the Country Wife or the Way warding a lad on account of his intimate of the World. The immoral English acquaintance with writings compared with which the loosest tale in Prior is modest. But, for our own part, we have no doubt that the greatest societies which direct the education of the English gentry have herein judged wisely. It is unquestionable that an extensive acquaintance with ancient literature enlarges and enriches the mind. It is unquestionable that a man whose mind has been thus enlarged and enriched is likely to be far more useful to the state and to the church than one who is unskilled, or little skilled, in classical learning. On the other hand, we find it difficult to believe that, in a world so full of temptation as this, any gentle-discourse as passed between Socrates man whose life would have been virtu- and Phædrus on that fine summer day ous if he had not read Aristophanes under the plane-tree, while the fountain and Juvenal will be made vicious by warbled at their feet, and the cicadas reading them. A man who, exposed chirped overhead. If it be, as we think to all the influences of such a state of it is, desirable that an English gentle

writers of the seventeenth century are indeed much less excusable than those of Greece and Rome. But the worst English writings of the seventeenth century are decent, compared with much that has been bequeathed to us by Greece and Rome. Plato, we have little doubt, was a much better man than Sir George Etherege. But Plato has written things at which Sir George Etherege would have shuddered. Buckhurst and Sedley, even in those wild orgies at the Cock in Bow Street for which they were pelted by the rabble and fined by the Court of King's Bench, would never have dared to hold such

of good taste than by those of morality, is not, in our opinion, so disgraceful a fault as its singularly inhuman spirit. We have here Belial, not as when he inspired Ovid and Ariosto, graceful and humane," but with the iron eye and cruel sneer of Mephistophiles. We find ourselves in a world, in which the ladies are like very profligate, impudent and unfeeling men, and in which the men are too bad for any place but Pandemonium or Norfolk Island. We are surrounded by foreheads of bronze, hearts like the nether millstone, and tongues set on fire of hell.

man should be well informed touching | words, "earthly, sensual, devilish." the government and the manners of Its indecency, though perpetually such little commonwealths which both in as is condemned not less by the rules place and time are far removed from us, whose independence has been more than two thousand years extinguished, whose language has not been spoken for ages, and whose ancient magnificence is attested only by a few broken columns and friezes, much more must it be desirable that he should be intimately acquainted with the history of the public mind of his own country, and with the causes, the nature, and the extent of those revolutions of opinion and feeling which, during the last two centuries, have alternately raised and depressed the standard of our national morality. And know- Dryden defended or excused his ledge of this sort is to be very sparingly own offences and those of his contemgleaned from Parliamentary debates, poraries by pleading the example of from state papers, and from the works the earlier English dramatists; and of grave historians. It must either not Mr. Leigh Hunt seems to think that be acquired at all, or it must be ac- there is force in the plea. We altoquired by the perusal of the light lite-gether differ from this opinion. rature which has at various periods been fashionable. We are therefore by no means disposed to condemn this publication, though we certainly cannot recommend the handsome volume before us as an appropriate Christmas present for young ladies.

The crime charged is not mere coarseness of expression. The terms which are delicate in one age become gross in the next. The diction of the English version of the Pentateuch is sometimes such as Addison would not have ventured to imitate; and Addison, the standard of moral purity in his own age, used many phrases which are now proscribed. Whether a thing shall be designated by a plain noun substantive or by a circumlocution is mere matter of fashion. Morality is not at all interested in the question. But morality is deeply interested in this, that what is

We have said that we think the present publication perfectly justifiable. But we can by no means agree with Mr. Leigh Hunt, who seems to hold that there is little or no ground for the charge of immorality so often brought against the literature of the Restoration. We do not blame him for not bringing to the judgment-seat immoral shall not be presented to the the merciless rigour of Lord Angelo; | but we really think that such flagitious and impudent offenders as those who are now at the bar deserved at least the gentle rebuke of Escalus. Mr. Leigh Hunt treats the whole matter a little too much in the easy style of Lucio; and perhaps his exceeding lenity disposes us to be somewhat too severe.

And yet it is not easy to be too severe. For in truth this part of our literature is a disgrace to our language and our national character. It is clever, indeed, and very entertaining; but it is, in the most emphatic sense of the

imagination of the young and susceptible in constant connection with what is attractive. For every person who has observed the operation of the law of association in his own mind and in the minds of others knows that whatever is constantly presented to the imagination in connection with what is attractive will itself become attractive. There is undoubtedly a great deal of indelicate writing in Fletcher and Massinger, and more than might be wished even in Ben Jonson and Shakspeare, who are comparatively pure. But it is impossible