"The prayer, however, was made unto the Lord, and the command given, no doubt, to enable the army of Jofhua to fight a whole day in a hot country at the fummer folftice, which it would have been impoffible to have done under a meridian fun. The expreffions of ftanding, and hafing not to go down, are eafily understood of objects whofe motion is not perceivable when intercepted by a darkened atmofphere. See Chriftianity as old as the Creation, p. 275, and Payne's Age of Reafon. See Afchylus for the filence of the fun, locus non Occurrit." P. 82.

We are forry to be obliged to object to this publication a wonderful frequency of typographical errors, which in verbal criticifins are particularly troublefome. There are alfo feveral notes among the rest that are hardly important enough for publication. We need not add, after what we have quoted, that there is alfa, in others, great proof of fagacity and learning.

ART. XIV. Wraxall's Hiftory of France.

(Continued from cur left, p. 317.)

THE fecond volume of this interefting work contains a hiftory of the reign of the third Henry, and of the age in which he lived. The author, in the divifion of his chapters, has purfued the mode originally adopted by the late Dr. Henry in his hiftory of England, a laboured and learned production, rather calculated for the purpofe of inftruction than for that of amufement. The military events, negotiations, and other active tranfactions of the reign of Henry, occupy a little more than a third of the volume; the remaining pages of which are devoted to a particular delineation of the customs and manners of the age, the ftate of the arts and sciences, the progrefs of trade, commerce, and manufactures, the ftate of the Gallican church, and the nature, limits, and extent of the royal power.

The difcuffion of these important topics affords a vast scope to the hiftorian for a difplay of his abilities; and though Mr. Wraxall has not, in our opinion, evinced in the compofition of the work before us, any ftrong fymptoms of a penetrating and philofophic mind, any extraordinary powers of reafoning, or any great depth of judgment, yet has he, moft certainly, difplayed a correct underftanding, and a folidity of fenfe, that in fome degree compenfate for the abfence of more fplendid and attractive qualities. He has alfo taken efpecial care to give a fair,

2

a fair, candid, and impartial account of a period, in which the difcovery of truth is attended with peculiar difficulties, as it is only to be collected from the productions of perfons interested in its concealment or difquife. It has been juftly remarked by a modern hiftorian, that civil contelts, which have their fource in a difference of religious opinions, are invariably marked by animofity the moft virulent, and by hatred the moll inveterate; and the malignant influence of thefe uncharitable fentiments is unhappily extended to all who are, even remotely, interested in the event of the conflict, giving a different hue to the fame objects, affigning to the fame occurrences motives and appearances not only different but oppofite, even converting matters of fact into fubjects for difpute, and thus foully polluting the pure ftream of hiftory. Amidft fuch a chaos of contradictory accounts, it is no eafy matter to diftinguith reality from fiction; but Mr. W. exempt from the paffions whence fuch confufion has arifen, equally free from the bigetry of either fe&t, has recorded the tranfactions of this eventful period with fidelity, holding the feales of hiftorical juftice with a steady hand, neither fuffering them to incline by the weight of prejudice, in favour of the Catholics nor of the Hugonots.

In those unhappy times, when the kingdom was tern by contending factions, when the fpirit of party was carried to the higheft poffible pitch, rebellion and regicide. were openly preached by the minifters of either perfuafion.

"After the affaffination of the Guifes, no measures were observed by the preachers, who only feemed to vie with each other in the violent and treasonable appellations, beftowed by them on their fovereign. Many of them are too repugnant to our ideas of decorum, even to be tranfcribed. Regicide was publicly enjoined and recommended. Scriptural citations of the most impious nature, were applied to the Duchefs of Nemours, mother to the Duke and Cardinal, recently put to death at Blois. She was compared to the Virgin Mary, as Henry was to Herod. Collects and forms of prayer, or rather of imprecation, were compofed by the Sorbonne, invoking the vengeance of Heaven against their late king. Several of thefe are preserved, and forcibly demonftrate the virulence of the times." P. 315.

The ftrength and principles of the Hugonots, during the reign of Henry, are correctly flated in the following pallage. "In order to form a perfect idea of the political ftrength of France, during the period under our consideration, it is indifpenfible to take a furvey of the state of the Hugonots. Notwithstanding the Ferfecutions which they fuffered, the wars fuftained by them, and the maffacres repeatedly perpetrated by order of the court, or by the enmity of the Catholics, they ftill continued to be equally numerous and formidable. In the northern and eastern provinces they were compa

ratively

ratively few; but in Dauphiné, and along the fhore of the Mediterranean, they conflituted a large proportion of the inhabitants. Their principal force was concentered between the Loire and the Garonne; comprifing a rich, maritime, and commercial tract of country, in which Rochelle, the capital, was fituated. The genius of their government, civil, and ecclefiaftical, partook more of a democratic, than of any other form; temp red notwith..anding by a mixture of ariftocracy, and greatly under the influence of their clergy and nunicipal magiftrates. Before the commencement of the firit civil wars, in 1,62, the cities of the Proteftant communion, in imitation of Geneva, had formed the plan of excluding the nobility from any participation in the political power and authority. But when, in confequence of the fupatior forces of the crown and the Catholics, they found themfelves ready to be crafhed, it becan e indifpenfable to call to their affiftance the princes of Bourbon. After the battle of Jarnac, in 1569, Coligni obtained over the whole Hugonot party an empire the moft unlia ited, which he excrcifed to his death. His great endowments, age, and fincere attachment to the caufe, joined to the perilous fituation of their affairs, overcame all competition. The maffacre of St. Bartholomew, in which Coligni, and fo great a number of Protestant nobility verifhed, emancipated the party from this fervitude; and after fuccessfully combating the crown, they determined not to fubject themselves voluntarily to any fpecies of government, excepting republic."

The critical ftate of their affairs, however, compelled them once more to depart from this determination.

— In their ecclefiaftical polity, and tenets of faith, the reformed church of France followed the doctrines of Calvin. Lutheranifm had made little progrefs among them; and the Genius of Calvinifm, repugnant to all gradations in fpiritual preferment, tended to maintain the principles of civil equality. Provincial y nods and general affemblies, compofed of delegates from the various orders, were frequently convened, to regulate their invernal concerns, and to determine on the most important tranfactions of peace and war. Inthefe meetings,the King of Navarre always prefided, either in perfon, or by his reprefentative. As early as the year 1555, under Henty the Second's reign, the proteftants began to eftablith places and religious worship, and to form focieties for maintaining th purity of their faith. The first was made in Paris itfelf; and the example fpicad with amazing rapidity, in defiance of edicts and prolibitions. It would appear that at no period whatever of the reigns of Chifles the Ninth and Henry the Third, was the exercife of their religion in private houfes and families, altogether fufpended in the metropolis, although the penalty was capital for the offence. The Lutbers of the Hugonots must be matter of conjecture rather than of calculation; they never, probably, exceeded two millions, at their heft point. If we were to fix on the period when they were in the e edidian of their power and political frength, we should inclice to date it, between the colloquy of Puify, in 1561, and the malacre of Paris, eleven years afterwards. During that interval,

marked

marked by all the calamities of civil war and religious difcord, perfecution fuftained and inflamed their enthufiafm. The name and aid of fucceffive princes of the blood, the fortitude of Jane, Queen of Navarre, the genius of Coligni, and the affiftance of foreign powers, enabled them to difpute for pre-eminence with the antient fuperftition, and almost to fubvert the throne itfelf. If the enterprize of Meux had not been fruftrated, by the promptitude and intrepidity of the Switzers, who protected the flight of Charles the Ninth to Paris, it is hard to fay what barrier could have been affixed to the demands or inroads of the Proteftants. How generally diffufed were the tenets of the reformers, and how univerfally they were embraced or imbibed, even in the court, we may fee in the Memoirs of Margaret of Valois. The Duke of Anjou himself, afterwards Henry the Third, and who fignalized his early youth by the victories which he obtained over them, had, neverthelefs, previoufly caught the contagion. "All the court," fays Margaret," was infected with herefy; and peculiarly, my brother of Anjou, fince King of France, whofe childhood had not efcaped the impreffion of hugonotifim. He inceffantly teized me to change my religion, throwing my prayer-books into the fire, and giving me in their ftead Pfalms and Hugonot Prayers, which he compelled me to ufe. To thefe acts of violence he added menaces, that my mother would order me to be whipped." We may judge from the force and fimplicity of the Queen of Navarre's defcription, how widely the reformed doctrines were fpread, and how favourably they were received among the highest orders of fociety. The Proteftants continued ftill to be formidable under Henry the Third, though their numbers were leffened; but, after the acceffion of the King of Navarre to the throne of France, they began rapidly to diminifh. The defertion of that monarch, and his reconciliation to the Church of Rome, together with the toleration granted them by him, tended infenfibly to draw off all thofe who were not animated with fervent zeal for the maintenance of the reformed religion."

The fatal effects of fuperftition, or of falfe notions concerning the obligations which religion impofes, were never more forcibly exemplified than in the maffacre of St. Bartholomew, when fo many of the Hugonots were murdered in cold blood, by men, or, at least, by the advice and orders of men, who, in other refpects, were fcrupuloufly rigid in the difcharge of religious duties. On this fubject Mr. W. thus expatiates.

"Neither the machinations of Catherine of Medicis, the ferocity of Charles the Ninth, or the ambition and revenge of the Guifes, could have produced the maffacre of Paris, if all the materials had not been previously difpofed. It is more to the age, than to any individuals, however elevated or profligate, that we ought to look for the explication of that memorable and unparalleled event. To fhed the blood of heretics was efteemed meritorious. Marihal Tavannes, who fairly avows, in his memoirs, that he advifed the maffacre, and who juftifies it on principles of neceffity and policy, died in the following

year, at an advanced period of life. He met the approaches of diffolution with compofure; exhibited marks of unfeigned piety; ordered his fons to reitore to the crown, without touching the revenues, an abbey which he poffeffed; and made confection of all his fins without referve. But he did not include in the lift his advice to put to the fword two thousand Proteftants, who had repaired to Paris, on the faith of the royal protection, because he felt neither remorfe nor condemnation for the act. Such was the genius of the century and the perversion of the human mind on religious concerns. A degree of enthufiafm, which fufpended and extinguished all the ordinary motives to human action, and which fwallowed up even ambition, natural affection, and felf-intereft, pervaded the minds of men in religious matters. A thoufand proofs of it occur. The Duke of Nevers fays, in his me. moirs, that he confidered a war against Heretics and Hugonors, as a crufade, to which every man was bound to fubfcribe his private fortune. He gave the best proof of his fincerity, by lending immerfe fums to Henry the Third, in order to pay his forces, at various times, when employed to reduce or to exterminate the Proteftants. All his writings, and the tenor of his whole life, evince that the Duke of Nevers was a man of fcrupulous honour, unfhaken loyalty in an age of univerfal faction, and of real piety. He was carried away by the perfecuting fpirit of the time in which he lived."

It will eafily be fuppofed, that, at a time when party fpirit was carried to fuch an excefs, fo powerful an engine as the prefs would not be neglected. Accordingly we find that "the league," which was at leaft as dangerous to the ftate, and more fo to the king, than the Hugonots, had recourse to it in order to inflame the minds of their partifans. They published a variety of pamphlets, calculated to withdraw the obedience of the fubject from the crown. Such was the avidity of the people to perufe them, and fo odious was the government, that no penalties could deter the printers or venders from circulating them through the metropolis. Impofitions of the groffelt nature, and invectives the most bitter, were not fpared, and met with a ready belief. The univerfal defection which followed, evinced how powerful an engine was the prefs, in the hands of a defperate and unprincipled faction.

Mr. W. gives a very unfavourable account of the state of public manners and morals in France during the fixteenth century; and reprefents the decline of the fpirit of chivalry as having an evident tendency to promote and extend the general depravity.

The arts of coquetry feem to have been exercifed by the ladies of that period, in at leaft as great a degree, as by the females of the prefent day; and, in point of drefs, there was a ftriking fimilarity between them, as will be seen by the following description.

"The